Understanding Human Behavior | the Wakefield Doctrine

(morse code sound* here) -the Wakefield Doctrine-

March 1, 2022 By clarkscottroger

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

I know! Posting a post at 9:73 pm?!?!! What the hell is this, exam week in college or maybe the first three or four years of this blog?**

Doctrine Readers know that we participate, once a week on Thursdays, in a writing prompt bloghop by the name of (the) Six Sentence Story. And Readers can’t be blamed for suspecting part of our motivation is to improve our writing chops. An old adage tells us, “If you want to improve a skill, stay in the company of those who demonstrate the proficiency you desire. They’ll either run you out of the group or let you stay long enough to not embarrass them.” Or words to that effect.

Them folks at the Six Sentence Story is a wicked talented bunch. And one of them, Chris Hall is one of them what have managed have their work published. Out there. In the ‘real’ world! Very cool.

(An aside: there’s a group of hyper-imaginative, excessively-skilled writers and writerinae who’ve created a virtual hangout that sports the rather catchy moniker, the Six Sentence Café and Bistro. It’s a place (online) where the world is, well, it’s what you want it to be.)

This book launch will be Friday, but the celebration starts early.

Chris Hall will be celebrating the launch of her latest book, Spirit of the Shell Man, at the Six Sentence Café and Bistro this Friday, March 4, 2022.

One of the relentlessly talented people in the group even did a promo video,

https://youtu.be/1cgfI3LMwqY

these ‘people/fictional characters/autobiographia’ are referred to as the Proprietors. Besides Chris, there is Nick who created the video, Mimi who knew that he could do it, Jenne who sees beyond the baseline premise, Ford who brings the heart to the group and Denise, the foundation for the group.

* if you can’t hear the electro-mechanical dih, dih di-dih sound of the first DM system, we probably can’t help you.

** we were blog post writing animals, back in 2009 through, say, 2014… not for nothin’ but I distinctly recall running to my computor-graph just because a portion of a song used as background music to a commercial monopolized by mind and fired my imagination

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: Six Sentence Story, Understanding Human Behavior

Friday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

February 25, 2022 By clarkscottroger

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

Weather-centric reprint today, from February 2013.

…as in, nine years ago.

Don’t tell anyone, but when I go way back in the records looking for a reprint, there is, sometimes, a moment of suspense, usually when I open a post that is the result of the younger writer being in a mood experimentale.* Yet there has not been a moment that I have felt self-conscious about what I’ve written. And, for a clark** this is huge. Self-consciousness is nothing less than the air we breathe.

So, without further skidoo, a post with a way-long, fairly-amusing title:

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the craziness of clarks, the really stupidness of scotts and the astonishing dumbness of rogers)

My pre-dominantely clarklike worldview has me writing this Post, apologizing in advance for it and…. still hitting ‘Publish’.

The North American culture is officially designated, ‘predominately rogerian‘ on the basis of the activity surrounding the upcoming WEATHER EMERGENCY, aka ‘a pretty decent snowstorm’. I suppose I should qualify the rest of this mercifully short Post, with a statement to the effect that it is not being written for the benefit of any of our rogerian Readers.
However, I would be shirking my duties as, Articulator-in-Chief, if I did not remind everyone that the second most important principle of the Wakefield Doctrine (the 1st being that our ‘worldviews’ do, in fact, constitute reality, albeit, personal reality), is that while we all live in a pre-dominant worldview, we retain the qualities of the ‘other two’ personality types. (And) these manifest to varying degrees in how we perceive and react to events in our daily lives.

