Category: Free Articles

Word Count:
723

Summary:
In a famous experiment, students were asked to take a lemon home and to get used to it. Three days later, they were able to single out “their” lemon from a pile of rather similar ones. They seemed to have bonded. Is this the true meaning of love, bonding, coupling? Do we simply get used to other human beings, pets, or objects?

Keywords:

Article Body:
In a famous experiment, students were asked to take a lemon home and to get used to it. Three days later, they were able to single out “their” lemon from a pile of rather similar ones. They seemed to have bonded. Is this the true meaning of love, bonding, coupling? Do we simply get used to other human beings, pets, or objects?

Habit forming in humans is reflexive. We change ourselves and our environment in order to attain maximum comfort and well being. It is the effort that goes into these adaptive processes that forms a habit. The habit is intended to prevent us from constant experimenting and risk taking. The greater our well being, the better we function and the longer we survive.

Actually, when we get used to something or to someone – we get used to ourselves. In the object of the habit we see a part of our history, all the time and effort we had put into it. It is an encapsulated version of our acts, intentions, emotions and reactions. It is a mirror reflecting that part in us which formed the habit in the first place. Hence, the feeling of comfort: we really feel comfortable with our own selves through the agency of our habitual objects.

Because of this, we tend to confuse habits with identity. When asked WHO they are, most people resort to communicating their habits. They describe their work, their loved ones, their pets, their hobbies, or their material possessions. Yet, surely, all of these do not constitute identity! Removing them does not change it. They are habits and they make people comfortable and relaxed. But they are not part of one’s identity in the truest, deepest sense.

Still, it is this simple mechanism of deception that binds people together. A mother feels that her offspring are part of her identity because she is so used to them that her well being depends on their existence and availability. Thus, any threat to her children is perceived by her as a threat to her own Self. Her reaction is, therefore, strong and enduring and can be recurrently elicited.

The truth, of course, is that her children ARE a part of her identity in a superficial manner. Removing them will make her a different person, but only in the shallow, phenomenological sense of the word. Her deep-set, true identity will not change as a result. Children do die at times and the mother does go on living, essentially unchanged.

But what is this kernel of identity that I am referring to? This immutable entity which is who we are and what we are and which, ostensibly, is not influenced by the death of our loved ones? What can resist the breakdown of habits that die hard?

It is our personality. This elusive, loosely interconnected, interacting, pattern of reactions to our changing environment. Like the Brain, it is difficult to define or to capture. Like the Soul, many believe that it does not exist, that it is a fictitious convention.

Yet, we know that we do have a personality. We feel it, we experience it. It sometimes encourages us to do things – at other times, it prevents us from doing them. It can be supple or rigid, benign or malignant, open or closed. Its power lies in its looseness. It is able to combine, recombine and permute in hundreds of unforeseeable ways. It metamorphoses and the constancy of these changes is what gives us a sense of identity.

Actually, when the personality is rigid to the point of being unable to change in reaction to shifting circumstances – we say that it is disordered. One has a personality disorder when one’s habits substitute for one’s identity. Such a person identifies himself with his environment, taking behavioural, emotional, and cognitive cues exclusively from it. His inner world is, so to speak, vacated, his True Self merely an apparition.

Such a person is incapable of loving and of living. He is incapable of loving because to love another one must first love oneself. And, in the absence of a Self that is impossible. And, in the long-term, he is incapable of living because life is a struggle towards multiple goals, a striving, a drive at something. In other words: life is change. He who cannot change, cannot live.

Word Count:
485

Summary:
There are a variety of methods that can be applied in the area of homeschooling. The method you select will have an impact on the curriculum and style of teaching. The following are some of the most popular homeschooling methods.

The Charlotte Mason method is named after Charlotte Mason, who is known as the originator of the homeschooling movement. She herself was a homeschooler, and she wanted to establish a basic plan for a complete and effective homeschooling program. T…

Keywords:
home schooling,education,learning

Article Body:
There are a variety of methods that can be applied in the area of homeschooling. The method you select will have an impact on the curriculum and style of teaching. The following are some of the most popular homeschooling methods.

