The Backwards Law

The Backwards Law (Alan Watts): the idea that the more you pursue feeling better all the time, the less satisfied you become, as pursuing something only reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place. 

The more you desperately want to be rich, the more poor and unworthy you feel, regardless of how much money you actually make. The more you want to be sexy and desired, the uglier you come to see yourself, regardless of your actual physical appearance. The more you desperately want to be happy and loved, the lonelier and more afraid you become, regardless of those who surround you. 

Thus, wanting positive experiences is a negative experience – and accepting negative experiences is a positive experience.

Why?...Why Not?...Why Not Me?...Why Not Now!?!?

It’s a shame for a person

to grow old without ever

seeing what their body

was capable of.

 

Fear Conditioning

One form of learning that plays a prominent role in consumer’s behaviour is fear conditioning.

In Watson and Rayner’s seminal experiment with “Little Albert” (1920), they showed how fear can become a conditioned emotional reaction. Marketers may also be incorporating some of Watson and Rayner’s behavioural theories to influence their consumer’s behaviour.

People often learn by information and instruction which situations to fear (Rachman, 1977). Mowrer (1939) argued that fear “may effectively motivate human beings” and that the curtailment of fear “may serve powerfully to reinforce behaviour that brings about such a state of relief or security”.

Accordingly, companies that market their products often use forms of fear conditioning in an attempt to increase their revenue.

Clearasil, a skin care product for the treatment of acne, ran television advertisements portraying spotty teenagers looking glum and downbeat; but joyful and surrounded by attractive women once the product had been discovered. Similar advertising themes exist with Lynx body spray. The product is advertised as a potent solution for men to acquire more attention from women, a “spray more - get more” mantra of fear conditioning.  

Both advertisements suggest an attempt at fear conditioning to promote their product to possibly insecure adolescent males. The fear can be conditioned by frequent repetition of the association between the new conditioned stimulus and the fear. Therefore, individuals (consumers) are driven to purchase these products in an attempt to avoid negative outcomes and successfully reduce their fear (Rachman, 1977). It can be further argued that avoidance conditioning is employed in these advertisements; as the consumer learns a response (buy product) and thus avoid an aversive stimulus (e.g. not being attractive).

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"...because then you're watching television, you're watching the news, you're being pumped full of fear, there's floods, there's AIDS, there's murder, cut to commercial, buy the Acura, buy the Colgate, if you have bad breath they're not going to talk to you, if you have pimples, the girl's not going to fuck you, and it's just this campaign of fear, and consumption, and that's what I think it's all based on, the whole idea of keep everyone afraid, and they'll consume." ~ Marilyn Manson (Bowling for Columbine, 2002).

"This is (probably) why you're Fat"



If you just consume fewer calories you'll lose weight. Unfortunately not always.

Most of us think that we only put fat in our fat cells when we eat too much. Your fat cells are like rechargeable fuel cells, every time you eat, you store some fat. In between meals, fat comes out of your fat cells to provide the fuels for your muscles and organs. If you're naturally thin, it's because you have efficient fat cells. Fat goes in quickly and comes out easily. Your body doesn't need much fat because the small bit of fat you do have is a reliable source of fuel. If you're predisposed to be fat, it's because you have 'greedy fat cells'.

 

When you eat you tend to store calories as fat instead of burning them. And when your other tissues need those calories, the fat comes out slowly, if it comes out at all. So if you don't eat, you start to starve at the cellular level. So you do exactly what your body is telling you to do - you eat more. In other words,

 

You're not getting fat because you're eating more,

You're eating more because you're getting fat!

