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Read the 30 psychobabble phrases then vote for the one you find most irritating.

Brain Chip Reads Man's Thoughts

...but not against his will - they're still working on that:
"A paralysed man in the US has become the first person to benefit from a brain chip that reads his mind. Matthew Nagle, 25, was left paralysed from the neck down and confined to a wheelchair after a knife attack in 2001. The pioneering surgery at New England Sinai Hospital, Massachusetts, last summer means he can now control everyday objects by thought alone. The brain chip reads his mind and sends the thoughts to a computer to decipher."
BBC News

UK Mental Health Action Week

It's Mental Health Action Week here in the UK which is trying to raise people's awareness of mental health problems. There are certainly some frightening statistics on the site:
"An estimated one in 20 people will have serious - or clinical - depression at any one time. By the year 2020, it has been estimated that clinical depression will be second only to chronic heart disease as an international health burden. This is measured by its cause of death, disability, incapacity to work and the medical resources it uses."
And how does the campaign suggest you best look after your mental health? Exercise.
From BBC Health

Employers Relying On Personality Tests

Apparently 30% of companies in the US now use personality testing as part of the recruitment process. Is it a useful tool or load of old baloney? This article highlights some of the common advantages and disadvantages.

Like any tool, it depends how you use it. The article mainly describes their use in hiring unskilled or semi-skilled labour. I would suggest there is a feeling among management of conserving effort when hiring 'low-level' staff. If this is the case, then the danger is in placing too much trust in the test.

Either way, with personality testing still on the march, it's all the more reason to find out now what you're prospective employer will be finding out about you.
The Washington Post

Pointing Out The Truth

Just a small point. You may be aware that there is some connection between relative finger lengths and the amount of testosterone you were exposed to in the womb. Testosterone is linked to aggressive behaviour and so you might think that you can predict how aggressive someone is by looking at their relative finger lengths. Dr Peter Hurd puts us right:

"...finger lengths explain about 5 percent of the variation in these personality measures, so research like this won't allow you to draw conclusions about specific people. For example, you wouldn't want to screen people for certain jobs based on their finger lengths."

To employers: Please listen to the man, we don't want another graphology situation.
The Atlanta Journal

Compare Your Personality With Others

As it's the Easter weekend you might have a few minutes for quiet contemplation. If so then try doing a personality test. This one is based around what psychologists call "The Big Five". These are the main five traits that have been found to best describe people's behaviour.


This particular test also gives you the sub-divisions within each trait. You may already know that you're an extrovert for example, but how do you compare to others in gregariousness, cheerfulness or assertiveness?

There's 120 questions in this one but it doesn't take that long to complete. Go on, you just might learn something.
The Test

The Chaos Theory of Career Development

Most of us like to think that we have chosen our occupations, rather than them choosing us. We have reasons for what we are doing, visions of where we want to get to. We have career planning, career goals - the feeling of control.

And yet if you ask people about their career decisions, almost 70% report that they have been significantly influenced by chance events. The two Australian psychologists who carried out this research, published next month in the Journal of Vocational Behaviour, believe they have provided further support for the Chaos Theory of Career Development. I wouldn't argue with that.

On the other hand I wouldn't like to be the career counsellor explaining to my client that their career might well depend on the fluttering of an HR manager's eyelashes over China. (Please excuse my mixing of popular science metaphors!)
Article abstract

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Children's Tastes Develop Early

"Children's ideas about the foods they enjoy are formed very early, according to a University of Birmingham study. Psychologists there have found that babies weaned on rusks are more likely to go on to prefer beige foods, such as crisps and chips, later in life."
From BBC News

Freudian Slips

You can listen online to a five part series on Radio 4 that examines four of Freud's works 100 years after they were first published. Each programme is only 15 minutes, but if you have to choose only two, then go for the first, 'Sexual Aberrations' and the last, 'Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious'.

The question of why we laugh is one of those enigmas that's always interesting to theorise on, but almost guaranteed never to provide a watertight answer. Still, Freud was one of the first to suggest that laughter was all about sharing our forbidden desires. We laugh because we're hearing the unsayable, the unpalatable. That accounts for 98% of my jokes anyway.
Radio 4: Freudian Slips

Self-Help Books Criticised

Dr Petra Boynton (left), the sex and relationship psychologist, provides some useful criticism of self-help books in response to an article in the Guardian Weekend. She points out that the authors of these books are often not qualified in the relevant field, rely on anecdotal evidence rather than the established research and their advice can actually prove harmful.

But there are some good self-help books out there so how do you sort the wheat from the chaff? Check the author's credentials and read on for Dr Boynton's suggestions...
Self help or self harm?

