Sticks and stones

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

To my surprise, this turns out to be false!

Words DO hurt people. Not just in their "inner self," but in reality.

This is one of the most brilliant points made by Marcel Proust in his great novel, In Search of Lost Time. And it is now being confirmed by social scientists and psychogists. (I suggest the recent book Sway for your edification.

As it turns out, one of the most amazing tests of "labelling" went as follows.

1. A number of woman were put in a room by themselves (alone) and told to await a call from a male.

2. The males, on their part, were given a brief bio of the woman, and a faked picture. Half of the pictures showed an attractive female, and the other half showed a normal female.

3. The phone calls (just chatting) proceeded.

4. Experiment not quite done yet. The psychologists took the recordings of the phone conversations, cut out all the male voices, and then presented the female voices to a completely different audience. The question was, "Does this voice belong to a beautiful woman?"

5. Then came the amazing part. The independent audience agreed with the phony photos!

That is to say (and it's hard to wrap your mind around this), the men in this experiment talked in an entirely different way to girls they thought were beautiful. And the girls (regardless of actual looks) responded in kind. But, if the girl was not pretty, the conversation took on an entirely different tone, and this effect was easily seen by other people listening only to the girl's side of the talk.

People fascinate me! :-)

[rincondog]

What does this have to do with this forum, you should be posting on the Proust forum or the sticks and stones forum.

What does this have to do with this forum, you should be posting on the Proust forum or the sticks and stones forum.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me on this forum, is the number of wannabe moderators there are that actually exist on it. No doubt the very same ones who were found lacking in the required inches necessary, in order for them to enlist into some farang police force or the other.

I am sure that there are other members here apart from myself, who enjoy reading posts such as the one of Henry's above and whom find them interesting, so if you are not one of those members rincondog, instead being one that dislikes his posts, may I respectfully offer you some very simple advice which hopefully you should find very simple to follow:

Either don't open the thread in the first place, or alternatively, if you do open it, close it immediately on discovering it is of no interest to you. I don't believe it's such a difficult thing for you to do, or one where I am asking a lot of you, or is it?


Cheers,



George.

[dab69]

the only thing the experiment proves to me is the stupidity of the psychologists not to expect any other result than this.

I remember being in High School and having a subscription to "Psychology Today".
Reading a featured article within, they were comparing the "efficacy" of psychologists versus witch doctors. They had found not much difference. There went the subscription to the magazine.

Later in college I had to take psych 101/102. I found what passes for science, even interpretive science, to be amazing. Tons of these self evident experiments leading to highly predictable results.

[Wesley]

What does this have to do with this forum, you should be posting on the Proust forum or the sticks and stones forum.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me on this forum, is the number of wannabe moderators there are that actually exist on it. No doubt the very same ones who were found lacking in the required inches necessary, in order for them to enlist into some farang police force or the other.

I am sure that there are other members here apart from myself, who enjoy reading posts such as the one of Henry's above and whom find them interesting, so if you are not one of those members rincondog, instead being one that dislikes his posts, may I respectfully offer you some very simple advice which hopefully you should find very simple to follow:

Either don't open the thread in the first place, or alternatively, if you do open it, close it immediately on discovering it is of no interest to you. I don't believe it's such a difficult thing for you to do, or one where I am asking a lot of you, or is it?

Cheers,

George.

Give them hell Geaorge, you got it exactly right, Not to mention the Ignore button if you can't stand to not open the post. I found it interesting in as much as it is so often happening all the time on msn and Messenger, some old fart has this cuttie on the avatar then you find out he is 60. oh what a downer, Give em Hell Heney.

Wesley

Either don't open the thread in the first place, or alternatively, if you do open it, close it immediately on discovering it is of no interest to you.

Not much difference from your post here, both telling people what they should do.