Universal Principles in Psychology

Individual differences vs universal principles in psychology is an ongoing issue similar to the nature vs nurture debate. Do psychologists focus on what makes us different or what makes us the same?

Universal principles are behaviors and traits that are true for all humans or all members of a culture or society.

Neuroscientists may focus on what makes us the same, such as specific hormones that prime us for sexual behavior. On the other hand, humanistic psychologists may take a special interest in individual differences, believing that all behavior is a reflection of a person's unique qualities.

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Individual Differences in Psychology: Strengths and Weaknesses

So what are the strengths and weaknesses of considering individual differences in psychology rather than universal principles? Let's take a look:

Strengths

Weaknesses

Looking at individual differences requires psychologists to consider the whole person when treating mental illnesses, rather than the general characteristics of the disorder. (This is often called a holistic approach)

Understanding individual differences in psychology give us a clearer picture of concepts like intelligence, personality, gender, and memory.

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Can help educators learn how to support students who may have fallen through the cracks and need special attention to achieve education goals.

Understanding individual differences can help us pinpoint certain developmental issues or psychological disorders.

Focusing too much on differences can create divisions between groups.

Overemphasis on differences when discussing mental health can make some people feel ostracized or left out.

Can help educators learn how to support students who may have fallen through the cracks and need special attention to achieve education goals.

Risks too much focus on internal factors, giving less credit to external factors.

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Individual Differences Psychology - Key takeaways

Individual differences are comprised of our unique characteristics and traits, which distinguish us from others.

Three important ways of measuring individual differences are through observations, controlled lab experiments, and surveys or questionnaires.

Highlighting individual differences in educational psychology can apply to intelligence, learning style, and motivation.

Universal principles are behaviors and traits that are true for all humans or all members of a culture or society.

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Individual differences help us pinpoint developmental issues and give us a clearer picture of concepts like intelligence, personality, gender, and memory. On the other hand, overemphasis on differences when discussing mental health can make some people feel ostracized or left out.

Customer satisfaction

Despite all the effort and money poured into CX tools by companies, customer satisfaction continues to decline. In the United States, it is now at its lowest level in nearly two decades, per data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Consumer sentiment is also at its lowest in more than two decades. This negative dynamic in the customer-centric ecosystem in which we now live creates the challenge of figuring out what is going wrong and what companies can do to fix it.

The short answer is that companies need to create an amazing customer experience. Customers no longer only compare companies to their competitors. They compare with the best companies and brands across industries. But satisfaction across the board is in decline! That begs the question: What customer satisfaction areas should companies tackle strategically to create greater profit at lower risk?

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We base our answer on research at the ACSI — analyzing millions of customer data points — and research that we conducted for our book, The Reign of the Customer: Customer-Centric Approaches to Improving Customer Satisfaction. For three decades, the ACSI has been a leading satisfaction index (cause-and-effect metric) connected to the quality of brands sold by companies with significant market share in the United States.

Here are the top 10 areas to focus on to satisfy customers and create greater profit at lower risk:

Customer Satisfaction is a Strategic Asset

The American Customer Satisfaction Index defines customer satisfaction as a strategic company asset that should be optimized. Satisfaction should not be maximized but also not ignored; optimization is the key. Companies thrive by delivering on customers’ satisfaction expectations in combination with quality, value, and complaint handling. The focus should then be to manage the optimization of satisfaction relative to customer expectations and company resources used.

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It is important to understand this optimization of customer satisfaction since there is a complicated — and ultimately negative — relationship between satisfaction and market share. That is, while high and improving satisfaction in smaller companies drives market-share growth, maintaining high satisfaction once the market share is larger becomes more difficult. This is because with a larger market share typically comes a more heterogeneous customer base and more diverse customer behaviors, which makes delivering high satisfaction more difficult.

Understand What Customers Expect

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What type of demands do customers have relative to their experiences with companies? Let’s start with the misnomer of sky-rocketing expectations. For the past 12 years, using ACSI data, customer expectations have been relatively steady at the macro level (across industries and companies), scoring between 79 and 82 on a 100-point scale (where 100 represents the highest expectations). Now, companies in the auto industry like BMW, Mercedes, and Toyota, seemingly always have much higher expectations than average (>90) from their customers that they have to manage.

