What is Guilt For?
[Photo by randysonofrobert]
A new experiment suggests the function of guilt is both to punish the self and encourage us to make amends.At school my good friend Dave and I used to sit together in Biology classes. One day we were there as usual trying to get our heads around the metamorphosis of tadpoles, or something similar.
We were perched on high stools next to high wooden lab benches, the kind with generations of pupil's engravings underneath the varnish. Good solid science benches.
I stood up to talk to someone behind me, not moving far from the stool on which I was sat - I knew it was right behind me. Then, when I went to sit back down, I suddenly heard myself cry out in pain. Next thing, I was sitting on the floor, something warm oozing from the back of my head. Everyone was staring at me but I had no idea what was going on.
It was only on the way to the doctor I pieced together what had obviously happened. Dave had whipped the stool away and I'd fallen backwards, catching my head a glancing blow on the bench.
A couple of stitches
It wasn't a bad injury, I had a couple of stitches; no real harm done - except to my relationship with Dave.
What was interesting was that although I told him it was no big deal, in the years following he barely spoke ten words to me. We certainly didn't sit together in Biology any more.
I always found this puzzling. It was Dave that caused the accident, I had told him we were cool so what was the problem? I never found out directly from Dave - it's possible he didn't even know himself why he was avoiding me.
The only really plausible explanation I've been able to come up with is that he simply felt so guilty he couldn't face me. If I was around it just reminded him of what he had done. And that was too much for him so he preferred to avoid me.
If my explanation is right, then it not only shows how powerful guilt can be but also how it can promote avoidant behaviour. But does guilt always encourage this kind of avoidant behaviour or is it a more sophisticated emotion with complex effects on motivation? In short: what is guilt for and what does it make us do?
Theories of guilt
Freud thought guilt served to effectively regulate social behaviour. If people didn't feel guilty, so the argument goes, they'd be much less likely to care about hurting other's feelings or damaging their property. This is all very well, but what exactly is guilt's function, what does it motivate us to do?
One theory has it that guilt is all about punishing the self, another has it that it encourages us to try to heal the social damage we've done. Still another suggests we are only motivated to act in order to make ourselves feel better about our transgression.
In a new study published in Psychological Science, Amodio & Harmon-Jones (2007) argue the first two theories are compatible. Guilt, they argue, acts both to punish the self and to help us heal the damage we've done. And they use a thorough experiment involving measuring behaviour and electrical activity in the brain to provide evidence for their view.
Inducing White guilt
Experimentally, the first problem is making people feel guilty in the lab. Here's what the authors came up with. Participants are brought in, have an EEG cap put on their head to measure electrical activity in the brain, and then they are told to watch a series of faces appearing on the screen.
Some of the faces are White, some Black and some Asian. They don't have to do anything other than look at the faces. The participants have been specifically chosen because they are themselves White but have expressed positive views of Blacks. The researchers have to avoid recruiting racists otherwise the experimental results will be difficult to interpret.
Afterwards the participants are shown bar graphs supposedly interpreting measurements of the electrical activity in their brains. These indicate that while the participants reacted positively and neutrally to White and Asian faces, they reacted negatively to Black faces. The 'results' seem to show that our liberal participants are somewhat racist - whether consciously or unconsciously.
These graphs are, of course, just made up.
Participants are then told the first experiment finished early so would they mind taking part in a different experiment. The second, apparently unrelated study, is actually still part of the first. In this participants choose which of 19 different magazine articles they find the most interesting. Three of the articles are about reducing racial prejudice.
I wish the ground would swallow me up
As you'd expect participants felt guilty about apparently being racist - this was measured in two ways. First they indicated in self-report measures they felt guilty. Second the EEG measures showed a significant reduction in left-frontal activity. This reduction in activity is associated with decreased 'approach motivation'. In other words they just wanted the ground to swallow them up.
Then when choosing the magazine article they were more likely to choose the article about reducing racial prejudice. At the same time the EEG recording showed a shift of activation onto the left side of the brain. This indicates an increase in approach behaviours. So now they were motivated by their guilty feelings to try and make amends.
Guilt is a complex social emotion
One of the reasons this study is really interesting is that it shows the complexity of the interplay between guilt and motivation. Previously psychologists have tended to see emotions in terms of having one particular purpose or effect. For example, happiness motivates people to approach others while sadness causes people to withdraw.
Guilt can, however, cause a more complex pattern of behaviours: first withdrawal, then approach. It's this dynamic model that provides a much better way of analysing how guilt affects our behaviour.
One limitation of this study, however, is that the results may only be applicable to prejudice. We will have to wait for future research to confirm if this dynamic model is seen in other guilt-inducing situations.
Dave and I
Nevertheless, applying the results of this study to what happened between Dave and I makes me wonder if it really was all about guilt. After all, he never really tried to make amends, he just hid his head in the sand. For good.
I suppose I will never know the truth.
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Reference
Amodio, D.M., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2007). A Dynamic Model of Guilt: Implications for Motivation and Self-Regulation in the Context of Prejudice. Psychological Science, 18(6), 524-530
Labels: Emotion
Last Albert Ellis Interview | Cannabis Risks | Seinfeld Tip
This week in psychology...
After the death of Albert Ellis this week, the papers were filled with obituaries for one of the grandfathers of cognitive therapy. Presciently, though, Prospect Magazine managed to get the last ever interview with him before he died (via First Drafts - the Prospect blog). This article has a nice balance: the author's personal experience of therapy along with insight into Ellis' personality, his therapeutic method and his final days - still teaching students right up to the end.
