The Science of Attitude

by Don Berg, Founder
Attitutor Services

The science of attitude draws from a variety of fields.

The scientific questions behind my view of attitude include explorations of mind, brain, society, organizations, leadership, management, and more.

(Click here to skip to the list of video links)

I will try to emphasize the most accessible presentations which means a lot of videos that are less than an hour long and provide some level of entertainment as well.

One of the best sources of this kind of presentation is TED.com, the web site of the annual Technology, Entertainment, and Design Conference.

The brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor gave one of the most moving talks about the science of attitude ever given (embedded below).

Her talk is based on her experience of having a stroke and discovering first-hand how her attitude towards the world is significantly influenced by both her choices and things beyond her control.

It is telling that at one point in her presentation she surrenders herself saying she realized she was "no long the choreographer of [her] own life."

But, she also concluded her talk by asking the audience which of the two fundamental attitudes towards the world we choose and when.

In this section of the web site I am going to focus on bringing to your attention various articles, videos and other web resources that present important aspects of the science of attitude.

The basic definition of attitude that I use is the orientation of a mind in relation to the world in which it is situated or embedded.

Thus there arises a whole slew of scientific questions about minds, how they exist in the world, and how the minds in the world are connected to and influenced by each other.

This broad inquiry spans scientific fields that cover biological, psychological, organizational, sociological, and ecological inquiry.

(Click here to skip to the list of video links)

Click below to see the contributions to this page...

Illusion Series 6: Illusions About Our Global Society  In this final installment I offer four videos about objective evidence that global patterns of violence and socio-economic conditions are not how most ...

Illusion Series 5: Illusions of Good  In this fifth installment of the illusion series we consider our sense of morality. What are our built-in standards for evaluating our own and other people'...

Illusion Series 4: Illusions of Evil  In this fourth installment in the illusion series we take a look at our ideas about the most common causes of evil behavior. In this video of a TED Talk ...

Illusion Series 3: The Illusion of Knowing Our Own Minds  In this third installment we visit our knowledge of our own minds. Do we really know how our own minds work? We are very good at thinking and reflecting ...

Illusion Series 2: Illusions of Knowing The World  In this second part of the series I bring you a TED Talk by Jonathan Drori in which he shows how some of our very basic ideas about how the world works ...

Illusion Series 1: Literal Illusions  In this first installment we visit literal illusions and over the course of the series I will share scientific perspectives on cognitive illusions that ...

Are We Making Students Happy?  Does making students happy help them learn? In this TED Talk author Dan Gilbert talks about how what makes us uniquely human is our ability to simulate ...

Positive Psychology  Positive psychology is the kind of psychology that is crucial to transforming education. In this TED Talk Martin Seligman gives a quick overview of the ...

Brilliant Brain Science  Here's an example of the kind of brain science that I really enjoy learning about; Vilayanur Ramachandran tells us what brain damage can reveal about the ...