The head of Israel’s internal security service said Saturday that “extremely violent and inciting discourse” targeting the lawmakers seeking to end Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year reign could take a potentially lethal form in a grim echo of the warnings ahead of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
PHOTO:
Grant Cai
In her book Addiction by Design, anthropologist Natasha Schüll shows how slot machines manage to put users in a special state of consciousness, where worries, fears and awareness of the environment and themselves disappear.
She describes a special different level of consciousness that is actually the real reward from the game, a kind of trance state that allows for disconnection from the here and now, while awareness of time, place and even the sense of self disappear altogether. The common phrase given by gamblers to describe this situation is the nothingness zone.
Interviews with heavy gamblers reveal that while they are playing in the casino, time stands still. Heavy gamblers who smoke say they find themselves lighting one cigarette after another and without noticing, it turns to ashes. This suggests that from our brain perspective, the playing is more rewarding than a cigarette in injecting dopamine into our brain. The same neurotransmitter that prod
One of the biggest unanswered questions that haunt marketers is
why customers behave the way they do. With data analytics, it s now possible to paint a very specific picture of what customers do, when they do what they do and where. But why?
This is where Liraz Margalit comes in. A digital psychologist, Liraz blends cognitive psychology and behavioral economics to help clients better understand customers behavior. While we re all irrational beings, understanding the triggers and underlying psychology driving our decision making can give companies a competitive edge. In her regular column, Liraz explores the at times illogical choices we as customers make and the just as dubious decisions marketers make to woo us.