There's more insight into what Ellis' therapy was all about over at moritherapy in a nice piece entitled 'don't should on yourself'
The sweet-smelling fug of cannabis has settled over the news media over the last few weeks. UK laws on the legal classification of cannabis are to be reviewed and Jacqui Smith, the new British Home Secretary, admitted to smoking cannabis while at Oxford.
Both of these come as the BBC reports a headline statistic from a new meta-analysis that, "Cannabis users are 40% more likely than non-users to suffer a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia." These type of figures are easy to misinterpret. It's better to think about cannabis's potentially harmful effects relative to other types of legal and illegal drugs. In this list of drugs cannabis is considered less dangerous than both alcohol and tobacco.
Being a big fan of Jerry Seinfeld, I was interested to see this description of how he gets his writing done - or at least how he used to get his writing done:
Good advice.
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After the death of Albert Ellis this week, the papers were filled with obituaries for one of the grandfathers of cognitive therapy. Presciently, though, Prospect Magazine managed to get the last ever interview with him before he died (via First Drafts - the Prospect blog). This article has a nice balance: the author's personal experience of therapy along with insight into Ellis' personality, his therapeutic method and his final days - still teaching students right up to the end.
There's more insight into what Ellis' therapy was all about over at moritherapy in a nice piece entitled 'don't should on yourself'
The sweet-smelling fug of cannabis has settled over the news media over the last few weeks. UK laws on the legal classification of cannabis are to be reviewed and Jacqui Smith, the new British Home Secretary, admitted to smoking cannabis while at Oxford.
Both of these come as the BBC reports a headline statistic from a new meta-analysis that, "Cannabis users are 40% more likely than non-users to suffer a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia." These type of figures are easy to misinterpret. It's better to think about cannabis's potentially harmful effects relative to other types of legal and illegal drugs. In this list of drugs cannabis is considered less dangerous than both alcohol and tobacco.
Being a big fan of Jerry Seinfeld, I was interested to see this description of how he gets his writing done - or at least how he used to get his writing done:
"...get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker.
He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain."
Good advice.
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Labels: This Week
Best Optical Illusions Online
[Photo by Paco CT]
Yesterday I got into an argument over this visual illusion (via MindHacks). Although it's a pretty simple effect, it's one of the best visual illusions I've seen. First the woman goes around one way, then suddenly, for no apparent reason, she switches. Impressive - once you see it.The argument started out over whether the graphic itself is reversing its direction (it's not) and ended up at the very doors of perception:
"But," she said. "It means I can't trust anything if my brain is lying to me like this. I'm walking down the street, I go to cross the road, and BOOM, hit by a car which seemed to me to be travelling the other way!"
"No," I replied. "You're making too much of this. It's just an illusion."
"I'm not," she insisted. "This makes me question everything - if I can't trust my own eyes, what can I trust?"
So I tried to explain that this illusion is designed to fool you and is unlikely to occur in the natural environment, but it was to no avail. The eyes are lying and that is that.
This is the power of visual illusions: they remind us that what we see is not 'reality' but our perceptual interpretation of the objects around us. Our brains are working hard to fit all these moving objects, lines and colours into some kind of coherent picture that is useful to us. In many ways, everything we see is an illusion.
All of which inspired me to go on a Google-hunt for the best visual illusions on the web. Here are a few to get you going, but if your favourite isn't listed, comment away below and let everyone know about it.
A word of warning, though, before you dive in - some of these can really mess with your head. That's why I've given each a 'sick rating' from one star (* suitable for small children and animals) to five stars (***** have a sick-bag at the ready).
1. Start off with all the ones that you'll come across in intro psych text books at AllPsych Online. Sober. (Sick rating: *)
2. Once you can cope with that, it's time to move to the next rung. These visual illusions were created by Akiyoshi Kitaoka, a professor in the department of psychology at Ritsumeikan University. The page opens with a warning that the illusions can make you feel sick. Some of them actually look like sick. (Sick rating: *****)
3. Although Professor Kitaoka has a lot of illusions on his site, he's rivalled by Prof. Michael Bach who works in the ophthalmology department at the University of Freiburg in Germany. His site dates back to 1997 and is nicely organised with the visual illusions in categories. There's also plenty more academic referencing for those who like that sort of thing. (Sick rating: **** - and that's just for the eyes that follow your cursor around the page)
4. Optical illusions now even have their own video game (via Might Optical Illusions). You can check out a video of the gameplay (Sick rating: **)
5. Talking of games, here's a site that's devoted to teaching kids about visual illusions. (Child-friendly sick rating: *)
6. There are quite a few explanations on the web - including in the sites above - of how many of these illusions work. But the best (because of simplicity) is here. Most of the illusions you'll see are variations on these themes. (Sick rating: N/A)
7. If you're more interested in the technical side of visual illusions then Professor Richard Gregory's work will be of interest.
This is just a taster from the huge range of websites available although many of them do repeat the same illusions. If I've missed any really cracking sites off this list, comment away...
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Empathy Causes Facial Similarity Between Couples to Increase Over Time
Would you believe that people who live with each other for 25 years actually develop similar facial features? I don't just mean that people tend to choose partners who resemble them, rather that over time together couple's features actually converge. It's weird, but there's evidence for it from a singular study carried out by the noted psychologist Robert Zajonc and colleagues.
Here's what they did.
110 participants were shown photographs of men and women in their first year of marriage and of the same couples after 25 years of marriage. Then they were asked to judge their resemblance along with the chance that any man and woman were married to each other. The researchers went to a lot of effort to remove extraneous info and crop photos so that only faces could be seen.
The types of choices the participants made indicated the perception was that couples became more facially similar after 25 years together. The results could not be explained by people simply all looking the same as they got older. Also, data from a control group indicated participants were indeed making judgements on the basis of facial features rather than any other criteria.
