WAY OT: Favorite less well known psychological phenomena
This post was inspired by one of mgoreader evenyoubrutus's recent comments where he mentioned the gell-mann amnesia effect. I had heard about this phenomenon a year or so ago and found it fascinating. It came up in a conversation recently and for-the-life-of-me I couldn't remember its name.
The aforementioned gell-mann amnesia effect is one of my favorite less well known psychological phenomena. What're yours?
Also, thanks to evenyoubrutus for solving one of my worst what's-it-called moments!
January 23rd, 2021 at 2:33 PM ^
Maybe start by explaining what the phenomenon is?
January 23rd, 2021 at 2:39 PM ^
You know how the MSM is a punchline around here as it relates to sports? Because we have such a profound understanding of what goes on at Michigan, we laugh at the MSM when they report things so erroneously. (Think Freep Jihad/Stretchgate) Well, howcome we don't apply this to everything else?
January 23rd, 2021 at 3:01 PM ^
Michael Crichton died way too soon. Genius.
January 23rd, 2021 at 3:20 PM ^
But wet pavement does cause rain! Have you ever seen rain when the pavement was dry? Didn’t think so. Some people are so gullible
January 23rd, 2021 at 7:36 PM ^
There's nothing scientific about that at all. You can't criticize a newspaper's reputation as solely a product of appealing to authority by appealing to a different authority. Why should I believe Crichton over the New York Times? Certainly newspapers get some things wrong, but instead of Crighton you could imagine some foreign policy expert who thought invading Iraq was a good idea doing the same thing.
January 24th, 2021 at 2:29 AM ^
It is if you can substitute "Gell-mann" for your name and "physics" for what you know, and the paragraph is still correct.
January 24th, 2021 at 9:09 AM ^
He isn't saying that the newspaper is always wrong. I think the idea behind it is extremely self evident.
As I stated with the Freep reporting on Rich Rod, this is a perfect example. Everyone here was hysterical over the injustice done in that report. They consulted with "experts" and referenced NCAA bylaws and WON AWARDS IN JOURNALISM for that work. The narrative around Rich Rod and the program was completely altered by a big front page investigation in which the authors didn't even understand the basic concept of what is a countable practice hour. 90% of their allegations turned out to be completely false and not even NCAA violations.
If you stop for one moment and consider the implications of this idea, that this sort of thing could happen anywhere any time, it really is a big ordeal.
And by the way, if you've ever read any essays or listened to any talks by Michael Crichton, you'd know he was one of the smartest human beings alive. Your comment seems to imply you didn't really get the point he is making. I realize that people have a hard time making huge adjustments in their world view so I'm not surprised you'd be so objectionable.
January 23rd, 2021 at 2:34 PM ^
Whatever the phenomenon is that caused the refs to never call a foul on Edey but call that block call on Livers.
January 23rd, 2021 at 6:06 PM ^
I was pretty perplexed at that one. Livers was outside of the circle and standing still while getting bulldozed. As sloppy as that game was, the refs made it a chore to watch.
January 23rd, 2021 at 2:47 PM ^
The Dunning-Kruger Effect
January 23rd, 2021 at 5:12 PM ^
I don't know what that is but I think I'm really smart and I bet I would understand that better than most people and I doubt that I'm overestimating my abilities.
January 23rd, 2021 at 2:52 PM ^
Sleep paralysis. I've had a number of occurrences of this dating back to sophomore year at U-M, and they're really fucking weird and creepy.
January 23rd, 2021 at 3:02 PM ^
I read about this several years ago, so when it happened to me last year I knew what was going on, but it was still terrifying. I read it tends to happen more when you are laying on your back, which is what I was as well.
