Showing 72 posts tagged Psychology

stoicriots replied to your photo: One of the stranger personality assessments.

so what’d you get

“Always happy in a crowd, you love to converse, to relate, and above all to have fun. You tend to think in a more holistic manner than many others. Like a crow you are attracted to shiny objects, new ideas, playful exciting colors and the thrill of a new personal relationship. You love to talk or gossip. You are highly invested in the reality of day-to-day life. Practicality is far more important than issues of honor or allegiance. You are a creature of the here and now. You are a natural multi-tasker, often switching mid-thought from one duty to another. You have a flair for presenting your personality in your work, and are known as a great storyteller and natural actor. You are very skilled at taking in a barrage of information and distilling what is most important from it. Naturally charming, you are quick to win new friends. Over stimulation is a danger.”

I cycle between extroverted and introverted modes. A lot of this rings true towards my extroverted side, sans gossip.

High-res

One of the stranger personality assessments.

Willpower is Not a Finite Resource

New analysis seems to overturn the now-popular notion that willpower is a finite resource, scarce and subject to rapid depletion. Instead, according to a 2010 study at Stanford University, belief in your own willpower makes it a stable fixture. In the study, “only people who believed that willpower was limited (according to an initial questionnaire) showed evidence of depleted willpower in tests of self-control given after a mentally challenging lab task. Subjects who believed that willpower was unlimited did just as well on follow-up self-control tasks as control subjects facing the task fresh.”

While the tradition of making resolutions for the new year marks an obvious need for a little extra willpower, understanding how belief bolsters our ability to achieve our goals is an important life lesson. “Give yourself reasons to believe, despite the sorry statistics and even your own track record. Think back on the many challenges you have mastered, especially when you stumbled along the way. If your goal is important enough to you, chances are you can achieve it, and a little more faith in your willpower could help.”

(via Big Think)

Psilocybin and Personality: Psychedelics research sheds new light on the biological basis of personality

Recent research suggests fascinating connections between the effects of the psychedelic drug psilocybin and personality traits related to inner experience. Personality appears to influence response to psilocybin and psilocybin can promote changes in personality, suggesting a reciprocal relationship. Further research in this area could lead to new insights into the basis of human personality and creativity.

A review of studies on factors affecting response to psilocybin found that after dosage, the strongest predictor of alterations in consciousness was the personality trait of absorption (Studerus, Gamma, Kometer, & Vollenweider, 2012). Absorption is defined as a person’s tendency to have episodes of “total” attention where a person’s awareness is fully engaged in whatever has their interest. The degree to which people had “mystical” type experiences while on psilocybin was related to their individual proneness to absorption. Absorption is associated with the broader personality trait openness to experience, which relates to a person’s receptiveness to new ideas and experiences.

What I found particularly interesting was that another study on psilocybin found that people who had never before taken the drug experienced an enduring increase in their level of openness to experience that was evident more than a year later (MacLean, Johnson, & Griffiths, 2011). In this study, people who experienced what the researchers described as a “complete mystical experience” developed increased openness to experience whereas those who did not have such an experience had no increase in openness. Because absorption is closely related to openness to experience, this suggests that there may be a two-way relationship between openness and mystical experiences associated with psilocybin. That is, people who are more open to their inner experience seem more likely to have a mystical experience and those who have a mystical experience tend to become more open as a result.

There is evidence that individual differences in absorption are associated with particular neurotransmitter receptors that are acted upon by psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin (Ott, Reuter, Hennig, & Vaitl, 2005), which might explain why absorption-prone people are more responsive to the drug’s effects. Since psilocybin can apparently cause increases in openness to experience in some people, it seems possible that the drug might permanently increase the sensitivity of these neuroreceptors resulting in associated personality change. This would need to be confirmed by research.

Another intriguing research question concerns what effects increased openness to experience might have. Openness to experience is associated with creativity among other things, so it would be interesting to scientifically examine whether psilocybin use leads to long-term improvements in creativity or other aspects of behaviour associated with openness to experience. In the 1960s many popular musicians experimented with psychedelic drugs such as LSD and this apparently influenced their music. Unfortunately, research into these drugs was effectively banned around this time and only recently has there been a revival of scientific activity in this area. Such research could lead to some intriguing findings about the relationship between the brain, personality, and consciousness.

(via Psychology Today)

8 Ways to Defeat Persistent Unwanted Thoughts

Research shows that thought suppression doesn’t work, so how can you cast out irritating repetitive thoughts?

