Saturday, April 29, 2006
Sidebar doodads and more stupid eBay sellers
You may have noticed that the upper part of my sidebar has been redone; at the very top is something I was surprised and proud to find out on one of the blog directory sites... thanks to those of you who've been kind enough to link to me, I've now got a Google PageRank of 6. SIX!! Most of you realize what that means, but for those who don't know why that's happy-making, especially for a niche blog like mine, here's the deal:
Google gives every website a numerical value, aka "PageRank," 0-10 that indicates its importance. As of when I write this, there are only 18 pages with PR10 on the entire internet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_with_a_high_PageRank
There are, if I counted right, 222 sites with PR9; there are a couple of vaguely bloggish news/info sites at that level, but no real blogs. The blogosphere IS making its presence felt, though, because the mega-blogs are PR8 and PR7, which is truly spectacular; I've looked at all the listings of top blogs that I can find, and you can't even get through the top 20 without finding some that are below PR7, so there are maybe 2 or 3 dozen blogs at this level... naturally, they're all the big news, politics, and entertainment sites, NOT ones dedicated to personal ramblings. Then, for all the millions of other blogs, the best that's left, the highest level we can have right now, is PR6.
AND I'VE GOT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)
Google re-ranks every 3 months or so, which for all I know might mean that they start re-ranking tomorrow, and once we start to get election fever a bunch more news/politics blogs will leap into prominence, so I don't expect to have the PR6 forever... but it sure feels good to have it today.
My blog doesn't look like any other. You'd be hard put to find many with posts as consistently long, or focused on such atypical subjects. I don't have commenting, trackbacks, or even text formatting of my posts. I've had belligerent types inform me on other people's blogs that this meant that I didn't have a "good" or "popular" blog, and never would; for now, at least, I can tell them that Google doesn't agree.
But wait, it gets BETTER; I told my mother about getting a PR6, including the explanation of Google's PageRank system and how blogs are represented within it, and she said... if you're a regular reader, you'll want to brace yourself. She said she was very impressed, and that she was PROUD of me... words that had never passed her lips in reference to me in my entire life. Maybe the cancer is making her sentimental?
In any case, this is exciting news-WOOHOO!! :-)
The other new sidebar doodad came into being because I got tired of Blogrolling.com being the only major blog service, or minor one for that matter, without a little banner that people can put on their blogs for readers to click on, so I decided to make one. I don't know how to use Photoshop or any other graphics program, so I went here
http://ekstreme.com/buttonmaker/index.php
where you can make the standard 80 x 15 buttons with full customization, and started cranking stuff out. I got worried that people wouldn't notice it, since we're used to seeing TEXT to click on to Blogroll, so I made it bigger; I then wasted a great deal of time figuring out that the control for how close the wording comes to the top of the banner goes crazy at 10 pixels, putting the text half over the border, but works fine for all other #'s, and that a few, and ONLY a few, of the fields were automatically resetting themselves after each iteration, and so had to be kept track of and endlessly re-entered. I had to pick a color for the banner, so I tried red, for visibility, but it was too bright. Then, I did orange, which looked ok, so I saved it and crossed my fingers that I could stick the URL for the image into the Blogrolling code and have it work; it DID (YAY!!), but it was TOO eye-catching, so I switched from the orange I'd used to "the orange" that's standard on these sorts of banners, and it looked pretty good... except it was sitting right on top of the other banners, and since THEY all had a little space under them and mine didn't, it didn't look right. I was going to try to stick it in a table, but my husband came to the rescue with the vspace command, which allows you to define space to be inserted above and below an image; after the inevitable trial and error to get the spacing to be the same # of pixels as the other banners had (4, if anyone cares), I was done. It's not fancy, heck, I didn't even outline it, but I like the way it looks because it's easy to read, so that's what I'm going with... until my next idea, that is.
Ebay sellers must be taking stupid pills, I swear. I sent a message to one about a shirt, asking him to measure from under one arm to under the other so that I'd know the bust measurement (there's no standardization whatsoever for the sizing of women's clothing, sadly); he replied with a measurement that'd be for a shirt for a 500 lb person. I asked him if he was sure of his #, and he announced that it was the distance from the bottom of one sleeve to the bottom of the other, and he hoped that'd tell me what I needed to know. As politely as I could, I told him that the measurement I needed was the one that I'd ASKED for, underarm to underarm, and he eventually sent me that one... but he's so dimwitted that unless the item goes dirt cheap I won't risk buying from him.