Persaud Bemoans Misrepresentation of Psychiatry

The well-known psychiatrist Raj Persaud (left) is bemoaning the media representation of psychiatry and psychology:
"Psychiatrists are not portrayed by the media as having genuine expertise in the area of brain and mind. Very often patients don't believe that you have anything to offer them, so many patients come very late for treatment and that's a big problem," he said.
The challenge for the media is explaining complex ideas in very short spaces; the kinds of spaces that academic psychologists might easily fill with just their summaries. This is a bone of contention for all the sciences. If this is genuinely affecting people's views of whether a psychiatrist can help them, then this is an extremely serious problem for the profession.
From the Sunday Herald

Time Dilation on Radio 4's All In The Mind

When asked to estimate a three minute period of time, 20 year olds are significantly more accurate than the middle aged or elderly. Why? It seems that the elderly experience time more quickly than the young. Remember when you were a child and the summer holidays seemed to last forever? Perhaps as you get older, the reverse is true and the summer passes in what seems like a single month.

Raj Persaud discusses this strange effect with Professor Douwe Draaisma (left), whose latest book is reviewed by Steven Rose. Professor Draaisma has also carried out research into people's lives flashing before their eyes.
All in the Mind

Our Leaders Are Stark Raving Bonkers

"One of the many reasons that local and international politics are stark raving bonkers is because so many leaders are deranged. They're either led by the nose by nutters or are entirely nuts in their own right. And what follows isn't a left-wing diatribe. I'm not talking about the ideological craziness of, for example, the neo-cons, but good old-fashioned supernatural or pseudo-scientific silliness.

...thanks to Francis Wheen's splendid book How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World, we know that among a spiritual smorgasbord that would choke a horse Cherie rearranged the furniture at No.10 according to feng shui, wore a magic pendant known as a Bio Electric Shield - a device recommended by Hillary Clinton! - and hired a dowsing healer for her swollen ankle. (The Blair Government went on to approve just about every crackpot alternative therapy in the National Health Service.)

Most amazingly of all, she and Tony went through a ceremony on the Mexican Riviera that Wheen describes in gruesome and hilarious detail, involving Mayan symbols, wallowing in a sort of mud bath, then smearing of each other's bodies with watermelon and papaya. The Blairs reached climax with "loud screaming to signify rebirth"."
From The Australian [via Mind Hacks]

Debate on Psychological Sex Differences

The heated debate on the average differences between the minds of men and women rumbles on. A perfectly rational and psychologically sound article published earlier this week in The Guardian elicited some furious letters from readers.

Helena Cronin makes all the usual and unassailable points about psychological sex differences and then draws evolutionary psychology into the argument. Whether you buy the evolutionary aspect of her argument or not - and many psychologists hate the evolutionary approach with a vengeance - the article does accurately represent the scientific evidence available.

None of the letters published in the paper criticised her science, one in fact admonished her for talking about science at all, saying:
"Helena Cronin is wrong to bring science into a discussion of the possible differences between the minds of men and women."
The real subtext, of course, is political:
"There is much that is offensive in Helena Cronin's attempts to rehash sexual stereotypes as scientific realities..."
By contrast, articles like this one entitled "It is official: Women are better drivers than men", won't even raise an eyebrow. And why should they?
From IC Wales

Unusual Research in Psychology

I need your help with some nominations for the most unusual research in psychology. Zimbardo's prison experiments or Milgram's compliance research are both unusual and strange in their own ways, but quite well known. What about all the other good stuff that's crept in under the radar?

My personal favourite was done by David Rosenhan (left) who faked madness to get into a mental institution. Why? Just to show how little psychiatrists really knew (or even know?).

Nominate any ideas in the comments at the end of this story. Alternatively email them to me. It would be good if you could find a link to some description of the research on the web.

Prizes will be awarded!
Email me

Obesity in US Will Lower Life Expectancy

"It's been assumed that U.S. life expectancy would rise indefinitely, but a new data analysis...suggests that this trend is about to reverse itself -- due to the rapid rise in obesity, especially among children...More ominously, the researchers further conclude that if the current epidemic of child and adolescent obesity continues unabated, life expectancy could be shortened by two to five years in the coming decades."
From Science Blog

Radio 4 Series on Biology of Personality

A new series on Radio 4 presented by Judith Hann provides a good introduction to the biology of personality. In particular it focusses on and explains some aspects of the widely used five-factor model of personality. The programme also addresses the biological basis of depression and its links with personality.

