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insomnia and bad grammar since 2001

Irrational Behavior

Enjoy raging at inanimate objects? Yelling at traffic? Audibly sighing while waiting in a long grocery line or cursing at vending machines? Here’s Mind Hacks, on the elevator syndrome:

Its a common illusion that if you are in a hurry for the elevator you can make it come quicker by pressing the button harder. Or more often. Or all the buttons at once. It somehow feels as if it ought to work, although of course we know it doesnt. Either the elevator has heard you, or it hasnt.

How loud you call doesnt make any difference to how long itll take to arrive. But then elevators arent like people. People do respond quicker to more stimulation, even on the most fundamental level. We press the brake quicker for brighter stoplights, jump higher at louder bangs. And its
because we all do this that we all fall so easily into thinking that things, including elevators, should behave the same way.

They also have a chapter on the mysteries of tickling.

Category: general

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