While out and about in the car last Thursday I was listening to Radio 4 – between REM songs – and I overheard an interview with Catherine Hakim, a researcher in sociology at LSE.  Listen to the chat here.  She was on to discuss and promote her latest book Honey Money: The Power of Erotic Capital, in which she argues that virtues such as attractiveness and vivaciousness play as large a part in professional success as academic qualifications.

This topic attracts – ba-dum tsh – my attention for a few reasons.  First off, it reminded me of the argument made by advocates of emotional intelligence like me.  We assert that success in life is probably more down to non-academic skills such as motivation, empathy and persuasiveness than anything you learned in school.  Your ability to master these skills increases your emotional capital or the value of your personal brand in the marketplace.  Maybe erotic or sexual capital is another application of the emotional intelligences paradigm.

Also, I’ve been interested in the so-called halo effect for some time.  This is a bias in our brains that makes us judge a person or thing better than it is in one area because it seems to be great in another.  So, for example, we tend to think that beautiful people are smarter or more competent than they really are.  Hakim’s work seems to take advantage of this bias.  But it even applies to products.  Because the iPod is regarded well, people tend to overestimate other Apple products.  (Surely that is heresy?  Yes it is, but don’t call me Shirley…)

Since Hakim explicitly argues that erotic capital is a tool women should wield for career advancement, she has raised some heckles in the sisterhood.  For instance, while Elizabeth Day admits that Hakim’s work is “interesting” and “genuinely thought-provoking” in places, in the end she judges it “fairly offensive”.  Anna North is more forthright, dismissing it as “bullshit”.   Guardian writer Zoe Williams seems proud to have clashed with Hakim over lunch.

I suspect in reality that there’s something to it, probably as a subset of social intelligence.  At any rate, read what the lady herself has to say before you dismiss it as so much post-feminist femme fatale.

Have you got erotic capital?  It can be just as valuable as a university degree—especially for women

Erotic Capital in the European Sociological Review

For a more balanced evaluation read:

Catherine Hakim: She’s counting up erotic capital by Kaye Spicer.  Subheading:  ‘The academic with a knack for upsetting feminists has done it again, claiming that sex appeal is as important as brains’.  Also try Erotic Capital by Celia Walden.  ‘Meet the woman who defined the definitive professional must-have of our generation: Dr Catherine Hakim.’

So do women use feminine wiles to their advantage  at work?  My wife says yes.  Do you agree?

First, the movie.  Bradley Cooper was funny in The Hangover, or rather the movie was funny around him.  He just did his pretty-boy thang, but at least he was prepared to send himself up a little.  Then comes The A-Team, with more pretty-boy antics, too much Cooper and not enough Sharlto Copley, and the sweet cologne of typecasting lingering in every frame.

In Limitless, Copper raises his game.  Apparently, he can act after all.  The transformations between him without the pill and on the pill are impressive, backed up by sharp dialogue and the mere presence of Bobby De Niro on set.  More fundamentally, I can’t think of a film that shares a similar premise (except possibly The Lawnmower Man).  I deeply appreciate this fact – most of the movies I’ve seen recently seem ripoffs or hybrids of other movies ’til I want to scream.

Next, the idea.  Is it possible to radically increase your brainpower in the way the film shows?

Apart from dubious ‘brain training’ type activities, there are three advanced ways to enhance human nature: genetic engineering, neural implants, or performance enhancing drugs.  The drugs aren’t just limited to the physical realm.  When applied to mental capacities – like memory, motivation, and attention – they are known as nootropics.
The net is already alive with debate about whether Limitless provides a glimpse of our future.  Some pharmaceutical companies seem to be using the film to raise awareness of products they already have on offer.  While some offer ethical or scientific objections to this scenario, my questions are practical.

OK, so suppose you can boost some dude’s IQ from average to genius.  Fact – that won’t make him successful.

As Malcolm Gladwell shows in Outliers, someone – Chris Langan to be exact – can possess an IQ off the charts but still not have the breaks/and or inter-personal skills to climb the greasy ladder of success.  EQ trumps IQ as a success factor every time, once IQ has reached a mildly-above-average 120.  And EQ can be raised; IQ is stagnant.

Again, suppose you can give a dude a ‘photographic memory’.  Is that an advantage?

Again, not really.  Properly called ‘eidetic memory‘, a photographic memory may be linked to conditions like autism and synesthesia.  Famous sufferers – like Solomon Shereshevsky – have found it more of a curse than a blessing.  It might help you pass fact-based exams or remember people’s names; it will not help you interpret those facts or get on well with those people.

So the drugs don’t work, even if they did exist.  If you want to become limitless, to really grow your mind, to increase the synaptic connections within your brain, here are my suggestions:

Become a dedicated and deliberate lifelong learner.

Open yourself to new ideas, place yourself in new situations, learn new skills, meet new people, attend new courses, read new books.   You get the idea.

Speaking of books, if you really want to expand your mind, join a book club, or try reading:

• Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• Mindfulness by Ellen Langer
• Mindset by Carol Dweck
• A Whole New Mind by Dan Pink
• Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

And no, you can’t borrow mine.  Get your own stash.

Image credit: kroszka.

OK, so not the most sexy blog title in the world.  In fact, it was so dire, I added in the sound slang simply to try and curry favour with you, and to express my nerdish pleasure at the topic.

