Just shooting the breeze
The Milgram Experiment was a social psychological study conducted by Stanley Milgram in 1961 at Yale University. It was an examination of obedience in men.
With it, he wanted to test the limits of obedience in men. He wanted to know how far men were willing to go to obey an authority figure.
Milgram wanted to know if they were willing to disrupt their personal conscience for the sake of obedience. Continue reading “What is The Milgram Experiment?”
Ever wonder what evolutionary psychology is? I did so I decided to do some research. Here are my findings and thoughts on the topic.
I was watching this show called “Warrior” the other day (well, I was actually re-watching it because it’s that dope). It’s based on this story that Bruce Lee created.
Anyway, this show has a lot of martial arts and fighting in it. This is one of the reasons why I like it so much.
As an example, in the very first scene, the main character gets into a fight with two racist immigrant officials. He uses his martial arts to beat them up and as I was watching this, I felt this aggression run through me.
And this feeling happened every time I watched a fight scene in this show (which is often). In one of the last scenes of the season finale, there was this big fight scene. And as soon as I finished watching it, I just had to hit something.
So the next day, I dusted off my old punching and hung up. I went 3 rounds with it and I felt great (I felt great in that I got to release all the aggression. Physically, I felt horrible).
But why did I feel this way? Why did my body shoot an injection of testosterone into me? Continue reading “What is Evolutionary Psychology?”
Economic universals are three issues that all economies want to solve. Regardless of where the economy is (in North America or Asia), it has to deal with these universals.
So, I’ve been reading up on anthropology a lot lately. More specifically, economic anthropology.
I wrote an article talking about it here.
But I came across this interesting theory while reading this one article.
The theory is called economic universals. When conducting research, anthropologists have to take this concept into consideration. Continue reading “What are Economic Universals?”
Economic anthropology looks at how people from different cultures make, buy, and share things.
However, you shouldn’t confuse economics with the topic at hand.
Economics mainly looks at how people and societies can earn more capital.
Economic anthropology, on the other hand, looks at the different economic systems used in the world.
Economic systems are the various ways that different cultures exchange goods. It also looks at how cultures place value on the economy. Continue reading “What is Economic Anthropology?”
Anthropology is the study of humans –culture, biological development, and social development. Ethnography is a way to study humans and cultures.
Anthropology was a course that I wanted to take in college. Every semester, I would try to sign up for a class, but the availability never matched up with my schedule. As a result, I never got the opportunity to take a course.
But a few years ago, I came across a book called Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. I was at the book store one day and picked it up to see what it was all about. I skimmed through it, looked at some of the pictures, and was interested.
The first couple of times reading it was overwhelming. It’s a big book with big ideas, and I’m a slow reader. I would complete a chapter and see that there are still hundreds more pages to read.
But the book is thought-provoking. And that’s why I kept reading it.
Harari does a good job of explaining human history and the various theories of it.
After completing the book, which is a blend of history, psychology and anthropology, I wanted to learn more about the latter topic (remember, it was a course I wanted to take).
I felt like Sapiens was a good intro to the social science, but nothing in-depth. There weren’t any anthropological theories in it, even though it talked a lot about history, culture, and society. Continue reading “What is Anthropology? And What’s Ethnography?”
Want to understand economics better? Here are 7 must-know economic concepts that will help you with just that.
In my previous blog post on economics, I talked about what this social science is and what the differences between microeconomics and macroeconomics are.
However, if you somehow forgot (or, tsk tsk, didn’t read it), economics is the study of the economy.
It is split into two sections –microeconomics (or the study of the economy at the individual level) and macroeconomics (or the study of the economy at the national level).
I also used Target’s expansion to Canada as an example to explain the two different facets.
As I was doing the research for that (and this) article, I realized that economics is a complex social science.
I totally forgot that. It has been a few years since I took an econ class.
There are a lot of terms and theories that can become confusing if you know nothing about it (or just forgot it). Continue reading “7 Must-Know Economic Concepts”
What is economics? It is a fascinating science that studies how production and distribution affect the economy and vice versa.
Are you wondering what economics is? It’s the scientific study of the economy. It analyzes the growth of (or lack thereof) the economy by studying the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services habits of a nation.
The social science of economics can be broken down into two disciplines: microeconomics and macroeconomics. Continue reading “What is Economics?”
What are lazy words and why shouldn’t we use them in our writing?
I was watching a Tim Ferriss video the other day and the term “lazy words” came up.
Even though the topic of the video was about reading, Ferriss called himself out for using the word “interesting” to describe a book, saying it is a “lazy adjective.”
This caught my attention (yes, I know I’m a nerd for it).
I thought to myself, “What constitutes a lazy word? Are they words that have little value to a sentence and/or don’t fully describe something? What’s wrong with “interesting?”
Then, after a quick pause, Ferriss changed “interesting” to “thought-provoking.” I now had my answer.
But I was still curious.
And being the millennial that I am, I wanted gratification immediately. I went online to find a list of lazy words so that I can potentially cut some of them out of my writing. Continue reading “What are Lazy Words and How Do You Get Rid of Them?”