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Author Topic: Resisting Brainwashing Propaganda  (Read 20529 times)

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AGelbert

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Re: Resisting Brainwashing Propaganda
« Reply #30 on: January 16, 2016, 07:21:14 pm »
Can you give me a list of common psychological biases?

Milan de Reede

Alexander van Hattem, Human, Doctor, Mental Health Professional

Oh man, so many of those. If you are really interested in the subject I can recommend you some good books.

First of all there's the 6 "biases" that Cialdini identified in his book.

•Reciprocity: We are bound to return favors, even if the favor was unsollicited. Someone hands you a rose, you feel obliged to give them something back, even if you do not want the rose at all.

•Consistency: People always want to look consistent. Simply put, offer people $50 if they will try to use less electricity, then after a few days take away the original incentive, and people will still try to be consistent with their new self-image of "energy saver".

•Social proof:
The simplest one, really. Enter an elevator where everyone has their backs turned to the door and you're likely to turn your back to the door as well. When given incomplete information people tend to just go with the group.

•Liking:
We are more likely to be influenced by people that we like. This makes sense, however this means we are more likely to agree with or buy from people that share superficial similarities with us, regardless of their relevance to the situation. Your grandmother's name is also Jessica?! Great, I should buy your car!

•Authority:
We are likely to agree to do something simply because an authority (doctor, professor) asks us to do it. This can be easily exploited by people pretending to be an authority (think actors playing a doctor in a series advertising for a new drug) or by even just looking like an authority (white lab-coat). For an interesting experiment on authority, google Milgram experiments.

•Scarcity: This is what's in play everytime you see "Only 2 of this shirt left!". In our minds something scarce has more value. If there is one jar with 2 cookies left and one with 20 cookies left, the one with 2 cookies will not only be more tempting but we'll say the cookie tasted better (simplified).

Those are, I believe, the biggest ones. There's however a whole sling of other biases we have.


•Even by mentioning something as odd as dwarves or by mentioning how lucky you are, biases come into play. For example, think of a number now. Was it 7? Mentioning dwarves (seven dwarves) and lucky (lucky number) made you more likely to pick 7, which I see as a bias. This is called priming. Priming someone by having them mention their gender before a maths test makes women perform worse than men, even if these women do not believe in the stereotype. Priming someone by having them unscramble words related to elderly people makes them want slower afterwards. Priming someone by showing them the Apple logo for a few seconds makes them more creative afterwards. There really are countless examples here, google priming.

•Anchoring bias. Do you think that when he died Abraham Lincoln was older or younger than 120 years? 120 years is a ridiculous number, but after reading this and answering the question you are likely to give a higher answer than you would if I had asked whether he was older or younger than 17 years when he died.

•Availability heuristic. If people just saw a news item on murders, they believe the murder rate is higher even though this is only 1 data point.

•Perceptual contrast. Seeing a "regular" woman after seeing a picture of a model will make that "regular" woman less attractive. This can also be used with prices.

•Gam bler's fallacy. When you're playing roulette and the ball keeps landing on red, you're bound to think the odds that it must now land on black are bigger. They aren't, they are the same everytime. People are terrible at statistics.

•Loss aversion. When given the chance to win $1000 or lose $1000, we should see this as a neutral possibility. People however are very averse to (potential) losses, meaning the loss looms larger than the gain. Some studies have shown losses loom twice as large as gains, meaning even a 50/50 bet to win $1500 or lose $1000 wouldn't be taken.

That's just a quick selection.
If you really are interested in the subject, there are a lot of interesting books on this subject. Influence by Cialdini would be a good start.

Thanks for the A2A.

https://www.quora.com/Can-you-give-me-a-list-of-common-psychological-biases

Agelbert NOTE: AS you can see, normal humans are inherently caring and cooperative. These are good traits that, rather than being labeled as "biases", should be celebrated as evidence of our inherently social, not individualistic, nature.   



HOWEVER, Game theorists, who eschew altruistic behavior or reciprocal kindness, except as a ploy to lower the guard of a competitor  , study all the above in order to manipulate, make suckers of, and profit from, humans outside their circle of Welfare Queen "Apex Predators 'R' US". 

Game Theory is and always was, a cheap rationalization for conscience free "might is right" STUPIDITY.


"Might is right" is the cornerstone of Capitalism.
Quote

The 'greed is good' worshipping advocates of this evil ISM have a complete vocabulary of terms and phrases coined for the express purpose of demonizing egalitarian social systems that protect, care for and preserve the people and the environment on behalf of present and future generations. 

In fact, all those disingenuous terms and phrases (wasteful bureaucracies, unsound social engineering, irresponsible spending of other people's money, coerced and undemocratic taxation, etc.) apply 100% to the capitalist corruption of the tax system and the government in this country (and others).

Some hair splitters will claim that's PREDATORY Capitalism, not good old patriotic American Capitalism.  "Predatory" (is a redundant adjective because there really isn't any other kind of Capitalism, regardless of what you have heard from Capitalists  ;)).



THE PATH that this empathy deficit disordered, 'greed is good', 'might is right' ISM is pushing human civilization along will, if not stopped, lead to the following future. See Below.


Whether they admit it or not, people are brainwashed to believe that a "successful predator" is one that NEVER engages in altruistic behavior.

This is wrong and it is stupid. But that's what people are brainwashed with in our "educational" system and in our business community.

Consequently, if a person is not directly being threatened, they are made to believe that the "normal" behavior of an "apex predator" (like us) is to NOT help the downtrodden, but to seek to PROFIT from their misery..

Game Theory is what the Defense Department AND Wall Street use to justify excluding absolutely any altruistic behavior in competitive strategies. It was created by an autistic mathematical genius IDIOT who worshipped Spencer and did not understand Darwin.

The problem with game theory in the REAL real world is that it fails to model it properly. By totally excluding altruistic behavior (except as a ploy to sucker the opponent into a position of weakness), it is doomed to, not just fail miserably, but to degrade the sine qua non conditions the species engaging in it requires for perpetuation.

The brainwashed DO NOT understand that. They therefore DO NOT lift a finger to help the minorities in this, or any other, country. THEY, (particularly the "conservatives") are sold on Game Theory, as are most Capitalists, Libertarians, Wall Streeters and, of course, the Military Industrial complex.

THEY ALL are WRONG. But they talk a good game (theory).

Every time those fine fellows claim they "aren't racist", even as they try to finger social safety nets as "welfare queenery" or "someone else's money" (see: Thatcher 'greed is good' idiocy) OR "bad for the economy", while WILLFULLY ignoring the MASSIVE corporate welfare queenery, they just want brainwashed average Americans to act against their best interests, AND BE HAPPY ABOUT IT (see below).

Game Theory is the cornerstone of racism AND our degraded democracy and biosphere.


Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts

A psychologist probes how altruism, Darwinism and neurobiology mean that we can succeed by not being cutthroat.

The FACT is that we, as a species, WILL NOT SUCCEED if we CONTINUE to exclude altruism (involving ALL LIFE, not just our family!) from our modus vivendi.

We ARE our brother's keeper. Our species will not survive if we don't learn AND LIVE that, not as religious principle, but as a basic tenet of Biosphere Math Successful Species Perpetuation.

Have a nice day.



 
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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