Self-Hypnosis May Help Hay Fever Sufferers
Anyone who suffers from hay fever knows how irritating and, in some cases, disabling, the condition can prove. The New Scientist reports that self-hypnosis may be able to provide some relief.
I have to admit my motives for reporting this story are not entirely pure, the abstract does contain a phrase with natural comedy value. Apparently, in assessing the effectiveness of the treatment, something called a 'nasal provocation test' was carried out.
"Excuse me, is that your nose, or did a bus park on your face?"
"Ooh, I wish I were you, to be able to smell your own ear."
"Say, does that thing there influence the tides?"
[Taken from here]
New Scientist
I have to admit my motives for reporting this story are not entirely pure, the abstract does contain a phrase with natural comedy value. Apparently, in assessing the effectiveness of the treatment, something called a 'nasal provocation test' was carried out.
"Excuse me, is that your nose, or did a bus park on your face?"
"Ooh, I wish I were you, to be able to smell your own ear."
"Say, does that thing there influence the tides?"
[Taken from here]
New Scientist
Social Loafing and Social Facilitation
If you're not already aware of Wikipedia then check it out, it's an encylopedia written by the people for the people. It's articles are concise, interlinked and, in the most part, very illuminating. On my 'Wiki-hunt' of the psychology section of Wikipedia I came across many interesting articles. One tells the gruesome story of the murder of Kitty Genovese (left - illustration by Bill Rose). I'll let you read the story there, but it does highlight what psychologists call 'social loafing'. This is the idea that people in groups tend to assume that someone else will take any required action. The media suggestion at the time of this case, while controversial, was that some people who heard her screams failed to intervene.
We are now very familiar with this from many TV programmes that use it for comic effect. Hidden camera shows will stage a fight or an outburst of some kind in a public place. Unaware they are being watched, people will usually gawp at the manufactured scene, but very rarely intervene.
A related idea, succinctly described on changingminds.org, is that of social facilitation. When people are watched carrying out a task that they find easy, their performance improves. In contrast, when watched carrying out a task they find difficult, their performance declines.
Social loafing and social facilitation are two examples of how the mere presence or absence of other people can have unusual effects on our behaviour.
Wikipedia Psychology
Automatic Beer Goggling
"What we found so surprising about the results was that just viewing words related to alcohol can influence a man's perception of a female," Friedman said. 'What is worrisome is that these expectations we have about alcohol, as well as drugs, can be activated with little or no awareness.'"
Science Blog
Science Blog
Net-Illiterate 'Failing Children'
"Internet-illiterate parents could leave their children on the wrong side of the digital divide, researchers have said. Many parents lack the skills to help their child's internet use, a London School of Economics study has said."
BBC News
BBC News
Psychologists Proving Poor Election Pundits
A press briefing was held in London yesterday in which a few psychologists speculated on the electorate's mood. Due to the predictable content, the story only just limped into the news. Perhaps they should have tried for something a little more radical than: The war on Iraq was a bit of a problem for Labour but they'll win anyway.If the Conservative or Liberal Democrat parties really want to win, they might think about hiring a few psychologists to do a really cruel dissection of Tony Blair's character and behaviour. Then spread it across all the papers and stick it up on all the billboards in the country. A vicious and sustained character assassination is their only chance of winning short of an actual assassination.
How bad do you want it boys?
The Scotsman, Gulf Daily News and IC Wales
Risk Perception and Binge Drinking
"Undergraduate students who believe they have less control over post-drinking agonies such as hangovers and vomiting are more likely to over-drink than students who are able to resist martinis once they're already tipsy, according to psychologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison."The causation could well be operating in the opposite direction to that suggested by the authors. Rather than risk perception affecting drinking, the results of drinking are affecting risk perception. To her credit, the lead author acknowledges this:
"...heavy drinkers may experience painful post-drinking symptoms so routinely that they may develop a kind of "learned hopelessness" that prevents them from believing they can ever drink less..."A slightly more enlightening study in this vein was reported earlier here on PsyBlog.
Science Blog
The Difference Between Men and Women
One species, two genders. Yes, biologically we are fundamentally different, but what about psychologically? Is the difference between men and women all a 'social construction'? What if you give dolls to a male child? What if you treat him like a girl? What if you dress him like a girl? And what if you surgically reconstruct his genitalia so that, anatomically, he looks like a girl? Will he be a girl?
Whether you know what the psychological evidence has to say or not, you'll recognise that this issue is political dynamite. If there are fundamental psychological differences between men and women, then perhaps some forms of discrimination are valid? Perhaps it is right that men go to work and women stay at home to bring up the children?
