Mind(fucks)

This one is gonna be about my thoughts, some of them based on many social-psychological researches, yet it might seem as a complete bullshit to you. That's okay :)
I wanted to include this topic into the previous post, but I started thinking of more and more things related to this so I'll give it a try and put it all together.

There must be thousands of different articles and books trying to deal with human mind. Although it's possible, I guess I've never read any of them. And even now, being interested in this topic, I don't really need to read any. I prefer having my own opinion, which might be naive, but this is something that can't be truly scientifically proven.
Speaking of which, my friend has gone to study neuroscience in NY and all those things included in this post might be very close to it. I wish her good luck, this is one of the things I'm really curious about and I'm looking forward to hear some feedback from her. I can't imagine how can someone start studying something like this, I had expected that having at least bachelor's degree in biology or chemistry would be necessary. Kudos and hipster points for you, Andrejka!

I seriously don't know how to start this. I have a lot of notes but it seems too difficult to put it together, it's harder than writing social-psychological analyses! I wrote a second one on Sunday and now only a final exam remains, in which I need to score quite high to get the Statement of Accomplishment as I've only done 3 out of 5 assignments. I'm talking about Coursera's Social Psychology course, I hope you've read my previous posts so you're up to date.

And now I know how I'll continue. It might not make a lot of sense, this is rather some kind of a stream of consciousness, but I plan to check it later and I'll somehow rewrite it if it's bad. Firstly, I'll write about those researches and things from the course. Then my experiences and ideas will follow.

Obedience by Stanley Milgram
You can watch the movie or read about it on Wiki so I don't wanna get much into explaining the experiment itself. Simply, it was about measuring people's willingness to obey some authority (I think it was Milgram himself). Of course, experiments had balls at that time (1963) and those participants were doing something which could have killed the other participant (actually actor) and it wasn't easy for them to leave without completing the task. Nowadays, if you want to make experiments with people, you have to provide them with a brief info (the purpose doesn't need to be revealed), foreseeable factors ("you might be depressed after this" etc.) and they have a clear right to withdraw. Back then, you only paid them some cash, told them they were going to do this and this and no one really cared. My guess is that creating a genuine experiment with people now requires some place where this law doesn't apply or you do it illegally. Pussies.
Well, the things is he made this research because he wanted to analyze the Holocaust and Nazi's behaviour. It's pretty interesting if you think about it. There were millions of people under command of some Nazi authority and it's simply impossible that a lot of them didn't think differently or even oppositely. They were just following orders against their belief. Yet it's not fully applicable. Milgram's approach does not provide a fully adequate explanation of the Holocaust. While it may well account for the dutiful destructiveness of the dispassionate bureaucrat who may have shipped Jews to Auschwitz with the same degree of routinization as potatoes to Bremenhaven, it falls short when one tries to apply it to the more zealous, inventive, and hate-driven atrocities that also characterized the Holocaust. - Thomas Blass, "The Roots of Stanley Milgram's Obedience Experiments and Their Relevance to the Holocaust"
Two thirds (26 or 40) of the participants completed the whole task, in which, after a half, was quite obvious that something had gone wrong with the other "participant". The actor pleaded for release, started screaming and eventually fell silent. There was a wall between those two so they didn't see each other, of course.
The results are sick. I was appalled by the participant's reactions. It's easy to write about it but who knows what we would have done if we were them. You never know what's truly inside you. Even if you look like the most kind-hearted person, some great manipulation can turn you into a beast.

The Stanford prison experiment by Philip Zimbardo
This experiment wanted to prove which one of situational and dispositional attribution affects people the most. In other words, they were investigating whether is human behaviour caused by their personalities (dispositions) or by certain situations.
I think you already anticipate the result. It doesn't matter what your personality is, you'll always be affected by situations and that's the key factor.
There were 24 participants, 12 prisoners and 12 guards. They were supposed to act like if they were in a real prison except they weren't able to physically harm anyone. Long story short, the experiment had to end sooner, after 6 days, because some people (prisoners) had broken down. The guards were actually pissed off because they loved to have an authority. I'm gonna cite wiki: The results of the experiment have been argued to demonstrate the impressionability and obedience of people when provided with a legitimizing ideology and social and institutional support. The experiment has also been used to illustrate cognitive dissonance theory and the power of authority.
This quite applies to us all. Just try to remember when you've done something which was caused by some particular situation and you wouldn't have done it if you had been alone or with different people. I'm sure you'll find something.

