Self Education

2019-01-03 15:03:44 Use external memory

Today we deal with a lot of information, and we can't remember everything. We need to adapt in order to keep track of everything and remember it.

Remember, where you can find information

It's not essential to remember all information. For example, you don't have to remember everyone's birthday, because you can find it in social networks.

You don't have to remember ideas, instead, you can just write them in notebook programms Evernote. Ideas for posts I save in google documents, uncompleted posts I keep in telegram "saved messages:. If i need exact information about something, I can find it in the right "stock".

Information can be anywhere - Internet, programs, notepads. The most important thing is that it should be easy to find and convinient for you.

Create a hierarchy and connections in it

Our brain loves hierarchy and we like when everything is in the right order. It's something like a bookshelf - if we want to read a novel, then we take it on one shelf, and if a detective story - on another.

For example, you have 3 business meetings. The time of those meetings you write in the calendar, aims - in notes and then to remember everything you look in the calendar and then in notes.

#memory Open / Comment

2019-01-03 02:05:54 Happy New Year

Let this year be more productive and better than the previous one for you. Set goals and achieve them. Develop yourself constantly, be the better version of yourself. Live with pleasure and be happy! Open / Comment

2018-12-31 13:35:23 ​​Antifragility

The concept introduced by Nassim Taleb in the book “Anti-Fragile" that means the ability to take advantage of failures, losses, mistakes; the ability to harden, grow and become stronger while be confronted with chaos.

Anti-fragility is diametrically opposed to the concepts of invulnerability, flexibility and elasticity. Invulnerability and flexibility - the ability to resist, to resist stress and to act as a shield. Anti-fragility is the ability to benefit from stressful situations and changes. If there is a problem, invulnerability reflects and remains the same. Anti-frailty benefits from the problem and changes for the better.

The absence of stressful situations is harmful. Sooner or later, trouble can happen to every object (person, company, etc.) and they will not be ready for it. The presence of minor stressors helps to achieve anti-fragility. People need to experience some kind of (not too much) stress in order to wake up to activity.

The author of the book proposes not to try to assess, or predict risk; instead, it is much more useful to focus on determining the fragility of an object. For this, he introduces a triad: fragile, invulnerable, anti-fragile. Through the prism of this triad, you can analyze any objects.

For example, a manager in a corporation is fragile because the corporation can fail, the manager can be fired or replaced by another person and this will not depend on him. The doctor is invulnerable, because people always need to treat their teeth, but the same can happen to him as to the manager, and his salary depends on the state or on the clinic where he works. The taxi driver is anti-fragile because he works on himself, works as much as he needs, knowing that people in the city will always take a taxi. All his actions lie on his shoulders and it is easier for him to change.

Book - Link

#books #selfImprovement Open / Comment

2018-12-28 12:22:42 Abilene paradox

It describes the situation in which every participant don't want to tell their opinion about something, because they think of it as something unpleasant and unacceptable in this group of people.

Eventually it turns out that people had the same opinion just like that person at the beginning.

Example

Members of the family (Father, mother, grandma, aunt) were sitting in the living room and were doing nothing. Then, mother offered to go to the different town for a trip. Father didn't really want to do it, but he thought that everyone liked that idea, so he said that it would be great to go there. The same thing happened with aunt. She felt kind of tired, but she thought:" If everyone is so optimistic about it, why shouldn`t we go". Thus she agreed to go there. Grandma thought the same way.

Trip was boring. Nobody liked it. It was really hot. There was no enough space in the car. The food was awful. Nevertheless, when they came back father said:" I hope everyone liked the trip, because i went there just because of you". Mother said the same thing. Grandpa said:" I went there just because everyone wanted, so i agreed to go with you, but you have to be crazy to go there alone". Aunt also said the same thing just the others.

Result

As we can see, in the end a group of people wasn't happy about what they did, because they were sared of giving wrong opinion about the idea of going somewhere, even though everybody thought the same way.

Original research: Link Open / Comment

2018-12-26 12:53:24 Open / Comment

2018-12-26 12:53:17 Bobo doll experiment

This experiment shows the influence of adult behavior on children`s behavior.

Process

Children (boys and girls) were devided into 4 different groups. First 2 groups had adults with agressive behavoir with the same and opposite gender. Second 2 had adults with a model of non-agressive behavoir with the same and opposite gender.

At the beginning, organizers put 2 groups in the room with the agressive model of behaviour. A child and an adult were put in each room. Adults had their own toys - Bobo doll - this doll always stands so you can punch it without putting it up non limited times(look at the picture below) and children had some other toys. In 2 minutes, while children were playing, adults started to act agressive towards the Bobo doll. They kicked, toss and screamed at the toy. After several minutes children were put into different rooms.

