The Man Who Lied to His Laptop by Nass

Ref: Clifford Nass (2010). The Man Who Lied to His Laptop. Current Publishing.

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Summary­

  • Human Interpersonal Psychology.

  • Praise others freely, frequently, and at any time, regardless of accuracy. Emphasize effort over innate abilities. When possible, establish a mutual-praise agreement in which you and a partner praise each other.

  • Criticize others with caution, keeping it brief and specific, and always with clear follow-up actions. Present ways to improve and resolve criticism, and emphasize the importance of effort for success. Afterward, give people time to process and to respond when they are ready.

  • Modesty might win you friends but will also be believed, so only criticize yourself when it is accurate and constructive to do so. If you want to seem competent, then reverse the previous advice: praise yourself, criticize others, and don't criticize yourself.

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Personality

  • Personality Types

    • Extrovert: Dominant and friendly.

    • Critic: Dormant and cold.

    • Introvert: Submissive and cold.

    • Sidekicks: Submissive and friendly.

  • According to a review of more than 150 studies, people's personalities are essentially set by the time they are 5 years old (Brent Roberts & Wendy Del Vecchio).

  • When you interact with someone with a similar personality, just be yourself, and when you interact with someone with a dissimilar personality, try to become more similar in your speech and behavior.

  • People prefer those with similar personalities to themselves. Sharing a personality trait predicts success in roommate pairings, dating, and long-term relationships such as marriage. When people encounter a person with a personality similar to their own, she or he will be considered likeable, intelligent, and trustworthy.

  • Similarity-Attraction trumps complementarity. People love it when you adopt a similar personality to their own.

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Emotion

  • Emotion is governed by two questions:

    • Valence; How well am I meeting my Goals (how happy am I)?

    • Arousal; Should I do something about my goals (how excited am I)?

  • All emotions boil down to happy versus sad (valence) and excited vs calm (arousal).

  • Emotions are contagious: surround yourself with people who have the emotions you would like to have.

  • People try to hide negativity, so do not accuse someone of being sad, frustrated, or angry. Instead, actively listen and empathize. Don't try to reason them out of their feelings or just listen to them vent.

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Human Brain

  • Left Hemisphere: Processes positive information.

  • Right Hemisphere: Processes negative information.

  • Thalamus: Evaluation center of the brain; sits atop the brainstem and connects to every part of the higher-thinking areas of the brain. It makes very basic judgements about whether you have encountered someone who is extremely good or bad even before information enters your formal thought processes. For example, if someone is smiling vs. shouting at you, the thalamus decodes this valence- positive versus negative- and will react before you even understand what the person is saying. Once the thalamus makes a positive-versus-negative judgement, it sends a call to the action centers of your body to prepare the muscles to approach or avoid. The thalamus then passes on its interpretation of positive or negative, along with the words being spoken, to the higher (and slower) thinking parts of the brain.

  • Judgement: Proverbs clearly indicate that you should avoid evaluating others: judge not lest you be judged, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, don't judge a book by its cover, and people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Although many adages warn against evaluation, discerning between good behavior and bad is the most primitive judgement that humans make and is virtually impossible to suppress. This is because categorizing someone as good or bad is part of the possibly life or death decisions to approach or avoid that person. Thus, the judgment of positive or negative is built into our every fiber.

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Humor

  • Humor alleviates stress, bonds employees together, and boosts morale and creativity.

  • Happiness is the best policy: happy people work better, think better, drive better, and even make other people happier. Telling people jokes can make them feel happier (and more positive about you) without necessarily detracting from their work.

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Teambuilding

  • In Many cases, similarities within a group are neither clear nor obvious. When this happens, you must consciously manipulate team identity by identifying and then highlighting a shared quality.

  • Along with identification, the other key factor for creating a sense of team is establishing interdependence. To create interdependence, research suggests that team members must share two beliefs. First, they must feel that achieving the group's goals will also server their own personal goals. Second, team members must believe that their efforts and the efforts of other team members are integral to the success of the team.

