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Does positive psychology work, and why we all have a chance with Ninet

Do positive psychology books really help? And what, actually, are women looking for in men?

a wedding cake. From an e-commerce catalog
a wedding cake. From an e-commerce catalog

"Who would want me, who?" Cried on the shoulders of my good friend, A, as we sat at the bar at the neighborhood Cinta-Bar restaurant. The waitress approached quietly from the side, and brought a new package of napkins. A didn't even notice. "I'm too short, too thin and with bays the size of the port of Haifa. Where am I going to find a girl who wants me?"
"You don't look that bad," I tried to encourage him. "And you have a lot of sense. Women are attracted to great minds, aren't they?”
But he refused to comment. "I just don't look good, and everything else doesn't matter. I'm never going to find a girl."
Up to this point, it was a fairly typical meeting between me and A. He's a good guy, all in all. We met while studying at the Technion, we discovered that we have common interests, and since then we enjoy chatting from time to time about ha and da. He has plenty of intelligence, but self-confidence... a little less. And what's even worse, the little self-confidence he still has evaporates faster than liquid nitrogen on the beach in Eilat, as soon as women are involved.
I took a deep breath, and began to compose myself for the usual forging speech that usually puts a little iron in A's spine. To summarize the main motive, it all starts with the fact that he must stop treating girls as if they were the crown of creation, and realize that he too has something to offer. I cleared my throat, took a swig of water, and was about to use my toughest army sergeant tone, when a gentle voice gently burst into our conversation. "Excuse me, can I say something?"
We both turned around. There, behind us, were a pair of legs. I don't usually polish my eyes, but I know how to appreciate beauty, and such was there in abundance. Two long and graceful legs, encased in tight jeans, that rose and rose up and down, and then some more. When I managed to look up from the talking legs, I could only get a general impression of the girl standing behind us. Thin, tall, with curly brown hair, and a shy look in her eyes. And the icing on the cake - she was holding a book in her hand. Luckily my fiancee has bigger books, also in English.
"I didn't mean to, but I heard what you were talking about," she said in a hesitant voice. A's face wore a shade of beetroot. He paid a lot of attention, suddenly, to his glass of drink. Nevertheless, a real girl, and even with a book, stands there and starts talking to us of her own accord. The girl, for her part, looked almost as terrified as he was, as if she approached us out of a moment's decision. "I don't want to disturb you, but there is one book that really helped me in this whole section of self-confidence. Maybe he will help you too."
She placed the book on the bar carefully, and took a step away. Gharno Kadima, A and Enochi, 'choose to feel good' was written on the cover in large orange letters, and an X-circle panel, in which smiling faces and sad faces were placed, showed how smiles defeated depression.
"He recommends doing all kinds of exercises in the head," explained that wonderful specimen of the female sex softly, "for example, if you think you're not beautiful, you should constantly memorize that you accept yourself the way you are. Or if no one loves you," and here a look of sadness came over her face, "you have to remember all the time that you are a loved human being, and that way you will feel better."
We kept staring at the book and at her, alternately. In the end, A found his voice again. "Do you mind if I browse a little, and return it to you before we leave?" She shook her head in the negative. "Me and my friend are sitting at a table on the second floor. Simply, I passed here on the way to the bathroom and heard you talking and honestly thought I could help. Really sorry if I disturbed you!" And before we could say Robinson Crusoe, or even 'Cintah Bar is the best restaurant in Haifa, but it doesn't pay for hidden advertisements in articles on websites', it was already gone.
A immediately started flipping through the book, as if searching for a hidden treasure. After two minutes he realized that even if there was a treasure in the book, he wouldn't find it like this. He lifted the glass of drink to his mouth, down his throat about a third of a glass of lemonade in one go and wiped his lips. "What do you think?" Ask.
I cleared my throat. "Do you really want to hear?"
"It's going to cost me a scientific explanation, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"What really? again?"
"Well, you know me. It's impossible without it."
"Okay, talk."
“Look,” I began, “first of all, I don't like these books at all because they encourage you to lie to yourself. If you are not loved, then there is a reason for it. You should not try to lie to yourself that you are loved. Maybe it's better that you first think about why they don't like you, and try to fix it. Or you will find someone who will love you the way you are. It seems to me much more productive than fantasizing that everyone loves you. Or if you think you don't look good, then think about how you can compensate for it - in clothing, behavior, haircut or in any other way. But don't tell yourself you're beautiful, because you're not. That's what I think."
