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30 People Share “Social Customs” That Are Outdated, Toxic And Should Be Retired
In some areas, the world can change very fast but in others, it can lag behind. It sounds cliché, I know, but it's true.
Whether we're talking about the Western World or any other place, each society has its own problems and shortcomings. Discussing these delicate subjects isn't easy, either. Emotions can heat up such arguments very fast.
But it looks like Twitter user @ewgraiam found a way to get people together for a civilized chat: they asked nicely and offered a microphone. Turns out, it was all they needed to talk in peace about all the cultural things that could be changed to make the world a better place.
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According to one study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, people tend to copy other people's choices, even when they know that those people did not make their choices freely, and when the decision does not reflect their own actual preferences. That's how powerful social norms can be.
Imagine you have witnessed a man rob a bank but then he gives the stolen money to an orphanage. Do you call the police or leave the robber be, so the orphanage can keep the money?
Researchers posed this moral dilemma to 150 participants recruited online in their first experiment. But before people made their choice, the researchers also presented information about how similar participants in a previous experiment had imagined acting during this scenario.
Tipping is Ok as long as it represents your appreciation for how will the server did. It should not be your mandatory contribution to the income of a worker because their boss can't be arsed to pay them a decent wage.
"Half of our participants were told that most other people had imagined reporting the robber. The remaining half were told that most other people had imagined not calling the police," Campbell Pryor and Piers Howe, the co-authors of the study, said.
"Crucially, however, we made it clear to our participants that these norms did not reflect people's preferences. Instead, the norm was said to have occurred due to some faulty code in the experiment that randomly allocated the previous participants to imagining reporting or not reporting the robber."
However, the participants followed the social norms of the previous people, even though they knew they were entirely arbitrary and did not reflect anyone's actual choices.
I remember as a child my mother whipping me until I was covered in big red welts all over my arms and legs because she was told by a neighbour that I was in a house that was being built with some other kids and we made a big mess. I screamed at that it wasn't me and that I was at another friend's house all afternoon but she wouldn't listen. After she had finished with me I ran out to my friends house and asked her mother to tell my mother that I was with them. She did. She explained that the girl the neighbour saw was the back of another girl who had the same hair as me long and brown and was around the same age. All my mother said was "oh, well that's alright then". She never apologised or said anything else. I was in real pain for days afterwards. But she really didn't care. day
"A series of subsequent experiments, involving 631 new participants recruited online, showed that this result was robust. It held over different participants and different moral dilemmas. It was not caused by our participants not understanding that the norm was entirely arbitrary," the researchers explained.
Whether or not this is a good thing largely depends on the situation. For instance, social norms are being used to encourage pro-social behavior and have been successfully used to promote healthy eating, increase attendance at doctor appointments, reduce tax evasion, increase towel reuse at hotels, decrease long-term energy use, and increase organ donor registrations.
Boys will be boys is meant to be a light-hearted acceptance of boys immediately getting mud all over their new trousers, and stuff like that. Anyone who uses it to excuse boys inappropriate behaviour is an idiot.
The customer is rarely right and is usually an idiot. I told all my staff the moment I became manager "you are not paid to take abuse, refer them to me and i'll kick them out, i'm a salaried manager and I'M paid to deal with that nonsense, not you".
If it's Gods will for kids to suffer and die of starvation, cancer etc then God is a f*****g Sadist. I HATE it when people say s**t like that, heard it many times after an ectopic pregnancy.
studied psychology & behavioral science in college so learned many 'disciplines' in those fields. while i am not a fan of freud, one thing he did write that i totally agree with is this: "the greatest injustice we do to our children is not to teach them the power of sex". just because a parent(s) are uncomfortable talking about sex doesn't mean that their children don't need to know about it at a fairly early age. this would not only protect them but also make them understand that they need to respect their body as well as others and to prepare them to be responsible when it comes to sex. stop teaching people to be ashamed of the what is a biological act and calling it something dirty.
I actually like the idea of school uniforms. All schools in Australia have their own uniforms and we almost never hear about the incidences mentioned above. We mainly hear about private schools and the fact many of them require girls to wear skirts, NO pants. That should definitely change.
I have always taught my children to respect their elders, BUT I have also taught my children that just because they are an elder doesn't make them right. You can disagree with them but be respectful in your manner and words and if they get upset, scream at you or say derogatory things you are well within your rights to walk away.
My husband's former boss would not hire anyone with facial tattoos or piercings (hair he didn't care about so much.) His reasoning was that some of his senior citizen customers might feel uncomfortable around them. I could see that...but at the same time...just because they got those done doesn't make them bad people or workers. I can understand it being unnerving.
Netherlands: "Working 38 hours per week is too stressful and leaves us with almost no free time. We're switching to 30 hours per week."
My mother once chewed out my oldest brother for not giving our Grandmother a hug and kiss. She was dying from a rare blood cancer and was down to 90 lbs. It's scary for a 9 year old to see that and no one ever sat down with him to explain what was going on with her. He reluctantly gave her a hug and kiss and ran out of the room. It made my Grandmother cry. I don't think he ever got over the guilt of how she cried. I told him several times that it was not his fault.
Actually...most of the commercials I see have people sacked out and sleeping.
I was super impressed by my husband's aunt when her teenage son discussed politics with her. She disagreed with him, but ever so respectfully. She calmly and firmly gave her rebuttals. My parents would have pretty much told me to shut up and that I don't know what I'm talking about.
And who decided that hugging another man is considered cheating on your boyfriend. I hug my friends because I care about them...not because I want to sleep with them.
There's a flip side to this, where you end up with 27 year olds still living at home with mommy doing their laundry, not because rent is too expensive, but because their parents have enabled them to feel like they are their little angel forever. At 18 you should be able to *want* to move out without feeling like you *need* to move out, and know you are able to function in society while knowing you have support for the things you don't know yet.
Women should be able to be calmly straightforward about things without being labeled a bitch. We shouldn't have to go into sweetie pie mode to make a request or point out something that is wrong.
Wow, BP didn’t censor a cuss word!
Load More Replies...This happened today where I work: my boss (a man) was about to take my new coworker (a girl) to a meeting with clients at their place, and told her to be prepared to be harassed by the the guys that work there, but not to take it seriously. I can't believe I heard that... W T F???
I know that lots of countries have some of these issues but it does feel like this should really be called 30 outdated American customs. I don't think that that most of these problems exist in a lot of countries.
Women should be able to be calmly straightforward about things without being labeled a bitch. We shouldn't have to go into sweetie pie mode to make a request or point out something that is wrong.
Wow, BP didn’t censor a cuss word!
Load More Replies...This happened today where I work: my boss (a man) was about to take my new coworker (a girl) to a meeting with clients at their place, and told her to be prepared to be harassed by the the guys that work there, but not to take it seriously. I can't believe I heard that... W T F???
I know that lots of countries have some of these issues but it does feel like this should really be called 30 outdated American customs. I don't think that that most of these problems exist in a lot of countries.