Level of Difficulty: ***
PREPARATION
·
Copy
paste the text on to https://ttsreader.com/
, listen, highlight your own hard copy and make notes in the margins.
QUESTIONS
1. What
does “It” in the phrase “It is a question…” refer to?
3. What
conclusion can be drawn from this observation?
4. Some
years ago, research was carried out to try and verify the hypothesis that black
people were less intelligent than white people. What could have prompted such
research?
5. What
even scarier observation is made in the text concerning dehumanization?
7. Refer
to the same study. What comforting conclusion was reached in the above study?
8. Refer
back to the original text. The kindness very young children show you is
positively correlated with…
9. What
is the disadvantage of our belief in universal justice?
10. Read
the account of the Milgram test. What was the underlying reason for the
subject’s attitude to the female learner?
11. If
someone believed that Obama is a secret Muslim born in Kenya and he was shown
Obama’s birth certificate, how would he react? Why?
12. What
general conclusion can we draw from the Obama example?
13. Read
the examples of the studies concerning electrocution. We can deduce from all
these examples that…
16. Read
the section titled “We are moral hypocrites”. The various cases described in
this section are all examples of ……………….and prove that we are……….
17. All
the studies concerning trolling reached the common conclusion that…
19. The
fact that psychopathic traits are more common than average among leaders proves
that ….
20. What
appears to be the reason for being attracted to people with the dark
personality traits?
WHAT ARE WE LIKE? 10 PSYCHOLOGY FINDINGS THAT REVEAL THE
WORST OF HUMAN NATURE KEY AND TEACHERS’ NOTES
This is a fascinating text analyzing what we humans are
really like. I have tried to cover as many of the main points in the article as
I could but that has had a downside too: 20 questions. The solution is to cover
them in batches; students don’t have to do them all in one sitting. I found the
text fascinating; I hope you all do too.
1. The
following two questions. Strictly speaking, you can’t begin a sentence with
“Or”; imagine this sentence as a continuation of the previous one.
2. Pictures of the homeless or of drug addicts failed to
trigger activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, and instead prompted activity
in the areas of the brain related to disgust. OR
Students exhibited less neural activity associated with thinking about
people when they looked at pictures of the homeless or of drug addicts, as
compared with higher-status individuals
3. Members of some social groups seem to be dehumanised (at
least as indicated by the absence of the typical neural signature for social
cognition)
4. Blatant
dehumanization of black people
6. Even
four-year-olds seem to experience modest amounts of Schadenfreude
7. Overall the children’s levels of schadenfreude were
low (is enough)
9. We
perceive the vulnerable and suffering as to some extent deserving their fate
10. Derogating
the woman made them feel less bad about her dismal fate
12. We
humans are worryingly close-minded
13. The
prospect of spending time in our own thoughts is so anathema we’d actually
rather electrocute ourselves
14. Vain
and overconfident
15. No
one wants to appear clueless about something they claim to enjoy in front of a
camera
16. Self-serving
double-standards / moral hypocrites
17. Ordinary
users will troll when mood and discussion context prompt such behavior”.
18. Aggression
/ To be number one
19. We
are not inclined to choose leaders with rare virtuousness and skill
20. The
dark traits successfully communicate “mate quality” in terms of confidence and
the willingness to take risks.
