Are men hard-wired to ignore their wives?

[yukionna]

Interesting article on fox news tonight about "reactance"...

Study: Men Hard-Wired to Ignore Their Wives
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
By Robert Roy Britt

When a man fails to help out around the house, his poor performance might be related to a subconscious tendency to resist doing anything his wife wants, a new study suggests.

Men and women are sure to argue about this one. In fact, the man and woman who led the study disagree on the meaning of the results.

Psychologists have long known about "reactance," the tendency to do the exact opposite of what's requested by a loved one or boss.

The new study aimed to find out whether the phenomenon might occur at a subconscious level. Participants were asked to name a significant person they perceived as controlling their lives, and another who just wanted them to have fun. Then they were asked to discern words from jumbled letters on a computer screen while the names of the people they had mentioned were flashed subliminally. The names were flashed too quickly to be registered consciously.

Subjects performed better when exposed to the name of the person who wanted them to have fun than when exposed to the controlling individual's name. "Our participants were not even aware that they had been exposed to someone else's name, yet that nonconscious exposure was enough to cause them to act in defiance of what their significant other would want them to do," said Gavan Fitzsimons, a professor of marketing and psychology at Duke University.

Further testing found that study participants who were more reactant responded more strongly to the subliminal cues and had a wider performance gap. "People with a tendency toward reactance may nonconsciously and quite unintentionally act in a counterproductive manner simply because they are trying to resist someone else's encroachment on their freedom," said Tanya Chartrand, also a professor of marketing and psychology at Duke.

Chartrand's own experiences were the impetus for this study. "My husband, while very charming in many ways, has an annoying tendency of doing exactly the opposite of what I would like him to do in many situations," Chartrand said. Oh, her husband? That would be Fitzsimons.

Chartrand said her husband "should now be better equipped to suppress his reactant tendencies." But Fitzsimons said the results "suggest that reactance to significant others is so automatic that I can't possibly be expected to control it if I don't even know it's happening."

The findings related to this marital spat, announced this week, were published online by the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

[str8strm]

If we're talking about husbands and wives here, it sounds like an issue of whether you think of your spouse as someone who is trying to control your life or not. That speaks to the nature of the relationship. I guess Deb and I are lucky that we're more interested in each other having fun! I think the mutual aluminitis is an obvious symptom that so many couples on the Forums display.

[Melody Ranch]

THE LONELY BRAIN CELL


Once upon a time there was a female brain cell which, by mistake, happened to end up in a man's head. looked around nervously because it was all empty and quiet. "Hello?" she cried, but no answer. "Is there anyone here?" she cried a little louder, but still no answer. Now the female brain cell started to feel alone and scared and yelled at the top of her voice, "HELLO, IS THERE ANYONE HERE?" Then she heard a faint voice from far, far away..............

We're down here ..."

[wheel interested]

REPRESS REACTANCE!!!!

What does he mean ,"If Mama aint happy than no one is?"

[Fyrzowt]

I think Str8strm hit it on the head as far as I'm concerned.

But Melody made me laugh!
Dave

[juel]

I like Melody Ranch's version. Isn't that sort of like Jeff Foxworthy's idea of what men want "A beer and to see something naked".

[85MH325]

Nothing new here...

Roger

[moosetags]

As the commercial goes, "Do you think this dress makes me look fat?"..............."You betcha!"

I think all men are guilty of this behavior on occasion; I know I am. I don't mean to be that way, it's just kinda bred into the male mind set.

Airstreaming is our main common thread; it helps us through the "you betchas".

[mistral blue]

Are women hard-wired to ignore their husbands?
My sympathies to Dr. Fitzsimons.
Happy Valentines Day ...

[till]

Now to have my man card revoked....

Men are "brain damaged" from birth. The thing that makes us "men" is the "discinnect" between the halves of the brain that women have in full measure. Men still have this connection but it is like comparing a 8 lane supper highway to a sidewalk.

Men just need a direct order to go on. The subtle way women communicate is lost on most men. This is what I bieleve leads to this "ignoring" wives.

Most of the proceeding data is generalisation. There are covering the human race as a whole. Not all men are like this and not all women are alike.

Thank you, now back to your regular programing.

[Jim & Susan]

Are men hard-wired to ignore their wives?

]Yes, pass the beer-nuts, wouldja? Oh and Ted, your man-card is currently being burned out back of the building.
]
Jim (NOT Susan)

[mistral blue]

... with your bra

[GStephens]

The television was full of controversial information this week. One news release suggested that researchers have concluded that males who have undergone vasectomies tend to have senility problems earlier than men who don't. It had something to do with the body having to absorb all those sperm cells. Well, upon hearing this information, my wife who is now old enough not to worry about the consequences, suggested that perhaps I should undergo a reversal procedure. My immediate response was that I'd rather become senile than go through that again. Was that an example of "reactance“?
GStephens

[mistral blue]

Originally Posted by GStephens

The television was full of controversial information this week. One news release suggested that researchers have concluded that males who have undergone vasectomies tend to have senility problems earlier than men who don't. It had something to do with the body having to absorb all those sperm cells. Well, upon hearing this information, my wife who is now old enough not to worry about the consequences, suggested that perhaps I should undergo a reversal procedure. My immediate response was that I'd rather become senile than go through that again. Was that an example of "reactance“?
GStephens

I dunno. Want a beer?

