First Impressions Rule

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When faced with making a first impression, make it count! Please!

When faced with making a first impression, make it count! Please!

“Imagine you have a new colleague at work and your impression of that person is not very favorable. A few weeks later, you meet your colleague at a party and you realize he is actually a very nice guy. Although you know your first impression was wrong, your gut response to your new colleague will be influenced by your new experience only in contexts that are similar to the party. However, your first impression will still dominate in all other contexts.” – Bertram Gawronski, Canada Research Chair at The University of Western Ontario

First impressions are difficult to overcome – ‘you never get a second chance to make a first impression’.  A study reported in Journal of Experimental Psychology, bears this out. They were able to scientifically demonstrate this thinking error. They were able to show rather conclusively that a first impression tends to apply to all contexts (the rule) whereas contradictory evidence tends to apply only to certain contexts (exceptions to the rule).

First impressions can be changed. It’s not easy, though:

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Pirate Therapy – Simple and Powerful

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Eye patching – sometimes referred to as “Pirate Therapy” has been in the RET therapist’s bag of therapeutic tools for some time. And as a whole therapy model, it is fantastic – and easy. To do eye patching, simply purchase a good eye patch – one that allows one to keep the eye open while it is patched, and use the patch as often as you can.

In this article, I want to delve a little deeper into the mysteries of eye patching – and show you a simple, yet powerful technique you can use on yourself and others to jump start change – assisting you and them in achieving therapeutic goals quicker and with a whole lot less effort. RET is already nearly effortless for the client – the following technique will put the RET into overdrive right off the bat. You can do this process on yourself, too – although I recommend doing it with someone else.

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What and How

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Perhaps you already know that you have two hemispheres to your cortex. Although each hemisphere seems to govern certain types of thought patterns, they communicate with each other to such a degree that it is hard to discern their separate functions. However, by taking charge of those hemispheres you can take charge of your mood, your choices, and your communications – making it easier for you to function, achieve goals, study, interact, and communicate with yourself and others.

brain_1.jpgYou don’t need to be a neurosurgeon or brain specialist to take charge of your brain. Just as you don’t have to understand how a computer works to make it work for you, you can obtain substantial benefit from your brain without having to understand how it works. You just need the right “software” a program you can run. And just as with your computer’s software, which program you run and what you input into the program can make quite a difference in the output you get.

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CAM in the USA

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Approximately 38 percent of adults in the United States aged 18 years and over and nearly 12 percent of U.S. children aged 17 years and under use some form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)

Approximately 38 percent of adults in the United States aged 18 years and over and nearly 12 percent of U.S. children aged 17 years and under use some form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)

According to the newest figures from the 2007 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), an annual study in which tens of thousands of Americans are interviewed about their health- and illness-related experiences, developed by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 38 percent of adults in the United States aged 18 years and over and nearly 12 percent of U.S. children aged 17 years and under use some form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

That’s a lot of therapy outside the mainstream of “traditional” American medicine. According to the survey, most of the care was for pain. The higher the level of education and socioeconomic level, the more likely the use of CAM. As CAM is rarely covered by US insurance carriers, more wealthy people are more likely to be able to afford such care.

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Improve Test Scores with a Single Letter

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Just seeing the letter "A" before an exam can significantly improve a student's results.

Just seeing the letter “A” before an exam can significantly improve a student’s results.

Just seeing the letter “A” before an exam can significantly improve a student’s results. Contrarily, exposure to the letter “F” may make a student more likely to fail. A study by Dr Keith Ciani and Dr Ken Sheldon at the University of Missouri, found: “The letters A and F have significant meaning for students, A represents success and F, failure. We hypothesized that if students are exposed to these letters prior to an academic test it could affect their performance through non-conscious motivation.”

“Non-conscious motivation,” huh? Awesome! Do they mean to say that I (you) can be influenced by sub-conscious external motivator cues? Who’d a-thunk it?

Although the number of test subjects was small – only 131 students took part in three experiments – I like their hypothesis. The results were interesting, too.

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