Your Social Network Has The Power To Influence What You Think, Want, Feel, Choose And Eventually Do

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“How we feel, what we know, whom we marry, whether we fall ill, how much money we make, and whether we vote all depend on the ties that bind us. Social networks spread happiness, generosity, and love. They are always there, exerting both subtle and dramatic influence over our choices, actions, thoughts, feelings, even our desires. And our connections do not end with the people we know. Beyond our own social horizons, friends of friends of friends can start chain reactions that eventually reach us, like waves from distant lands that wash up on our shores.” Nicholas A. Christakis, a social scientist at Harvard University and James H. Fowler, a political scientist at University of California present in their book Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives how people are interconnected, interdependent, and products of their societies. Watch Nicholas Christakis & James Fowler Discuss The Book Their book shows many examples of how the social networks people are in profoundly impact all areas of life: health, marriage, economy, politics and more. This post contains a few examples: Examples Of Social Networks In Health Have you ever wondered how your social environment can affect your health? Back Pain – A Culture-Bound Syndrome “The rate of lower back pain among working-age people is 10 percent in the United States, 36 percent in the United Kingdom, 62 percent in Germany, 45 percent in Denmark, and 22 percent in Hong Kong. In some ways, this varying prevalence, and the culturally specific ways in which back pain is experienced, suggest that back pain can be seen as a culture-bound syndrome –...

Study Shows Equality Benefits Everyone, Rich And Poor

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“The rich developed societies have reached a turning point in human history. Politics should now be about the quality of social relations and how we can develop harmonious and sustainable societies.”  The Equality Trust, based on the work of Professors Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, reached this summary after analyzing data showing that societies with greater inequality between rich and poor are far more unhealthy than societies with a more equal income distribution. More Unequal = More Problems The study shows that: More unequal societies have more problems with general health, mental illness, infant mortality, drug use, obesity, imprisonment rates, teenage pregnancies and homicides. More equal societies have better education and general health, more innovation, higher social mobility and more trust. The Spirit Level – slides from The Equality Trust View more presentations from The Equality Trust The slides and their titles (some listed below) show in more detail how societies with bigger gaps between rich and poor are generally more unhealthy societies than more equal societies: Health and social problems are worse in more unequal countries Health and social problems are not related to income in rich countries Health and social problems are worse in unequal US states Health and social problems are only weakly related to average income in US states Child well-being is better in more equal rich countries Child well-being is unrelated to average incomes in rich countries Levels of trust are higher in more equal rich countries Levels of trust are higher in more equal US states The prevalence of mental illness is higher in more unequal rich countries Drug use is more common in more unequal countries Life expectancy...

What Everybody Ought To Know About Narcissism

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Narcissism increased just as fast as obesity over the past 25 years, and a study today shows that it is twice that rate since 2002.” – Psychologist Dr. Jean Twenge, author of The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement What Is Narcissism? The main characteristic of narcissism is self-centeredness. Narcissism is an inflated sense of self. It is thinking that you are better than you actually are. It is a complicated trait with lots of different correlates to it, but it does include things like seeking fame, attention, vanity, and so on. However, its main characteristic is its self-centeredness. Narcissism at base is all about trying to get more: more attention, more things, to look more beautiful – it’s always ‘more’ in these rather shallow ways.” What Is The Difference Between Self Esteem And Narcissism? Narcissists do not consider caring for others and relationships as being important. One of the key differences between self esteem and narcissism is that somebody who scores high” (in this psychological examination) “for self esteem but not for narcissism, has a lot of confidence in individual areas but also cares a lot about relationships. Narcissists tend to be missing that piece about caring for others and relationships.” Signs Of Narcissism Overconfidence Being delusion about one’s own greatness Over-optimism Taking too many risks An inflated, unrealistic sense of self Alienation from other people Entitlement, the expectation of having things handed to you without much effort Not caring about others.” Dr. Jean Twenge Talks About The Narcissism Epidemic Causes Of Narcissism Narcissism As An Inborn Personality Trait Narcissism is a personality trait, so it has the same...

What Are The Consequences Of Ecological Overspending?

