Take a step back and get out of your head

I named my anxiety. No seriously. His name is Fred and he's a blinking pain in the ass. I hate him. He's annoying, mean, pushy, rude, and he constantly smells like cabbage. Now, I'm not one for real interpersonal violence (unless it's in the octagon), but when I wake up and I'm in one of my periods of progress, I say to myself, You're goin' down, Fred. I also love video games, so I make a game out of it. Exposure is like gaining experience, leveling up my character. Of course, in many situations, we may not have strong preexisting beliefs that arm us with skepticism about persuasive appeals. Nonetheless, resistance is not always futile. But successfully resisting persuasion depends on a few factors: We need to know what to resist, be motivated to resist it, and have strategies that will be effective. Knowing What to Resist In Steven Spielberg's classic film E. Shortly after the release of this blockbuster movie in 1982, sales for these delectable peanut-butter snacks in a crisp candy shell boomed. This is an especially popular example of the widespread advertising technique of product placement in TV shows and movies (York, 2001), which capitalizes on our tendency to be influenced by what we see in the media. Whether it's Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) in the Marvel superhero movies driving an Audi or Phil Dunphy using an iPad in Modern Family or the judges on America's Got Talent drinking Snapple, their product decisions are far from coincidental. The influence of celebrities or other TV or movie characters using a product extends to behavior that can be downright deadly. For example, the more children see movies in which grownups smoke, the more positive their attitudes are toward smoking and the more likely they are to start smoking (Sargent et al. These alarmists always demand the same thing: absolute power to dominate, transform, and control every aspect of our lives. We will never let radical socialists destroy our economy, wreck our country or eradicate our liberty.

WHEN YOU CHOOSE to reject doom and gloom you are caring for your own well-being--and standing up for badly needed changes. As we'll see in the next article, hope is not complacent. It is a powerful political act. HOPE IS CONTAGIOUS My daughter, Esme, was my last good egg. To my utter surprise, I went into menopause immediately following her birth. On Midway Atoll Wisdom, a Laysan albatross, is over sixty years old. She continues to lay one good egg, each year, from a nest amid the plastic of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Getting better at deep breathing is like improving my fireball skill. Learning a new coping skill is similar to stumbling upon some epic imbued weapon. You should see my character at this point. There are a zillion ways to get the work done. Maybe for you, you can conceptualize it as building yourself this swaggarific castle. Sometimes, you have to first build the foundation and some scaffolding; From then on, it's just occasional maintenance from stray catapult shots or dragon fire throughout the years. Find something that works for you. This is your deal. You can go it alone or bring some friends along for the ride. Wills et al. Television shows and movies, such as Tony Stark driving an Audi in the Iron Man films, use product placement to advertise their corporate sponsors

Product placement works for a number of reasons. These images make the product accessible and lead us to associate positive feelings with that product, particularly when we identify with the character using the product. Indeed, research on smoking finds that the more people identify with the character smoking, the more likely they are to develop positive associations with smoking (Dal Cin et al. Narrative transportation theory (Green & Brock, 2000) helps us understand this process, not just with tobacco use but also with other consumer attitudes (Green & Clark, 2013). When audiences are transported into a story, whether on the screen or in the articles of a article, they are immersed in the imaginative world and more open to adopting the attitudes and preferences of the characters with whom they identify. Placing particular products in movies is an especially effective form of advertising because people most often do not realize they are being targeted with a persuasive appeal. Recall our discussion earlier in this article about source credibility and persuasive intent. If you are unaware that you're the target of persuasion, there is little resistance for advertisers to overcome, and so positive attitudes toward the product are free to develop. Against all odds, good things come from good eggs. ONE OF THE things I didn't expect when I started talking about hope was that people would go out of their way to tell me how wrecked the world is. As soon as I mention a positive emerging environmental trend, someone invariably tells me about the worst possible environmental situation they can think of. It's as if they think I don't know what is happening to the planet. I am the same age as the modern environmental movement, which began in the US in the 1960s. The narrative of doom and gloom that dominates the way we talk about the environment is the defining story of my life. Like you, I feel devastated by announcements like the one made by the World Meteorological Organization in 2019, which stated that climate-heating greenhouse gases showed no sign of a slowdown, let alone a decline. We either see the planet as beyond rescue, or we double down on optimism. I wonder if my comments about hopeful trends unintentionally cause some people to see me as being overly optimistic, and therefore trigger them to respond with evidence for why doom is justified. But the thing is, it's not an either/or situation. You can pack it all in at once or take it slow and gradual. Whatever the case may be, you are ready to get started now.

I'm getting chills thinking about how blinking awesome you are. Get pumped, my friend. You did not have to purchase this article, but you did. For that I thank you. If you enjoyed what you read, please consider leaving an honest review on Amazon. This will help the article reach a broader audience. If you have particular feedback about the article that you would like to share, please email duffthepsych@gmail. It was my absolute pleasure to write this article and I am more than a little excited to continue the series. But the effectiveness of product placement also gives us an important insight about factors opposing persuasion. If we're aware that a persuasive appeal is coming our way, we're better able to deflect its impact. In fact, such knowledge arouses motivations and cognitions that not only bolster our ability to withstand a persuasive message but can actually provoke us to do the very opposite of what the would-be persuader is trying to get us to do. Being Motivated to Resist As we've noted, persuasion can come from many sources. Our parents, for example, often try to persuade us to act in accord with cultural values. This socialization process is a vital ingredient in the recipe for a smoothly functioning society. But sometimes our parents also impose their own idiosyncratic, maybe outdated, preferences on how we style our hair, or what we wear, or whom we date. Perhaps you've had the experience of introducing your parents to your new boyfriend or girlfriend, only to face a later barrage of comments of the I forbid you to see that person! Did those admonitions increase or decrease your attraction to the new partner? What we need is a more nuanced understanding of how what we know and how we feel impact our capacity to act. What hope is, and what it isn't

Hope is not about turning our back on the facts. It's precisely because we do know how much trouble we are facing that millions of people all over the globe participate in climate protests. Protests are inherently hopeful acts. Researchers who study social movements tell us that hope plays a crucial role in mobilizing individuals to take part in collective action,2 just as participating in collective action fuels feelings of hope. Research shared by the American Psychological Association demonstrates that hope helps us to stay engaged with stressful situations, promotes coping skills, and reduces denial3--three important qualities given the misinformed concern that hope might breed complacency or foster climate change denial. Ernst Bloch, the German Marxist philosopher, also saw hope as intimately entwined in the realities of everyday life and the transformative power of political action. Hope is also not about feeling cheerful. When you love something and it's being destroyed, it's extremely difficult not to give up. I encourage you to continue to keep up with the series by joining the Email list at hardcoreselfhelp. Finally, if you want to connect with other people who are on the same journey of self-improvement, check out the private Hardcore Self Help subreddit at reddit. Here you can share your triumphs, give advice, ask questions, and keep yourself accountable. I hope to see you there. Guided Muscle Relaxation - Approximately 10 minutes Before you begin this exercise, get into a comfortable position. You can sit or lie down. Bring your hands to rest by your sides or in your lap. In this guided relaxation, I will be asking you to tense various muscle groups in your body and then release the tension. If you have injuries or pain that would make any part of this uncomfortable, feel free to skip over them. If your experiences are similar to those of many research participants, chances are that your parents' restrictions backfired. The Romeo and Juliet effect shows that parental opposition to a relationship partner is typically associated with deeper romantic love for that partner (Driscoll et al.