TED Community » Frederick Rotgers

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Drug laws and policies, helping substance users in a humane, respectful way.

An idea worth spreading

Critical thinking in all its forms.

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Anything.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +10.10 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +1

  A comment on Conversation: When we think we have no options, can we change our perception? Does having options make us happier?

  May 9 2012: The whole basis of one of the most effective approaches to psychotherapy--cognitive therapy--is changing perceptions of ourselves, the world and the future. It should be noted we always have a choice--what is limited is the variety and quality of options we perceive. Sometimes we misperceive what our options are and that leads us to question whether we have a "choice." Other times we actually have limited options, which can also lead us to question whether or not we have a "choice". Choice is something we always have, it's just not always easy to see. Even during the holocaust, people had choice. What was diminished was the range of options available to people depending on their religion, ethnic identity, sexual preference, etc. But "choice" was always there.
  
  As for creating "happiness"--I'm not sure what that word means. It is so vague, unanchored in any reality other than my (your) own perceptions of yourself, the world and the future that to speak of "creating" happiness is simply to say, in a less precise way--changing our perceptions. If "happiness" were based in something other than perception how could it be that people who are infinitely wealthy in many ways are "unhappy"? And, how could it be that people who are impoverished and lacking many basics can be "happy"?
• +6

  A reply on Talk: Sheena Iyengar: The art of choosing

  Jul 27 2010: I didn't perceive many of the comments folks and Kurgan criticize as being presented as "scientific". Rather, they were used as set-up examples to vivify the data she later presented. In 18 minutes you can hardly expect her to rehearse all of the decades of research on decisions and choice. C'mon folks, TED is entertainment based on science, not SCIENCE itself! Assuming that people who subscribe to TED have some modicum of critical thinking ability, I suspect most folks here can tell the difference. Can Kurgan?
• +6

  A reply on Talk: Sheena Iyengar: The art of choosing

  Jul 27 2010: She clearly demonstrates the power of expectancies in her anecdote about the nail polish. This power has been established in a variety of ways. One, for example, has to do with the effect of alcohol on individuals. In a wonderful study in the 1990s, Mark Goldman and colleagues set up an experiment in which they invited a group of college kids to a beer blast with--FREE BEER! Only requirement was that they had to come back next day and watch videos of themselves. Came back and watched themselves and others getting wildly drunk. Then the experimenters delivered the punch line--the beer had been non-alcoholic. It was the students' expectancies of how alcohol would make them behave that led to that expected behavior. So, two identical shades of pink nailpolish can produce different preferences based on what they are called!