After reading a book, watching a movie, listening to the news, or talking about a tragic event, we’re very likely to be afraid of this happening to us, for example, if we think of someone who was assaulted when we got home, we generally think that can happen to us, too.
If we’re going to see a horror movie where the main character is followed by a red car (driven by a killer), how do you think we’ll react when we realize that behind us on the road there’s a vehicle of it?Color? It’s not about imagination, pessimistic or exaggeration, it’s something called “suggestion. “In this article, we will discuss this in more detail.
- If we are left alone with the definition of the dictionary.
- We could say that suggestion is a psychological process by which people are manipulated through a scene.
- Image.
- Word or situation.
- But let’s go a little further in this concept.
The word, suggestion, was first quoted in the 19th century, when researchers like William James claimed that the suggestion was being used in a very strict sense, which means that the use of this technique was to talk about one idea to suggest another. been used by great speakers!
A few years later, thanks to the masters of hypnosis (including Clark Leonard Hull), knowledge in this field expanded, the theory is that a person follows a pattern or instruction based on what he hears or sees, therefore, when we hear tragic news, we will probably think about it for a while and the possibility of that happening to us.
The technique of suggestion is not only used to scare us or feel threatened, it can also be used to suggest that this person is doing or saying something in particular, the spirit is extraordinary, both positive and negative, and in many cases do not allow us to act as we want. The theory of free will advocated by religious does not match the hypothesis of the power of suggestion. In these examples we explain why:
At the University of Washington, researchers gave a pill to a group of people, suggesting it was used to increase their intelligence. In fact, was it one? Placebo? And it did not change cognitive ability, however, patients increased their alertness and attention, achieving better results in the tasks proposed by the researchers.
If, for example, we put a person in a smoke-filled room and tell them it’s a toxic gas, they’ll probably experience shortness of air, think they’re going to die, and experience all the symptoms of poisoning.
We can cite another case: when we learn about zika virus we are afraid and when we see a mosquito we are afraid, whether it bites us or not, we may experience fever and joint pain, as if in fact it was an infection. Insect.
The Hawthorne effect is one of the best known in the field of suggestion, based on the idea that when we are observed we act differently, that’s why employees are working more and more efficiently when they think the boss is looking at them. .
Employees were tested with security cameras that didn’t work (but the “observed” didn’t know it) and the researchers came to this conclusion: if we think someone is looking at us, we’ll do our best!
The power of suggestion is so great that it can change our habits, for example, after seeing a story about a group of thieves assaulting people who come home after 10 p. m. , we’ll probably start arriving at 9:30 p. m.
If before we entered a suspect’s reconnaissance room we heard someone say “Am I sure the thief had a beard?”, it is very likely that we denounce someone with a beard, even though we have never seen him before and until a few minutes ago we were sure that he was. Someone well-shaven. The suggestion changes our memories in such a way that we forget what we have already experienced.
This is not to say that we are not responsible for our decisions or that there is a higher plan to change our views; However, we must understand the role that suggestion plays in our daily lives and how we can deal with it. What we believe is perhaps just imagination!