The paradox of temptation

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-01/afps-tpo013009.php#

The paradox of temptation
Does the mere availability of something tempting weaken the will to resist? The answer is of more than theoretical interest to public health experts, and the problem goes far beyond serious addictive disorders. Just think of all those Christmas cookies in your office recently. As our national obesity crisis shows, difficulties with discipline and self-control are widespread and harmful.
Every self-control challenge is a tradeoff of one kind or another, and with chocolates and other desserts it's a tradeoff between satisfying a sweet tooth and commitment to good nutrition. Although it seems intuitively obvious that the dieter should not keep bonbons in every room of the house, psychological theory argues the opposite. According to counteractive self-control theory, we deflate desire for readily available temptation when indulging conflicts with pursuit of more important goals.
Three psychologists recently decided to test the paradoxical view of temptation based on counteractive self-control theory. Kristian Ove Myrseth and Ayelet Fishbach of the University of Chicago and Yaacov Trope of NYU predicted that increasing the availability of sweets would indeed deflate desire for them.
They tested this notion by offering women exiting the gym the choice between Power Bars or chocolates and asked them to rate their desire for each. Simple enough, but here's the twist. Some rated their desire before choosing, and others right after - but before eating. The idea was to compare desire for chocolate when it was readily available, and when it was made unavailable.
The psychologists figured that young women at a gym would tend to be health conscious - and thus conflicted over the choice. The results, reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reveal that the women did indeed prefer the healthy power bars - that is, they devalued the chocolates. However, this preference disappeared as soon as they made their choice, and the unhealthy temptation was no longer an option. So it appears that self-control does in fact operate paradoxically, by actually diminishing desire for what's tempting and accessible.
The authors suggest that this happens because availability of sweets is threatening to the loftier goal of good health, and so causes the mind to damp down desire to protect the greater good. In short, by making a tempting sweet readily available, we make it less tempting.
But what if you could just change your mind? What if you had the option to ditch the health food and scarf down the chocolate instead? Does the mind keep desire flat for as long as the temptation remains an option? The psychologists decided to test this, but not with chocolates. Instead they created a self-control tradeoff involving work and play. They studied a group of graduate students in the University of Chicago's school of business. Unhappily, these MBA students were enrolled in a really boring, although required, class. The researchers had these students rate the desirability of a number of leisure activities, like going to movies and partying and so forth.
Some rated leisure activity while they still had the option of dropping the boring class. Others did the rating after the deadline had passed for dropping the class. In other words, for some the decision was a done deal, while for others it was reversible. They found that, as long as they had the option of blowing off work for play, they continued to dampen their urge to play. It appears the mind protects itself against succumbing to temptation for as long as it must, and it does this by devaluing what's most available.
These findings are a bit puzzling, and the authors raise some intriguing questions: Would dieters actually benefit from the sight of the dessert cart rolling by? Should alcoholics keep liquor in the liquor cabinet- paradoxically to help with self-control? The intuitive answer to such questions is no, but the evidence from these studies suggests that it might not be a resounding no.
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For more information about this study, please contact: Kristian Ove R. Myrseth (kmyrseth@chicagogsb.edu) or Ayelet Fishbach (ayelet.fishbach@chicagogsb.edu)
Wray Herbert discusses this study in his blog, "We're Only Human..." (http://www.psychologicalscience.org/onlyhuman/)
Psychological Science is ranked among the top 10 general psychology journals for impact by the Institute for Scientific Information. For a copy of the article "Counteractive Self-Control: When Making Temptation Available Makes Temptation Less Tempting" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Barbara Isanski at 202-293-9300 or bisanski@psychologicalscience.org.

Heaven

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
Steven Weinberg (1933 - ), quoted in The New York Times, April 20, 1999

Hahaha

沈玉琳寫《魯肉飯》盼賣破扁的《十字架》

更新日期:2009/01/22 04:34 王雨晴／台北報導

沈玉琳新書《人人都愛魯肉飯》21日舉行新書發表會，他說這本自傳書，希望能突破陳水扁《台灣的十字架》銷售紀錄，「他那本在廁所看完就丟，我這本看完還可以當衛生紙。」

他靠上通告爆料賺進千萬元，還笑言大家都得了「話題恐慌症」，「我把自己的一生都說完了，還把我的下輩子也預告了，但小鐘最沒梗，他講的故事有些還不是他的，是他表弟的，通常一個故事大概可以講個10次以上，才會被發現。」

前女友鄒佩真透過公司其他藝人祝賀，吳宗憲則到場為他站台，日前因老婆沒帶他的印鑑，無法幫他代領消費券，他也打算不領捐回國庫，見內政部長廖了以因消費券短少500萬自責落淚，他說：「男人要有膽識，才500萬而已，哭什麼哭，我的消費券沒領，就拿來貼補吧。」

http://tw.news.yahoo.com/article/url/d/a/090122/4/1de3t.html

Why do freeways come to a stop?

