Word Power

POSITIVE TRIGGERS

Having the correct use of language to describe things is important for evoking positive or negative reactions. It's why advertising agencies are populated with very clever people all trying to tap into our emotions to sell us stuff we don't really need.

We are all swayed and primed by words. Just watch an Apple keynote address for how skilled their marketing folks are at marketing technology to us. See how the language used can whip up a frenzy for products that are marginally different to the previous versions. These products are not going to radically improve anyone's lives. Arguably, they don't even warrant ditching the previous version and splashing out on a 'new' one. Yet that's what I've witnessed many times. A friend, when asked recently why she wanted the latest top spec iPhone 6s over her top spec iPhone 6, quipped 'It looks amazing, I just want one' - she doesn't even know why - let alone what the new phone's features do over and above what her existing phone does. 

Negative Triggers

Just in the same way that we can be swayed and cajoled to part with hard-earned cash, we can also have our moods affected by negative words. 

One of the worst offenders for making the mistake of priming us with negative thoughts, are doctors. The medical profession is full of official-looking, uniform-wearing 'experts'. And hearing a diagnosis from a health professional (an assumption based on knowledge gained from what has been before), can either fill the recipient with hope or fear. Research has shown where priming has either given greater success for recovery or helped condemn patients to a worse fate. 

The way we label things, grouping them into clusters and badging all under the same terrible banner without clearly making distinctions, arguably causes a lot of grief in those that are sick/unwell. 

For example, Cancer is always said to be 'in remission' instead of healed, so the very language implies that this disease is still there and ready to come back at any time. The use of language in this instance is very important to retain a positive mindset and something to be addressed/improved in the medical field. 

Counter Clockwise is another one of those books (alongside The Logic of Lying), that needs to be read by everyone if we are all going to better understand how our mind is open and receptive to good or bad messages, which, depending on how we choose to interpret them, can be for our greater detriment or benefit.  

Implicit Association

HOW PREJUDICE ARE YOU?

We are all affected by our associations and interactions with other people. Our preferences can be made up from early childhood, influenced by parenting, peers and popular opinion. No matter if we think we're biased or not, our unconscious minds tell a different story... and very few of us are totally without prejudice.

Implicit Association
Taking tests to determine colour, weight, age, sexuality, gender preferences can alert us to how unconsciously, or unintentionally, we favour one group over another. There are arguments to say this kind of testing only really tells us about the social groups we know or don't know and isn't a true test of our biases, but can surprise our conscious selves to the unconscious traits affecting our decisions and presumptions. Take the test to see how you might be more unconsciously biased than you realise.

Transactional Analysis

ROLE PLAY

Humans are social creatures. Every interaction we make with someone else in every task we do, has some form of role play involved. We adopt ego states that make the transaction process go a certain way. Understanding the role play scenarios, what each wants to gain through the action of their role will help bring about the best course of action for obtaining a successful result at the end.

There has been much research on this subject of transactional analysis and learning what this research teaches us about ourselves can be a real benefit for personal wellbeing and positive results in life.

Click the above link for an in-depth description - below are explanations of the Adult and Child Ego State for examples of role play:

Adult Ego State
The Adult ego state is about direct responses to the here and now. We deal with things that are going on today in ways that are not unhealthily influenced by our past.

The Adult ego state is about being spontaneous and aware with the capacity for intimacy. When in our Adult state, we are able to see people as they are, rather than what we project onto them. We ask for information rather than stay scared and also rather than make assumptions. Taking the best from the past and using it appropriately in the present is an integration of the positive aspects of both our Parent and Child ego states. So this can be called the Integrating Adult.

Integrating means that we are constantly updating ourselves through our every day experiences and using this to inform us. This can be achieved by producing a daily blog - as I am doing right here.

In this structural model, the Integrating Adult ego state circle is placed in the middle to show how it needs to orchestrate between the Parent and the Child ego states. For example, the internal Parent ego state may beat up on the internal Child, saying "You are no good, look at what you did wrong again, you are useless". The Child may then respond with "I am no good, look how useless I am, I never get anything right". Many people hardly hear this kind of internal dialogue as it goes on so much they might just believe life is this way. An effective Integrating Adult ego state can intervene between the Parent and Child ego states. This might be done by stating that this kind of parenting is not helpful and asking if it is prepared to learn another way. Alternatively, the Integrating Adult ego state can just stop any negative dialogue and decide to develop another positive Parent ego state perhaps taken in from other people they have met over the years.

Child ego state
The Child ego state is a set of behaviours, thoughts and feelings which are replayed from our own childhood.

Perhaps the boss calls us into his or her office, we may immediately get a churning in our stomach and wonder what we have done wrong. If this were explored we might remember the time the head teacher called us in to tell us off. Of course, not everything in the Child ego state is negative. We might go into someone's house and smell a lovely smell and remember our grandmother's house when we were little, and all the same warm feelings we had at six year's of age may come flooding back.

Both the Parent and Child ego states are constantly being updated. For example, we may meet someone who gives us the permission we needed as a child, and did not get, to be fun and joyous. We may well use that person in our imagination when we are stressed to counteract our old ways of thinking that we must work longer and longer hours to keep up with everything. We might ask ourselves "I wonder what X would say now". Then on hearing the new permissions to relax and take some time out, do just that and then return to the work renewed and ready for the challenge. Subsequently, rather than beating up on ourselves for what we did or did not do, what tends to happen is we automatically start to give ourselves new permissions and take care of ourselves.

Alternatively, we might have had a traumatic experience yesterday which goes into the Child ego state as an archaic memory that hampers our growth. Positive experiences will also go into the Child ego state as archaic memories. The positive experiences can then be drawn on to remind us that positive things do happen.

The process of analysing personality in terms of ego states is called structural analysis. It is important to remember that ego states do not have an existence of their own, they are concepts to enable understanding. Therefore it is important to say "I want some fun" rather than "My Child wants some fun". We may be in our Child ego state when we say this, but saying "I" reminds us to take responsibility for our actions.