Don't Think About Reasons Too Much

Photo: Frontier Academy Art

From time to time, people ask me "Why?" or "How come?" And then, I answer "I don't know." Many people dislike my saying "I don't know." What I mean is that people want to know a reason for something. Of course, I know having a reason for something is important when making a decision and doing something. However, in this story, I want to emphasize "a reason is made after we do or behave something." This is shown by some studies in the field of Neuroscience (Actually, I knew the fact by reading a book by Takeshi Yohrou.). In addition, today I found an article to reinforce my opinion.

It is "Typing Errur? Your Fingers Know Even When Your Brain Doesn't." It says our fingers do something, and then our brain recognize it. I suspect that a mechanism of our speaking can be explained by the same analogy. This is because we sometimes are speaking something without thinking. Our mouth knows, maybe. This unconscious process is what I want to say. In short, our brain doesn't know, but we have behaviors by the other organs: hands, foots, mouth, ears, and nose.

Finally, maybe some people would wonder "Hey, what are you doing when you really need a reason?" For this, I have a tip to make reasons for something immediately. Before explaining about it, I want to introduce kinda another thing but related. Kenichi Omae, a famous business person in Japan, said in his book (although I forgot which books it was written.) "In a presentation, if you mention the three cogent reasons for your opinion, then you could persuade your audiences." In my opinion, this would be right. Also, An experiment written in a book by Noah Goldstein, Steve Martin, and Cialdini Robert depicts that you want to copy soon, but some people are getting in a line in front of a copy machine. Suppose in the situation you want to cut the line because of your hurrying so much. To be succeeded it, adding a reason for cutting the line when you ask someone who is the front of the line a favor for that is much more likely to be acceptable to your favor than not saying a reason, even though the reason is not reasonable (It was surprising for me!). Anyway, we would need to make something reasons to persuade somebody. In my case, I categorize reasons into two groups: dispositional (internal) and situational (external). For example, suppose I went to watch a movie, Public Enemies, in a theater yesterday. Next day, one friend asked me "I heard yesterday you went to watch a movie. I was surprised! I thought you didn't like going a theater. Why did you go?" I answered " Because I like Johnny Depp (this is a dispositional reason), and also yesterday was special day for the theater. So, the ticket was very cheap (this is a situational reason)." And... maybe readers think you should pick one more reason! Please hold on... I have one more strategy. It is called as connectional reason by me lolol. It is a little bit difficult, compared with dispositional and situational. However, I think it is very effective to persuade people. So, let me back the conversation. I would say "My friend invited to me. He said if we go to the theater, we watch the movie starred by Johonny Depp at low price. So, I decided to go!" A hinge of connectional reason is to use aforementioned information, and to combine with these information.

This might seem so systematic. However, really useful. Try it!

But, to be honest, I don't want to make reasons. So, when I am asked reasons, saying "I don't know" is my honest feeling. Ironically, saying something reasons is a kind of compromise for me. If I thought about reasons too much, I could NOT do anything and never move as if becoming 'The Thinker' by Auguste Rodin.

A Day of Safety Driving

To do a homework of social psychology, I was a safety driver last Tuesday.

Photo: comlinkgps.com



On that day, I had an opportunity to drive cars for a long time. This was because I took my friend to a driver’s license office in her car in order for her to take the driving test. Usually, my driving tends to pay attention to other cars, I mean I hardly pay attention to own speed meter.  In fact, we need to adjust to traffic, according to the Washington Driver Guide. So, my speeding is usually 5 to 10 mph over the regulation speed. However, as far as I remember, there is no instruction about adjusting to traffic in Japan where I took driver license at first. We have to obey speed signals in Japan. In short, what I want to say is that my belief or true feeling is to keep or obey speed signals, but here every day I followed others’ behavior. My challenge is to keep driving below the regulation speed.

What was my result of the challenge? I almost accomplished my assignment, throughout driving. However, as I said “almost”, what I mean is that we have a dilemma between keeping the regulation speed and following others’ behavior. When I kept driving at the regulation speed, some cars passed my car. Such behavior was pushing my feeling to drive at faster speed. I was fighting between accomplishing my object as a nonconformist and obeying others’ behavior in my mind. At this time, I considered a question of why people drive at 5 to 10 mph over the speed limit. I thought this is a norm. If everybody kept the regulation speed, I would not care about own speed meter or police officers. However, because some people drive faster than the criteria, our feeling like driving over a little bit, such as 5 to 10 mph, encourage, because everybody does so. This power, unanimity, is strong enough with us.

