predicting human behavior | the Wakefield Doctrine

TToT the Wakefield Doctrine (it’s St Nicholas’ Day… what do you get for the person who gives all the gifts?!)

December 5, 2014 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

(I really liked this scene from Henry V, but Saint Crispins Day is no where near December)

Don’t tell me that this is, like, what the 3rd of 4th Christmas that we’ve been doing the Ten Things of Thankful? I am terrible at remembering the passage of time, (though I’m genuinely gifted at anticipating the passage of time), but it seems like only last Summer that Lizzi started this bloghop. (Though she did not start it in December), the theme of gratitude for the simple things seems to resonate even more as we get towards the end of the calendar.

(…no, Christine! no need to be concerned! lol just the words that are coming out of my keyboard, everything here is fine. …why no, Dyanne, I did not hire a ghostwriter….)(lol)

1) this, the wonderful Christmas Season with love abounding…. (yeah, I am screwing around now… but come on, for a minute there, as you read this… didn’t the hair on the back of your neck start to go up, just a little?)

2) I do appreciate the …er open-mindedness here at the TToT, one of the more inspired things about this little weekly get together is the sense of fun, the willingness to laugh at nearly everything

3) oh! new Readers!! (hey, I may have mentioned this before), but though I’ve gone at length about how this ‘hop is not only one of the best bloghops in the ‘sphere, but is also the best of all the ‘Gratitude blogs’… (yes, I am, in fact, prepared to back that statement up), I’ll bet there’s not another gratitude blog that allows a list to include items of ‘hypo-gratitude’. Well, we do because, sometimes there are weeks when things simply suck. There are times when the negative seems to outweigh the positive. Fact of life. The TToT recognizes this, and if you find yourself at the end of ‘the week from hell’ and think, ‘I better not even try to participate in the TToT, too much bad happened this week‘, allow us to say, ‘hell no! write the words, hypo-gratful or not‘.

4) It was a decent work week, the number of times I remembered to remember that ‘Stress is really Fear, dressed up like a really hot woman’ is increasing, which is an improvement.

5) Have I mentioned the Wakefield Doctrine yet? Actually #4 made me remember how, in the early days of the Doctrine blog, insights were often expressed in totally inflammatory ways.. provocative for it’s own sake, for the fun of it. Gots to get back to that kind of thing in my Posts

6) My co-hostinae, for their patient support of my efforts to learn to write an orderly and coherent 10 Item List

7) Phyllis and Una, of course. They are constants, not in a take-for-granted-way, but more in the ‘in-comparison-to-the-worldview-of-a-clark’ sense. clarks live in a reality that would not be tolerable to a scott or a roger. the reality of a clark is that there is nothing that can be counted on to always remain the same (no, really, sometimes, in the case of the example you’re thinking of, we simply don’t think about the possibility that that would change. ya know?)

8) hey, do enjoy the Friday Night Vidchats… tonight is a little slow but on the plus side, I’m almost done with this Post and it’s not even Saturday

9) be sure to not forget that the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) is there to be used! …try it out, see if you can get away with it….nothing to worry about! (other than the Seven Guard Virgins)

10) done! damn I’ll have the whole morning (5:30 to 9:30am) to do nothing?

11) Susan Z Surprise Question/Item 11!!

you have to get up to go to the kitchen and get a drink of water, and let the dog/cat/iguana/goldfish out…

what is the time of night that you least hope to show on your alarm clock when you get out of bed?
is that clock, like right there next to your side of the bed? or is it elsewhere in the room
do you try to wake anyone up (or at least get confirmation that they are still alive) before you get up to go to the kitchen?

Your hosts

A Fly on our (Chicken Coop) Wall, Amycake and the Dude, Considerings, Finding Ninee, Getting Literal, I Want Backsies, Mother of Imperfection, Rewritten, Thankful Me, The Wakefield Doctrine

Join the Ten Things of Thankful Facebook Group

An InLinkz Link-up

* no, not just that Lizzi had a scottian friend who nearly dove through the monitor at me, when I first started writing Comments on Considerings, to make sure I wasn’t some kind of creep. Won’t mention any names, other than to say her name rhymes with ‘Kristine’ lol

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, predicting human behavior, psychology of personality, relationships, self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine

‘of here and then’ the Wakefield Doctrine (…an idle moment in the day of a clark)

December 4, 2014 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

(saw this in a couple of sites, but I think the source is: www.tn4me.org)

Had an odd* thought yesterday.** I was driving through a rural part of the state in late morning and the weather was not very nice. There was a slight drizzle and the temperature was in the low to mid 40s. I happened to glance into the woods that lined the road, and the thought came to me, “oh man! if I lived here in the 1400’s I would not be enjoying today. There’d be no place to go inside to get out of the weather….”

