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COMMISSIONER MICHAEL J. COPPS
JUNE 2, 2003
I dissent to this decision. I dissent on grounds of substance. I dissent on grounds of process. I dissent because today the Federal Communications Commission empowers America’s new Media Elite with unacceptable levels of influence over the ideas and information upon which our society and our democracy so heavily depend.
This morning we are at a crossroads – for television, radio and newspapers and for the American people. The decision we five make today will recast our entire media landscape for years to come. At issue is whether a few corporations will be ceded enhanced gatekeeper control over the civil dialogue of our country; more content control over our music, entertainment and information; and veto power over the majority of what our families watch, hear and read.
Two very divergent paths beckon us.
Down one road is a reaffirmation of America’s commitment to local control of our media, diversity in news and editorial viewpoint, and the importance of competition. This path implores us not to abandon core values going to the heart of what the media mean in our country. On this path we reaffirm that FCC licensees have been given very special privileges and that they have very special responsibilities to serve the public interest.
Down the other road is more media control by ever fewer corporate giants. This path surrenders to a handful of corporations awesome powers over our news, information and entertainment. On this path we endanger time-honored safeguards and time-proven values that have strengthened the country as well as the media.
So the stakes are high – higher than they have been for any decision the five people sitting here today have ever made at this Commission. How do we decide which path to choose?
We should begin by examining the law. What does the law tell us? The Communications Act tells us to use our rules to promote localism, diversity and competition. It reminds us that the airwaves belong to the American people, and that no broadcast station, no company, no single individual owns an airwave in America. The airwaves belong to all the people. And the Supreme Court has upheld media protections, stating that “it is the purpose of the First Amendment to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail, rather than to countenance monopolization of that market, whether it be by the Government itself or a private licensee.”
We should then look at the world of experience. What practical, real world experience do we have to guide us? Radio deregulation gives us powerful and relevant lessons. When Congress and the Commission removed radio concentration protections, we experienced massive, and largely unforeseen, consolidation. We saw a 34 percent reduction in the number of radio station owners. Diversity of programming suffered. Homogenized music and standardized programming crowded out local and regional talent. Creative local artists found it evermore difficult to obtain play time. Editorial opinion polarized. Competition in many towns became non-existent as a few companies bought up virtually every station in the market. This experience should terrify us as we consider visiting upon television and newspapers what we have inflicted upon radio. “Clear Channelization” of the rest of the American media will harm our country.
We should, finally, seek out the counsel and wisdom of the American people. Commissioner Adelstein and I have attended public hearings across the country with conservatives and liberals, broadcasters and creative artists, concerned parents and civil rights activists, church leaders and educators. Our Commission has seen close to three quarters of a million people register their views – more than for any proceeding in Commission history. And in a nation that can be deeply divided on important issues, these citizens are uniquely unanimous on the question of whether this Commission should allow further media concentration. They are screaming that we should protect local broadcasting, diversity of programming and opinion, and the ability to compete with the huge companies. We should heed their conservatism – their urgent call to refrain from abandoning time-honored protections when so much is at stake and so much is unknown about the consequences of what we are doing here today.
The majority instead chooses radical deregulation – perhaps not quite so radical as originally intended a year ago before Americans found out what was going on and began to speak out – but radical nevertheless. This decision allows a corporation to control three television stations in a single city. Why does any company need to control three television stations anywhere? The decision allows the giant media companies to buy up the remaining local newspaper and exert massive influence over a community by wielding three TV stations, eight radio stations, the cable operator, plus the already monopolistic newspaper. The decision further allows the already massive television networks to buy up even more local TV stations, so that they could control up to an unbelievable 90 percent of the national television audience. Where are the blessings of localism, diversity and competition here? I see centralization, not localism; I see uniformity, not diversity; I see monopoly and oligopoly, not competition.
Will the vaunted 500-channel universe of cable TV save us? Well, 90 percent of the top cable channels are owned by the same giants that own the TV networks and the cable systems. More channels are great. But when they’re all owned by the same people, cable doesn’t advance localism, editorial diversity or competition. And those who believe the Internet alone will save us from this fate should realize that the dominating Internet news sources are controlled by the same media giants who control radio, TV, newspapers and cable.
Don’t tell me that those of us who feel strongly about this are being too emotional. Some would have us believe that this is merely an ordinary examination of our rules that we conduct every two years. Let’s not kid ourselves. This is the granddaddy of all reviews. It sets the direction for how the next review will get done and for how the media will look for many years to come. As for the emotion, I have seen the concern, the deep feeling and outright alarm on the faces of people who have come out to talk to Commissioner Adelstein and me all across this country. Are they emotional? You bet. And I think they are going to stay that way until we get this right.
Why did the Commission get this so wrong? Good, sustainable rules are the result of an open administrative process and a serious attempt to gather all the relevant facts. Bad rules and legal vulnerability result from an opaque regulatory process and inadequate data. Unfortunately, today’s rules fall into the latter camp. This proceeding has been run as a classic inside-the-Beltway process with too little outreach from the Commission and too little attention paid to the public. This is the way the Commission usually does business, we are told. Well, I submit this is too important to be treated on a business-as-usual basis. So Commissioner Adelstein and I traveled across the country to attend as many hearings and forums as we could.
I am also troubled that the Commission has refused to publicly disclose the rules we are voting on today. What possible harm can come from transparency? How can telling Congress and the public what we plan to do possibly be bad? Isn’t the animating spirit of our “notice and comment” procedure to make sure our people know as much as possible about the specifics of what is being proposed?
And so, we arrive at today. Citizens across this country will hear for the first time the proposals that we are adopting. Some of the details of the rule changes have leaked to the press. Even with this incomplete information, the public reaction against the proposed changes has been unlike anything the FCC has ever experienced. Of the nearly three quarters of a million comments we have received, nearly all oppose increased media consolidation – over 99.9 percent.
We’ve heard bipartisan concern from more than 150 Members of Congress, including the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, asking us to slow down and put these proposals out for public comment before we vote. Some of those Members of Congress are here today and I thank them for coming.
Dozens of organizations – from the National Rifle Association to the National Organization for Women have weighed in with their concerns about media concentration and the process by which we are dealing with it. City councils across this country in such places as Chicago, Seattle, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Buffalo, as well as a whole state – Vermont – have gone on record against media concentration.
As Brent Bozell of the Parents Television Council so aptly put it, “When all of us are united on an issue, then one of two things has happened. Either the Earth has spun off its axis and we have all lost our minds or there is universal support for a concept.” Well, it’s the concept – a transcending, nationwide concept.
The FCC is not, of course, a public opinion survey agency. Nor should we make our decisions by weighing the letters, cards and e-mails “for” and the letters, cards and e-mails “against” and awarding the victory to the side that tips the scale. But even this independent agency is part of our democratic system of government. And when there is such an overwhelming response on the part of the American people and their representatives in Congress assembled, we ought to take notice. Here the right call is to take these proposals, put them out for comment and then -- only then -- call the vote. The spirit underlying the “notice and comment” procedure of independent agencies is that important proposed changes need to be seen and vetted before they are voted. We haven’t been true to that spirit. Today we vote before we vet.
And what are we voting on? The majority decides to allow TV networks to control up to 45 percent of the national audience – up to 90 percent once the strange decision to keep the UHF discount is considered. Merrill Lynch predicts this decision will result in a “Gold Rush” where the national networks buy up the remaining local broadcasters. This decision is made without an adequate explanation for why 45 percent is not just an arbitrary number pulled out of a hat, and despite exhaustive and largely uncontested evidence supporting the existing cap by local broadcasters. I frankly doubt the courts will be impressed.
Some have argued that free over-the-air television is doomed unless we allow more concentration. The facts tell a different story. The networks not only reach consumers over the air through their own highly profitable stations and through affiliates, but they are also guaranteed carriage to cable subscribers. Indeed, they own much of cable. The networks command an enormous advertising premium, recently receiving a record $9.4 billion in up-front prime-time advertising for the next season. They have ownership in most of their profitable programs, and these are subsequently put into syndication or “repurposed” – the fancy new term for a re-run. This argument that the only way for the poor among us to continue receiving free, over-the-air television is to allow already powerful networks to grow more powerful would have been better left unsaid.
The majority inexplicably, maintains the UHF Discount. Under the UHF Discount, UHF TV stations are considered to reach only 50 percent of the households that VHF TV stations reach for purposes of determining whether a company has exceeded the national cap. Once upon a time, that was warranted. The Commission found that over-the-air UHF stations reached fewer viewers than VHF stations because their signals were different. But UHF and VHF stations reach an identical number of viewers when delivered over cable TV facilities. Today, over 85 percent of consumers receive their signal from cable and DBS. Program carriage requirements ensure that cable consumers receive the UHF signal, and DBS operators are required to carry all UHF stations in any market where they carry any local channel.
With 85 percent of Americans experiencing no difference between UHF and VHF stations, the discount no longer makes sense. Eliminating the entire discount may be warranted, but at a minimum it requires replacement with a number that reflects the reality of today’s technology and marketplace.
The more you dig into this Order, the worse things get. The Order finds:
That further concentration in already highly-concentrated markets is acceptable.
That in a town with only four TV stations, it is acceptable for the top-rated
television station to buy the only daily newspaper.
That consolidation going forward will enhance news programming, despite considerable record evidence showing that increased concentration more often than not reduces quality news.
There are other things this order could have done. Commenters addressed the need to require more independent programming on our airwaves so that a few conglomerates do not act anti-competitively to control all of the creative entertainment that we see. These proposals should have received the serious attention they deserve in this decision. Over the past decade, we have witnessed a substantial increase in the amount of programming owned by the networks. In addition to the obvious loss of diversity, this has also entailed the loss of thousands of jobs, including creative artists, technicians and many, many others. Years ago, we had protections against this kind of program ownership. Now that the majority is loosening outlet ownership rules, we ought to be looking at the consequences of having no limits on who owns the programming.
The Order could have addressed having a legitimate license renewal process to partially protect against the risks of further consolidation. The system has degenerated into one of basically post-card license renewal. Unless there is a major complaint pending against a station, its license is almost automatically renewed. A real, honest-to-goodness license renewal process, predicated on advancing the public interest, might do more for broadcasting than all these our other rules put together.
