Stephen Jay Gould Some Close Encounters Of A Mental Kind Analysis

“ Some Close Encounters of a Mental Kind ” by Stephen Jay Gould is about the tendency for our minds to ‘lie’ to ourselves because of a certain key phrase that can cause people to believe certain events happened. This can be done by altering the types of question you want the victim to hear. It can be a certain modified questions or the way the question are presented to us that can cause our answers to be slightly false.

Gould’s attempt at explaining how this type of hypnosis occurs began at first comparing two sides of a certain word. He started by using the word ‘Certainty; one definition is that certainty is warm, provides peace, and security. The other definition is that certainty is also threat; “ certainty is also a great danger...how

often have we killed on vast scales of ‘certainties’ ‘. The author goes on about how us humans are wrong to follow blind evidence such as eyewitnesses because as we talked about, people have a tendency to be manipulated into giving the wrong evidence that might render the case annulled.

With some experience in the field of psychology, I agree with the author that certain words or ‘syntax’ can completely alter a person’s ability to interpret that he/she saw, heard or experienced. This process is completely possible psychologically speaking, and is being used in every court case ever made.