In this week’s spotlight I would like to discuss the capacity for deferred gratification. There’s a genuinely tutorial study known as the marshmallow test. In this study young children were sat down in a room with a large fresh marshmallow. They were told that they could eat the marshmallow if they wanted, but if they waited until the researcher returned to the room, they could have two—the researcher would bring them a second marshmallow. They were also told that if they decided to eat the marshmallow before the researcher returned, ... Read More
In this week’s spotlight I want to direct your attention to the nature of confusion. Believe it or not, there are actually several different forms of confusion. First there is the obvious, the recognition that you are confused about something, perhaps even where you are or what you’ve been doing. We’ve all read or seen some story of the person who wakes up after a drinking binge in someone else’s bed, and knows not where they are or who they are with. This is a state of confusion, one we ... Read More
In this week’s spotlight I wish to address the notion of blame. Years ago I conducted the first ever double blind study utilizing subliminal communication to change the behavior of an incarcerated population. We ran some fairly extensive psychometric tests but discovered nothing new. We had high scores in self and social alienation, but that was expected. The first phase of our study was to determine what sort of messages might change the attitudes and beliefs among inmates and thereby lower hostility levels, increase reflectivity, and if we were lucky ... Read More
In this week’s spotlight I wish to take a moment to address the nature of law enforcement. We have recently seen officers literally lured to locations and then ambushed. No matter what you might think about your local police, stop for a moment and think about what sort of world we would have without them. Rule of Law History has a lot to tell us about states of lawlessness, and most of us would prefer to live in a country of laws. Unfortunately, there seems to be no limit on ... Read More
In this week’s spotlight, I’d like to take a moment to discuss the recent road trip my son and I made evaluating the idea that the first moonwalk was the most significant achievement of humankind in the last century. When we asked folks for the truly greatest accomplishment of humankind in the 20th Century, almost unanimously the answer was Apollo 11’s mission to the moon. Neil Alden Armstrong’s famous quote, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” was often cited. Now for the record, Armstrong himself ... Read More
