Phoenix

Hatred is a fundamental human emotion that has deep root in society and culture. Psychologists believe that group identity and cohesion depend to a large extent on having a common enemy. It seems that the existence of “bad guys” is an important element in defining who we are within a large realm. It could be said that human beings love to hate.

A basic emotion

Children who experience a rewarding friendship before the birth of a sibling are likely to have a better relationship with that brother or sister that endures throughout their childhood.
When early friendships are successful, young children get the chance to master sophisticated social and emotional skills, even more than they do with a parent. When parents relate to a child, they do a lot of the work, figuring out what the child needs and then accommodating those needs. However, this is not usually the case when two children are interacting.

The benefits of early friends are long-lasting. Children who had a positive relationship with a best friend before the birth of a sibling ultimately had a good relationship with their sibling that lasted throughout adolescence. And children who as preschoolers were able to coordinate play with a friend, manage conflicts, and keep an interaction positive in tone were most likely as teenagers to avoid the negative sibling interaction that can sometimes launch children on a path of anti-social behaviour. From birth, parents can nurture and help develop these social competencies (or skills) by making eye contact with their babies, offering toys and playing with them.

Study links early friendships with high-quality sibling relationships

The right balance of food and activities will help you feel great and keep healthy. Remember to:

• Make sure that you eat a variety of foods. It is important to eat from all five food groups
• Emphasize cereals, breads and other grain products. Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables. These contain vital nutrients and leading dietitians recommend eating at least two servings of fruit and three of vegetables every day.
• Achieve and maintain a healthy body weight by enjoying regular physical activities and healthy eating. Being too thin can cause as many health problems as being overweight. Remember, the correct weight for you depends on many different factors including your age, height and sex.
• Eat moderate portions and don’t be tempted to order a larger size when eating out. Skipping meals can lead to overeating as you will be much hungrier later, so be sure to eat regularly if you want to curb your appetite
• You don’t need to eliminate all of your favourite foods but do check the ingredients on food labels and make sure that you reduce your intake of foods that are high in fats, sugar and salt. Choose lower-fat dairy products, leaner meats and food prepared with little or no fat. Take limited salt, alcohol and caffeine.
• If you have a food allergy, make sure you avoid any of the ingredients that can trigger an attack.

Having a healthy diet is sometimes easier said than done. It is tempting to eat less healthy food because they might be easier to get or prepare or they satisfy a craving. Between family and work or school, you are probably balancing a hundred things at once.

How to improve your diet

Some products are advertised as having a remarkable and immediate effect. We are shown the situation before using the product and this is contrasted with the situation that follows its use. Taking a tablet for a headache in such advertisements can have truly remarkable results. For not only has the headache gone, but the person concerned has often had a new hair-do, acquired a new set of clothes and sometimes even moved into a more modern, better, furnished house.

One thing reminds us of another – especially if we often see them together. These reminders are sometimes more imaginary than real: for some people snow may suggest Christmas, for others silver candlesticks may suggest wealth. The advertiser encourages us to associate his product with those things he thinks we really want – a good job, nice clothes, a sports car, a beautiful girl friend – and, perhaps most of all, a feeling of importance. The ‘image’ of a product is based on these associations and the advertiser often creates a ‘good image’ by showing us someone who uses his product and who leads the kind of life we should like to lead.

The language of advertising

What are goals?

plans for the future
hopes for the future
something special we want to achieve

Why do we set goals?

to help us achieve something we want
to help us win
to make life easier
to satisfy our parents and family
to have success in our lives

Successful people have goals. They decide what they want to achieve and they work out the steps they need to take to achieve it. But it is important to choose SMART goals.

Goal setting

Different cultures like different foods, and sometimes a food that one culture thinks is delicious will seem disgusting to another. Almost every culture thinks at least some insects is disgusting.
People eat insects all over the world in Asia, Africa, South America and Mexico. Some people in Asia, for example, eat giant water bugs. They boil them like Americans and Europeans boil lobster. These bugs are so big, they can eat fish.

People don’t usually eat bugs in Europe or North America, but they did at one time. The ancient Greeks cooked cicadas (an insect like a grasshopper) and the Romans ate wood-boring beetles. The American Indians also ate bugs. They ate grasshoppers, crickets, and caterpillars. Once we are used to certain foods, our tastes can be very different. Hindus in India are disgusted by eating beef, and many Asians think cheese is pretty horrible. Americans find it strange that many French eat horse met and frogs.
As the world becomes more international, food tastes are getting wider in many countries. Americans now eat Japanese sushi (raw fish) and French snails. Maybe someday Americans will say “Give me a hamburger and an order of water beetles, please”

Eating Bugs

When two pedestrians collide, there’s none of that anger we see when motorists cross one another’s path. The experts say that we don’t see aggression when people collide because they’re liable to exchange little signs of apology, which you are unable to do when you’re trapped inside a car.