In any event, we are witnessing the rogerian worldview, as reflected in the news/weather/warning information-yelling of the Media that is/are an integral part of our culture (as it is in all cultures). This is one of the few times when ‘age’ offers a legitimate advantage¹. The reason for this statement is that the older the individual, the more the contrast in ‘cultural-standards-over-time stands out. Just as cars were bigger and a whole lot un-safer in the 1950’s, the Role/Responsiblity of the State in protecting the lives and health of the members (of the State), has grown from hardly noticeable to the current state in which snow storms have names. (yeah, just like Hurricanes!). I used to laugh at the titles of the cheesy movies on the SciFi Channel, like ‘Anacondasaur’ or ‘Piranhasaurus Rex’ until this last Autumn. Then we had our first official SuperStorm. ( The plot development of the semi-hit movie, ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ spent a lot of time showing satellite photos of the three giant storms that were about to totally fuck up the northern hemisphere… apparently this movie is now required viewing by our friends at the National Weather Service… I mean, how could anyone deny that Sandy was so a SuperStorm. Did you see how far those clouds reached?)

I apologise for indulging in my clarklike aspect (‘outrage’²) and will simply say, ‘Hey rogers! I get it. You are not really worried or concerned about health and safety. You just enjoy having a sense of the herd. Like being at a party, the person you are standing across from is not why you will say the party ‘sucked’ or ‘was awesome’, it will be how many people were there.
I get it. At least, I should, the Wakefield Doctrine tells us everything we need to know about how people act and react. For that matter, the Wakefield Doctrine rightly states that you will ‘not only know why a person acts the way that they do, but you will know how they will act in situations that have not yet occurred‘.

Thank you for your readation.³

(I promise to get back to Eve tomorrow…. yeah, scott I get it!)

1) In no way to be confused or conflated with the totally indulgent belief that ‘this younger generation doesn’t know how to: dance/play music/make movies/have sex/make love/take drugs/study for the Big Exam/live a Decent Life/get the most out of Life/not screw things up so much

2) We clarks see things happen that don’t make sense and when we cannot get a reasonable explanation we get upset….worse, when we see other people seemingly not notice this ‘unreasonable thing’ then we let ourselfs get all ‘outraged’ and such. We should not.

3) the photo is kind of indulgent? well duh! what part of the tome of this Post did you not get! lol

* no, not a ‘real’ French expression or idiom or even picaresque oberservation… but you really should have your in-head voice pronounce it: ‘moo deh x pera men tahl‘. It’s a lot more fun

** sorry, there are over twenty-seven million words written on the subject, go search the archives, if’n you’re wondering. Better yet, ask your question in the comments.

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: psychology of personality, relationships, the Wakefield Doctrine, three personality types, Understanding Human Behavior

RePrint Monday -the Wakefield Doctrine-

February 21, 2022 By clarkscottroger

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

So, in the Comments below, share with us your familiarity with this blog.

Go ahead, it’s a reprint day, so we have, if not plenty of, a sufficient amount of time. If it gets too late, I already gots a post (below). It will serve as content for today. (the reprint in the title?)

A confession: I always feel a little bit guilty about these reprint posts. Being a clark, surely the da Vinci of guilt, I don’t merely endure that third-day-of-a-sunburn discomfit, I embrace it. Surely there is something hidden in the non-rational conviction that there are unknown people in the Readerverse who, seeing that I’ve done more than one of these reprint posts, will …disapprove.

As any clark would tell you, ‘The one thing we do better than scotts and rogers is negotiate the terms of our ransom to unknown agencies’. What we don’t tell ourselves, as we acknowledge that this, this, last time we negotiate with secret terrorist, is that there is no one on the other side of the table, not a single person chasing us, the little room behind the carved-wood sliding door is, in fact, empty.

We remind ourselfs, like any good abused-spouse, not only have we invested too much in this relationship, there are others to consider. And, while we hate to admit to being wrong, we have the well-being of others to consider. So we will keep on keeping on.

… but, there is one, (among a world full of things and beliefs, arguments and convictions), thing that is different: there are other clarks in the world. other clarks we recognize and feel bad for. other clarks we observe learning to be less hard on themselves and we feel a hope. Not one dependent on the stories and tales of people who are presented as models and ideals. We feel hope because we see other clarks and we identify with the least of them and the greatest of them, and, in doing so, we belong.