So this means if you stick around with your partner, you'll end up looking more like them after a couple of decades. Which naturally raises the question: why?
Here are the possible explanations the authors suggest:
1. Diet. If you share your diet with another person it's possible this is the cause. For example if both partners eat a high fat diet, both their faces will tend to look chubby. The authors, however, ruled this out using an additional small study.
2. Environment. It could be that it's because couples live together in the same area. This means that environmental factors such as sunshine and so on affect the skin in similar ways. The authors rule this one out as well because all their married couples came from the same part of the US Midwest and were matched on a number of other socioeconomic variables.
3. Predisposition. This is the idea that people are more likely to choose partners who will grow to look like them. E.g. depressed people are attracted to each other, so end up looking depressed. The authors give this one a maybe, although it is not their favourite option.
4. Empathy. This is the theory the authors like - and so do I. People grow to look similar because they are empathising with each other and so copying each other's facial expressions. Over time because of all the empathising they are doing, their faces come to look more similar. For example, if one partner often smiles in a particular way, the other is likely to copy it - so creating similar patterns of wrinkles and furrows on the face.
Because they liked theory number 4 the authors had another thought. Why not see if those who grow to look most like each other are the happiest couples? Presumably, then, those who get on better, empathise with each other to a greater degree and therefore go on to look more similar. Unfortunately, this test failed to reach statistical significance, so this study doesn't give us enough evidence to say whether or not it is true.
A straw poll of people I've talked to about this research reveals a polarised reaction. Some think that growing to look more like your partner is an horrific idea. Others, though, think there's something very sweet and romantic about it. I think I'm in the latter camp.
There is one worrying possibility this study suggests. It is said if you want to find out what your partner will look like when they're older, you should look at your partner's parents. Perhaps a glance at your partner's parents might also reveal what you will look like in a couple of decades. Truly scary stuff!
» Related: find out whether dogs really resemble their owners.
» Read more weird psychology studies.
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References
Zajonc, R.B., Adelmann, P.K., Murphy, S.T., & Niedenthal, P.M. (1987). Convergence in the physical appearance of spouses. Motivation and Emotion, 11(4), 335-346.
Here's what they did.
110 participants were shown photographs of men and women in their first year of marriage and of the same couples after 25 years of marriage. Then they were asked to judge their resemblance along with the chance that any man and woman were married to each other. The researchers went to a lot of effort to remove extraneous info and crop photos so that only faces could be seen.
The types of choices the participants made indicated the perception was that couples became more facially similar after 25 years together. The results could not be explained by people simply all looking the same as they got older. Also, data from a control group indicated participants were indeed making judgements on the basis of facial features rather than any other criteria.
So this means if you stick around with your partner, you'll end up looking more like them after a couple of decades. Which naturally raises the question: why?
Here are the possible explanations the authors suggest:
1. Diet. If you share your diet with another person it's possible this is the cause. For example if both partners eat a high fat diet, both their faces will tend to look chubby. The authors, however, ruled this out using an additional small study.
2. Environment. It could be that it's because couples live together in the same area. This means that environmental factors such as sunshine and so on affect the skin in similar ways. The authors rule this one out as well because all their married couples came from the same part of the US Midwest and were matched on a number of other socioeconomic variables.
3. Predisposition. This is the idea that people are more likely to choose partners who will grow to look like them. E.g. depressed people are attracted to each other, so end up looking depressed. The authors give this one a maybe, although it is not their favourite option.
4. Empathy. This is the theory the authors like - and so do I. People grow to look similar because they are empathising with each other and so copying each other's facial expressions. Over time because of all the empathising they are doing, their faces come to look more similar. For example, if one partner often smiles in a particular way, the other is likely to copy it - so creating similar patterns of wrinkles and furrows on the face.
Because they liked theory number 4 the authors had another thought. Why not see if those who grow to look most like each other are the happiest couples? Presumably, then, those who get on better, empathise with each other to a greater degree and therefore go on to look more similar. Unfortunately, this test failed to reach statistical significance, so this study doesn't give us enough evidence to say whether or not it is true.
A glimpse of the future?
A straw poll of people I've talked to about this research reveals a polarised reaction. Some think that growing to look more like your partner is an horrific idea. Others, though, think there's something very sweet and romantic about it. I think I'm in the latter camp.
There is one worrying possibility this study suggests. It is said if you want to find out what your partner will look like when they're older, you should look at your partner's parents. Perhaps a glance at your partner's parents might also reveal what you will look like in a couple of decades. Truly scary stuff!
» Related: find out whether dogs really resemble their owners.
» Read more weird psychology studies.
Subscribe to PsyBlog (RSS)
References
Zajonc, R.B., Adelmann, P.K., Murphy, S.T., & Niedenthal, P.M. (1987). Convergence in the physical appearance of spouses. Motivation and Emotion, 11(4), 335-346.
Labels: Emotion, Weird Psychology
10 Practical Uses For Psychological Research in Everyday Life
[Photo by Teon Harasymiv]
People love to give each other advice. The web is full to bursting with all types of pseudo-psychological advice about life. The problem is, how much of this is based on real scientific evidence? Well, here on PsyBlog we've got the scientific evidence. So here's my top 10 list of what you can learn practically from the psychological research discussed here recently.1. How to detect lies
Lies are extremely difficult to detect. Research shows the average person barely does any better than chance. Part of the reason may be there's so much misinformation about how to detect lies floating around. Check out exactly how to detect lies.