Finally, I will explain about why I was able to reach the task of keeping the speed limit. The reason why I kept my belief is related to two social psychology concepts: compliance and commitment. In the night before the day, I incidentally heard a story from my host mother. The story was that she was given a ticket for speeding in a school zone, and she paid $271. Obviously, it was my motivation to avoid this kind of punishment, and it was compliance for me. Second, my situation of taking my friend to the driver’s license office made me especially aware of safety driving. Also, though the situation would be a kind of conformity, I needed to show her to a model of good driving. Thus, in advance I decided to keep all of the traffic rules in my mind. I think this is a good example of commitment.

Next day, during driving, I totally forgot to keep to the regulation speed, after losing compliance and commitment. How ironic it was. I thought my feeling or brief was changed by American culture. I would be a conformist because I was so comfortable to follow others.

Scandal Capriccio

I have no idea about political things. However, I want to introduce one article of analysing Japanese politics. This article, by Newsweek: Scandalmania, was really interesting for me, I think it was the best I have recently read.

Unfortunately, the article was written in Japanese, so I am going to summarize it. It divided into four parts. First part was explained about a difference of political scandal between Japan and the other developing countries, and was depicted Japanese history of scandal in the political world. Next and thirdly, a idea introduced to explain about why our politicians are losing the job due to happen only one scandal. Finally, the author picked an example to reinforce his opinion. It was the case of Suzuki Muneo, who lost the status as a politician due to politics-and-money scandal.

Most interesting part for me was the explanation why scandals are directly connected with dismissing the politicians who caused the scandals. The author picked two reasons for that. First, we, Japanese people, are less likely to look at a good result than a scandal. Second, we expect that the politicians are clean which means no sextual, no money, and no violate scandals. Of course, clean persons are wonderful, but, unfortunately, we have some problems as usual, not excepting the politicians. Recently our country keeps to discussing scandals by the politicians, even though we have a lot of problem, such as the exchange rates, the territorial disputes, pention problems and so on. I agree with his idea that we should see the performance and ignore a smaller problem. And, we should focus on more important problems.

I hope this piece of music will end quickly. This is because I am tedious to listen to the news. Next music would be a great concerto, I hope!

I cannot imagine it before I see it



Air Multiplier by Dyson.com

 Today I went to Fry's for the first time with D, my host's friend. There were a lot of interesting products. What I was most interesting in the products was an electric fan by Dyson. It is a very fashionable shape, and looks like a magnifying glass. My surprising point was that Air Multiplier, the product's name, has no blades. It is amazing for me. What do you think about it? It because I thought a fan always had blades before I had seen Air Multiplier.

I just want to say "Innovation is super!" By an innovation, we are sometimes noticed or recognized somethings about which we have never thought. Today my host father was also surprised at Kindle, though I don't have it and I am wondering whether I buy it or not so far. The reason why surprised was a speed that he bought a book online and then Kindle got it immediately! We don't need to wait for a cashier in the bookstore. Hmm...unbelievable!

Superhero

I went to a Japanese festival two days ago. In the festival, I joined a seminar of Taiko, Japanese drum. It was so much fun, but so much tough. When finishing the seminar  for two hours, I was very tired. The reason was that playing Taiko was like sports, I mean it uses whole bunch of body. Through the seminar, it reminded me of Group harmony, which is often pointed out as a characteristic of Japanese culture. All participants, I think there were 14 that includes some children, beat drums together along a pattern. For that, we sang a song and danced, which is Ainu's, native Japanese. I thought the reason for doing so was to enhance harmony as a group. Some people would come up with a question why Japanese people like group harmony. I have an interesting example of group harmony. And in the following, I will introduce the example and also show a difference between single and group in the business world.