The Order could have analyzed the impact of media concentration on indecent and excessively violent programming. Some have suggested that there may be a link between increasing consolidation and increasing indecency on our airwaves. The Commission fails to address this issue in its analysis. It seems plausible that there is such a connection. I don’t know the answer to this question. I do know this: we have no business voting until we take a serious look at the matter and amass at least a credible body of evidence.
The Order could have addressed the impact of media concentration on women and minority groups. We know that there are substantially fewer radio station owners today than there were before the rules were changed in 1996. People of color now make up less than four percent of radio and television owners. The National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters tells us that the number of minority owners of broadcast facilities has dropped by 14 percent since 1997.
We have not even attempted to understand what further consolidation means in terms of providing Hispanic Americans and African Americans and Asian-Pacific Americans and Native Americans and women and other groups the kinds of programs and access and viewpoint diversity and career opportunities and even advertising information about products and services that they need. America’s strength is, after all, its diversity. And our media need to reflect this diversity and to nourish it.
Today’s Order puts most such questions off into the future, with the exception of a curious plan to allow a small business, perhaps a minority firm, to buy a consolidated block of outlets from an incumbent who exceeds the limits. That would require deeper pockets than most such firms could afford. I would prefer to look for real opportunities for small entrepreneurs instead of encouraging them to buy large consolidated properties.
All this means that I am deeply saddened by the Commission’s actions today. Some have characterized the fight against this seemingly pre-ordained decision as Quixotic and destined to defeat. But I think, instead, that we’ll look back at this 3-2 vote as a Pyrrhic victory.
This Commission’s drive to loosen the rules and its reluctance to share its proposals with the people before we voted awoke a sleeping giant. American citizens are standing up in never-before-seen numbers to reclaim their airwaves and to call on those who are entrusted to use them to serve the public interest. In these times when many issues divide us, groups from right to left, Republicans and Democrats, concerned parents and creative artists, religious leaders, civil rights activists, and labor organizations have united to fight together on this issue. Senators and Congressmen from both parties and from all parts of the Country have called on the Commission to reconsider. The media concentration debate will never be the same. The obscurity of this issue that many have relied upon in the past, where only a few dozen inside-the-Beltway lobbyists understood the issue, is gone forever.
I believe, after traveling almost the length and breadth of this land, that our citizens want, deserve, and are demanding a renewed discussion of how their airwaves are being used and how to ensure they are serving the public interest. I urge my colleagues to heed the call. I want to thank the hundreds of thousands of people who have attended hearings, filed comments, written letters to the editor, and contacted the Commission. You have made a difference. And if you stay the course now, the chances have improved that we can yet settle this issue of who will control our media and for what purposes and to resolve it in favor of airwaves of, by and for the people of this great country.
Thank you.
Your next president WILL be Ronald Mcdonald
Supreme Court: Corporations Can Spend What They Want in Political Races.
NBC News and news services
WASHINGTON - In a landmark ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down laws that banned corporations from using their own money to support or oppose candidates for public office.
By 5-4 vote, the court overturned federal laws, in effect for decades, that prevented corporations from using their profits to buy political campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.
It leaves in place a ban prohibiting corporations and unions from directly contributing funds to candidates for any use.
In a statement, President Barack Obama said that the decision gives 'a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics.' The president pledged to work with Congress to 'develop a forceful response' to the court's ruling.
Critics of the stricter limits have argued that they amount to an unconstitutional restraint of free speech, and the court majority agreed.
"The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion, joined by his four more conservative colleagues.
Strongly disagreeing, Justice John Paul Stevens said in his dissent, "The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation."
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined Stevens' dissent, parts of which he read aloud in the courtroom.
The justices also struck down part of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.
Advocates of strong campaign finance regulations have predicted that a court ruling against the limits would lead to a flood of corporate and union money in federal campaigns as early as November's congressional elections.
The decision removes limits on independent expenditures that are not coordinated with candidates' campaigns.
The case does not affect political action committees, which mushroomed after post-Watergate laws set the first limits on contributions by individuals to candidates. Corporations, unions and others may create PACs to contribute directly to candidates, but they must be funded with voluntary contributions from employees, members and other individuals, not by corporate or union treasuries.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas joined Kennedy to form the majority in the main part of the case.
Roberts, in a separate opinion, said that upholding the limits would have restrained "the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy."
Stevens complained that those justices overreached by throwing out earlier Supreme Court decisions that had not been at issue when this case first came to the court.
"Essentially, five justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law," Stevens said.
The case began when a conservative group, Citizens United, made a 90-minute movie that was very critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton as she sought the Democratic presidential nomination. Citizens United wanted to air ads for the anti-Clinton movie and distribute it through video-on-demand services on local cable systems during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign.
The court first heard arguments in March, then asked for another round of arguments about whether corporations and unions should be treated differently from individuals when it comes to campaign spending.
The justices convened in a special argument session in September, Sotomayor's first. The conservative justices gave every indication then that they were prepared to take the steps they did on Thursday.
The justices, with only Thomas in dissent, did uphold McCain-Feingold requirements that anyone spending money on political ads must disclose the names of contributors.
NBC's Pete Williams
NBC News and news services
WASHINGTON - In a landmark ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down laws that banned corporations from using their own money to support or oppose candidates for public office.
By 5-4 vote, the court overturned federal laws, in effect for decades, that prevented corporations from using their profits to buy political campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.
It leaves in place a ban prohibiting corporations and unions from directly contributing funds to candidates for any use.
In a statement, President Barack Obama said that the decision gives 'a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics.' The president pledged to work with Congress to 'develop a forceful response' to the court's ruling.
Critics of the stricter limits have argued that they amount to an unconstitutional restraint of free speech, and the court majority agreed.
"The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion, joined by his four more conservative colleagues.
Strongly disagreeing, Justice John Paul Stevens said in his dissent, "The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation."
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined Stevens' dissent, parts of which he read aloud in the courtroom.
The justices also struck down part of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.
Advocates of strong campaign finance regulations have predicted that a court ruling against the limits would lead to a flood of corporate and union money in federal campaigns as early as November's congressional elections.
The decision removes limits on independent expenditures that are not coordinated with candidates' campaigns.
The case does not affect political action committees, which mushroomed after post-Watergate laws set the first limits on contributions by individuals to candidates. Corporations, unions and others may create PACs to contribute directly to candidates, but they must be funded with voluntary contributions from employees, members and other individuals, not by corporate or union treasuries.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas joined Kennedy to form the majority in the main part of the case.
Roberts, in a separate opinion, said that upholding the limits would have restrained "the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy."
Stevens complained that those justices overreached by throwing out earlier Supreme Court decisions that had not been at issue when this case first came to the court.
"Essentially, five justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law," Stevens said.
The case began when a conservative group, Citizens United, made a 90-minute movie that was very critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton as she sought the Democratic presidential nomination. Citizens United wanted to air ads for the anti-Clinton movie and distribute it through video-on-demand services on local cable systems during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign.
The court first heard arguments in March, then asked for another round of arguments about whether corporations and unions should be treated differently from individuals when it comes to campaign spending.
The justices convened in a special argument session in September, Sotomayor's first. The conservative justices gave every indication then that they were prepared to take the steps they did on Thursday.
The justices, with only Thomas in dissent, did uphold McCain-Feingold requirements that anyone spending money on political ads must disclose the names of contributors.
NBC's Pete Williams
remembering goose creek
The November 5, 2003 police raid of Stratford High School was recorded by both the school’s surveillance cameras and a police camera. The tapes show students as young as 14 forced to the ground as officers in SWAT team uniforms and bulletproof vests lead a drug dog to search their book bags. Only a few students were restrained. The ACLU represents 20 of the nearly 120 students caught up in the raid.
The raid was brought about by discussion between the school’s principal at the time, George McCrackin, and the City of Goose Creek police department. Due to threats and many placing the blame for the raid on him, McCrackin resigned shortly after the tapes surfaced on national television. The raid was authorized based on the principal’s suspicion that several students were dealing marijuana, but was not organized or planned by McCrackin or the school's administration. No drugs or weapons were found during the raid and no charges were filed.
As 16-year-old Joshua Ody, one of the students caught up in the raid, put it, “I felt like I had less rights than other people that day”.
On July 10, 2006, a settlement was reached that awarded $1.6 million to the students in the law suit, of which $1.2 million was divided among the students, and the remaining $400,000 to be used in legal fees.
ACLU Lawsuit - This section needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Following the raid, the ACLU brought a lawsuit on behalf of students’ families charging police and school officials with violating the students’ right to be free from unlawful search and seizure and use of excessive force. The lawsuit demanded a court order declaring the raid unconstitutional and blocking the future use of such tactics, as well as damages on behalf of the students.
In addition to recognizing students’ rights to be free from unconstitutional search and seizure and restricting police tactics, the settlement establishes a $1.6 million dollar fund to compensate the students and help cover medical and counseling costs from the incident.
The cost of the settlement will be paid by the city of Goose Creek, the Goose Creek Police Department, and the Berkeley County School District where the school is located, with assistance from their respective insurance companies.
It is not yet known exactly how many of the nearly 120 students will accept the settlement. The offer came in response to a class-action lawsuit on behalf of 53 students, of which the ACLU’s lawsuit is a part. While both sides have agreed to the terms of the settlement, it will be technically final in July 2006, when it is expected to receive judicial approval.
-wikipedia
The raid was brought about by discussion between the school’s principal at the time, George McCrackin, and the City of Goose Creek police department. Due to threats and many placing the blame for the raid on him, McCrackin resigned shortly after the tapes surfaced on national television. The raid was authorized based on the principal’s suspicion that several students were dealing marijuana, but was not organized or planned by McCrackin or the school's administration. No drugs or weapons were found during the raid and no charges were filed.
As 16-year-old Joshua Ody, one of the students caught up in the raid, put it, “I felt like I had less rights than other people that day”.
On July 10, 2006, a settlement was reached that awarded $1.6 million to the students in the law suit, of which $1.2 million was divided among the students, and the remaining $400,000 to be used in legal fees.