 

 

If your fat cells are slow to release fuel, your body actually works to make them bigger. And they keep on getting bigger until they can release the energy that your body needs. This could mean gaining a little weight or it could mean gaining a lot! It all depends on how slowly your fat-cells release their fat. Most of us aren't born with 'greedy fat-cells', but we can certainly make them that way. When you eat too many carbohydrates, you raise your blood sugar. Since high blood sugar is toxic, your body releases insulin to bring it down. But your body can only burn a little bit of sugar at a time. So what happens to the rest of it? Your storage sites for carbohydrates are limited and you've got unlimited storage places for fat. So the body just ends up converting the carbs in to fat. And after bringing down your blood sugar, your insulin does its other job, it tells your body to store fat.

Insulin stimulates an enzyme called lipoprotein-lipase which sends fat into the fat cells. So if insulin is elevated, this lipoprotein-lipase production is really activated and it sends fat 'like crazy' into the fat cells. So if you eat a lot of carbohydrates, your insulin goes up and you begin storing fat in the fat cells.

Intra-abdominal (visceral) fat is a major culprit for insidious
effects to a person's health including; cardiovascular
disease, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.

When you have a healthy metabolism, it only takes a little bit of insulin to bring your blood sugar down and then everything goes back to normal. But over time, that can change. Cells can become resistant to the effects of insulin, so when that happens, insulin is talking with the cells, but they're not listening! They don't do what they're supposed to do. And so your body does what it has to do, it starts producing more insulin. So you've reached a point where your insulin is high just to keep your sugar levels normal, even if your not eating any sugar. When that happens, your insulin is driving fat into the fat cells and you've reached this point where all of a sudden - Bam! You get fat.

And you get fat even though you're eating the same number of calories you always did. Because now you have greedy fat-cells. So you do what the ''experts'' tell you to do, you go on a low fat, low calorie diet so you can burn your own body fat for fuel. But there's just one little problem with this: if too many carbs are keeping your insulin high, the insulin is telling your body to store the fat instead of burning it. Now you're really starving inside!

So once again your body does what it has to do: it slows down your metabolism. You stop losing weight and you get tired. And people can end up being, in most cases, larger than they were when they started out - but now with a lower metabolic rate. And this can be extremely frustrating for many people.

For every pound of fat you put on, you gain 7 new miles of blood vessels!

So some people get fat and stay fat because they're living on foods that tell their body to store the calories in their fat cells - which just makes you hungrier. In some people the fat-cells and the other tissues become insulin resistant at about the same rate. The good news for them is that they don't gain weight, the bad news is that insulin resistance can kill you even if you're skinny.

The demanding of your pancreas that it produce ever greater amounts of insulin to keep your blood sugar normal, is ultimately going to cause 'beta-cell burnout'. So the pancreas is producing all it can produce and that's not enough anymore. When that happens, the beta-cells get damaged, they can't produce anymore and your blood sugar goes up and now you're becoming diabetic. And further, when your blood sugar goes out of control, it can damage your arteries and lead to heart disease.



It's not easy struggling with something that keeps you alive. But you can blame away, you are in charge of yourself. There's no one giant step that does it, it's a lot of little steps. And that doesn't just relate to putting the weight on, but also for getting rid of it. Human nature is very addictive and human nature is very flawed. It is extraordinary that it takes such a long time for the penny to drop with some people. But it shouldn't be a surprise as the seeds of it are really deep. All the problems of being overweight are remedial. But the younger you put it on the bigger you can go. And the further you let yourself go, the longer of a battle it is to get back (O'Shea, 2012).

~ (Fat Head, 2009)

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''I found there was only one way to look thin: hang out with fat people'' ~ Rodney Dangerfield


The Drug that 'Eats Junkies'

*Post contains graphic imagery


Krokodil, or crocodile, is Russia's deadliest designer drug. The average user of krokodil, a dirty cousin of morphine that's spreading like a virus among Russian youth, does not live longer than two or three years, and the few who manage to quit usually come away badly disfigured.

 

The active component is codeine, a widely sold over-the-counter painkiller that is not toxic on its own. But to produce krokodil, whose medical name is desomorphine, addicts mix it with ingredients including gasoline, paint thinner, hydrochloric acid, iodine and red phosphorous, which they scrape from the striking pads on matchboxes. The high lasts about an hour and a half, and it takes about an hour to cook it. It is around 8-10 times more potent than morphine.

