The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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The Selfish Path to Romance - download chapter one for free at Dr kenner.com or at amazon.com.

Now, how do you get through to a teenager's mind? Or anyone's mind for that matter? Here's a question from Frank. He's suggesting a way to do this and see what your gut response is.

Dear Dr. Kenner, do you agree that teenagers seeing a two foot square banner with the message stay alive and stay alive? Don't text and drive displayed on the walls and doors throughout their school? We'll keep most of them from using their cell phones when driving. If they see the message four or five times daily, is there a way to determine how many times they will have to see the message 100 200 500 For the average teenager to have the message hard wired in their brain so as to ignore any telephone call or text message received when they are driving? Thank you, Frank.

So do I agree that just seeing a sign, stay alive? Don't text and drive on the walls and doors everywhere in this school will keep a teenager from acting that way? Frank, you're assuming that just seeing a message over and over will translate automatically into action? When you said that when you asked me the question, I thought, well, how does that work on cigarette packages with warnings not to smoke, or the just say no to drugs campaign, or the seatbelt saves lives campaign? We have that going on in Rhode Island. And there are petitions, people are signing the saying I don't have to wear my seatbelt. Don't tell me what to do. Or how about the don't drink and drive campaigns. What typically happens and you've probably had this experience yourself is that we can pass something 100 200 or 500 times as you're suggesting here, you can pass a home on your way to work, but you never focus on it mentally. If you don't selectively attend to it, it's going to have no effect. So kids can number one mentally whizzed by the sign. Number two kids can see it and say, Oh, geez, just another lecture from an adult who doesn't get that I can text and drive safely. I've been doing it it's not a problem. So many teenagers and adults. We don't like being lectured to. We mentally tune out any lectures, we can see the words stay alive, don't text and drive. But we just say oh, the slogan Doozer. Who cares? And we ignore it. Don't tell me what to do. You're just a scare monger. There may be occasional kids or adults who say yes, I want to remember not to text and drive. And they see it a few times. And they say that's it. I've made a commitment. But they usually have a context behind that which leads them to feel that that's a credible statement. For example, I received I totaled my own car in an accident and I wasn't texting, I wasn't drinking, and I was paying attention to the road. So I went to change lanes. I looked him back and he did not see another car. How long do you think it took for that accident to happen? It took a millisecond for me. When I turned my head a car must have been whizzing onto an entrance ramp speeding up behind me. And we crashed and Luckily no one was hurt. And I'm a much more careful driver now. So if you said to me getting on exit ramps Ellen attend a little better or if in doubt, don't move into the next lane. Man. I do that all the time. Now I would buy that slogan. So that would work for me. And I also have a relative who works on car accidents. That's what she does. She processes she studies car accidents, how they happen. So guess what she does when she gets in a car?

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Hey, I gotta interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds. That's it. A very quick break and then Ellen will be back.

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw? Here it is The Selfish Path to Romance - a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it at amazon.com. Hmm, The Selfish Path to Romance. That - is - interesting.
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So guess what she does when she gets in a car? She will never text and drive not only that, she will never pick up her cell phone when she is in the car because she has seen the worst of the worst. Now you and I don't have that experience. Or maybe you do I certainly don't have that experience. And I don't I as I said I never text in Dr. Frank, but what I do Do as I drink coffee, I munch on food while I'm driving, I put chaps to God, I might change the radio station, I might change a CD and all of them are potentially dangerous. So we all take calculated risks in life. So I want to back up now because I've already want to take a broader view, Frank, you're asking a broader question, how do you reach someone's mind? How do you help a teenager first understand that taking their eyes off the road can cost them an arm or a leg, or their driver's license, which may be more important to them or their life. And there is there is a field that you can look up. It's called social marketing. And I have an article here from Lenin and two other authors social marketing and distracted driving behaviors among young young adults. The effectiveness of fear appeals. Fear the attempt to arouse fear in someone that would motivate them to take protective action. That's what you're doing. fear appeals can have what this article calls a boomerang effect. They looked at the effects of anti smoking campaigns on college students, and they found that kids were off often angry and defiant. When they saw after they saw the ad, or an anti drug campaign they found actually decrease negative attitudes towards dangerous drugs not a good thing. Or they found that people were when they were trying to tell people don't watch violent TV shows they found people were more attracted to them, and to authors. Milner and Raoul Nick fit think that people feel that their personal choices are threatened that their personal freedom freedom is threatened and they'll say I'll do what I want. So you can take a look at that article, Frank.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts go to DrKenner.com. And please listen to this ad.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co author Dr. Edwin Locke.

Emotions alone are insufficient to make the 1000s of decisions and guide all the actions that have to be made over many years in order to sustain a passionate, intimate, romantic relationship. Love can be sustained but only by an active mental process, the process of thinking, thinking is conscious and volitional. You must think about and plan what actions are needed to make your relationship with your loved one prosper in both the short and the long run and then take the requisite action. One executive put it this way. I simply decided to start treating my wife as if she were my most important client. That might not sound overly romantic, but I recognize the way I was wired and this approach has worked exceptionally well for me. What this individual did was to consciously make his wife important.

You can download chapter one for free at Dr. Kenner.com and you can buy the book at amazon.com