carrot colored dragons

I suspect the best way to start this thing rolling is to just start, and hope the movement takes a pleasing form. Actually, that sentence holds a great deal of what I hope to accomplish with this activity: movement, form and a study of what is pleasing.

The intended focus of this site is motivation. The title came years ago while I was in graduate school and searching for my own internal drive. After a few years of study and observation of why others do what they do, and my current move to advertising (Planning) where the goal is to change behavior, it seems time to produce something.

Secondarily, I have not found a site that I feel completely addressed motivation from a more general perspective. What I have seen is either jargony and way too specific (likely the work of some academic), or so stupidly broad that it isn’t helpful. Also, I always keep my eye out for useful tid-bits, so this should be a good place to gather my thoughts and keep a record.

Finally, I have come to recognize my personal need to develop my writing and communication abilities. Perhaps writing here will help me to assert my own voice more readily. If anything, it will help me formalize thoughts for later application.

This should be a different perspective from other Planning blogs out there, so I hope it works out how I see it. Wish me luck.

I'm tired of the emphasis on the darker, less savory side of humanity. In my field (Social Psychology), in the media, in the news, all you hear about is conflict and abuse. That isn't all there is; it just isn't. People hold doors for each other, smile at each other, and mourn the death of strangers when they die. I don't believe this is some gravy friendliness that you only get when times are smooth. Some guy on Oprah the other week reported watching strangers struggle to save each other during the tsunami. Mankind: man is kind. Whatever else he may be, I have to believe that he is also kind.

In addition to the rant above, I also can't give up the dream that there is some pure aspect to science that is untouched by politics and interpersonal interactions. Somewhere out there is fact and if we as a science can get over our own ego's we might be able to get a glimpse of it.

I'm pretty sure the other graduate students in my office think I'm naive because I say things like this. I thing they're naive because they actually think they're going to change things. I don't need to change the world, just recognize it and understand it when I do.

***Update: I have since discovered that I am not the only one who feels this way. There is a new movement of Positive Psychologist who are working to develop theories related to the positive elements of behavior and psychology. For a start, Ed Diener has a great list here: http://s.psych.uiuc.edu/~ediener/related_websites.htm.

I just want to take a minute to voice my utter distaste for diversity committees. The best way to make someone with a ‘diverse’ background feel welcome at your institution is to make sure they know they were chosen based on their abilities and merits and not because of the box they checked in the demographics section of the application.
-and-
Stop pointing them out in a room full of other equally educated and opinionated people to give their opinion on ‘diversity issues’. The not-whiteness of my skin does not make my opinion any more valid and the whiteness of your skin does not make yours any less so.

Just get over it all, already.

In our more cultured society we have moved away from old traditions of hunting and gathering food stuff to the more delicate practice of hunting and gathering grant funding. The elusive and endangered grant monies require deftness of ability and much patience. They rarely come when called and can change or disappear altogether without warning.

I am so overwhelmed by the process of begging for money. You flash the cash and suddenly I am "underrepresented" and "in need" and threatened as a woman in a male dominated field.
blah.

I don't think any of those things have held me back in the past (despite constant assurances from those-who-know that they have), and I don't anticipate letting them hold me back in the future. But, money is a good thing to have, and a history of being funded is better, so I will deface myself on the alter of underrepresentation repeatedly as necessary in order to earn my keep.
May the monitory gods smile upon my humiliation.

I just got my teaching assignments for the next few semesters; I'm moving irrevocably into the realm of the general instructor. I'm so excited and scared. I don't want to do the stupid things my teachers did, but I know I will.

There is such a difference between the long drawn out measured reward from research compared to the immediate rush of seeing a classroom full of students grasp a concept. I feel so full-bones passionate about these topics, I want them to experience even just a glimpse of that. I want them to wonder at the combinations of some silly statistic to the most ephemeral behavioral process and see how solid the outcome is. I want to teach them to think.
If nothing else, I want them to think.

I am so exhausted.
This weekend was my very first great conference: SPSP. My poster went smoothly, I was treated quite rudely by another student for questioning his masters, and I got to see David Buss [evolutionary psych guru] speak. The great names strutted like the psych gods they perceive themselves to be, and the rest of us fought over the remaining fifteen minutes (questions held 'til the end).
The most interesting thing I noticed was that if you end your talk by saying thank you, they clapped for you. If you didn't, they didn't. There was no obvious relation to the quality of the talk. Yay for social norms.

The best part over all was spending four days in New Orleans. What a great city!

In order for science to be credible it must both explain and predict. Big grand theories that act like magic security blankets to comfort us with siren songs of normal, normal. It's okay that you didn't help that old man who fell on the subway at your feet, it's normal. Statistically significant to p = .04.
What does this take away from the experience of humanity? Does knowing that the earth is held to the sun through gravitational forces deplete the grandeur of a sunrise? Sunrises are constant. normal.

I'm not distressed by the effect of science on the human condition; human psyches are resilient. I'm concerned about the sum of all variations on this theme. If all people are effected slightly, cultures change drastically. Are we lashing ourselves to the mast of a ship headed in the wrong direction?
If all we do to steer is to point our nose toward what's comfortable and normal, all we get is a regression towards the mean. normal. status quo.

In order to be credible, we must be our own theories. Lead by example. It's like painting the boat while you're standing in it.