“Make no mistake; you will be paid well not to feel, not to scrutinize the function of your differences and their meaning, until it will be too late to feel at all.” —
Audre Lorde, “Difference & Survival” (via grethor)
Don’t know what this is in relation to but this sounds a lot like corporate America to me…except the ‘paid well’ part
(via writeswrongs)
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Participants rated their sexual orientation on a 10-point scale, ranging from gay to straight. Then they took a computer-administered test designed to measure their implicit sexual orientation. In the test, the participants were shown images and words indicative of hetero- and homosexuality (pictures of same-sex and straight couples, words like “homosexual” and “gay”) and were asked to sort them into the appropriate category, gay or straight, as quickly as possible. The computer measured their reaction times.
The twist was that before each word and image appeared, the word “me” or “other” was flashed on the screen for 35 milliseconds — long enough for participants to subliminally process the word but short enough that they could not consciously see it. The theory here, known as semantic association, is that when “me” precedes words or images that reflect your sexual orientation (for example, heterosexual images for a straight person), you will sort these images into the correct category faster than when “me” precedes words or images that are incongruent with your sexual orientation (for example, homosexual images for a straight person). This technique, adapted from similar tests used to assess attitudes like subconscious racial bias, reliably distinguishes between self-identified straight individuals and those who self-identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual.
Using this methodology we identified a subgroup of participants who, despite self-identifying as highly straight, indicated some level of same-sex attraction (that is, they associated “me” with gay-related words and pictures faster than they associated “me” with straight-related words and pictures). Over 20 percent of self-described highly straight individuals showed this discrepancy.
Notably, these “discrepant” individuals were also significantly more likely than other participants to favor anti-gay policies; to be willing to assign significantly harsher punishments to perpetrators of petty crimes if they were presumed to be homosexual; and to express greater implicit hostility toward gay subjects (also measured with the help of subliminal priming). Thus our research suggests that some who oppose homosexuality do tacitly harbor same-sex attraction.
” — New study indicates homophobia is often a result of repressed homosexual feelings, validating what Freud posited in his concept of “reaction formation,” in which we lash out against others’ expressions of what we loathe in ourselves. (via explore-blog)(Source: , via explore-blog)
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How to Live a Simpler, More Contented Life -
1. Ask yourself “What’s important?” Take a step back and think about what’s important to you. What do you really want to be doing, who do you want to spend your time with, what do you want to accomplish with your work? Make a short list of 4-5 things for your life, 4-5 people you want to spend…
“Medical research has found there is a direct link between good health and living with a sense of community. People with strong social ties tend to have lower healthcare costs, recover faster from illness, and live longer.”
— It’s not easy building community. You have to overcome a good amount of suspicion and social inertia and even then progress tends to stutter. But when it happens, man, it’s a great thing to witness!
Diana Leafe Christian, “Finding Community.” (via utnereader)
“If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.” — C.S. Lewis (via stxxz)
(via urbnist)
When major traumatic events happen with this much news and social media coverage, PLEASE take care of yourselves by actively ignoring all sources of news updates periodically and frequently. We’re overloaded with information so choose wisely what we let in. Garbage in, garbage out.
How Social Media After The Boston Marathon Terror Bombings Can Be A Recipe For PTSD
Monday’s horrific events at the Boston Marathon produced horrific images which in the age of social media news means an inescapable constant, unsolicited bombardment of the gruesome aftermath of a gruesome event. While Twitter offered the fastest, most up-to-date, and accurate information, it also served as an unfiltered chronicle of the most distressing imagery, which can have lasting mental and physical effects.
“It’s hard to know what might be the news value in any of this,” Roxane Cohen Silver, a UC Irvine professor, told The Atlantic Wire. “I personally can’t see any value in watching these things over and over again.” Last fall, she completed a study on the lasting mental and physical effects of exposure to graphic images following 9/11 and the start of the Iraq War. The study found that people who watched more than four hours of TV coverage a day in the weeks immediately after both events went on to report PTSD symptoms and, after 9/11, more physical ailments than those that didn’t. ”I think it’s important for people to be aware that there is no psychological benefit to repeated exposure to graphic images of horror,” she said at the time of the study.
In those events, though, cable news was the main way we witnessed tragedy. Now, as we scroll through streams for updates sometimes clicking links which may have no warning that they lead to a photo of a man without legs. And it’s not just images. Twitter’s new product Vine is literally a loop of images, often replaying the explosions in a single click. As Whitney Erin Boesel eloquently explained over at The Society Pages:
Gone are the days when one had to watch an hour of TV news to see the same tragic explosion replay six times; gone, too, are the more recent days when seeing the same tragic explosion six times meant clicking “replay” five times on YouTube. Seeing this explosion six times takes only a single link click, and less than a minute of one’s time; in an hour, one could watch this explosion happen not just six times, but 600 times.
New media and platforms have changed the way we experience these events. “It’s the speed and ubiquity of these images that make one despair,” wrote Philip Kennicot in his Pulitzer prize winning Washington Post essay “What are we losing in the Web’s images of suffering and schadenfreude?“ But just how bad is that despair?
The term some use is media-induced PTSD. Christian Burgess director of Disaster Distress Helpline told the Wire that while there has been an uptick in calls to the hotline, about half of them are coming from people outside of the Massachusetts area. Those who have experience similar events, like the Virginia Tech shooting, which happened one year ago today, are particularly susceptible to feel anxiety, Burgess added. He has long blamed television’s coverage for triggering a slew of mental health problems. “Not only does it risk worsening anxiety, depression, and substance abuse, but it can create new mental health concerns, particularly among people who may not have a support system in place, or who may be vulnerable to distress,” he told the Wire.
Does social media, however, make it worse? Burgess says it certainly contributes to the overall distress, but he thinks it might be better than watching television. “I think there is a higher risk in more traditional forms of media beause its constant. It’s sort of this static and continuous overview and replaying of the bombing,” he said. “Because of the fleeting nature of social media, I think a lot of those images went under the radar or people intentionally didn’t open them, which is good,” he said. He also notes that people find other value in social media, such as community and communication.
But then when I told him I often clicked links of images that were more gruesome than I expected, he conceded that people have to be hyper aware on Twitter. “That’s a good point. As a protective coping strategy, people who are feeling distressed should try and avoid that.”
Silver, however, reiterated that repeated images—no matter where they come from—cause distress. I certainly saw the same disturbing photos over and over on Twitter. She was particularly disturbed by the idea of Vine. “That would be something I would be very concerned about,” she said. “I don’t know how you get people to stop posting that,” which brings up the most concerning part of social media. News organizations can follow recommendations and guidelines, such as the ones posted by Poynter this morning, for how to responsibly inform the public without too much distress. But that won’t stop these images from getting passed around. News organizations can help by not posting them in the first place—or at least putting up a warning like the Atlantic In Focus gallery. But, in this age of the viral video, Vine, and Instagram photo, there’s not much the big media outlets can do to stop the spread of imagery, which could have long and short term damaging effects on our mental health. Click responsibly.
(via cognitivedissonance)
Chinese herb company seeks Wisconsin ginseng -
It’s great that a U.S. company is growing a Chinese herb. Sourcing this (and hopefully more herbs in the future) from more transparent companies would a long way to easing fears about Chinese herbal products.
“One child is holding something that’s been banned in America to protect them. Guess which one?”
(via cognitivedissonance)