The Charlotte Mason method is named after Charlotte Mason, who is known as the originator of the homeschooling movement. She herself was a homeschooler, and she wanted to establish a basic plan for a complete and effective homeschooling program. The Charlotte Mason method emphasizes poetry, fine arts, classical music, crafts, and classical literature. This method is designed to encourage an awareness of literature and involves reading to the child every day. The child is then asked to tell what he or she has heard. This starts at the age of six. By the age of ten, the child is expected to write narrations in a book. Mason encouraged the use of nature diaries as well. The child writes observations of nature in the book as well. This creates a sense of respect for the environment in the child. Mason thought that good behavior and character were critical for a child’s complete personality development.

The Eclectic Homeschooling method is a combination of several techniques. Innovative parents rely on their own judgment to select topics that make up the curriculum for their own child. These parents are always looking for the best products they can find to help them meet the needs of their home schoolers. Many of the curricula in this method are improvised. This means that, while the basic curriculum is established, parents change it to adapt to the individual needs and interests of their children. The curriculum is generally established according to the temperament, learning style, and interests of the children. These programs typically include visits to libraries, factories, and museums.

John Holt, a public educator in Boston, developed the ‘unschooling’ method. Holt believed that children learn best when they learn at their own pace and are guided by their own interests. He wanted to ‘unschool’ the child by requiring parents to take their cues from the children. This approach has no set curriculum, schedules, or materials. It is the most unstructured of the homeschooling techniques.

The Montessori method had its start in Italy. It was found that children go through extremely sensitive periods in which they experience periods of intense concentration. In these phases, children will repeat an action until they receive some measure of self-satisfaction from it. This method relies on prepared environments to facilitate learning. All materials utilized in this method are meant to satisfy the child’s interior desire for spiritual development. Materials for this method range from simple to complex, and they are relatively costly.

Whatever method is selected, the underlying concept is flexibility and a strong interest in the child’s own desires. The key is to use children’s desire for knowledge to further their education.

Word Count:
584

Summary:
The DSM is categorical. It states that personality disorders are “qualitatively distinct clinical syndromes”

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Article Body:
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth edition, text revision [American Psychiatric Association. DSM-IV-TR, Washington, 2000] – or the DSM-IV-TR for short – describes Axis II personality disorders as “deeply ingrained, maladaptive, lifelong behavior patterns”. But the classificatory model the DSM has been using since 1952 is harshly criticized as woefully inadequate by many scholars and practitioners.
The DSM is categorical. It states that personality disorders are “qualitatively distinct clinical syndromes” (p. 689). But this is by no means widely accepted. As we saw in my previous article and blog entry, the professionals cannot even agree on what constitutes “normal” and how to distinguish it from the “disordered” and the “abnormal”. The DSM does not provide a clear “threshold” or “critical mass” beyond which the subject should be considered mentally ill.

Moreover, the DSM’s diagnostic criteria are ploythetic. In other words, suffice it to satisfy only a subset of the criteria to diagnose a personality disorder. Thus, people diagnosed with the same personality disorder may share only one criterion or none. This diagnostic heterogeneity (great variance) is unacceptable and non-scientific.

In another article we deal with the five diagnostic axes employed by the DSM to capture the way clinical syndromes (such as anxiety, mood, and eating disorders), general medical conditions, psychosocial and environmental problems, chronic childhood and developmental problems, and functional issues interact with personality disorders.
Yet, the DSM’s “laundry lists” obscure rather than clarify the interactions between the various axes. As a result, the differential diagnoses that are supposed to help us distinguish one personality disorder from all others, are vague. In psych-parlance: the personality disorders are insufficiently demarcated. This unfortunate state of affairs leads to excessive co-morbidity: multiple personality disorders diagnosed in the same subject. Thus, psychopaths (Antisocial Personality Disorder) are often also diagnosed as narcissists (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) or borderlines (Borderline Personality Disorder).

The DSM also fails to distinguish between personality, personality traits, character, temperament, personality styles (Theodore Millon’s contribution) and full-fledged personality disorders. It does not accommodate personality disorders induced by circumstances (reactive personality disorders, such as Milman’s proposed “Acquired Situational Narcissism”). Nor does it efficaciously cope with personality disorders that are the result of medical conditions (such as brain injuries, metabolic conditions, or protracted poisoning). The DSM had to resort to classifying some personality disorders as NOS “not otherwise specified”, a catchall, meaningless, unhelpful, and dangerously vague diagnostic “category”.

