The Meaning of Words

How much time do you put into making sure you are clear about what you mean? How much time and emotional energy do you think is wasted because the meaning of the words you use are given a different interpretation by the reader or listener?

Lanaguage is a great asset. It is the means by which ideas get from my head into yours. You'd think that when people speak the language that would be a trouble free thing. We know different. Words are used to deceive as well as inform and clarify and they are able to decieve because of the way in which can hold different meanings.

I think that being gullible is related to taking words at face value, or assuming what they mean without seeking further clarification, or evidence. The situation is made worse because often we are too polite to probe for what the other person really means. When people are defensive and un-helpful about making things clear for you then this is really fishy and sure sign that something isn't right.

In education and higher education in particular students are often confronted with the ambiguous meaning of words. One of the biggest weaknesses (how would this have read if I'd said failings?) in student writing is that often they do not explore the definitions and and alternative meanings of the key terms they are discussing. This is down to the social habit we all have of assuming that words have fixed meaning and that your take on what a word means is the same as mine.

The people who try and make sense of the words we use (Grammarians and Semanticists) show us that a word is not static and absolute it is dynamic in its application and its meaning. Popular examples of this are the words 'bad' and 'gay' as this old Ovaltine advert shows.





The downside of checking the meaning of everyword of course is that it takes time too. We all hate being called Pedantic. The thing is that it's really not the word Pedant that we dislike but its meaning! As this definition explains, "A Pedant is a person who is overly concerned with formalism and precision, or who makes a show of his learning"

One group of people who are deeply concerned with the meaning of words are people of study and practice neuro linguistic programming The chances are that you have heard of it if you read blogs like Gullibility. For those of you who are less familiar, it is an approach to communication and sense making used by therapists created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. As well as being inspired by the work of counsellors and therapists they used ideas from Noam Chomsky the father of Grammar and Gregory Bateson the anthropologist. Their main book is:





This stuff has real world implications for organisations and business too. Think of a university. Now, do we call the people who come to learn at the university 'students' or 'customers'? Depending of the choice of label this affects the way we think about and act towards those people. The same in commercial life, do we serve audiences, segements, customers, buyers, consumers, users, clients,partners, co-creators of value, targets,suckers, punters? What is the prevailing word in your business and what does it really mean!

In our personal lives the same concern for word meaning applies. Being alert to what people mean is a crucial way in which you can stop people taking advantage of you.

Spotting A Bare Faced Lie

People use lies to deceive and manipulate others So the best way of not being duped is to know when people are being honest. But is there a sure fire way of making sure people are being honest?

Dr Stefan Fafinski has set up honestylab.com in an attempt to apply science to that most subjective of human pastimes...deciding if someone is telling the truth.

Can it be done though? Uncovering the truth has vexed the layman and the philosopher for thousands of years. Pontious Pilate posed the question What is Truth to the Pharisees at the trial of Jesus Christ.

There isthe constant possibility of deception in our attempts to rationalise events. Referring to the ideas of Robert Trivers, Steven Pinker (2002:263-264) says that

“Every human relationship…has a distinct psychology forged by a pattern of converging and diverging interests” adding that we “suppress evidence that we are not as beneficent or competent as we would like to think”

Trivers (1976) explains this phenomenon in the following way:

“If…deceit is fundamental to animal communication, then there must be strong selection to spot deception and this ought, in turn, to select for a degree of self-deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as not to betray…the deception being practised. Thus the conventional view that natural selection favours nervous systems which produce ever more accurate images of the world must be a very naïve view of mental evolution”

So can we ever spot the double bluff? Is deception just a look in the face or does it also have something to do with the situation and the pattern of events that have led up to the deceptive act.

Fafinski's research is interesting. It is only one part of the story. Therefore it can never honestly claim to be the truth about honesty.

Evidence of Gullibility

Its been a while since I reviewed my Technorati page I notice that my 'authority' sits at 7 and that I've attracted 55 fans.

