Tech & Social Engineering Flashcards
Testimonials
Testimonial consists in having some respected or hated person say that a given idea or program or product or person is good or bad.
Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control
No point building bridges with a world that is out to destroy them.
Groups are bound by: perceived success of group achieving goals. extend to which group goals match individual. Value of group to individual member. liking of members to eachother. external forces.
Shifting of beliefs closer to that of the group. Cult beliefs are simple. Renouncing a belief, after you have committed to it, is renouncing part of your own identity.
HISTRIONIC PERSONALITY DISORDER
The central feature of the histrionic personality disorder is chronic
and excessive attention-seeking behavior. Wherever they are,
whatever they’re doing, histrionic people want to be the center
of attention, so they monopolize the spotlight in most situations.
Of course, most people like attention from time to time, but if
you are never happy unless you are the focal point of every social interaction, then you have histrionic tendencies.
Histrionic people have a very dramatic and lively conversational style. They act like everything they say is very important, and they tell their stories with a great deal of flair, emotion, and exaggeration.
People with histrionic personality disorder also seek attention by being flirtatious and sexually provocative.
Sometimes, new acquaintances find histrionic people’s enthusiasm, energy, and openness charming, but these characteristics wear thin after a while when histrionic people continually monopolize social interactions. In a conversation, people with histrionic personality disorder tend to ignore what other people say and continually
bring the focus back to them.
And when they aren’t at the center of the action, histrionic people may do something dramatic or outlandish to create a scene and get the attention back. After the first few minutes, they’re not very enjoyable to interact with, so others often try to avoid dealing with histrionic people.
Histrionic people don’t seem to realize any of this. They generally think of themselves as sociable, charming, and entertaining. And they tend to think that they’re well liked and that their relationships with other people are closer and more intimate than they really are.
The histrionic personality disorder can be really annoying and socially
disruptive, and it often interferes with the quality of people’s lives,
but it doesn’t have the strong negative effects on other people
that the antisocial and borderline disorders do.
So, the 2% of the population with histrionic personality disorder
usually gets along okay in life, particularly if they are in professions in which their vivaciousness, flamboyance, and exhibitionism don’t seem too out of place.
ATTACHMENT STYLE
People who score high on attachment-related anxiety tend to
think that other people don’t care about them as much as they
would like and that other people aren’t sufficiently responsive
and supportive. People who score on the low end of
this attachment-anxiety dimension feel more secure about
the responsiveness and commitment of their partners and other
people. They’re less anxious about whether other people care
about them.
The second dimension is called attachment-related avoidance,
or just attachment avoidance. People on the high end of this
avoidance dimension prefer not to rely on other people. They feel uncomfortable getting too close to other people, and they have trouble trusting other people and opening up. People on the low end of the avoidance dimension are more comfortable being close to other people; they find it easier to depend on other people and having others depend on them.
Although these 2 dimensions—one defined by low versus high
attachment anxiety and the other defined by low versus high
attachment avoidance—are continuous dimensions that run from
low to high, for convenience we can think of people being either
low or high on each dimension so that when we combine them,
people fall into one of 4 categories:
- Some people are low in both attachment anxiety and in
attachment avoidance. These people generally feel confident
that their partners and other people care about them and
will be there for them when needed, and they’re comfortable
depending on other people and having others depend on them.
These people are generally secure in their close relationships,
so we call them securely attached. - Other people fall high on both the attachment-anxiety dimension (they aren’t certain that people care about them) and on the attachment-avoidance dimension (they don’t like to get too close to other people and don’t want other people depending
too much on them). This isn’t a great combination for satisfying
relationships. - Still other people score low on one dimension but high on the
other. Some people score low on attachment anxiety (they
aren’t worried about whether their partner cares about them),
but they’re high in avoidance (they like to keep their distance).