The same kind of misunderstandings can easily happen on e-mail. The style of e-mail is terse but informal, so people get annoyed where no rudeness is intended, because they can’t see the expression on the face of the person they’re communicating with. If they could, the problem would instantly disappear.

Face the facts

From simple folksongs to the complex sound of a symphony orchestra, music has been created by every known society. Almost every pivotal event in life can be signposted with music, whether it’s a joyful occasion like a wedding or a sad one such as a funeral. Music, which consistently emerges in surveys as the most popular form of art, can be used not only to tap into an emotion a person is already feeling, but to manipulate it in a powerful way. Yet the existence of music mystifies scientists. It is not a primary means of communication, the only species to make musical instruments, music does not seem to help us to live longer or pass on our genes more efficiently. So what purpose does it serve?

A flute was not a sophisticated instrument – in fact, it had a range of less than one octave – but it was an instrument nonetheless. Cavemen used the instrument to attract prospective mates. Although some psychologists feel this is somewhat feeble and doesn’t really explain why a cavewoman should find a caveman flautist more appealing than a tone-deaf rival, the question remains. After all, something must explain why our ancestors were creating music 200,000 years ago.

Psychologists are united in one belief – that music speaks to the heart. What is more, the evidence that music elicits emotion is startlingly direct. Certain pieces of music induce physiological changes in the body that correspond to certain emotions. “Sad” pieces caused the pulse to slacken, the blood pressure to rise and the temperature to drop, which is exactly what happens when a sense of sadness sets in. “Happy” songs did the opposite, including a cheery feeling. Somehow, music can tap into sensitive emotional circuits.

Music has all the hallmarks of an adaptive behaviour, meaning it was a factor in selecting a mate. It is universal across cultures, and kids are motivated spontaneously to learn how to play music around the age of puberty.

Musical talent can indicate many desirable qualities in a mate: the mental competence to learn notes and lyrics; the social intelligence required to be part of an orchestra and co-operate, literally harmoniously with other people; creativity and energy. But just because musical competence may have once signaled a good mate doesn’t necessarily mean that every modern woman is searching for that quality – human beings have come to differ in their preferences.

Why we are touched by the sound of music

'Cyber crime' sounds like a very new type of crime. In fact, it has been around since the 1970s - before the personal computer was invented, when computers far less powerful than today's games consoles filled entire rooms and were monitored by technicians.
The first cyber crimes were carried out across telephone lines, by a group of electronic enthusiasts known as 'phone phreakers'. Having studied the US telephone system, they realised that it used a series of musical tones to connect calls. They found they could imitate those tones, and steal free phone calls, by creating small musical devices called 'blue boxes'. One famous 'phreaker', John Draper, even discovered that using a whistle given away inside a cereal box could do the same job as a blue box.

The first cyber criminals

People are often more concerned about avoiding blame than achieving results. But blame can actually be a positive force in the workplace. The trick is knowing how to use it.

When a new product flops in the marketplace or a new recruit turns out to be a poor worker, blaming somebody for the mistake seems a bit rude. So people talk politely around the blunder, saying things like ‘sales targets were missed’ or ‘mistakes occurred’ as if the error happened all by itself. Indeed, at many companies, blame is never even mentioned. At other organisations, people are all too quick to point fingers, leaving employees more concerned about avoiding blame than about achieving results. Such organisations have given blame a bad name.

The truth is, blame can also be a powerful constructive force. For starters, it can be an effective teaching tool, helping people to avoid repeating their mistakes. When used judiciously and sparingly, blame can also prod people to put forth their best efforts, while maintaining both their confidence and their focus on goals. Indeed, blame can have a very helpful effect when it’s used for the right reasons. The key, then, is the way in which blame is managed, which can influence how people make decisions and perform their jobs, and ultimately affect the culture and character of an organisation.

How to win the blame game

Snorts, clicks, groans – tune in to the long-distance language of the ocean

The vast oceans of the world are dark, deep and mysterious places where eyesight counts for little as soon as you venture very far beneath the surface.

For humans, who live in a world dominated by visual stimuli, to exist in such conditions would be impossible. But for whales and dolphins that live in the ocean or, in the case of a few species, muddy rivers and estuaries, the darkness is unimportant. What is crucial to them is sound.