ACLU Lawsuit - This section needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Following the raid, the ACLU brought a lawsuit on behalf of students’ families charging police and school officials with violating the students’ right to be free from unlawful search and seizure and use of excessive force. The lawsuit demanded a court order declaring the raid unconstitutional and blocking the future use of such tactics, as well as damages on behalf of the students.
In addition to recognizing students’ rights to be free from unconstitutional search and seizure and restricting police tactics, the settlement establishes a $1.6 million dollar fund to compensate the students and help cover medical and counseling costs from the incident.
The cost of the settlement will be paid by the city of Goose Creek, the Goose Creek Police Department, and the Berkeley County School District where the school is located, with assistance from their respective insurance companies.
It is not yet known exactly how many of the nearly 120 students will accept the settlement. The offer came in response to a class-action lawsuit on behalf of 53 students, of which the ACLU’s lawsuit is a part. While both sides have agreed to the terms of the settlement, it will be technically final in July 2006, when it is expected to receive judicial approval.
-wikipedia
More earthquakes to come
The Cause of Haiti's Latest Earthquake: Is the Worst Yet to Come? A Look at the Seismic Science in the Caribbean.
Jeneen Interlandi
In the seven days since a 7.0 earthquake struck the island of Haiti and decimated its capital city, at least 14 aftershocks measuring 5 or above have been recorded by the United States Geological Survey—including a 6.0 quake in Haiti just this morning. The event confirms a new report by Woods Hole seismologists which found that not only would such shocks be likely to continue, but the already devastated island nation would face great risk of significant future calamity.
Haiti and its neighbors sit above two tectonic plates (the North American and the Caribbean) that slide awkwardly past one another in an east-west direction at about an inch a year. The 100-mile border between these two plates, known as the Enriquillo-Plaintain fault line, extends from the Dominican Republic through Haiti all the way to Jamaica. Last Tuesday’s rupture occurred when a segment of the plates that had been stuck together since 1751 (when the last earthquake occurred) jerked themselves free, releasing 250 years of built-up friction from the earthquake’s epicenter and displacing just enough ground to topple Haiti’s fragile and ill-prepared capital.
Not all of that tension was released by the quake. As this map—created by UNAVCO, a nonprofit geology consortium—shows, a good deal of it has merely been shifted to other segments of the same fault line, collecting in two spots in particular: 20 miles west of the original epicenter, near the port village of Miragoâne (already the site of several vigorous aftershocks) and 10 miles east, near the Dominican border (where aftershocks have yet to be reported). Eventually, say seismologists, the tension in both places will be released by seismic events equal to or greater than that of Tuesday's quake.
Of course, when that might happen is anybody’s guess. "We know that both spots will rupture at some point," says Jian Lin, a Woods Hole geophysicist and the report's lead author. "But it could be in 10 months, or 10 years—or even 100 years."
While earthquakes are generally difficult to predict, data on the tectonic plates underlying the Caribbean have been especially paltry. Part of the problem is that in much of the region, the plate boundaries themselves are below sea level and thus inaccessible to scientists. The other problem is that political instability and dire poverty have made the region a challenging one for seismologists; until very recently, no consistent earthquake-monitoring efforts were even attempted. (Compare that with the San Andreas fault in California, where both sides of the plate boundary are above sea level and have been heavily monitored for decades.) While scientists have been studying the region more closely since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami spurred a public outcry for better disaster preparedness, they say not enough data has accumulated to make reliable forecasts.
What seismologists do know is that between 1751 and 1770, Haiti and its environs were struck by three major earthquakes, each about 10years apart. They also know that the Enriquillo fault is not the only one to transect Haiti: a second fault line, north of the Enriquillo, has been accumulating tension for roughly 800 years and is considered overdue for a major quake. When one connects these dots, it becomes clear that the Caribbean is an active seismic zone and that more earthquakes, like the aftershock that hit today and the original quake that devastated Haiti, should not come as a surprise. Now the question remains: if we know they're coming, how can we protect cities in the Caribbean so that the devestation in Haiti never happens again?
Jeneen Interlandi
In the seven days since a 7.0 earthquake struck the island of Haiti and decimated its capital city, at least 14 aftershocks measuring 5 or above have been recorded by the United States Geological Survey—including a 6.0 quake in Haiti just this morning. The event confirms a new report by Woods Hole seismologists which found that not only would such shocks be likely to continue, but the already devastated island nation would face great risk of significant future calamity.
Haiti and its neighbors sit above two tectonic plates (the North American and the Caribbean) that slide awkwardly past one another in an east-west direction at about an inch a year. The 100-mile border between these two plates, known as the Enriquillo-Plaintain fault line, extends from the Dominican Republic through Haiti all the way to Jamaica. Last Tuesday’s rupture occurred when a segment of the plates that had been stuck together since 1751 (when the last earthquake occurred) jerked themselves free, releasing 250 years of built-up friction from the earthquake’s epicenter and displacing just enough ground to topple Haiti’s fragile and ill-prepared capital.
Not all of that tension was released by the quake. As this map—created by UNAVCO, a nonprofit geology consortium—shows, a good deal of it has merely been shifted to other segments of the same fault line, collecting in two spots in particular: 20 miles west of the original epicenter, near the port village of Miragoâne (already the site of several vigorous aftershocks) and 10 miles east, near the Dominican border (where aftershocks have yet to be reported). Eventually, say seismologists, the tension in both places will be released by seismic events equal to or greater than that of Tuesday's quake.
Of course, when that might happen is anybody’s guess. "We know that both spots will rupture at some point," says Jian Lin, a Woods Hole geophysicist and the report's lead author. "But it could be in 10 months, or 10 years—or even 100 years."
While earthquakes are generally difficult to predict, data on the tectonic plates underlying the Caribbean have been especially paltry. Part of the problem is that in much of the region, the plate boundaries themselves are below sea level and thus inaccessible to scientists. The other problem is that political instability and dire poverty have made the region a challenging one for seismologists; until very recently, no consistent earthquake-monitoring efforts were even attempted. (Compare that with the San Andreas fault in California, where both sides of the plate boundary are above sea level and have been heavily monitored for decades.) While scientists have been studying the region more closely since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami spurred a public outcry for better disaster preparedness, they say not enough data has accumulated to make reliable forecasts.
What seismologists do know is that between 1751 and 1770, Haiti and its environs were struck by three major earthquakes, each about 10years apart. They also know that the Enriquillo fault is not the only one to transect Haiti: a second fault line, north of the Enriquillo, has been accumulating tension for roughly 800 years and is considered overdue for a major quake. When one connects these dots, it becomes clear that the Caribbean is an active seismic zone and that more earthquakes, like the aftershock that hit today and the original quake that devastated Haiti, should not come as a surprise. Now the question remains: if we know they're coming, how can we protect cities in the Caribbean so that the devestation in Haiti never happens again?
12 Practical Business Lessons From Social Psychology
It’s been said many times that business is all about people. That being the case, perhaps we should stop reading management books for advice and start looking at social psychology. Very simply, social psychologists study how people interact with others – their families, friends, and yes, business partners. Smart marketers and executives have been using the findings of this growing field for decades to close sales, hold effective meetings and get their way in negotiations. But rather than putting you through an academic psychology lesson, we condensed the most useful concepts into one article.
The Foot in the Door Phenomenon
The Concept: If you’re wondering how to convince superiors, employees or customers to do what you ask, try using the foot in the door phenomenon. This refers to the tendency of people to do something huge if they have already agreed to something much smaller. Your friend should be much more open to helping you decorate your entire house for a dinner party if, for example, he already helped you pick out decorations.
How You Can Use It: This handy principle has countless applications in the business world. Hand lotion and beauty supply kiosks at the mall use it all the time. If you can get a person to talk to you for a couple of minutes and rub some lotion on their hands, you’ve got your foot in the door, and they are much more likely to buy from you than if you had just screamed a sales pitch at them.
The Door in the Face Phenomenon
The Concept: Another classic persuasion tactic is known as the “Door in the Face Phenomenon.” Using this approach, you make your actual request look reasonable by first making an outrageous request that the person will unquestionably turn down. When they turn you down, you then ask for what you really want, which now looks trivial in light of what you asked for a moment earlier.
How You Can Use It: Let’s say you want your company to approve funding for a team of five marketers to research a new advertising campaign. Rather than simply asking for this funding and risking being shot down, use the door in the face principle. Ask your company for twice the amount of funding for a team twice as big as what you need. This will almost certainly be disapproved, but don’t fret; you didn’t need that amount in the first place. Act like you’re really going to work hard on cutting the funding down to the bone and reworking your proposal. In a few days, come back and propose the funding request you wanted all along. It will look as though you found a way to accomplish the same tasks for half the price with half the personnel. Social psychology research states that you are much more likely to get what you want by doing this.
The Serial Position Effect
The Concept: A truly sharp marketer should understand how our brains process information. The “Serial Position Effect” (developed by Hermann Ebbinghaus) assists by explaining how we remember items we see or hear in lists. Ebbunghaus discovered that things shown at the beginning of a list and at the end of a list are remembered best. This was later titled the “Primacy Effect,” and the “Recency Effect.”
How You Can Use It: This powerful concept can affect what the millions of people seeing your advertisements, listening to your radio promotion, or reading your sales letter, remember about your product. If you have five benefits that your product provides over the competition, think long and hard about which ones you want to stick deep into your audience’s memory. Place those items at the beginning and end of your pitch. This way, prospects will remember these benefits when they see your product on a shelf or think about the commercial they just saw.
Attitudes Follow Behavior: Resolving Cognitive Dissonance
The Concept: Cognitive dissonance is a fancy term for when people have opinions, behave contrary to them, and change their opinion to fit how they acted. For example, if you normally despise handguns, but join your buddy at the shooting range one day, you might leave thinking about how “guns aren’t really that bad if you use them safely.” Simply by holding and shooting one yourself, your brain begins thinking positive thoughts about it. Similarly, a “boring” task might later be remembered as “not being all that bad” or even being “fun” because, after all, you did it.