One neat aspect of Technorati is the 'watchlist' and a key word for me is as you would expect 'Gullibility' Over the last few days there have been a couple of great links.

The first is this one that claims to be images recovered from the inside of ill fated flight AF 447 Titled Gullibility (hooray!) the images seem to be clips from a TV series.

Next is a blog called Daily Irrelevant which covers a story about prize winning students who later had their prize revoked"prize-winners, Guillaume Chauvin and Rémi Hubert, read out a statement admitting to the hoax, stating that they had wanted to make a “powerful artistic gesture” attacking the “voyeurism” and gullibility of parts of the press" as they took Paris Match for a ride.

Candid World
talks about the gullibility of people involved with Scientology, posting a fasciinating comment stream too.

It would seem that a fairly low intensity but steady stream of gullibility pervades the blogosphere.

She Should Have Had 'Gullible' Tatooed On Her Forehead

image credit Daily Telegraph












There are several factors involved with gullibility. One is not thinking through the consequences of one's choices and decisions, another is placing yourself in vulnerable situations that are in the control of unscrupulous people.

Now you may think I'm being harsh when I describe Kimberley Vlaeminck as gullible. However what on earth was going through this pretty girl's mind?

I can remember camping in the South of France and watching travelling tatooists working the bars and beaches. Clearly relying on the 'holiday spirit'of prospects so that they would take advantage of their relaxed and uncritical situation.

That this young woman fell asleep as she had the face art done is surely a metaphor for an uncritical mind. The full story can be read here 56 Stars later

Am I Gullible If I Believe In Luck?

Do good and bad things happen in your life because of Luck? Aren't we being gullible if we think we can change our luck by using charms, colours, numbers, sequences and the like in an attempt to alter destiny.

Was the lady who threw away her mother's mattress containing $1million dollars badly organised, ill informed or just unlucky?

Were the additional 42 people who have just been diagnosed with Swine Flu in Britain simply unfortunate?

Was the man who found a dead mouse in his loaf of bread unlucky too?

Why is it that we attribute things we can't control to a lack of luck. Why do we spend so much time and energy on trying to find out How To Attract Good Luck and Fortune into our lives

Surely things just ARE. Aren't they? As Marcus Aurelius said "How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life!"

Taking Care of Susan

Reading the runes I'd say that the pressure on lovely and talented Susan Boyle to live up to expectations was self evident in her demenour on the Britain's Got Talent Final.

The news that she has been taken into clinic is yet another example of the use of language to imply that Susan is somehow 'mentally shaky'. This is unfair. Anyone who has had to Reframe the context of their life and their sense of identity knows that this is a challenging and often up-setting experience.

I would also not be suprised in the slightest if the Britain's Got Talent production took and executive decision to take some of the pressure off Susan by massaging the results. This of course is pure speculation, and it could have been a weird sort of 'care effect' by the voting public to refrain from voting to protect their heroine.

Thinking like this is also unfair to Diversity, who I thought were awesome on the night. I was one of the first people to Stumble their Youtube on April 26th 2009. So its very likely that Diversity won outright fair and square.

This just goes to show how the mind works in lots of different situations. Are we gullible in thinking that rocketing to international fame wouldn't cause Susan to need a massive re-think about what is happening to her? Are we gullible in thinking that the type of super hype pressure cooker that is Britains Got Talent won't turn grown men and kids to tears? Are we gullible in thinking that we don't 'fill in the gaps' and create conspiracy theories the instant we only have partial information.

Susan Boyle deserves every ounce of success. She deserves some well earned rest, and she deserves to be taken care of not only by the entertainment industry but by the the Media and the public. Other wise every single one of us deserve to be accused of taking advantage of another human being.

How appropriate that she does a cover of the Rolling Stones Wild Horses. She's certainly riding them!

UK to Become Banana Skin Republic

As the MPs expenses fiasco reveals excesses on a daily basis we now here that Phil Hope is to repay a massive £41,709

The UK may as well dissolve its parliamentary system and become a fully fledged Banana Skin Republic

Becoming a Banana Skin Republic is apt because parliament is "Frequently the subject of mockery and humour, and is usually presided over by a dictatorial military junta that exaggerates its own power and importance" if the wikipedia article on the subject is to be believed.