"Okay, so that's what you think. What about science?"
"so that's it. I just read a particularly interesting article that was published yesterday in a scientific journal - the science of psychology. The researchers there tried to check if positive thoughts really help people feel better. They asked participants with high and low self-esteem to repeat the sentence 'I am a loved person,' and then measured how much their feeling changed about themselves, and what their mood was after the experiment."
"And what did they find out?"
"Do you really want to know?"
"I'm still here, aren't I? Well, don't leave me in suspense."
"Well, that's it. It turns out that the people with low self-esteem, who needed the improvement in feeling good more than anyone else, are the ones whose situation did not improve after memorizing this mantra. Just the opposite - they felt worse after the whole experiment. And precisely the people with the high self-image, who were anyway in a good mood in general, are the ones who felt better after telling themselves that they were loved people. But even with them, the improvement in feeling was minimal."
"But that doesn't make sense at all!"
"Well, look, the mind doesn't always behave logically. But if you're looking for logic, then researchers have claimed that super-happy I-care-bear-style sentences immediately trigger conflicting thoughts in people with low self-esteem. You know those people who love to argue with everyone, no matter what? So that's how there are also opposing thoughts that pop up in response to every sweet sentence you memorize to yourself. They also showed that when they allowed people with low self-esteem to think negative thoughts and put them on paper, their mood actually improved."
"Man, that's totally fucked up."
I shrugged. "Blame it on evolution, or the flying spaghetti monster. But that's the way it is."
He sighed deeply, folded his hands on the table and rested his head on them. "So I'm hopeless."
"not really no. First of all, it's not that I'm dissing this book or the exercises in it. I'm sure they're better than wallowing in depression all day. I'm just saying that you should understand that you also need to do actions, and not just think hippie thoughts all day. And besides, this girl…”
His head rose quickly. "what about her?"
"Cute, isn't she?"
"Probably."
"Beautiful?"
"Like the proof of Fermat's last theorem, but in fewer words."
"Then why don't you try to start with her?"
He snorted self-deprecatingly. "Say, are you kidding? Didn't you listen to everything I told you? I look like a curmudgeon, she looks like a model. Why would she even want me? I'm really not in her league. She must be looking for some Brad Pitt or Noam Tor."
"And didn't you think that maybe she actually likes short, thin and bald men?"
"do not tell me. Is there a study that proves that women like nerds?"
"Well, not exactly. But there is research that shows that..."
"Wait, are you serious? Two studies in the same conversation?”
"Do you want to be a smartass, or do you want the girl?"
"I am silent. Nothing."
"This is something quite new - just from last week. Published in the Monthly for Personality and Social Psychology. They had more than 1 subjects rate pictures of men and women on a scale of 10 to XNUMX. Each of the photos was pre-rated by the researchers to determine how seductive, confident, thin, sensitive, fashionable, curvy or muscular, routine, masculine/feminine, high-class, groomed or neglected the subject is. Then, according to the subjects' choices, they were able to create a profile of the type of women men are looking for, and the type of men women are looking for."
"Well, what do women want?"
"Let's start with what men want. Men, quite overwhelmingly, gave high marks to thin and attractive women. Most men also gave high marks to women who appeared self-confident. In short, we know what we are looking for in a woman."
"Okay, but what do women want?"
"So that's it, they have no idea. Or, more precisely, each one knows what she herself wants, but they are simply not united around the same knowledge. In general, the group of women preferred slim and muscular men, but it was not something unequivocal and uniform. Most women could not agree among themselves on qualities that attract them all. There was a lot of mess there. Some of the women gave high marks to men who others thought had the beauty rating of Barak's falula, may she rest in peace."
He hesitated. “So, you think I'm this girl's dream man? Although all?"
"I do not know. I'm just saying that you have no reason to submit to the stigmas of male beauty in the eyes of women, because there are almost none. So it's really worth a try - maybe she dreams about you at night, and not about Noam Tor. So if you really were the man of her dreams, what would you do now?"
He got up. Suddenly, he didn't seem so down. "I would approach her to return the book, and invite her for a glass of lemonade."
"go for it. Good luck, and don't go wild with the lemon engine!"
He went up to the second floor, book in hand, and I sat and waited. Long minutes passed. Our burgers have arrived. I ate mine, and after a while, his too. that it doesn't get cold. I amused myself by writing a new article on the laptop on the bar. After an hour or so, I saw out of the corner of my eye A. going down the stairs with the girl and her friend, with all three laughing and having fun. He waved goodbye to me as he left the restaurant door, and I winked back and smiled to myself with satisfaction. A small step to science, a big step to A.