(from Anno Domino 2014)

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

we all remember this from our undergrad ‘Abnormal Psych’ class, right?

Lets try a little experiment this morning. Two things first:

It’s been established (or, at very least, admitted to) here that, once I’ve engaged in the normal everyday demands of work and family and such, the supply of post-worthy words dries up faster than a 67 year old’s honeymoon

the Wakefield Doctrine is about learning about myself (as much as it is about seeing into the thoughts of you and the other people in my world¹)

So here’s what we’ll do: I’ll write a couple of hundred words about the value and use of the Wakefield Doctrine on a typical Monday morning. I’ll stop writing, take a quick shower, get dressed and start my work day². After an hour or so of work, I’ll come back here and ‘re-write’ this post. Let’s see if this ‘oh-my-god-can’t-you-see-how-incredibly-useful-and-fun’ theory of personality accounts for any change in my day.³

(Here we go)

the Wakefield Doctrine is a perspective on the nature of the world (and the people and things and events that make it up). Properly applied, the Wakefield Doctrine allows me to know more about ‘the other person’, than I have any right to know. With the Wakefield Doctrine, I am way, way less likely to find myself saying, “Now why in the world would they say/do such a thing?! I really thought I knew them better than that!”
As to how I go about ‘knowing more about you than you know about yourself’? All I need do is observe and (correctly) infer how you are relating yourself to the world around you. Are you acting like an Outsider? Do you sound like you are experiencing the situation as would a Predator or are you simply comfortable with the situation, as comfortable as a Member of the Herd? Once I know that (about) you, I can anticipate not only how you will react to a situation or interaction, I can get a glimpse of the world as you are experiencing it. This last is the most challenging aspect of the Wakefield Doctrine. Knowing that the other person (may) be perceiving the world differently than I am, even though we are both in the same room, hell! there’s no one here in the break room except you and me and all we’re doing is talking about the job we both have (the same job) and yet….somehow, you are reacting to it in a way that is totally at odds with the way that I would! that is the power of the Wakefield Doctrine

…oh yeah, the other part? If I want to… I can see parts of myself in a new light. This is not always such fun, but I can if I choose. The thing that this Wakefield Doctrine says to us is, ‘hey, you’re experiencing the world as (a clark or a scott or a roger)…. you have the right and the capability to see the world, experience the world as do ‘the other two personality types’…so don’t worry about:

not understanding (hey clark!! 2/3s of life is not about understanding or knowing or figuring out shit! but don’t let your brain trick you… you got this!)

not being ready (scott! yo… sure you’re always quick ….you’re even as smart as all them, don’t give it a second thought, what they seem to think they know that you don’t know? doesn’t matter…’cause you do!

nope, they’re not talking about you, roger… and even if there are moments when you think you can’t continue your efforts, that everyone has turned away, it’s not true. don’t give it a second thought

…alright. that’s what I have while I am still in ‘simple clark‘ mode.

stop back later this morning and lets see how it looks after I’ve had to engage in the ‘real’ world for a couple of fun-filled hours!

1) ok, it’s still about that, but I’m trying to establish my premise, so cut me some slack, ok?

2) meaning, I’ll check my email, do a couple of things, go to the office, check a couple of things and then come back to this Post…oh, probably around 9:55 am

3) no, I do believe you are that trusting! lol…. as a matter of fact, no I don’t think of what I’m writing as the product of a writer, telling whatever story I choose… I actually think of this as a record of my experiences, somehow converted to public display mode

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: self-development, the Wakefield Doctrine, Understanding Human Behavior

Friday -the Wakefield Doctrine- “(an) early Valentine’s Day post”

February 11, 2022 By clarkscottroger

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

Shuffling through some old (old) posts this morning. Came across the following. Sort of a nice memory. The post was written in 2011.