Conformity
When I hear this word, I can't stop thinking about young Honza and his "I'm anti-conformist!" :-D
Some experiments were conducted on this topic and the results are still as surprising as the other ones.
Imagine a room of, let's say, 10 people. 9 of them are actors and only one is a true participant. He/she is being asked really easy and obvious questions and has to tell the whole class their answer. The trick is that everyone else's answer is different than participant's. Believe it or not, most of those participants started answering like the rest of their class, even though they seemed like they know that they're wrong. The amount of people and participants varied, if there were for example 2 participants and one of them turned to the "dark side", the other one usually followed him. Of course, there were some people who stuck to their guns and I can't remember the numbers now, but I think most of the participants slipped at least once.
I like that all these theories and researches supplement each other and you kinda change your mind about our minds. No matter how strong you are, you still end up being influenced to some extent.

Everything above affects people in normal life. It's not rare to read or hear about some accidents or criminal acts that occured in populated places and even during day and everyone acted like they saw nothing. It's called bystanders' inaction and it's very usual. If you ever find yourself in this situation, be the one who steps out of the crowd, others will usually follow. And if you're on the other side and need help from someone, just choose a particular person and shout at him/her. It's more likely that someone will help you if you pick one person because they suddenly feel responsible for you.

Let's get to the part which could be possibly full of nonsense. In my opinion, our state of mind is the most important thing in our lifes. It doesn't matter whether your body hurts or you're just going through a lot of shit, you could still be happy. Right now, I should be worried that I won't have enough money for all autumn concerts or even to buy drinks when going out. Moving to another flat isn't cheap, you suddenly have to pay everything on your own. My parents still support me, but it's probably gonna suffice only for food, or in other words, I hope I won't be in the situation when your only meal is ramen noodles. No more extra money and I have to pay for more things. However, I'm still looking forward to it because I also see benefits and even though there might be more costs, I don't really take it into account and I'm still happy. I'll hopefully find some source of income pretty soon and everything will be okay and even better. If I were in this situation earlier, I think I would have been pretty depressed and pissed off, complaining and doing nothing to fix it.
If I go back to the course, there was a short video with hummingbird trying to put out a huge forest fire just by dropping drops of water. Other animals were foolishly looking at him, doing nothing. Then someone asked the hummingbird why would he do something as inefficient as this. His answer was: "I do the best I can." Everytime you can honestly say this to yourself, you have nothing to regret and you can feel happy, no matter what.

I feel like the previous post was really arrogant and I hope you took it as a little exaggeration. I don't wanna conceal that I might be overestimating myself. I think it's definitely better than underestimating, but "the higher you fly, the further you fall." If I find something good in everything I go through, I'll be doing well. It's a motivational stimulant. As I wrote earlier, I kinda loved every single school subject when I was about to graduate and I was used to hate most of them before. Yet I managed to find that "something" and it motivated me to pay more attention and to look deeply into everything. I think this comes with intelligence and some people will never be able to think outside the box and be happy about most things. If you study something that you enjoy then it should be a piece of cake in most cases.

I also found out some other things that your state of mind influences. I remember when I was almost permanently sad and angry and when I had some drinks, I always had a hangover and/or blackouts. During the last few weeks, I never had a really bad hangover or hangovers at all, didn't experience any blackout and I surely drank more than before in some cases. Other conditions like eating were always the same so it depended on the state of mind. I wonder if anyone has the same experience if you compare drinking in angry or happy mood.
Another thing is physical performance. I'm used to working out at least 4 times a week for the last year and a half so I might already have some experience. When I work out with someone else who backs you up and supports you, my results are incomparable with working out alone. Also, when I tell myself that I can't lift this much, I won't really do it. But when I feel encouraged, I do much better. Yeah, even this sometimes leads to collapses when I wasn't able to hold the barbell/dumbbells anymore and it fell on me, but this indicates the top of both, physical and mental capabilities.

Honza recently posted this video and it simply deals with many things that I mentioned here. It's all about your mindset!