Does psychology’s over-reliance on American undergraduates distort our image of the human species?

Mia Hamm wrote, “I am a goal scorer and rarely are goal scorers successful.  If it is only when [you score] you gain confidence, you are going to be miserable.”  Defending in ultimate is also about failure.  You can play the best, most technically sound defense in the world and still look like a fool.  That constant drumbeat of defeat can be crushing and powerfully motivating at the same time.  The trick is to carry the defeat with you and at the same time nurse a prodigious ego. That’s why defenders looked pissed off all the time; their psyches are split in half and hating each other.

"From the beginning of her research in Nicaragua in 1986 until Nicaraguan Sign Language was well-established, Kegl carefully avoided introducing the signed languages she already knew, in particular American Sign Language, to the deaf community in Nicaragua. A type of linguistic imperialism had been occurring internationally for decades where individuals would introduce ASL to populations of deaf people in other countries, often supplanting already existing local signed languages. Kegl's policy was to document and study rather than to impose or change the language or its community. While she did not interfere with deaf Nicaraguans gaining exposure to other signed languages, she did not introduce such opportunities herself. She has however documented contact and influences with other signed languages that began as early as the 1990s and that continue to influence ISN as any languages in contact influence one another."

Tony Judt on his own Lou Gehrig's disease. "The pleasures of mental agility are much overstated, inevitably—as it now appears to me—by those not exclusively dependent upon them. Much the same can be said of well-meaning encouragements to find nonphysical compensations for physical inadequacy. That way lies futility. Loss is loss, and nothing is gained by calling it by a nicer name. My nights are intriguing; but I could do without them."

Here’s the 5 second version:
1. Bring a laptop to a bar
2. Offer to buy someone a beer in exchange for participating in a user study
3. Watch your application crash & burn as people do all sorts of ridiculous ass shit they would never do in a lab but constantly do in real life
4. Go back, apply the lessons you have learnt, repeat until you have an app that is 100% drunk person proof

"No one raindrop thinks it caused the flood"

Crab mentality, sometimes referred to as crabs in the bucket, describes a way of thinking best described by the phrase "if I can't have it, neither can you." The metaphor refers to a pot of crabs. Singly, the crabs could easily escape from the pot, but instead, they grab at each other in a useless "king of the hill" competition which prevents any from escaping and ensures their collective demise. The analogy in human behavior is that of a group that will attempt to "pull down" (negate or diminish the importance of) any member who achieves success beyond the others, out of jealousy or competitive feelings.