The real mindboggler, though, is with sellers trying to auction used CD's; although, with the exception of rare items, a used CD is only desirable if it still plays perfectly, there isn't 1 in 100 of such auctions where the seller makes clear whether the CD does in fact play perfectly... they use all sorts of adjectives like "great" and "terrific" to describe the CD's condition, but none of those words actually tells the prospective buyer the one thing they need to know. When questioned, nearly all the sellers DO know how their CD's play, and it usually turns out that they DO (supposedly) play perfectly, so why don't they just SAY SO on their auction pages?
If you want to be successful at selling CD's on eBay, which means that people will buy from you and then leave + feedback rather than -, here's what you need to do:
1) Play the CD under circumstances where you can pay attention and hear clearly; if it's clean, state that on your auction page... if not, just toss it, because no one wants it (remember, you PAY to run an eBay auction).
2) In good light, examine the CD, case, and booklet if any, and include a VERY precise description of any wear or flaws you find on your auction page; most folks will accept a reasonable amount of imperfections, but ONLY if they know about them in advance.
Is there anything confusing, difficult or unreasonable about that? Can you imagine why hardly any sellers are doing it?
In general, eBay needs to adopt a stricter policy about how sellers can describe their merchandise; part of the process to set up an auction should be a statement that the seller would have to agree to along the lines of, "I have examined this item carefully, and tested all its functions where applicable, and have included a description of ALL flaws on my auction page; I understand that if my description is NOT accurate, I must offer the buyer a COMPLETE refund, including return shipping if I want the item back." THAT'D make the sellers think twice before pawning off stuff they've barely glanced at as "excellent," or, as in the case of a shirt I recently received that had TWO stains and a HOLE, "like new," wouldn't it? In case you think the refund policy would be too harsh, be aware that Federal law REQUIRES that people sending merchandise through the mail, or any other delivery service, refund in exactly that way; just because eBay, like PayPal, is currently operating in contradiction of various laws doesn't mean those laws don't apply.
Here's a final eBay tidbit; this auction
http://cgi.ebay.com/MEET-CRISS-ANGEL-APPEAR-ON-A-Es-MINDFREAK-TV-SHOW_W0QQitemZ6622901469QQcategoryZ16071QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem
which is for the chance to meet master illusionist and uber-babe Criss Angel and be part of one of his demonstrations on his show in the upcoming season, has ended... and the winning bid was $17,300!! Can you believe that people had that much $ to squander, and were so eager to be on TV, that the bid went that high? For that much $, I'D expect Criss to be stark naked and doing alot more than a magic trick, lol... we are a very warped country, let's face it.
Google gives every website a numerical value, aka "PageRank," 0-10 that indicates its importance. As of when I write this, there are only 18 pages with PR10 on the entire internet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_with_a_high_PageRank
There are, if I counted right, 222 sites with PR9; there are a couple of vaguely bloggish news/info sites at that level, but no real blogs. The blogosphere IS making its presence felt, though, because the mega-blogs are PR8 and PR7, which is truly spectacular; I've looked at all the listings of top blogs that I can find, and you can't even get through the top 20 without finding some that are below PR7, so there are maybe 2 or 3 dozen blogs at this level... naturally, they're all the big news, politics, and entertainment sites, NOT ones dedicated to personal ramblings. Then, for all the millions of other blogs, the best that's left, the highest level we can have right now, is PR6.
AND I'VE GOT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)
Google re-ranks every 3 months or so, which for all I know might mean that they start re-ranking tomorrow, and once we start to get election fever a bunch more news/politics blogs will leap into prominence, so I don't expect to have the PR6 forever... but it sure feels good to have it today.
My blog doesn't look like any other. You'd be hard put to find many with posts as consistently long, or focused on such atypical subjects. I don't have commenting, trackbacks, or even text formatting of my posts. I've had belligerent types inform me on other people's blogs that this meant that I didn't have a "good" or "popular" blog, and never would; for now, at least, I can tell them that Google doesn't agree.
But wait, it gets BETTER; I told my mother about getting a PR6, including the explanation of Google's PageRank system and how blogs are represented within it, and she said... if you're a regular reader, you'll want to brace yourself. She said she was very impressed, and that she was PROUD of me... words that had never passed her lips in reference to me in my entire life. Maybe the cancer is making her sentimental?
