Friday, May 14, 2010

How to remove plaster

In a TED talk on cheating, Dan Ariely talks about his stay in hospital after suffering seventy percent burns. The nurses thought that it was less painful to rip off the bandages from the skin than to remove them slowly. Ariely thought that the nurses were mistaken. So he later conducted some experiments and concluded that ripping off the bandage was more painful.

Like Ariely's nurses, the nurses in the hospital where I was admitted thought that ripping off a plaster was less painful. When I saw this video, I told Jaya to try removing the plaster slowly. I did not feel much difference between the two methods probably because there is only one plaster to be removed and definitely because my skin is not tender due to burns.

In his book Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely writes about irrational behavior by people who think they are in charge. There is another interesting TED talk by Dan Ariely. He also writes a blog.

4 comments:

  1. Kesu,

    I demand a post from you on how you stumble upon interesting websites. Or, is it that you look for them systematically?

    On topic - I vote for ripping off, but this applies to band aids only :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Suresh,
    Pls answer bklash's question...Even I keep wondering...how do you know of these sites/videos/books????
    And yes,why were you in plaster???

    ReplyDelete
  3. Klash, Leela - I come across these sites in the science blogs that I read many of which I have mentioned.

    Leela - I have plaster to keep the feeding tube in place.

    ReplyDelete
  4. After you have shortlisted check out their old work and get feedback from the old or existing customers. plastering hobart

    ReplyDelete