 

In 2010, between a few hundred thousand and a million people, according to various official estimates, were injecting the resulting substance into their veins in Russia. It is so far the only country in the world to see the drug grow into an epidemic, primarily due to the difficulties users have in procuring heroin. Predictably, it has spread the fastest in the poorest and most remote parts of the country, like Vorkuta.

 

Pavlova, an ex-user remarks, ''The winters there last eight months of the year and the young people are in a constant state of boredom. Most of them drink and few of them work, the same as in hundreds of towns and villages across Russia's frozen north. Besides her, Pavlova says there were about a dozen krokodil addicts she hung around with, including her brother. "Practically all of them are dead now," she says. "For some it led to pneumonia, some got blood poisoning, some had an artery burst in their heart, some got meningitis, others simply rot."

 

The "rotting" explains the drug's nickname. At the injection site, which can be anywhere from the feet to the forehead, the addict's skin becomes greenish and scaly, like a crocodile's, as blood vessels burst and the surrounding tissue dies. Gangrene and amputations are a common result, while porous bone tissue, especially in the lower jaw, often starts to dissipate, eaten up by the drug's acidity.

 

As the number of users continues to rise, despite the widely known symptoms, the Russian government is struggling to get the situation under control.

Just like Xylazine in Puerto Rico, Russia's own private drug hell is gaining momentum with the latest in a new strain of illegal narcotics.
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When mood interferes with our ability to function

What is Major Depression?  Symptoms can include; weight loss, insomnia, a negative self-image and even suicidal thoughts. It's not the mood itself that denotes pathology, but its extent, severity, and duration. When left untreated, depression can often go away by itself, but for many people - it persists. Depression can begin as a reaction to specific life experiences, such as the death of a loved one, job loss, divorce, or reacting to growing old.

 

Many people with major depression think they have only physical problems, so they seek help from a physician, and in fact they may never get to a mental health practitioner at all. Depression can come in many forms from the mildest, that may go undetected, to the most acute, requiring hospitalisation. 

 

The milder forms of depression may be exemplified by a high executive who flies a corporate jet and who feels a lot of physical symptoms occurring over a period of time with a gradual onset.

 

They may feel a sense of malaise, decreased energy, or a decreased enjoyment of life, but can still work and function as far as others are concerned. But as far as he's concerned, he's only working at 30 or 40 percent of his usual capacity.

 

This person may be very unhappy, their life may be extremely difficult for them and others may not even notice. The fact is that many people are working and functioning in this state. This same person may respond to treatment and feel one hundred times better once their actively treated. But to the outside world, they may look exactly the same. That's the mildest form of the illness.

 

In acute or severe depression, the psychomotor retardation is even more intensified. The person moves slower, speaks slower. The person actively withdraws from social contacts, he doesn't want to be involved with other people, they just want to be left alone. They can no longer function as well as they could. They have no motivation to work, to be involved in anything. Nothing seems worthwhile.

 

In psychotic depression, there is a break with reality, here the person experiences delusions, usually associated with guilt or self blame - more extreme forms of what we see in milder forms of depression. They may have hypochondriacal delusions about their bodies, such as cancer. In the most pronounced forms of depression, called 'depressive stupor', all of the previous symptoms are aggravated. Here the same person does not respond to the outside world at all. Some are even spoon-fed to be kept alive.

 

In general, the subjective case of the depressed person is that they're living life beneath a cloud. People are hopeless that anything will take the pain away. It's like being tortured and seeing no way to get out of it, no way to end the pain. And that's when people not only consider suicide, but that suicide seems like a merciful exit for them, a way to get out of what seems to be a no-exit situation.