Additionally a Banana Skin Republic "typically has large wealth inequities, poor infrastructure, poor schools, a "backward" economy, low capital spending, a reliance on foreign capital and money printing, budget deficits, and a weakening currency"


Supporting the idea House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin says"Change is needed" David Cameron expressed delight at the Prime Ministers decision to go for Banana Skin Republic status alledgedly saying that he had feared at one point that the country might be re-named Absurdistan

It is also rumoured that a Birmingham based premier league club is renaming itself Pancho Villa too.

Expense Claims Proving Expensive for UK Parliament

The Expense Claims fiasco is proving expensive for the basic credibility of Parliament in the eyes of ordinary men and women in the UK.

What seemed like everyday parliamentary rough and tumble now looks like something alot more serious. The integrity of a significant number of MPs is bringing the reputation of the whole institution into question.Communities Secretary Hazel Blears is merely the latest example

How gullible are those MPs who claim they were operating within the rules? Surely these people are sent by us to Parliament to critically appraise all parliamentary processes on our behalf and change things if they are no good. They are not sent there to play the system and feather their own nests.

Have we got a bunch of self-interested single loop thinkers running the country? Its beginning to look like it. I thought that the so called 'Westminster Bubble' was about the self-referencing conversations between MPs and the media, it is clear now that this bubble isolates MPs from the very people they are meant to serve. How could they be so out of touch with the Zeitgeist of the moment, to think that they could behave as they do when ordinary people are loosing their jobs?

We have been here before! April 20th 1653 to be precise. What goes around comes around.

"It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.

In the name of God, go!"

Oliver Cromwell.

Read More:

MPs Prestige At Low Ebb
Guy Fawkes' Sunday Sleaze - MPs expenses musical guide

Am I Gullible If I Believe In God?

Now if ever there was a commercial blunder it has to be down to God!

The most powerful (omnipotent) and well known (omnipresent) brand in the universe. Anybody who who has been on a Marketing 101 course will tell you that protecting your intellectual property (omniscience)is critical.

Well the guys at Vevivi have taken full advantage of God's oversight and produced a range of clothing that any self respecting Atheist would look 'so last millennium' without.

If it wasn't for blogging's Eye of Providence,Mary Ann I would never have got to hear about this. Thanks Mary Ann! Readers should pop over to her blog now for another observation about life the universe and everything.

If you 'get' the T shirt, does that mean you 'get' the philosophy too? Sure we are taught religion and science, and rarely are we taught what the real debate is about. That's probably because its clouded (apols to any angels reading) by philosophical jargon.

Fundamentally (apologies to any religious zealots reading) the discussion hinges on what we believe is 'real' (Our Ontology) and how we decide what is true(Our Epistemology) 9 times out of 10 people will have an argument about stuff without first sorting out where people stand on these matters. Which in turn means arguments just go round in circles (not 'real' circles of course, just imaginary ones)This is the whole gig about Metaphysics i.e. do non physical things exist?

Basically there is one major fault line, between Realists and Idealists. Whether you consider things to physically exist or whether they are made up in your head. So, although I have never seen with my own eyes, touched, or smelled any of Vevivi's T shirts I do believe they physically exist. This means I have a Realist Ontology and an Idealist Epistemology. (I regard the photos as proof of their existence, which means I am relying on Testimony). This, you will probably realise is spookily like another famous story you may have heard involving a guy with long hair and a beard! By deciding your 'O'& 'E' you can work out where you stand regarding any of the four permutations. Which in turn explains why you agree or disagree with someone on matters like 'does God exist'.

If you have a idealist ontology and an idealist epistemology everything is made up in your head. Natural scientists don't go along with this and that's why many of them are atheists because you can't physically prove God exists.

