Light & Dark!

I read a rather interesting article a few days ago, which spoke about, the effect of dim lighting on a persons levels of honesty & guess what, research has shown, that dim lighting does cause a person to dip to lower levels of honesty and ethical values. Apparently people tend to lie a great deal more as well, when the lighting is subdued.

These findings send some rather salient signals to us:

# 1. Exams are to be held in brightly lit rooms.This would probably induce students to cheat less.

# 2. Do not negotiate with persons wearing dark glasses and wear dark glasses while you negotiate.

# 3. When out on a date, select the darkest corners, if you want to lie to your bf or gf, otherwise go for the bright spots.....

The reason, dim lights make us believe we're less visible and give the feeling that no one is watching us, triggering more moral violations.Thief's often wear masks, hoods, and disguises, which make them feel concealed from view, and people who believe they are hidden really are more likely to commit criminal acts.

Studies have found that people who wore sunglasses felt greater anonymity and so were inclined to play footsie with the truth.The most important point is that, lighting does effect our mood & behavior, so beware!

Also, it's the reason why, I have the lights at their brightest, in my class room, while I teach........................it gets my spiel to be nothing but the unvarnished truth!

The Guru!

A few years ago I had a boss, who was an ardent 'chela' of Swami Nityananda. My boss was, to say the least, a painful man. Obese and suffering from hyper tension he would erupt for all the wrong reasons. It made me wonder, how the Guru would be if the chela behaved like a bandicoot.............

Nityananda stayed on my radar screen,as a passing interest, as I frequently passed his, sprawling estate,at Bidadi, on my way to Mysore & back..................till yesterday, when all hell broke loose. Apparently, the "Guru" was caught ( on camera ) in a rather delicate and 'compromising' position, with an actress ( as yet unidentified )and has since gone into hiding, after vigorously protesting his innocence and godliness.

If true, then we have one more God Man biting the dust.............................I have no love lost for self styled God Men, but what surprises me is the following that these gents have amongst the hoi polli! Why do we head for these folk, in droves, place them on a pedestal & when we find that they are just as human as us, mere mortals, our anger is unbridled ?

My take is as follows:

1. Indian's are very high on the Uncertainty Avoidance Index, which means that anything, which is not certain is anathema to us. This results in us making a beeline to astrologers, Guru's, palmists & so on to secure our future and make it more secure!
2.We are very strong on External attribution................Attribution theory is concerned with how individuals interpret events and how this relates to their thinking and behavior. Attribution theory assumes that people try to determine why people do what they do. A person seeking to understand why another person did something may attribute one or more causes to that behavior.
According to Heider a person can make two attributions 1) internal attribution, the inference that a person is behaving in a certain way because of something about the person, such as attitude, character or personality. 2) external attribution, the inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the situation he or she is in. Blaming other people and avoiding personal recrimination are very real self-serving attributions. We will also make attributions to defend what we perceive as attacks. We will point to injustice in an unfair world. We will even tend to blame victims (of us and of others) for their fate as we seek to distance ourselves from thoughts of suffering the same plight.Since external attribution is external and situational and so cannot be controlled, we need divine assistance, in this area.
3. A lot of Indian's have an external locus of control ( http://capnagaraj.blogspot.com/2009/11/yesterday-young-lady-boxer-from.html)


Does education make a difference ? Please do let me know what you feel! As for me, I'm heading into a short round of meditation!