Tom Cruise Exposes Psychology as a Fraud

Tom CruisePsychology suffered a crushing blow yesterday as Tom Cruise announced he did not believe in it. Psychologists and psychiatrists across the world shrugged their shoulders, admitted defeat and packed their couches and salivating dogs away.

Jerome Dane from the University of Slough was particularly distraught, "I had hoped this day would never come, but you've got to accept it when you're rumbled," said a sobbing Dane. "I knew I couldn't go on once he'd exposed us. What power do we have compared to the mighty Tom Cruise? He knows so much."

So what does the future hold for these out of work psychologists? Dane told us, "My problem is that all I know how to do is fabricate experiments and lectures. Perhaps I'll just go ahead with my first love of creative writing and do the novel I've been thinking about."

A psychiatrist who refused to be named told us that Cruise was probably smarting from the incident last week when he was squirted in the face by a water-filled microphone for a TV comedy show. After that kind of humiliation, the discredited psychiatrist explained, it's not surprising that he lashed out at the social sciences - but it may not end there.

Unconfirmed reports are coming in that Robert De Niro has indicated he is little sceptical about parts of radiochemistry while Paris Hilton thinks that physics might just be 'all made up'.
CNN

Hypnosis By Any Other Name

Kenny CraidA team of researchers at University College London wanted to find out if hypnosis by any other name is still hypnosis. Two groups of people were put through the same hypnotic induction, but the first group were told it was 'hypnosis', while the second were told it was 'relaxation'.

These two groups were then tested for their suggestibility. Those who were told they were going to be 'hypnotised' were significantly more suggestible than those who told they were going to be 'relaxed'.

This study provides further fuel for the debate about whether or not hypnosis involves a real state change in the subject. Perhaps the use of the word hypnosis in describing what is going to happen has a stronger hypnotic effect. On the other hand the stronger argument seems to me that people are simply responding to a social signal to behave in a particular way that is better activated by using the word 'hypnosis'.
Article Abstract [via BPS Research Digest]

Preparing For Baby Boomer Dementia Epidemic

Here's a sad but important question, one that is just as relevant to us in the UK as it is in the US:
"How can the U.S. health-care system and more specifically, primary care doctors - the physicians from whom older adults receive most of their care - prepare for the huge wave of dementia patients expected to engulf us in 2010, the year the baby boomers begin to reach 65?"
Science Blog

The Brain in Orgasm

Brain OrgasmBBC News brings us the exciting headline that a brain scan can spot women faking orgasms. Unfortunately it provides no clue as to how to entice a woman to have sex inside a brain scanner. The best advice is to set your sights on beds or even sofas for the time being.

Perhaps of more immediate practical use was the finding that cold feet are a big turn-off:
"When they gave the couples socks to wear, about 80% of the couples were able to achieve orgasm compared with 50% previously in this staged environment."
So the next time you're chastised for wearing socks during sex, you've got a good excuse.
BBC News

Difference Between Male and Female Brains

"I had the first two patients, and they were so very different," Witelson said. "I kept looking and looking at them, trying to see what the difference could be."

Then she consulted the donor documentation for each tissue sample. "Finally, I saw that one was a man, and one was a woman."

Among women, the neurons in the cortex were closer together. There were as many as 12% more neurons in the female brain.

That might explain how women could demonstrate the same levels of intelligence as men despite the difference in brain size.

"So among female brains, the cortex is constructed differently, with neurons packed more closely together," she said.
LA Times

Mental Health First Aid

"Health officials have launched a trail blazing drive aimed at spotting early signs of mental illness. The Mental Health First Aid scheme is aimed at health service staff, job centres, colleges, voluntary groups, and the police and ambulance services."
BBC News

Sexual Equality and the Thin Body Ideal

SilhouetteOliver James, writing in The Guardian, draws attention to research that investigates the connection between achievement and thinness in women. Studies have shown that a female preference for smaller breasts and buttocks when viewing female silhouettes is associated with 'masculine' careers and greater academic achievement. Could this be partly because women with a curvy shape are perceived, on average, to be less competent and less intelligent?

The assertion of the article that 'career women' strive for more masculine figures is highly speculative. After all, a thin figure might simply be the result of avoiding a curvy figure, rather than the striving for a 'masculine' ideal. Other claims that female emancipation is historically associated with a slighter silhouette might be a coincidence. Nevertheless, there's some interesting circumstantial evidence here.
The Guardian

Blog of a Mental Health Nurse

Nurse's HatThere's a new addition to my 'blog roll' on the right hand side of the page underneath the recent posts. 'The Life of a Mental Health Nurse' shows a healthy level of cynicism to all aspects of his job. A recent post on the evils of mental health nursing caught my eye:
"Many areas of MH nursing require the use of evil. Probably many areas of all nursing but I will write about what I know...