One applications of these personality tests is in job selection and career guidance. Jane Howard, author of The Owner's Manual For Personality At Work, suggests that as many as 25% of people are in the wrong job. Perhaps personality testing can help people understand their own capabilities and limitations a little better.

It's good to hear some critical notes sounded about self-report measures of personality. Matt Ridley points out that they may only be measuring people's self-perception. Perhaps more dangerous is the element of political correctness in the way the results are presented. One of the scales is called 'neuroticism', a generally well understood word. This is often translated to 'emotional stability', a more neutral phrase that actually obscures the meaning.

There is no supporting website for this programme but you can hear the audio stream online for 7 days after the broadcast. The first programme is now available online, so listen now while you can.
BBC RealAudio stream [via Mind Hacks]

Political Correctness Gone Dreamy

I have some sympathy for the idea of political correctness. At its heart lies a message of kindness to your fellow man (or woman). Be nice to each other or else people will frown and you'll find it slightly embarrassing. It has, of course, become de rigueur to take the piss out of political correctness as it is usually uttered with its standard suffix: 'gone mad'. Even this in itself might be considered not politically correct, after all it could be offensive to those who really have gone mad (I mean, those who are suffering some from a mental illness).

These faintly amusing jokes can go on for ever, and they frequently do. Still, many people's daily lives are blighted by a little too much political correctness, and many of us automatically correct for it as a matter of course. Still there's good news, there's one last bastion of our mental lives still holding up against the onslaught of PCness: our dreams.

Research from the University of Mannheim reports we are still resolutely non-PC in the things that we tend to dream about. Men like to dream about other men, violence, sex, cars and weapons while women dream about food, clothing and personal appearance.

Enjoy it while you can though because it's probably only a matter of time before some sort of smart drug is introduced to ensure an equal opportunities policy while you sleep.

Reported in The Independent

Reasons For Online Dating Vary Widely

[Internet Dating Focus] People going in search of love online have found that their high hopes for online romance have been hit by some unexpected behaviour. Emails are routinely ignored and many people seem loathe to meet in the dangerous offline world. Are internet daters simply floundering in a new medium with unclear rules or is there a more fundamental problem? Research into people's motivations is beginning to uncover some answers.

James, 29, has only just started internet dating and is having a few teething troubles:
"I'm finding it really frustrating at the moment, I've been sending out a few messages to women whose profiles I like and I haven't been getting much response. Sometimes they will email you a few times then go quiet. Or when you offer to meet up in real life, they suddenly turn out to be extremely busy. Frankly, I wonder why a lot of the women are on there."
Becky, 31, is having similar problems with the men she has contacted:
"We'll be getting along well," she explains. "But they are sometimes very slow to want to actually have a face-to-face meeting. It's as though they're scared to step outside the safe cocoon that email and messaging provide and take a chance. Perhaps the men on there really are just scared to meet a real life woman. That's why they've got to rely on internet dating."
As in real life, there are a huge variety of people all looking for different things on internet dating sites. Your task, as a fresh-faced adventurer, is to work out who wants what, and whether anyone wants the same thing as you.

Research carried out in 2001 provides some interesting clues to the motivations of internet daters. While this research was carried out fairly early on in the life of online dating it does provide some useful pointers. Overall, the survey presents a confusing picture, which is not surprising as people's motivations are not always straightforward.

I Just Put it There for a Laugh

Of most interest to James and Becky is the statistic that about 40% of both sexes (men: 39%, women: 45%) put their profile on internet dating sites, "Out of curiosity or fun with no intention of making any kind of contact." This fact provides a clear lesson for those disappointed to receive no reply to their carefully crafted emails. Some people are never going to reply whatever you write or whatever your photo looks like. That's a fact you need to be aware of straight away otherwise you'll be easily disheartened.

Time Wasters

While many internet daters are not prepared to make any contact whatsoever, these might be considered a reasonable bunch compared to the next category. According to this survey 40% of women and 30% of men often using internet dating sites, "For casual online chatting or flirting and nothing more." This means that these people are not intending to ever meet up in the real world - an attitude many people would consider wasting other people's time.

Finally. A Real Live Person. I Think.

The good news is that almost 80% of both men and women do often use internet dating sites, "To find someone you'd like to meet." That's encouraging, but confusing, as this category must overlap with those who responded positively to the two previous categories. This gives the first clue as to people's confusion about why they are using these internet dating sites.

Sex and/or marriage

Around 50% of men and 20% of women claim to be using online dating to obtain a sexual relationship. On the other hand around 60% of both men and women claim to be also using the sites to obtain a long-term partner and around 37% of both sexes are looking for a marriage partner online.