Shower!

Meetings Are a Matter of Precious Time - with Chinese translation

January 18, 2009

Preoccupations

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/jobs/18pre.html?_r=1

Meetings Are a Matter of Precious Time

By REID HASTIE

THE meeting spills over into its second hour. We are discussing an employee productivity initiative. At the moment, our most talkative committee member is describing a similar effort at another company. Her descriptions are peppered with self-consciously clever turns of phrase and images.

Another participant chimes in with the idea that we need some kind of incentive system to reward employees for behaviors we want from them. This is the same solution he offers for every problem, at every meeting.

Then, our self-appointed parliamentarian interjects a long story about a previous institutional effort — to make the point that our team is not the proper entity to recommend the kinds of changes we are proposing.

I, meanwhile, contribute nothing useful.

Finally, the woman who set the meeting calls it quits and tells us we’ll continue the discussion next week. We drift back to our offices wondering what went wrong and how to make up for the wasted time.

This meeting occurred many years ago, but others that are distressingly similar happen at companies everywhere, every day.

Part of the problem at such meetings is that the leader has not set clear objectives or an agenda, and didn’t assign pre-meeting preparation tasks. Instead, the leader seems to hope that magic will occur, producing a serendipitous solution to some of the problems addressed. Of course, that doesn’t happen. As a general rule, meetings make individuals perform below their capacity and skill levels.

This doesn’t mean we should always avoid face-to-face meetings — but it is certain that every organization has too many meetings, and far too many poorly designed ones.

The main reason we don’t make meetings more productive is that we don’t value our time properly. The people who call meetings and those who attend them are not thinking about time as their most valuable resource.

In business, we like to convert time to money, and the reverse. But in practice, time and money are different. We can get more money, save it, move it between accounts and use it on demand. These operations don’t apply easily to time.

Time is the most perishable good in the world, and it is not replenishable. You can’t earn an extra hour to use on a busy day. Nonetheless, we usually have a vague feeling that there is plenty of time — somewhere in the future — so we waste it now and carelessly steal time from our families, friends or ourselves when we come up short at the end of a workday and need to stay an extra hour.

Probably most important, we are blind to lost time opportunities. When we choose where to invest our time, as opposed to where to invest money, we are more likely to neglect what else we could have done with it.

And, once meetings are over, we don’t effectively assign responsibility for a bad meeting or take personal responsibility as we should. Sure, someone called the meeting, but we all leave it unhappy and blaming everyone, including ourselves. Psychologists call this “diffusion of responsibility” and one consequence is that no one thinks it’s his or her job to fix it the next time.

I USED to be the disengaged participant — one who had good ideas about how to solve a problem or conduct a meeting, but didn’t contribute. I now take a more active role, aiming to make meetings more effective. Here are simple principles I use.

• Whoever calls a meeting should be explicit about its objectives. This means specifying tangible goals and assigning responsibility for creating, summarizing and reporting on them. Ask yourself this question: Specifically, what do we want accomplished when we walk out of the room?

• Everyone should think carefully about the opportunity costs of a meeting: How many participants are really needed? (Almost all business teams and committees are too big.) How long should the meeting last? Set a definite ending time. Anyone who doubts that the meeting is necessary, or thinks it’s too long, should speak up.

• After productive or unproductive meetings, assign credit or blame to the person in charge. Then, if people have track records of leading ineffective meetings, don’t let them lead future sessions. When their expertise is essential, make them subordinate to an effective meeting leader.

Yes, I know that some benefits of meetings aren’t obvious if we look only at tangible progress toward organizational objectives. The person who called the meeting described above was probably interested in more than just finding definite solutions to problems she posed for discussion. She was interested in what solutions the group could generate at first, and maybe wanted to float some of her own half-baked solutions for initial evaluation before thinking harder.

Even if problem-solving is the objective, meetings can also serve other functions: sometimes, they can communicate a pre-ordained solution, make sure that there are no fatal flaws in it and give those who are unhappy with it a chance to voice their dissatisfaction.

And many meetings serve a cultural function, allowing participants to renew social connections, establish relationships, verify the social order and deepen a sense of belonging. So, it’s possible to justify a few of those too-long and apparently unproductive meetings by finding hidden payoffs.