"MH Nurses can commit evil easily we can stop voluntary patients from leaving, we can make people stay in hospital for a long time, we can drug people up against their will. We can use force."
Mental Nurse

Social Science Week 2005

Expect to see some rewrites of these stories in the media over the next few days.
"A new ESRC report, published to launch Social Science Week 2005, uses the seven deadly sins - pride, anger, lust, avarice, gluttony, envy and sloth - as a way of looking at some pressing issues of modern life: religious conflict, rage in kids and adults, sexual behaviour, corporate greed, binge drinking, rising personal debt and political apathy."

Reading between the lines, it seems that our sinning is on the increase, but the good news is that, in most cases, it seems to be someone else's fault. For example, binge drinking is a natural result of a society that has embraced the 'night-time' economy, while voter apathy is caused by politicians being unable to communicate clear 'policy platforms'.

These are all guesses of course as the statistics give no indication of the reason, only a number that compares now to before. Still, I'm guessing that it is these guesses that will get the coverage, not the bare statistics. Frankly I could probably make an equally strong case for the exact reverse of all these speculations.
Press Release

Delineating 'Normal' From 'Mentally Ill'

"A college student becomes so compulsive about cleaning his dorm room that his grades begin to slip. An executive living in New York has a mortal fear of snakes but lives in Manhattan and rarely goes outside the city where he might encounter one. A computer technician, deeply anxious around strangers, avoids social and company gatherings and is passed over for promotion.

Are these people mentally ill?"
NY Times

Brain Cells Matured in Lab

"US scientists say they have duplicated the generation of new adult brain cells in the lab in a controlled way. It is hoped the technique, tested so far on animal cells, will eventually allow scientists to produce a limitless supply of a person's own brain cells."

"It is not the first time that immature stem cells have been manipulated in the laboratory to become brain cells. But the researchers say nobody else has replicated the process of cell maturation that goes on in the brain in such complete and close step-by-step detail before."
The hope is that the cells can be used in the treatment of dementia, Parkinson's disease and epilespsy.
BBC News
The Independent

Psychosurgery: Lobotomy and Deep Brain Stimulation

Brain ScanLobotomy and Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) represent the two bookends of psychosurgery's fall and rise. Since the Nobel Prize was won in 1949 for the findings on which the lobotomy was based, it has been mostly downhill for the procedure.

More generally, surgical intervention for mental illness - psychosurgeries - have been shunned for some time. But with the advent of DBS, psychosurgery is making a come-back. DBS involves direct electrical stimulation using electrodes implanted in the brain. The procedure has been shown to be very effective in the treatment of severe depression.

In this article in The Guardian, David Beresford describes his experiences of DBS as a treatment for his advanced Parkinson's - for which it is also effective. A welcome side-effect he describes is a substantial lift in mood to the extent that he has experienced bouts of uncontrolled laughter.
The Guardian
Radio 4 programme about psychosurgery

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Seeing Yourself: A Case of Autoscopy

The BPS research digest reports:
"Imagine if wherever you looked, you saw a translucent mirror image of yourself, about one metre in front of you. It's wearing the same clothes as you and if you wave your right hand, it waves back in identical fashion (but with its left hand, just like a mirror image). That's what patient B.F. reported seeing three months after she was brain damaged during the still birth of her baby, when she experienced seizures and fell into a brief coma."
Explaining the phenomenon of autoscopy in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry:
"Autoscopy is thought to be a rare phenomenon in which a person visualizes or experiences a veritable hallucinatory image of his double. It may be more common than has hitherto been thought [...] Autoscopy has been known since ancient times but came into prominence only in the nineteenth century, both in the romantic literature of the double and in neuropsychiatric research."
Human enquiry reports that:
"Goethe met himself on the road riding a horse. Shelley was approached by a hooded figure who pulled back the hood to reveal himself. Dostoievsky encountered himself, so too de Maupassant, and several others."

Female Orgasm Study Rubbished by Sexologists

Dr Petra BoyntonYou may have seen a story in the media earlier in the week about the genetic component of the female orgasm. It cropped up all over the place including The Guardian, BBC News and New Scientist. Dr Petra Boynton (left), the sex and relationship psychologist, took issue with a few things about the research:
"Today the world of sexology, particularly those working in the area of sexual dysfunction got a little upset.