Despite the steady cross-industry expectations, the popular choice for many businesses is to aim higher and higher, and at least to “always exceed customer expectations.” Is this the future trend in customer expectations? Practically, it is a flawed argument since companies should avoid promising to “always exceed expectations,” as attempting such a strategy is not sustainable. Companies can and should delight the customer with an amazing experience but with realistic aims.

Quality Performance Matters

How have customers’ quality perceptions evolved (brands, products, and services)? Important in this context is what constitutes quality. Quality, as measured within the ACSI, refers to reliability and customizability, but customizability dominates reliability as a driver of satisfaction. At the macro-level, for the past 12 years quality has been residing in the 79 to 83 range on a 100-point scale (where 100 is the highest quality). For example, Quaker has impressive scores on overall quality, with BMW and Publix peaking in product and service quality, respectively.

A key issue moving forward is likely to be strategies for improving satisfaction in the absence of gains in perceived quality for many companies. Contrary to what managers often think, quality trumps price. More broadly, quality also trumps value as a driver of customer satisfaction across most economic sectors and industries. Plus, we live in a “mass customization” economy, which is reflected in satisfaction being more sensitive to the personalizability than the reliability of products and services.

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Tiny Habits for Better Physical Health

1. Drink a glass of water first thing in the morning. We often don’t get enough water in our systems, and get so busy throughout the day that we don’t think about stopping to replenish our supply. Or we replenish with soda or coffee or tea but not water. Trigger yourself by leaving a big glass out on the counter or table. Or do what I do, and get a big travel mug with a lid. At night, I fill it up with a lot of ice and a bit of water, and in the morning it’s waiting for me: a nice, cool cup of water. Flush the toxins, kickstart your system, wake yourself up

2. Park as far away as you can from the door. Fight the effects of a sedentary lifestyle by getting more steps into your day whenever you can. In fact, simple things like a longer stroll from the car to the door might be more effective than a vigorous work-out at counteracting the effects of long hours at a desk.

3. Eat raw fruit or vegetables with every meal. Think: a green side salad, a slice of melon, some berries, a few carrot sticks and cucumber slices. Not only will you get more nutrients in, you will also be getting in more fiber and potentially helping your body lose weight, retain energy, and decrease hunger.

4. Stand up and stretch every hour, on the hour. Trigger yourself with a beep on your phone or watch (do people still wear those?) or computer. Sitting for extended time periods is a bad idea for both your body and your brain. You need a mental and physical break, and it doesn’t have to be a big deal. Just stop, when your on-the-hour beep sounds at you. Stand up where you are, reach over your head, take a deep breath, touch your toes, roll your shoulders.

5. Carry a small bag of nuts or beef jerky everywhere you go. Something protein-rich will help stave off hunger as well as keeping you from getting to that ravenous point when you’ll eat anything in sight, no matter what the calorie count is. Getting a little more protein in your diet can help boost your metabolism and build your muscle, as well.

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Tiny Habits for Better Mental Health

1. Ask open-ended questions. Instead of throwing out questions just so you can insert your own opinion, ask bigger, better questions. Avoid asking questions that can be answered with a simple Yes or No. Try questions that start with “What do you think about…?” and “How would you….?” or “What is your experience with…?” Then listen to the answers with the attitude that you are here to learn. Having an open perspective and initiating deeper conversations will help you to relate with others, cultivate empathy, keep your own problems in perspective, make new friends, and learn new ways of approaching life. Imagine the wisdom you would gain in five or ten years if you just have one of these conversations every week.

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2. Keep a tray of art supplies out on your table/desk/shelf. Don’t force or even expect yourself to clock in a certain number of minutes or productions. Just keep them out, in reach, so that when you feel like doodling around with something artistic, it is effortless. Bonus points: switch the art medium out every week or month (pastels, crayons, watercolors, ink, clay, playdough, carving knife & wood block).

3. Sit in silence for a few minutes every day. We don’t have to call this meditation, because that might be a little too intimidating. You don’t have to sit cross-legged. You don’t have to close your eyes. You don’t have to be Zen-like in anyway. Your brain can be flying a hundred miles an hour, but don’t say or do anything. Just sit, comfortably, and breathe for a few minutes.

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4. Jot down everything on your mind for a few minutes at the end of the day. This is a brain dump in the easiest way possible. It’s not a big deal like a daily journal or to-do list or planner might feel. Keep a simple notebook by the bed, and give yourself a few minutes to pour out everything that’s on your mind before you go to sleep. Don’t edit. Let it all out, in any format, in any order. It doesn’t have to make sense, even to you. Studies show that this type of writing can reduce anxiety and depression. Alternative: use a voice recorder and simply talk, in unedited stream-of-consciousness style, for a few minutes into your recorder.