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

If you assume people's motivations are always pure and simple then some aspects of this research seem directly contradictory and confusing. How can 80% of people want to meet someone online, while 40% don't want to? If, however, you see people's motivations as more complex and inherently contradictory, then perhaps the research is providing some very clear messages.

I'm In Two, No, Four Minds About This

There are always going to be some people at the extreme ends of the spectrum who are using internet dating just as a way of obtaining sex, and there are going to be those who are just interested in marriage. What this research is telling us is that most people lie somewhere in between. It's quite normal for people to be thinking that it would be nice to have sex, but then again it would be nice to have a long-term relationship. These two motivations are not mutually exclusive, although some might disagree!

The moral of the story

When you start out as an internet dating newbie, it seems only reasonable to assume that the majority of other people are going onto internet dating sites for the same reasons that you are. The most usual reason being meeting someone you get on with on the site, then in the flesh, and then hopefully going on to have a long-term relationship with them.

What this research does is point to some fairly common alternative motivations for being on an internet dating site as well as highlighting people's confusion about their own reasons. And as you negotiate the online dating jungle, you need to be aware that not everyone's motivations are as pure (or as debased) as your own.

*This research was carried out in 2001, since when people's online attitudes and behaviours have certainly changed somewhat. Just how much, is a question for future research.

Love Online: A Report on Digital Dating in Canada [PDF File, 432K]Read on->

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Another Stupid Fad Diet

Fad diets are now so numerous that when the latest is introduced, the media must whack the scepticism up to maximum to have any hope of people reading past the first sentence. And yet, they will write a safe few paragraphs in. And yet, they will say, their early skeptical stance giving way to advertorial. And yet, it works.

Being an adherent of the psychological approach, I'm a firm believer that which diet you choose has little effect on your average long-term weight. The main determinant is always going to be your attitude to eating and whether you really, at heart, want to lose weight.

The New York Times provides the perfect antidote to thinly disguised fad-diet marketing with George Saunders', 'Absolutely No-Anything Diet':
"Of late, we have become an aggressive and greedy nation. I believe that soon the pendulum will swing back, and we will become an ashamed, repentant nation. What better way to express our total self-loathing than to all stop eating at once, denouncing the endless cycle of intake and output, the corrupt global system of planting, harvest and feast? I will be happy to show the way."
I'll start tomorrow.

From The Observer Food Monthly and The New York Times

A Warning to Future Generations

After yesterday's optimistic utopian visions, it is only fair to provide some balance with the reviews of two book that have more skeptical outlooks. Both authors are reaching the end of long careers and are firing warning shots across the bows of future generations.

Steven Rose asks some searching questions of neuroscience in his new book, The 21st Century Brain: Explaining, Mending and Manipulating the Mind. Rose is unimpressed with the way modern neuroscience pokes around randomly in the hope of stumbling on useful drugs and brain mechanisms. He criticises the 'laughably crude' models of the brain that neuroscience employs. To this I only have the age-old retort: Does he have a better idea?

Meanwhile, Dr. Peter C. Whybrow criticises our materialistic culture. In, American Mania: When More Is Not Enough, Whybrow's central ideas is that in our search for money, we are ignoring the one thing that can truly make us happy: our relationships with other people. He suggests that each individual needs to take a close look at their lives and see what comes first, money or people. The sad thing is that we frequently delude ourselves about our priorities - while the majority will say people come first, they still behave as if it is money. It's probably hard-wired.
The New York Times review of Dr. Peter C. Whybrow's book
The Guardian Review review of Steven Rose's book

Creating a Happy Society

Prospect Magazine has a blue skies article on the intersection between the psychology of happiness and politics. It asks how the research about what makes us happy can inform the way we organise our society.

While most of the suggestions made in this article are sensible, the weak link is motivation. Do we really want to be happy, and if we do, is there any reason for the political machine to deliver the changes that are required? These are simple but fundamental questions.

Still, it does us all some good to dream about a utopia. Without a dream, how do we know what to aim for?
From Prospect Magazine

Let's talk about sexual diversity

There are two lectures at the intellectual heart of this intelligent biopic of Alfred Kinsey, the sex researcher who dared to turn a scientific eye onto our sex lives. These reveal the two most important parts of Kinsey's professional persona: His need to catalogue and collect and his desire to disseminate and educate.

The first lecture, given as a 30-year-old zoologist, was about the gall wasp. In describing his continuing obsession with collecting and cataloguing these insects, he demonstrates their infinite variety. In doing so, he prefigures his future findings on human sexual diversity.