"Hey till honey, could you get me, G and Jim some beers please?"

[GreatPumpkin]

Originally Posted by 85MH325

Nothing new here...

Roger

Roger - So true, so true! The question remains... has anyone figured out what all those knobs and switches do? or how to operate them?

[Silvertwinkie]

Originally Posted by 85MH325

Nothing new here...

Roger

AMEN Reverend!

[Silvertwinkie]

Originally Posted by GreatPumpkin

The question remains... has anyone figured out what all those knobs and switches do? or how to operate them?

The real question is who cares what they do.......whatever they do, you'll never get it balanced correctly anyway which will cause even more problems because you messed with 'em.

The only two buttons I might venture to try would be the MUTE knob/button or the OFF knob/button. Mute would have several advantages over the off button as I see it though....just might take some time to either find it or add it.

[overlander63]

Originally Posted by GreatPumpkin

has anyone figured out what all those knobs and switches do? or how to operate them?

The world may never know...
And all the women I know are aware that if they want something from me, they better tell me. I don't do looks, hints, or sighs.

[Silvertwinkie]

Originally Posted by overlander63

The world may never know...
And all the women I know are aware that if they want something from me, they better tell me. I don't do looks, hints, or sighs.

Too bad an "Easy" button can't be wired into that panel....

[Silvertwinkie]

REF: Operating SystemWife 1.0

Dear Sirs,

Last year I changed from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0, and I have observed that the program runs a unexpected Child process 0.23 Beta that takes a lot of space and importan resources. In the leaflet of the program didn't mention this phenomena. Furthermore, Wife 1.0 autoinstalls in all other programs and it runs when starting any other application, monitoring all activity of the system. Applications like Hunting 10.3, Drinking 4.0, HamRadio 2.5, or SundayFootball 5.0 no longer work, and the system hangs each time I wan to load them.
Sometimes a hidden program (virus or trojan?) called MotherInLaw 1.0 that seem to be memory resident appears and it completely hangs the system or it makes Wife 1.0 behave in an unpredictable way, for instance, not accepting any command I enter.

I haven't managed to uninstall this resident program. Aparently I can't keep Wife 1.0 minimized when running some of my favorite applications. I'm thinking about going back to the former program GirlFriend 7.0, but uninstall doesn't work. Could you help me?
Thanks.
ANSWER:

Dear user,
This a a very common complaint among the users of Wife 1.0, but in general it's because of a basic missunderstanding. Many people change from GirlFriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0 thinking that Wife 1.0 is just an amusing program or a utility program. However Wife 1.0 (on the contrary to GirlFriend 7.0) is a complete OPERATING SYSTEM and it was designed to control the whole system.
It's very unlikely that you can purge Wife 1.0 and convert it back to GirlFriend 7.0. There are hidden operating files in your system that would make GirlFriend 7.0 emulate Wife 1.0, so it's not worth it.

It's impossible to uninstall, delete or purge the program files once installed. You can't use GirlFriend 7.0 any more because Wife 1.0 is programed for that. The same happens with MotherInLaw 1.0 that is a hidden application that autoinstalls in the system while Wife 1.0 is running.
Some people have tried formating the system completely in order to later install the programs GirlFriend 8.0 or Wife 2.0 but they end up with more problems than before. Read the manual, section "Precautions", chapters "Divorce, pensions - Child custody"
On the other hand, if you change to GilfFriend 8.0, don't try later to change to Wife 2.0 because the problems of this new version of the operating system are the same, or even worst, than those of Wife 1.0. Although a version 3.0 (and even 4.0) of Wife exists, they are only for specialists and not advisable for the normal user.

If all fails, it's better to try systems based in completely different platforms, like Celibacy 1.0 or Gay 5.3. I recomend you keep Wife 1.0 and handle the situation the best you can.

I personally also have Wife 1.0 installed, and I suggest you study the whole section of the manual "General Faults of Society (GFS's)"
Wife 1.0 is a program very sensitive to commands and it works in "Fail-Safe" mode. This means that you must assume the responsability of any problem that arises, independently of its reason, because the program will always consider any system fault as being due to the improper handling of the user.
One of the main application utilities is the command C:\IAMSORRY when a problem arises or the systems hangs. Don't restart the system because it will continue failing. Avoid an excesive use of the "ESC" or "DEL" keys, because then you will have to use the IAMSORRY command in order to make the program work normally. The system will work nicely if you assume all blames of GFS's. Wife 1.0 is a very interesting system, but with at a high cost of maintenance.
Consider the possibility to install some additional software to improve the performance of Wife 1.0. I recomend you Candy 2.1 or Flowers 5.0.

You can also use YesDarling 8.0 or YouAreRight 14.7, they are very well know Shareware programs that work great as residents. You can get them almost anywhere.

NEVER INSTALL SecretaryInMiniSkirt 3.3, OldFriendWithBigTeats 7.5 or Buddies 4.6. These progrmas won't work under Wife 1.0 and will probably cause irreversible damage to the Operating System.

Good luck. The technician.