Those kinds of people can have good relationships, but only if
the other person in the relationship is also high in attachment
avoidance. - The final attachment style involves being high in attachment
anxiety and low in avoidance. These people want to have close
relationships with others, but they don’t think that people care
about them as much as they’d like. These people tend to have
an anxious, dependent sort of relationship style.
How anxious and avoidant people are in their relationships depends on the nature of specific relationships; particular people can make us feel more or less secure. But attachment style is a trait-like variable that people carry with them to some extent.
People with a secure attachment style—those who are low in
attachment anxiety and low in avoidance—tend to be more satisfied in their relationships than the other 3 categories. Their relationships have higher trust and commitment, and they tend to last longer than the relationships of people who are less securely attached. People with a secure style are more likely to seek support from their romantic partner when they’re upset, and they’re more likely to provide support when their partner needs it.
Whether people are secure or insecure in their relationships as an adult partly reflects their experiences as children. Once children have developed expectations about relationships—such as expectations about whether other people will be responsive and supportive— their reactions throughout life are colored by those expectations.
But our attachment style is not etched in stone since childhood.
New relationship experiences can revise our expectations about
other people and our views of relationships. But early childhood
experiences carry a great deal of weight in forming our basic
approach to relationships.
Rationalization
After a false statment make a rationalization:
Cold reader: You were angry at your kids.
Client: Not at all
Client: Oh it must be something you overcame earlier.
Name Calling
NAME CALLING
Name Calling-Giving an idea a bad label is used to make us reject and condemn the idea without examining the evidence.
Bad names have played a tremendously powerful role in the history of the world and in our own individual development. They have ruined reputations, stirred men and women to outstanding accomplishments, sent others to prison cells, and made men mad enough to enter battle and slaughter their fellowmen. They have been and are applied to other people, groups, gangs, tribes, colleges, political parties, neighborhoods, states, sections of the country, nations, and races.
The world has resounded with cries of “Heretic,” “Hun,” “Red,” “Yankee,” “Reb,” “Democrat,” “Republican,” “Revolutionary,” “Nazi,” etc., and their equivalents in all languages. Our personal lives have echoed with such words as “sissy,” “moron,” “bully,” “tramp,” “wayward,” “unscientific,” “unprogressive,” “inhuman,” “grasping,” “easy-going,” and “backward.”
Individuals and groups can be found who bear any one of these labels proudly. Other individuals and groups can just as easily be found who regard any one of these labels as the worst epithet to shout at an enemy.
Practically all primitive tribes call themselves by names that mean “the people” or “the real people.” All outsiders they call “foreigners,” “earth-eaters,” “cannibals,” “ill-speakers,” or some other term they regard as disreputable. The Welsh, for example, called themselves the Cymry, but our present term for the Welsh derives from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning “foreigners” or “jabberers.”
One of the most treacherous things about Name Calling is that bad names, like Glittering Generalities, are omnibus words. They are words that mean different things and have different emotional overtones for different people. When we spot an example of Name Calling, we must ask ourselves these questions:
What does the name mean?
Does the idea in question-the proposal of the propagandist-have a legitimate connection with the real meaning of the name?
Is an idea that serves my best interests and the best interests of society, as I see them, being dismissed through giving it a name I don’t like?
In other words, leaving the name out of consideration, what are the merits of the idea itself?
We must constantly remind ourselves of the danger of omnibus-word reactions. Such reactions, rather than detailed appraisals of a philosophy and its ideals, are what we commonly encounter.
Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control
Fraternal love creates ingroup/outgroup and threat towards that relationship.
If afraid of actins being controlled by another it’s called reactance .
learn about domestic abuse. Brains are bad at detecting longterm cumulative changes if each step of that change is very small. Create dependence. Isolation. If object, apologize or turn charm on and then try again. Change their self image until they no longer see themself as threatening.
Isolation prevents old cogwebs from affecting the formation of newer ones that replace the old ones.
