Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

Hey, it’s The ASSMAN!

I love Seinfeld. It’s like Bugs Bunny, it doesn’t matter how many times I watch the show, it is always funny. One of my favorite episodes is “The Fusilli Jerry.” In that episode a subplot takes place when Kramer accidentally gets the personalized license plates for a local proctologist. As he drives around New York everyone recognizes the ASSMAN.

So what does the ASSMAN have to do with you and me? Have you ever noticed how some people act as if they’re invisible when they’re in their car? They do things, mouth words and sometimes use gestures they probably never would if they were standing next to you or looking you in the eye. The assumed privacy of a car removes some people’s inhibitions. In psychology this is called deindividuation. 
Perhaps you’ve been the one who feels less inhibited, and have done something you wouldn’t have if you’d been looking someone in the eye and they clearly could identify you.
I’ve been there before. In fact, one time on the way to work I knew someone wanted to get into my lane on the highway and I didn’t let him over. Eventually he merged in behind me. Then, as I got off the exit for work so did he. When I pulled into my company parking lot so did he. It turns out he was a coworker, someone I’d known for years. All it took was a glance and he knew it was me who didn’t let him over. I had been acting like the ASSMAN!
I was embarrassed and quickly sent an email apologizing. I told him I wished I could explain it away as a bad day, being in a rush or something else, but I confessed that sometimes I’m just a jerk. My coworker sent back the nicest email and thanked me for apologizing!
Dale Carnegie says when you’re wrong admit it quickly and emphatically. When you admit weakness that’s actually a way to enhance your authority with another person because you build some credibility for fessing up. Odd as it may seem, I think my relationship with that coworker is better now than it was before that highway incident.
Today I’m the ASSMAN but for a different reason. I have personalized plates that read INFLUNC. No, I’m not a poor speller; I’m limited to seven letters on the license plate.
What I’m very conscious of now is how easily it is to be recognized. It’s not that people are saying, “Hey Influence Guy,” but it’s an easy plate to spot and remember. As a result I think I’m a much better, more courteous driver because I’d never want to meet someone then have him or her think, “You’re the jerk I saw on the highway.”
The more we’re conscious of the fact that seldom do we operate in complete anonymity the more likely we are to do the right thing. When we believe no one can tell it’s us, when we believe we can get away with something, many people take advantage. Several of the studies Dan Ariely cites in his book, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, confirm this.
So here’s a takeaway for those of you looking for positive change in some behavior. Make the choice to do something to create your own accountability. Something as simple as a sticker on your car, public commitment to friends and coworkers, or photos of your family in prominent places around the office can be the necessary first step to doing the right thing and avoid being known as the ASSMAN in some circles.
Brian Ahearn, CMCT® 
Chief Influence Officer influencePEOPLE 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

The Pursuit of Ignorance

 What does real scientific work look like?

Neuroscientist Stuart Firestein, professor at Columbia University, implies that Ignorance is far more important to discovery than knowledge.

 

Click here to view the embedded video.

Firestein gets to the heart of science as it’s really practiced and suggests that we should value what we don’t know — or “high-quality ignorance” — just as much as what we know.  Ignorance, he implies, is far more important to discovery than knowledge.   Firestein jokes: Real Science looks a lot less like the scientific method and a lot more like “farting around … in the dark.”

What is your take on Ignorance, do you think it’s that important?

Empathy, Empowerment and Teenagers

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Photo courtesy of StockVault

As most of us know either from our own kids or interaction with other’s kids, teenagers can be moody, confusing and seem to lack empathy.  How can we cultivate sensitivity in our teens, especially teen boys?

New research published in Developmental Psychology,  shows that biology, not parenting, is to blame for insensitive and selfish behavior by teenagers.

The Wall Street Journal reports that cognitive empathy, the mental ability to take others’ perspective, begins rising steadily in girls at age 13.  However, boys don’t begin to show gains in perspective-taking until age 15, which helps in problem-solving and avoiding conflict.

What’s more interesting is that adolescent males actually show a temporary decline, between ages 13 and 16, in a related skill—affective empathy, or the ability to recognize and respond to others’ feelings.  Fortunately, the boys’ sensitivity recovers in the late teens. Girls’ affective empathy remains relatively high and stable through adolescence.

This study co-authored by Jolien van der Graaff, a doctoral candidate in the Research Centre Adolescent Development at Utrecht University in the Netherland, is an expansion on researchers’ current understanding of cognitive growth during adolescence.

According to a 2012 research review co-authored by Ronald Dahl, a professor of public health at the University of California at Berkeley, researchers used to believe that both forms of empathy were fully formed during childhood.

It is now clear that “the brain regions that support social cognition, which helps us understand and interact with others successfully, continue to change dramatically“ in the teens, says Jennifer Pfeifer, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Oregon in Eugene. Preliminary research in her lab also suggests cognitive empathy rises in teens. The discoveries serve as a new lens for exploring such teen behaviors as bullying and drug abuse.

Cognitive empathy versus affective empathy, arises in a different part of the brain, the medial prefrontal cortex, verses the limbic region where affective empathy is grounded. Affective empathy begins in infancy imitating how to treat others from what one is exposed to.

So why do boys have less cognitive empathy than girls, one answer is that decline in affective empathy (which predicts an individuals level of cognitive empathy)  among young teenage boys may spring, in part, from puberty when testosterone increases, sparking a desire for dominance and power. Boys who were more mature physically showed less empathy than others.

What are your thoughts on cognitive empathy?