One of the reasons for this dismal taxonomy is the dearth of research and rigorously documented clinical experience regarding both the disorders and various treatment modalities. Read this week’s article to learn about the DSM’s other great failing: many of the personality disorders are “culture-bound”. They reflect social and contemporary biases, values, and prejudices rather than authentic and invariable psychological constructs and entities.

The DSM-IV-TR distances itself from the categorical model and hints at the emergence of an alternative: the dimensional approach:
“An alternative to the categorical approach is the dimensional perspective that Personality Disorders represent maladaptive variants of personality traits that merge imperceptibly into normality and into one another” (p.689)

According to the deliberations of the DSM V Committee, the next edition of this work of reference (due to be published in 2010) will tackle these long neglected issues:

The longitudinal course of the disorder(s) and their temporal stability from early childhood onwards;

The genetic and biological underpinnings of personality disorder(s);

The development of personality psychopathology during childhood and its emergence in adolescence;

The interactions between physical health and disease and personality disorders;

The effectiveness of various treatments – talk therapies as well as psychopharmacology.

Word Count:
758

Summary:
Three year old Kara was throwing a tantrum. She didn’t want to go to bed, of that she was certain.

“Do you want to brush with the red or blue toothpaste?” her dad asked gently.

“Blue,” she says, glad to be given the opportunity to make a decision.

Ten minutes later, Kara was well tucked up, wondering when she’d agreed to go to bed in the first place.

Keywords:
The Choice between Yes and Yes – A Psychological Revelation

Article Body:
You laugh at the story, don’t you?

The method used to get Kara into bed seems a bit like trickery. And who am I to say that it’s not? Yet I want you to pay attention to one thing. Kara was glad to be given a choice between yes and yes.

Your clients are not much different

Clients come to you every single day asking you to give them a choice. A choice between yes and yes. Instead all you’re giving them is a choice between yes and no.

Mah friend, your bank account will see far better days if only you’d step back, and use the immense power of the choice between yes and yes.

Of course, you don’t have to believe that this choice factor works. You don’t have to believe your sales will go up. All you have to see is proof. So in the article below I’ll demonstrate the psychological factor of choice.How it can work for you and how it can turn against you and bite you in the you-know-where.

It all started on one stupid loss-making November’s day…

We were doing fine with the sales on our website when we made one change. I’m going to demonstrate the change in the article below so it would help for you to have the page open so you can see what I’m talking about.

If you look at this page at http://www.psychotactics.com/hiddenlink.php you’ll find that you get the choice to buy two packages. One is the copy of the Brain Audit and the other choice is a copy of the Brain Audit + the Brain Audit Rip.

Till the middle of November, we had both the offers up. Then one ego-driven morning we decided to pull the plug on one choice.

We gave customers the choice between a yes and um..NO!

Almost within 24 hours, our sales started going south for no reason at all. We ignored this sickening slack for about a week. Then we looked back at what was working. And we put back the choice between yes and yes.

The customer was back in choice-ville and the sales soared.

But here’s the curious part

Among the two packages, one has a much higher price. Yet over 97.5% of customers, when given the choice between the two packages, chose the higher priced package.

The customer is no dumbo

No siree. The customer knows exactly what she wants. And when given the choice between yes and yes, she takes a decision to buy that which creates most value for her. Of course, if there’s an enticement to buy, as was in this case, then there’s a far greater likelihood of her buying the more expensive product.

The customer is no dumbo…but I sure am

Think about it. If your revenue shot up. If customers were buying higher-priced products what would you logically do? Wouldn’t you take the same concept and use it everywhere you could?

You’d think a smart person would do that, wouldn’t you? (Which is why I qualified myself at the start of this paragraph). But no! As we speak, the only product that has a choice of YES and YES is the page I’ve already mentioned above.

Don’t stop at one point. Take the concept through it’s paces

If you’re in consulting, look at the choice between yes and yes. Are you giving the customer a choice between package A and package B. Or do you offer just one package? If you’re selling products, the concept of yes and yes choice stays put.