Now just because he can't be seen, touched, or smelled doesn't mean that the 'idea' of God doesn't have psychological value for human beings. Although philosophers like Ken Wilber try and integrate all approaches. There is a physical world and a spiritual world and we can exist in both.

What is your 'O&E'?


Read More:
How Your Brain Creates God

A Good Win For A Bad Loss

Forgive me if I am confused. Sir Fred Goodwin gets a pension worth £693,000 per annum because he negotiated a contract that said he was entitled to this sum regardless of performance.

This means that he knew he was 'feather-bedded' from the moment he took on his job. His pension was, in effect, a long term bonus by any other name. What sort of incentive is that to do good job? This is a soothing tropical breeze compared to the icy blasts being experienced by many people are suffering as a direct consequence of commercial ineptitude.

The pension sum is extraordinary in relation to that expected by the majority of people, who are ruthlessly measured and controlled in the managerial panopticans that are the love of senior managers like banking leaders (sic) and who subscribe to the mantra of Kaplan and Norton that 'what you measure is what you get'.

The bit that is missing of course is, that "I'll measure you but you don't measure me!"..."I'll make sure you don't measure my performance and in that way you won't get any performance from me!" Nice One Fred More Money into the black hole.

This is gullibility.

Australian Woman Caught Playing With Fire

image credit The Crikey Files















What happens when self interest goes wrong?

I would really like to know how the Australian woman recently caught for conning funeral expenses out of the Australian government for a bogus relative rationalised her actions.

Some people seem to have a nose for situations where they are able to take advantage of others When most others are focussed on helping their fellows in trouble these types are thinking about ways they can maximise personal benefit from the circumstances. They are fixated with deception

Her actions are not 'mere theft'. When you take advantage of someone the psychological effects last way after the physical impacts have been erased from the landscape. Betrayal of others in the community should not be treated lightly.

Gullibility is the manipulation of the situation not necessarily a failing on the part of individals.

Read more:
Help Bushfire Victims
Helping bushfire victims
Victims Denied A Voice April 2009

Lies, Deception and The Selfish Meme

image credit Walt Disney

I'm reading Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene for the first time. I have never read Pinnochio.

On page 63 of the 30th Anniversary edition of The Selfish Gene (OUP) he says...

"A survival machine may be said to have communicated another one when it influences the behaviour or the state of its nervous system". This got me thinking about general social situations and current affairs like the Banking fiasco and how unscrupulous people are hell bent on making sure their version of events survive.

I have also recently read Steven Pinker's book The Blank Slate in which he explains that:

"Every human relationship…has a distinct psychology forged by a pattern of converging and diverging interests" adding that we "suppress evidence that we are not as beneficent or competent as we would like to think"

In other words if we think we've been gullible because we haven't spotted someone lying or decieving us then we should be kinder to ourselves because we are so susceptible to the power and skill of a deciever.

Robert Trivers suggests that:

“If…deceit is fundamental to animal communication, then there must be strong selection to spot deception and this ought, in turn, to select for a degree of self-deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as not to betray…the deception being practised. Thus the conventional view that natural selection favours nervous systems which produce ever more accurate images of the world must be a very naïve view of mental evolution”


Woah!! our nervous systems (brains and cognitions) are NOT about creating the truth and there is survival benefit in telling lies.

Dawkins points out (p64) that many animals are in the business of deception from butterflies to angler fish, glow worms to hover-flies. With the Bankers in mind (and of course this applies to any deciever in any social situation), Dawkins then makes the precient remark that:

"Whenever a communication system evolves there is always the danger that some will exploit the system for their own ends...we must expect lies and deceit and selfish exploitation of communication to arise whenever the interests of the genes of different individuals diverge...we must even expect children to decieve their parents, that husbands will cheat on their wives and that brother will lie to brother"

Powerful ‘mind-sets’ (the rich, the bully, the narcissist) make sense of and speak of the world in a particular way. This could be described as the ‘selfish meme’ It resists changes that might be made to a direction it didn’t want to go. Change is not about rational actors but rationalising people. These rationalisations (theories for success and of causes and effects) are expressed as words that grow into discourses, which in turn inhabit the world of social influence, a world in which rival versions of the truth seek to survive longer than their adversaries by any means they can in order to protect the psychological integrity of the individual who cares for them.