Of course these things don't follow, one from the other, but it doesn't stop people associating these arguments with each other. Bear this in mind while you read the Scientific American article and if you should choose to share this information with people more concerned with political correctness than scientific accuracy.
His Brain, Her Brain [Scientific American]Profs Spar on 'Innate Differences' [Harvard Crimson]
Defending Infomania Findings
There's been a lot of criticism in the blogosphere of a widely reported news story this week about 'infomania'. If you haven't already, have a quick read then come back.
Mind Hacks, amongst other, less thoughtful responses, question the use of the study. There are two main criticisms:
1. That the connection between being distracted and impaired performance is hardly groundbreaking.
Yes, but...remember that the people in this study were specifically told not to answer the phone and not to answer any emails. People are suffering a serious cognitive deficit just from the presence of potential distracters. This has important implications for the many companies who ask their employees to work in open-plan offices.
2. After the distractions are over people's performance returns to normal.
Yes, but...in real life there is no 'after'. At work, many people have emails arriving continuously, as well as phones going all around them. In a busy office this acts as an almost continuous distractor.
This study is not just telling you that distractors are distracting. It's telling you that a huge proportion of the workforce is working in conditions that are seriously detrimental to their performance.
Mind Hacks, amongst other, less thoughtful responses, question the use of the study. There are two main criticisms:
1. That the connection between being distracted and impaired performance is hardly groundbreaking.
Yes, but...remember that the people in this study were specifically told not to answer the phone and not to answer any emails. People are suffering a serious cognitive deficit just from the presence of potential distracters. This has important implications for the many companies who ask their employees to work in open-plan offices.
2. After the distractions are over people's performance returns to normal.
Yes, but...in real life there is no 'after'. At work, many people have emails arriving continuously, as well as phones going all around them. In a busy office this acts as an almost continuous distractor.
This study is not just telling you that distractors are distracting. It's telling you that a huge proportion of the workforce is working in conditions that are seriously detrimental to their performance.
A Critical Look at Mind Maps
Earlier in the week I was happily talking up mind maps without a critical thought in my head. I typed words into Mind Manager and pretty pictures appeared that made me feel like I'd actually been working, perhaps even learning something. As the week has worn on I began to wonder if any research had been done into their effectiveness. One of the original proselytisers for mind maps was Tony Buzan (left) so the first stop was the 'Buzan Centre' on the web. Here my eye was immediately assaulted by any number of warning signs: 'ShopBuzan' and 'Join the Buzan Global Partnership'. Sounds more like we'd be cheerfully putting our names down for some cult.
The video on the front page entitled, 'An Audience with Tony Buzan', did nothing to raise my rapidly sinking heart. At the end of a short message from the mind mapping master he eulogises, "...the brain multiplies wealth, it multiplies everything, if we understand how to nurture that spiralling, synergetic growth."
Yes Tony, your website certainly does appear to be multiplying wealth.
Veering away from the corporate sales spiel, second stop was the Wikipedia page on Mind Maps. Scrolling down, a new tale began to emerge. Some actual psychological research has been done.
So what happens if I unlock the apparently unused 99% of my brain? Well not that much actually. The two studies I read that described the use of concept mapping in medical and nursing students showed there was some modest benefit but hardly 'spiralling, synergetic growth'. (Here and here)
My guess is that the main advantage of using a mind map is in the way it encourages you to get a bird's eye view of a subject. And anything that helps you think actively about any subject normally helps learning, recall and most importantly, understanding.
'Infomania' worse than marijuana
"Workers distracted by email and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers, new research has claimed. The study for computing firm Hewlett Packard warned of a rise in "infomania", with people becoming addicted to email and text messages."
BBC News
BBC News
Liszt Read a Book While Practising Piano
An excellent technique for learning a new skill is to find someone who is already successful at what you want to learn, and copy their technique. This is at the root of Rodcorp's blog, "How we work." Try it out with today's post on how Franz Liszt used to read a book while practising the piano.I can tell you from personal experience that this is not a technique for beginners.
How we work: Franz Liszt
Politicians' Uniquely Simple Personalities
With the General Election only a few short weeks away, there's election fever here in the UK. Well, even if the populace hasn't quite reached fever pitch, there's certainly a fever amongst the politicians. And part of the reason was discovered a few years ago in a psychological study of how the electorate judge the canditates. Unlike the five dimensions of personality which are normally used, people judge politicians on only two dimensions: How trustworthy are they? How energetic are they?This neatly explains why politicians spend the run-up to elections rushing around trying to be honest with ordinary people. It's a simple as that.
