Provoking Thought: Blowing Sunshine
It's interesting. We're supposed to be civil in how we deal with other people. Some modern arguments for evolution with group goals (rather than individual goals) suggests that these are evolutionary traits that have survived the test of time. However, we also have instances where people are a little too nice. A little creepy, maybe, like they have a hidden agenda when they're so nice. It could be the guy trying to smooth talk his way into some gal's pants, or the guy trying to close a sale, or even the telemarketer trying to be your friend before you realize that he's a telemarketer. In any case, there's something there.
Kelley Main, Darren Dahl, and Peter Darke study what they call a "Sinister Attribution Error," where essentially, people become suspicious and think that others have a sinister intention when they are a little too complimentary, particularly when the person being complimented doesn't believe that it's deserved (Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2007, 17 (1), p.59-70).
I think that the lesson here is to not to blow too much sunshine up someone's ass. A little sunshine may be okay, but I'm not taking any chances.
-Chairman
4 comments:
Roland,
No one would mistake you for blowing sunshine anywhere. Cold, damp November nighttime air maybe, but definitely not sunshine.
Like I said. I'm not taking any chances.
Unrelated comment, but has TMQ crossed a line of geekiness??? In this week's column, the TMQ goes on a rampage about the differences between movie Spiderman and comic book Spidey - almost all accurate, btw, until Marvel decided to implement all movie changes into the comic, effectively re-creating the character to ape the movie, which aped the comic - AND references some Superman action.
That man, dear sirs, is a geek. Because not only did I understand him... I agreed.
I don't believe so. TMQ has always been big on science fiction and movie physics. Multiple references to Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek: Voyager have been seen in the past. One of the big pet peeves is inconsistency between story lines within a franchise. Similar to the rant on Spiderman, he talked a lot about the discrepancies between the Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and the Star Trek movies with regard to technology, timeline, etc.
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