The only evolutionary development human's needed now is for lying genes to influence the size of someone's nose just like Pinnochio. Just imagine...never being duped again, I could justify my investment in my wide screen TV because of its ability to cope with 'Nasal Extensiveness'seen in Political Broadcasts and in Treasury Committee hearings :)

Bankers, Big Business and Ferengi Ethics

Recognise the face? Its Quark the Ferengi bartender from Star Trek. Quark has a reputation for being unscrupulous in his commercial dealings. How much does Quark represent the dealings of modern banking and business?

N.Craig Smith Professor of Marketing at Georgetown University wrote a paper in 1995 entitled Marketing Strategies For The Ethics Era

It was published in the Sloan Management Review volume 36 issue 4.

In his abstract Professor Smith says:

"Marketing strategies are increasingly subject to public scrutiny and are being held to higher standards. Caveat emptor is no longer acceptance as a basis for justifying marketing practices..Today, consumers' interests are increasingly favored over producers' consumers can make informed choices, and less capable consumers are offered special protection. The author provides a practical framework - including the consumer sovereignty test - for marketers to apply to their decision making."

Smith suggested that Businesses just like the products they produce could be labelled in a way that showed their attitude and performance in respect of:

Consumer Capability - (is the consumer vulnerable?)
Information - (are expectations and promises realised?)
Choice - (do customers have an opportunity to switch?)

His checklist is elaborated in the paper to include aspects of:
Product Policy - product safety, deceptive packaging, planned obsolesence etc
Marketing Communications - questionable sales techniques, misrepresentation, conflicts of interests, ie pushing products not best suited to the customer, puffery, advertising as hidden perusader.
Pricing deceptive, unfair
Distribution selective, deliberate shortages

How these issues echo today with the 2009 financial crisis. and it is interesting to note the UK Prime Minister's concern with controlling the excesses of The Banking Bonus Culture

How Can The Royal Bank of Scotland Justify Bonuses

image credit the breakthrough













How on earth can the RBSjustify the payment of millions of pounds in bonuses in any way whatsoever? This is a smack in the mouth for the taxpayer. We've been mugged.

If the government permit this then the government needs voting out.

The RBS claim that they will loose 'talent' if they don't pay the bonuses. Is this the same talent that set up miselling schemes, the foreclosure on mortgages, the pushing of current account upgrade schemes?

This news is offensive. It can only reinforce the arrogance of unscrupulous bank executives and condone their ineptitude. They are manipulating the situation to give the impression of their indispensibility and making us all look very gullible indeed.

We are all being taken advantage of. People in the banking profession should hang their heads in shame. They do nothing of real value to contribute to society. They don't make anything, they don't improve people's health, they don't educate, they don't protect.

They should show a huge amount of humility and gratitude that they are still in work. Paying RBS Bonuses is verging on theft.

The Daily Telegraph describes the feeling perfectly when they say "Bankers have descended...into public odium" I agree the paying of these bonuses stinks.

Annals of Gullibility: Why We Get Duped and How to Avoid it

As a visitor to this blog you are no doubt interested in what it takes to stop people taking advantage of you or perhaps you have known somebody who has been taking advantage of someone.

People say there is a 'book in all of us' and Stephen Greenspans book Annals of Gullibility: Why we get duped and how to avoid it is certainly one that I would have liked to author! That said, there is thinking about doing and there is doing it.

Carpe Diem!

Mind you I have been tracking and commenting on people and events where gullibility can be found for two years now, and so I have quite a tome of material for the gullibility aficionado to dip into.