I do hope Tony's notoriously dicky heart can keep up with the pace. Faster Tony! Faster!
[via The Guardian]
Eradicating Depression
There is a half-formed mutant meme knocking around that the psychiatrist, Peter Kramer, wants to destroy. This idea seems to have popped up that perhaps we don't want to completely eradicate depression because some of the greatest artists and leaders have been depressives. Would Van Gogh have been able to knock out those masterpieces if he had been on Prozac? Kramer is determined to fight the battle against those who think that depression is not really a proper disease, but somehow part of the human condition.
NY Times Magazine [Free Reg. Req.]Labels: Depression
US Psychologists Begin Prescribing Drugs
What's the easiest way of teling the difference beetween a psychiatrist and a psychologist? A psychiatrist can prescribe drugs, and a psychologist can't. Unless the psychologist practices in the US states of Louisiana or New Mexico of course.
From Yahoo News
"Louisiana and New Mexico are the only states that allow psychologists who complete specialized training and pass a national exam to write prescriptions for medication. Both states began issuing the prescribing certifications and licenses to a handful of psychologists within days of each other in February."
From Yahoo News
Advances in Mind Mapping Software
Mind mapping is a very useful tool for laying out information in the form of a picture. I've been a big fan of creating mind maps with old fashioned pen and paper technology for a long while. But now the software for creating mind maps has moved up a gear and some of it is really easy to use. The main advantage of using mind mapping software rather than pen and paper, is the same as using a word processor rather than writing longhand - ease of editing.There are variety of products you can use, the link below goes to the software used to create the mind map you see above.
Mind Manager Pro
Detecting Brain Function from Warm Ears
"Nicolas Cherbuin, a psychologist at the Australian National University in Canberra, said there was still a lot that was unknown about the roles played by the two sides [of the brain], and that the site of particular brain functions could vary from person to person. So, Mr Cherbuin, and a fellow university psychologist, Cobie Brinkman, developed the high-tech hard hat.By plugging the hard hat's thermometer, an infrared probe, into the ears of a test subject, the two psychologists can monitor which side of the brain is swinging into action as the person performs particular tasks. "The blood flow affects the temperature of the eardrum very quickly because it is very thin," Mr Cherbuin said."
From The Sydney Morning Herald
Investigating Our Hidden Motivations (Video)
The US station PBS has a Scientific American 'Frontiers' on programme on hidden motives available for viewing online. Skip the first section on what's cool and not cool and go on to parts two and three. The second programme reveals that many of us have implicit biases that are in direct conflict with our stated views. The third examines moral choices and judgements.
Scientific American Frontiers
Scientific American Frontiers
Male Risk-Taking Not Attractive, But...
The New Scientist has a report asking whether risk-taking men are attractive to women. The study found that taking risks only made men more popular with other men rather than with women. Risk-taking may work for men by a roundabout route though, women do prefer high-status men:"So if he has higher status among other men, women might like him for his status, even though they don't like the risk-taking in itself."
From New Scientist
Politicians Avoid Answering 60% of Questions
In discussing the upcoming election here in the UK, Raj Persaud on All In the Mind asks whether politicians ever answer a question. Apparently when asked by a professional interviewer, the average number of responses that directly address the original question is 40%. This rises to 75% when the question is asked by a member of the public. Why? Because professional interviewers tend to ask trapping questions that if you did actually answer would make you look stupid either way.Also on the show there's some good stuff about brainwashing, while next week Raj is going speed-dating. Just don't tell the wife Raj!
Radio 4's All In the Mind
No Connection Between Using Mobile and Tumours
According to a study published in Neurology this month, the good news is that there's still no proven connection between brain tumours and using a mobile phone. Good news, that is, for the many of us who spend a significant portion of the day with one clamped to the side of our heads. The bad news is that this type of research doesn't prove there's no connection, it just failed to find an association. From The American Academy of Neurology
SaneLine Staring Into Abyss
The mental health charity SaneLine is staring into the abyss of financial ruin after the government stopped its funding and the tsunami appeal diverted many of its donors. The charity provides a telephone helpline staffed by volunteers that gives advice to those with mental health difficulties.The papers have reported a variety of different stories over the last month, some conflicting, others potentially congruent. SaneLine might take anywhere between 50,000 and 500,000 calls each year (in face the former figure is closer to the truth). The charity apparently made a mistake in its applications for government funding. And/or perhaps the Department of Health failed to pay them the money they were owed under previous funding agreements.