In any case, this is exciting news-WOOHOO!! :-)
The other new sidebar doodad came into being because I got tired of Blogrolling.com being the only major blog service, or minor one for that matter, without a little banner that people can put on their blogs for readers to click on, so I decided to make one. I don't know how to use Photoshop or any other graphics program, so I went here
http://ekstreme.com/buttonmaker/index.php
where you can make the standard 80 x 15 buttons with full customization, and started cranking stuff out. I got worried that people wouldn't notice it, since we're used to seeing TEXT to click on to Blogroll, so I made it bigger; I then wasted a great deal of time figuring out that the control for how close the wording comes to the top of the banner goes crazy at 10 pixels, putting the text half over the border, but works fine for all other #'s, and that a few, and ONLY a few, of the fields were automatically resetting themselves after each iteration, and so had to be kept track of and endlessly re-entered. I had to pick a color for the banner, so I tried red, for visibility, but it was too bright. Then, I did orange, which looked ok, so I saved it and crossed my fingers that I could stick the URL for the image into the Blogrolling code and have it work; it DID (YAY!!), but it was TOO eye-catching, so I switched from the orange I'd used to "the orange" that's standard on these sorts of banners, and it looked pretty good... except it was sitting right on top of the other banners, and since THEY all had a little space under them and mine didn't, it didn't look right. I was going to try to stick it in a table, but my husband came to the rescue with the vspace command, which allows you to define space to be inserted above and below an image; after the inevitable trial and error to get the spacing to be the same # of pixels as the other banners had (4, if anyone cares), I was done. It's not fancy, heck, I didn't even outline it, but I like the way it looks because it's easy to read, so that's what I'm going with... until my next idea, that is.
Ebay sellers must be taking stupid pills, I swear. I sent a message to one about a shirt, asking him to measure from under one arm to under the other so that I'd know the bust measurement (there's no standardization whatsoever for the sizing of women's clothing, sadly); he replied with a measurement that'd be for a shirt for a 500 lb person. I asked him if he was sure of his #, and he announced that it was the distance from the bottom of one sleeve to the bottom of the other, and he hoped that'd tell me what I needed to know. As politely as I could, I told him that the measurement I needed was the one that I'd ASKED for, underarm to underarm, and he eventually sent me that one... but he's so dimwitted that unless the item goes dirt cheap I won't risk buying from him.
The real mindboggler, though, is with sellers trying to auction used CD's; although, with the exception of rare items, a used CD is only desirable if it still plays perfectly, there isn't 1 in 100 of such auctions where the seller makes clear whether the CD does in fact play perfectly... they use all sorts of adjectives like "great" and "terrific" to describe the CD's condition, but none of those words actually tells the prospective buyer the one thing they need to know. When questioned, nearly all the sellers DO know how their CD's play, and it usually turns out that they DO (supposedly) play perfectly, so why don't they just SAY SO on their auction pages?
If you want to be successful at selling CD's on eBay, which means that people will buy from you and then leave + feedback rather than -, here's what you need to do:
1) Play the CD under circumstances where you can pay attention and hear clearly; if it's clean, state that on your auction page... if not, just toss it, because no one wants it (remember, you PAY to run an eBay auction).
2) In good light, examine the CD, case, and booklet if any, and include a VERY precise description of any wear or flaws you find on your auction page; most folks will accept a reasonable amount of imperfections, but ONLY if they know about them in advance.
Is there anything confusing, difficult or unreasonable about that? Can you imagine why hardly any sellers are doing it?
In general, eBay needs to adopt a stricter policy about how sellers can describe their merchandise; part of the process to set up an auction should be a statement that the seller would have to agree to along the lines of, "I have examined this item carefully, and tested all its functions where applicable, and have included a description of ALL flaws on my auction page; I understand that if my description is NOT accurate, I must offer the buyer a COMPLETE refund, including return shipping if I want the item back." THAT'D make the sellers think twice before pawning off stuff they've barely glanced at as "excellent," or, as in the case of a shirt I recently received that had TWO stains and a HOLE, "like new," wouldn't it? In case you think the refund policy would be too harsh, be aware that Federal law REQUIRES that people sending merchandise through the mail, or any other delivery service, refund in exactly that way; just because eBay, like PayPal, is currently operating in contradiction of various laws doesn't mean those laws don't apply.
Here's a final eBay tidbit; this auction
http://cgi.ebay.com/MEET-CRISS-ANGEL-APPEAR-ON-A-Es-MINDFREAK-TV-SHOW_W0QQitemZ6622901469QQcategoryZ16071QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem
which is for the chance to meet master illusionist and uber-babe Criss Angel and be part of one of his demonstrations on his show in the upcoming season, has ended... and the winning bid was $17,300!! Can you believe that people had that much $ to squander, and were so eager to be on TV, that the bid went that high? For that much $, I'D expect Criss to be stark naked and doing alot more than a magic trick, lol... we are a very warped country, let's face it.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
The UNjust world
Warning; this post concerns the inner workings of human nature... prepare to be disheartened and disgusted.
