The Lack of Social Sensitivity

 “Social awareness may be defined as the individual’s ability to understand people, social incidents, and the processes involved in regulating social events".  

Social senstivity though is an important component of social awareness where one uses one's judgement in order not to say or do what would hurt, embarass and make someone uncomfortable during social interaction.  In other words, to put one's self in someone else's shoes before imposing a question or an action.  In a study done by Professor Anita Woolley at University of Cernegie Mellon in Pittsburg Pennsylvania and published in New Scientist Journal, it has been proven that social senstivity trumps the general IQ of an interacting group and it plays an important role in group development that supersedes the benefit of the indivual's separate IQs.  It actually contributes to higher IQ on the individual level when well practiced.  

In our culture we lack social senstivity and when we are socially aware of certain differences or weaknesses, we confuse social sensitivity with hypocracy.   It actually occurred to me to write about this issue after a personal incident that happened with me last week in the US.  While spending time with some friends, there was a guy whom I met for the first time and who is a friend of a friend.  After chatting a bit about certain issues, I asked the following question: Did you finish your studies here or back in your country of origin?  To me and to many of you this might seem a normal question to ask.  However, after the guy left, my friend told me that this is an insensitive question to ask.  GUESS WHY?  

I assumed that the guy had finished his studies and of course my question got him uncomfortable cause he did not.  Although I have been practicing my social sensitivity for a long time now but still I made a mistake that could have been avoided if I just gave my conversation a bit more of a thought.  It is very common in our culture to ask the following questions which are all based on assumptions; for example

1. Where did you finish your studies?
2. When will you get married?
3. How many kids do you have?
4. Are you getting paid well?

Etc.....

Many might say,oh you don't have to take it that far but actually you do.   In our society as well, people don't like this kind of questions but most of them developed a defense mechanism towards this kind of behavior that covers intimidation when facing such incidents.   Some others might not care due to indifference about the requested information and due to somewhat social acceptance of certain weaknesses.  

Although the correlation between civilized societies and socially sensitive societies is clear but being socially sensitive on the individual level is a contagious phenomena that spreads quickly and we should definitely work on that.  Those who think it is easy to do, start it and let me know. 

Pepsi vs Coca Cola

Today's post is not really a deep analysis of any certain social behavior but rather a simple observation about a very common phenomena. 

It occurred to me to write about favoring Pepsi over Coca Cola or vise versa after a deep discussion with a friend of mine in the US about the effect of propaganda on people's decisions and after personally experiencing several occasions where people point out strongly that they favor one over the other.   The following also applies to other similar products and I really never understood why many people are so picky about their choices when I comes to that.

I always asked myself the following question:  If one has four cups, two filled with Pepsi and another two filled with Coca Cola, Will it be possible for someone to point out the difference?

In several occasions I was present where people always argued on which one tastes better and I thought that people talk about it out of deficiency of other fruitful conversations.   Guess what?  It turned out that I was wrong about one thing but right about the other.  Yes, people talk about that due to the lack of fruitful conversations but actually they might be right about the difference in taste that is not that obvious to me.  Check the following link where an experiment about the difference in taste was conducted at  http://syntheticremarks.com/?p=926.

However, other sources agree with me on the difficulty to distinguish between the two and that none is better than the other but rather slightly different.  Moreover, the difference in taste is not worth paying for one more than the other as it is the case in many countries.  Thus it is all a game of a well implemented media campaign.

To summarize,  it doesn't make sense to really feel strongly about favoring one of the two.  If both are available, then yes choose the one you like but if the presence is exclusive to one of th two, just get any.

The Secret Powers of Time

This week and due to travel arrangements, I will only post an interesting short video about the secret powers of time and how it shapes our life and our decisions.  This video briefs the theory of Professor Philip Zimbardo about the six time zones that people live in.    

From the suggested theory, we are past and present oriented people.

The Good Old Days

Days ago, I was mistakenly watching a music show on a supposedly respected national TV where the host was interviewing a composer.  The host started talking about the good old days of Arabic music and the old singers and the impossibility of having such great people again in our lifetime. She added that most of the new generation singers have nothing to do with music and art and nobody can ever take the place of our deceased old artists. So ideals, ideals and ideals.

It is not the first time I hear such a lame argument and I have also heard the same argument about other kinds of art.

I got no problem with those who like classics or old timers stuff but I have a problem with those who undermine the new generation without a valid argument.  I personally rarely see their work as high standard but here I would like to say why do I have a problem with that?

1. Art in general is a result of a social, psychological, political, etc... status of a given nation and as a result if those new guys are losers, it is a definite consequence of the disastrous status of our culture. So shoot at the culture and not at those poor people who think they got talent.  Their talents are relatively good compared to the nothingness that they live in.  To make the story short, we lack culture and we live in the culture of lacking.
2. Most who criticize the new generation and their limited capabilities are past oriented people who dwell on the past and live the dreams of the good old days or are negative competitors who won't admit any positive trait for people in their field of work. (I will shortly post an article about the culture of negative competition).

Guys, most of the old generation artists in our culture were not that good.  Only few made it and those are the ones you hear about today. (although I doubt the talents of many due to several plagiarism cases that were revealed).

I haven't heard Al Pacino talking bad about Brad Pitt or about Andrew Garfield trying to undermine their work.  I haven't heard Dolly Parton talking bad about Jay Z or about Rihanna.  Never seen a show on any respected western TV that demolishes the work of any popular artist but rather in many circumstances present a social/political/psychological analysis of his/her work.

Try to positively criticize and just forget about the wrong national quote that says: "Akbar minak youm, afham minak sini" which translates "He who is older than you by one day is a year ahead of you in knowledge".  This is not always true and I am sure many of you can prove that.

Conspiracy Theory: Not a Sign of Intelligence

"Conspiracy theory explains an event of being the result of alleged plot by a group, organization or government."  Although historically many conspiracy theories turned out to be true (Operation Ajax, Kennedy Assassination, Illuminati, etc...) but one cannot explain every strong phenomena by this theory.

We are culturally used to adopt this theory in many aspects.  We have to give up the idea that there is an office somewhere where a group of people meet and control every single aspect in every country, for every event at all times.  Predictions can be made about everything but certainty cannot be the norm.  Our people enjoy this theory and many get the rush of "feeling intelligent" due to certain analysis about an event in terms of this theory.  Yes some conspiracies can exist but building all ideas, plans and moves on such a thing will definitely jeopardize all the credibility of one's argument. Give a space to randomness and allow the unpredictably of human behavior to explain events.   


Trying to determine the reasons behind the heavy adoption of this theory, I arrived to somewhat a satisfying explanation after researching this topic and determining the socio-psychological factors behind such belief.

1. We culturally deal with things from an emotional point of view, and thus we strive sometimes for rationality, hence we try to explain randomness through a meaningful pattern.
2. Since our region has been struggling with wars and instability for ages, people try to turn a blind eye on the main reason of such a history and tend to blame it on others.  In order to have a clear evidence on what they already believe, they create such a rational pattern that satisfy their blame and that explains events.
3. Also due to instability in our region, people imagine to live in a predictable and safe world.  Since instability creates discomfort and in order to eliminate this discomfort, people tailor theories that best fit a certain explanation which makes them feel either safer or helpless. In both cases, it is a relief.