Hi Folks. Back from vacation. It was nice acting like a kid again (outside most days riding my bike, playing golf, or kayaking). After throwing in plenty of quality time with the family and significant stretches of time spent sitting around scratching my a**, it was perfect. I’ll keep this post brief. I just wanted [...]
Category Archives: Human nature
Who ate my muffin?
How long would a platter of chocolate chip muffins last in your office fridge? Well, according to research by Dan Ariely, not long. Ariely’s research inspired my May 26 column. After he published his book, Predictably Irrational, much of the discussion surrounded some of the more sensational white collar crimes like the Enron fiasco or [...]
The power of beliefs
A few months ago I was listening to a radio program where an anthropologist was interviewed about a West African village where children were killed on a regular basis. These kids were believed to be inhabited by evil spirits. One had been born with a withered arm. Another was a child whose mother died during [...]
Mistrust: A self-fulfilling prophecy
What’s worse; blind trust or paranoia? I suppose it depends a great deal on circumstances. If one were living in a war-torn country where suicide bombings and hidden allegiances were common realities, paranoia would certainly serve to protect. But like all psychological states, paranoia and mistrust are double-edged swords. They serve a useful purpose in [...]
More, more, more
Why would a person drive a Hummer? It seems that the more we have, the more we want. It never ceases to amaze me how demand quickly outstrips supply. Any time we desire something that is beyond our reach we think we will be satisfied with “just the basic necessities.” How many people without personal [...]
The depths of cruelty
In yesterday’s Montreal Gazette, former editor Norman Webster wrote about Tuol Sleng, the former high school that became S-21, the Khmer Rouge’s primary prison and torture center. Tuol Sleng and the Khmer Rouge regime represent everything that is wrong with human nature. And it is merely a single chapter in the long history of man’s [...]
Segregation
Us versus Them… From time to time you will notice how themes keep coming back again throughout my posts. That’s because I believe we are not very complicated creatures. We just appear so. In reality, human nature appears complex because there are an infinite number of combinations and permutations that can manifest themselves as a result of [...]
Knowing the limits of knowledge
I used to teach a class at McGill called “Advanced study in behavioural disorders.” It was a course that gave students a chance to get some fieldwork experience in their final undergraduate year. Each year I would tell students the following in their first class: “When you don’t know something, you don’t know something. When [...]
Memories: True or false?
Memory, more specifically false memory, is a topic I wrote about for a column a few months ago. I kept the final product on the back burner before finally deciding to publish it last week. I hesitated because of the trauma that sexual abuse causes. Research into false memories has had a major impact on [...]