I found something here
http://www.science-spirit.org/article_detail.php?article_id=40
that instantly rang true... unfortunately (all asterisks are mine):
"THE JUST WORLD EFFECT
Melvin Lerner documented this effect in the 1960's, and the concept has since become commonplace in social psychology. We like to believe we live in a just, fair world and, therefore, we do feel that we live in a just, fair world. In order to defend this fragile belief, *** we twist our perceptions of others and reinterpret past events. *** This requires considerable self-delusion in our sometimes capricious society.
Lerner looked for and found these illusions, even in those who intellectually know the world is unfair. His suspicions became aroused during his work in psychiatric medicine. Many of the doctors and nurses he met seemed oblivious to the pain and plight of their patients; they would laugh and joke about the afflictions of their charges, even insulting them to their faces. These intelligent men and women were in protective denial about the distressing state of affairs they confronted. He also noticed students taking his social medicine course derogating the poor in society as 'lazy good-for-nothings who deserve the raw deal they get.' He was unable to disillusion them with statistics and rhetoric, and took to the laboratory to devise an experiment.
'Tom' and 'Bill' performed the mundane task of assembling anagrams while their coworkers looked on. At the end of the task, one of the two was awarded a large sum of money for his efforts. The other received nothing. It was made quite clear to everyone before work commenced that the award would be made randomly, without reference to the workers' performances. After they had observed Tom and Bill's efforts this admonition was repeated: the subjects were again reminded that the prize would be assigned at random. The onlookers invariably thought that the man who walked away with the money was more productive, creative, and industrious than his penniless companion. These people, after seeing the money handed out, thought they remembered seeing the unlucky worker deserve his poor fortune. Lerner called this the 'Just World Effect.'"
I want to say that this is unbelievable, but the grim truth is that this is TOTALLY believable, because I've seen people doing mental contortion acts like this all too many times.
"In 1971, they gave such a test to sixty 19-year-old men who were participating in America's draft lottery. Those unlucky students who drew 'short straws' would find themselves in the armed forces. One might expect a degree of camaraderie to emerge - that the fortunate would feel sympathetic towards those with less luck. Not so among students who believed in a just world. These men actually resented the losers, in spite of their own vulnerable position. They felt that losing at the lottery meant you must have been a 'bad person.'
This seemingly blind faith in the fairness of the universe has been identified in experiment after experiment. It puts men and women at a disadvantage by inducing them into *** serious errors of judgment about their fellows. *** Nevertheless, it is found in societies across the globe"
This is what makes learning about this so important; it's one of the many areas where not making a conscious effort to figure out WHY you've made certain judgments leads to being totally wrong and thus to making bad decisions.
My spiritual/metaphysical readers should be aware that what's being described here is VERY different from accepting the workings of karma (as I interpret them) in people's lives; karma does NOT bring you what you "deserve," as the traditional view of it would have you believe, it's just mindless flows of energy with no judgments attached, and, while it DOES bring you positive and negative energy to match what you've sent out, that doesn't change the fact that there are many other forces at work that are unaffected by your karma... it neither protects you from the actions of weather, earthquakes, mad dogs and evildoers, nor provides you with the winning lotto #'s, based on your behavior or "worth."
"Justice is very clearly bound up with religion in all western traditions: a religion prescribes what is just, by example and by commandment. Religious institutions do not create the desire for justice, but exploit it to increase their appeal. In the afterlife or on Judgment Day, everything will be put to rights. Everything evens out in the long run. This is an enormously appealing doctrine, and its prevalence in religious thinking is no accident. "
This is a little bit of a tangent, but I included it because I think anything that helps us understand religion is valuable... and it points out just how deep this psychological bias runs.
The Just World Effect exists in us from a very early age:
"Deborah Fein studied six to nine-year-old children. She presented them with videotapes of a girl helping a friend, stealing a playmate's sweets, finding money, and being hit by a shelf of falling books. Different children saw different sets of videotape and then judged how 'good' the girl was on a scale from 1 to 14. Those who saw her help her friend gave her over 11 points - really quite virtuous. Those who only saw her finding the money [put] her at just under 12 points. Good fortune alone provided as much evidence of good character as did the act of friendship. The unlucky girl suffered insult as well as injury with an eight-point rating to add to her bruises from the books."
If you're a parent or grandparent, part of your job is to help combat these warped perceptions; you'll give your (grand)kids an edge by improving their judgment, and make them better people who don't look down on those who are already suffering.
