Go Green, Praise Efforts, and You Matter!

Okay, that self-help book I was reading.... quoted many, many research findings and quirky experiments. I would just note down three that stuck with me.

Will you believe that colours have significant, unconscious impact? I'm not talking about colour therapy or colour association with spatial or emotion. You may know about psychological association with colour but do you know what extent? Researchers took a hall full of participants who were sitting for a Math test, randomly divided them into two groups. They all had to put a pencil between their teeth. Group A must hold the pencil in such a way that their lips do not touch the pencil that is held by their teeth. Group B must hold the pencil in such a way that the lower lip covers / touches the upper lip while holding the pencil with their teeth in between. Both groups sat through the Math test, Group A fared better than Group B simply because essentially; Group A were smiling while Group B were frowning. Haha. So that has nothing to do with colours you'd say. I was just coming to colours. 

In a separate experiment, researchers (Andrew Elliot & colleagues from University of Rochester) took a group of participants for a standard set of Anagrams test. The researchers divided the participants into two groups. Before the participants begin the test paper, they were asked to check their names and numbers which were printed on the last page of the test paper. Group A's students' names and numbers were printed in Red, while Group B's were printed in Green. It only took a few seconds for the participants to check their names on the test booklet but the difference in results was remarkable. The group exposed to the red ink only solved one third of the anagrams, compared to those exposed to green ink. The finding suggests that green boost creativity. Grab some green pens the next time you go to the stationery shop, go green! We did.

Kiki asked me why Mrs. Tan bought other people's bun only to sell them off. She says that's wasting other people's bun. Perplexing question she has for me. I said that Mrs. Tan probably runs a business and sold the buns at a profit. She asked further; if Mrs. Tan gave remaining buns to her children, then how about herself? Won't she be hungry too? I replied that Mrs. Tan might probably take a bite from any of the buns from any of her children.  This is not a story, it's just a math question but yes, she took the question literally. 

Okay, next. Praise worthy or not. 

I think I have finally resolved what I think was wrong with me. 

I thought that I was "Bright".    

惊天动地 revelation ah! 

Parenting tips have always told us that we ought to praise the efforts and not the ability. That means your remark would preferably be something along -- "You must have practised hard for this, good job." Instead of saying that the kid is Bright or Clever. Because when the kid thinks that he is clever, he might think that he has a natural flair and might become lax in developing persistence, diligence, endurance. But that is not the worst effect. Researchers took a bunch of children, divided them into three groups and conducted the experiment on them individually. Group 1 were told that they had scored 80% for the test (fake results), and that they were bright, talented or intelligent. Group 2 were simply told of their 80% fake score, without elaboration. While Group 3 were told of their 80% fake score and added that they must have worked hard for the test. (praised effort). 

Then, the groups were given a specially difficult puzzle; this time the results were not sugar-coated.  The children were asked to share their results with their classmates. 

40% of the kids from Group 1 lied about their results (They wanted to camouflage their disappointment or embarrassment).  10% of the kids from Group 2 lied. While Group 3 mostly didn't feel the need to lie because they've developed the mentality that they could try regardless of consequences, therefore sidestepped the fear of failure.

When poor results were attributed to not putting enough hard work, it takes away the feeling of helplessness or the feeling of an innate inability to think (feeling stupid). 

Don't know lah-- this is so confusing to me. I remember when I was in school, I hated Math and I failed that subject all the time. I know I had never worked hard on it because I simply couldn't understand the questions and gave it up from the onset. I did feel stupid because everyone else breezed through Math. They tell me Math is the only subject that one could score 100%. I interpreted it as I must be damned stupid then. 

However, I breeze through subjects like Management, Marketing, HR, Leadership, all those soft-skills subjects. In Marketing, an intake of 150 students, on the result board where it listed grades A to F, there were only two aces and I accounted for one of them. So those kind of subjects are very easy to me. I still hate Math, Quantitative methods and Statistics, that is why I dread the day if I ever want to take an MBA because I won't be able to run from numbers then. And I hate Math because I failed it during my UOL first year and needed to retake so I gave it up, the whole course. It discouraged me for a long time. But of course now I'm over it. And then now I have to go through Primary school education all over again...... *Cry! Chinese now is worse than Math! *Cry.....

Ok, sorry. I am just very anxious about the Primary school education because I am very worried that I would give it up like I did when I was nine. I still remember the day I gave up. I simply stopped trying and I just tee-kum tee-kum my way through the entire Primary school, and played through my Secondary school, and zombied through my Pre-U. I worry that I might give up trying to work through KiCo's education.................... cos that looks to me like too much work! 

So there you have it, my darkest fear is that I give up, again. 

Okay, finally, the last point: You Matter. 

Researcher took 240 wallets, stuffed them with regular items, cash, credit cards, membership cards, photographs etc. and put the wallets in a self-addressed envelop, dropped them on the street that is near the postal office. The experiment enacted that the wallet was being lost a second time. Meaning that some well meaning personnel dropped the package while on the way to the postal office to return a lost wallet. (double whammy situation). 120 wallets had an accompanying note that read - "It's a pleasure to help someone" or "It's been no problem at all". (meaning the person who found the wallet was helpful). The other 120 wallets contained a note that read- "I was quite annoyed at having to return it and hope you appreciate the effort I have gone through". (negative) So the person picking up the envelop is in the position to decide if the wallet indeed gets returned or not. Finding- 40% of the wallets with positive notes were being returned, while 12% of wallets with negative notes were being returned. Don't you find this significant?  It means that positivity has 40% impact while negativity has... well, 88% impact. Well, you could say that negativity is more powerful but for positivity to have 40% impact, I think that's remarkable. So while we continue to spread positivity, we've also got to be more conscious when making a negative remark ya? Because you matter!

p.s: in this case, the finding also suggested that most people are biased against "losers", ie. they think that it is careless to lose your wallet once (careless but forgivable), but to have it getting lost while being returned spelled "loser" all over. and they are very unkind to "losers" hence justifying to themselves that the loser was meant to be. That, is a terrible thing to think but it is apparently a common thought among people. The negative respond complied from the negative note, hence 88% of the time, the wallet with the negative note doesn't get returned. So, to all the unkind people out there, you matter!