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

This is a photo of my friend Bernadine Thomas and me (your Humble Narrator), taken about 10 years ago. Bernadine died unexpectedly a couple of years ago.

(As often happens with clarks and scotts) it was nearly love at first sight with Bernadine*. Simply was one of those clark/scott things. I met Bernadine when she came to work at a market and credit research company – I was experimenting with having a ‘real job’ in the ‘real world’. The company I worked for had their offices in Providence, on Westminster Street, and most important (to my story here) was that I worked in one of those cubicle workstation things, at my desk from 9-5, Monday through Friday, calling manufacturing companies all over the world, trying to get them to give me information about their use of raw materials. In other words, it was a very rogerian work environment, but one in which a clark could ‘pass’ as an employee. I had been working there for about 6 months when Bernadine was hired and moved into a nearby cubicle.

To set the stage for my meeting Bernadine, picture an entire floor of an office building with the front of the floor (at the windows) being divided into three offices for the owners of the Company and the rest of the space taken up with clusters of cubicles. These were ‘open clusters’ which meant you could spin your chair to the 2 other people in your cluster or, with a little extra push, be out in the aisle where you could see what was going on in the rest of the office.   On one wall, located in the middle of the office was the elevator and directly across was the main conference room, which had glass walls on three sides (windows on the 4th wall) and a large conference table in the middle. Totally visible from all the cubicles…think of TV with the Mute on.
I will never forget the day that Bernadine came to interview for a job, as the interview was held in the conference room. (It will help to know that the demographic of the Company was typical for the industry (and) for our part of the country, i.e. mostly female and nearly all white…not counting the Asian guy in IT).  Bernadine, as characteristic of all scotts, not only had ‘presence’, but being a large woman,  the minute she walked into the conference room, it was obvious to all of us that she was totally owning that room. Keep in mind, no one could hear the conversation that was going on in the conference room, except that is, when Bernadine laughed. As with scotts ( male and female), when Bernadine laughed you noticed! (…her’s was not one of those annoying, odd or quirky laughs), when she laughed it was full, un-restrained… totally without reservation or pre-requisite…simply enjoying herself.
Bernadine was hired.
As we got to know each other, I began to tell Bernadine about the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers. Bernadine made a lasting contribution to the Wakefield Doctrine. One afternoon, I asked her about the ‘dominance thing’. I told her about how scotts will always challenge everyone in the immediate environment, in order to establish the ranking order. But then I asked Bernadine a direct question, ‘What happens when you are not the dominant one?” Bernadine’s response was simple, ‘Nothing happens! It’s not a bad thing to be second in ranking! And…and…are you listening to me?  It isn’t ‘better’ to be the alpha! All that matters is that we know where we stand ‘ This was a revelation that not only added to my understanding of scotts but reinforced my understanding of the fact that we all live in slightly different realities. As a clark, the concept of not being at the top could be nothing but a negative thing, it simply never could occur to me.

(Two experiences that tell you a lot about Bernadine and all about scotts…)

Bernadine’s cubicle was in the cluster (of cubicles) adjacent to the one that I worked in with another market analyst, by the name of Charlie; a young kid, just out of college, smart, and competent but Charlie had a habit of sleeping at his desk in the afternoon. One afternoon Charlie awoke from his after-lunch nap, loudly grumbling about how much work he had to do and for reasons still unknown, I said in a fairly loud voice, “…It’s been a long winter, and Mr Charlie is starting to wake, while things have changed since the Autumn, one thing is still true..he is hungry…and surely will need to get out of the burrow” (I was, of course, hearing the classic Disney Nature Film Narrator voice in my head).
The immediate and unmistakeable peals of laughter coming over the cubicle wall on Bernadine’s side were worth it all. It was at this moment we became friends.

The second experience came at the end of my employment at that company.