Amazon introduce Professor Greenspans book as "An unprecedented examination of gullibility, how we develop this tendency to be duped, and what we can do to become less apt to be fooled. The first book to provide a comprehensive look at the problem of gullibility, this groundbreaking work covers topics from how we are fooled in areas from religion, politics, science, and medicine, to personal finance and relationships"

I look forward to getting a copy soon and will post a review here and on Amazon. It's great to see the subject of Gullibility getting formal attention. So if you want to,avoid being taken advantage of at work, stop people taking advantage you in politics, marketing, religion, and relationships why not give it read too!

Mother Gets 8 Years For Kidnapping Own Daughter

Karen Matthews, 33, and Michael Donovan, 40, are found guilty of kidnap, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice. In a classic example of gullibility Karen Matthews has underestimated the power of her intellect 'soooooooooooo much'. One of the roots causes of gullibility is over estimating your capability and this was her down fall.Now she's going to spend 'soooooooooooo much' time behind behind bars for taking advantage of her daughter.Sooooooooooooooooo Much for her and her partner in crime Michael Donovan.

News Story
You Tube

Nationalise This Utter Banker

Do you need a reason for why we are in financial meltdown? Are you puzzled how expert banking professionals got it wrong? Do you wonder how fat cats get their jobs?


Chairman of Lloyds Victor Blank (was his mother Cheque by any chance??)was interviewed by Sky News's Jeff Randall this morning and in a staggering video interview (see this part way down the link page)he tried to explain his position.

His responses are unbelievable and blood boiling. This is a man who is not used to having to justify anything to anybody. In a series of vague claims and astonishingly out of touch utterances he suggests that Bankers are clearly better than government at running the Banks!, that they can sell us more products (thanks! you mean like loan insurance etc?), they are a better bet for employees (oh? so nobody is being made redundant then)

What is clear from this interview is that this man has never had to justify himself and the value he adds in terms of 'value' for other people like customers and society he has only ever had to justify his 'value'in terms of financial return to shareholders. He has never had to think 'value' through before and therefore his vaccuous claims demonstrate a stupefying arrogance and closed mindedness.

This is a very poor show. The hypocrisy of the man is jaw dropping. They don't want to be nationalised because they don't want outsiders on their boards. Have you ever borrowed money as business from a bank? I have! Over £30m to be precise as a management buyout, and the first thing they insist is that they have 'one of theirs' on the board.

This arrogance and abuse of power runs right down to branch level, where banking administrators have themsleves pegged as commercial experts and start telling you how to run your business. They are not good advisors. They are pen pushing bean counters with a slight flair for math and a keen eye for the short term.

So my view is that he should 'Blank' right off and let a new breed of holistic manager do his job. The senior managers of banks like Lloyds TSB are the same types as the Generals of the first world war. We are the lions led by these donkeys.

Influencing, Duping and Misleading Blog Readers

image credit A Beautiful Revolution

















I've just been messing about with a few blogging tools. The first is Google Battle which I used to see which keywords come up most. I was interested to see that Dupe beats Gullible and that Influencing beats Persuading, so including them in the title is a bit of an experiment.

The second tool was Google Trends I've never used this before, so as a bit of fun I thought I'd compose a blog inspired by the top ten trend terms to see what happens:

Well it seems that end of the year can find your soullow this can happen when the temprature drops soullow that your find that your zune frozen. If this happens you don't want to go the way of Todd Doxey and the simplist way to avoid this is to make sure you have reset zune. Once you have done this you can turn your attention to the more important things in life such as wondering if the words Dane Cook Married is really a sentence, however reaching a conclusion on this is about as likely as winning the Idaho Lottery. If that is the case then you might consider watching Bachelor Party 2 instead, which might be one of the super solutions for a prosperous New Year, especially if your Idaho Raffle ticket comes in which would make you almost as rich as Barbara Streisand

Well I hope this has been a positive influence on your day and that you don't think you have been duped and mislead! Happy New Year Blogsters!

How Do We Get Into Debt?

People in debt are sleep walkers

No doubt many of us are familiar with this famous quote from Charles Dickens:

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery." credit The Quotations Page

So how come something as blindingly obvious to so many people as how we get into debt still results in so many of us struggling to repay credit cards and the like? Have we all been really gullible? Are we really all that stupid? Are we all financially and arithmetically inept?