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Since The 1970s Human Demand On Nature Is Larger Than Nature’s Renewable Production Today, we are using 20% more than what nature can regenerate. In other words, it would take a year and more than 2 months to regenerate everything that we use within one year. This difference is called the ‘ecological deficit,’ the difference of how much more rapidly we are using resources like forests, fish stock, putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, than nature is able to accommodate.” Mathis Wackernagel, PhD, Executive Director of the Global Footprint Network exemplifies what he calls an “ecological bank statement” in a video presentation, excerpted below, showing how humanity today is using more than what nature can regenerate. Ecological Bank Statement Shows Humanity’s Using More Than It Has If we look at this bank statement and say that we’re using more than what we have, is this good news or bad news? I would say it is good news in the sense that it gives us more information. And we still have choice. We can still just not open the bank statement and recycle the envelope, or we can look at it. But if we do spend too much money, we also know what the consequences are, so there is a kind of a feedback loop. In the same way we have to think about nature from a budgeting perspective, and say, ‘what are the consequences of overspending?’” Watch The Video [if the video is not embedded below, then you can watch it here] [3 min. 30 sec.]: 06 – Overshoot (Exceeding Ecological Limits) – GLOBAL FOOTPRINT NETWORK from WERI on...

Social Scientist Philip Zimbardo: Factors Other Than Character Determine Behavior [TED Talk]

Science

As a child growing up in a tough neighborhood in the South Bronx (an inner city ghetto of New York), social psychologist Philip Zimbardo learned at an early age that the line between good and evil (which privileged people like to think is fixed and impermeable – with them on the good side and others on the bad side); I knew that line was movable and permeable.” In this TED video [23 minutes] Zimbardo presents three factors which can determine the likelihood of evil acts from healthy, normal well-intentioned people: Bad Apples, A Bad Barrel Or Bad Barrel-Makers? The 3 factors influencing the transformation of human character towards evil can be summarized as: • Dispositional: Inside the person. This is the factor most often considered by culture, religions and government as the cause of behavior. • Situational: Outside the person. This is the factor pointing to the influence of a person’s immediate surroundings, typically one in which a person’s normal, habitual behavior is not possible. • Systemic: The power structure that creates and sustains the situation. Since the inquisition we’ve been dealing with problems at the level of the individual and it doesn’t work.” He recommends a paradigm shift of focus away from the medical model which focuses only on the individual, towards a public health model that recognizes situational and systemic vectors of disease.”   Promoting Heroism As The Antidote To Evil Zimbardo suggests the following: • Promote the heroic imagination of kids in our educational system. We want kids to think, ‘I’m a hero in waiting,’ waiting for the right situation to come along to act heroically.” • Motivate people to...

Malcolm Gladwell Explains Why Human Potential Is Being Squandered [PopTech Video]

Science

Sociologist and best-selling author, Malcolm Gladwell, uses the term “Capitalization” to discuss the abundance and scarcity as it applies to people.” More specifically, Gladwell sees “capitalization” as “the rate at which a given community capitalizes on the human potential… what percentage of those who are capable of achieving something actually achieve it.” Gladwell’s most recent book, Outliers: The Story of Success, investigates human potential, how it is squandered, how that trend can be reversed, and the reasons why some succeed so much more then others. Through his research Gladwell discovered that, Cap rates are really low. They are much lower then you think they are and that’s why I think this is such a worthy topic for investigation.” Here is a clip with highlights from Gladwell’s talk at Pop Tech on this issue [11 min.]: 3 Conditions Which Constrain The Capitalization Of Human Potential 1. Poverty. … is the obvious thing that limits the exploitation of human potential.” 2. Stupidity. … where institutions get in the way of the development of human potential.” 3. Culture. When we look at these different rates of capitalization, 20 and 30 years later, what we’re seeing is the consequence of those early ingrained cultural notions…” Why Is This Important? It is important because I think when we observe differences in how individuals succeed in the world our initial thought is always to say, to argue that that is the result of some kind of innate difference in ability. And when we look at the different rates that groups succeed we think that that reflects some underlying innate trait in the characteristics of that...