Like all seemingly insane behavior patterns, this one exists because there are benefits to it:
"They studied a large number of married couples and found that people with strong beliefs in a just world had more satisfying and stable relationships than those without. People with high just world belief scores were more likely to respond constructively in disputes because they found it easier to take a positive long-term view. They were more trusting of their partners and more self-sacrificing as a consequence. Of all the spouses, they were the most accommodating of their partner's needs and desires since they had implicit faith that their partner would reciprocate in kind."
"... members of societies that emphasize and exaggerate their implicit beliefs in the world's fairness are more cooperative and trusting of their fellow citizens. A more cooperative society is a more successful society. Little wonder that human cultures support this phenomenon both explicitly and subliminally. Those that didn't would have been superseded."
Yes, BUT; you've got a BRAIN, and you can use it to CHOOSE to behave in ways that will maximize your relationship and societal success withOUT the ugly misjudgments being along for the ride.
Still not convinced that you need to fight this tendency?
"After World War II, a survey of Americans found that, far from evoking sympathy, *** the Nazi persecutions had caused a rise in anti-Semitism. *** British troops marched German civilians around the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. 'What terrible criminals these prisoners must have been,' they said, 'to receive such treatment.'"
Despicable!! Disgraceful!! Next time you start thinking we humans are an exalted species, remember THAT little gem.
You've probably already made the connection between what you've read here and the "she was asking for it" concept all too often seen at rape trials:
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v3n2/justworld.html
"The verdict of the jurors in the Fort Lauderdale rape trial may have been influenced by a widespread tendency to believe that victims of misfortune deserve what happens to them. The need to see victims as the recipients of their just deserts can be explained by what psychologists call the Just World Hypothesis. According to the hypothesis, people have a strong desire or need to believe that the world is an orderly, predictable, and just place, where people get what they deserve. Such a belief plays an important function in our lives since in order to plan our lives or achieve our goals we need to assume that our actions will have predictable consequences. Moreover, when we encounter evidence suggesting that the world is not just, we quickly act to restore justice by helping the victim or *** we persuade ourselves that no injustice has occurred. *** We either lend assistance or we decide that the rape victim must have asked for it, the homeless person is simply lazy, the fallen star must be an adulterer. These attitudes are continually reinforced in the ubiquitous fairy tales, fables, comic books, cop shows and other morality tales of our culture, in which good is always rewarded and evil punished."
If someone says that they've been victimized in ANY way, and you hear yourself thinking that they must have done something to deserve it, STOP and correct yourself, and correct anyone else that you suspect might have come up with the same cruel idea; you can't call yourself a good person if you're not willing to do so, because by denying the victim support for their pain you'll be aiding the wrongdoer in hurting them. Even if the victim is someone you're seeing on TV or reading about in the paper rather than someone you're interacting with, you still need to use every such situation as an opportunity to re-train yourself to lay blame correctly... on the victimIZERS.
There are more examples of the Just World concept at work:
"Melvin Lerner, a social psychologist, has conducted a series of experiments to test this hypothesis. In an impressive body of research, he documents *** people's eagerness to convince themselves that beneficiaries deserve their benefits and victims their suffering. *** In a 1965 study, Lerner reported that subjects who were told that a fellow student had won a cash prize in a lottery tended to believe that the student worked harder than another student who lost the lottery. In another study a year later, Lerner and a colleague videotaped a simulated 'learning' experiment in which it appeared that the 'participants' were subjected to electric shocks. Lerner found that subjects who observed the videotapes tended to form much lower opinions of these 'victimized' participants when there was no possibility of the victim finding relief from the ordeal, or when the victim took on the role of 'martyr' by voluntarily remaining in the experiment despite the apparent unpleasantness of the experience. Lerner concluded that 'the sight of an innocent person suffering without possibility of reward or compensation motivated people to devalue the attractiveness of the victim in order to bring about a more appropriate fit between her fate and her character.'"
And here's something else grim it can lead to:
"Zick Rubin of Harvard University and Letitia Anne Peplau of UCLA have conducted surveys to examine the characteristics of people with strong beliefs in a just world. They found that people who have a strong tendency to believe in a just world also tend to be more religious, more authoritarian, more conservative, more likely to admire political leaders and existing social institutions, and more likely to have negative attitudes toward underprivileged groups. To a lesser but still significant degree, the believers in a just world tend to 'feel less of a need to engage in activities to change society or to alleviate plight of social victims.'