Firstly, I just want to say this example is not my original. I found it a textbook of sociology. Anyway, my example is a difference between Japanese and American Superheroes. For instance, Japanese hero is Pokemon, Ultraman, Dragon Ball and so on. A point in common among there story is that a hero works as a team, taking risks to save one another from danger. On other hand, American superhero generally works alone such as Superman, Spider-Man, Hulk et cetera. In addition, I have an evidence that Japanese people prefer Japanese heroes. According to Japanese Wikipedia, , a series of films about Pokemon that is one of Japanese animation was gross and audiences in Japan more than a series of Spider-Man. However, it is not correct in terms of gross, according to Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, Inc. (n.e.). These evidences are not perfectly supporting the idea. And I know my evidences have a piece of bias. Pokemon takes it for granted that Japanese people prefer Pokemon to Spider-Man because Pokemon is from Japan. But, Harry Potter was more likely to be success than Pokemon and Spider-Man all over the world and also in Japan, even though Harry Potter's author is from Britain. In my opinion, the reason why Harry Potter was accepted in Japan was the story is similar to the stories of Japanese animation, from a point of view that a hero works as a team but not alone, such as Toaru Majutsu no Index. Thus, though the idea that people prefer group harmony in Japan may be still only a hypothesis, these example seems to me to show Japanese people like group harmony and working as a team.

Finally, I will introduce a real superhero. It is creators who create comic books. I read a serious journal, "Superman or The Fantastic Four? Knowledge Combination and Experience in Innovation teams" by Taylor and Greve (2006). This is not only interesting title, but this contents are also interesting. In a comic book industry, genre experience, which stands for diversity of backgrounds as the number of genres in which creators had worked over the year, hold by a single individual promotes innovation, while genre experience in a team does not. Some people still discuss which working by single or teams is better. It seems to depend on the situations and what kind of background people have, according to the thesis.

Which superhero is your favorite? Superman? Or Japanese hero?

Shy is not Shine

Recently I have worried about shyness. In fact, I am shy. In some case, shyness is a good thing, especially in terms of a good listener. On other hand, shyness has a bad aspect. Maybe many people would be taught a tip by parents. I quote it from The Fine Art of Small Talk:

• Good things come to those who wait.
• Silence is golden.
• Wait to be properly introduced.
• Don't talk to strangers.

These might be useful for us when we were children. But, as the author pointed out, now, as adults, these lesson are not useful for us, and sometimes good things come to those who wait and waiting to be properly introduced are not good things for us. The Upside of Irrationality gives us a good example for this. A professor who was smart, funny and more or less good-looking couldn't find his partner. It was because he was not outgoing and concentrated on working, even though he had an opportunity to meet women like dinner parties. (However, according to the book, he did meet his mate.)

Therefore, we often lose a good opportunity due to be shy and introvert. Hey, shyness is not golden!

The following opinion is based on just my case, but I suspect many people have the same trouble as me.

Now I study abroad in the U.S.. However, my English skills except reading skills haven't improved so much. One of the reasons for that is that I am shy. Generally speaking, to master a language, we need to have a lot of talking to the others. Of course, reading and writing help us mastering a language, but human being actually had a speaking word before making characters. In addition, as a baby, we acquired a lot of words by listening to our mother and father's talks or having a conversation to them. In other words, what I want to say is talking is important for us to improve English skills, and also other languages. So, I guess socialized people master a language more quickly than shy people.

Two days ago, I had a discussion socializing and shyness with my host mom. She thought socializing is one of the skills. I agree with the idea. And we also talked about why shy parents' children sometimes become shy. In fact, my parents are both shy. Her idea about why shy takes over was that parents who are not socializing can't teach their children how to be socializing because they have no idea. I think so, of course, though shy is also a part of personality. The above-mentoned author, Debra Fine, overcame her shyness, according to The Fine Art of Small Talk. So, I try to learn socializing!   

Love Thy Neighbor

I'm in NY!
It is a so attractive city. It has a lot of great museums, buildings, shops, parks, foods and musicals.

By kyokke tanaka

Also, I feel that it is very convenient which means easy to find and to go the places. NY city reminds me of a paper of differentiation and agglomeration, Baum and Haveman (1997). In this paper, to use the data of Manhattan hotel industry, both the strategies are using at the same time or either only. Especially, I was interested in being parametrized a variable of agglomeration because  of being based on using a measure as St. and Ave. in NY. St. is a road across east to west, and Ave. is a road across north to south. To use the hotels' address shows how far each of them is located. This stands for how Manhattan is accurately arranged in terms of urban planning. If we lost a way, we could find where we are to look at a traffic sigh and, of course, to listen to a police officer, New-Yorker, or hotel clerks. They are very friendly, kind, and useful. However, fortunately I think we hardly lose a way!

By kyokke tanaka

So, NY is a kind city for travelers!! It is because not only people are very nice, but the city themselves is great!