Psychology

Will the Handmaid’s Tale Make You A Better Listener?

This entry was posted in Literature Psychology Television on by (updated on )

This is the walkaway that Bruce Miller, Executive Producer of Hulu’s new series, The Handmaid’s Tale, want’s viewers to have:

But if you can provoke some better listening that would be a goal for a show like this. To look at someone in an extreme situation, and talk about it, and through that recognize something you can translate to your normal life.

Will you be more likely to listen to others after you watch The Handmaid’s Tale?

Well, it is to early to tell but I know that I am going read the book again and will be activating a Hulu account soon.

In the meantime, listen when others are talking!

Here are a few related links that I have run across recently:

There are plenty more if you want to take a deeper dive via your search engine of choice.

 

Dumb Down Your Guy

This entry was posted in Psychology on by

Sleep with him:

When men spend the night with a bed mate their sleep is disturbed, whether they make love or not, and this impairs their mental ability the next day.

So, is there a strategy to living together before marriage…?
The study also provides pointers on how to better remember dreams:

Bed sharing also affected dream recall. Women remembered more after sleeping alone and men recalled best after sex.

And makes an argument for separate beds:

“Historically, we have never been meant to sleep in the same bed as each other. It is a bizarre thing to do. Sleep is the most selfish thing you can do and it’s vital for good physical and mental health. Sharing the bed space with someone who is making noises and who you have to fight with for the duvet is not sensible. If you are happy sleeping together that’s great, but if not there is no shame in separate beds.”

If noise is a big issue separate beds it doesn’t seem as if separate beds will do the trick unless they are in separate rooms.
This does suggest that there might have been more behind the separate beds in those old TV series than simple modesty. They wanted their men bright eyed and ready to work every morning!
Personally, I’d rather be just a bit impaired every morning.

Via Truthdig.

In Your Sleep

This entry was posted in Psychology Sex on by

Amongst other things folks snore, walk, eat and possibly have sex in their sleep (sexomnia):

More than 92% said they had experienced multiple episodes of sexomnia, and a variety of sexual behaviors were reported, including 105 respondents—24 women and 81 men—who said they had had sexual intercourse while sleeping.

These are results from an anonymous internet survey so they may not be worth any more than spam.

I think these folks are just reporting fantasies, conflating sleep with the results of drinking and/or drug use, or remembering their wet dreams.

What’s Controlling You?

This entry was posted in Psychology Technology on by

This is cool:

A DEVICE that can pick up on people’s emotions is being developed to help people with autism relate to those around them. It will alert its autistic user if the person they are talking to starts showing signs of getting bored or annoyed.

At least on first look it is cool.
Mark Kleiman exclaims:

But I’m less excited by the potential benefits than I am dazzled by the idea that a piece of software that runs on a computer small enough to fit in your pocket can be taught to recognize the symptoms of boredom or annoyance, as well as other emotions not expressed by a simple facial expression. The implications for social-psych and anthropology research, to say nothing of marketing studies, should be profound.

Heck, the implications for everyday interactions of many kinds could be profound or even stultifying.
Profound in the sense that anyone who is not a master of body language would find it useful to have this kind of helpful feedback.
Stultifying when everyone is interacting with others based on feedback from this or a similar device rather than directly from the people they are communicating with.

Just imagine the feedback algorithms your favorite government drone might like to have programmed into something like this. They could create a real nation of sheep.