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Understanding Trading Strategies

A trading strategy includes a well-considered investing and trading plan that specifies investing objectives, risk tolerance, time horizon, and tax implications. Ideas and best practices need to be researched and adopted then adhered to. Planning for trading includes developing methods that include buying or selling stocks, bonds, ETFs, or other investments and may extend to more complex trades such as options or futures.

Placing trades means working with a broker or broker-dealer and identifying and managing trading costs including spreads, commissions, and fees. Once executed, trading positions are monitored and managed, including adjusting or closing them as needed. Risk and return are measured as well as portfolio impacts of trades and tax implications.

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 The longer-term tax results of trading are a major factor and may encompass capital gains or tax-loss harvesting strategies to offset gains with losses.

Developing a Trading Strategy

There are many types of trading strategies, but they are based largely on either technicals or fundamentals. The common thread is that both rely on quantifiable information that can be backtested for accuracy. Technical trading strategies rely on technical indicators to generate trading signals. Technical traders believe all information about a given security is contained in its price and that it moves in trends.

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 For example, a simple trading strategy may be a moving average crossover whereby a short-term moving average crosses above or below a long-term moving average.

Fundamental trading strategies take fundamental factors into account. For instance, an investor may have a set of screening criteria to generate a list of opportunities. These criteria are developed by analyzing factors such as revenue growth and profitability.

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There is a third type of trading strategy that has gained prominence in recent times. A quantitative trading strategy is similar to technical trading in that it uses information relating to the stock to arrive at a purchase or sale decision. However, the matrix of factors that it takes into account to arrive at a purchase or sale decision is considerably larger compared to technical analysis. A quantitative trader uses several data points—regression analysis of trading ratios, technical data, price—to exploit inefficiencies in the market and conduct quick trades using technology.

Special Considerations

Trading strategies are employed to avoid behavioral finance biases and ensure consistent results. For example, traders following rules governing when to exit a trade would be less likely to succumb to the disposition effect, which causes investors to hold on to stocks that have lost value and sell those that rise in value. Trading strategies can be stress-tested under varying market conditions to measure consistency.

Profitable trading strategies are difficult to develop, however, and there is a risk of becoming over-reliant on a strategy. For instance, a trader may curve fit a trading strategy to specific backtesting data, which may engender false confidence. The strategy may have worked well in theory based on past market data, but past performance does not guarantee future success in real-time market conditions, which may vary significantly from the test period.

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Personality tests

There are two major types of personality tests, projective and objective.

Projective tests assume personality is primarily unconscious and assess individuals by how they respond to an ambiguous stimulus, such as an ink blot. Projective tests have been in use for about 60 years and continue to be used today. Examples of such tests include the Rorschach test and the Thematic Apperception Test.

The Rorschach Test involves showing an individual a series of note cards with ambiguous ink blots on them. The individual being tested is asked to provide interpretations of the blots on the cards by stating everything that the ink blot may resemble based on their personal interpretation. The therapist then analyzes their responses. Rules for scoring the test have been covered in manuals that cover a wide variety of characteristics such as content, originality of response, location of "perceived images" and several other factors. Using these specific scoring methods, the therapist will then attempt to relate test responses to attributes of the individual's personality and their unique characteristics.[51] The idea is that unconscious needs will come out in the person's response, e.g. an aggressive person may see images of destruction.

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The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) involves presenting individuals with vague pictures/scenes and asking them to tell a story based on what they see. Common examples of these "scenes" include images that may suggest family relationships or specific situations, such as a father and son or a man and a woman in a bedroom.[52] Responses are analyzed for common themes. Responses unique to an individual are theoretically meant to indicate underlying thoughts, processes, and potentially conflicts present within the individual. Responses are believed to be directly linked to unconscious motives. There is very little empirical evidence available to support these methods.[53]

Objective tests assume personality is consciously accessible and that it can be measured by self-report questionnaires. Research on psychological assessment has generally found objective tests to be more valid and reliable than projective tests. Critics have pointed to the Forer effect to suggest some of these appear to be more accurate and discriminating than they really are. Issues with these tests include false reporting because there is no way to tell if an individual is answering a question honestly or accurately.