Ironically, then, the *** belief in a just world may take the place of a genuine commitment to justice. *** For some people, it is simply easier to assume that forces beyond their control mete out justice. When that occurs, the result may be the abdication of personal responsibility, acquiescence in the face of suffering and misfortune, and indifference towards injustice. Taken to the extreme, indifference can result in the institutionalization of injustice."
We have all sorts of thoughts and feelings and judgments about people... and we're dead-wrong with appalling consistency. This is because we're living in a modern world with stone-age brains; these tendencies exist in us because they helped us survive when we were a primitive species living in crude tribes, but in today's world, with so many ways for evil types to do wrong, so many ways for things to go wrong outside of our control, and our vicious combination of contempt for virtue and love for wrongdoers, our instincts steer us to counterproductive decisions on a regular basis. This is why I tell you to ignore your "gut" under most circumstances; those "gut feelings" are our instincts that are trying to essentially make us play chess with the rules for checkers.
You have an ability unique in the animal kingdom; you can respond to your initial perceptions of people and events with skepticism rather than blind adherence. You can say, "Hey, wait a minute, why am I judging that person to be bad because he's unemployed? Don't ALL sorts of people go through periods of unemployment?", "Hey, wait a minute, why am I judging that person to be terrific because he got a promotion? Isn't it an established fact that he and the boss are golf buddies, and that he doesn't even pull his weight at the office?", and, the biggie, "Hey, wait a minute, why am I reacting with contempt towards this person that is being/has been mistreated? What excuse is there to believe that (s)he deserves mistreatment? Isn't it much more likely that the ATTACKERS are bad than that the VICTIM is?" You can say those things... but WILL YOU?
If you've read this far, you're probably a regular visitor (or a glutton for punishment, lol); just as an FYI, I had a dream last night in which I explained to my mother that I had to do more reading and research on spiritual and scientific issues, and get back to learning about new aspects of the unknown, and thus had to scale back to blogging every 4th day... I kid you not, I DREAMT that, and because I believe strongly in acting on those sorts of messages from the subconscious I will in fact be blogging every 4th day for now. Fear not, my passion for blogging is undiminished; I just need time to get some new ideas into my head... and a little more sleep wouldn't hurt.
I'll end with a bit of good news: The injured raccoon has been limping through the open gate every night to eat on my patio, so he figured out how to get plenty of food without having to climb the fence; even better, the swelling has gone way down on his paw, and he was using it to eat last night, so maybe it's just bruised and not broken... keep your fingers crossed for him.
I found something here
http://www.science-spirit.org/article_detail.php?article_id=40
that instantly rang true... unfortunately (all asterisks are mine):
"THE JUST WORLD EFFECT
Melvin Lerner documented this effect in the 1960's, and the concept has since become commonplace in social psychology. We like to believe we live in a just, fair world and, therefore, we do feel that we live in a just, fair world. In order to defend this fragile belief, *** we twist our perceptions of others and reinterpret past events. *** This requires considerable self-delusion in our sometimes capricious society.
Lerner looked for and found these illusions, even in those who intellectually know the world is unfair. His suspicions became aroused during his work in psychiatric medicine. Many of the doctors and nurses he met seemed oblivious to the pain and plight of their patients; they would laugh and joke about the afflictions of their charges, even insulting them to their faces. These intelligent men and women were in protective denial about the distressing state of affairs they confronted. He also noticed students taking his social medicine course derogating the poor in society as 'lazy good-for-nothings who deserve the raw deal they get.' He was unable to disillusion them with statistics and rhetoric, and took to the laboratory to devise an experiment.
'Tom' and 'Bill' performed the mundane task of assembling anagrams while their coworkers looked on. At the end of the task, one of the two was awarded a large sum of money for his efforts. The other received nothing. It was made quite clear to everyone before work commenced that the award would be made randomly, without reference to the workers' performances. After they had observed Tom and Bill's efforts this admonition was repeated: the subjects were again reminded that the prize would be assigned at random. The onlookers invariably thought that the man who walked away with the money was more productive, creative, and industrious than his penniless companion. These people, after seeing the money handed out, thought they remembered seeing the unlucky worker deserve his poor fortune. Lerner called this the 'Just World Effect.'"
I want to say that this is unbelievable, but the grim truth is that this is TOTALLY believable, because I've seen people doing mental contortion acts like this all too many times.
"In 1971, they gave such a test to sixty 19-year-old men who were participating in America's draft lottery. Those unlucky students who drew 'short straws' would find themselves in the armed forces. One might expect a degree of camaraderie to emerge - that the fortunate would feel sympathetic towards those with less luck. Not so among students who believed in a just world. These men actually resented the losers, in spite of their own vulnerable position. They felt that losing at the lottery meant you must have been a 'bad person.'