How You Can Use It: What this means to you is that if you can get your customer to perform a small task, such as a little game or survey online, the customer may begin making some positive assumptions about what you sell. This especially works for businesses operating in controversial markets, such as gambling, tobacco or other vice-related products. If you can find a harmless and fun way for potential customers to get involved with your products and services they will be more likely to become loyal buyers down the line.
Two Routes to Persuasion
The Concept: Not everyone processes information (including product demos and advertisements) the same way. Generally speaking, there are two types of audiences, depending on your product/service. Your audience is either attentively thinking about your message, or they are distracted. These two audiences take two different routes to understanding your message. The involved group takes what is known as the “Central Route,” meaning that they focus on what you are saying closely, develop counterarguments and respond based on what they eventually decide your product is all about. If your ad or pitch was strong and convincing, these people will probably buy. If it was weak or not convincing enough, there’s little hope of them buying.
How You Can Use It: The distracted audience takes a very different route to understanding your pitch known as the “Peripheral Route.” These people focus on irrelevant parts of the pitch that randomly interest them. The speaker’s good looks, for example might interest them more than the information in the pitch. Simple language is also important for this kind of audience. For example, if you’re selling a market research service, classic adages such as “look before you leap” will probably work better than “perform proper market research before investing.”
Perceived Expertise
The Concept: Let’s face it – most of us give more weight to what “experts” say than average Joes off the street. Most people would sooner listen to a warning about the health hazards of eating fast food, for instance, if it came from a renowned nutritionist than from a self-righteous teenager.
How You Can Use It: What makes someone appear to be an expert? One tactic that has been used by marketers (and politicians) is to begin your pitch with something the audience already agrees with. This makes the speaker seem intelligent and makes the audience eager to believe more of what he or she has to say.
Of course, being introduced as an expert never hurt either. A comment about an approaching asteroid from “Dr. Robert Kimmel, Chair of Astrophysics at Harvard University” will surely be taken more seriously than, “Robbie Kimmel, local guitarist and college student.”
Finally, social scientists find that speaking confidently greatly improves believability. A study performed by Bonnie Erikson in 1978 proved this by having college students rate the credibility of two supposed “witnesses” to an accident. One spoke very clearly and confidently and the other one hesitated and stumbled over his words a bit. One by one, each student said the confident speaker was much more credible. Perhaps it’s time to buy your TV or radio guy a course in effective speaking!
Perceived Trustworthiness
The Concept: Trustworthiness of the speaker is another factor critical to any kind of visual marketing. No trust, no sale. Fortunately, how trustworthy you look can be controlled almost entirely by you.
How You Can Use It: Our outward behaviors have a lot to do with whether trust us or not. One behavior that seems to carry a lot of weight is eye contact. Researchers have found that if video-taped witnesses in court looked their questioner straight in the eye rather than down or around, they were seen as more trustworthy.
You can also appear more trustworthy by seeming like you’re not trying to influence an audience. “Hidden camera” TV commercials utilize this tactic all the time. Social psychology experiments have found that people who don’t think they’re being watched are comfortable being completely honest.
People also find others trustworthy when they argue against their own interest. Thus, a message about risks of cigarette smoking seems much more sincere coming from the tobacco companies than it would if were given by an anti-smoking politician up for re-election. People might link the politician’s anti-smoking speeches to his political agenda, whereas they cannot do this with the tobacco companies and are much more likely to absorb the message as true.
The Mere-Exposure Effect
The Concept: Sometimes repetition alone can make a message more believable. Social research has found that people tend to eventually believe things they’ve been told many times, simply because they’ve repeatedly heard it. Studies show that people rate false statements such as “Mercury has a higher boiling point than copper” as true if they were made to read them a week before.
How You Can Use It: This concept is why companies run the same advertisement three times during a one-hour television show. The first time the audience sees the ad they might just ignore it. However, a week later they may have seen the ad 20 times, and by that point they have begun to accept its message and view favorably the product it advertises.
Distraction Disarms Counter-arguing
The Concept: Audio and visual messages are much more effective when the audience can be somewhat distracted by background clutter just long enough to inhibit counter-arguing. Mild distraction often preoccupies the brain just long enough to stop it from inventing a reason to say “no.”
How You Can Use It: Many radio commercials utilize this tactic. The words promote the product being sold while background music or intermittent comedy distracts us from thinking too deeply about the words. Be careful not to distract so much that ad is not processed, however. Extremely violent or incredibly sexual advertisements are often ineffective because the audience is simply too distracted by what they’re viewing to pay attention to the message. They key is to strike a balance such that your message is understood, but not deeply analyzed or argued by the audience.
The Self- Reference Effect
The Concept: Remember – a marketer’s job making sure the audience understands and remembers the sales pitch. One handy way to achieve this is known as the “Self-Reference Effect.” The Self Reference Effect refers to the tendency of people to effectively recall information about themselves. Most people are primary concerned with themselves. Thus, memories pertaining to what we think about the most, (ourselves), are held longer and recalled easier. Studies have shown that, when asked to compare ourselves to a short-story character, we remember that character better than if we compared them to someone else.
How You Can Use It: When planning a new marketing campaign or presentation to the board, it is important to keep this principle in mind, as it can greatly influence what your audience walks away remembering. Try focusing on the basic lifestyle and personality traits of your audience. Once you have these squared away, design your new message to match these traits. This makes your message personally meaningful to them and boosts their chance of remembering what you said.
Priming
The Concept: Priming is when various stimuli (sights, tastes, smells) automatically trigger thoughts of similar stimuli. The smell of crisp fall air, for example, might trigger thoughts about the holiday. As a result, simply smelling the fall air might make you crave pumpkin pie or apple cider, even though no food is in front of you.
How You Can Use It: Priming is a classic sales tactic that has been used for decades, and you can put it to use for your business immediately. The key is to find some kind of neutral stimulus that is clearly related to your product. A perfect example of this can be found at any movie theater. As soon as you walk through the door your nostrils are overcome with the smell of buttery popcorn. Without even seeing the popcorn or being asked to buy it, you find yourself making your way to the concession stand because you suddenly feel like the movie wouldn’t be the same without the snacks. This is classic priming, and all five senses are susceptible to priming by intelligent marketers and businesspeople.
Prevent Employee Social Loafing
The Concept: Have you ever noticed, perhaps in college or around the office, that when groups are assembled to complete a task, it always ends up that a couple of members do most of the work while the majority of members do almost none of the work? This is a social psychological phenomenon known as “Social Loafing,” and it happens everywhere and in absolutely every profession. Social loafing is defined as the tendency for people to put less effort into a task when they are in a group than when they are alone.
How You Can Use It: Social loafing can seriously drain a team’s performance. The good news is that the causes of social loafing are known and consistent. Social loafing happens when no one is personally accountable. When the group is judged as a whole no matter what its individual members do, loafing is almost sure to occur. The sure-fire way to make sure that all of your employees are contributing equally to the task at hand is to assign them to groups, but assure them that they will be personally monitored and evaluated on their contributions to the group. The more someone thinks they will be judged personally, the less social loafing you have. This allows you to make the most of the talent you have on staff and almost always produces stronger results than the vague “group evaluation” does.
-www.businesspundit.com
The Foot in the Door Phenomenon
The Concept: If you’re wondering how to convince superiors, employees or customers to do what you ask, try using the foot in the door phenomenon. This refers to the tendency of people to do something huge if they have already agreed to something much smaller. Your friend should be much more open to helping you decorate your entire house for a dinner party if, for example, he already helped you pick out decorations.
How You Can Use It: This handy principle has countless applications in the business world. Hand lotion and beauty supply kiosks at the mall use it all the time. If you can get a person to talk to you for a couple of minutes and rub some lotion on their hands, you’ve got your foot in the door, and they are much more likely to buy from you than if you had just screamed a sales pitch at them.
The Door in the Face Phenomenon
The Concept: Another classic persuasion tactic is known as the “Door in the Face Phenomenon.” Using this approach, you make your actual request look reasonable by first making an outrageous request that the person will unquestionably turn down. When they turn you down, you then ask for what you really want, which now looks trivial in light of what you asked for a moment earlier.
How You Can Use It: Let’s say you want your company to approve funding for a team of five marketers to research a new advertising campaign. Rather than simply asking for this funding and risking being shot down, use the door in the face principle. Ask your company for twice the amount of funding for a team twice as big as what you need. This will almost certainly be disapproved, but don’t fret; you didn’t need that amount in the first place. Act like you’re really going to work hard on cutting the funding down to the bone and reworking your proposal. In a few days, come back and propose the funding request you wanted all along. It will look as though you found a way to accomplish the same tasks for half the price with half the personnel. Social psychology research states that you are much more likely to get what you want by doing this.
The Serial Position Effect
The Concept: A truly sharp marketer should understand how our brains process information. The “Serial Position Effect” (developed by Hermann Ebbinghaus) assists by explaining how we remember items we see or hear in lists. Ebbunghaus discovered that things shown at the beginning of a list and at the end of a list are remembered best. This was later titled the “Primacy Effect,” and the “Recency Effect.”
How You Can Use It: This powerful concept can affect what the millions of people seeing your advertisements, listening to your radio promotion, or reading your sales letter, remember about your product. If you have five benefits that your product provides over the competition, think long and hard about which ones you want to stick deep into your audience’s memory. Place those items at the beginning and end of your pitch. This way, prospects will remember these benefits when they see your product on a shelf or think about the commercial they just saw.
Attitudes Follow Behavior: Resolving Cognitive Dissonance
The Concept: Cognitive dissonance is a fancy term for when people have opinions, behave contrary to them, and change their opinion to fit how they acted. For example, if you normally despise handguns, but join your buddy at the shooting range one day, you might leave thinking about how “guns aren’t really that bad if you use them safely.” Simply by holding and shooting one yourself, your brain begins thinking positive thoughts about it. Similarly, a “boring” task might later be remembered as “not being all that bad” or even being “fun” because, after all, you did it.
How You Can Use It: What this means to you is that if you can get your customer to perform a small task, such as a little game or survey online, the customer may begin making some positive assumptions about what you sell. This especially works for businesses operating in controversial markets, such as gambling, tobacco or other vice-related products. If you can find a harmless and fun way for potential customers to get involved with your products and services they will be more likely to become loyal buyers down the line.
