Saturday, February 11, 2012

Mimi Alford: Her Affair with JFK

I've gotten a couple of emails asking about Mimi Alford asking if I saw any signs she was making this up. I'll have to say I do not see ANY signs of deception.

 In fact, seeing the truth here can help us see deception in the future. Take a look at this video I chose at random.



It is a great video because Barbara makes it clear (along with others) that she is wrote the book for the money- What I see is no hesitation in her answers and it does not appear rehearsed.  She does not deny that she did this for money, but gives more dignified reasons why she chose to do this now.

Let's suppose for a minute she was lying about the affair, what would we expect to see if she was being less than truthful or embellishing the events?

  • We'd likely see some signs she found the attention pleasurable.
  • The description of the events (which you'd have to see in other videos) would not seem so ordinary; or rather, there might be more 'action' and it would either be portrayed either as more violent or romantic depending if the person telling the story would also want to play the part of the victim or the princess.
  • There would likely be more pauses between the question(s) being asked and when she begins to answer the question.  In her mind she'd have to give some thought to the answer(s).
  • There also would be some 'new' information offered.  When the media starts to focus on a story and a person, there are endless interviews where the person is asked the same questions over and over again. It is tedious.  If someone is willing to make up a story, there can be a need to please, and the embellishments become bigger in subtle and not so subtle ways.
There is also another psychology principal that relates to lying we see here.  Often times we hear lies but are unwilling to confront or question the lie because there are usually consequences to confronting the person being deceptive.  Think of the wife who 'knows' their husband is seeing another woman. Here we have the reverse of that.  We all know at some intuitive level she is being honest, but there are some people that want to say she is being deceptive, so their beloved and heroic JFK can remain untarnished.  

The 'girls' on The View interviewed her with mock contempt in order to be confrontational. I would think they would treat her with more compassion, because what happened to her was not the normal way someone would lose their virginity, and how she was treated as a young woman was wrong. 

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2 comments:

Daniel Buth said...

any alternative to hulu?
hulu is not available outside US.

Michael Dundas said...

This is a great post to learn from.
- video showing the scenario
- Analysis of the scenario
- Discussion of what the scenario would look like if the analysis was incorrect or different.

Thanks!
-mike