This seemingly blind faith in the fairness of the universe has been identified in experiment after experiment. It puts men and women at a disadvantage by inducing them into *** serious errors of judgment about their fellows. *** Nevertheless, it is found in societies across the globe"
This is what makes learning about this so important; it's one of the many areas where not making a conscious effort to figure out WHY you've made certain judgments leads to being totally wrong and thus to making bad decisions.
My spiritual/metaphysical readers should be aware that what's being described here is VERY different from accepting the workings of karma (as I interpret them) in people's lives; karma does NOT bring you what you "deserve," as the traditional view of it would have you believe, it's just mindless flows of energy with no judgments attached, and, while it DOES bring you positive and negative energy to match what you've sent out, that doesn't change the fact that there are many other forces at work that are unaffected by your karma... it neither protects you from the actions of weather, earthquakes, mad dogs and evildoers, nor provides you with the winning lotto #'s, based on your behavior or "worth."
"Justice is very clearly bound up with religion in all western traditions: a religion prescribes what is just, by example and by commandment. Religious institutions do not create the desire for justice, but exploit it to increase their appeal. In the afterlife or on Judgment Day, everything will be put to rights. Everything evens out in the long run. This is an enormously appealing doctrine, and its prevalence in religious thinking is no accident. "
This is a little bit of a tangent, but I included it because I think anything that helps us understand religion is valuable... and it points out just how deep this psychological bias runs.
The Just World Effect exists in us from a very early age:
"Deborah Fein studied six to nine-year-old children. She presented them with videotapes of a girl helping a friend, stealing a playmate's sweets, finding money, and being hit by a shelf of falling books. Different children saw different sets of videotape and then judged how 'good' the girl was on a scale from 1 to 14. Those who saw her help her friend gave her over 11 points - really quite virtuous. Those who only saw her finding the money [put] her at just under 12 points. Good fortune alone provided as much evidence of good character as did the act of friendship. The unlucky girl suffered insult as well as injury with an eight-point rating to add to her bruises from the books."
If you're a parent or grandparent, part of your job is to help combat these warped perceptions; you'll give your (grand)kids an edge by improving their judgment, and make them better people who don't look down on those who are already suffering.
Like all seemingly insane behavior patterns, this one exists because there are benefits to it:
"They studied a large number of married couples and found that people with strong beliefs in a just world had more satisfying and stable relationships than those without. People with high just world belief scores were more likely to respond constructively in disputes because they found it easier to take a positive long-term view. They were more trusting of their partners and more self-sacrificing as a consequence. Of all the spouses, they were the most accommodating of their partner's needs and desires since they had implicit faith that their partner would reciprocate in kind."
"... members of societies that emphasize and exaggerate their implicit beliefs in the world's fairness are more cooperative and trusting of their fellow citizens. A more cooperative society is a more successful society. Little wonder that human cultures support this phenomenon both explicitly and subliminally. Those that didn't would have been superseded."
Yes, BUT; you've got a BRAIN, and you can use it to CHOOSE to behave in ways that will maximize your relationship and societal success withOUT the ugly misjudgments being along for the ride.
Still not convinced that you need to fight this tendency?
"After World War II, a survey of Americans found that, far from evoking sympathy, *** the Nazi persecutions had caused a rise in anti-Semitism. *** British troops marched German civilians around the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. 'What terrible criminals these prisoners must have been,' they said, 'to receive such treatment.'"
Despicable!! Disgraceful!! Next time you start thinking we humans are an exalted species, remember THAT little gem.
You've probably already made the connection between what you've read here and the "she was asking for it" concept all too often seen at rape trials:
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v3n2/justworld.html
"The verdict of the jurors in the Fort Lauderdale rape trial may have been influenced by a widespread tendency to believe that victims of misfortune deserve what happens to them. The need to see victims as the recipients of their just deserts can be explained by what psychologists call the Just World Hypothesis. According to the hypothesis, people have a strong desire or need to believe that the world is an orderly, predictable, and just place, where people get what they deserve. Such a belief plays an important function in our lives since in order to plan our lives or achieve our goals we need to assume that our actions will have predictable consequences. Moreover, when we encounter evidence suggesting that the world is not just, we quickly act to restore justice by helping the victim or *** we persuade ourselves that no injustice has occurred. *** We either lend assistance or we decide that the rape victim must have asked for it, the homeless person is simply lazy, the fallen star must be an adulterer. These attitudes are continually reinforced in the ubiquitous fairy tales, fables, comic books, cop shows and other morality tales of our culture, in which good is always rewarded and evil punished."