Sources:
A study by Wake Forest University - the consensus regarding attractiveness rating - in men only

Announcement of the Institute of Psychological Sciences

Comments

  1. "The beauty rating of Barak's fallowah, may she rest in peace." You ripped me off!
    Apart from that, a very nice, interesting article and all that shit... I've told you this before but I'll say it again... maybe you'll be a writer? If you publish a book I promise to buy it

  2. Good site.
    It's good that there is information in Hebrew for now that I don't know English...

  3. And speaking of associations, after all we are a huge amount of molecules connected together... how can we not mention the "love" hormone, oxytocin
    Naturally, the oxytocin hormone tends to bond between the mother and her tender baby, meaning that the hormone has a known role in helping the bond in humans. They later found in the Department of Psychology at the University of Zurich in 2005 that oxytocin plays a role in our trust in strangers. If we inhale doses of oxytocin it increases our trust in strangers. For example, a good politician who has a successful campaign and is a good speaker, therefore he radiates confidence and trust in his listeners, means that he triggers the release of the oxytocin hormone in the minds of the people in his audience.

    post Scriptum.
    And the maternal connection brings us back to Freud.

  4. The discussion here evokes several associations in me.

    One of them is of course the movie "What Women Want" starring the anti-Semite.

    The second is the following joke:
    A man walks on the beach and finds a bottle with a demon trapped inside.
    As usual in such cases, he releases the demon and it offers him in return to fulfill any wish that they ask to be fulfilled.
    The man asks him to pave a freeway for him from the Sharon coast to New York.
    The demon says that it is very difficult and maybe he is ready to ask for another wish.
    The man agrees and tells the demon that he is willing to compromise on the answer to the question "What do women want?".
    After a few minutes of thought the demon asks him:
    "Well, how many lanes do you want on the Autostrada?"

    The third is that I once went to some meeting in the army and picked up two hitchhikers.
    During the trip they argued with each other about their preferences regarding men.
    One said that it was important to her that at the age of 40 he would no longer be bald, while the other said that baldness does not bother her at all, but it is important to her that he has hair on his chest.

  5. The problem is to find and understand that you have found. Then it will be mutual, and meaningful. And that it will develop and grow.
    It is also better not to confuse the essence with circumstances that only seem like the desired thing, and in the end are not.
    Because it's a shame to find out that your life is a series of mistakes, especially when it's too late.
    We are not built on logic, we are built on countless approximations. When even a small deviation in one of them can lead to a completely different result. That is why illusions are a very powerful tool to navigate the imaginary world in which each of us lives. It is very dangerous to trust excessively in the certainty of this or that illusion. After all, someone has already shown that the world is relative, and each of us has our own relative world.
    So it is better to build your world in the image of heaven and not hell.

  6. Did you fall on your head?
    Psychology on a science site?
    How low can you go?

  7. Nice article.
    A bit cliche in my opinion, but the intentions are good.
    I don't think it quite works that way.
    As a girl, I can say that it is not common for us to dream about a balding and cephalous nerd, but it may be that something in the personality does fit.
    Most people are just looking for someone to laugh at them and make them laugh. Such social approval.
    Attack from there.. 🙂 The main thing is that it won't be boring..

  8. Thanks friends. I'm glad you liked the article.

    Straw man - the links to press releases are at the bottom of the article. You can find the articles relatively easily by searching the websites of the excellent newspapers.

    ------

    my new blog - Another science

  9. Beautiful, both funny and waiting, I had fun and learned!! -Thanks.

  10. Roy:
    I saw the article in the morning and thought how to thank you for it without sounding kitschy and without repeating other words.
    I couldn't find a way to do this so I'm both repeating what others have said and writing a kitsch comment.
    It's just fun to read your articles. They have a perfect combination of knowledge with humanity.
    Thank you.

  11. You played it
    I'm sitting in Hadova 2 class in the morning with an amused smile on my face... that's something that doesn't usually happen 🙂

  12. Women are attracted to men with a lean and toned body, and a fat bank account!

  13. Very nice!

    I think that, after all, the research on the positive mantras and the books that recommend them do go together: the people who wrote these books were probably people with high self-esteem, and they were positively affected by it.

  14. With good stories like this you can write the "You've got to be kidding, Mr. Cezana!" the next

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