Given that all I had to do for the next 20 minutes was to guide several thousand pounds of metal, over twisting and turning country roads, at velocities not achieved by the human race until the early 20th Century, it was only natural I should think, “Imagine being an aboriginal clark living in this part of New England during the Early Woodland Era! damn!” (sure, go ahead and do some wavy images things in your head for a visual… )

We can easily imagine the lives of scotts at such a point in history. Hell, this era would have been paradise for our Predatory friends! (“Hey Still-waters-run-Deep I want you to meet a cousin of mine, she’s a little …. no! she didn’t have to leave her village, come on! don’t be scared!“) Yeah, scotts would have done well.
Even rogers would have had a place in society in the pre-historic New England, (“psst, did you hear what they are saying about that girl from the other village… well, if I even thought to do that, I would hide my head… you don’t think she’s prettier than me, do you?“)

But clarks. We know there were clarks in the neo-post-archaic-woodland New England. But how did their days go? I mean, an Outsider is an Outsider no matter what the year is, but at some points of history there was a fairly lethal side to not being a part of… (“he’s your son too! tell him to come back out of the forest and stand up straight and not mumble, your uncles’s cousin is a nice girl who would be perfect for little ‘runs Deep’)

* odd adjective, \ˈäd\ :

1. unusual or peculiar in appearance, character, etc
2. occasional, incidental, or random: odd jobs.
3. leftover or additional: odd bits of wool.
4. being part of a matched pair or set when the other or others are missing: an odd sock; odd volumes.
5. out-of-the-way or secluded: odd corners.
7. odd man out a person or thing excluded from others forming a group, unit, etc

a quality of thought or, even, an act or action which varies (according to the ‘Everything rule’¹) as perceived by each of the three personality types:

rogers: ” …probably bad, no, wait you said odd, as in different and not like anything else? well, that’s certainly not good, that’s for certain…but maybe, did it say anything about me?”
scotts: ” …hey! hold up a second…. is it a threat? is it a threat that can be chased away? neither… maybe it will run away when the others don’t? that might be fun”
clarks: ” …hmmm, interesting, similar to what, precisely? maybe there’s something, well, not exactly like the others but still…oh yeah, I see! wouldn’t that be nice”

** yeah, I know!

1) ‘the Everything rule, (short for: ‘everyone does everything at one time or another‘) holds that an experience or an occupation, a blind date or a surgical procedure, giving birth and riding a bike are all parts of life and are experienced by everyone (well, mostly everyone…I haven’t ridden a bike in I can’t tell you how long)… the value in this rule is that it can simplify the use of the Wakefield Doctrine, as a tool for better understanding the people in our lives.
Very often a person will say, ‘hey my son wants to be a professional skier, but he can’t get his head out of the books, isn’t professional skier a scottian job?‘ or perhaps you might have a friend come up to you in the dressing room at the Y and confide in you that they have to see a specialist, but can’t make up their mind which of 2 physicians to choose. They proceed to describe one as: precise, well- informed, concise, well, just a little rigid but the wall of their office was covered with diplomas and everything while the second specialist, well, they made (your friend) laugh and seems very confident, but kept being interrupted and seemed a touch impulsive…. which should they choose? (You are being asked, because your friend knows you have this ‘Doctrine thing’ that makes you able to read minds or something, fun at social occasions, helpful in emergencies but, sometimes, a little ….creepy.)

the Everything rule simply reminds us to put ourselves in the worldview of the other person. This is not easy, it takes much study and learning of the characteristics of each of the worldviews, but when we do, we see that sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, predicting human behavior, the Wakefield Doctrine

Go!!!! Cynthia!* the Wakefield Doctrine ( “..uri, vinciri, verberari et interfecta est gladio Pharao et doctrina post scribere!”)

December 3, 2014 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

if you look closely, the label says (I’m not making this up) “Collectible Anniversary Edition’

..how cool is this Wakefield Doctrine? I was just in the kitchen to get coffee, and, as is my habit, I went through the cupboard to get a piece of bread and… (Wait! It occurs to me that this story won’t make any sense without a little context. Before I got to the kitchen this morning, I was thinking about writing a Post. Actually I was concerned that I didn’t have anything interesting to write about this morning, worse, I was worried that I had ‘lost’ whatever it was, that I thought that I used to believe that I had, when I wrote Doctrine blog Posts. OK! That’s the proper set up to appreciate what happened next… in the kitchen….. this morning…like 10 minutes ago.)