Two Routes to Persuasion
The Concept: Not everyone processes information (including product demos and advertisements) the same way. Generally speaking, there are two types of audiences, depending on your product/service. Your audience is either attentively thinking about your message, or they are distracted. These two audiences take two different routes to understanding your message. The involved group takes what is known as the “Central Route,” meaning that they focus on what you are saying closely, develop counterarguments and respond based on what they eventually decide your product is all about. If your ad or pitch was strong and convincing, these people will probably buy. If it was weak or not convincing enough, there’s little hope of them buying.
How You Can Use It: The distracted audience takes a very different route to understanding your pitch known as the “Peripheral Route.” These people focus on irrelevant parts of the pitch that randomly interest them. The speaker’s good looks, for example might interest them more than the information in the pitch. Simple language is also important for this kind of audience. For example, if you’re selling a market research service, classic adages such as “look before you leap” will probably work better than “perform proper market research before investing.”
Perceived Expertise
The Concept: Let’s face it – most of us give more weight to what “experts” say than average Joes off the street. Most people would sooner listen to a warning about the health hazards of eating fast food, for instance, if it came from a renowned nutritionist than from a self-righteous teenager.
How You Can Use It: What makes someone appear to be an expert? One tactic that has been used by marketers (and politicians) is to begin your pitch with something the audience already agrees with. This makes the speaker seem intelligent and makes the audience eager to believe more of what he or she has to say.
Of course, being introduced as an expert never hurt either. A comment about an approaching asteroid from “Dr. Robert Kimmel, Chair of Astrophysics at Harvard University” will surely be taken more seriously than, “Robbie Kimmel, local guitarist and college student.”
Finally, social scientists find that speaking confidently greatly improves believability. A study performed by Bonnie Erikson in 1978 proved this by having college students rate the credibility of two supposed “witnesses” to an accident. One spoke very clearly and confidently and the other one hesitated and stumbled over his words a bit. One by one, each student said the confident speaker was much more credible. Perhaps it’s time to buy your TV or radio guy a course in effective speaking!
Perceived Trustworthiness
The Concept: Trustworthiness of the speaker is another factor critical to any kind of visual marketing. No trust, no sale. Fortunately, how trustworthy you look can be controlled almost entirely by you.
How You Can Use It: Our outward behaviors have a lot to do with whether trust us or not. One behavior that seems to carry a lot of weight is eye contact. Researchers have found that if video-taped witnesses in court looked their questioner straight in the eye rather than down or around, they were seen as more trustworthy.
You can also appear more trustworthy by seeming like you’re not trying to influence an audience. “Hidden camera” TV commercials utilize this tactic all the time. Social psychology experiments have found that people who don’t think they’re being watched are comfortable being completely honest.
People also find others trustworthy when they argue against their own interest. Thus, a message about risks of cigarette smoking seems much more sincere coming from the tobacco companies than it would if were given by an anti-smoking politician up for re-election. People might link the politician’s anti-smoking speeches to his political agenda, whereas they cannot do this with the tobacco companies and are much more likely to absorb the message as true.
The Mere-Exposure Effect
The Concept: Sometimes repetition alone can make a message more believable. Social research has found that people tend to eventually believe things they’ve been told many times, simply because they’ve repeatedly heard it. Studies show that people rate false statements such as “Mercury has a higher boiling point than copper” as true if they were made to read them a week before.
How You Can Use It: This concept is why companies run the same advertisement three times during a one-hour television show. The first time the audience sees the ad they might just ignore it. However, a week later they may have seen the ad 20 times, and by that point they have begun to accept its message and view favorably the product it advertises.
Distraction Disarms Counter-arguing
The Concept: Audio and visual messages are much more effective when the audience can be somewhat distracted by background clutter just long enough to inhibit counter-arguing. Mild distraction often preoccupies the brain just long enough to stop it from inventing a reason to say “no.”
How You Can Use It: Many radio commercials utilize this tactic. The words promote the product being sold while background music or intermittent comedy distracts us from thinking too deeply about the words. Be careful not to distract so much that ad is not processed, however. Extremely violent or incredibly sexual advertisements are often ineffective because the audience is simply too distracted by what they’re viewing to pay attention to the message. They key is to strike a balance such that your message is understood, but not deeply analyzed or argued by the audience.
The Self- Reference Effect
The Concept: Remember – a marketer’s job making sure the audience understands and remembers the sales pitch. One handy way to achieve this is known as the “Self-Reference Effect.” The Self Reference Effect refers to the tendency of people to effectively recall information about themselves. Most people are primary concerned with themselves. Thus, memories pertaining to what we think about the most, (ourselves), are held longer and recalled easier. Studies have shown that, when asked to compare ourselves to a short-story character, we remember that character better than if we compared them to someone else.
How You Can Use It: When planning a new marketing campaign or presentation to the board, it is important to keep this principle in mind, as it can greatly influence what your audience walks away remembering. Try focusing on the basic lifestyle and personality traits of your audience. Once you have these squared away, design your new message to match these traits. This makes your message personally meaningful to them and boosts their chance of remembering what you said.
Priming
The Concept: Priming is when various stimuli (sights, tastes, smells) automatically trigger thoughts of similar stimuli. The smell of crisp fall air, for example, might trigger thoughts about the holiday. As a result, simply smelling the fall air might make you crave pumpkin pie or apple cider, even though no food is in front of you.
How You Can Use It: Priming is a classic sales tactic that has been used for decades, and you can put it to use for your business immediately. The key is to find some kind of neutral stimulus that is clearly related to your product. A perfect example of this can be found at any movie theater. As soon as you walk through the door your nostrils are overcome with the smell of buttery popcorn. Without even seeing the popcorn or being asked to buy it, you find yourself making your way to the concession stand because you suddenly feel like the movie wouldn’t be the same without the snacks. This is classic priming, and all five senses are susceptible to priming by intelligent marketers and businesspeople.
Prevent Employee Social Loafing
The Concept: Have you ever noticed, perhaps in college or around the office, that when groups are assembled to complete a task, it always ends up that a couple of members do most of the work while the majority of members do almost none of the work? This is a social psychological phenomenon known as “Social Loafing,” and it happens everywhere and in absolutely every profession. Social loafing is defined as the tendency for people to put less effort into a task when they are in a group than when they are alone.
How You Can Use It: Social loafing can seriously drain a team’s performance. The good news is that the causes of social loafing are known and consistent. Social loafing happens when no one is personally accountable. When the group is judged as a whole no matter what its individual members do, loafing is almost sure to occur. The sure-fire way to make sure that all of your employees are contributing equally to the task at hand is to assign them to groups, but assure them that they will be personally monitored and evaluated on their contributions to the group. The more someone thinks they will be judged personally, the less social loafing you have. This allows you to make the most of the talent you have on staff and almost always produces stronger results than the vague “group evaluation” does.
-www.businesspundit.com
craigslist post
here is the actual post
===============
craigslist > for sale / wanted > cars & trucks - by owner
please flag with care:
miscategorized
prohibited
spam/overpost
best of craigslist
Avoid scams and fraud by dealing locally! Beware any deal involving Western Union, Moneygram, wire transfer, cashier check, money order, shipping, escrow, or any promise of transaction protection/certification/guarantee. More info
To the person who stole my Trailer Today!! - $800
Date: 2010-01-16, 6:41PM CST
Reply to: sale-wpmud-1556209631@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]
If you are the person who stole my trailer saturday near mingo and admiral. You better be sleeping with 1 eye open. I have your truck description. I have your description. And I am out looking hard for my trailer!!! I currently have a baseball bat in my truck waiting to meet your skull.
I use that trailer to help a non-profit youth football club move football equipment and helmets back and forth everyseason. That trailer positively affects the lives of over 200 inner city youth kids every year. I have no idea what we will do now. I also use it to make money with on the side due to my current paycheck being cut in half due to the ecomomy.
You are scum and I WILL FIND YOU!!!! If i was you Dad I would be ashamed to call you my son. You will rot in hell!!! WATCH YOUR BACK!!!!!!!!!!!
* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
PostingID: 1556209631
==========================================
===============
craigslist > for sale / wanted > cars & trucks - by owner
please flag with care:
miscategorized
prohibited
spam/overpost
best of craigslist
Avoid scams and fraud by dealing locally! Beware any deal involving Western Union, Moneygram, wire transfer, cashier check, money order, shipping, escrow, or any promise of transaction protection/certification/guarantee. More info
To the person who stole my Trailer Today!! - $800
Date: 2010-01-16, 6:41PM CST
Reply to: sale-wpmud-1556209631@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]
If you are the person who stole my trailer saturday near mingo and admiral. You better be sleeping with 1 eye open. I have your truck description. I have your description. And I am out looking hard for my trailer!!! I currently have a baseball bat in my truck waiting to meet your skull.
I use that trailer to help a non-profit youth football club move football equipment and helmets back and forth everyseason. That trailer positively affects the lives of over 200 inner city youth kids every year. I have no idea what we will do now. I also use it to make money with on the side due to my current paycheck being cut in half due to the ecomomy.
You are scum and I WILL FIND YOU!!!! If i was you Dad I would be ashamed to call you my son. You will rot in hell!!! WATCH YOUR BACK!!!!!!!!!!!
* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
PostingID: 1556209631
==========================================
RCA Airnergy Pulls Power From Thin Air, Charging Your Phone With Ambient Wi-Fi Signals
By Clay Dillow
RCA's Airnergy Wi-Fi Powered Charger RCA
CES may be over, but in our post-technalia hangover we’re still discovering a few small wonders that flew under the radar last week, not least of which is this RCA Airnergy, a small USB device that harvests electrical power from Wi-Fi signals. Anytime the device is in the vicinity of one or more Wi-Fi sources, the Airnergy is charging, converting the wireless antenna signal into DC current that can power myriad small electronics. The idea isn’t novel, but this is the first time anyone has created a commercial product efficient enough to be useful.