  • Whether financial, strategic, or emotional, as long as individuals hide their differing motivations and all team members explicitly support the shared goal, interdependence will strengthen the group.

  • Actively seek and create inside jokes, neologisms, and other opportunities, to mark your team bonds, and jealously restrict these shared phrases to your own team.

  • Whenever possible, remind people that they were selected rather than assigned and that their accomplishments warrant their inclusion in the group. The more you can say about the rigors of selection and of the number of people who want to be in the group but cannot be, the better.

  • Clear advantages come with hearing a variety of viewpoints and deliberating with an understanding that disagreement serves the team's goals. However, a demand for uniformity can come from the perception that disunity undermines similarity (identification) or that dissension impedes the team from achieving its shared goals (interdependence).

  • De-emphasize that the group is a decision-making body, which implies that they must reach consensus and urges people to bury dissent in a misguided attempt to accomplish the team's stated goal.

  • Rule: Don't hesitate to praise, even if you're not sure the praise is accurate. Receivers of the praise will feel great and you will seem thoughtful and intelligent for noticing their marvelous qualities- whether they exist or not.

  • In a project group, label each member as an expert on a different part of the project, regardless of whether she or he has special expertise or not.

  • Groupthink: The trap of focusing on agreement rather than finding the right answer.

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Praise & Criticism

  • People accept praise they think meaningless just as willingly as praise they thought accurate.

  • Don't hesitate to praise, even if you're not sure the praise is accurate. Receivers of the praise will feel great and you will seem thoughtful and intelligent for noticing their marvelous qualities- whether they exist or not.

  • Praisers are liked and critics are hated, right or wrong. In another example of how powerful negative remarks are, I performed a study which demonstrated that when a newspaper quotes Person A criticizing person B, people develop negative feelings about person B, person A, and the newspaper! When criticizing, neither accuracy, inaccuracy, nor simply repeating someone else's negative remarks gets the critic off the hook. Similarly, praise, flattery, and repetition of others positive remarks all benefit the praiser.

  • Proactive Enhancement: Improvement in memory following a negative event. This is why you should present information you want remembered immediately after a negative remark.

  • When you want to give a mix of positive and negative feedback, the order is critical. Tradition states that one should give praise first to "soften up" the person before giving bad news. However, this is a poor idea: although the immediate reaction to the negative remark will be softened, in a short time retroactive interference will come into play and all that will be remembered is the negative remark. It is better to present the negative feedback first and then the positive evaluation. The criticism will bring people to attention in time to listen to your praise.

  • It is far better to briefly present a few negative remarks and then provide a long list of positive remarks. This can take significant effort- it's much easier to remember negative impressions- but generating lists of positive remarks is time well spent. You should also provide as much detail as possible within the positive comments, even more than feels natural, because positive feedback is less memorable.

  • If you compliment someone on something that he or she thinks you are unaware of, it will have a bigger effect than if you keep dishing out the same obvious compliments. Slipping these surprising references into a list of more obvious positive remarks is even more effective.

  • Give growth minded feedback to motivate people to choose challenging tasks and to confront their mistakes. Praise for taking initiative, completing a difficult task, learning new skills, and acting on criticism all encourage a growth mindset.

  • You view someone who criticizes others more negatively than someone who praises, but you also view that person as more intelligent.

  • Early 1990’s: Many parents and teachers became focused on increasing self-esteem by constantly telling children how smart and talented they were. This mindset ironically has a negative effect on self-confidence as children face challenges and failures.

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Persuasion

  • Persuasiveness can be understood in terms of two issues: expertise and trustworthiness.

  • Reciprocity can gain compliance and trust: do someone a favor, and no matter how small, your next request will likely be accepted.

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Misc Quotes

  • Literally hundreds of studies have demonstrated that the vast majority of people, in almost all cultures, believe that they are smarter and more attractive than the typical person.

  • Only pessimism sounds profound. Optimism sounds superficial.

  • People like someone who becomes more interested in them over time more than someone who is interested from the start.

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