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The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (also known as the MBTI) is self-reporting questionnaire based on Carl Jung's Type theory.[54][12] However, the MBTI modified Jung's theory into their own by disregarding certain processes held in the unconscious mind and the impact these have on personality.

Personality theory assessment criteria

Verifiability – the theory should be formulated in such a way that the concepts, suggestions and hypotheses involved in it are defined clearly and unambiguously, and logically related to each other.

Heuristic value – to what extent the theory stimulates scientists to conduct further research.

Internal consistency – the theory should be free from internal contradictions.

Economy – the fewer concepts and assumptions required by the theory to explain any phenomenon, the better it is Hjelle, Larry (1992). Personality Theories: Basic Assumptions, Research, and Applications.

Psychology has traditionally defined personality through its behavioral patterns, and more recently with neuroscientific studies of the brain. In recent years, some psychologists have turned to the study of inner experiences for insight into personality as well as individuality. Inner experiences are the thoughts and feelings to an immediate phenomenon. Another term used to define inner experiences is qualia. Being able to understand inner experiences assists in understanding how humans behave, act, and respond. Defining personality using inner experiences has been expanding due to the fact that solely relying on behavioral principles to explain one's character may seem incomplete. Behavioral methods allow the subject to be observed by an observer, whereas with inner experiences the subject is its own observer

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Methods measuring inner experience

Descriptive experience sampling (DES): Developed by psychologist Russel Hurlburt. This is an idiographic method that is used to help examine inner experiences. This method relies on an introspective technique that allows an individual's inner experiences and characteristics to be described and measured. A beep notifies the subject to record their experience at that exact moment and 24 hours later an interview is given based on all the experiences recorded. DES has been used in subjects that have been diagnosed with schizophrenia and depression. It has also been crucial to studying the inner experiences of those who have been diagnosed with common psychiatric diseases.

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Articulated thoughts in stimulated situations (ATSS): ATSS is a

What Is a Retracement?

A retracement is a technical term used to identify a minor pullback or change in the direction of a financial instrument, such as a stock or index. Retracements are temporary in nature and do not indicate a shift in the larger trend.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

A retracement is a minor pullback or change in the direction of a financial instrument, such as a stock or index.

The term, used by technical analysts to analyze the price of securities, refers to a short-term change in a stock's price relative to an overarching trend.

Once a retracement is over, there should be a continuation of the previous trend.

Retracements are not the same as reversals—with the latter, the price of the security must breach support or resistance levels.

Understanding a Retracement

A retracement refers to the temporary reversal of an overarching trend in a stock's price. Distinct from a reversal, retracements are short-term periods of movement against a trend, followed by a return to the previous trend.

The chart below illustrates the share price of General Electric Co. It is showing that the stock is in a downtrend. However, there are points on the chart that indicate that the price is rising, which would be considered a retracement.

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A retracement by itself does not say much. However, when combined with other technical indicators it can help a trader identify if the current trend is likely to continue or if a significant reversal is taking hold.

 A retracement should be used with other technical indicators and never alone. If not used correctly, it could cause the analysis to be misguided.

Retracement vs. Reversal

It is essential to determine the difference between a reversal and a short-term retracement. A retracement is not easy to identify because it can easily be mistaken for a reversal. Even worse is if a reversal is mistaken for a retracement.

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The chart below shows the S&P 500 during 2018 when a significant uptrend took place between April and October. There are three retracements identified on the chart, although there were a series of smaller ones as well, as the S&P 500 was rising to record highs.

What is most important is that the retracements never breached the uptrend. However, in October what appeared to be a retracement became a reversal after the index did finally fall below the uptrend, leading to a sharp decline.

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Again, it is important to remember that a retracement is a minor or short-term pullback in the price of a stock or index. What is key is that the stock does not breach a critical level of support or resistance nor breach the uptrend or downtrend. Should the price fall below or rise above support or resistance, or violate an uptrend or downtrend, then it is no longer considered a retracement but a reversal.

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Beta and Passive Risk Management

Another risk measure oriented to behavioral tendencies is a drawdown, which refers to any period during which an asset's return is negative relative to a previous high mark. In measuring drawdown, we attempt to address three things:

The magnitude of each negative period (how bad)

The duration of each (how long)

The frequency (how often)

For example, in addition to wanting to know whether a mutual fund beat the S&P 500, we also want to know how comparatively risky it was. One measure for this is beta (known as "market risk"), based on the statistical property of covariance. A beta greater than 1 indicates more risk than the market and vice versa.

