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Category Archives: Psychology
Obnoxious characters
Creating villains is much like creating protagonists. They are people with depth and a history. A villain follows discernible motives just like the hero does. Only at some point in their life, villains take an ethical shortcut to get ahead. … Continue reading
Posted in Characters, Group psychology, Literary devices, Literature, Mental health, Trends in books
Tagged heros, Jane Eyre, villians
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A new definition of literacy
A child of mine made a joking statement that if we wanted to raise the level of writing we needed to lower the number of people who are literate. The supposed logic behind this suspect claim is that the books … Continue reading
Posted in Education trends, Fiction in education, intelligence, Literature, Trends in books, Writing trends
Tagged classics, genre, Literacy, Literature, reading levels
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“Crazy” characters
If you want to write fiction involving mentally ill characters in a realistic way, to show how and why they no longer think clearly, you must get to know real people with real psychiatric disorders. There are many places that … Continue reading
Posted in Characters, Literature, Mental health
Tagged mental illness, psychotic, Psychoticism
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How funny am I?
Traits that are found in people who are considered humorous include: adaptability in communication, desire to make a positive impressions, orientation towards feeling/emotions, and being able to see the irony in a situation. There are advantages to being considered humorous; … Continue reading
Posted in Laughter and humor, Writer's resource
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Writing satire
Having a fondness for satire, I savor that kind of humor. But, many readers stumble over it. I introduced my children to the pleasure of reading satire when they were young. While in grade school, my daughter delighted in the annotated … Continue reading
Posted in Emotional intelligence, Writer's resource
Tagged alice in wonderland, through the looking glass
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Why leaders aren’t more self-aware
Perhaps the last century’s swing towards the outgoing, outspoken, in charge leader, who always exuded confidence has created the increasing need for cultivating self-aware leaders.[1] Before the twentieth century it was often considered egotistical for leaders to promote themselves. When … Continue reading
Posted in Emotional intelligence, Leadership, Optimism and Pessimism
Tagged Self-awareness
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The price of self-awareness
Much of what I’ve perused recently on self-awareness tout the benefit of meditation in increasing self-awareness. This has led to a boom in meditation instructors providing both classes and retreats for mastering the techniques. Search for meditation on the internet … Continue reading
Learning not to be self-aware
Recently I was reading research about grammar police, the people who notice every misspelling and usage error in your writing and assume that you are ignorant based on these errors. Evidently they are disagreeable–certifiably disagreeable. One of the factors in … Continue reading
Posted in Emotional intelligence, Leadership, Self-awareness
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Self awareness and leadership
According to the original meaning of self-awareness over 99.9 % of humanity qualify for this trait because people are aware of their existence. So, this is not enough to be considered special. However, self-awareness has a new meaning along with … Continue reading
Solving the problem of being finite
Whenever I see “problem solving” listed as a component of emotional intelligence, I tend to regard the rest of what the author says on that subject with skepticism. Typically problem solving is a combination of creativity and logic to generate … Continue reading