MACHIAVELLIANISM
Although Machiavelli was addressing his recommendations to
political leaders, some people approach everyday life in the way that Machiavelli recommended. People who are high in Machiavellianism live their lives in a highly selfish fashion, guided by their belief that it’s okay to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals. Machiavellians tend to pursue their desires in underhanded, duplicitous, and manipulative ways. Machiavellians report that they more often lie and cheat and that they use charm, flattery, and deceit to get people to do what they want.
They also say that they often don’t intend to honor their agreements
and commitments; they promise to do things to get other people
to do what they want and then ignore their agreements. They also like to guilt people into doing what they want.
Machiavellians aren’t necessarily trying to hurt anybody, and they often use mild manipulation and deception before turning to
pressure and threats. Their goal is to get what they want however
they can, and they don’t worry much about what happens to other people in the process. Not surprisingly, Machiavellians score very low in both agreeableness and conscientiousness
Most people would feel horrible going through life manipulating
people, but Machiavellians are able to do it because they are rather emotionally detached and nonempathic. They also have fewer qualms about behaving unethically. And they have a dismissiveavoidant attachment style, along with a negative view of other people as basically selfish and manipulative.
Like most characteristics, both nature and nurture are involved
in Machiavellian behavior. About 30% of the variability that we
observe in Machiavellianism across people is due to genetic factors. The remaining 70% of the variability is due to an assortment of situational and social factors. Most notably, about 40% of the variability in Machiavellianism can be explained by family variables, including parental effects.
Machiavellian tendencies have
been identified in children as
young as age 10 or 11. One
interesting study showed that
the children of parents who
score high in Machiavellianism
are better liars.
Tragedy + time = laughter.
Tragedy + time = laughter.
CARD STACKING
Card Stacking involves the selection and use of facts or falsehoods, illustrations or distractions, and logical or Illogical statements in order to give the best or the worst possible case for an idea, program, person or product.
What might well be called “monopolistic” Card Stacking is a direct violation of America’s Cracker Barrel Philosophy. Around our traditional cracker barrels, we expect each of our local spokesmen to present his case-to stack the cards-for a given proposal in the best way that he can. But we also insist that other spokesmen around the same cracker barrel speak right up and stack the cards in favor of their alternative proposals. From these conflicting arrangements and interpretations of evidence, we know that some fairly sensible compromise is likely to come.
The dangers of “monopolistic” Card Stacking, of submitting ourselves to a barrage of evidence presented from but one viewpoint, are what prompted an editorial writer for the New York Times to observe on September 1, 1937: “What is truly vicious is not propaganda but a monopoly of it.”
When we are confronted with an effort at Card Stacking, we must remind ourselves to suspend judgment on the propagandist’s proposals until we have answered such questions as these:
Just what is the propagandist trying to “sell” us?
Is this proposal in line with our own best interests and the best interests of society, as we see them?
What are the alternative proposals?
What is the evidence for and against these alternatives?
Brevity Is Levity
If it bores the audience and doesn’t serve your punch line, it has to go!
Emotional Control
BITE Model
Manipulate and narrow the range of feelings – some emotions and/or needs are deemed as evil, wrong or selfish
Teach emotion-stopping techniques to block feelings of homesickness, anger, doubt
Make the person feel that problems are always their own fault, never the leader’s or the group’s fault
Promote feelings of guilt or unworthiness, such as:
a. Identity guilt
b. You are not living up to your potential
c. Your family is deficient
d. Your past is suspect
e. Your affiliations are unwise
f. Your thoughts, feelings, actions are irrelevant or selfish
g. Social guilt
f. Historical guilt
Instill fear, such as fear of:
a. Thinking independently
b. The outside world
c. Enemies
d. Losing one’s salvation
e. Leaving or being shunned by the group
f. Other’s disapproval
f. Historical guilt
Extremes of emotional highs and lows – love bombing and praise one moment and then declaring you are horrible sinner
Ritualistic and sometimes public confession of sins
Phobia indoctrination: inculcating irrational fears about leaving the group or questioning the leader’s authority
a. No happiness or fulfillment possible outside of the group
b. Terrible consequences if you leave: hell, demon possession, incurable diseases, accidents, suicide, insanity, 10,000 reincarnations, etc.
c. Shunning of those who leave; fear of being rejected by friends and family
d. Never a legitimate reason to leave; those who leave are weak, undisciplined, unspiritual, worldly, brainwashed by family or counselor, or seduced by money, sex, or rock and roll
e. Threats of harm to ex-member and family
Age of Propaganda Key Idea #4: Propagandists set us up to side with them and use our emotions to guide our decisions.