….anyway, I’m looking for bread and I notice a fresh, un-opened bag of hot dog rolls, way in the back and thought, ‘better get these up to the front, or else I’ll forget they’re there‘. As I re-positioned the bag I saw, printed on the bottom: Stop n Shop Official Supermarket of the Patriots and so naturally I said to Phyllis who was also in our small kitchen, preparing her morning coffee, ‘who the fuck cares that this is…. why??!…. what the hell?!’

‘Why’, I thought out loud, ‘should/would/could anyone get something out of knowing that their supermarket is the official supermarket of a football team? Do these benefits apply to the Players and their families? Are they required to shop only at Stop n Shop? Or maybe, they have special privileges when shopping, like the gladiators were supposed to have earned when victorious in the Coliseum?’
I calmed down and thought, ‘well, clark, you have a Wakefield Doctrine, what does it tell you about why people should care about hot dog rolls being associated with a professional sports team?‘

If we were having this discussion a couple of years ago, I would have gone immediately to the rogerian worldview and then the scottian worldview. (As a matter of fact, Phyllis said this morning, ‘you should ask glenn, he’s all into the sports and has clothing with team names in shirts and jackets and hats.’ glenn is a scott and a sports fan. I used to kid him. “holy shit! glenn! You never told me that you were a player for the Red Socks!! If it weren’t for that team jacket I never would have guessed!! damn!” and he would laugh and say, ‘fuck you’)

But today is the 3rd of December 2014, not July 27th 2007, so I didn’t follow that path to understand how the Wakefield Doctrine could add to my understanding of foodstore chains and affiliation marketing. Instead, I invoked ‘the everything Rule’ and asked myself: how would a scott experience seeing the label (photo above) and how would a roger and a clark. Because, as we all know, each of the three worldviews are, in fact, separate (personal) realities.
(That) our ‘personality types’ are simply our coping strategies for dealing with the kind of world we wake up in…. being it waking up:

as a clark (Outsider motto: ‘ok the world is out there waiting…try not to mess up‘) or
opening our eyes as a scott (Predator motto: ‘I’m hungry!!!!/I’m horny!!!!!/I’m thirsty!!!!!/I’m bored!!!!!/I’m tired!!!!!… oh, Good Morning dear!”) or
even if we wake up in bed as a roger (Herd Member motto: “perfect…if only I… as long as they, life is good!“)

Out of time, guys! I’ll leave to all of you to solve the, ‘Mystery of Why the Hell Anyone Would Base Their Foodstore Selection on the Basis of Affiliation with a Professional Sports Team’ on your own, tell us in the Comments below what you have concluded!

* Cyndi is doing something critical as a final step in earning her Master’s Degree today…. I believe she said it was defending her ‘Portfolio’ and, naturally, I offered to help.**

**(one of my favorite jokes! one that originated back in the 1990s when I was playing Death Orb at the campus of the University of Rhode Island on a hot July day. I was playing and a young man came out of the building to smoke a cigarette and I thought it was a good time to take a break myself. We got to talking and he explained that he was scheduled to do his ‘oral defense’ of his dissertation in a week. So, I said, ‘hey! I’ll give you $5.00 if you’ll promise that if you find you’re doing a bad job (of defense) and they (the Dissertation Committee) have you on the ropes, you answer your final question by saying, “oh yeah?!?!! well fuck you!!” and walk out’. The guy laughed, of course, but I never saw him again, so I suspect that he didn’t take me up on my dare.

so go to Cyndi’s blog Pictimilitude and contribute whatever positive energy you can!

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: Personal, personality types, predicting human behavior, psychology of personality, relationships, self-development, self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine

the Wakefield Doctrine (what it is, how it works, what it can do) ….did I leave anything out?

December 2, 2014 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Over the course of the weekend, I had the pleasure of conversations with Lizzi and Denise and zoe. A recurrent theme/sub-topic was, of course, the Wakefield Doctrine. While the Doctrine is always a reference point for me, it helps to talk to people who, while having an excellent grasp of our little personality theory, help me get a perspective on the efforts being made here at the blog.