It’s one of the irritations of having a mind that sometimes bad thoughts get stuck going around in it.

It could be a mistake at work, money worries or perhaps a nameless fear. Whatever the anxiety, fear or worry, it can prove very difficult to control.

The most intuitive method for dealing with it is using thought suppression: we try to push it out of our minds.

Unfortunately, as many studies have shown, thought suppression doesn’t work. Ironically, trying to push thoughts out of mind only makes them come back stronger. It’s a very frustrating finding, but one that’s been replicated experimentally again and again.

So, what alternatives exist to get rid of thoughts we’d rather not have going around in our heads?

In an article for American Psychologist, the expert on thought suppression, Daniel Wegner, explains some potential methods for tackling persistent unwanted thoughts (Wegner, 2011). Here are my favourite:

1. Focused distraction

The natural tendency when trying to get your mind off, say, a social gaff you made, is to try and think about something else: to distract yourself. The mind wanders around looking for new things to focus on, hopefully leaving you in peace.

Distraction does work but, oddly enough, studies suggest it is better to distract yourself with one thing, rather than letting the mind wander.

That’s because aimless mind wandering is associated with unhappiness; it’s better to concentrate on, say, a specific piece of music, a TV programme or a task.

2. Avoid stress

Another intuitive method for avoiding persistent thoughts is to put ourselves under stress. The thinking here is that the rush will leave little mental energy for the thoughts that are troubling us.

When tested scientifically, this turns out to be a bad approach. In fact, rather than being a distraction, stress makes the unwanted thoughts come back stronger, so it certainly should not be used as a way of avoiding unpleasant thoughts.

3. Postpone the thought until later

While continuously trying to suppress a thought makes it come back stronger, postponing it until later can work.

Researchers have tried asking those with persistent anxious thoughts to postpone their worrying until a designated 30-minute ‘worry period’. Some studies suggest that people find this works as a way of side-stepping thought suppression.

So save up all your worrying for a designated period and this may ease your mind the rest of the time.

4. Paradoxical therapy

What if, instead of trying to suppress a worrying repetitive thought about, say, death, you head straight for it and concentrate on it?

It seems paradoxical that focusing in on a thought might help it go away, but some research suggests this can work. It’s based on the long-established principle of ‘exposure therapy’: this is where, for example, arachnophobes are slowly but surely exposed to spiders, until the fear begins to fade.

This approach is not for the faint-hearted, but research suggests it can be useful when used by those tackling obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviour.

5. Acceptance

Along similar lines, but not so direct, there’s some evidence that trying to accept unwanted thoughts rather than doing battle with them can be beneficial. Here are the instructions from one study which found it decreased participants’ distress:

“Struggling with your target thought is like struggling in quicksand. I want you to watch your thoughts. Imagine that they are coming out of your ears on little signs held by marching soldiers. I want you to allow the soldiers to march by in front of you, like a little parade. Do not argue with the signs, or avoid them, or make them go away. Just watch them march by.” (Marcks & Woods, 2005, p. 440)

6. Meditate

Similar to acceptance, Buddhist mindfulness meditation promotes an attitude of compassion and non-judgement towards the thoughts that flit through the mind. This may also be a helpful approach to unwanted repetitive thoughts.

There is a basic guide to mindfulness meditation in this article on how meditation improves attention.

7. Self-affirmation

Self-affirmation is the latest psychological cure-all. It involves thinking about your positive traits and beliefs and has been found to increase social confidence and self-control, amongst other benefits.

It may also be helpful for unwanted repetitive thoughts, although it has only been tested experimentally a few times.

8. Write about it

In contrast to self-affirmation, expressive writing—writing about your deepest thoughts and feelings—has been tested extensively and it does have various health and psychological benefits (although generally only with a small effect).

Writing emotionally about yourself, then, may help to reduce recurrent unwanted thoughts.

The disclaimer

A note on all these techniques from Daniel Wegner:

“The techniques and therapies explored here vary from the well established to the experimental, but it should be remembered that, on balance, they lean toward the experimental…these assembled solutions for unwanted thoughts should be taken as hypotheses and possibilities rather than as trusty remedies or recommendations.”

That said, none of these techniques are likely to do any harm and all of them are probably an improvement on thought suppression.

(via PsyBlog)

Voodoo Death

Most of us are preoccupied with prolonging our lives by remaining fit and healthy. We are led to believe that a healthy body guarantees long life. Yet, there is evidence that some people die despite being young and in good health. When they lose the well to live, they perish as surely as though they had been asphyxiated.

