In keeping with the theme of yesterday’s article Perspective: A Key to Healing, I was curious to learn more about how we perceive the world. Here are a few videos I checked out online that I found of interest on the topic.
Life Lessons From an Ad Man – Rory Sutherland
Advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself. Rory Sutherland makes the daring assertion that a change in perceived value can be just as satisfying as what we consider “real” value — and his conclusion has interesting consequences for how we look at life.
Really enjoyed Rory. This is a humorous and informative Ted Talk, especially the New Diamond Shreddies cereal (about 11:52 minutes in). See, now I got you hooked. The power of perception at work and you didn’t even know it. LOL!
“So I’ll ask you another question. What on earth is wrong with placebos? They seem fantastic to me. They cost very little to develop. They work extraordinarily well. They have no side effects, or if they do, they’re imaginary, so you can safely ignore them.”
“The point of placebo education is interesting. How many problems of life can be solved actually by tinkering with perception, rather than that tedious, hardworking and messy business of actually trying to change reality?”
An example about perception that Rory used. Imagine a very large red button in your house and every time you pressed the button it saved $50 for you, put it in your pension. What would happen is, you would end up saving more money. Rory explains the reasoning…
“The reason is that the interface fundamentally determines the behavior. Okay? Now, marketing has done a very, very good job of creating opportunities for impulse buying. Yet we’ve never created the opportunity for impulse saving. If you did this, more people would save more. It’s simply a question of changing the interface by which people make decisions, and the very nature of the decisions changes.”
” I think an important philosophical point, which is, going forward, we need more of this kind of value. We need to spend more time appreciating what already exists, and less time agonizing over what else we can do.”
“When you place a value on things like health, love, sex and other things, and learn to place a material value on what you’ve previously discounted for being merely intangible, a thing not seen, you realize you’re much, much wealthier than you ever imagined.”
Mind the Gap Between Perception and Reality – Sean Tiffee
Can we ever know what’s real? Communication scholar Sean Tiffee examines the relationship between perception and reality and questions the intersection between the two. In this talk, he advises us not to mind the gap, but to mine the gap and become a more loving and empathic person.
What do Others Think of You? How the Brain Perceives other People – Dong Seon-Chang
How do we read and understand other people? We cannot look into the head of other people. Still, almost every day we successfully interact with other people. Our brain is specialized in perceiving “social cues”, and almost automatically perceives basic information about other people, such as age, gender, or ethnicity. How does our brain manage to do this? Is it possible to accurately predict the social behavior of other people? Do we perceive the actions of other people differently in other cultures?
If you plan to pass this one up, at least take a couple of minutes and watch these two clips. Great examples of Perspective!!!
- 3:20 – 3:50
- 11:10 – 12:05
Can You Change Your Perception in 4 Minutes? – Pari Majd
Ever heard of locus of control? Pari explains how we can use the locus of control to change the way we see the world and better enable us to succeed.
Locus of Control: The degree to which people believe that they have control over the outcome of events in their lives, as opposed to external forces beyond their control.
- Try to change your perceptions and realize that there’s some things that you could actually change just by the way that your thinking.
- Surround yourself with positivity and encouragement.
- Be more aware. It’s important to know that how you perceive your situations matter.
- Work on thinking more internally.
For more Information about Locus of Control:
- Locus of Control – Psychology Today
- Locus of Control and Your Life: Are You in Charge of Your Destiny?
- Locus of Control Personality Test – find out if you have more an internal locus of control or external locus of control
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