PHENOMENA IN PSYCHOLOGY(61-65)

61 The Hawthorne Effect
　　In the United States, the Hawthorne factory outside Chicago was a factory manufacturing telephone exchanges, with better recreational facilities, medical system and pension system, etc., but the workers were still indignant and the production situation was very unsatisfactory. In order to find out the reason, in November 1924, the U.S. National Research Council organized a research team of psychologists and other experts to conduct a series of experimental studies at the plant. The central theme of this series of experimental research is the interrelationship between productivity and the physical conditions of work. In this series of experimental studies, there was a “talk test”, i.e., for more than two years, the experts talked to the workers individually for more than 20,000 times, stipulating that in the course of the talk, they should listen patiently to the workers’ various opinions and dissatisfaction with the factory and make detailed records; they were not allowed to refute or reprimand the workers’ dissatisfaction. This “talk test” received unexpected results: Hawthorne factory production increased dramatically. This is due to the workers for a long time on the factory’s various management systems and methods have a lot of dissatisfaction, there is no place to vent, “talk test” so that they are these dissatisfaction are vented, so that they feel comfortable and motivated to multiply. Social psychologists call this wonderful phenomenon the “Hawthorne effect”.
　　The “Hawthorne effect” gives us the inspiration that: people will produce countless wishes and emotions in their lives, but only a few of them can be realized and satisfied in the end. For those who fail to realize the will and fail to meet the emotions, do not suppress it, but to do everything possible to let it vent out, which is beneficial to the human body and mind and work. It is reported: now there is a special unit set up “whining room”, which is the “Hawthorne effect” in the management. Reposted in China Essay Download Center