Beta helps us to understand the concepts of passive and active risk. The graph below shows a time series of returns (each data point labeled "+") for a particular portfolio R(p) versus the market return R(m). The returns are cash-adjusted, so the point at which the x and y-axes intersect is the cash-equivalent return. Drawing a line of best fit through the data points allows us to quantify the passive risk (beta) and the active risk (alpha).

The gradient of the line is its beta. For example, a gradient of 1.0 indicates that for every unit increase of market return, the portfolio return also increases by one unit. A money manager employing a passive management strategy can attempt to increase the portfolio return by taking on more market risk (i.e., a beta greater than 1) or alternatively decrease portfolio risk (and return) by reducing the portfolio beta below one.

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Alpha and Active Risk Management

If the level of market or systematic risk were the only influencing factor, then a portfolio's return would always be equal to the beta-adjusted market return. Of course, this is not the case: Returns vary because of a number of factors unrelated to market risk. Investment managers who follow an active strategy take on other risks to achieve excess returns over the market's performance. Active strategies include tactics that leverage stock, sector or country selection, fundamental analysis, position sizing, and technical analysis.

Active managers are on the hunt for an alpha, the measure of excess return. In our diagram example above, alpha is the amount of portfolio return not explained by beta, represented as the distance between the intersection of the x and y-axes and the y-axis intercept, which can be positive or negative. In their quest for excess returns, active managers expose investors to alpha risk, the risk that the result of their bets will prove negative rather than positive. For example, a fund manager may think that the energy sector will outperform the S&P 500 and increase her portfolio's weighting in this sector. If unexpected economic developments cause energy stocks to sharply decline, the manager will likely underperform the benchmark, an example of alpha risk.

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The Cost of Risk

In general, the more an active fund and its managers shows themselves able to generate alpha, the higher the fees they will tend to charge investors for exposure to those higher-alpha strategies. For a purely passive vehicle like an index fund or an exchange-traded fund (ETF), you're likely to pay one to 10 basis points (bps) in annual management fees, while for a high-octane hedge fund employing complex trading strategies involving high capital commitments and transaction costs, an investor would need to pay 200 basis points in annual fees, plus give back 20% of the profits to the manager.

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The difference in pricing between passive and active strategies (or beta risk and alpha risk respectively) encourages many investors to try and separate these risks (e.g. to pay lower fees for the beta risk assumed and concentrate their more expensive exposures to specifically defined alpha opportunities). This is popularly known as portable alpha, the idea that the alpha component of a total return is separate from the beta component.

For example, a fund manager may claim to have an active sector rotation strategy for beating the S&P 500 and show, as evidence, a track record of beating the index by 1.5% on an average annualized basis. To the investor, that 1.5% of excess return is the manager's value, the alpha, and the investor is willing to pay higher fees to obtain it. The rest of the total return, what the S&P 500 itself earned, arguably has nothing to do with the manager's unique ability. Portable alpha strategies use derivatives and other tools to refine how they obtain and pay for the alpha and beta components of their exposure.

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Self-control

Self-control, an aspect of inhibitory control, is the ability to regulate one's emotions, thoughts, and behavior in the face of temptations and impulses.[1][2] As an executive function, it is a cognitive process that is necessary for regulating one's behavior in order to achieve specific goals.[2][3]

A related concept in psychology is emotional self-regulation.[4] Self-control is thought to be like a muscle. According to studies, self-regulation, whether emotional or behavioral, was proven to be a limited resource which functions like energy.[5] In the short term, overuse of self-control will lead to depletion.[6] However, in the long term, the use of self-control can strengthen and improve over time.[2][6]

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Self-control is also a key concept in the general theory of crime, a major theory in criminology. The theory was developed by Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi in their book titled A General Theory of Crime, published in 1990. Gottfredson and Hirschi define self-control as the differential tendency of individuals to avoid criminal acts independent of the situations in which they find themselves.[7] Individuals with low self-control tend to be impulsive, insensitive towards others, risk takers, short-sighted, and nonverbal. About 70% of the variance in questionnaire data operationalizing one construct of self-control had been found to be genetic.

