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Depressive Realism and "Reality"
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Depressive Realism
In a recent Damn Interesting article (http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=864 ), Christopher Putnam writes about the cognitive distortions that, at least in part, underlie many mental disorders. He notes that most of us hold cognitive biases in three main areas:
1. View ourselves in unrealistically positive terms;
2. Believe we have more control over our environment than we in fact do;
3. Have a more positive attitude about the future than is justifi...Click Here | By jerryatrics
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Truthiness is a Cognitive Bias
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"Truthiness is a satirical term coined by television comedian Stephen Colbert to describe things that a person claims to know intuitively or "from the gut" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or actual facts." (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness). It is a meme that was popular a few months ago, maybe still is, for all I know.
It is the polar opposite to a reality-based belief. Truthiness is always based on some heuristics like "go with your gut" ...Click Here | By jerryatrics
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What's your alignment?
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Good vs. Evil, Order vs. Chaos, locked in eternal struggle for dominance. Anyone familiar with D&D; or the works of Michael Moorcock (Eternal Champion milieu) is familiar with the concept, so where do you fall in this classification scheme? Where do you think other people fit in?...Click Here | By zenmonk
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The problem of evil
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Psychologist seem to go all mealy-mouth when discussing people who have done evil acts, claiming that even those who have done horrible acts, can change. Is that true. I read recently about a man who is condemned to death for raping a 10 year old girl. He apparently bragged to a friend that he had "made a lady out her today." Evidently his belief system was clear enough: it is okay to have sex with a child; it is good for her in some way; his pleasure supercedes the pain he caused; girls exi...Click Here | By jerryatrics
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