That's putting it mildly. Actually they were very angry about the latest study supposedly proving women's orgasmic problems are genetic."
In two excellent posts she proceeds to dismantle the research. Great stuff. This is what blogging is all about - a right to reply. And because of it, we're all better informed.
Women, orgasm and genetics & Women! Don't orgasm too easily

100,000 Chinese Married Online to People They've Never Met

The new trend of online marriages in China has been highlighted after a man who, not content with having a real-world wife, married a woman online he had never met in real life. When his non-virtual wife found out she accused him of bigamy and sued him for divorce and psychological injury.
"...Lin found that her husband had got married with a woman two years ago and they had a child together on the Internet. To her surprise, when questioned about this, Zhang replied, "This on-line marriage is not real and it's impossible for us to meet each other. Just like on-line chatting, I only do this to pass the time. Take it easy."
Commentators are partly putting the rising trend in online marriages down to its popularity with middle school children. However, Chinese psychologists and sociologists are emphasising the increasing isolation in a society in which most children are only children.
China Daily

'Neo-Sexuality' and 'Objectophilia'

Blonde and Washing MachineAvert your eyes if easily offended because today we tackle the subject of objectophilia. That's falling in love with things, rather than people, and apparently 'things' includes pets.

Volkmar Sigusch, a sex psychologist and researcher, sees this objectophilia as part of a trend he calls neo-sexuality which also takes in the newly 'asexual'. The story from Deutsche Welle describes people falling in love with their pets, and one woman who was 'enraptured' with a ferry.

When I first read this I thought - what a load of rubbish. Firstly it seems unfair to put dogs in the same category as ferries. Secondly there seems to be no earthly reason to have a photo of a blonde girl loading a washing machine (or is there?).

Then I thought about a few guys I know and their iPods, and a few girls and their shoes. Do they love their iPods and shoes in the same way they love their partners? Of course not.

What seems most likely is that people are just more lonely nowadays and are increasingly substituting objects for other people.
Deutsche Welle (complete with more cheesy photos)
Get technical with Sigusch's article from the Archives of Sexual Behaviour (honestly, not nearly as exciting as it sounds)

Career Advice: Do What You Love. No Really!

"Commencement speakers have long offered graduating seniors the same warm and gooey career advice: Do what you love.

And graduates have long responded the same way: They've listened carefully, nodded earnestly, and gone out and become accountants. No surprise. On every day except graduation day, young people are taught that their futures depend not on following their bliss, but on mastering dutiful (and less lovable) abilities like crunching numbers and following rules."
Daniel Pink suggests why, in the modern economic climate, doing what you love might actually be the sensible thing to do.
NY Times [Via Neuroethics & Law Blog]

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Bereavement Counselling Shows No Benefit

Research that challenges the status quo is always worth taking notice of:
"Bereavement counselling - long considered by psychologists to be vital in recovering from the death of a loved one - may be a waste of time, according to a new study."
The Telegraph

A Stressful Consumption Episode

Absolut ImpotenceShould you feel, as I do, your soul being nibbled away every time you put your 'consumer' hat on to go and buy something (practically anything), then let this post be a warning to you. To fight back we need to understand our enemy's mind. I realise that 'The Journal of Consumer Research' is not the most inspiring of publications to review, but it's important that we know what we're up against - think Sun Tzu.

You can get all the information you need from the title of the first article: 'Penny Wise and Pound Foolish: The Left Digit Effect in Price Cognition'. And guess what, people do perceive a lower price if the left hand digit is one less, despite the total price being only a penny cheaper.

And here's another poetic title to awaken your imagination: 'Beyond the Extended Self: Loved Objects and Consumers' Identity Narratives'. This article is so inspiring I'll allow you a whole paragraph:
"Consider the vast number of objects and consumption activities that come and go in our lives; groceries, hobbies, vacations, clothing, clubs, gifts, tools, cars, movies, investments, computers, newspapers, art, books, furniture," argues Aaron Ahuvia (University of Michigan). "From this vast sea only a handful are loved. It is not surprising then that these few loved objects and activities play a special role in consumers' understandings of who they are as people."
You need to know nothing else about the next one apart from the title: 'Credit Cards as Lifestyle Facilitators'. Please don't click the link, it might hurt.

And next up, 'The Development of Self-Brand Connections in Children and Adolescents', which aims to find out,
"...at what age children begin to incorporate brands into their self-concepts and how these self-brand connections change in qualitative ways as children move into adolescence."
Arrrrgggghhhhhh!

I could go on with these, but I won't. I'll leave you with one final insult to your intelligence, which frankly you'll be mostly oblivious to by now: 'A Multidimensional, Hierarchical Framework of Responses to Stressful Consumption Episodes'. Apparently,
"Americans cite consumption decisions as number one when it comes to everyday stress."
You mean to say that buying things is the most stressful event an American has to deal with on a daily basis?

I leave you with that thought as I walk out to the countryside, turning my back on so-called civilisation, make a small wattle and daub dwelling and live out my days as a hermit.
Now cleanse yourself at Adbusters