I came away from the weekend with the sense that I need to get back to the basics in these Posts. Not an earth-shaking realization, I’m aware that there is a cycle that manifests in the Posts over time, writing as if every Reader was here for the first time and, (eventually) moving to where nothing, (in a post), would make sense to anyone other than a die-hard fan. So, the pendulum will swing

what it is….

as a personality theory, the Wakefield Doctrine proposes that we all are born with the potential to experience the world in the context of one of three characteristic worldviews (personal realities); the reality of the Outsider (clarks), the world of the Predator (scotts) and the life of the Herd Member (rogers). The Doctrine maintains that, at a very early age, we find ourselves in one (of these three), and we grow up and develop our social and interpersonal skills and coping strategies that are best-suited to allow us to survive and thrive in this reality.

clarks being Outsiders become withdrawn and creative, imaginative and fearful, relating themselves to the world as if the world was ‘out there’.
scotts growing up in the world of the Predator (and Prey), acting and reacting, ever alert to threat or opportunity, mercurial in temperament, relating themselves to the world through their direct expression of instinct, experiencing life through action instead of reflection.
rogers are those who grow up in the world of principle and objective Value, the world is quantifiable, not so much predictable as reliable…relating themselves to the world around them as a part of the greater whole, a higher expression of (a) fundamental truth.

how it works…

the Doctrine is simple, or nearly impossible…depending on whether you have the desire and capacity to apply your imagination to the day-to-day reality around you. The Wakefield Doctrine is a perspective. A way of looking at the world, and the people (in it) and the behavior (of these people). The goal, of this applying of a particular perspective, is to ‘understand the world as the other person is experiencing it’. All that is required is a willingness to imagine and the discipline to learn the character of the three worldviews. (Note: the examples of behavior provided for each the three personality types in this blog, are not the measure of a person’s worldview! They (these characteristic behaviors) are are just examples of typical (to each of the three) responses to everyday situations. What you are actually trying to do, (or should be trying to do) when you observe another through the perspective of the Wakefield Doctrine is: inferring how that person relates themselves to the world around them.

(hey! that bears repeating! The first step in using the Wakefield Doctrine is to: (correctly) infer how the other person is relating themselves to the world around them. Please note that I did not say, ‘how the other person is relating to the world around them‘, I said, ‘how they are relating themselves to the world around them‘.
With one you are considering only how a person chooses to act, in the other, you are, of necessity, attempting to infer the reality, the context, the situation that is required to make (their) choice of action most appropriate.)

what it can do…

with the proper use of the Wakefield Doctrine, as a perspective, you can:

know more about the other person than they know about themselves
predict their future choices in most any situation
change and improve your own life (by virtue of knowing yourself better through understanding the people around you)

you know, stuff like that.
Unlike most personality type systems and theories, the Wakefield Doctrine will not give you ‘the Answer’ and it totally will not let you change the other person.
the Wakefield Doctrine ‘is for you, not them’.

but it is fun. you can watch people, (we’re betting that you enjoy that anyway) and you will know more about the people in your life without having to ask awkward questions ( “er… honey, you know I love those Louboutins and what you’ve done with your hair, but it’s only going to be the kids teachers and some other parents.“).

of course, the self-inderstanding and self-improvement is a little more…. effort. But! if you’ve made it this far reading today’s Post I know that you have what it takes to enjoy our little Doctrine.

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: Personal, personality types, predicting human behavior, self-improvement, the Wakefield Doctrine

‘Thanksgiving Day 2014’ the Wakefield Doctrine (our traditional Thanksgiving Day re-Post* it’s almost become…dare I say it? a tradition!)

November 27, 2014 By clarkscottroger

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine ( the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers) on this eve of Saint rogers’s Day!

Thanksgiving Day¹ is the holiday that, if we did not already know that there exists a personality type referred to as a roger, someone else would have pointed it out to us. Perhaps the task would have fallen to an Art Professor in a land grant college somewhere in the Midwest. We can imagine the epiphany …in the middle of the night (during his sabbatical devoted to the study of the works of Norman Rockwell)
“ My god! Norman’s work is not just a robust and healthy celebration of paedophilia! He has been trying to tell us to transform our culture! …for all good Americans to come forth and show their appreciation of patriotism, consumerism and child-abuse!!”