Counteractive

Desire is an affectively charged motivation toward a certain object, person, or activity, but not limited to, that associated with pleasure or relief from displeasure.[9] Desires vary in strength and duration. A desire becomes a temptation when it impacts or enters the individual's area of self-control, if the behavior resulting from the desire conflicts with an individual's values or other self-regulatory goals.[10][11] A limitation to research on desire is the issue of individuals desiring different things. New research looked at what people desire in real world settings. Over one week, 7,827 self-reports of desires were collected and indicated significant differences in desire frequency and strength, degree of conflict between desires and other goals, and the likelihood of resisting desire and success of the resistance. The most common and strongly experienced desires are those related to bodily needs like eating, drinking, and sleeping.[11][12]

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Desires that conflict with overarching goals or values are known as temptations.[11][10] Self-control dilemmas occur when long-term goals and values clash with short-term temptations. Counteractive Self-Control Theory states that when presented with such a dilemma, we lessen the significance of the instant rewards while momentarily increasing the importance of our overall values. When asked to rate the perceived appeal of different snacks before making a decision, people valued health bars over chocolate bars. However, when asked to do the rankings after having chosen a snack, there was no significant difference of appeal. Further, when college students completed a questionnaire prior to their course registration deadline, they ranked leisure activities as less important and enjoyable than when they filled out the survey after the deadline passed. The stronger and more available the temptation is, the harsher the devaluation will be.[13][14]

One of the most common self-control dilemmas involves the desire for unhealthy or unneeded food consumption versus the desire to maintain long-term health. An indication of unneeded food could also be over expenditure on certain types of consumption such as eating away from home. Not knowing how much to spend, or overspending one's budget on eating out can be a symptom of a lack of self control.[15]

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Experiment participants rated a new snack as significantly less healthy when it was described as very tasty compared to when they heard it was just slightly tasty. Without knowing anything else about a food, the mere suggestion of good taste triggers counteractive self-control and prompted them to devalue the temptation in the name of health. Further, when presented with the strong temptation of one large bowl of chips, participants both perceived the chips to be higher in calories and ate less of them than did participants who faced the weak temptation of three smaller chip bowls, even though both conditions represented the same amount of chips overall.

Weak temptations are falsely perceived to be less unhealthy, so self-control is not triggered and desirable actions are more often engaged in, supporting the counteractive self-control theory.[16] Weak temptations present more of a challenge to overcome than strong temptations, because they appear less likely to compromise long-term values.[13][14]

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Satiation

The decrease in an individual's liking of and desire for a substance following repeated consumption of that substance is known as satiation. Satiation rates when eating depend on interactions of trait self-control and healthiness of the food.

Why I Go To Investment Conferen

I’m off to a conference this week for the International Federation of Technical Analysts (IFTA).  Why am I going?  What do I hope to get out it?  When you go to investment gatherings, what are your expectations?   I’ve garnered essential benefits from a wide variety of seminars and conferences, and those benefits serve as an informal “goals list” for this week’s IFTA event.

1.      I’m less interested in the speakers’ prognostications and future outlooks, and more interested in their systematic methods of analysis.  If they offer up one without the other, I am not shy in challenging them for specifics.

2.     I have a rule that I don’t read investment books unless they come recommended to me by at least two people I respect.  There are just too many bad and misleading how-to books out there.  I’m a little like that with new resources as well, such as advanced tools or websites.  These conferences are a wonderful venue for learning about such items.

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4.     In listening to other experienced investors talk about their tools and systems, one can’t help but review one’s own methodology.  This enforced reflection is facilitated by metaphorically kicking the tires of other investors’ approaches.  Most of the time, it reinforces my own methodology and builds self-confidence in my own system, and confidence does matter.

A corollary to objective #1 above is to remind attendees that the guy sitting next to you may have valuable knowledge and experience to share with you as well.  I’ve found that these peer-to-peer, belly-to-belly networking  توصيات الاسهم الامريكية

5.     opportunities can yield both friendships as well as keen insights.  In other words, don’t miss the lunch and dinner events.  It’s half the fun, and you never know who you’ll get seated next to!

6.     Call it the enthusiasm kick-start.  I find I’m simply recharged as a trader when I get home.  Let’s face it, these things are usually at pretty nice locations, and taking a break from normal office routines is always good for whatever ails you, even if you think nothing is ailing you.

7.     Sometimes, I’ll take with me a specific element of my methodology or an indicator that I’d like some help demystifying an area of confusion.  I recall just such a case some 20 years ago pertaining to stochastics.  Lo and behold, I had dinner with George Lane, the creator of the stochastics oscillator.  His advice was spot on, and I’ve been reaping the benefits for the past two decades.  But I did pay for dinner!