In the second room, non-agressive adults played with different toys except Bobo doll. Organizers said to the children that they could play with any toy they wanted and do whatever they want. Children played with toys, but in several minutes organizers came back and said that they had to take all the toys to the other child. That was done to make children angry and see how behaviour from the first room will affect them. However, they told them that they could play with toys in the previous room.

When children came back to the first room, some of them started to imitate the agressive model of behaviour.

Result

A percent of children that at first were put in the room with agressive model of behaviour, eventually showed higher result towards the agressive behaviour. They kicked and screamed at the Bobo doll just like adults. However, children who were put with the opposite gender had lower results of acting agressive. Boys had higher average number of agressive acts than the girls.

Conclusion

Children tend to imitate adults behaviour no matter what they have done. The only factors their behavoiur depends on are circumstances, gender and they way it all was proposed.

More information: Link Open / Comment

2018-12-24 01:16:04 Dr. Fox effect

Phenomenon which describes that with a help of a well-made, organized and beautifully written text people can persuade themselfs that they are learning something from it. It's like faking the feeling of studying.

Process

Several first course students were invited to listen to the Doctor Fox lecture. He was a hired actor. It was said that he has published 2 books and has several trophies. When he was perfoming, he used a lot of abstruse terms to obscure the meaning of the lecture. It was just a big mix of unrelated things, but the way it was said made students agree and enjoy the lecture.

Result

Even though students didn't understand anything and didn't learn anything from this lecture, most of them gave positive feedback about it. In addition, they invited last course students who were specializing on game theory and they did lecture about it. Nevertheless, students still liked it and gave positive feedback. However, they understood that it was fake one, but they really liked the way it was proposed.

Conclusion

As we can see, it doesn't really matter what people hear, the only things that matters is the way it proposed. In this experiment, "professor" said absolutely random and unconnected terms and no one even had noticed that.

Original research: Link

#psychology Open / Comment

2018-12-21 19:31:01 The work takes all the time allotted to it

This rule is also called first Parkinson's Law. The law can be generalized further as: work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

The simplified meaning of this rule: "If you wait till the last minute, it only takes a minute to do" or "how much time you will set for doing the work so much time you will do this work".

For example, if a student knows that he has a month to write a diploma, then the whole process of writing will take him a month, because there will always be reasons why he will postpone the completion of the case.

To use this rule to your hand you need to know what to do, when to do it and how much time do you need to spend for it. Task list and time-boxing can help you to accompish that.

Original article - Link

#timemanagement Open / Comment

2018-12-20 01:12:30 Planning fallacy

It is a cognitive distortion associated with optimism and underestimation of the time required to complete tasks. No matter what was planned, it takes longer to complete it than you expected.

In a 1994 study, 37 psychology students were asked to estimate how long it would take to complete their diplomas project. The average estimate was 33.9 days. The average actual turnaround time was 55.5 days; only about 30% of the students completed their work in the time they predicted.

Why is this happening?

- People focus on the most optimistic scenario, and do not fully use the experience of performing similar tasks.
- People think that the task will be completed quickly and easily, because that is what they want
- People do not always correctly remember the amount of time taken for similar tasks in the past
- People do not take into account unforeseen circumstances and new tasks that may appear in the process of performing

Original research - Link Open / Comment

2018-12-16 22:56:46 Jam experment

In 2000, psychologists Iyengar, Jiang and Huberman introduced two hypotheses:

1. The wider the variety of assortment, the easier it is for customers to make a choice. When there are many options, they feel more confident that they have found the best option.

2. However, too many options can lead to “choice overload” (choice overload). In such a situation, the motivation of making a decision weakens. In other words, when a person sees more options, it attracts his attention better, but in the final he may not make a choice at all.

These behaviors of customers are perfectly illustrated by the well-known “experiment with jam”. In one of California grocery stores, researchers installed two tasting racks with jams of exotic varieties. For the first time the researches proposed trying 6 kinds of jam to the people. For the second there were 24 kind of jams.

Researchers were interested in two points: the number of people who showed interest in the racks, and the number of purchases that were made after the tasting.

As a result, a rack with 24 varieties of jam attracted 150% more tasters than the second one. Nevertheless, the opposite situation happened with shopping. 30% of people who tried 6 kinds of jam made purchases. Only 3% of people who chose from 24 varieties bought jams.

The experiment shows us that people tend to have high-expectations of the product, but in the end, this reduces the motivation to purchase. Part of this behavior is due to the so-called "cognitive load" on the human memory.

Excessive number of options leads to the fact that customers are simply lost. It is difficult for them to objectively compare the options and choose the best among them. Most people would prefer to refuse the choice altogether and go on.

In the experiment with jam it happened. The more options, the higher the risk of making a mistake with the choice.

Original article - Link

#psychology Open / Comment