You just learned how propagandists use source credibility and misleading messages – now it’s time to take a look at the other two stratagems of influence: prepersuasion and emotions.
The first, prepersuasion, is a way of creating a vulnerable mindset in the target. For instance, the incredible levels of violence depicted on TV don’t reflect the world at large; crimes are ten times less likely to happen in real life than they are on TV.
Nonetheless, politicians work to push the news toward crime stories as a way of building public support for projects like the war on drugs and to distract from economic issues that are a more credible threat to working-class people. Meanwhile, this strategy makes these politicians popular as they implement programs to crack down on drug crime and make neighborhoods “safer.”
Another good example is gun companies. They’re much more likely to sell guns to people when firearms are promoted as a tool for defending yourself against the dangerous world people see depicted in the mass media.
Prepersuasion is powerful tool, but so is the fourth stratagem, emotions. When people are emotional, they often make decisions that will ease their pain without properly considering their actual consequences.
For example, an experiment conducted by Merrill Carlsmith and Alan Gross had certain subjects deliver electric shocks to others sitting in another room when they answered questions incorrectly. Other participants were told to simply press a buzzer when another person gave a wrong answer.
After this exercise, the volunteers who got buzzed or received shocks – who, unbeknownst to those pressing the buttons, weren’t actually getting shocked – asked the people pushing the buttons to make calls to garner support to “Save the Redwood Forest.” The participants who thought that they had been shocking the others were three times more likely to step up and make these calls.
Manipulate a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences in
order to promote learning the group’s ideology or belief system and
group-approved behaviors.
Manipulate a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences in
order to promote learning the group’s ideology or belief system and
group-approved behaviors. Good behavior, demonstrating an
understanding and acceptance of the group’s beliefs, and compliance are
rewarded while questioning, expressing doubts or criticizing are met with
disapproval, redress and possible rejection. If one expresses a question, he
or she is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them to
be questioning.
BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER
Borderline personality disorder is so called because in the 1930s
when it was first recognized, some psychiatrists thought that it fell
in between being a neurotic disorder (which involves high anxiety
and negative emotions) and a psychotic disorder (which involves
loss of touch with reality). However, that’s not true, so many experts
are trying to get it renamed.
A better term that more accurately describes the borderline
personality disorder might be “emotion dysregulation disorder” or
“unstable personality disorder” because its central feature involves
strong emotions and rapid mood swings in which the person loses
control. So, at one moment, the person is interacting easily and
happily, and then a moment later, they’ve lost it in a fit of extreme
anger or panic or despair.
The things that trigger these strong emotional outbursts tend to
involve perceiving that other people are being dismissive or rejecting.
People with borderline personality disorder are exceptionally
sensitive to signs of criticism, disrespect, and rejection. And when
they perceive that others are criticizing, disrespecting, or rejecting
them, they overreact, lash out at other people, and sometimes
behave in vengeful ways to get back at the person. Then, when
they calm down, they act more or less as if nothing happened—
until the next incident.
Their reactions are rather paradoxical, though. People with borderline
personality disorder very much want other people to like and accept
them, but their reactions to signs that they are being negatively
evaluated or rejected leads to extreme overreactions that cause
other people to avoid or reject them. They want people to accept
them, but they continually drive people away.