The Airnergy unit stores the charge in an internal lithium battery, so you don’t necessarily have to be in a hotspot to recharge, say, your phone. If you have Wi-Fi at home, the Airnergy will automatically charge itself anytime it comes in range of your wireless hub (a good overnight charge should top off the battery; recharge time correlates to its proximity to the Wi-Fi source). You can then tap into that stored charge later when your iPod dies on the subway or your phone starts flagging during an important call.
Now, the limitations: the Airnergy unit that should hit store shelves this year (for about $40) is expected to have a USB connection, meaning it won’t sync with a lot of devices (like the iPod or iPhone) without some kind of connection converter. It’s also an extra device that you have to carry around with you, making it a cumbersome addition your daily tech routine.
But we’re big-picture thinkers here at PopSci, and here’s what you need to know: RCA is also developing Wi-Fi harvesting batteries that should cost roughly the same as the OEM batteries in most devices; that means your phone/iPod/Blackberry/etc. will be able to recharge itself wirelessly anytime you’re near a hotspot without any extra peripheral devices. As cities and networks experiment more and more with Wi-Fi clouds that blanket entire cities, the day may not be too far away when our smartphones download our email, update our Twitter pages and recharge our batteries all from the same signal, all the time, no matter where we go. That’s a brave new world that can’t get here soon enough.
RCA's Airnergy Wi-Fi Powered Charger RCA
CES may be over, but in our post-technalia hangover we’re still discovering a few small wonders that flew under the radar last week, not least of which is this RCA Airnergy, a small USB device that harvests electrical power from Wi-Fi signals. Anytime the device is in the vicinity of one or more Wi-Fi sources, the Airnergy is charging, converting the wireless antenna signal into DC current that can power myriad small electronics. The idea isn’t novel, but this is the first time anyone has created a commercial product efficient enough to be useful.
The Airnergy unit stores the charge in an internal lithium battery, so you don’t necessarily have to be in a hotspot to recharge, say, your phone. If you have Wi-Fi at home, the Airnergy will automatically charge itself anytime it comes in range of your wireless hub (a good overnight charge should top off the battery; recharge time correlates to its proximity to the Wi-Fi source). You can then tap into that stored charge later when your iPod dies on the subway or your phone starts flagging during an important call.
Now, the limitations: the Airnergy unit that should hit store shelves this year (for about $40) is expected to have a USB connection, meaning it won’t sync with a lot of devices (like the iPod or iPhone) without some kind of connection converter. It’s also an extra device that you have to carry around with you, making it a cumbersome addition your daily tech routine.
But we’re big-picture thinkers here at PopSci, and here’s what you need to know: RCA is also developing Wi-Fi harvesting batteries that should cost roughly the same as the OEM batteries in most devices; that means your phone/iPod/Blackberry/etc. will be able to recharge itself wirelessly anytime you’re near a hotspot without any extra peripheral devices. As cities and networks experiment more and more with Wi-Fi clouds that blanket entire cities, the day may not be too far away when our smartphones download our email, update our Twitter pages and recharge our batteries all from the same signal, all the time, no matter where we go. That’s a brave new world that can’t get here soon enough.
Finding The Surprising Gaps in Your Self-Knowledge
Are you an independent person? Classic social psychology research suggests some people can't tell.
Why are people so blissfully ignorant of certain aspects of their personalities?
Take an everyday example: there are some infuriating people who are always late for appointments. A few of these people explain it by saying they are 'laid-back', while others seem unaware that they're always late.
For laid-back people, their lateness is a part of their personality, they are aware of it and presumably not worried about appearing unconscientious. For the unaware it's almost as if they don't realise they're always late. How is that possible?
It's probably because they've never noticed or paid attention to the fact that they are always late so they never learn to think of themselves as lacking conscientiousness. Or so suggests a psychological theory describing how we think about ourselves called self-schema theory.
This theory says that we have developed 'schemas', like internal maps of our personalities, which we use to understand and explain our current and future behaviour to ourselves, e.g. I'm always on time for meetings so I'm a conscientious person.
Are you an independent person?
However schema theory also suggests that these maps have uncharted areas, leaving people with certain blind spots in their self-knowledge. This aspect of self-schemas was investigated in a classic social psychology study by Professor Hazel Markus (Markus, 1977) who examined not conscientiousness but whether people thought they had independent or dependent personalities.
To do this she gave 48 female participants questionnaires which assessed their self-perceived independence. It asked whether they were individualists or conformists and whether they were leaders or followers. From their answers the women were sorted into three groups: independents, dependents and a third group that showed no clear pattern.
This third group that showed no clear pattern was labelled 'aschematic', i.e. having no schema about independence or otherwise — for one reason or another it was a hole in their self-knowledge. Crucially, though, this group was only arrived at after discarding the people who thought the dependence/independence dimension was important but happened to think they were independent in some situations but not in others. Only those who truly didn't care either way were labelled aschematic.
So there were some people who appeared not to notice or even care about their independence (or otherwise) while others did notice it. But Markus wanted to see if people were just saying these things, or whether they actually behaved as though they were true. To find out she invited the same participants back to the lab a few weeks later to give them a few more tests.
This time she flashed up words on a screen, some of which were related to being independent, some dependent and some neither. It emerged that participants who had said they were independent endorsed more words associated with being independent and did so quicker. Dependents did the same with words related to being dependent but those who were aschematic showed no preference either way.
In further tests those who had identified themselves as independent remembered more examples of independent behaviour as well as resisting an experimental suggestion that they weren't independent. The same pattern was seen with the dependents. The aschematics, however, could remember few examples demonstrating either dependence or independence and could easily be swayed by experimental suggestion towards believing they were dependent or independent. It seemed they simply hadn't been paying any attention to situations which marked them out as either dependent or independent people.
Building self-awareness
What these results confirm is that the three groups of participants did actually think in different ways about the idea of independence. Some believed they were independent, some not and the others didn't know or, apparently, care. In some ways the aschematics are the most fascinating category because they are the people that seemed not to realise whether or not they were independent.
And we all have these aschematic areas in our self-knowledge, traits which are blind spots to us but are perfectly obvious to others. Unfortunately the only way for us to find out is to ask other people, but this may prove difficult or embarrassing. Still, while our hidden traits might be negative, they might also be positive: people are sometimes surprisingly unaware of their charm, warmth or conscientiousness.
Whether or not we pluck up the courage, this research reveals the fascinating and unnerving idea that some aspects of our own personalities may be completely mysterious to us only because we never bothered to take any notice of them.
spring.org.uk
Why are people so blissfully ignorant of certain aspects of their personalities?
Take an everyday example: there are some infuriating people who are always late for appointments. A few of these people explain it by saying they are 'laid-back', while others seem unaware that they're always late.
For laid-back people, their lateness is a part of their personality, they are aware of it and presumably not worried about appearing unconscientious. For the unaware it's almost as if they don't realise they're always late. How is that possible?
It's probably because they've never noticed or paid attention to the fact that they are always late so they never learn to think of themselves as lacking conscientiousness. Or so suggests a psychological theory describing how we think about ourselves called self-schema theory.
This theory says that we have developed 'schemas', like internal maps of our personalities, which we use to understand and explain our current and future behaviour to ourselves, e.g. I'm always on time for meetings so I'm a conscientious person.
Are you an independent person?
However schema theory also suggests that these maps have uncharted areas, leaving people with certain blind spots in their self-knowledge. This aspect of self-schemas was investigated in a classic social psychology study by Professor Hazel Markus (Markus, 1977) who examined not conscientiousness but whether people thought they had independent or dependent personalities.
To do this she gave 48 female participants questionnaires which assessed their self-perceived independence. It asked whether they were individualists or conformists and whether they were leaders or followers. From their answers the women were sorted into three groups: independents, dependents and a third group that showed no clear pattern.
This third group that showed no clear pattern was labelled 'aschematic', i.e. having no schema about independence or otherwise — for one reason or another it was a hole in their self-knowledge. Crucially, though, this group was only arrived at after discarding the people who thought the dependence/independence dimension was important but happened to think they were independent in some situations but not in others. Only those who truly didn't care either way were labelled aschematic.
So there were some people who appeared not to notice or even care about their independence (or otherwise) while others did notice it. But Markus wanted to see if people were just saying these things, or whether they actually behaved as though they were true. To find out she invited the same participants back to the lab a few weeks later to give them a few more tests.
This time she flashed up words on a screen, some of which were related to being independent, some dependent and some neither. It emerged that participants who had said they were independent endorsed more words associated with being independent and did so quicker. Dependents did the same with words related to being dependent but those who were aschematic showed no preference either way.
In further tests those who had identified themselves as independent remembered more examples of independent behaviour as well as resisting an experimental suggestion that they weren't independent. The same pattern was seen with the dependents. The aschematics, however, could remember few examples demonstrating either dependence or independence and could easily be swayed by experimental suggestion towards believing they were dependent or independent. It seemed they simply hadn't been paying any attention to situations which marked them out as either dependent or independent people.
Building self-awareness
What these results confirm is that the three groups of participants did actually think in different ways about the idea of independence. Some believed they were independent, some not and the others didn't know or, apparently, care. In some ways the aschematics are the most fascinating category because they are the people that seemed not to realise whether or not they were independent.
And we all have these aschematic areas in our self-knowledge, traits which are blind spots to us but are perfectly obvious to others. Unfortunately the only way for us to find out is to ask other people, but this may prove difficult or embarrassing. Still, while our hidden traits might be negative, they might also be positive: people are sometimes surprisingly unaware of their charm, warmth or conscientiousness.
Whether or not we pluck up the courage, this research reveals the fascinating and unnerving idea that some aspects of our own personalities may be completely mysterious to us only because we never bothered to take any notice of them.
spring.org.uk
When Situations Not Personality Dictate Our Behaviour
A modern test of an ancient bible story demonstrates the power of situations to trump personality in determining behaviour.
A fundamental mistake we often make when judging other people is assuming that their behaviour mainly reflects their personality. Unfortunately this ignores another major influence on how people behave staring us right in the face: the situation.
Our personalities certainly have an influence on what situations we get into and how we deal with them, but situational factors — even relatively subtle ones — can completely obliterate the effects of personality.