And once you’ve found that the concept works, puh-lease don’t do the dumbo bit. Audit every possible thing you sell. And put in a yes and yes factor. Not only will this bring you higher quantity of sales, but also an a much better price on every product/consulting assignment you do.

I said yes and yes…NOT yes and yes and yes and yes

You, me, we all crave for choice. But give us too much and we go a little waka-waka in our brains. Because choice is based on rejection. To choose the strawberry flavour ice-cream, you must mentally refuse all the other flavours.

If you give a client too much to choose from, they will end up rolling their eyes, doing a RAM check and shut down their brains before you have time to do anything at all.

Keep your options simple. Keep the choice between yes and yes.

So that even a three-year old has no trouble choosing!

Word Count:
476

Summary:
In finding the best home based business for someone who dreams of being an entrepreneur, there is no hard and fast list of “bests.” One entrepreneur’s best home based business idea is another entrepreneur’s worst.

Keywords:
earn residual income,residual income affiliate program,residual money, work from home

Article Body:
In finding the best home based business for someone who dreams of being an entrepreneur, there is no hard and fast list of “bests.” One entrepreneur’s best home based business idea is another entrepreneur’s worst. So much depends on what that business owner-hopeful enjoys doing, knows how to do, and has some of the resources already in place for. Other considerations in determining the best home based business are what the desired market will bear – what the competition is, and how saturated the market is.

The best way for someone who wants a home based business to start is to determine what she or he loves – what she looks forward to doing, what makes the time fly by for him, what she would gladly spend many hours of every day accomplishing. The next step is for the owner-to-be to assess his or her training, skills and knowledge of various industries. Putting the dream list with the skills list should indicate some crossover. Those things that end up on both lists are great indicators of the best home based business type for this business owner to-be. If, for example, a veterinarian’s assistant is tired of making very little money working for someone else, braving the 30 minute crawl along the highway commute, but really loves those horses that her employer cares for. She might well be a great candidate for a riding school proprietorship, a horse farm, or a grooming facility.

Once the industry and anything more specific in the way of products or services has been determined for the best home based business idea, the work is not done. The business owner has to determine that the business will make money. Questions the entrepreneur has to ask himself are “Who will be my customers? Why will they choose my service? How often will they need my services – what will make them repeat customers? Who is the competition? How can I vary my services from the competition – i.e., what might be my niche? And, what should I charge for my services (based on what others are charging in the market area)?

Part of determining what to charge is determining expenses that must be paid to stay in business. Once the entrepreneur determines the price that will be competitive she or he must find out if that asking price will bring in a profit. If the price that must be placed on the product to make a profit after expenses is too high to be competitive in the market the choices are to change the market or change the product. If it doesn’t make the company money, it’s not the best home based business.

PS: This is the ultimate advice at the end of my articles: seeking residual income is the best way to start a work from home business:
Earn Residual Income.

Word Count:
550

Summary:
The article touches upon the importance of software localization (as a means of expanding the potential market and winning new customers) and contains recommendations on the choice of the right agency

Keywords:
localization, translation, multilingual, benefit, advantage, alconost, agency, business, software, product, marketing, distribution, consumer, satisfaction, client

Article Body:
As a software developer or an owner of a web site serving a large international audience, you should be primarily concerned with the availability of your most important information in a number of target languages. Ease of comprehension and focus on local markets are among the key components of a successful product, be it a desktop application, a hosted solution or a regular web site. You would probably agree that few things can be more frustrating for a potential client than a broken or void link instead of a link to an alternative language. People seek a variety of alternatives, and you are the one who is responsible for equipping your software according to your customers’ desires and preferences.

Obviously, the second staple advantage of having your product translated into a number of languages is the size of the potential market and the scope of opportunities you secure on it. While English is commonly accepted as a standard means of international communications, lots of consumers prefer localized versions of software. Therefore, if you are planning to enter the European market divided among a plethora of languages, you should plan ahead and include multi-language abilities into the functional scope of your solution. Nowadays, non English-speaking users of the global network comprise a steadily growing fraction possessing great consumer potential for companies that prioritize global outreach and diversify their online presence.

