most of us can literally “choose” to be happy, if we understand the mind’s thought–emotion mechanism. - Tom Butler-Bowdon

As life often seems to boil down to the outcome of such interactions, it is worth understanding what is happening below the surface of what is actually said, and how to manage an encounter while keeping everyone’s dignity intact.

Instead of trying to find out what goes on inside a person’s head (“mentalism”), to know why people act as they do, Skinner suggested, all we need to know is what circumstances caused them to act in a certain way.

In the 1950s, primate researcher Harry Harlow’s legendary experiments replacing the real mothers of baby monkeys with cloth ones proved the extent to which infants need loving physical attention in order to become healthy adults.