Quotes About Perception

Scheff called shame the social emotion because pride and shame provide the social evaluative feedback as we experience ourselves as if through others' eyes.

Everything smelled of sheep. The dandelions were suddenly more sheep than flower, each petal reflecting wool and the sound of a bell ringing off the yellow. But the thing that smelled the most like sheep, was the sun itself. When the sun went behind a cloud, the smell of sheep decreased, like standing on some old guy's hearing aid, and when the sun came back again, the smell of the sheep was loud, like a clap of thunder inside a cup of coffee.

People come to Washington believing it's the center of power. I know I did. It was only much later that I learned that Washington is a steering wheel that's not connected to the engine.

Uma população que afirma, indignada, que é perfeitamente sã agora devora drogas psicotrópicas, como se estivesse pondo açúcar nos flocos de milho.

As únicas doenças que os "curandeiros" curam são as que seus clientes imaginativos não têm.

I look at the car park and myself and Dave Watson come in with our old cars, and these young lads come in with their new Porches. I think that society has changed, there seems to be a lack of respect nowadays.

Mariah put something useful in a nutshell when she said: If white person is lazy around here, it is because they have a poor work ethic. If a black person is lazy, it's because they are black.

They have to square their well-earned reputation for kindness and hospitality with their equally well-earned reputation for violence and bigotry.

Viewed as a whole, a forest radiates beauty, serenity and safety. Viewed from within, misplaced focus reaps the fabricated chaos of trees.

On traditional economic theory: We do not play chess as if we were a grandmaster, invest as if we were Warren Buffett, or cook like an Iron Chef. It is more likely we cook like Warren Buffett, who loves to eat at Dairy Queen.

You know, at some point people reach an age at which they can no longer be considered 'promising.' I think it is about the time they turn forty.

They have convinced their customers that the entire shopping experience is an orgy of bargain hunting, and go out of their way to reinforce that image.

What this means is that people do not assign specific values to objects. When they have to give something up, they are hurt more than they are pleased if they acquire the very same thing.

People think about life in terms of changes, not levels. They can be changes from the status quo or changes from what was expected, but whatever form they take, it is changes that make us happy or miserable.

This scoring system has no effect on the grade you get in the course, but it seems to make you happier.

choices depend, in part, on the way in which problems are described.

Once I have a mug, I don't want to give it up. But if I don't have one, I don't feel an urgent need to buy one. What this means is that people do not assign specific values to objects. When they have to give something up, they are hurt more than they are pleased if they acquire the very same thing.

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." People

Knowing something about the cognitive system has allowed others to discover systematic biases in the way we think.

Weber-Fechner Law holds that the just-noticeable difference in any variable is proportional to the magnitude of that variable.

So, we experience life in terms of changes, we feel diminishing sensitivity to both gains and losses, and losses sting more than equivalently-sized gains feel good.

Social influences come in two basic categories. The first involves information. If many people do something or think something, their actions and their thoughts convey information about what might be best for you to do or think. The second involves peer pressure. If you care about what other people think about you (perhaps in the mistaken belief that they are paying some attention to what you are doing—see below), then you might go along with the crowd

The first step to overturning conventional wisdom, when conventional wisdom is wrong, is to look at the world around you. See the world as it is, not as others wish it to be.

The Spotlight Effect One reason why people expend so much effort conforming to social norms and fashions is that they think that others are closely paying attention to what they are doing. If you wear a suit to a social event where everyone else has gone casual, you feel like everyone is looking at you funny and wondering why you are such a geek. If you are subject to such fears, here is a possibly comforting thought: they aren't really paying as much attention to you as you think.