Years later, after Kinsey marries and his interests have spread beyond gall wasps, he is giving a lecture on human sexuality - called a 'marriage class' to mollify prudish attitudes of the day. He asks a seemingly loaded question of a quivering undergraduate.
"Which part of the human body is able to increase in size by a factor of ten?"
"I'm sure I don't know," the shocked young woman replies.
Kinsey quickly puts her out of her misery, supplying the answer - the iris - as well as the warning that she may be in for some considerable disappointment in future.

While the second example may well involve some artistic licence, it is characteristic of the warmth and humour with which this frequently shocking movie is infused. And shocking it is. Despite the passage of some fifty years since the publishing of Kinsey's reports into human sexual behaviour we seem to have become much more knowledgeable about human sexuality, but perhaps no wiser. Much of the information that Kinsey gathered is now relatively common knowledge, but many of Kinsey's methodologies would still be frowned upon.

Kinsey has been endlessly profiled in the build up to the release of this movies. Some of these are obsessed with addressing whether Kinsey was, in some sense, a hypocrite. The objective scientist is set up in opposition to the moral bankrupt. This is a nice juicy dichotomy for the writing of a feature article but relatively unimportant compared to what the film highlights; Kinsey's impressive determination to scientifically catalogue human sexual behaviour, a genuine compassion for his participants and a single-minded determination to take us out of the sexual dark ages.

Whatever Kinsey's faults - and a person is inevitably not perfect in every aspect of their lives or work - he should be judged on his best work. It's always easy to criticise, to pick holes and knock things down. Having the strength to build a project of this magnitude from scratch and having the vision and courage to follow it through, that is something we can all aspire to.

The final word goes to a modern day sex researcher with her reaction to the media's coverage of the man and the movie.
From Dr Petra Boynton's Blog
Read a summary of Kinsey's findings

Synaesthesia: Tasting a Sound

Imagine you had a cross-wiring in your brain that caused information to leak from your sense of sounds into your sense of taste. This could mean that each time you hear C sharp you taste a sprout. A similar effect might happen across other senses. Words or numbers could have colours, shapes might have tastes or sounds might have associated smells.

There is a small chance you do not have to imagine this strange experience as synaesthetes number one in 2,000 people, with women outnumbering men six to one. On a psychology course when this phenomenon is described, it is often a revelatory experience for one or two people. Suddenly a person discovers they are not alone in their unusual experience of the world.

Synaesthetes are usually normal in every way and in fact their unusual brain wiring can have some added benefits. Some find that their mathematical or musical abilities are enhanced - check out this story from Wired.
From Wired

UK Government to Ban Psychological Tricks in Casinos

"They will be run according to British rules and we'll simply not allow any tricks which people are subjected to unawares and which increase the risk of problem gambling." One tactic used in the US is simulating daylight during night-time to lull players into remaining at the tables and slot machines. Casinos also frequently offer free food, drink and hotel accommodation to keep punters betting."

I have my own personal daylight simulators right here in my home, except I call them lights. Next thing you know the government will be banning other popular psychological tricks - like advertising, the National Lottery or democracy.

We can but hope.

From BBC News

Profile of Dr Oliver Sacks

The neurologist Dr Oliver Sacks provided a window into a mystifying parallel world of mental dysfunction in his book, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat". The descriptions of his neurological patients inspired myriad plays, films and other artworks, and probably untold numbers of young neurologists and psychologists - including me. The profile in this weekend's Guardian tells the story of his science-obsessed family and his remarkable life.
From The Guardian Review

Brit Smile More Genuine Than American

The British smile is judged more genuine than the American in a new study from the Univeristy of California. There is impressive evidence to back up the difference. The psychology professor who authored the study correctly identified the nationality of 14 out of 15 people, just from their smiles.

'Restrained but dignified' is how the study describes the British smile. It tends to show the lower teeth and create a crinkle around the eyes, whereas a typical American shows more teeth and doesn't reach the eyes. Perhaps Americans are just more proud of their dental work than us Brits - something they've been telling us for years...
From The Times (of London of course!)

Children Taking Longer to Grow Up

Self-deluding parents are often heard to say that children grow up very quickly these days. Consider what the markers are for growing up: Leaving home, getting a job to support yourself, getting married and having children. Fifty years ago many people would have achieved these by their mid-20s. Nowadays, of course, people are marrying later, having children later, and relying on their families to support them for longer.
"...young people...now are more attached to their parents than ever before...sizable costs associated with childrearing now occur between 18 and 34, in both money and time, and that these percentages have increased dramatically in the last 30 years."
Research on the changing nature of early adulthood.