How to Move from Self-Awareness to Self-Improvement

They wonder why people assume, speculate and imagine. What good does it do? One of the biggest frustrations for S's is when others don't give them clear guidelines or instructions. After all, they are very explicit and detailed. So it really bothers them when they receive instructions that are just general guidelines. If you ask an intuitive (N), Where's the nearest Starbucks coffee store? It's a couple of blocks down on the right. You can't miss it. Phillips & Hensley, 1984). In all of these cases, he found significant increases in suicides and homicides a few days after these media depictions. The more these events were publicized in a community, the greater the increase in corresponding violent actions. Another noteworthy effect is that the more violent television people watch, the more they believe that violence is common in the real world (Gerbner et al. This sense that the world is unsafe also may contribute to aggressive propensities by increasing a sense of threat and encouraging the idea that aggression is normative. Furthermore, the more children and adults watch media violence, the less they become disturbed by it and the more they become tolerant of it (Drabman & Thomas, 1974; Linz et al. Thomas et al. One recent study that takes the social neuroscience perspective showed that playing a violent video game leads to a reduced physiological reaction in the brain called the P3 response, which indicates a lack of surprise in response to viewing aggression. Furthermore, this neural desensitization helps explain why violent video games tend to increase aggression (Engelhardt et al. Is it because Branson is an amazing all around businessman? You might think so, but no.

Instead, he is a man who knows his strengths and weaknesses. He maximizes his strengths (like his amazing leadership and marketing abilities) and lets other specialists deal with his weaker areas. He also manages to oversee the Virgin empire with the same 24 hour day we all have - yet how many times have you heard people say they don't have time for something? Life is all about managing things - managing your strengths and weaknesses, managing your time to be efficient, managing your routine so you are focused on the areas that give the most return. You can apply this same mindset to willpower and get more out of your day. Remember, making an engine more efficient will help the fuel to last longer. So how do you get more efficient with willpower? The first trick is to use schedules and habits. But a sensor would say, Turn around and go back out the way you came in. Turn left and go a block and a half to 17th Street and turn left. It's three-and-a-half blocks down on the left sandwiched between Kentucky Fried Chicken and a dry cleaners in a brick building. S's have difficulty seeing the overall plan of something because they focus on what they're doing; When it comes to money (which can be a source of major conflict in a relationship), S's are very exacting. Money to them is tangible. When they have it, they can use it but only as much as the amount allows. In a relationship, an S probably looks at money realistically, rather than through rose-colored glasses. Predictability in a relationship gives them a sense of security, whereas change throws them. N's and the Intuitive World The lower participants' P3 response to violent stimuli, the more aggressive they were when administering noise blasts to an opponent. Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film A Clockwork Orange is one of many examples in which media violence seems to have inspired real-life violence.

In sum, both theory and research suggest the following disturbing conclusion. If 10 million people watch a violent television show or movie, play a violent video game, or listen to violent music lyrics, the majority surely won't be moved to engage in aggression. However, just as surely, a minority of them--those with hostile feelings or dispositional aggressiveness, or both--will be. And even if that minority were a mere one tenth of 1% of the viewing or gaming audience, that still would be 10,000 people moved by violent media toward engaging in aggression. SOCIAL PSYCH AT THE MOVIES Violence on Film: Taxi Driver The 1976 classic Martin Scorsese film Taxi Driver (Phillips et al. It depicts much of what we know about the causes of aggression and the kind of explosive gun violence that has become much more common since the release of the film. We covered some of this already. When something becomes a habit through repetition, it becomes more natural to do the habit than to NOT do it. Now you're saving willpower, because the real willpower cost would come from breaking routine and NOT doing the habit. By sticking with it, your willpower stays intact. Routines are a big help for willpower. Imagine that you have 10 different tasks to do, some more important than others. If you're given a list of these 10 tasks, you still have to figure out the best order to do them in. This costs mental energy and time, draining your willpower too. Now imagine that you're starting the day without any clue of what you need to do - you have to first think of the different tasks, then create an order to do them, then try to remember that order . All of this sounds pretty tiring already, right? If your preference is intuitive (N), the way you respond to the world is not through the five senses or by means of facts, but on the basis of your sixth sense, or on hunches. Details and facts have their place (perhaps), but you can easily become bored with them.

You don't take things at face value; You look for possibilities. Possibility is a very important word to an N, whose focus is not on the here and now but on the future. If you are a sensor, you pay attention to facts and details and are more comfortable with what exists. If you are an intuitive, you look for the underlying meaning of relationships and prefer to look for possibilities. N's are sometimes perceived as a bit absentminded. Simply because they like to think of several things at once. Sometimes it's difficult to concentrate on what's going on at the moment because the future has so many intriguing possibilities. Paul Schrader based his screenplay in part on the diary of Arthur Bremer, who had grievously wounded a presidential candidate in an assassination attempt in 1968. As a former marine who served in Vietnam, Travis has had training in violence (social learning). He is stressed by insomnia, stomach pains, and a sense of alienation and loneliness. He drinks heavily (and therefore might be more disinhibited) and takes amphetamines (which might elevate his arousal). He drives the streets of New York in his cab, witnessing aggression and violent conflict on a nightly basis (violent cues and scripts). He is looking for some way to feel heroic, like a person of significance in the world (low self-esteem with touches of narcissism). He is deeply frustrated when he is rejected by an attractive political campaign volunteer named Betsy, whom he had viewed as an angel amid the filth and ugliness around him. One of his customers primes him with the idea of getting a . He subsequently attempts in vain to shoot a presidential candidate whom Betsy worked for. He eventually goes on a bloody ramarticle, intending to strike out at those he perceives as evil and to save Iris from a life of prostitution. Especially when you compare it to the ideal alternative - a prepared list of 10 tasks that are already listed in the order you should do them. Doesn't that sound a lot easier?

By having this type of schedule, we remove a lot of the stress and thought process that goes into the daily planning stage. It's so much easier to just follow a list without thinking, and it saves your mental energy for the tasks themselves. This is a great way to extend how far your discipline goes. Using the right order is important too. This comes back to knowing yourself and your strengths/weaknesses. Some people prefer to start easy and slowly build up to the hardest tasks, because momentum is important for them. Others like to start with the hardest, smash it out of the way, then carry on knowing that the day will keep getting easier. Personally, I have a different approach. Intuitives live for the future. Its purpose is to help get ready for tomorrow! If an N is going on a trip somewhere, it already started weeks in advance for this type who experiences it all during the preparation time. But for the S, the trip doesn't begin until arriving at the destination. Then an S can begin to experience it. There is another significant difference between an S and an N. When the N is describing something, it's as though he's actually experiencing what he's describing. One couple I know had different preferences. Jim was an intuitive and Sheila a sensor. He had traveled a great deal during college, but Sheila had never left Nebraska until she married. A few years after the film came out, a socially inhibited and lonely young man named John Hinckley Jr. He eventually decided that he needed to save Jodie Foster, at the time an undergraduate at Yale University.