I’ve always believed that the fact our brains are split in two tells us something profound about our world.  There’s the rhythmic right and the logical left.    This is a standard starting-point for training in creativity or emotional intelligence.  But even those who use it nowadays – Daniel Pink for instance – are at pains to point out that it is only a metaphor.  The whole of the brain is involved in our reasoning and emoting; these functions are not divided up into neurological parts.

Then I came across the work of Iain McGilchrist, a former Oxford literary scholar, now a doctor, psychiatrist and writer.  His book The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World is a groud-breaking work that not only provides scientific evidence for the left-right split – technically called ‘brain lateralisation’ – but also draws out implications for weaknesses of Western society.  Perhaps his most thought-provoking insight is that each hemisphere produces a distinctive worldview!

Iain McGilchrist was recently on the BBC Radio 4 show Start the Week.  He will also be giving a keynote speech for the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) on the 17th Nov 2010; 13:00 (i.e. today).  Entitled The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, you can listen to it live here.

Exciting, isn’t it?!?  Yeah…

P.S. The title of McGilchrist’s book is taken from Nietzsche.  Isn’t everything these days?

Image credit: croush.

Maybe you’ve heard the saying: What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.  At first flush it seems like nonsense, while sounding sort of cool.  If someone almost stabs you to death, surely that makes you weaker?

The phrase is from the German philosopher Fredrich Nietzsche.  Now psychologists have discovered he was right, if you make it a matter of resilience.

Resilience is the emotional skill that equips you to persevere in the face of setbacks, to bounce back after initial defeats, and to overcome obstacles in achieving your goals.  Resilience is very much related to the skill of optimism and is thus an aspect of positive psychology.  It is also related to emotional intelligence through motivation.

It was the tabloid headline that grabbed my attention.  WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU DOES MAKES YOU STRONGER.

We seem to fare better after facing a few knocks compared to those who sail through life with no problems.

A study has demonstrated how adverse experiences foster adaptability and resilience, with resulting advantages for mental health and well-being.

Suffering from life’s ups and downs also means that we are better equipped to deal with adverse events in the future compared to those who have not experienced any difficulties.

For a more in-depth account of this research, look up the following:

• Study Confirms: Whatever Doesn’t Kill Us Can Make Us Stronger
• Whatever does not kill us: Cumulative lifetime adversity, vulnerability, and resilience. (original article)
• Mark Seery (information about the main researcher)

It seems those ol’ philosophers knew a thing or two after all…

Image credit: krossbow.

1. Build exercise into your day.  Running around after small children, walking to the shops or bus-stop, or keeping the house spic and span does not count.  Your heart needs to be racing and you’ll need a shower afterwards.  If you’re really serious about your health, ask Matthew for a consultation.  The tiredness, lethargy and exhaustion you feel can only improve following exercise.  And, exercise is proven to help you sleep better.
2. Do something that takes you outside of yourself and into helping others.  Depressed people’s negative thoughts lead to negative emotions, leading to negative behaviour.  Aside from the obvious benefit of helping someone in need, if you’re focusing on someone else, you can take your mind off things for a while, which gives your thoughts a rest.  This helps to put your own issues into perspective.  Ask anyone who’s done a mission trip to a third world country.  They say it focuses their complaining attitude like nothing else every did.  Here are a few options:
   • Home Start Lakeland, Enniskillen
   • Aware Defeat Depression, Belfast and Londonderry
   • VSB, Belfast, Londonderry, Bangor
   • Volunteer to help a friend or neighbour who’s just had a big change in their life: new baby, redundancy, bereavement, debilitating illness, paralysis.
3. Take up a new interest, or learn a new skill.  If this is something that involves contact with others outside the home, so much the better.
   Contact your local college, university or community centre.  There are always short courses and workshops happening.  Some are even free.
4. Plan ahead.  Book things into your calendar, or diary, that help you to look forward to the future.  Check WhatsOnNI for stuff to do. Anyone can submit any event to the site, for free.  There are often low-cost events, and some free ones too.  There’s sure to be something to appeal to you.
5. Talk to someone you trust.  If you are suffering a low mood for a prolonged period of time, talk to your doctor or a counselling service such as Aware.  Make sure someone from your family or among your friends knows.  Don’t keep it a secret.  Depression doesn’t get better all by itself. And, it is not your fault, nor something you should feel shame about.  It is an illness, like any other, and you need help.
6. Avoid isolating yourself at home, or in your work.  Get out and see your friends, preferably doing something active, like a forest walk, dancing, or a bike ride.  Keep your friends close, so they can help keep an eye on your mood, and notice when things are not right.
7. Get your life into a routine.  Humans need structure, order and discipline.  And, those who suffer depression often have no real structure to their day, especially if they have had to take time off work to recover.  Plan to meet someone for coffee early in the morning.  Decide to exercise early in the day.  Have a weekly schedule for doing the housework, socialising, work or relaxing.  Book appointments with yourself, and don’t break them – it’s rude!

We hope these simple strategies will help get your life back in order.  Depression is a devastating illness.  Give yourself a break.  You’re doing well, even by reading this post, as it demonstrates a will to get better.

Take care on your journey to recovery.  And, if your health is in great condition, don’t forget the 7 steps to keeping it that way.

Image credit: sacks 08.