8.     With any speaker, I first try to ascertain his or her motive for being there as a presenter.  This offers both a credibility check as well as helps me to focus on specific content rather than being mesmerized by the sizzle or the sales pitch.   Keep an open mind, but in the end remember there is seldom a free lunch.

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Finally, don’t get swept up into a totally new investment methodology or excited by a new system far outside of your comfort zone.  Most investment conferences and seminars can offer something appropriate for every level of investor.  You may have to actively dig for it, but that one trading gem which catapults you onto the next higher rung is there somewhere.  Be patient.  Be focused.  But for gosh sake, be there. توصيات الذهب

Wall Street's Complexity versus Investors' Profits & Simplicity

“Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple.”  -- Pete Seeger

As a long-time trader, I am living breathing proof that simplicity and profits are positively correlated while complexity and profits are inversely correlated.  In other words, as my 25 year investing career has jettisoned multiple methodologies and numerous indicators, my profits have became more regular and predictable while my losing ratio has diminished.  This is the absolute antithesis of what Wall Street wants you to believe. 

Wall Street lives and breathes on complexity.  They pitch derivatives of every variety and alternative funds for specific self-serving reasons. 

1.    They want to convince investors that it’s far too complicated for them to manage their own money – therefore, the wisest decision is for investors to just give it to Wall Street managers instead.

2.    They try to assure you that with this complexity come “insider” rates of returns and big profits.  But then can you explain to me why so many university endowments and retirement funds are closing out their hedge fund positions?   Because the returns have not justified the risks, losses and complexity.

3.    Wall Street loves to use the cliché, “you get what you pay for” as justification for higher fees.  So then, can you explain to me again why so many academic studies have concluded that no load mutual funds outperform advisor-recommended loaded mutual funds?  The fact is that investors often do not get what they pay for. 

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The catalyst for this week’s rant is that I cleaned out a closet with my old trading binders from over 20 years ago and was stunned by two observations.  The first thing I realized was that I had been so vulnerable to believing Wall Street’s siren song of complexity.  The second thing was that it was obvious my trading methodology back then was unnecessarily complicated. 

To most individual investors, it seems counterintuitive when I preach my doctrine of simplicity, but it is precisely this simplicity that empowers you to outperform the professional money managers.  Layer on top of that my other sermon that no one will manage your money with the same passion and commitment as you yourself and you have the magic ingredients for achieving consistent success as a stock market investor.

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Wall Street is based on its own version of Yin & Yang as opposites and contrary forces are actually interconnected and interdependent.  In simplest terms, the market is made up of buyers and sellers, load and no load funds, passive and managed strategies.  The complexity and simplicity paradigm is just another example.  Much like life, one must decide to embrace the light or the dark, the hot or the cold, the high or low.  So too, as an investor, you must choose between the dichotomies that Wall Street offers you.

I am simply sharing the experiences of my own journey as an investor.  As I embraced the mantra of simplification in my investment methodology and my trading tools, my net worth grew.  My relatively small basket of 10 technical indicators and the Tensile Trading approach that I’ve written so much about are living testimonials to this mantra.

Albert Einstein famously said, “If I had one hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and five minutes implementing the solution.”   If you were in a life threatening situation and had only one hour before it proved fatal, what would you do?   Einstein said he’d spend his time wisely asking probing questions to understand the problem in depth.  Having done that, he’d only need 5 minutes to address the issue.

Many new investors I meet in my classes totally flip around Dr. Einstein’s approach.  They have an unstoppable inclination to jump right into the market, metaphorically speaking.  They’ll trade impulsively for the first 55 minutes and then allocate the last 5 minutes trying to figure out what just happened.

Humor me, please.  Just go with this.  Place your hands on the table, turn down the lights and let’s invite Albert Einstein to our séance to give us his advice.  If it was indeed possible to “channel” him, I suspect he would suggest approaching the market’s first 55 minutes more like this:

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You have accumulated certain assets.  Ask yourself if they are safe.  Dr. Einstein would challenge you to address asset protection, first and foremost.  Issues such as insurance, estate planning, identification theft, tax planning, record keeping and the like.  You have to secure what you’ve got.

Next, he would ask if you had thought through personal money management questions and committed yourself to a personal trading plan in writing.  It’s shocking how few investors actually do this.  Einstein’s objective here would be to make certain you grasp the full scope of the problem.