I guess in some ways we have to take some of the responsibility for getting into debt. I don't mean this is a direct sense though. I mean it in the sense that significant numbers of us have not put any effort into becoming more aware of the commercial techniques that are used to encourage us to part with our money which then leads us to getting into debt.

Much of our indebtedness is due to the manipulation of situation we find ourselves in when we shop. The places we go to buy things are engineered to lower or psychological defences. Our logical faculties are bypassed by appeals to emotional cues. Our conscious decision making is bypassed and our unconscious is spoken to.

Enter any retail environment, and, not withstanding the general societal norms that support 'acquiring things' (materialism and consumerism) we enter a world designed to take our money off us.

Walk through the door and you enter what is known as the 'decompression zone' that open 5 meters between the door and the goods. This zone is designed to ensure that you to change your mind state from an 'in control rational shopper' into a 'less rational consumer'. You are then more open minded to the sensory assault that confronts you, the music that not only implies you are in a different place (club, bar, home) but also something that 'distracts' your rational thought. You pay attention to the music and not to your rational faculties. In this undefended state you become far more open to the myriad of messages that are put to you on promotional material and carefully crafted sales assistant behaviour and messages.

The environment is then designed to 'take you away from stress and towards relaxation' and ultimately happiness. The happier you are the more endorphins your brain releases which are so addictive that you seek more pleasurable experiences, so you go and buy stuff you don't need because you want to look and feel good. Your sense of identity demands it.

So where do you go to get the money you need? The banks of course!. Well...guess what Banks are Retailers They use exactly the same methods as 'ordinary' retailers and so we have a debt fuelling system. The really deceptive aspect of this is that they convey the image that they are impartial advisers The latest UK Nat West Money Sense TV advert actually says that the people you meet are NOT salespeople! Really? dressed in corporate uniforms, meeting you on their premises which are full of sales messages? This is overt situation manipulation. These people cannot be impartial.

Read any basic text on Social Influence and it will explain that 're-framing' or giving a new name to something that makes a new association that disguises the real intent is as old as the hills. Sales people become consultants, become advisers, become 'your friend', who you trust and base your purchase decisions on!

Another 'wheeze' is the advice they give to re-finance loans. So many of us misunderstand debt and its repayment that we are tempted to extend loans. Don't do it! The initial element of re-payment is the interest which the banks make sure they get off you first. By asking you to extend the loan the 'clock' is re-set and you start paying interest again and so if you find you can pay the debt back earlier you are still in hock.

We are not taught 'retail and advertising psychology or financial management' at schools. We should be. The techniques are not 'difficult' they are simply 'off curriculum'

In our modern interconnected fast paced worlds we should be teaching our kids the rudiments of the commercial practices to which they are continually exposed. This is real education. So tell me...how will knowing "Ou est la Boulangerie" or "1066 was the Norman Invasion of Britain" help you in the modern world.

Try telling your credit card company "I know I'm in debt but I can conjugate a verb like the best of them!" I was in debt, I am in debt, I will be in debt, I have debted? I am debting? I will debt? How about a new verb 'debting', referring to the state of being entirely ignorant of the sophisticated commercial techniques applied to gullible consumers?

Remember banks are NOT services they are purveyors of financial products
you will know that talking in your sleep walking will lead to debt.

Why Do People Always Tell Me What To Do?

I'm sure we have all been on the receiving end of phrases such as "What you should do is...", or "What you need to do is..." and "You must do...". Just listen in to any mobile phone conversation on public transport, in the local bar, at the office, in fact any social situation and you will hear someone telling someone else what the should do with their lives.

Often this well intentioned advice it is simply a bad social habit. A habit that is based on the assumption that what is good for one person has to be good for another.

How does it happen? Well, in some ways the root of the problem can lie with the 'YOU' because it can be your lack of clarity about what to do in situations that leaves a sort of 'advice vacuum' which many people love to fill, and this is how people can take advantage of you.

