Friday, 26 February 2016
Tuesday, 23 February 2016
Are Facebook Friends Fake?
'Well that shows who my true friends really are'. How many times have we heard that? How good a friends are our chums on facebook? Could we rely on them in that time of need which seems to be the barometer of a strong friendship? The following article explores these themes and cites some wonderful modern social research! Click here for the full article!
Facebook has turned the word “friend” into a verb, but just because you’ve friended someone on Facebook does that make them your friend in real life? Not according to a study that found almost all Facebook friends are entirely fake.
Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford University, conducted research into how Facebook friendship correlates with real-life friendship. Of the 150 Facebook friends the average user has, Dunbar found that only 15 could be counted as actual friends and only five as close friends.
“There is a cognitive constraint on the size of social networks that even the communication advantages of online media are unable to overcome,” the study found. “In practical terms, it may reflect the fact that real (as opposed to casual) relationships require at least occasional face-to-face interaction to maintain them.”
Rather than increasing people’s social circles, Dunbar suggests Facebook and other social media may function to prevent friendships “decaying” over time.
“Friendships, in particular, have a natural decay rate in the absence of contact, and social media may well function to slow down the rate of decay,” Dunbar wrote. “However, that alone may not be sufficient to prevent friendships eventually dying naturally if they are not occasionally reinforced by face-to-face interaction.”
One person who has put the “Facebook friend” concept to the test is photographer Tanja Hollander. Between 2010 and 2015, Hollander set about tracking down and photographing all of her Facebook contacts.
Despite never having met many of them in real life, Hollander found that she was welcomed into 95 percent of the homes of her 600 social media connections. Almost three-quarters even offered her a meal or a place to stay for the night or weekend.
Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford University, conducted research into how Facebook friendship correlates with real-life friendship. Of the 150 Facebook friends the average user has, Dunbar found that only 15 could be counted as actual friends and only five as close friends.
“There is a cognitive constraint on the size of social networks that even the communication advantages of online media are unable to overcome,” the study found. “In practical terms, it may reflect the fact that real (as opposed to casual) relationships require at least occasional face-to-face interaction to maintain them.”
Rather than increasing people’s social circles, Dunbar suggests Facebook and other social media may function to prevent friendships “decaying” over time.
“Friendships, in particular, have a natural decay rate in the absence of contact, and social media may well function to slow down the rate of decay,” Dunbar wrote. “However, that alone may not be sufficient to prevent friendships eventually dying naturally if they are not occasionally reinforced by face-to-face interaction.”
One person who has put the “Facebook friend” concept to the test is photographer Tanja Hollander. Between 2010 and 2015, Hollander set about tracking down and photographing all of her Facebook contacts.
Despite never having met many of them in real life, Hollander found that she was welcomed into 95 percent of the homes of her 600 social media connections. Almost three-quarters even offered her a meal or a place to stay for the night or weekend.
Friday, 19 February 2016
Tuesday, 16 February 2016
Actress Oliva Munn Discovered Hypnosis
Another 'Celebrity used hypnosis to get in shape' headline that caught my eye. Maybe it really does help...
OLIVIA MUNN HAS BEEN VERY OPEN ABOUT GOING TO A HYPNOTIST FOR OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER (OCD) ISSUES. THE ACTRESS RECENTLY REVEALED THAT THE HYPNOTHERAPY SESSIONS LED HER TO FIND A WAY TO GET INTO SHAPE TO GET INTO THE SUPERHEROINE PSYLOCKE’S OUTFIT IN THE UPCOMING “X-MEN: APOCALYPSE.”
When Munn was 26 years old, she developed trichotillomania, an OCD disorder that affects about 1-3 % of the U.S. population. Trichotillomania is commonly known as compulsive hair-pulling. The condition gave Munn a compulsion to yank at her eyelashes.
In November 2014, Munn told Self magazine she sought out a therapist who specialized in hypnosis treatments.
Trichotillomania and OCD are clinically different disorders but often share symptoms.
“OCD comes from a place of needing to feel safe,” Munn told Self. “I had it growing up, having had a little bit of a tumultuous upbringing, moving around a lot with a mixed family with five kids.”