My experience with sleep paralysis went like this: I had been asleep in bed with my wife sleeping as normal. At some point I started having this dream where it was as if I was laying in bed at night with my eyes open staring at the ceiling. I had this ominous feeling something was watching me from the foot of my bed. As I "looked" towards my feet with my eyes only I realized my body was paralyzed and only my eyes were moving. I could see a black fog rising up and slowly rising over me. It gave me this really heavy sense of fear/dread. I immediately knew I was having sleep paralysis from those symptoms at this point, but I could not wake myself up or move. As the black fog kept rising over me the only thing I could do was yell my wife's name in my dream, hoping she would hear me and wake me up. As far as I know, she didn't, but somehow I snapped out of it.
The next morning, I didn't say anything about it and my wife said "What were you dreaming about last night? You yelled my name and scared the shit out of me". I told her about the sleep paralysis and asked if she had woken me up and she said "no, I thought it was just a nightmare so I ignored it".
Told me all I needed to know about my wife right there. :) It was a crazy experience though. So lifelike, but yet scary not being able to move at all.
January 23rd, 2021 at 3:06 PM ^
You were visited by shadow people. Sorry, no cure for that.
January 23rd, 2021 at 3:15 PM ^
Very consistent with my experiences.
My first one occurred soph year in my room in Markley Reeves. I was in the bottom bunk lying on my back, and as I was laying there paralyzed I could see with my peripheral vision hands coming up from under the bed trying to grab me. I was trying to shout out to wake up my roomie in the top bunk but I don't think I managed more than a quiet strangled gurgle.
I'd never heard of sleep paralysis before so I was pretty freaked out. At the time I attributed it to the cheap pot I'd been smoking in the dorm, but I eventually figured out that wasn't the cause.
January 23rd, 2021 at 6:41 PM ^
I lived in Markley 70-71 school year but until your post I had completely forgotten that there were 'houses" within the dorm. I too, was in Reeve's House.
January 23rd, 2021 at 5:00 PM ^
Thanks a lot, jerk. Now I'm afraid to go to sleep. Maybe I'll put a one-eyed doll next to me and stare at that until I drift off...
January 23rd, 2021 at 5:16 PM ^
I've had similar bouts a handful of times, the worst involving a giant spider trying to eat my face. I was screaming.
January 23rd, 2021 at 4:00 PM ^
I suffer from this almost once or twice a month and it sucks big time.
January 23rd, 2021 at 4:26 PM ^
Wow, that often?
I've experienced it about once or twice per year only over the last dozen years or so. It scared the living sheiss out of me the first time it happened and nearly as bad every time since.
January 23rd, 2021 at 7:54 PM ^
I read a book called The Dream Drugstore by a neuroscientist that was really interesting. Talked about sleep paralysis and other phenomena. It'd be too much to explain everything here, but you can think of a model that has 3 main components (activation, input gating, modulation) of your overall brain state at any given time. You have your normal waking and sleeping states and then you get this weird stuff when one of the components is off, like in sleep paralysis where you should be in the sleeping state but activation gets too high and you wake up without all the other waking stuff changing as well, such as internal dreamlike/nightmarish stimuli, turning motor control back on.
January 23rd, 2021 at 2:54 PM ^
BPONE comes to mind. May be well known and felt here, but it's rare elsewhere.
January 23rd, 2021 at 2:56 PM ^
It's not particularly obscure, but I see a lot of the Dunning-Kruger effect on sports message boards!
January 23rd, 2021 at 3:15 PM ^
Dunning-Kruger Effect also has Mount Stupidity.
January 23rd, 2021 at 2:58 PM ^
Keith Jackson Syndrome. It's a variantion of the Mandela effect only Keith Jackson isn't dead yet.
January 23rd, 2021 at 3:14 PM ^
Neither is Nelson Mandela. Why, I just saw him yesterday. He’s in good spirits.
January 23rd, 2021 at 3:00 PM ^
I don't know if it has a name, but I find it fascinating that people's hatred for one politician causes them to love and adore their political opponent, even if they're only marginally less sleezy than the other.
