Why do people believe things that seem to go so strongly against our ideas of what is right? And why don't they listen when we try to change their mind?

Jon Haidt, in discussing the healthcare debate, attributes it to 3 principles of moral psychology:

1. Intuitive primacy - We make most judgments on quick intuitive feelings rather than reasoning ( ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

I love my Social Psychology class. We get to watch TED talks.

Today's was by Dan Gilbert on happiness: Why are we happy? Why aren't we happy?

We think we can simulate how happy we're going to be after certain events. For example, it's not hard to hypothesize whether we'll be happier as a lottery winner or a parapalegic.

But the fact is, a year after ( Read more... )

This past November, after being told by her longtime friends Ebony and Daniel Sampson that they were facing foreclosure unless they paid $10,000 within 2 weeks, Jaki Grier wrote on her LJ about their struggle and asked for donations. Within five days, thanks to word of mouth through the internet, she received $11,000. (CNN)

Yet when I talked to ( Read more... )

Ian commented about an NPR story, The Science of Getting A 'Yes', done yesterday with a past professor of David’s and his, Dr. Cialdini. I’ve already heard a lot about Cialdini’s weapons of influence from David and Ian, but I still enjoyed the story and thought I’d share the highlights:

Social proof - A behavior is more valid to us when we ( Read more... )