Sound is an efficient way to transmit and sense information, especially as it travels five times faster through water than through air. If humans shout to someone. It is unlikely that they will be heard a kilometer away. But if a whale ‘shouts’ in an ocean channel, another whale may hear it tens, if not hundreds, of kilometres away.

The undersea world of sound

Would women through history have been so keen on the pearls around their necks if they’d known what was inside?

There is a mystery and preciousness that we attach to pearls, yet despite what some people believe, it has nothing to do with a grain of sand. Pearls, which have long been the treasures of the wealthy, are often the products of dead worms, which remain entombed at the centre of the jewels, minute, translucent and ethereal.

Larval tapeworms drill into the flesh of mussels to use them as intermediate hosts en route to their later hosts, which in most cases are ducks or fish. The mussels’ immune systems battle the worms by encircling them in layer after layer of nacre, the same calcium-based material found in the mussels’ shells. The invaders suffocate and then rest for eternity encased in these tiny chambers.

Pearly gems

Some people see their home merely as a shelter from the elements or a place to crash after a long day spent outside. But most attach deeper significance to the place they call home---feelings of safety, comfort, warmth, and love. However one may feel, the image of the home is defined by experiences and memories and gives shape to your dream of a perfect place to be. We've all had the experience of visiting someone's home for the first time and thinking. This is exactly how I imagined it would be. Homes are for the hearts as well as bodies, and they tend to take on the characters of their occupants over time.

How would you describe your ideal home, the home you see yourself most comfortable in? Let's open the door and take a peek inside.

After years of hard work and saving, you are considering the purchase of your dream home. When you open the front door to begin the tour, there is a staircase immediately before you. Is it brightly illuminated or dimly lit?
The house has not been used for some time. Hallway, toilet, bathtub, dining room - which is most badly in need of cleaning? Which is best kept?
As you walk from room to room, you notice the front door is still slightly open, and someone is peeping in through the crack. Who is that person?

Source: Kokology - The Game of Self-Discovery

Dream Home

Looking for your first job after graduation is a stressful process. It means hours spent working through your interviewing strategy, checking and rechecking your resume, even rehearsing your posture and smile in front of the mirror. It's all about making a good impression; about letting them know you've got what they need. You're out there competing with a hundred other grads with the same GPA, the same part-time job experience, and the same extracurricular interests. A new suit and haircut aren't enough to set you apart from the crowd - you need to find a way to make the people in HR see the real you.

You have landed an interview at the company of your first choice. On the day of your interview, you are called down to a meeting room and you see that you're going to be interviewed by a team. What is the average age of the people on the panel of interviewers?
The interview is rigorous and thorough, with the questions ranging from the simple "getting to know you" variety to ones that were clearly intended to rattle your cage. You manage to field every question thrown at you, but one in particular leaves a strong impression. What was that question?
Just when you are beginning to relax and feel the job is in the bag, one of the interviewers begins to point out your shortcomings and weak points. What characteristics does your critic list among your faults?
That night, the phone rings. It's the HR manager calling with an offer! What do you say in response?

Source: Kokology - The Game of Self-Discovery

Seeking Applicants

From red as a rose to red as a beet, when we see red it affects us emotionally. Scientific experiments have shown that people asked to remain in a room with red walls become more passionate, aggressive, and easily aroused than people in rooms with muted backgrounds. Research has even shown that exposure to red can make the body temperature rise. Red may be at the low end of the spectrum of light, but it has power to move us like no other color.

Imagine three women, each of whom is fond of the color red and uses it to accent her appearance. The first of these women has her nails painted red, the second wears red lipstick, and the third has her hair colored the same shade. Now imagine their personalities and describe each in detail.

Source: Kokology - The Game of Self-Discovery

A Flash of Red

Parks and playgrounds are intended to be places for quiet relaxation and childhood games, but they can be the stage for some less pleasant scenes as well. Kids will be kids, and sometimes that means bad little kids. The child's world is not all hopscotch and hide-and-seek - there are plenty of other ways to pass the time when teachers and parents aren't around.

Walking past a small playground one day, you see two young children engaged in a serious-looking fight. No other adults are around. How do you respond (if at all)?

Source: Kokology - The Game of Self-Discovery

Phoenix

How environmentally aware are you?

A basic emotion

Study links early friendships with high-quality sibling relationships

How to improve your diet

The language of advertising

Goal setting

Eating Bugs

Face the facts

Why we are touched by the sound of music

Hurry sickness

What kind of learner are you?

The first cyber criminals

How to win the blame game

The undersea world of sound

Pearly gems

Dream Home

Seeking Applicants

A Flash of Red

Keeping the Peace

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