Anthropologists who reported that their subjects died mysteriously after being cursed or condemned by with doctors, or tribal courts. It achieved scientific respectability with the publication of a detailed report by Walter Cannon (1) – a distinguished pioneer in biological psychology.

One of Cannon’s (reasonably well documented) cases of voodoo death concerned a Maori woman who ate fruit and subsequently learned that it had come from a taboo place in direct violation of her chief’s edict. The New Zealand woman died within a day of eating the cursed fruit. A similar incident involved a young African Negro who accidentally ate some wild hen, although this was tabooed on pain of death. Overcome by panic and a sense of helplessness he also died within a day.

In such cases of voodoo death, the critical factor is the person’s knowledge of the magic spell and their certainty that death will soon follow for anyone who breaks the taboo, however innocently. This belief is backed up by the behavior of friends and relatives who treat the hexed person as though they are dying. Our sense of reality is affected by the perceptions of others around us and their expectations can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In many cases of voodoo death, the cursed person is overwhelmed by hopelessness to the extent of refusing all food and water. According to Cannon’s reports, death typically came within one to two days of being cursed, so that the cause of death was clearly of psychological origin, rather than hunger or thirst which generally take much longer.

The phenomenon of voodoo death, or hex death remains controversial and poorly understood. Its relevance to technologically advanced societies is also questionable because there is little belief in witchcraft and no witch doctor to point the bone at a condemned person. Yet doctors may have a similar effect and it has long been known that the mere diagnosis of a terminal illness is capable of shortening life (2).

During the Korean War, prisoners held in psychologically abusive camps in mainland China manifested something very like voodoo death. Victims were young healthy men who were poorly nourished and subjected to Communist brainwashing. They would become uncommunicative, retire to their beds and die within days (3). Fellow prisoners described the phenomenon as “give-up-it is.”

There are many cases of psychosomatic death in the medical literature

Take the case of a patient of Nashville, Tennessee, internist Clifton K. Meador (4) who underwent surgery for cancer of the esophagus. Following surgery, the patient “Sam Shoeman”, who was in his seventies received bleak news. His liver scan was quite abnormal, suggesting extensive cancerous growths in the entire left lobe of the liver. Suspecting terminal cancer, his doctors told him that he had only a few months to live. Following the bad news from his liver scan, his whole purpose was merely to survive until Christmas, that he might celebrate it with his relatives. Shoeman made good progress and left the hospital late in October. He was readmitted just after New Year’s day, and died within 24 hours.

What is remarkable about this case is that the man did not really have terminal cancer. The liver scan had been botched and the autopsy revealed only a single 2-centimeter nodule of cancerous tissue that could not possibly have killed him. Why did he die? Like victims of the tribal court, Shoeman was convinced that he was about to die and all of the people around him shared the conviction. He had also received a deadline, so to speak, expecting that he would be lucky to make it past Christmas. Hence his death, of psychosomatic causes, on January 2.

The killer anniversary

This case history illustrates not just the powerful negative effect of an adverse diagnosis. (This is the opposite of the beneficial placebo effect and is referred to as a “nocebo.”) It also demonstrates that anniversaries such as Christmas can have a powerful effect on the timing of death.

Of course, this implies that the affected deaths are psychosomatic ones.

by Nigel Barber, Ph.D.

(via Psychology Today)

References

1.Cannon, W. (1942). Voodoo death. American Anthropologist, 44, 169-181.

2. Lester, D. (2009). Voodoo death. Omega, 59, 1-18.

3. Cialdini, R. B. (1988). Influence: Science and practice (2nd ed.). Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman.

4. Meador, C. K. (1992). Hex death: Voodoo magic or persuasion. Southern Medical Journal, 85, 244-247.

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David Nutt reveals the truth about drugs

Essential listening.

Professor and neuroscientist David Nutt discusses his book Drugs – Without the Hot Air, and argues that society’s prohibition of psychedelic substances is preventing groundbreaking science.

The former government drugs adviser has been a vociferous and controversial figure in the debate around the harms and benefits of legal and illegal drugs.

He is a psychiatrist and neuropsychopharmacologist who has dedicated his career to deepening understanding of how drugs affect the brain and how they can be used for clinical benefit. In the interview he discusses his proposed research into the potential use of MDMA to treat post-traumatic stress disorder and argues that official and societal fear about such drugs is inhibiting the progress of science and the development of beneficial treatments.

