Pew Research Center Finds NEWS Credibility Declines Further

For the second time in a decade, the believability ratings for major news organizations have suffered broad-based declines. In the new survey, positive believability ratings have fallen significantly for nine of 13 news organizations tested. This follows a similar downturn in positive believability ratings that occurred between 2002 and 2004.

The falloff in credibility affects news organizations in most sectors: national newspapers, such as the New York Times and USA Today, all three cable news outlets, as well as the broadcast TV networks and NPR.

Those Memories of Disney World

Remember your childhood visit to Disney World?

Cinderella's castle glistening, the cartoon characters laughing, grouping for photos, the many rides with their height requirements, the smells of freshly cooked food, and Bugs Bunny shaking your hand?  As you bring that experience to mind, you may have the feeling you are reliving it, seeing your childhood pass through your mind's eye, much like reviewing a videotape.

But the way human memory works is very different from that of a video tape recorder—our memories are actually reconstructions of bits and pieces of information we have obtained over time.

Sometimes those reconstructions are very similar to what we experienced; other times we are "tricked" and remember things differently than how they actually happened.

In Fact, Most of what you recall didn't happen. 

The Emotions of Politics

Emotions  are  a  set  of  physiological  and  psychological  changes  within  the  body  and  brain which  come  as  a response  to  external,  situational  stimuli  (Damasio,  1994;  Lazarus,  1991; LeDoux,  1996;  Marcus,  2002;  Marcus, Neuman, & MacKuen, 2000).

The impact of emotions on electoral behaviour has been shown in a number of studies (Abelson, Kinder, Peters, &  Fiske,  1982;  Conover  &  Feldman,  1986;  Kinder  &  Sears,  1985;  Simon,  1985),  but  a  systematic  theory  of  the political relevance of emotion has only recently been formulated by George Marcus and colleagues; it is referred to as the Theory of Affective Intelligence  (1993, 2000). The theory is based on the neuropsychological approach to  emotions developed by Damasio (1994) and LeDoux (1996).

The  disposition  system  is  responsible  for  “managing  reliance  on  habits  and  previously  learned  strategies” (Marcus, 2002, p. 46).  Relying on sensory information, it performs a comparison: is the plan going as usual? If it is the habit is continued and the emotional reaction is enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm has been shown to stimulate the increase of the turnout intention. 

When you want to quit playing around with sticks and balls, and get into the serious areas of Aggressive Persuasion, this is the area you start in. 

A Powerful Technique Rarely Recognized

If we're all in sales, as the old saying goes, then we're all in the persuasion business. And this is particularly true for entrepreneurs. Whether you're asking investors to hand over their money, potential customers to try your product, or employees to give their best, much of your day is probably spent persuading people. So how do you do it well?

Is Color that Important?

Perception of color stimuli is found to trigger corresponding emotional and behavioral responses within human beings including certain psychological, physical, biological and metabolic reactions (Hettiarachchi & De Silva, 2012). Based on some studies such as Kaya and Epps (2004), color can produce emotional arousing effect but the range of arousal varies depending on the emotional element that is being attached with specific type of color (cited in Mustafar & Dzulkifli, 2011).

There is now a Brazen Quality to the Lies

Americans were once notorious in their cynical views about politicians, and for good reasons. We complain that they all lie to us to get elected. Most politicians were too smart to tell outright lies. They may have exaggerated or distort the truth or used a quote out of context in order to mislead you without actually lying

Smart politicians made sure there was some small truth behind what they said so they couldn’t be nailed for lying to us. It use to be rare for a politician to tell an outright lie –  not so much any more.

Habits, those things you do anyway

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