We have, from time to time, been accused of indiscriminate use of hyperbole in these pages, however, just consider the astounding level of pervasiveness of the ‘Holiday of Thanksgiving’. It is not enough to close the Post Office system and all other government agencies² , no it is not, this Holiday actually attempts to compel normal, rational, adult people to sit in front of the television and watch a Parade involving giant balloon representations of out-of-print newspaper cartoon characters! Who the hell watches the Macy’s Day Parade on purpose?!? Throughout the entire morning of Thanksgiving, you simply cannot escape the pageantry and spectacle, broadcast live and has as the ’emcees’, News Anchors from the major networks morning news shows! ( ” Thats right, Matt! That’s Kenny Chesney and Taylor Swift on the Snoop Dog float… it says here that her eye makeup took 12 hours and 6 pounds of aluminum foil chips to create!!” ). Like a Hieronymus Bosch painting done in ‘live-action’, the whole country is exposed to hours and hours of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade… more than 3 hours of parade music and floats (” … hey, Anne isn’t the next float from your hometown”? “That’s right Al! it’s my old Alma mater, the East Clydesdale High School Marching Band playing a medley, ‘Straight outta Compton’, ‘Fuck tha Police’ and ‘Gangsta Gangsta’ )

Why do we say Thanksgiving is the most rogerian of all holidays? Simply because Thanksgiving is about the how, not the why. As a holiday and a cultural event, this particular holiday tells it’s participants exactly what to do; what to eat and how to cook it! Taught from childhood, every member of our culture knows precisely how (and) where they are expected to spend the Holiday! Thanksgiving is about family! and if there is anything that rogers fake better than anyone, it is the joyful appreciation and celebration of the family.

But don’t just take my word for it! Following is an excerpt from a Post of the Wakefield Doctrine that was written over a year ago! (and nothing says credibility better than…age)

We all know that “the holidays” are experienced differently by each of the three (clarks, scotts and rogers) and therefore the demands of the celebrations are a very effective illustration of the nature of each. But if there was no Thanksgiving, a roger would have invented it! (Actually, they probably did). Think about it! A holiday celebration that is:

based on a factual historical event (sort of)

the protagonists (of the story) are religious refugees, persecuted and driven away together on boats

food, specific food and a not-to-be-deviated-from Menu

ritual menu and a full schedule of events

shopping in herds, as the climax of the celebration (Black Friday)

a moral taught to the young: we came here, those strangers who helped us were different, (…we had a feast and wiped out their culture)

I will be so bold as to suggest that there is no more rogerian a holiday than Thanksgiving! And since we are on the subject of rogers and holidays, (sort of), is there any human activity that is more one sided, over-hyped, ‘expectations-sure-to-fall short’, ( not counting sex on the eve of a relationship breaking up), than Parades? I don’t care if you are a trombone player in the middle of the herd or someone sitting in their living room watching it on TV, nothing says roger better than Parades!

http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x1hp2f_en-vogue-free-your-mind_music

1) the Day that the indigenous people of the North American continent made a gift of their lands and cultures and cuisine to their new European friends.

2) you do know about the Post Office and rogers, don’t you?

~~~~~ *** ~~~~~

* first printed for Thanksgiving in 2011 this Post has been one of the more popular Posts when re-printed. New Readers? the joke in the title has to do with two things: a) we kid rogers a lot, on their worldviews, ‘i.e. the quantifiable world, the presence of abstract Truths, the celebration of tradition ( exemplified in the horribly, yet indefinably seductive notion underlying the expression heard coming from many a roger while something really cool is happening, “this is wonderful. we’re making a memory here!“) …be it our child’s high school graduation, their First Day at School, the pinning of the Prom corsage, the wedding night…. anything is a potential victim to the spontaneity-eating, life-force-sucking, Dewey-Decimal-imposing of a ‘historical perspective (or pre-perspective)’ to an event in the here and now…. 2) and, of course we’re so aware of the inherent irony of creating and celebrating a Thanksgiving tradition. In our defense, the Doctrine does tell us that we are not just a clark or a scott or a roger. We are ‘a clark’ or ‘a scott‘ or ‘a roger‘ by virtue of the fact that these are the worldview that we grew up, developed, learned to deal life in…. and, in fact is our personal reality (aka predominant worldview), however, since everyone has the potential to become a clark or a scott or a roger, we always retain the potential to experience the world as do ‘the other two’. This fact is why the Wakefield Doctrine is as much fun as it is, why it’s the best approach to self-improving ourselfs and why, sometimes, as a New Reader you might think, ‘I guess I must be a roger because…. but then I’m sure that I must be a scott, except sometimes….’ sorry, only one worldview to a life…however, if you have very robust secondary and tertiary aspects…well! good on you!.