The behavior itself is not all that unusual. Many of us lose it every
now and then over something that really doesn’t matter very
much. But it’s not our typical way of responding to disagreement
or conflict. Only about 1.6% of the population is emotionally
unstable enough to meet the diagnostic criteria for borderline
personality disorder.
People with borderline personality disorder often idealize potential
friends or lovers at first. They insist on spending a lot of time
together and share very intimate information about themselves.
But then, they can switch quickly to devaluing the other person
when they perceive that the other person doesn’t care enough
about them or doesn’t give enough to the relationship or is not
there enough for them.
For those around them—their partners, children, coworkers, friends
(if they have any)—people with borderline personality disorder are
pretty maddening. You never quite know which person is going to
show up on any particular day: the nice one who seems reasonably
normal and accommodating or the vicious one who is out of control.
And even when the person is acting perfectly fine for a while,
other people walk on eggshells worrying about when something
will trigger the borderline person’s next outburst.
NEUROTICISM
The second most important trait of the big five is usually called
neuroticism, but because this word has such negative connotations, many researchers now call it emotional stability.
The central feature of neuroticism (or emotional stability) is the
degree to which people experience negative emotions. People who are higher in neuroticism tend to experience negative emotions more frequently than people who are low in neuroticism, and their negative emotions tend to be more intense and last longer. Some people simply experience unpleasant emotions—such as anxiety, sadness, anger, guilt, and regret—more than other people do. In fact, some researchers call this trait negative emotionality.
Although the defining feature of
neuroticism involves negative
emotionality, people who are
high in neuroticism also display
a general sense of insecurity
and vulnerability. People who
are high in neuroticism are
more afraid of things that
don’t bother other people very
much, and they tend to worry
more about bad things that
might happen in the future. As
they walk through life, they focus on
the possible risks ahead—risks involving
their physical safety, possible failures, public
embarrassments, rejections, and so on.
So, they try to avoid situations that look
risky or threatening.
People who are high in neuroticism also
tend to overreact to ordinary kinds of
hassles and frustrations. They get bent
out of shape more easily than people low
Cold Reading
Examining the Issue
B. Examining the Issue
Every experienced psychic knows that there are seven themes most people want to talk about: Love, health, money, career, travel, education and ambitions.
Sometimes two or more are fused together such as health and travel, or education and professional ambition. But generally speaking these topics are front and center of every reading. At this stage of meeting the customer, the cold reader employs a technique known as fishing. The client is vitally important in this phases of the reading.
He is the psychic’s Rock of Gibraltar because she will imperceptibly extract information from him and use it to build the foundation for her cold read. Without these building blocks for a strong foundation, the client will be powerless to later gain a customer’s confidence and perform a “successful” reading. Every psychic knows the failed cold read lies in the black hole of misinformation or worse, no information at all. The trick here is for the psychic not to appear as if he is interrogating the client or gathering information.
The point of all cold readings is the fabulous mystery of the psychic’s intuition. He has to appear as if he just knows the client without seeming to ply her with questions. This is the skill of the detective in the interrogation room who knows that it’s all more or less a confidence game involving manipulation and subtle cues during which the suspect will continue to make incriminating statements without even realizing it.
Similarly the psychic banks on the client’s willingness to a) find more meaning in a situation than there actually is and b) connect the dots to make sense for themselves what the cold reader brings up, in spite of the fact that all psychics know that anyone can make anything personal to themselves if they are so inclined. The fact that the sitter is, well, sitting there, implies they are favorably disposed to believe intuition over hard science. The psychic knows this.
EXTRAVERSION
From the beginning of the scientific study of personality, everyone
has agreed that the most important trait is extraversion. The trait
of extraversion underlies more of people’s behavior—and more of
the differences that we see among people—than any other trait.
A psychological scientist might say that extraversion accounts for
more variability in human behavior than any other trait. We can
understand more about why people do what they do if we know how
extraverted they are than by knowing about any other characteristic
When we talk about the trait of extraversion, we’re talking about
a dimension that runs from being very low in extraversion at one
end to being very high in extraversion at the other. In everyday
language, we often use the label “introvert” to describe people who
are low in extraversion, but personality researchers generally talk
about low versus high extraversion rather than about introverts
and extraverts.