2. How to make your smile more attractive, more trustworthy and less dominant
This psychology study found that a long-onset smile (0.5s onset) is seen as more authentic and flirtatious than a short-onset smile (0.1s). On top of this, the researchers found long-onset smiles were perceived as more attractive, more trustworthy and less dominant. Head tilting also increased attractiveness and trustworthiness but only if the head was tilted in the right direction.
3. How to persuade others your opinion represents the whole group
If you want to convince others that your opinion is representative of the majority, then just repeat yourself. This surprising psychology study finds that if one person in a group repeats the same opinion three times, it has 90% of the effect of three different people in that group expressing the same opinion.
4. How to have a refreshing holiday
This environmental psychology study suggests that being stuck indoors on vacation can limit mental recuperation. On the other hand, when able to roam outdoors, we can exert ourselves at a favourite sport or simply linger in the park.
5. How to avoid getting scammed
If I had to explain only one thing to someone who knew nothing about psychology, it would be 'crowd psychology'. Being aware and watching out for this one fact can improve our lives no end.
6. Using email to persuade
Before sending an email remember that women may not generally be easily persuaded over email because there is less opportunity to form relationships from which attitude changes can be built. Men, however, tend to be less competitive over email and are better able to concentrate on arguments presented, rather than being distracted by seeing the other man as a threat. Discover factors important in using email to persuade.
7. Find out if you're satisfied with your relationship
Once a relationship has become long-term, although we still talk about love and commitment, in some ways it's satisfaction that comes to the forefront. Indeed, low satisfaction is an important predictor of relationship breakdown. Read about the behaviours important in relationship satisfaction.
8. Reduce your cholesterol levels
The results from two separate studies demonstrated that after only 25 days, the experimental group who had written affectionate notes, showed a significant reduction in cholesterol. These reductions were seen independently from the effects of general health factors like age, drinking, smoking and so on. According to this early data, affectionate writing can reduce cholesterol levels.
9. How to make friends with self-disclosure
Turning an acquaintance into a good friend can be hard. Whether it's romantic or platonic, there are endless reasons why people fail to connect and maintain their relationships with each other. Find out how to make that connection with self-disclosure.
10. Impress people with your knowledge of the Top Ten Psychology studies
OK, technically there's no research into whether knowledge of these studies will really impress other people. But, each of these top ten psychology studies has something to teach us about what is means to be human. And that can't hurt!
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People 'Playing the Field' More Angry At Infidelity
[Photo by theforbzez]
If there's one subject in psychology that's guaranteed to remind me I'm part of the animal kingdom it is evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology attempts to explain our psychological makeup by thinking about natural selection. In other words evolutionary psychologists ask questions about what evolutionary advantage is gained by particular types of behaviour. In the process of asking these questions they come up with terms like 'mate value', ' mate choice' and 'mating effort'. Oh, these guys are obsessed with mating, just like the rest of us. One recent study published in the Journal of Evolutionary Psychology provides an interesting examples of the genre.
Mating effort and infidelity
The term 'mating effort' doesn't necessarily refer to turning up at your date's door with two tickets to the symphony and an expensive present - although it might involve that along the way. What it means in evolutionary psychological terms is that those high in 'mating effort' tend to pursue more short-term mating strategies. These are the people with more sexual partners in a shorter time.
A study carried out by Jones, Figueredo, Dicket & Jacobs (2007) examined how mating effort affects the degree to which people are upset if their partner cheats on them. Counter-intuitively, the results show that those employing higher mating effort, were more likely to be upset by infidelity. They were also more likely to respond in a punitive fashion - presumably by breaking up with this cuckold immediately.
The evolutionary psychological explanation for this is as follows. If you are a high mating effort kind of person you are putting in more energy to finding partners. You also have to go around making sure no one else is messing with your mate. On a short-term strategy, the thinking goes, there's more emphasis on short-term sexual fidelity - essentially because all your relationships are short-term. And so you're more likely to be upset if your mate cheats on you.
This is particularly interesting because you might guess that people who are in a long-term relationship are more likely to be angry with infidelity.
Caution
Of course, questions have to be asked about the methodology used in this research. After all participants were filling in questionnaires asking them to conjure up imaginary situations so there's always the problem with whether this represents real behaviours and feelings.
I should point out that psychologists often get pretty riled about evolutionary psychology, as evidenced by the reaction to this recent post on so-called 'truths' about human nature. It is particularly attractive to blow up fairly limited findings out of all proportion.
You have been warned!
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References
Jones, D. N., Figueredo, A. J., Dicket, E. D., & Jacobs, W. J. (2007) Relations Among Individual Differences in Reproductive Strategies, Sexual Attractiveness, Affective and Punitive Intentions, and Imagined Sexual or Emotional Infidelity. Evolutionary Psychology, 5, 387-410.
Labels: Evolution, Infidelity, Relationships
Misrepresenting Science: The Observer's Autism Scare Story
A couple of weeks ago The Observer (UK 'quality' Sunday paper) printed an article claiming an as yet unpublished study shows a dramatic rise in the prevalence of autism. They also managed to crowbar in the MMR vaccine as well just to raise the general levels of hysteria.
I ignored the story, just assuming it was the usual rubbish. Another case of misinterpretation, misrepresentation or just plain incorrect reporting that science stories often receive.
While I'm naturally distrustful of these kind of stories, it is exactly the kind of thing that easily enters people's consciousness. From only causing a small shift in people's understanding to influencing them to refuse their children have the MMR vaccine, it's all dangerous misinformation.
Practically, though, as the study is unpublished, it is difficult to rebut. Difficult but not impossible.
Luckily for us BadScience's Ben Goldacre is on the case. If you're new to the story the best place to start is with Goldacre's column in The Guardian where he gives the full details and dismantles the story.
