Sucker Effect

Psychologists gave it a name because it kept happening. Sucker Effect is the name; the happening you already know.

This is one of those findings that improves manners. Once you know it, you judge others more gently, because you can see the machinery moving inside yourself first.

Strip it to the floor and you find an old instruction: look carefully, judge slowly, act decently. The new name exists because the old instruction keeps being forgotten.

Stand at a tea stall during a big cricket match and you will see a hundred strangers become one family in an evening. The same crowd, given a different match, can split over a surname.

Society is a long conversation; the only question is whether you are listening or merely waiting to speak. A word is a lamp. This one is now yours to carry.