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''Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls, the most massive characters are seared with scars''

                                                                                                                                               ~ Khalil Gibran

Self Monitoring

Self-monitoring is the ability and desire to regulate one's public expressiveness to fit the clues and/or requirements of the situation. In any setting, people are generally motivated to behave appropriately (Michener et al., 1986).

High self-monitors (HSMs) easily blend into social situations, knowing what to do or say with each person. They appear more friendly and less anxious to observers, are sensitive to social cues, and are likely to vary their behaviour from situation to situation. High self-monitors read non-verbal behaviour better, and will change their behaviour to suit the situation as they perceive it. They are more concerned with acting appropriately than being true to themselves.

They are more flexible and responsive to their environment than low self-monitors are. For example, high self-monitors can be expected to demonstrate greater flexibility in adapting their leadership style to changing situations, using a variety of conflict-resolution techniques (Robbins, 1993: 714).

High self-monitors describe themselves as flexible, adaptive, and shrewd. They tend to use situational factors to explain their behaviour. They have many friends, but are not very close with most of them. They have different friends for different activities. Friendship loss is not a difficulty, as there are other friends to take the place of any that are lost.                 

High self-monitors are more likely to be successful in managerial positions where individuals are required to play multiple, and even contradicting roles. Thus, the high self-monitor is capable of putting on different "faces" for different audiences. Examples of occupations or positions that might require high self-monitoring would include HR manager, CEO, organizational development specialist or marketing and sales director (Robbins, 1993: 108).

They are often more effective than low self-monitors in jobs that require boundary spanning (communicating and interacting with different groups of people who, because of contrasting goals, training, or skills "speak different languages"). Since they can readily adjust their actions to the norms, expectations, and style of each group, high self-monitors are more successful in dealing with them than are low self-monitors, and this improves performance. Boundary-spanning roles are very important in most organizations, so assigning high self-monitoring people to such positions may yield substantial benefits.


Low self-monitors (LSMs), on the other hand, act themselves - regardless of the situation. They rarely conform to the norms of the social setting. LSMs are less sensitive to social cues, and less likely to change their behaviour from one situation to another. Low self-monitors tend to display their true dispositions and attitudes in every situation. Low self-monitors' actions usually reflect their inner feelings and attitudes and thus they are less likely to change or adjust in a new context (Greenberg & Baron, 1990, pp. 204-206).

They prefer to be seen as they really are, and they behave so as to express internal attitudes and dispositions. Their attitudes are more accessible, so LSMs have a greater consistency between their attitudes and their behaviour. LSMs are more likely to show effects of fatigue and moods than HSMs. They have few friends, but these friends are quite close to them. They have the same friends for all of their activities. They select friends with similar attitudes. Friendship loss is difficult, because there are so few that each will be missed quite a bit, and the loss will affect most if not all activities. They tend to have steady, and more intimate relationships, and they care about their partner's personality.

Low self-monitoring, for those guilty of it, may not always be about being oblivious in social situations. It's about freedom of speech. Low self-monitors may see no reason to hold themselves back or sugar-coat the truth - to say anything other than what they're thinking, and acting in ways that doesn't reflect who they are is not something they like.

Example

Have you ever been to a club and seen some people dancing with wild abandon whilst others shuffle about nonchalantly? The wild dancers are low self-monitors, whilst the shufflers are probably high self-monitors.

So what?

Using it

 

Appeal to high self-monitors by telling them that they will look good and get social approval for what you want them to do. In advertising, high self-monitors respond more to image-based ads that promise to make them look good, whilst low self-monitors respond better to product-based ads and prefer high quality goods.

Findings also indicate that attitudes towards littering is partially mediated by the relationship between self-monitoring  (Ojedokun and Balogun, 2013).

So which side do you fall on? Find out here: Self Monitoring Scale developed by Mark Snyder in 1974.
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Snyder, M. (1974). Self Monitoring of expressive behaviour. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 526-537.
Snyder, M. & Gangestad, S. (1986). On the nature of self-monitoring: Matters of assessment, matters of validity, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1, 125-139.