Topic 136 What You See Is Not What You Get

Topic 136 What You See Is Not What You Get 11 March 2022

1. How often have you been disappointed after buying something which looked good? Examples?

2. Have you ever found that you made a wrong character judgement about someone (good or bad)? If so, where did you go wrong?

3. Why do you think that people WANT to be deceived? (e.g. about their own or other's looks; about the future; about the real value of their qualifications ..... etc)

4. A television camera will maybe give you a view of the world about 15 degrees wide. Can you think of examples where that 15 degree view is probably tricking you? [That is, the other 350 degree out-of-camera view is quite different from what people see on their TV sets]

5. How often do you find that some food tastes different from what its appearance suggest?

6. Pictures on supermarket packaging, especially for food, might have little to do with the product you find inside the packet. Examples? What other ways can packaging trick you?

7. How well can you really know somebody from their social media posts? Examples?

8. Politicians have to please all kinds of people. These people often disagree with each other. What would happen to a politician if he/she was honest with everybody?

9. Some cultures encourage people to be very direct and say exactly what they mean, even if it is bad news. Some other cultures expect people to avoid directness if it will upset others, or if directness seems impolite. What are the advantages and disadvantages of these two different approaches?

10. In English we say that a person who sets out to trick others is a 'confidence trickster'. The slang for that is 'con-man'. What has been your life experience with con-men/women? Examples? What lessons have you learned from con-men/women?

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