If someone says that they've been victimized in ANY way, and you hear yourself thinking that they must have done something to deserve it, STOP and correct yourself, and correct anyone else that you suspect might have come up with the same cruel idea; you can't call yourself a good person if you're not willing to do so, because by denying the victim support for their pain you'll be aiding the wrongdoer in hurting them. Even if the victim is someone you're seeing on TV or reading about in the paper rather than someone you're interacting with, you still need to use every such situation as an opportunity to re-train yourself to lay blame correctly... on the victimIZERS.
There are more examples of the Just World concept at work:
"Melvin Lerner, a social psychologist, has conducted a series of experiments to test this hypothesis. In an impressive body of research, he documents *** people's eagerness to convince themselves that beneficiaries deserve their benefits and victims their suffering. *** In a 1965 study, Lerner reported that subjects who were told that a fellow student had won a cash prize in a lottery tended to believe that the student worked harder than another student who lost the lottery. In another study a year later, Lerner and a colleague videotaped a simulated 'learning' experiment in which it appeared that the 'participants' were subjected to electric shocks. Lerner found that subjects who observed the videotapes tended to form much lower opinions of these 'victimized' participants when there was no possibility of the victim finding relief from the ordeal, or when the victim took on the role of 'martyr' by voluntarily remaining in the experiment despite the apparent unpleasantness of the experience. Lerner concluded that 'the sight of an innocent person suffering without possibility of reward or compensation motivated people to devalue the attractiveness of the victim in order to bring about a more appropriate fit between her fate and her character.'"
And here's something else grim it can lead to:
"Zick Rubin of Harvard University and Letitia Anne Peplau of UCLA have conducted surveys to examine the characteristics of people with strong beliefs in a just world. They found that people who have a strong tendency to believe in a just world also tend to be more religious, more authoritarian, more conservative, more likely to admire political leaders and existing social institutions, and more likely to have negative attitudes toward underprivileged groups. To a lesser but still significant degree, the believers in a just world tend to 'feel less of a need to engage in activities to change society or to alleviate plight of social victims.'
Ironically, then, the *** belief in a just world may take the place of a genuine commitment to justice. *** For some people, it is simply easier to assume that forces beyond their control mete out justice. When that occurs, the result may be the abdication of personal responsibility, acquiescence in the face of suffering and misfortune, and indifference towards injustice. Taken to the extreme, indifference can result in the institutionalization of injustice."
We have all sorts of thoughts and feelings and judgments about people... and we're dead-wrong with appalling consistency. This is because we're living in a modern world with stone-age brains; these tendencies exist in us because they helped us survive when we were a primitive species living in crude tribes, but in today's world, with so many ways for evil types to do wrong, so many ways for things to go wrong outside of our control, and our vicious combination of contempt for virtue and love for wrongdoers, our instincts steer us to counterproductive decisions on a regular basis. This is why I tell you to ignore your "gut" under most circumstances; those "gut feelings" are our instincts that are trying to essentially make us play chess with the rules for checkers.
You have an ability unique in the animal kingdom; you can respond to your initial perceptions of people and events with skepticism rather than blind adherence. You can say, "Hey, wait a minute, why am I judging that person to be bad because he's unemployed? Don't ALL sorts of people go through periods of unemployment?", "Hey, wait a minute, why am I judging that person to be terrific because he got a promotion? Isn't it an established fact that he and the boss are golf buddies, and that he doesn't even pull his weight at the office?", and, the biggie, "Hey, wait a minute, why am I reacting with contempt towards this person that is being/has been mistreated? What excuse is there to believe that (s)he deserves mistreatment? Isn't it much more likely that the ATTACKERS are bad than that the VICTIM is?" You can say those things... but WILL YOU?
If you've read this far, you're probably a regular visitor (or a glutton for punishment, lol); just as an FYI, I had a dream last night in which I explained to my mother that I had to do more reading and research on spiritual and scientific issues, and get back to learning about new aspects of the unknown, and thus had to scale back to blogging every 4th day... I kid you not, I DREAMT that, and because I believe strongly in acting on those sorts of messages from the subconscious I will in fact be blogging every 4th day for now. Fear not, my passion for blogging is undiminished; I just need time to get some new ideas into my head... and a little more sleep wouldn't hurt.
I'll end with a bit of good news: The injured raccoon has been limping through the open gate every night to eat on my patio, so he figured out how to get plenty of food without having to climb the fence; even better, the swelling has gone way down on his paw, and he was using it to eat last night, so maybe it's just bruised and not broken... keep your fingers crossed for him.