Then when you're up to speed, check out the update entitled "The Observer still misses the point, and makes a hash of apologising...". The post finishes with this quote:
Well said.
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I ignored the story, just assuming it was the usual rubbish. Another case of misinterpretation, misrepresentation or just plain incorrect reporting that science stories often receive.
While I'm naturally distrustful of these kind of stories, it is exactly the kind of thing that easily enters people's consciousness. From only causing a small shift in people's understanding to influencing them to refuse their children have the MMR vaccine, it's all dangerous misinformation.
Practically, though, as the study is unpublished, it is difficult to rebut. Difficult but not impossible.
Luckily for us BadScience's Ben Goldacre is on the case. If you're new to the story the best place to start is with Goldacre's column in The Guardian where he gives the full details and dismantles the story.
Then when you're up to speed, check out the update entitled "The Observer still misses the point, and makes a hash of apologising...". The post finishes with this quote:
"I am pretty jaded and sceptical, but this front page story has completely stunned and astonished me. The misrepresentations and errors went way beyond simply misunderstanding the science, and after digging right to the bottom of it all, knowing what I know now, I have never resorted to hyperbole before, but I can honestly say: this episode has changed the way I read newspapers."
Well said.
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Labels: Autism
Cognitive Dissonance | Wisconsin Longitudinal Study | Children's Memory | Muggle's Surveillance Society
It's the 50th anniversary of cognitive dissonance. The well-known social psychologist Elliot Aronson explains the term in this NPR podcast:
Here's another half century anniversary, this time it's for a study. The Wisconsin Longitudinal study, now entering its 50th year, has followed the class of 1957 from their youthful career aspirations, through marrying and having children to how they are now dealing with ageing. The beauty of this mainly sociological study is that its focus has adapted as the participants have passed through each of life's stages.
Recent work to come out of this study has included asking how occupational stratification is affected by education and family circumstances and how older adults prepare for the end of life.
Memories decay over time, right? If the event you are trying to remember is buried in the distant past, it should be more difficult to remember than something that happened recently. Maybe not according to new research published in the journal Child Development:
In work on a similar topic also published in Child Development, researchers analysed forensic interviews with children who were alleged victims of sexual abuse. They found a dramatic upsurge in memories for dates and times after age 10. Children under 10 were unlikely to explicitly state when an event occurred.
This is important as it can be very easy in forensic interviews to suggest to a child when something has happened or provide options from which they choose. Whereas free recall provides better evidence. ScienceDaily has more.
And, as if you hadn't already heard enough about Harry Potter and his magical boarding school, then here's some more - but with a real-world twist. Judith Rauhofer of the University of Central Lancashire believes J K Rowling's work is an indirect criticism of UK responses to terrorist threats.
It's easy to be dismissive of this kind of work, but actually the thinking from a marketing perspective is sound. Attach your (perhaps politically unpopular) ideas to the bandwagon of a major publishing sensation and watch the media gobble up the story in their insatiable desire for anything and everything Potter-related. It has worked like magic - after all you're reading it here and she's getting plenty of Google action.
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"It's a drive, like hunger or thirst and it feel uncomfortable whenever we hold two ideas or beliefs that conflict with each other [...] If I think I'm a smart, competent, moral person and I do something stupid, I try to convince myself it was the smartest thing I could have done."Aronson is promoting his new book with the fabulous title: "Mistakes Were Made, But Not by Me." There is also an excerpt from it describing classic research into cognitive dissonance.
Here's another half century anniversary, this time it's for a study. The Wisconsin Longitudinal study, now entering its 50th year, has followed the class of 1957 from their youthful career aspirations, through marrying and having children to how they are now dealing with ageing. The beauty of this mainly sociological study is that its focus has adapted as the participants have passed through each of life's stages.
Recent work to come out of this study has included asking how occupational stratification is affected by education and family circumstances and how older adults prepare for the end of life.
Memories decay over time, right? If the event you are trying to remember is buried in the distant past, it should be more difficult to remember than something that happened recently. Maybe not according to new research published in the journal Child Development:
"Children who took part in the activity once were more inaccurate when the first interview took place 21 days after the activity than when it took place 3 days after the activity. But the long delay had no effect on the accuracy of reports by children who took part in the activity four times when they were asked about details that were the same in each activity."The research also found that children who had experienced different details in each activity were more accurate 21 days after the event than they were just 3 days later. Clear implications, then, for children giving evidence in criminal cases. Read more about the study at ScienceDaily.
In work on a similar topic also published in Child Development, researchers analysed forensic interviews with children who were alleged victims of sexual abuse. They found a dramatic upsurge in memories for dates and times after age 10. Children under 10 were unlikely to explicitly state when an event occurred.
This is important as it can be very easy in forensic interviews to suggest to a child when something has happened or provide options from which they choose. Whereas free recall provides better evidence. ScienceDaily has more.
And, as if you hadn't already heard enough about Harry Potter and his magical boarding school, then here's some more - but with a real-world twist. Judith Rauhofer of the University of Central Lancashire believes J K Rowling's work is an indirect criticism of UK responses to terrorist threats.
It's easy to be dismissive of this kind of work, but actually the thinking from a marketing perspective is sound. Attach your (perhaps politically unpopular) ideas to the bandwagon of a major publishing sensation and watch the media gobble up the story in their insatiable desire for anything and everything Potter-related. It has worked like magic - after all you're reading it here and she's getting plenty of Google action.
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Labels: This Week
Have You Ever Been Scammed?
