Category: Psychology

Shrinkflation

February 18, 2023 By arne hendriks Off

Shrinkflation, also known as the grocery shrink ray, is the practice of reducing the weight or size of an item without lowering its price. The practise is often used as an alternative to raising prices during times of inflation. We get less volume but pay the…

VW (Think Small)

December 7, 2021 By arne hendriks Off

In the 1950’s, U.S. industry had firmly embraced the ideology of planned obsolescence and obsolesence of desirability to convince consumers they constantly needed to buy something new. Competing auto makers were building ever bigger and more stylised cars for growing families with baby boomer children.…

Height Blind

January 8, 2020 By arne hendriks Off

Greater height in humans is commonly associated with advantages such as leadership skills, wealth, intelligence or social status. Differences between short and tall men are often found for these traits, mainly in favour of tall men. But are height-related effects biologically determined or do they…

The Simple Growth Obsession Test

January 15, 2015 By arne hendriks 0

We’re obsessed with growth. The Simple Growth Obsession Test is a simple test to check for yourself how much growth and our deeply embedded sensitivity for signs of growth create an emotional response when confronted with signs of its absence or presence. The test itself is…

Voluntary Simplicity

April 23, 2014 By arne hendriks 2

Voluntary simplicity is characterised by individuals being satisfied with what they need rather than what they want. Simple living movements testify to the mindset and behaviour needed for humanity to make drastic changes. Its many secular and religious manifestations function as a source of how to…

The Puppet in your Eye

October 18, 2013 By arne hendriks 0

You’ll find that in most, if not all, European languages the black spot in the middle of the eye is known as the pupil. Etymologically, pupil is derived from the Latin word pūpilla which means puppet, or small child. The meaning of the word pupil…

This Crowded Earth

November 30, 2012 By arne hendriks 1

This Crowded Earth by Robert Bloch is a 1958 novel set in a future where overpopulation has inspired science to create a small human race with the use of hormone therapy. The story starts in the late 1990’s when suicide, crime and accidents have increased steeply…

Alice in Wonderland Syndrome

August 20, 2012 By arne hendriks 0

Alice in Wonderland Syndrome is a neurological condition affecting human visual perception, in which objects within an affected section of the visual field appear larger (macropsia) or smaller (micropsia) than normal, causing the subject to feel smaller (or larger) than they actually are. In Lewis…

Universal Height Dysphoria

July 8, 2012 By arne hendriks 0

Perhaps humanity’s willingness to accept the damaging consequences of increasing human height is the the result of a universal case of height dysphoria. Height dysphoria is a mental disorder that leads to excessive concern about and preoccupation with a perceived defect of physical size. Most often this means the…

Overcoming the Uncanny

March 12, 2012 By arne hendriks 0

People are often disturbed by the idea of shrinking the human species. The confrontation with unusually small-sized adults sometimes triggers a psychosomatic sensitivity  also known as the uncanny. The uncanny is a Freudian concept of an instance where something is familiar, yet foreign at the same…

Being Barbie

May 29, 2011 By arne hendriks 3

A group of neuroscientists of the Group Ehrsson at the Swedish Karolinska Institutet investigated how body size influences the way we visually perceive the world, and if there is truth in the idea that it is our body that serves as a fundamental reference in visual perception…

Research Marionette

May 28, 2011 By arne hendriks 1

If we’re ever going to be convinced that shrinking the body is a serious option we must first project ourselves into that situation. With the help of Gitta Lichthart we developed 3 research marionettes aimed at doing just that. When one of those 50 centimeter…

Queen Voluptuous

December 27, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

Once, when Nature’s overpowering vigorousness Conceived each day children this monstrous I would love to have lived with a young giantess Around her feet like a cat to a queen voluptuous. Would love to have seen the spirit that grew out of her Distending as…

The Ames Room

December 20, 2010 By arne hendriks 2

In an Ames Room two or more people of the same size standing in a space appear to be of dramatically different sizes, even though they are actually the same size. Adelbert Ames, Jr. (August 19, 1880 – 1955) was an American scientist who made…

Megalophobia

October 15, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

Quite often the  primary response to The Incredible Shrinking Man’s ambition to downsize the human body is the fear of being exposed to animals. As we’ll shrink, our environment and everything in it will appear a lot larger. The fear of large animals and objects…

Koro Syndrome

September 16, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

The Incredible Shrinking Man is interested in mapping shrink desires that already exist in society. But we shouldn’t close our eyes to the opposite; the fear to shrink. One of the more curious manifestations of this fear is the Koro Syndrome, the pathological fear that…

Shrink Utility Vehicle (SUV)

May 14, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

It is not easy to convince ourselves that we need to shrink. On the contrary, many people seem obsessed with growing taller. Yet, signs of a deeply rooted desire to shrink may already manifest itself in small signs in everyday life. People drive oversized cars,…

Napoleon Complex Myth

April 27, 2010 By arne hendriks 1

Napoleon complex (also, Napoleon syndrome or Small Man syndrome) is a colloquial pejorative term used to describe a type of inferiority complex which is said to affect people who are short. The term is also used more generally to describe people who are driven by…