Prof Nutt came to public attention in 2009 when he was sacked from the government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs after tabloid outrage over a paper he wrote claiming that ecstasy and LSD are less dangerous than alcohol.

He discusses why the then Home Secretary Alan Johnson felt compelled to sack him and what the incident says about government policy and the role of scientists in providing evidence-based recommendations.

In the wake of the controversy, he set up the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs.

Prof Nutt muses on why human history and drugs have been so entwined, and argues that progress on our understanding of the brain can only be achieved by studying mind-altering drugs.

(via the Guardian)

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Frame of Mind

jennaddenda answered your question: At what point does one become concerned

In what way concerned? For instance, does it make you feel “conspicuously single?” Or concerned for the people asking?

Perhaps “concerned” wasn’t the best word to employ, as I find it an amusing reflection. At what point does one realize there is intellectual food for thought on human behavior when they notice a pattern? As I suggested, I believe the trend has significant roots in gender perception. In my particular case, I’ve been interacting with many people I either have recently met or have not communicated with in quite some time. Such people wouldn’t be immediately familiar with my tendency to arrive and leave events on my own with the occasional exception of a group of friends. I’m rarely if ever seen leaving with a man. Without fail, on the occasions I have been out with a male friend, there are always those who cannot resist asking if I am dating that person even though there is no body language or other evidence to imply so.

Now, remove me by name and association from this example and what are we left with? An independent female who comes and goes on her time alone or in a group dynamic. In review of people’s responses, what might compel their questioning? I believe females would be much more likely to encounter such inquiries because they less frequently attend social events solo in comparison to males. The example doesn’t neatly fit into this gender stereotype. We could definitely expound upon this to include other factors like race, age, appearance, etc.

The premise of my writing is fueled by analytic study that frames those “Hmm…” moments. Nothing more, nothing less.

At what point does one become concerned

…when they notice a trend in others asking about their “love life”?

When there is a pretty equal inquiry between men and women it most likely cannot be solely out of self-interest on the part of the other. It’s more of an amusing than concerning observation but I like to tinker around in the synaptic gaps of people until I find the motivating factor. Despite my best intentions I still somehow stand out in people’s conscious considerations of these social mating games.

What do you see when you notice people sleuthing around the intimate realm? Innocent curiosity or confirmation that your current stance, involved or not, is all too obvious? I suspect this is a fertile breeding ground for potential research on gender perception and expectation.

All Time High

The latest issue of The Psychologist has a fascinating article on why time can seem distorted after taking drugs.

The piece is by psychologists Ruth Ogden and Cathy Montgomery who both research the effects of drugs, legal and illegal, on the mind and brain.

The consumption of drugs and alcohol has long been known to warp time experiences. In his much-quoted book Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Thomas De Quincey (1821/1971) noted that opium intoxication resulted in distortions to the passage of time to the extent that he ‘Sometimes seemed to have lived for 70 or 100 years in one night; nay, sometimes had feelings representative of a millennium passed in that time’.

Similar experiences were also reported by Aldous Huxley (1954) in Doors of Perception after consuming mescaline and LSD. Drug-induced distortions to time are not only experienced by renowned literary figures: a quick search of an internet drug forum will reveal that many drug users report similar experiences to De Quincey and Huxley following marijuana, cocaine and alcohol use.

The article notes that both the social context in which drugs are taken (e.g. drinking on a night out) and the pharmacological effects of the substances can each add their own ingredients to the time stretching or shrinking effects.

Link to article ‘High Time’ in The Psychologist.

(via Mind Hacks)

“While much psychology emphasizes the familial causes of angst in humans, the cultural component carries as much weight, for culture is the family of the family. If the family of the family has various sicknesses, then all families within that culture will have to struggle with the same malaises. There is a saying cultura cura, culture cures. If the culture is a healer, the families learn how to heal; they will struggle less, be more reparative, far less wounding, far more graceful and loving. In a culture where the predator rules, all new life needing to be born, all old life needing to be gone, is unable to move and the soul-lives of its citizenry are frozen with both fear and spiritual famine.”

Clarissa Pinkola Estés

“Our isolation from the unconscious is synonymous with our isolation from our souls, from the life of the spirit. It results in the loss of our religious life, for it is in the unconscious that we find our individual conception of God and experience our deities. The religious function—this inborn demand for meaning and inner experience—is cut off with the rest of the inner life. … If we don’t go to the spirit, the spirit comes to us as neurosis.”

Robert A. Johnson

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