[Photo by mcsixth]
Perhaps you've lost some loose change on the street hunting the lady while trying to beat the 'three-card trick'? This is the one where three cards are moved one over the other and you have to find a particular card. It appears easy when you watch someone else winning but, when you step up to have a go at the makeshift table, you keep losing. The card should be where you think it is, but it's not. So you lose a bit of cash. I like card tricks, although the mechanical explanations of their workings are usually disappointing. It always turns out to be some low-level cheating which almost anyone could get the hang of with a little practice. Same with the three-card trick. When you know how the card trick itself is done, you feel like a fool for falling for it. That's because the trick isn't really in the cards, it's in the mind.
The interest for me in card tricks, and in magic generally, is the psychology. The best part is understanding how the magician, or huckster, plays on our human nature to get us to behave in a certain way.
Sheep theory
The three-card trick relies on what is variously known in psychology as 'emergent norm theory' or 'crowd psychology' or what I like to call 'sheep theory'. My name is better (although less scientific sounding) because it clearly emphasises how much people like to follow each other. Like sheep.
Baaaaaaaaaa!
If I had to explain only one thing to someone who knew nothing about psychology, it would be 'sheep theory'. Being aware and watching out for this one fact would improve our imaginary naive person's life no end.
One classic example of sheep theory is Stanley Milgram's famous electro-shock obedience experiment. Social psychology is filled with endless studies of us copying each other or, in the lingo, 'conforming to group norms'. It's not just humans, there's evidence that chimps conform as well.
Three-card trick
This is why along with telling our imaginary ingenue about sheep theory I would also show them an experienced mob running the three-card trick.
Keeping a safe distance from them I would point out the all-too-simple components. There are the shills pretending to play the game - sometimes winning sometimes losing. Here's a punter walking up and watching the shills, not realising they are in on the game. There's another shill explaining how easy the game looks. And there they go, approaching the table.
They say a fool and his money are soon parted but I wouldn't call our ingenue a fool. They are merely acting just like the rest of us, the way that is often good for us, by fitting in with others and following their lead.
In life the real trick is knowing when to conform and when to buck the trend.
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Labels: Persuasion
Ageing and the Positivity Effect
[Photo by Mike Fischer]
Cognitive decline with age is not the whole story: recent research is suggesting older adults are more likely to notice positive emotional stimuli like happy faces in addition to experiencing less anger and regulating emotions more effectively.As we get older lots of depressing things start happening to our brains. We can't simultaneously manipulate as many items as we once could. We find it more difficult to retrieve memories. Our attention degrades, and so on. Essentially our brains are slowing down, just like the rest of our bodies. But, in this discouraging picture, there is one ray of hope: our emotions.
Noticing a happy face
A series of studies carried out by Professor Laura Carstensen from Stanford University and colleagues, has revealed that we may actually preserve our ability to process emotions as we get older. But this is not just the preservation of all emotion processing, rather it may just be positive emotions. This has led them to propose a 'positivity effect' - the idea that as we get older we tend to process positive emotions better than negative.
The evidence for this claim comes from cognitive psychology. A good example is a study carried out by Mather and Carstensen (2003) which involved the use of the 'dot-probe paradigm'. This name may sound terribly complicated (or perhaps even unnecessarily invasive!) but it's actually deceptively simple.
You sit in front of a computer on which a pair of human faces are shown for 1 second - one of these faces is neutral and the other is either happy or sad. After the faces disappear a small grey dot is shown in the place of just one of the two faces. Your task is simply to identify behind which face the dot has appeared. The experimenters then measure your reaction time.
If you are randomly attending to the faces - sometimes looking at the positive, sometimes the negative and sometimes the neutral - then there should be no difference in your average reaction time to different faces.
And indeed that's what Mather and Carstensen found for younger adults. On average the chances were about even as to which face they were looking at, as measured by reaction times.
Accentuate the positive
But for older adults there was a different pattern of responses. According to the reaction times, older adults were more likely to be looking at the positive face over the negative face, the positive over the neutral and the neutral over the negative. In other words, older adults were more likely to be looking at the happier of the two faces.
This experiment only examines attention but there are also similar findings for other areas of brain function. Another experiment compared the visual working memory of older and younger adults. Sure enough, the older adults were better than the younger at processing positive emotional stimuli.
While these experiments are all very well, they're a little abstract. Photos of faces and dots appearing - does this translate to any advantage for older people in reality?
Real world problem solving
Dr Fredda Blanchard-Fields at the Georgia Institute of Technology has looked at how older adults fare in everyday problem solving (Blanchard-Fields, Stein & Watson, 2004). Her research helps answer the question of whether these advantages in emotion processing confer any practical benefits for older adults over younger adults.
In a series of studies Blanchard-Fields and colleagues have examined how people of different ages approach practical everyday problems. In one study, people ranging in age from 15 to 84 were asked to think of a problem they had faced in the past and how they had tried to solve it.
The results of this analysis suggested older adults may be better at solving problems of a social nature. In addition, older adults were likely to use more diverse strategies and understand more clearly when to do something, when to leave well alone or what combination of these was most effective.
The question remains, though, of specifically how the positivity effect might benefit older adults in everyday situations. After all, these advantages in problem solving could simply be the result of experience.
Benefits of age
In two more study Blanchard-Fields and colleagues again asked people of different ages to think about interpersonal problems and how they had regulated their emotions in these situations. These interviews were then coded for the specific types of emotions experienced in the problem situations.
They found that older people were more likely to use passive rather than active strategies for regulating their emotions. Passive strategies include approaches such as suppressing emotions, or intentionally redirecting thoughts. Active strategies include expressing the emotion or seeking help from others.
Older adults were also less likely to report feeling angry. The authors argue this might help explain why they were less frequently required to use active strategies to regulate emotions.
