How to Be a Better Person to Others and Yourself

To get this mapping, a man and woman are hooked up to the equipment and both are asked to do a spatial task--to figure out how two objects fit together. If you were looking at a computer screen depicting the woman's brain, you would see that the color and intensity on both sides are fairly equal. But something else happens to the man's brain. The right side lights up with various colors that reflect a high degree of right-brain activity and much less activity in the left hemisphere. But if verbal skills are tested, watch out! The man uses much less of his brain compared with the woman's use of hers. Her left hemisphere really lights up! At a seminar, I had the opportunity to see such pictures. Controlling Prejudice in Interactions Individuals can prevent their automatically activated prejudices from affecting their behavior. However, controlling prejudice is not always easy and can backfire. The Contact Hypothesis According to Allport's conditions, optimal intergroup contact can reduce prejudice when it involves: Equal status Potential to make friends Cooperation toward shared goals Buy-in from those in power Optimal contact: reduces stereotyping; Positive effects of contact are often weaker for members of the minority group. The quote was inscribed at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, which was believed to have been constructed by the 4th century B. A lot of people underestimate the importance of this quote or misunderstand what it means in the first place.

Know thyself? Of course I know myself! Over the years, knowing yourself has been given more importance than knowing your enemy or rival. Sun Tzu attached great importance to knowing both yourself and your enemy. Sun Tzu was a tactical genius, an expert in the matters of combat and warfare. For him, it was vital that he knew as much as possible about his enemies - their habits and tendencies, their strengths and weaknesses, their beliefs, their loves, fears, and anything else he could learn about them. Having a complete knowledge was what could give him the edge in the battlefield. He also knew that he needed to know himself. In a brain scan on a woman it showed activity on both sides of the brain when she was talking. When the man was talking, the brain scan indicated activity only on the left side of his brain. The findings of this research indicate that a woman's brain is at work almost all the time in more sections than the man's. It's as if both hemispheres are always on call; Think of it like this: If there's a task to do, a man's brain turns on. When the task is completed, the brain turns off. But a woman's brain is always on. It's true that parts of a man's brain are always on, but when the two brains are compared in their downtime, or inactive time, the difference between the portion of the woman's brain that is always on and a man's that manifests an on/off function is quite pronounced. There are other results of the fact that women have 40 percent more, and thicker, nerve connectors between the two sides of the brain. Women can tune in to everything going on around them. The jigsaw classroom is an application of optimal contact to education. Reducing Prejudice Without Contact

Perspective taking increases empathy and decreases negative stereotypes. Bolstering people's good feelings about themselves helps them feel less threatened by those who hold differing views. Multiculturalism is perhaps the most effective ideology for reducing biases held by the majority while also valuing diverse perspectives held by minority groups. CONNECT ONLINE: Don't stop now! Check out our videos and additional resources located at: www. Interpersonal Aggression The text on the article reads, Topic Outline: Defining Aggression 450. He understood his own tendencies and preferences and analyzed them as an observer - without any attachment or emotion. He would search for his own weaknesses and accept them. He would find his own strengths, too, and by knowing both his strengths and weaknesses, he was able to steer the battle into situations that favored him over his enemies. Sun Tzu knew that sometimes your own weaknesses meant you should not attack your opponents' weak points. At other times, your strengths may make it possible to attack your opponent at his strongest point. It didn't come down to the simple approach of knowing what is strong versus what is weak; This way you can find where you have the biggest advantage over your opponent, even it isn't your best strength. This is what knowing yourself means. Beyond that, knowing yourself is also about honesty. If you tend to be flustered in the face of challenges, you need to know and accept this beforehand. A wife may handle five hectic activities at one time while her husband is reading a magazine, totally oblivious to the various problems going on right under his nose. She can juggle more items but can be distracted more easily.

He can focus on one task more effectively but can lose sight of other aspects. He has to stop one activity in order to attend to another. The result of this difference causes women to be more perceptive than men about people. Women have a greater ability to pick up feelings and sense the difference between what people say and what they mean. Women's intuition has a physical basis. A woman's brain is like a computer that can integrate reason and intuition. This drives some men crazy. There are numerous stories about couples who have gone out socially and the wife says to her husband, I think there's a problem or something is going on. Biology and Human Aggression 453. Situational Triggers of Aggression: The Context Made Me Do It 458. Learning to Aggress 466. Individual Differences in Aggression 480. The Roles of Alcohol and Other Drugs in Aggression 485. Violence Against Women 487. Reducing Aggression 491. Topic Outline Defining Aggression Biology and Human Aggression Ignoring it can put you in a dangerous situation. Long ago I was taken out on a team-building exercise with a group of my colleagues.

In the business world, we take a lot of parallels from war and the military. The fact that Sun Tzu is considered such a huge influence in the modern business world is a great example of this. On the team-building exercise, we were practicing this in full - it was an event ran by former military personnel and based on a military theme. Our challenge at the time was to transport a bunch of equipment across some difficult terrain and in harsh conditions. As part of the brief, we were told that we had to complete the mission in a certain timeframe because we were being hunted by the enemy. The key to accomplishing this mission was good teamwork. More than teamwork, it was important to know the team and to maximize their performance by splitting jobs up properly. When the task began, we didn't know any of this. Her husband responds with, How do you know? Where are the facts? And she says, I don't have any facts. I just sense it. He says, You don't know what you're talking about. But a week later, when he finds out she was right, he's amazed and even more puzzled. It could be that women pick up more information than men do since their sensitivities, such as hearing, eyesight, senses of taste and smell, are more heightened than men's. The hearing difference is noted even in childhood. Men, in general, hear better in one ear. Females, in general, hear more data and hear equally well in both ears. Situational Triggers of Aggression: The Context Made Me Do It Learning to Aggress