January 23rd, 2021 at 3:03 PM ^
It's short-sighted, intellectually dishonest and shitty all around behavior whatever it's called.
Tribalism maybe?
January 23rd, 2021 at 3:12 PM ^
I can imagine it once served a distinct evolutionary purpose. It doesn't do any good in 2021.
January 23rd, 2021 at 3:24 PM ^
I'm sure it wasn't an original thought, but a friend once said that if he became president his first order of business would be to pay a bunch of well-respected scientists from around the world to claim there was evidence of a highly advanced, highly aggressive extraterrestrial species that was going to reach our planet in 100 years. The only way to survive would be to work together as a human race to prepare.
Unfortunately things like climate change aren't scary enough to treat as a common enemy, but it's amazing what can be achieved and how well people who usually hate each other will work together if they find something or someone they hate even more.
January 23rd, 2021 at 3:45 PM ^
but it's amazing what can be achieved and how well people who usually hate each other will work together if they find something or someone they hate even more.
This can also result in extremely bad things.
January 23rd, 2021 at 6:07 PM ^
100%, hence the hypothetical extraterrestrial target.
January 23rd, 2021 at 3:47 PM ^
Have you read the Three Body Problem? That is kind of the premise of that book. If you're into hard science fiction it's a great read.
January 23rd, 2021 at 5:56 PM ^
I'd heard they were making a TV series out of it, but don't know anything beyond that. Thanks for the rec, I'll have to check it out!
January 23rd, 2021 at 4:45 PM ^
Ahem, this is why we need the Soviet Union.
January 23rd, 2021 at 3:12 PM ^
It's called the sports fan effect, just applied in a higher stakes area. It also applies when you love one group/person so much that the other becomes evil. Strange to think we can HATE anything coming out of Wisconsin, but we all do. :)
January 23rd, 2021 at 4:31 PM ^
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.*
*Does not apply when either Ohio State, Michigan State or Norte Dame are playing each other. A pox on all their houses!
January 23rd, 2021 at 3:42 PM ^
Also whatever this is
January 23rd, 2021 at 5:34 PM ^
This is a pretty impressive snapshot. +1. Where did this originate from? I'd like to read up on it more.
January 23rd, 2021 at 4:16 PM ^
Spot on. One day people will learn how to think for themselves and ditch political parties. If only somebody would have warned us about the awful effects of these political parties.
January 23rd, 2021 at 4:30 PM ^
Completely with you on that.
Never belonged to a political party and never will.
January 23rd, 2021 at 4:56 PM ^
I knew there was a reason I liked you rob f.
I’m not part of a political party either, however, I get lots of flack for that for some reason.
January 23rd, 2021 at 5:37 PM ^
I think they can have value because you can form a group and raise awareness of your positions as well as raise money. There is power in numbers. It’s just there are too few. Very few people probably ascribe all the views of Rs or Ds. A lot of Rs, for example, will be libertarian or constitutional. Some Ds are classical liberals, some might be socialist or even communist as you get way out to the left. But rarely will you find someone that ascribes to all the party views of Rs or Ds.
January 23rd, 2021 at 7:37 PM ^
Dogwhistle much?
January 23rd, 2021 at 5:57 PM ^
This is why I never join or become a member of any group. Yes, it can be lonely to always be an outsider or an outlier. But I find that when you join a group, you can never criticize or even question said group. Joining a group effectively means you either have to go with the tide or be ostracized from the group. I assume there must be an evolutionary strategy in why people feel the need to join groups -- safety in numbers at its most foundational perhaps. But I just never could do it.
January 23rd, 2021 at 3:04 PM ^
The Peter Principle: People in a hierarchy tend to rise to their "level of incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
January 23rd, 2021 at 4:13 PM ^
Sometimes they aren’t successful and still get promoted. I see this all the time.
January 23rd, 2021 at 5:32 PM ^
See, e.g., Lane Kiffin.
January 23rd, 2021 at 3:09 PM ^