Don't take my word for it, though, consider a modern take on an ancient bible story. Prominent social psychologists Darley & Batson (1973) were interested in what influences people's helping behaviours and decided to test the parable of the Good Samaritan. The parable is about a Jewish man travelling to Jericho who has been attacked by bandits and lies half dead at the side of the road. A priest and temple assistant pass him by before finally a Samaritan (who stereotypically hated Jews) stops to offer his assistance.
The moral of the story is clear enough but, wondered Darley and Batson, have we judged the priest and the temple assistant too quickly, perhaps they were just in a hurry?
A good Samaritan
In their classic social psychology study the experimenters recruited 67 students from the Princeton Theological Seminary and told them it was a study about religious education and vocations. They were asked to fill in some personality questionnaires and told they were going to give a brief talk in a nearby room. Some were asked to give a short talk about the types of jobs that seminary graduates would be suited for, while the others were asked to talk about the parable of the 'Good Samaritan'.
Unknown to the study's participants, they were to experience their very own 'Good Samaritan' test. For after filling out their questionnaires and while making their way to the other office to give their talk, they would encounter an experimental confederate lying in a doorway, doubled over, eyes closed and coughing. Participants would have to pass the apparently highly distressed man, but would they stop to help?
The experimenters thought it would depend on how much participants were hurried, so they manipulated this by giving them a map and one of the following three instructions:
1. "Oh, you're late. They were expecting you a few minutes ago. We'd better get moving..."
2. "The assistant is ready for you, so please go right over."
3. "...It'll be a few minutes before they're ready for you, but you might as well head on over..."
This created three conditions: high, medium and low hurry. So some students left the office thinking they needed to go quickly, others less so, while some were relaxed. Each of these conditions was also split into two: half about to deliver a talk on the Good Samaritan, the other half on job prospects for seminary graduates. This meant that the experimenters could assess both the effect of hurry as well as the talk they were giving on the students' helping behaviours. Would having a relevant parable uppermost in their minds nudge participants into helping?
Before I give you the results try to predict them for yourself. How many future priests do you think would stop to see if the man was OK? Would you stop? What will be the effects of the situation compared with the individual personalities of the seminarians?
In a hurry, can't stop
Here's what happened. On average just 40% of the seminary students offered help (with a few stepping over the apparently injured man) but crucially the amount of hurry they were in had a large influence on behaviour. Here is the percentage of participants who offered help by condition:
* Low hurry: 63%
* Medium hurry: 45%
* High hurry: 10%
The type of talk they were giving also had an effect on whether they offered help. Of those asked to talk about careers for seminarians, just 29% offered help, while of those asked to talk about the parable of the Good Samaritan, fully 53% gave assistance.
What these figures show is the large effect that subtle aspects of the situation have on the way people behave. Recall that the experimenters also measured personality variables, specifically the 'religiosity' of the seminarians. When the effect of personality was compared with situation, i.e. how much of a hurry they happened to be in or whether they were thinking about a relevant parable, the effect of religiosity was almost insignificant. In this context, then, situation is easily trumping personality.
Judge on context
Before I asked you to imagine what the results might be, were you close? Perhaps you were surprised by how little effect personality had on whether the seminarians stopped? That is what catches most people out because of what psychologists call the 'fundamental attribution error'. This is the aforementioned tendency to assume that other people's behaviour reflects on their personality rather than on the situation they are in. Contrary to our instincts, however, studies such as this one demonstrate that it is frequently the situation that controls our actions more strongly than personality.
If you saw the trainee priest stepping over the moaning man, what would you think? Perhaps time for them to switch to a career in investment banking? Maybe, but in the light of this experiment that's probably unfair on the priest (and the investment bankers) because we all of us have situational pressures on us that can easily drown out the influence of our personalities (see also the bystander effect). 'Bad' actions don't necessarily mean 'bad' people just as 'good' actions don't issue forth solely from 'good' people.
The old adage that a person can be judged on their actions isn't the whole truth. Often people's behaviour, and our own, may say very little about our personalities and much more about the complexities of the situation in which we find ourselves.
spring.org.uk
A fundamental mistake we often make when judging other people is assuming that their behaviour mainly reflects their personality. Unfortunately this ignores another major influence on how people behave staring us right in the face: the situation.
Our personalities certainly have an influence on what situations we get into and how we deal with them, but situational factors — even relatively subtle ones — can completely obliterate the effects of personality.
Don't take my word for it, though, consider a modern take on an ancient bible story. Prominent social psychologists Darley & Batson (1973) were interested in what influences people's helping behaviours and decided to test the parable of the Good Samaritan. The parable is about a Jewish man travelling to Jericho who has been attacked by bandits and lies half dead at the side of the road. A priest and temple assistant pass him by before finally a Samaritan (who stereotypically hated Jews) stops to offer his assistance.
The moral of the story is clear enough but, wondered Darley and Batson, have we judged the priest and the temple assistant too quickly, perhaps they were just in a hurry?
A good Samaritan
In their classic social psychology study the experimenters recruited 67 students from the Princeton Theological Seminary and told them it was a study about religious education and vocations. They were asked to fill in some personality questionnaires and told they were going to give a brief talk in a nearby room. Some were asked to give a short talk about the types of jobs that seminary graduates would be suited for, while the others were asked to talk about the parable of the 'Good Samaritan'.
Unknown to the study's participants, they were to experience their very own 'Good Samaritan' test. For after filling out their questionnaires and while making their way to the other office to give their talk, they would encounter an experimental confederate lying in a doorway, doubled over, eyes closed and coughing. Participants would have to pass the apparently highly distressed man, but would they stop to help?
The experimenters thought it would depend on how much participants were hurried, so they manipulated this by giving them a map and one of the following three instructions:
1. "Oh, you're late. They were expecting you a few minutes ago. We'd better get moving..."
2. "The assistant is ready for you, so please go right over."
3. "...It'll be a few minutes before they're ready for you, but you might as well head on over..."
This created three conditions: high, medium and low hurry. So some students left the office thinking they needed to go quickly, others less so, while some were relaxed. Each of these conditions was also split into two: half about to deliver a talk on the Good Samaritan, the other half on job prospects for seminary graduates. This meant that the experimenters could assess both the effect of hurry as well as the talk they were giving on the students' helping behaviours. Would having a relevant parable uppermost in their minds nudge participants into helping?
Before I give you the results try to predict them for yourself. How many future priests do you think would stop to see if the man was OK? Would you stop? What will be the effects of the situation compared with the individual personalities of the seminarians?
In a hurry, can't stop
Here's what happened. On average just 40% of the seminary students offered help (with a few stepping over the apparently injured man) but crucially the amount of hurry they were in had a large influence on behaviour. Here is the percentage of participants who offered help by condition:
* Low hurry: 63%
* Medium hurry: 45%
* High hurry: 10%
The type of talk they were giving also had an effect on whether they offered help. Of those asked to talk about careers for seminarians, just 29% offered help, while of those asked to talk about the parable of the Good Samaritan, fully 53% gave assistance.
What these figures show is the large effect that subtle aspects of the situation have on the way people behave. Recall that the experimenters also measured personality variables, specifically the 'religiosity' of the seminarians. When the effect of personality was compared with situation, i.e. how much of a hurry they happened to be in or whether they were thinking about a relevant parable, the effect of religiosity was almost insignificant. In this context, then, situation is easily trumping personality.
Judge on context
Before I asked you to imagine what the results might be, were you close? Perhaps you were surprised by how little effect personality had on whether the seminarians stopped? That is what catches most people out because of what psychologists call the 'fundamental attribution error'. This is the aforementioned tendency to assume that other people's behaviour reflects on their personality rather than on the situation they are in. Contrary to our instincts, however, studies such as this one demonstrate that it is frequently the situation that controls our actions more strongly than personality.
If you saw the trainee priest stepping over the moaning man, what would you think? Perhaps time for them to switch to a career in investment banking? Maybe, but in the light of this experiment that's probably unfair on the priest (and the investment bankers) because we all of us have situational pressures on us that can easily drown out the influence of our personalities (see also the bystander effect). 'Bad' actions don't necessarily mean 'bad' people just as 'good' actions don't issue forth solely from 'good' people.
The old adage that a person can be judged on their actions isn't the whole truth. Often people's behaviour, and our own, may say very little about our personalities and much more about the complexities of the situation in which we find ourselves.
spring.org.uk
Stereotypes: Why We Act Without Thinking
Three classic experiments show how stereotypes can influence our behaviour without our knowledge.
Despite their bad name, stereotypes can be handy short cuts that give us useful information about the world and other people. For example the stereotype of psychologists is that they are going to analyse you, then start meddling. There's certainly some truth to that, after all that is their job.
When stereotypes are dangerous is when we automatically draw conclusions about individuals that aren't accurate and may even be insulting to them. So the question is: when a particular stereotype is activated — say we see an old person, a French person or a psychologist — can we avoid thinking, respectively, 'slow', 'rude' and 'nosy'?
Until the classic social psychology study I'm about to tell you about, it was thought that we didn't automatically act on stereotypes, that we were able to consciously discard them. But, asked Yale Professor John Bargh and colleagues, how can we consciously discard a stereotype if we're not even conscious that it has been activated? And will this unconscious stereotype have any effect on our behaviour?
To find out Bargh et al. (1996) conducted three experiments, starting with an attempt to make some people ruder and others more polite, using a very simple cue.
Polite or rude?
In the first experiment 34 participants were divided into 3 groups with each group unconsciously cued into a different state: one 'rude', one 'polite' and one neither. This had to be done in a roundabout way so that the participants didn't suspect they were being manipulated. What the experimenters did was give them a word puzzle to unscramble. To activate the idea of rudeness in one group it contained words like 'bother', 'disturb' and 'bold'. To activate the idea of politeness the next group unscrambled words like 'courteous', 'patiently' and 'behaved'. The third group unscrambled neutral words.
After finishing the unscrambling participants left the room to track down the experimenter but found them deep in conversation with someone, forcing them to wait. The question the researchers wanted to answer was what percentage of people would interrupt if the experimenter kept ignoring them by talking to the other person for 10 minutes.
In the group cued with polite words, just 18% of participants interrupted with the rest waiting for the full 10 minutes while the experimenter continued their conversation. On the other hand, in the group cued with impolite words, fully 64% interrupted the experimenter. The neutral condition fell between the two with 36% interrupting.