With age comes wisdom
The message coming from this research is that older adults are:
- More likely to attend to and remember positive emotional stimuli.
- Less likely to experience anger.
- More likely to use diverse strategies to solve interpersonal problems.
- More likely to understand when to use particular problem-solving strategies.
These differences might not just be from accumulated experience, but rather result from changes in the way emotions are processed. While simple cognitive processing measures such as those of memory and attention might decline with age, it seems that everyday problem solving does not.
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References
Blanchard-Fields, F., Stein, R., & Watson, T.L. (2004). Age Differences in Emotion-Regulation Strategies in Handling Everyday Problems. Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 59(6), 261-269.
Mather, M., & Carstensen, L.L. (2003). Aging and attentional biases for emotional faces. Psychological Science, 14, 409-415.
Labels: Development, Emotion
Paul's Career Story: Adapt to Survive
[Photo by Thomas Hawk]
Continuing this series on your personal experiences of work and careers, here is Paul's story. Paul has worked in insurance, for a company which made him redundant after 25 years in different roles, is a former 'change manager' and now works as an assistant administration manager in the public sector.Paul explains when it comes to his career, he is a 'utility man', who has learnt many things formal qualifications never prepared him for. He says that he may have moved ranks form the front to the back, but he still wants to fight. I believe you'll find something of value in what he has to say.
There's more information on sending in your own experiences to be published on PsyBlog below.
Paul's career story
"I left school at 16 years of age with one certificate of secondary education at grade A and six at grade C. Although I had interviews for jobs in factories it was clear I was never going to go into engineering like my siblings.
Thanks to a family connection, I got an interview with an insurance company and started my first job verifying computer punch card information in 1978. For the next 25 years I held a wide variety of posts within the company, as it restructured, moved offices and responded to changes in the financial services market.
Looking back I was competing against more socially confident and better qualified people for most of my career. The fact that I progressed was not down to a desire to be a manager but a hunger to learn new things - but not in-depth, as I never wanted to follow a particular path for long.
As one man succinctly termed my role I was a 'utility man', although I much prefer the term 'universal soldier'.
I did try and become qualified with the Insurance Institute but having got near the associateship standard, they changed the rules and raised the bar.
By this time I was married and my wife, who worked in a bank, had ambitions for a career in the Police. A newly born daughter and two working parents put a hold on any further thoughts of studying for qualifications.
So I used my experience and a willingness to adapt to whatever was required to get on. My philosophy was that a moving target is harder to hit. I stayed no longer than 3 years in most roles, adapting to change and being a model employee.
I learned many things formal qualifications can never prepare you for and saw many shooting stars rise and fall. Climbing the ladder the hard way, I saw in through windows I wouldn't have seen otherwise.
In a shrinking market the company closed its book to new business. In July 2003, my post as a 'change manager' was no longer required and I was made redundant.
At the age of 41 it was time to look for alternative work, so I registered with some temping agencies and even stacked shelves at the local supermarket for a brief period before finding full time work as an assistant administration manager in the public sector.
My transferable skills were mainly learnt in project work and ICT, a direct result of being involved and not specialising. Having spent three years in my current role I have had to adapt to a more bureaucratic organisation, far less expenditure and certainly a lot less experience.
If I said it was not frustrating, I would be lying, but my priorities are to build a necessity for my role and try to become indispensible in some way if that is ever possible. You must evolve, because events and technology will always undermine the need for any role, or the number of job holders.
The best analogy I can give is that of the warriors who place the experienced middle-aged troops in the front line, behind them come the inexperienced boys/young men and then behind them come the battle-wise older men. As they march into battle the young and inexperienced cannot flee. If they were to turn and run, they would be impaled on the spears of the older and experienced troops behind, as they do not stop the forward march for anything. I guess I have moved ranks from the front to the back but I still want to fight.
I have never had that ambition to specialise and follow a particular path deemed 'good for you'. My career has been a case of 'adapt and survive', a lesson from nature itself.
I guess if there's one lesson I have learnt it's that you don't have to be specialised to succeed, indeed the more you become immersed in any discipline the less you learn about others and experience is just as valuable an asset as knowledge."
Many thanks Paul...
Perhaps something Paul has written chimes with your own career history? Feel free to leave a comment below or if you'd like to write something longer about your career then I'd be interested in publishing it on PsyBlog.
There are a few very loose guidelines described in the first post in this series describing how Mary became a qualified psychologist, all with the help of her sons.
Over to you...
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Labels: Career Stories
PsyBlog Redesigned (Webmonkey Tired)
[Photo by Pandiyan]
Over the last week the web design monkey has been causing all kinds of havoc with PsyBlog in the name of a redesign. The brief was simple: keep it readable, organise the information logically and make the other monkeys jealous. Have a look and judge for yourself. Now the monkey has got a splitting headache and he's off for a lie down and one or two banana cocktails. So if you want to raise any problems/issues just make sure he's not looking when you email me or leave me a comment below...
Enjoy!
Labels: Site News
What's the Story of Your Career?
[Photo by Thomas Hawk]
In this post:- What you can learn from the story of other people's careers.
- Send in the story of your career, a turning point at work or your current dilemma, to be published on PsyBlog.
- How, with the help of her sons, Mary became a school psychologist, a marriage and family therapist, a sex counsellor, and a licensed clinical professional counsellor.
Rather it is the story of how 56 individuals answered the question: what should I do with my life? It describes these people's wildly different experiences, the key decisions they made, their hopes and their dreams and how it turned out for them.