I was called into the office of my (rogerian) boss late one Friday afternoon. He did all the talking and it was mostly about him and his difficult responsibilities and how I surely must understand how it was that he had to let me go. And, being a roger of major proportions he assumed that I would be embarrassed to inform my co-workers of my imminent departure. He asked me if I wanted him to make up a reason that would explain my not working there anymore or did I want to make up a reason…
I said, ‘No thank you, I will take care of it, first thing Monday morning’. He seemed satisfied with this plan and I left the office and went home (by this time it was past ‘quitting time’).
When I got home, the totality of what had happened finally began to sink in, (I have mentioned that I am a clark, haven’t I?), and I decided that I needed to call Bernadine. (This was noteworthy, as while we were workfriends, we did not socialize outside of the office. I had  never before called her at her home.)
But call I did.
After the surprise of, “Hi Bernadine, this is Clark…from work, you know? wore off,  Bernadine asked, ‘What’s wrong?” My response was simply, “They fuckin let me go today”

Bernadine’s next words were, “Alright. Tell me exactly what happened. And, don’t leave anything out!”

I still miss Bernadine, she was such a scott.

1)  love being defined (by a clark) as “this person not only is not suspicious of me and/or my behavior…they seem to actually enjoy my company!”

Filed Under: Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: relationships, self-development, the Wakefield Doctrine, Understanding Human Behavior

TToT -the Wakefield Doctrine-

February 6, 2022 By clarkscottroger

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

This is the Ten Things of Thankful (TToT) bloghop.

Created by Lizzi

Hosted by Dyanne

Co-hosted by Patricia, Lisa (and Mimi)

A (blog)post of ten,(more or less), items related to the experiential state of gratitude; id est, the people, places and things in our lives that elicit the psycho-spiritual state of gratitude (Latin: heus! Gratius multas*)

1) Una (In the photo above, being on guard is not merely a job, it’s a vocation). This would be a photo-from-winters-past. Not sure of the year.

Phyllis driving past my office yesterday. (See Grat Item Seven)

2) Phyllis

3) the Wakefield Doctrine

4) the Six Sentence Story the place for fiction suited to be read on the run, you know, tartine di finzione**

5) serial story writing and hanging out at the Six Sentence Café and Bistro. (including: ‘the Whitechapel Interlude‘ and ‘the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf‘)

6) the internet, or, to be more precise, the capacity of the www to allow people to make available a near-limitless supply of information, true and/or false; fact and fiction… it’s all good, ’cause, as the old saying reminds us, ‘Facts are like the familial designations aunt and uncle; they allow a more personal relationship with a stranger, if one chooses‘.

7) the business we have chosen*** which put us in a position to take a photo of Phyllis passing my office on an early Saturday afternoon as I prepared to take long-standing clients out to look at some new construction. It was fun.¹

8) that real estate is so suited to the on-going study and practice of a certain, un-named personality theories. (ok, one hint: ‘It rhymes with wakefield doctrine)

9) something, something

10) S.R. 1.3 From the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) which is, in all modesty, one of the best of all features available to those who would write made-up stuff and would prefer not to get cited by some rhetoric maven (or mavette) who would get all strict-sixth-grade-English-teacher on yer ass, insisting that a good story has to make sense and adhere to a certain logical consistency. To which we say, “Listen Lady/Mister, this is the Wakefield Doctrine, we don need no steenkin’…” …yow! Exactly how much of the fictional/imaginary lobe of my brain has been coopted by old movie lines and song lyrics?!?! lol

* interesting, the role of italics in communication. That Latin phrase? Limit the italics to one word (multas) and you get a whole different emotion (thanks to the internet See Grat Six above)

** Full Disclosure: googlized Italian, trust we don’t offend any people who grew up in non-google world

*** yeah, movie fans will recognize that line from a scene in Godfather II

1) go ahead. impress us… (Hint: spoken by one of the lead actors in the Godfather Trilogy, in a 1980s movie. (Betcha Nick gets the reference.)

music