This is quite a dramatic effect because participants were unaware of the manipulation yet they faithfully followed the unconscious cues given to them by the experimenters. One group became bold and forthright simply be reading 15 words that activated the concept of impoliteness in their minds, while the other group became meek and patient by reading words about restraint and conformity.
Old and slow?
In the second experiment the researchers turned their attention to the stereotype of age. They used the same trick as before of splitting 30 participants into two groups and cueing stereotypes in their minds by getting them to unscramble words. One group unscrambled words associated with being old like 'Florida', 'helpless' and 'wrinkled' while another group unscrambled words unrelated to age.
This time the experimenters wanted to see how fast participants would walk down a 9.75m corridor after they had completed the task. Would cueing people with words about age actually make them walk slower? Yes, indeed it would; participants primed with old age took, on average, a full extra second to cover the short distance to the elevator. That was some pretty slow walking!
African American and aggressive?
In both the previous experiment the researchers checked with participants whether they had noticed any connection between the words they were unscrambling and what was going on. Although only one did, the experimenters then changed their method in a third experiment to make the cueing of participants completely subliminal (below the level of conscious awareness). In the previous experiments participants had been mostly unaware of the connection between cueing and what was being measured but in this experiment they wouldn't even be aware of the cue.
This time 41 participants were given a very boring computer-based task to do. While doing it a picture of either a young Caucasian male or a young African American male was periodically flashed up on the screen so quickly that it was impossible to consciously apprehend (for about one-fiftieth of a second). They did this because previous research had shown that people generally stereotype African Americans as being more aggressive than Caucasians. After they had finished, the experimenter told the participants (none of whom were African American) that the computer had failed to save their data and they'd have to do the task again.
What the experimenters were interested in was the participant's reaction (which they recorded) to the possibility of doing the whole boring study over again. Directly after their facial reaction, the experimenters told participants it was OK, the computer had saved their data and they didn't actually need to do the study again; they had what they needed: that crucial first flicker of emotion to a frustrating event.
So, did the subliminal primes of either Caucasian or African American faces have the expected effect? Participants primed with the Caucasian face were rated by independent observers as showing hostility of just over 2 on a scale of 1 to 10. Participants shown the African American faces were rated as showing hostility of almost 3 out of 10. This suggested the African American faces had activated the stereotype and made people react more aggressively to the frustrating situation. As a side-note, the experimenters also measured the racist attitudes of the participants and found that even participants who were low in racism were still likely to behave in a more hostile manner if cued with the African American face.
Buy Pepsi Cola!
The authors of the paper draw the parallels between their own work and the supposed power of subliminal advertising. As you may know subliminal advertising generally doesn't work in the way advertisers would hope by causing a stampede for their products. But in these experiments the researchers do seem to be subliminally influencing people to act in pre-defined ways, so how can these opposing findings be resolved?
In fact there's a subtle difference because in each of the situations in these experiments the response that was primed was absolutely appropriate in each of the situations. Getting angry when your time has been wasted is perfectly normal. It was just the scale of the reaction that was affected by the experimental manipulation. Advertising, however, can prime certain ideas in our minds and associate them with products but the leap to parting us with our cash is much bigger than that in the current experiment, and so more difficult to achieve.
What this study demonstrates very neatly is just how sensitive we are to the minutiae of social interactions. Subtle cues from the way other people behave and more generally from the environment can cue automatic unconscious changes in our behaviour. And by the same token signals we send out to others can automatically activate stereotypes in their minds which are then acted out. As much as we might prefer otherwise, sometimes stereotypes can easily influence our behaviour and our conscious mind seems to have no say.
spring.org.uk
Despite their bad name, stereotypes can be handy short cuts that give us useful information about the world and other people. For example the stereotype of psychologists is that they are going to analyse you, then start meddling. There's certainly some truth to that, after all that is their job.
When stereotypes are dangerous is when we automatically draw conclusions about individuals that aren't accurate and may even be insulting to them. So the question is: when a particular stereotype is activated — say we see an old person, a French person or a psychologist — can we avoid thinking, respectively, 'slow', 'rude' and 'nosy'?
Until the classic social psychology study I'm about to tell you about, it was thought that we didn't automatically act on stereotypes, that we were able to consciously discard them. But, asked Yale Professor John Bargh and colleagues, how can we consciously discard a stereotype if we're not even conscious that it has been activated? And will this unconscious stereotype have any effect on our behaviour?
To find out Bargh et al. (1996) conducted three experiments, starting with an attempt to make some people ruder and others more polite, using a very simple cue.
Polite or rude?
In the first experiment 34 participants were divided into 3 groups with each group unconsciously cued into a different state: one 'rude', one 'polite' and one neither. This had to be done in a roundabout way so that the participants didn't suspect they were being manipulated. What the experimenters did was give them a word puzzle to unscramble. To activate the idea of rudeness in one group it contained words like 'bother', 'disturb' and 'bold'. To activate the idea of politeness the next group unscrambled words like 'courteous', 'patiently' and 'behaved'. The third group unscrambled neutral words.
After finishing the unscrambling participants left the room to track down the experimenter but found them deep in conversation with someone, forcing them to wait. The question the researchers wanted to answer was what percentage of people would interrupt if the experimenter kept ignoring them by talking to the other person for 10 minutes.
In the group cued with polite words, just 18% of participants interrupted with the rest waiting for the full 10 minutes while the experimenter continued their conversation. On the other hand, in the group cued with impolite words, fully 64% interrupted the experimenter. The neutral condition fell between the two with 36% interrupting.
This is quite a dramatic effect because participants were unaware of the manipulation yet they faithfully followed the unconscious cues given to them by the experimenters. One group became bold and forthright simply be reading 15 words that activated the concept of impoliteness in their minds, while the other group became meek and patient by reading words about restraint and conformity.
Old and slow?
In the second experiment the researchers turned their attention to the stereotype of age. They used the same trick as before of splitting 30 participants into two groups and cueing stereotypes in their minds by getting them to unscramble words. One group unscrambled words associated with being old like 'Florida', 'helpless' and 'wrinkled' while another group unscrambled words unrelated to age.
This time the experimenters wanted to see how fast participants would walk down a 9.75m corridor after they had completed the task. Would cueing people with words about age actually make them walk slower? Yes, indeed it would; participants primed with old age took, on average, a full extra second to cover the short distance to the elevator. That was some pretty slow walking!
African American and aggressive?
In both the previous experiment the researchers checked with participants whether they had noticed any connection between the words they were unscrambling and what was going on. Although only one did, the experimenters then changed their method in a third experiment to make the cueing of participants completely subliminal (below the level of conscious awareness). In the previous experiments participants had been mostly unaware of the connection between cueing and what was being measured but in this experiment they wouldn't even be aware of the cue.
This time 41 participants were given a very boring computer-based task to do. While doing it a picture of either a young Caucasian male or a young African American male was periodically flashed up on the screen so quickly that it was impossible to consciously apprehend (for about one-fiftieth of a second). They did this because previous research had shown that people generally stereotype African Americans as being more aggressive than Caucasians. After they had finished, the experimenter told the participants (none of whom were African American) that the computer had failed to save their data and they'd have to do the task again.
What the experimenters were interested in was the participant's reaction (which they recorded) to the possibility of doing the whole boring study over again. Directly after their facial reaction, the experimenters told participants it was OK, the computer had saved their data and they didn't actually need to do the study again; they had what they needed: that crucial first flicker of emotion to a frustrating event.
So, did the subliminal primes of either Caucasian or African American faces have the expected effect? Participants primed with the Caucasian face were rated by independent observers as showing hostility of just over 2 on a scale of 1 to 10. Participants shown the African American faces were rated as showing hostility of almost 3 out of 10. This suggested the African American faces had activated the stereotype and made people react more aggressively to the frustrating situation. As a side-note, the experimenters also measured the racist attitudes of the participants and found that even participants who were low in racism were still likely to behave in a more hostile manner if cued with the African American face.
Buy Pepsi Cola!
The authors of the paper draw the parallels between their own work and the supposed power of subliminal advertising. As you may know subliminal advertising generally doesn't work in the way advertisers would hope by causing a stampede for their products. But in these experiments the researchers do seem to be subliminally influencing people to act in pre-defined ways, so how can these opposing findings be resolved?
In fact there's a subtle difference because in each of the situations in these experiments the response that was primed was absolutely appropriate in each of the situations. Getting angry when your time has been wasted is perfectly normal. It was just the scale of the reaction that was affected by the experimental manipulation. Advertising, however, can prime certain ideas in our minds and associate them with products but the leap to parting us with our cash is much bigger than that in the current experiment, and so more difficult to achieve.
What this study demonstrates very neatly is just how sensitive we are to the minutiae of social interactions. Subtle cues from the way other people behave and more generally from the environment can cue automatic unconscious changes in our behaviour. And by the same token signals we send out to others can automatically activate stereotypes in their minds which are then acted out. As much as we might prefer otherwise, sometimes stereotypes can easily influence our behaviour and our conscious mind seems to have no say.
spring.org.uk
Theft By Deception - Deciphering The Federal Income Tax
The misrepresentation and misapplication of the United States federal
income tax constitutes the largest acquisition of wealth by way of
deception in history. A handful of government lawyers fabricated an
intricate maze of legalese which created a perfectly Constitutional
tax (a tax on income derived from certain types of international and
foreign commerce), but which at the same time could easily be misread
to give the impression that the income of all Americans is subject to
the tax. For decades, the American people have been "conditioned" to
believe that the income tax applies to all income and trained to pay
"their" taxes. All the while, however, hidden in a previously nearly
universally misunderstood (therefore misapplied) section of the law
known as Subchapter N, Section 861 was the truth that the income tax
is NOT a direct tax on incomes but is an indirect tax imposed only on
those individuals engaged in certain types of international and
possessions commerce. Most Americans are engaged in purely domestic
commerce (commerce that occurs entirely within and between the 50
states). Subchapter N proves that domestic income received by residents
of the United States (most incomes) is not taxed, due to Constitutional
restrictions on Congress' power to tax.
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