14 May 2007

Temptation, mimesis and imagination

This is an interesting piece of research to look at with Genesis 2-3 in mind.
the researchers asked a group of actual college students how often they intended to skip class in the following week. Another control group of students was asked how often they intended to floss. Over the course of a semester, the group that was asked how often they intended to miss class ended up with one more absence, on average, than the group that was not asked. As the authors explain: "Despite very real negative repercussions, respondents to a question about their future class attendance engaged in the negative behavior (missing class) at a significantly greater rate than those not asked to predict their behavior."

Just by mentioning the posssibility of something, we then have it in mind, and it just sits there inviting us. This seems to corroborate the NLP assertion about negatives first requiring a mental positive. I commented on this as part of my 'Homo Loquens' series of posts, so I won't repeat the ideas here, merely refer you on. The point is that our mimetic drive pushes us towards embodying or responding to our mental images.
ScienceDaily: License To Sin: Asking People To Think About Vice Increases Their Likelihood Of Giving In

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"Spend and tax" not "tax and spend"

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