62 Ratchet Effect
　 During the Shang Dynasty, when King Zhou ascended to the throne, everyone in the world thought that under the governance of this shrewd ruler, the Shang Dynasty would be as solid as a rock.
One day, King Zhou ordered a pair of chopsticks to be made of ivory, and he was very happy to eat with them. When his uncle, Min Zi, saw this, he advised him to collect them, but King Zhou did not care about it, nor did the ministers of the court, who thought that it was a very common thing to do.
　　Some ministers asked him the reason for this, and he replied, “King Zhou used ivory chopsticks, he would not use the earthenware pots to serve soup and rice, he would definitely use the cups made of rhinoceros horn and the rice bowls made of beautiful jade; with ivory chopsticks, rhinoceros horn cups and jade bowls, would he still use them to eat the soup made of beans and plain rice? The king’s table from now on all the time to set the wine and food; eating is wine and food, wear naturally to silk, live in the requirements of the rich and beautiful, but also to build a large number of buildings and pavilions in order to take pleasure in it. I shudder at the consequences of this.”
　　In only 5 years, the prophecy of Min Zi came true, King Zhou of Shang Zhou was so proud and extravagant that he gave away the 500-year reign of Shang Tang.
　　In the above story, the evaluation of King Zhou’s use of ivory chopsticks utilizes the ratchet effect, a consumption effect in modern economics.
　　The so-called ratchet effect, also known as the role of the brake wheel, refers to the irreversibility of the formation of human consumption habits, i.e., easy to adjust upward, but difficult to adjust downward. Especially in the short term consumption is irreversible, its habit effect is larger. This habit effect makes consumption dependent on relative income, i.e. relative to one’s past peak income.
　This effect was proposed by the economist Dusenbay. The classical economist Keynes advocated that consumption is reversible, i.e., that a change in the absolute level of income must immediately cause a change in the level of consumption. Against this view, Dusenbay argues that this is practically impossible, because the consumption decision cannot be an ideal plan; it also depends on consumption habits. Such consumption habits are influenced by many factors, such as physiological and social needs, personal experiences, and the consequences of personal experiences. In particular, the consumption standards achieved by an individual during the period of maximum income play a very important role in the formation of consumption habits.
　　In fact the ratchet effect can be summarized by a famous quote from Si Ma Guang, a politician and writer of the Song Dynasty: it is easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but difficult to go from extravagance to frugality. This quote comes from a letter he wrote to his son, Sima Kang, in a family letter, “Training Thrift to Show Kang”, in addition to the famous assertion that “it is easy to become extravagant from thrift, and difficult to become frugal from extravagance,” he also said: “Thrift, the common denominator of virtues; lavishness, the greatness of evils,” Sima Guang adhering to the family style of innocence, do not like luxury and waste, and advocate frugality and simplicity. Sima Guang adhering to the clean family style, do not like luxury and waste, advocate frugality for the beauty, he wrote this family letter is to warn his son not to be contaminated with playboy spirit, to maintain frugality and honesty of the family tradition.
　　Today, when materials are no longer scarce and the necessities of life no longer depend on planned supply, and in a family living environment where health care products, nutritional supplements, food and clothing, as well as cultural and recreational activities are extremely abundant, is it not a bit out of place to talk about “moving from luxury to thriftiness” again?
　　Admittedly, the ratchet effect is out of a kind of human nature, life and desire, “hungry and want to eat, cold and want to ambiguous”, which is the innate desire of man. When people have desires, they will seek to fulfill them by all means.
　　From a personal point of view, we can neither prohibit nor indulge our desires, and we must restrain excessive and even insatiable extravagance. If you do not limit your desires, excessive indulgence in luxury, failed to cultivate frugal habits, will certainly make since ancient times, “rich but three generations,” said it became inevitable, will certainly appear, “the gentleman more desires, will be greedy for riches and wealth, in vain, the road to the quick disaster; the small man more desires, will be more seeking to use, the family loss of life. Is to live in the official must bribe, live in the countryside must steal” situation.
　　Some successful entrepreneurs in the West, although the family is rich, but still very strict requirements for their children, never give the child more pocket money, and even summer and winter vacations, but also let the child to work around. These successful entrepreneurs are not asking their children to earn more money for themselves, but they hope that their children know how hard it is to earn every penny, and know how to be frugal and self-reliant.
　　This is especially evident in Bill Gates. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, is the richest man in the world, with personal assets totaling 46 billion dollars. However, in an interview with the local media in Paris, he said that he would return his huge inheritance to the community for charitable causes and would only give a few million dollars to his three children!
　　Bill Gates’ philanthropy began in the fall of 1993. At that time, he and Melinda, who later became his wife, traveled to Africa, where the extreme poverty of the local people aroused a tremor in Gates’ heart. Emotional, Gates established a $94 million foundation.
　 In January 2000, Gates merged the original two foundations, formed the “Bill and Melinda Foundation”. This foundation is led by his father, Gates Sr. and is now the largest charitable foundation in the world, totaling $24 billion. Gates Sr. says he is enjoying his retirement. He spends most of his time “squandering” his son’s earned wealth, donating it to health and education programs around the world.
　　Mr. and Mrs. Gates have said that when they die, only a few million dollars of their estate will belong to their children, while the rest will go to charity. A reporter curiously asked Melinda if she wasn’t worried that her children would hate them for it in the future. Melinda replied: “The three of them are still small, I can only talk to them about food and wear things. In the future, they will certainly get some property, but we will wait until they are a little older to talk to them about that. We believe that if the parents are properly educated, the children will not have a different view of wealth than we do.”
　　Gates believes that having a lot of unearned wealth is not a good thing for a child who is at the starting point of life, and feels that his or her life and potential should have nothing to do with being born rich or poor. Bill? According to Gates, he and his wife have been exposed to the many inequalities that still exist in the fields of health, education, and research. Therefore, he decided to spend his fortune on lifting such inequalities. He also hopes that other wealthy people will return their property to the community and use it to address the inequalities that exist in society.
　　From a social point of view, the scarcity of resources dictates that the ratchet effect should not be allowed to work at will, and that resources should not be utilized without limit to satisfy the endless desires of human beings. One writer once compared individual human beings who overuse resources to cancer cells-
　　”We often think that cancer cells are unhealthy cells, but they are not. Cancer cells are the healthiest and most energetic, and although other cells divide, the division will come to an end. Cancer cells never stop dividing. Constant division requires nutrients, but human nutrients are limited, and the constant division of cancer cells eventually sucks up all the nutrients from other normal cells. The majority of the cancer cells are very healthy, so they are very healthy.
　　…… Because we are so healthy, we eat a lot. We consume a lot of energy because we have money. However, there are only so many resources on the planet, and when we use more, the rest of humanity is out of luck.
　　Eighty percent of the resources are consumed by twenty percent of the human race. If all the people in the world ate fish from distant oceans like we do, there would only be enough fish in the sea for us to eat for one day. If all the people of the world enjoyed as much as we do, how long could the resources of the earth last?”
　　However, from a social and humanistic point of view, there exists a strange paradox, that is, although cancer cells pose a huge burden to both the human body and society, a culture of honoring “cancer cells” is everywhere around us.
　　Those who grow a limited number of times as normal cells, even when surrounded by nutrients, contact each other to decide whether or not to self-limit. These people are seen as the “weak” who are incapable of doing anything, while the so-called “strong”, in contrast, are like cancer cells that lack the inhibitory mechanisms of normal cells, and expand and grow without regard for their surroundings. Whenever they have the chance, they move away from their environment and develop new horizons elsewhere, squandering most of the resources and nutrients of human society, and attacking at every opportunity those activities that are necessary to make adjustments in society.
　　The saddest thing is that they are not honored for their contribution to society, but for their extravagance and wastefulness… …
　　By studying the negative effects of the ratchet effect, we can minimize the number of “cancer cells” in our world and make our society more harmonious and stable.