But, please, don’t just call a meeting and hope the magic happens. Take charge and take personal responsibility for meeting its objectives, whatever they are.

Reid Hastie is Robert S. Hamada Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. E-mail:
preoccupations@nytimes.com.

會議攸關寶貴時間

By REID HASTIE

會議蔓延過第二小時，我們正在討論激發員工動力的方案。我們話最多的委員在形容另一家公司相似的做法，還刻意用花俏的句子和畫面去點綴她的描述。

另一個委員又附和的提出建議：我們需要某種誘導系統來獎勵員工，以獲得我們想要的表現。他在每個會議裡對每個問題都提出同樣的方法。

然後，我們自命為議長的人又插入一則長篇的前例以指出，我們的團隊並不適合推行我們所提出的改變。

我呢，則完全不做出任何實質的貢獻。

最後，召開會議的女士終止了會議，告訴我們下週再繼續討論。我們飄回辦公室，一邊想哪裡出了錯，一邊想怎麼彌補浪費掉的時間。


這個會議是好幾年前發生的，但是類似的會議還是每天在各處的公司發生。

這種會議一部份的問題是，領導者沒有立下清楚的目標或是議程，也沒有分派議前的準備任務。反而，他們似乎指望會有奇蹟發生，然後問題會神奇解套。當然囉，這並不會發生。大體來講，每個人在會議上發揮的表現總是低於他們的才能和技術。

這並不是說我們應該永遠避開面對面的會議，但是每個組織的會確實都開太多了，而且規劃得不好的會議更是遠不勝數。

會議不能更有建設性的主要原因是，我們不珍惜自己的時間。召開會議的人及參加會議的人都不把時間視為他們最有價值的資源。

商業上，我們總把時間轉換為金錢，反之亦然。實際上，時間和金錢是有差別的。我們可以賺更多錢，存起來，在帳戶之間隨時移轉使用。但是這樣的程序卻沒辦法輕易施行於時間。


時間是世界上最容易朽逝的東西，而且是不能彌補的。在忙日子的時候你不能多賺一個鐘頭來花。話雖然這樣講，我們卻總是隱隱覺得還有不少時間（在未來不知道哪裡），所以現在先浪費掉，然後在需要加班的時候，隨意從家庭、朋友或自己身上偷一點來用。

不過最重要的可能是：我們對失去的機緣很盲目。 相對於如何投資金錢，當我們選擇如何投資時間的時候，我們比較容易忽略還有哪些方法可以利用它。

而當會議結束之後，我們不指明會議失敗的責任落在哪裡、也不挺身將自己該負的責任攬下來。當然囉，會是某個人召開的，但結束後我們心裡都不滿意，而且把罪怪在每一個人（包括自己）身上。心裡學家稱此為“責任散播”，而後果之一是沒有人認為下次應該由自己去解決它。

我曾經是冷眼旁觀的參與者，對於應該怎麼解決問題或如何舉行會議有好的想法、但是從來不提供意見的那種人。我現在則扮演更積極的角色，致力於讓會議更有效率。


• 召開會議的人應該給明確的目標。這表示提出具體的、能夠達成的目標，並且將設計、總結和報告的責任一一分派。請自問：具體來講，會議結束時，我們期望達到什麼？


• 每個人都應該仔細計算會議的機會成本：實際需要幾名參與者？（幾乎所有商業團隊和委員會都太大了！）會議時間應該多長？設下一個明確的時間。若有人懷疑會議的必要性或認為規模過大，應該把意見提出來。

• 在開完富有成效或是未得成效的會議之後，功、咎都歸給該負責的人。然後，若有人持續保有組織不良會議的記錄，將來的會議不要由他領導。若他的專門技術不可或缺，則讓他從屬可以有效主持會議的領導者。

我知道，如果光從機構目標的有形進展來看，會議有些好處並不明顯。前面所提到的會議召集人，她的動機多半不只是為她提出的問題找到解答。她想先看看大家可以產生出什麼樣的解決方案，然後丟些自己想到一半的方法讓其他人做個草評，卻不先對自己的想法做出更周密的考量。

就算解決問題是目標，會議也有其他用途：有時候人們可以藉這個機會對已經制定好的辦法進行溝通，確認之中沒有致命缺陷，並讓對此不滿意的人有機會表達他們的意見。

很多會議也有文化功能，讓參與者加強或建立社會關係、確認社會秩序、或加深歸屬感。所以從潛藏的收益來看，也可以為某些過於冗長又沒有建設性的會議做點辯護。

但是，拜託，不要召開會議然後指望會有奇蹟發生。無論會議的目標是什麼，要掌控大局，並為之付出個人的責任。