Munn was interviewed for the August issue of Good Housekeeping. The 35-year-old actress spoke openly about seeing a hypnotist to help her deal with OCD issues.
“With my anxiety, if I’m not in the mood to go out to dinner, I can’t. I almost feel paralyzed,” Olivia Munn told the magazine.
At one point her condition got so bad, the only comfort she could find was with her dog.
“I was having a tough time earlier this year; one day I broke down on the floor, crying,” Olivia revealed. “Chance came up and snuggled with me. He’s so smart, so kind … he’s got my heart.”
Munn said a traumatic travel scare further changed her for life.
“About four years ago, I was almost in a plane crash,” Munn said. “Everybody on the plane thought we were going to die … even the flight attendants were crying and screaming. It made me question everything.”
Olivia Munn first turned to the spirit medium Theresa Caputo, who she met on a talk show.
While dealing with mental health issues, Munn’s hypnotherapist also inspired her to work on her physical health.
“[My hypnotist] said, ‘You have to [work out]! It’s good for your anxiety and depression,” Munn told Good Housekeeping. “So during one of our sessions, he hypnotized me. I’m not exaggerating: That was on a Friday, and by Monday I was working out every day at 6 a.m. … Now I feel so much stronger.”
Read the full article
When Munn was 26 years old, she developed trichotillomania, an OCD disorder that affects about 1-3 % of the U.S. population. Trichotillomania is commonly known as compulsive hair-pulling. The condition gave Munn a compulsion to yank at her eyelashes.
In November 2014, Munn told Self magazine she sought out a therapist who specialized in hypnosis treatments.
Trichotillomania and OCD are clinically different disorders but often share symptoms.
“OCD comes from a place of needing to feel safe,” Munn told Self. “I had it growing up, having had a little bit of a tumultuous upbringing, moving around a lot with a mixed family with five kids.”
Munn was interviewed for the August issue of Good Housekeeping. The 35-year-old actress spoke openly about seeing a hypnotist to help her deal with OCD issues.
“With my anxiety, if I’m not in the mood to go out to dinner, I can’t. I almost feel paralyzed,” Olivia Munn told the magazine.
At one point her condition got so bad, the only comfort she could find was with her dog.
“I was having a tough time earlier this year; one day I broke down on the floor, crying,” Olivia revealed. “Chance came up and snuggled with me. He’s so smart, so kind … he’s got my heart.”
Munn said a traumatic travel scare further changed her for life.
“About four years ago, I was almost in a plane crash,” Munn said. “Everybody on the plane thought we were going to die … even the flight attendants were crying and screaming. It made me question everything.”
Olivia Munn first turned to the spirit medium Theresa Caputo, who she met on a talk show.
While dealing with mental health issues, Munn’s hypnotherapist also inspired her to work on her physical health.
“[My hypnotist] said, ‘You have to [work out]! It’s good for your anxiety and depression,” Munn told Good Housekeeping. “So during one of our sessions, he hypnotized me. I’m not exaggerating: That was on a Friday, and by Monday I was working out every day at 6 a.m. … Now I feel so much stronger.”
Read the full article
Friday, 12 February 2016
DIY Medical Intuition Technique
It is well documented that the body is its own best healer, yet could this new technique assist the body in the process? It may sound a bit far fetched to many, but I would love to give this class a go! To read the full article click here!
"DO YOUR OWN MEDICAL INTUITION HEALING - Beginner- Medical Intuition & Aura Scan"
A course about the basics of medical intuition, to enable everybody to perform their basic first body & energy scan & medical intuition reading, & how to get answers about physical/emotional problems, without needing to work with a Medical Intuitive Healer or Hypnotherapist.
The class will also offer tools on how to identify/dissolve physical/emotional blocks, negative patterns & pain, improving your health, promoting well being & magnetizing success, considering that anybody is born with this innate powerful intuitive quality, in themselves, and they would just need to learn how to tap into this deeper knowledge, then practice, to open up and read the signs the body's intelligence is trying to send, until it becomes eventually quite easy & fun to practice it, and then being able to receive benefits and the desired results.
