But Hendrika dug in her heels and counter-sued Silvia for the horrible domestic crime. Seeing that she needed to rescue her reputation, and having by now the resources to hire a lawyer, Silvia sued Hendrika for libel, hoping that a short court case would bring the facts to light. Nevertheless she continued to spread rumors about Silvia’s supposed delinquency, to the point of seriously tarnishing Silvia’s reputation. Silvia was extremely distressed by the accusation, and she begged Hendrika to help her understand its basis, but Hendrika said it was too painful to discuss. She made a decent living performing around town and giving music lessons. When they were younger, they were a musical duo and performed a bit around town, but then they went their separate ways and Silvia became a world-famous performer, while Hendrika never rose above a certain local renown. Her evidence for the accusation was extremely weak, and some of the more insightful family members suspected that behind it was Hendrika’s envy of Silvia’s success as a performer. ![]() Or we're tricked into believing we answered a survey favouring one side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – and assume that must be our view.Hendrika accused her sister Silvia of a horrible domestic crime. But we conclude "that our behaviour emanated from some inner disposition". In reality, many pressures shape our behaviour – maybe, Wilson writes, we "returned the wallet in order to impress the people around us". After returning the lost wallet, we conclude that we're honest. "After purchasing the latte, we assume that we are coffee connoisseurs," as the psychologist Timothy Wilson writes on. But "self-perception theory" proposes that the opposite's also true: we observe our behaviour, then reach conclusions about who we are. Normally, we assume things work the other way: that a person who thinks of herself as compassionate will therefore act compassionately. But the Swedish study points towards something weirder: not just that we're subconsciously influenced by our environments, but that we infer our very sense of who we are from our behaviour. It's weird enough that a phone on the next table at a restaurant might reduce the chances of two people hitting it off on a date. More than half proved perfectly willing to argue for the opposite of at least one position they'd originally taken: so much for deep convictions. But thanks to some sleight of hand, their answers now appeared beneath different questions – so it looked as if a pro-Israeli respondent, say, had given a pro-Palestinian answer. ![]() Then they were asked to look back and discuss their responses. ![]() ![]() In a study published last month, Swedish volunteers were asked to complete an attitudes survey on everything from internet privacy to the Middle East conflict. (Whether or not they're correct, fair play to the researchers for their title: No Country For Old Men.) Even our deepest convictions can be manipulated by simple trickery. Research conducted in Newcastle, meanwhile, suggests that in areas where fewer elderly people are seen in the street, younger residents may subconsciously conclude that life is short, and thus fast-track their lives, for example by having children earlier. According to the latest findings on the phenomenon of "priming", the mere presence of a mobile phone near where two strangers are talking makes them less likely to end up feeling positive about each other, perhaps because it triggers distracting thoughts about other friends. More specifically: you don't know why you do what you do. H ardly a week goes by, these days, without some psychologist uncovering more evidence that – and there's no point soft-soaping this – you don't know what the hell you're doing.
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