63 The Silence Effect
It is not difficult to be largely free of coercion in human interactions. Although people may yield before the whip, it is only superficial obedience, but their hearts are filled with complex feelings of rebellion and hatred. The dissemination of correct information is limited not only in terms of feelings but also in everyday life. People tend to pick and choose what they like and what they want to say to their rulers, and try to avoid saying anything that might upset them or diminish their own value.
This is called the “mum” effect. Staff made a mistake at work because of fear of the authority of the supervisor to keep “silent”, so that the supervisor will not get the correct information, the results will be due to the error can not be corrected in time and cause significant losses later.

In the long run, we should try not to use coercion either emotionally or at work. But for the boss or parents, teachers and other status of people, coercion is not a subordinates or younger generation, students play a role in a simple and fast good way. At the same time, the less confident they are in their own talents and charisma, the more they will exercise coercion, because they think they have no other effective way to persuade others.
As the parable of the wind and the sun tells us, a violent storm alone will not lift the clothes off a person’s back, and it is most effective to treat people with courtesy in normal times and to point the finger when an attack is deemed necessary.

64 The Reward and Punishment Effect

Rewards and punishments are means of external reinforcement or weakening of students’ behavior, which can have a significant impact on students’ psychology by affecting their own evaluation, and the reinforcement or weakening of behavior brought about by rewards and punishments is called the reward and punishment effect. Psychological experiments have proved that praise, encouragement and trust can often stimulate a person’s self-esteem and motivation. But the principle of rewarding students should be spiritual rewards over material rewards, otherwise it is easy to cause “for the money to learn”, “for the class teacher to learn” mentality. At the same time, the reward should seize the moment, master the proportion, and constantly rise. Of course, “there is no education without punishment”, the necessary punishment is an effective signal to control student behavior. Punishment should be appropriate, moderate language, on the matter, so that students understand why they are punished and how to change. Attention should also be paid to the frequency of rewards and punishments, from the results of psychological research, when the ratio of rewards and punishments for the 5:1 tends to have the best effect.

65 The partnering effect

It refers to the fact that when two or more people are engaged in the same activity in pairs (without competition), they will stimulate each other and improve the efficiency of the activity. For example, students are more efficient at doing homework together than independently. Study groups can be formed accordingly. Teachers should pay attention to the efficiency of the lesson and the time allocation. …