The owner of Hypnosis of Portlant, says that success in improving health and in promoting healing, has a lot to do in paying attention to the signs one's inner intelligence is sending and in healing deep seated unconscious unhealthy and negative cellular memories or traumatic events from childhood, which are running in the background, resulting in emotional or physical discomforts and physical problems. Medical Intuition has an important role in healing the heal root cause of emotional/physical/mental issues in conjunction with hypnosis, which can reach the subconscious mind, and reprogram the false, negative beliefs patterns and energy disturbances.
The owner adds that Hypnosis is even more powerful when combined with with EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) - By using Hypnosis with EFT, it is possible to completely break a negative neural loop related to negative subconscious patterns, removing the original stress response trigger mechanism, in a much faster way.
"DO YOUR OWN MEDICAL INTUITION HEALING - Beginner- Medical Intuition & Aura Scan"
A course about the basics of medical intuition, to enable everybody to perform their basic first body & energy scan & medical intuition reading, & how to get answers about physical/emotional problems, without needing to work with a Medical Intuitive Healer or Hypnotherapist.
The class will also offer tools on how to identify/dissolve physical/emotional blocks, negative patterns & pain, improving your health, promoting well being & magnetizing success, considering that anybody is born with this innate powerful intuitive quality, in themselves, and they would just need to learn how to tap into this deeper knowledge, then practice, to open up and read the signs the body's intelligence is trying to send, until it becomes eventually quite easy & fun to practice it, and then being able to receive benefits and the desired results.
The owner of Hypnosis of Portlant, says that success in improving health and in promoting healing, has a lot to do in paying attention to the signs one's inner intelligence is sending and in healing deep seated unconscious unhealthy and negative cellular memories or traumatic events from childhood, which are running in the background, resulting in emotional or physical discomforts and physical problems. Medical Intuition has an important role in healing the heal root cause of emotional/physical/mental issues in conjunction with hypnosis, which can reach the subconscious mind, and reprogram the false, negative beliefs patterns and energy disturbances.
The owner adds that Hypnosis is even more powerful when combined with with EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) - By using Hypnosis with EFT, it is possible to completely break a negative neural loop related to negative subconscious patterns, removing the original stress response trigger mechanism, in a much faster way.
Tuesday, 9 February 2016
Friday, 5 February 2016
Psychology of Names
When my daughter was born almost two years ago my partner and I had terrible trouble deciding upon the name. Why? Because names really are important. They represent something to everybody, and despite how much the Politically Correct brigade want us all to be no discriminatory - we can't help but judge that book by its cover can we? The first thing we learn about a person is often their name which immediately gives us clues about their family, their social standing, their ethnicity etc, and so just by learning the name we have already made several assumptions.
The following is a great article from psychology today discussing such a theme. Read the full article here.
Names matter. Whenever we hear one, we draw a wide range of assumptions about the individual person (or item) in question.
Just ask the fish merchant whose stroke of naming genius turned the undesirable Patagonian toothfish into the haute cuisine Chilean sea bass.
Think about the debate surrounding which is the more appropriate terminology, “illegal immigrant” versus “undocumented worker.”
Or ponder for a moment the raping and pillaging conjured up by “music piracy” as opposed to the parking-ticket-like language of “copyright violation.”
And, indeed, when it comes to specific people, names come chock full of information as well. As the Reggie Jackson example illustrates, whether we admit it or not, when we see a name we draw conclusions about a variety of characteristics, including demographics like race.
Take, for example, a study economists conducted a few years ago in which they sent out thousands of résumés to job openings in Boston and Chicago. At random, some résumés were given a “White-sounding” first name, like Emily or Greg. Others were given a “Black-sounding” name, like Lakisha or Jamal. Those résumés with a White-sounding name prompted 50% more callbacks from potential employers.
It’s not just race, either. Think of how surprised you’d be to learn that a Dylan or a Madison was 50+ years-old, or that Ethel or Sheldon were actually young children.
The fact that we jump to such conclusions is one thing. But that these assumptions also have consequences is even more noteworthy. After all, the job résumé study isn’t compelling simply because we learn from it that some names seem “Whiter” or “Blacker” than others. It’s important because of the downstream consequences—because even if they had no intent (or conscious awareness) of doing so—HR directors and others screening these résumés do so differently when reading a “White” versus “Black” name.
