Your Brain: It's All In Your Head

     Did you see it the first time? Less than 10% of people in a study done with a similar video saw the hidden distraction. This is because your brain can only take so much information at a time, and counting the number of passes and making sure you are counting white instead of black is enough to shut out everything else that is not important to the task. The brain controls everything our bodies do, and some things are dubbed not important enough for us to not even see it, like the bear.
     Our brains can trick us in other ways too. A group of people showed some taekwondo teachers two videos of two people fighting, one person was wearing red protective gear, the other wearing blue. In both cases, the teachers thought red was the winner. Could this be a coincidence? No, because both videos were of the same fight, except the colors had been switched.
     Lastly, do we really taste what we taste? One man decided to test the theory that we taste what we see, not what we taste. He gave guests at a dinner a red jello, and asked them what they tasted. The majority said it tasted like cherry or another berry, but the jello was actually lemon flavored. He also had people take a wine taste test. The first wine had a label that made the bottle look cheep, the second bottle had an expensive looking label and a fancy french name. Both bottles had the same wine that you can buy for next to nothing (it came in a box), but the testers said that the second, more "expensive brand" tasted better. There is some food for thought
     Our brains are constantly judging things without giving them a chance, because there are more important things than how the wine tastes. That wine looks expensive, shouldn't it taste better? Even though our brains are amazing and wonderful, there are some things that can trick it into thinking almost anything.

Cheating and Creativity

      Do you consider yourself creative? If you do, then studies show that you might be more likely to cheat than others. This study started out as finding out who cheats and who doesn’t. When given an opportunity to cheat, fifty percent of the people did. Though a very small number of people cheated a lot, the rest were still cheating. Dan Ariely, the man who conducted the experiment has a hypothesis to why we cheat. He thinks that we cheat because we know that if we do better, we will be treated better than someone who did a bad job, but we also don’t want to hurt our reputation. So, we cheat a little, so we can do a good job without being seen as a cheater not only by others, but most importantly, by ourselves. This is where Airely got the idea that creative people would cheat more. 

     He said, “It's all about telling stories, so creative people are likely to be able to tell themselves better stories, which would allow them to cheat more on the one hand, but not feel worse about it on the other." This doesn’t apply to just cheating, it can apply to any immoral action. Say someone wants to slip a piece of candy from a store. They might make up a story like, “ Well, it is just a tiny piece of candy, and anyway, who would care if a kid like stole a teeny tiny piece of chocolate?” This is how our brains work, so if you are more creative, you can make a more rational story, which could convince you to cheat, lie, or steal even more.

      Now I’m not calling every creative person a cheater, I’m just saying that creativity could be a cause of cheating.

Phobias: Everybody has one, but few admit them.

     I was standing by my bed, petrified, due to my clinophobia* when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw something move! Or was it just my  katsaridaphobia* acting up? I mean, I’m  isolophobic*, but I’m destined to be alone especially after that disastrous dinner date last week, I’m sure! (Courtesy of http://hotforwords.com/2009/08/30/nerd-word-of-the-day-anatidaephobia/)

     This above passage translates to, I was standing by my bed, petrified, due to my fear of going to bed. When suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw something move! Or was it just my fear of cockroaches acting up? I mean, I'm afraid of being alone, but I'm destined to be alone especially after that disastrous dinner date last week I'm sure!
      Everybody has a phobia. Mine does not have a name, but for the purpose of this post, I am going to use a broader phobia, which is Lepidopterophobia, or the fear of the order of insect that butterflies As and moths are apart of.  I know many people with phobias. One individual I know has a fear of olives, not like they don't like the taste. They literally fear olives. Phobias are usually made fun of. One of my friends keeps telling me that they will drag me to the saint Louis butterfly house so I can "face my fears," but really, she just wants a good laugh.
     The word Phobia is derived from the minor Greek god, Phobos. This may sound familiar to you because A: You already knew this, or B: Phobos is one of the two moons of Mars. 

The 10 most common phobias are, Arachnophobia, the fear of spiders and other arachnids, Ophidiophobia, the fear of snakes, Acrophobia fear of heights, Agoraphobia, fear of situations in which escape is very difficult, Cynophobia, fear of dogs, Astraphobia, fear of thunder and lightning, Trypanophobia, the fear of injections, Pteromerhanophobia, the fear of flying, and mysophobia, the fear of dirt and germs.
     Some phobias we are born with, others are accumulated. I believe my Lepidopterophobia was created when my family and I took a caterpillar off of a leaf, put it in a dry aquarium, and watched it turn into a cocoon, and eventually a butterfly. I was very young at the time, maybe 2 or 3. My family watched as the caterpillar came out of the cocoon, and voila! a butterfly. I loved the experience, because the butterfly was so pretty. I thought it was not going to move, so when it did, I was VERY scared to say the least. I guess it scarred me forever. I am sure another phobia is something you are just born with, because I cannot imagine how you could be scarred into fearing this. Anatidaephobia is the fear that wherever you go, no matter what, somewhere in the world, a duck is watching you. I sure feel bad for the people who have this, but I do not believe anyone, including those who have it think it is a normal phobia. I think that a fear of butterflies is abnormal, so anyone with this phobia must think it is also absurd.
     I invite you to share your phobias in the comments. In fact, please share weird phobias that you don't have, and please tell me what they are fears of. No phobia is too common or too crazy, so go ahead, share your greatest fear with me.