Because the world is packed full of information our brains can't cope with every little detail. So in order to manage this we all rely on what social psychologists call heuristics. These are 'rules of thumb' or mental short cuts that we use to save us having to work things out from scratch everytime we come across them.

Just imagine if everytime you saw a naked flame you had to investigate it in detail to find out it hurt you when you touched it! To save having to do this 'our rule of thumb' mechanism writes a little module in our brain which says 'flickering red and orange things are hot and dangerous'

We use things like this all the time. 'people in white coats are knowledgeable', 'high price indicates quality', 'red sky at night shepherds delight'

These 'short cuts' represent our cumulative experience of life which we then use to explain why things happened in the past and what will happen in the future. That's why a person who is always telling other people what to do is so quick with advice. Rules of thumb are useful but they mean that we trade off accuracy of thinking for speed of thinking. They are helpful generalisations but they can be wrong. Social psychologists Tversky and Kahneman identified three types of shortcut.

The Availibility shortcut. These are shortcuts that we use to say 'the more we aware of something the more we think it can happen to us'. e.g. If the news is always reporting burgalry then we think there is an increased chance of it happening to us'

The Representativeness shortcut
used to determine how ‘typical’ something/one is. e.g. 'all men/women are like that'

The Anchoring and Adjustment short cut
e.g. using self as a basis for ability to use a computer. My knowledge and keen interest in computers 'must be shared by everyone else'

People who tell us what to do, people who take advantage of good natured people, people who take advantage of you at work make use of these 'shortcuts'. For example, 'a messy desk means you are badly organised', 'I think this particular report is important therefore everyone else will','s/he's the Technical Director they've go to know what they're talking about' etc

Usually our 'rules of thumb' have worked successfully in the past and so we assume they will be valid in the future. This is a trap! The problem is that our 'theories for success/failure' become taken for granted and we presume that they appropriate for everyone else's circumstances too.

Another factor is the position that the advisor takes in relation to the advised. The adviser assumes that they are knowledgeable and the person they are advising is lacking in some way that needs to be improved. This general approach is characterised by people such as Virginia Satir who derived behaviour typologies such as The Blamer, or Eric Berne who talked about Persecutors.


People who utter phrases such as 'you must' also give an indication of the extent of their self-awareness. Which is very little. They are unaware they are advising from a set of assumptions. They are prescribing solutions rather than working with the person they wish to help to uncover alternative options and ways forward.

There is, of course, a judgement to made as to context. In situations of grave danger then it might be very appropriate to tell somebody that they must do something. In general social situations though this is rarely the case.

You might try this sometime if ever someone you know is being insistent with their advice. You might ask them 'should I?', 'must I?' Remember the context though. If someone has responsibility for you then they have a certain authority to insist on things. That said, developing your self confidence and getting clarity on what you should do independently helps keep things in balance.

Another classic situation in which people tell others what to do is known as The Double Bind in which instructions to another person are known as 'injunctions' (not to be confused with the legal term meaning to stop somebody doing something. The playing out of a double bind is subtle and complicated and makes use of meta or abstracted messages between the people involved. This means that that the content of statement such as 'You really should go and see your sick Grandmother' not only carries the primary injunction there is a secondary injunction that 'you should visit her because if you don't I will think you are a bad person'

One other very interesting thing about people who are always telling you what to do, is just that. They are very good at telling you about the 'what' and are remarkably silent about the 'how'.

And the most prolific place to see this? Business and Marketing blogs. They tend to be full of Normative advice on the assumption that they all know better than you.

Try The Huffington Post for 50 Office Phrases You Should Never Use

No Bull's 26 phrases you should never use in writing

15 places you must put your keyword phrase an the why behind itfrom Niche Bot

39 Phrases Everyone Should Know How To Use


So if you are asking the question, Why Do People Always Tell Me What To Do? check for 'short cuts' and check which 'mode' they are talking to in. Start paying attention to the nature of the advice rather than the content of the advice.