Now we add to this body of evidence regarding the impact of names new research published in May’s Journal of Experimental Social Psychology by a team of researchers from Australia, Belgium, and the U.S. No, it’s not as sobering a set of findings as those regarding racial disparity in hiring tendencies, but it serves as yet another example of how factors we don’t think of color how we see and interact with each another.
Specifically, the researchers examined what they refer to as the name-pronunciation effect. The idea is that people with easier-to-pronounce names tend to be evaluated more positively than people with harder-to-pronounce names. Or, as they write in the subtitle of their paper,why people like Mr. Smith more than Mr. Colquhoun.
Across a series of experiments, the researchers found evidence to support the name-pronunciation effect. For example, respondents gave more positive evaluations to political candidates with easy-to-say names than they did to the same candidates when given harder-to-say names. The results go beyond hypothetical elections: the researchers also selected a random sample of U.S. law firms and found that attorneys with more easily pronounceable names (as rated by coders blind to study hypothesis) tended to hold higher status positions within the firm hierarchy.
How to account for these findings? Well, it wasn’t simple familiarity; how common a name is did not significantly alter the results. Neither did the perceived ethnicity of the surnames. Of course, both of these factors can influence us too, but they weren't what drove the differences in the reported studies.
Rather, the observed effects seem to be attributable to pronunciation—when a name rolls off the tongue, at an implicit level we associate more positive sentiment with it. It’s a finding consistent with previous research showing that the ease, or fluency, with which we perceive something changes our impressions of it. The harder it is for us to come up with examples of a concept the less likely we are to believe it. In fact, simply seeing a fact written in a difficult-to-read font/background color combination makes us less likely to think that it’s true, a finding worth bearing in mind next time you’re crafting a Powerpoint presentation. We assume that easy = true.
So it goes with people as well. Poor Mr. Colquhoun. He never stood a chance.
Tuesday, 2 February 2016
Perception of Hypnosis
Relaxation, meditation, hypnosis... sometimes it can be difficult to distinguish the difference between them. This research from the BPS Research Digest concludes that the difference can simply be the name/label attached to the therapy!
Hypnosis stops being hypnotic when it’s described to participants as ‘relaxation’. This finding by Balaganesh Ghandi and David Oakley at UCL’s Hypnosis Unit complements earlier research showing the opposite effect: that relaxation labelled as ‘hypnosis’ can be hypnotic.
Ghandi and Oakley performed an identical, standard hypnotic induction on 70 participants. But whereas half of them were told their suggestibility was to be tested “whilst in hypnosis”, after they had completed a “hypnotic induction” to help them become “hypnotised”, the other half were told their suggestibility would be tested “whilst being relaxed”, after they had followed “relaxation instructions” to help them become “relaxed”. The hypnotic procedure itself contained no mention of the words ‘hypnosis/hypnotised/hypnotic’ but instead talked about ‘absorption’ or being ‘absorbed’.
The researchers said “…the extent to which suggestion affects conscious experience appears to depend more on the individual’s perception that the context can be identified as ‘hypnosis’ and on the beliefs and expectations that this raises, than it does on intrinsic properties of the induction procedure itself”.
Read the full article here
Hypnosis stops being hypnotic when it’s described to participants as ‘relaxation’. This finding by Balaganesh Ghandi and David Oakley at UCL’s Hypnosis Unit complements earlier research showing the opposite effect: that relaxation labelled as ‘hypnosis’ can be hypnotic.
Ghandi and Oakley performed an identical, standard hypnotic induction on 70 participants. But whereas half of them were told their suggestibility was to be tested “whilst in hypnosis”, after they had completed a “hypnotic induction” to help them become “hypnotised”, the other half were told their suggestibility would be tested “whilst being relaxed”, after they had followed “relaxation instructions” to help them become “relaxed”. The hypnotic procedure itself contained no mention of the words ‘hypnosis/hypnotised/hypnotic’ but instead talked about ‘absorption’ or being ‘absorbed’.
The researchers said “…the extent to which suggestion affects conscious experience appears to depend more on the individual’s perception that the context can be identified as ‘hypnosis’ and on the beliefs and expectations that this raises, than it does on intrinsic properties of the induction procedure itself”.
Read the full article here
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