Partly, that’s to avoid thinking of extraversion and introversion as
if they’re personality types. Most personality characteristics are
continuous traits rather than categorical types, and that’s true of
extraversion. In addition, we usually don’t contrast introverts with
extraverts to avoid the suggestion that introversion is somehow
the opposite of extraversion, which it isn’t. Introverts simply fall
in the lower tail of the normal distribution of extraversion scores.
For example, introverts may like social interactions less than
extraverts do, but they don’t necessarily dislike interacting with other
people at all. And introverts may be less assertive than extraverts
are, but they aren’t necessarily nonassertive or submissive.
Extraversion has a number of interrelated features, but its central
characteristic is sociability. The higher that people score in
extraversion, the more they enjoy interacting with other people.
Compared to people who are low in extraversion, people who are
high in extraversion are more gregarious, enjoy social gatherings
more (including large parties), and seek out opportunities to
interact with other people more often.
When they’re in social situations, people who are high in extraversion are more talkative than people who are low in extraversion are.
People who are high in extraversion are so highly motivated to
interact with other people that when they’re alone for a long time,
they sometimes go on a search just for somebody to talk to.
Although sociability is the key feature of extraversion, people who are low versus high in extraversion also differ in other ways. For example, people who are high in extraversion tend to be more
assertive and dominant than people who are lower in extraversion.
They are also more energetic and active, and they like to stay busier than less extraverted people do.
Past things
Psychic : You had a break up recently
Client: Um…no, I’ve been single for a while
psychic: I must be picking up on some energy from months ago. Your a survivor, whether it’s break ups, family tragedies…you always find the strength to pick yourself up and move on.
Delivery
Get on stage ‘fast’ when host introduces you.
Smile and make eye contact with as many people as you can in the front rows.
Speak loud enough to fill in the room.
Try and get a quick laugh.
Don’t forget to pause.
Top Women Jobs
Teacher
Nurse
Secretaries/Admin
Cashiers
Customer Service
Retail / Sales
Manager
Waitress
Retail manager
–
Hairdresser (#11)
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Different parts of the brain
The limbic system: cannot be regulated cognitively. It’s the “honest” brain and a reliable source of information.
Neocortex: the thinking part of your brain. It’s the “lying” brain. Not a good source of reliable or accurate information.
Add local references to your jokes
“But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?” The University of Texas was undefeated and Rice University was winless at that point in the year. The line got a huge laugh.
CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
The fourth member of the big five is the trait of conscientiousness, which reflects the degree to which people are responsible and dependable. Conscientiousness comes down to whether people usually do what they should and whether they try to do it well.
Responsibly doing what one should depends on a number of
separate characteristics, and most of these underlying attributes
are part of conscientiousness. For example, it’s difficult to do
things conscientiously without being organized and orderly, and
conscientious people are more organized than less conscientious
people are.
Conscientiousness also involves industriousness and persistence. Conscientious people work harder because getting things done and doing them well takes effort. And they are more likely to persist when tasks become difficult, boring, or unrewarding.
A final component of conscientious is being able to make yourself do what needs to be done and to be able to resist the urge to do something else instead—particularly if the alternative is more fun than what you’re supposed to do. So, a key feature of conscientiousness is impulse control and a high level of self-discipline. Impulsive people who don’t control themselves well have a pretty hard time being conscientious.
Being consistently conscientious might not always be fun, but it
does have payoffs. For example, conscientious people are healthier and live longer than less conscientious people. Research shows that conscientious people are less likely to smoke, use drugs, abuse alcohol, and become obese, and they’re more likely to exercise, practice safe sex, and drive safely. It’s also related to using smoke alarms in your house, seeing a doctor regularly, and following doctors’ orders when you’re sick.