However, software localization or translation of web sites is often overlooked and not taken seriously by companies that focus on the functional part of the product only. This is an approach that deprives the company from a significant number of potential clients, which would otherwise have become interested in details and, possibly, purchased the product. The best option for improving this situation is to resort to the services of professional localization agencies. They have the experience necessary for proper interpretation of the most intricate details and aspects of your product with special focus on the peculiarities of IT-related texts and terms in a specific language. Tight cooperation with your translation agency in the beginning of the localization process and provision of detailed information about your product will ensure that the interface of your solution will be crystal-clear for consumers and will leave no room for ambiguous interpretation.

While choosing an agency for your localization project, make sure the company is not a translation bureau of a general profile, but a company specializing in software localization and technical translations. This will ensure that there will be a bare minimum of time spent on consulting procedures, which will save your time and, therefore money. Needless to say that the number of translation inadequacies will be manifold lower if the project is handled by a company that positions itself primarily as a software localization service provider.

Living in today’s world is impossible without being able to communicate your ideas to people from all over the world. International business is no exception – the more adequate and fast your response to your customers’ needs is, the more your company will prosper. Multiculturalism, attention to linguistic details and respect for your customer’s desire to use their native language in your product are vital for a success on the global market. Teach your products speak the same language your customers speak, and they will talk business with you!

Word Count:
585

Summary:
A lead service and traditional marketing strategies in conjunction with each other can provide a balanced marketing effort. Marketing helps develop a brand, while a lead service will help close sales by providing leads that are already seeking the service offered.

Keywords:
insurance leads,mortgage leads,life insurance leads,health insurance leads

Article Body:
Marketing is about two things: name recognition and closing sales. Marketing is about more than a sales presentation. It’s about grabbing the public attention and holding it. A lead service delivers an interested public. Developing a brand requires marketing, closing sales requires marketing and a lead service. Businesses that want to close sales should say yes to a lead service.

A lead service generates success. Marketing executives may disagree on the best form of marketing, but lead executives will tell you to spread the wealth. Traditional marketing such as the telephone book, newspaper advertisements and flyers are not replaced by a lead service, but complemented by it.

If this still doesn’t answer why a business should say yes, then a business needs to understand that a lead service delivers respondents that already want the service. Leads come in a variety of packages from multiples to exclusive, but what a lead service offers a business is a customer that is already primed to buy.

A traditional advertisement costs a significant investment targeted at a specific demographic that may return absolutely nothing. A lead service generates viable leads that are already interested in the service offered. From mortgages to insurance to credit counseling, a lead service is managed marketing that effectively uses a budget with a greater chance of return than traditional marketing can provide.

A lead service lets loan and mortgage officers keep one finger on the pulse of the business. There’s a huge marketplace of consumers looking to refinance, take out home equity loans or just interested in what they could potentially qualify for in a home mortgage. Lead services bring these potential customers into direct contact with the loan officers and agents that can provide them with their loans.

Because of their unique ability to plug a business right into its marketplace, lead services are gaining in popularity. Leads that turn out to be inaccurate or imprecise are often replaced. However, while a lead service can provide numerous potential customers, it remains the responsibility of the business to pursue and close the sales.

Among the five best reasons to utilize a lead service are:

• Wider access to a pool of clients who are ready to go.
• Aggressive marketing tool
• A lower initial investment that promises a higher possible return.
• Avoiding the “something for nothing” marketing that comes with standard advertisements.
• Receiving increased visibility to the marketplace and opportunities for word of mouth references.

Ultimately, a lead service is best used for a specific type of project. A business that handles multiple projects may use a variety of leads from the same service or from multiple services. It’s important to view a lead service from macro-economical point of view. While some businesses can flourish using only a lead service, there is a greater chance for failure when placing all the eggs in one basket.

Businesses do best when they utilize a mixed bag of marketing techniques such as:

• Lead Service
• Paid Advertisements (Yellow Pages)
• Word of Mouth
• Internet Presence (Web Pages & Banner Ads)

Lead service prices can vary and many offer a variety of options from multiple lead deliveries, to exclusive leads, to generating only a set number of leads per month. The prices are often commensurate with the type of service. As with any type of marketplace, value is often weighed against cost. The lower the cost, the lower the value. However, a lead service is a great complement to a strong advertising culture for a business to flourish within.