As so often in government it's impossible to know exactly what is really going on. What they say is happening is probably just a smoke-screen for the real behind-the-scenes machinations. Whatever the truth, it seems incredible that the government is taking away funding from a charity that provides such a valuable service.
Help Save SaneLine
Judge Your Progress Objectively
"When people feel they've hit a roadblock in reaching a personal goal, such as losing weight, a change in perspective may give them the help they need to move forward, a new study suggests.The research found that picturing memories from a third-person perspective - as if looking at one's past self in a movie - can lead people to perceive more personal change in their lives. Picturing the past in first-person, through their own eyes, doesn't always allow people to see how they've changed."
From Science Blog
Importance of Eyebrows in Face Recognition
Cognitive psychologists are very interested in how we recognise faces (here's a previous entry on face blindness). In their attempts to work out precisely how we manage this task they're always carrying out strange experiments. None stranger than this article entitled: "The role of eyebrows in face recognition".
This research actually found that eyebrows are more important in face recognition than the eyes. Plus they can make you look sexy:
Read the unexpurgated report (not for the faint-hearted)
This research actually found that eyebrows are more important in face recognition than the eyes. Plus they can make you look sexy:
"Practitioners in the field of facial aesthetics, such as make-up artists and cosmetic surgeons, have long appreciated the influence of eyebrows on attractiveness (eg Cosio and Robins 2000). During the 18th century, in fact, in Western Europe full eyebrows were considered so essential to facial beauty that some upper-class women and courtiers would affix mouse hide to their foreheads."You may laugh now, but you'll be taking it seriously when Naomi Campbell is striding down the catwalk with two small fake-fur pelts dangling from her forehead.
Read the unexpurgated report (not for the faint-hearted)
British Psychological Society Annual Conference
Last weekend the British Psychological Society had its Annual Conference. It's a chance for psychologists to show off what they've been up to for the last year. Here's some of the research that caught my eye. The key to finding love on the net is honesty. Would you believe that it's bad for your chances of finding true love if you lie about your personal appearance? And yet how many people are still doing this? A lot.
If you're still unsuccessfully trying to give up smoking then psychologists may know why. Apparently it makes all the normal activities of life less pleasurable. Certainly disheartening news for those trying to give up, but still it can help to know the worst.
As people are finding more health related information on the internet, GPs are re-evaluating their roles. Instead of being the initial point of access to knowledge, they now tend to see themselves more as information filters.
In a related vein, researchers are also asking which websites people trust when looking for health information. The findings make for worrying reading: people were ignoring reputable organisation in favour of more 'attractive' sites.
Confident communicators are more persuasive. So you've got to fake it 'till you make it.
But don't worry if it all gets too much for you then there is one easy way to make the pain go away and reduce your anxiety: listen to some music.
The British Psychological Society Annual Conference
Entering a State of Flow
The experience of flow is sublimely uplifting, not only for its own sake but also for its results. Last week I spent five days working quietly and steadily on a play I've been editing. Most days, about 30 minutes after sitting down to work on it, everything outside the computer screen started to bleed from my awareness. Sounds faded, my own bodily sensations disappeared and I developed a kind of tunnel vision on the laptop display. I was in the zone and the work came easily.
For me, the ultimate sign that I have entered a state of 'flow' is that my self-talk evaporates. My concentration narrows to the point where the running commentary in my mind is subsumed by the task.
In the Western intellectual world, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the psychologist usually associated with the idea of flow but practitioners of Buddhism and Taoism would argue the idea is not that new.
A brief introduction to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's work
For me, the ultimate sign that I have entered a state of 'flow' is that my self-talk evaporates. My concentration narrows to the point where the running commentary in my mind is subsumed by the task.
In the Western intellectual world, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the psychologist usually associated with the idea of flow but practitioners of Buddhism and Taoism would argue the idea is not that new.
A brief introduction to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's work
The Polyamorous or Ethical Sluts
"Polyamory is a neologism, signifying having more than one long term sexual loving relationship at the same time, with the full knowledge and consent of all partners involved. Persons who enter into or consider themselves emotionally suited to such relationships may define themselves as polyamorous, often abbreviated to poly. The term is sometimes extended to refer to similar committed familial relationships that are not sexual in nature." [From Wikipedia]Wikipedia has an excellent discussion of some of the issues this raises. Still it doesn't address the more practical points. Which partner do you go home to in the evening? What happens if two of your partners share the same birthday? Whose parents do you visit at Christmas?
All the normal problems of a monogamous relationship are suddenly mulitplied two, three or four-fold. I have the greatest respect for anyone who can even aspire to the ideals of polyamory, let alone pull it off.
The GuardianThe Independent
Labels: Relationships