At the time I was looking for specific answers to questions about what I should do with my own life. The book, of course, didn't give me any specific answers. How could it? These are other people's lives, other people's circumstances, other people's experience. What it did give me, though, was an understanding that sometimes the best advice people have to give is their personal experience, their story.
Which is where I hand over to you. What I'd like to do is publish your personal experiences of key moments in your career on PsyBlog - whatever line of work you're in. Perhaps it's one particular turning point that you came to, a dilemma about your career that you're still in the middle of, or a more general outline of your career so far. I'm completely open to suggestions about the content but I'd suggest a 1,000 word limit.
If you'd be interested in writing something then drop me an email or just start writing and send it over to me. You can, of course, remain completely anonymous should you prefer or you could choose a pseudonym. I will completely respect your privacy. As a psychology researcher I'm used to treating people's private data confidentially.
To kick of this series, here is Mary Proctor's story of how she became a school psychologist, a marriage and family therapist, a sex counsellor, and a licensed clinical professional counsellor - all with the help of her sons...
Mary's Story
"My fascination with psychology began early on; when I was a teenager I wondered at behaviours in myself and others. It was a natural progression that I studied psychology as soon as I could.
As my sons were growing up, I took night classes in my chosen field as often as I could. I was fortunate in that a university was nearby.
My first-born son majored in psychology in college, and eventually entered the department of Clinical Psychology for his doctoral work. He introduced me to the chairman of the department, who agreed to accept me with the completion of my B.S. in Psychology and the entrance examination. These things transpired and it was a life-changing event for me.
As I studied, my thinking evolved; initially I was primarily interested in the adult person, only to realize that I should begin by concentrating on the infant/child.
With the granting of my M.A. in Clinical Psychology, I transferred to another university, where I could study child psychology. As I waited for the semester to begin, I became the staff psychologist at a residential school/home for developmentally disabled children and adults. Here, for the first time, I met a classically autistic child, a beautiful 10-year old boy. He taught me much, and I was able to relate to him. This chance meeting determined my area of concentration in my doctoral studies: early infantile autism.
New semester, new location, I returned to school to study behaviour in children. I started each day with excitement at the prospect of this learning.
Following this semester, I was fortunate to be allowed to take an internship at the Menninger Foundation, Topeka, Ks. I was often in the children's division, but also in classes throughout the huge facility. It was here that my evolving reached another level: it was the realization that we all emerge from a family, and my emphasis had to be on family, child, and adult, in that order.
This was another major turning point in my career.
I next became a school psychologist, a marriage and family therapist, a sex counsellor, and a licensed clinical professional counsellor....each with credentials. Several of these occurred during my 26 plus years in private practice. Again, my first-born son served as my supervisor and mentor, early on. My second-born son helped me in various other ways...between the two of them, they kept me feeling secure, and loved.
I continue to see patients, and psychotherapy is still my passion; I am happy to say that I understand the "science of behaviour" much more clearly at this stage of life. I also realize that: "the diagnosis is in the history"-- years ago I read this statement, made by a wise professional, Leslie Bernstein, M.D. a well-known gastroenterologist."
Thanks to Mary for sending in her experiences. If you'd like to do the same why not get writing and email it over to me. I look forward to reading it and, hopefully, publishing it on PsyBlog.
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Labels: Career Stories
Men Chatty as Women | Avoid Sloppy Thinking | Facebook Snubbing
Here are a few pointers and thoughts on what I've been reading this week on other blogs and elsewhere.
Women don't talk more than men. New research finds no statistical difference between the amount of words uttered by men and women. Previous research by Louann Brizendine had suggested women speak on average 20,000 words per day while men only speak, on average, 7,000. Wrong! (apparently).
There's loads more on this from the Language Log. 'Not Exactly Rocket Science' has a good write-up.
For me the most interesting thing is the variance between people in general rather than between men and women. They found that amongst the men, three of the most chatty uttered 47,000 in a day, while one man only said 500 words in a day. That is some variance.
The three grades of thinking. Pick the Brain points to a thought-provoking article by William Golding on the three grades of thinking. It's well worth reading Golding's full essay.
The Times (of London) has a piece on the netiquette of sites like Facebook and MySpace:
I still have mixed feelings about Facebook and MySpace. On one hand I can see it's useful for networking and keeping in touch. On the other it just looks like a competition to see who has the largest group of (virtual) friends. And there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. I would guess that having too many 'friend requests' is only problematic for people like Stephen Fry (see the article). Disagree? Let me know below...
Anything else from the week's psychology news you'd like to share with other PsyBlog readers? Comment away below.
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Women don't talk more than men. New research finds no statistical difference between the amount of words uttered by men and women. Previous research by Louann Brizendine had suggested women speak on average 20,000 words per day while men only speak, on average, 7,000. Wrong! (apparently).
There's loads more on this from the Language Log. 'Not Exactly Rocket Science' has a good write-up.
For me the most interesting thing is the variance between people in general rather than between men and women. They found that amongst the men, three of the most chatty uttered 47,000 in a day, while one man only said 500 words in a day. That is some variance.
The three grades of thinking. Pick the Brain points to a thought-provoking article by William Golding on the three grades of thinking. It's well worth reading Golding's full essay.
The Times (of London) has a piece on the netiquette of sites like Facebook and MySpace:
"Sonia Livingstone, Professor of Social Psychology at the London School of Economics, said that snubbing people on Facebook differs from real-world snubs because it takes place in a sharply defined moment. "We're used to snubbing people. We don't call them back. We don't answer their holiday postcards. We say we'll meet up with them for a drink when we have no intention of doing so. But here there is a very evident decision moment."
I still have mixed feelings about Facebook and MySpace. On one hand I can see it's useful for networking and keeping in touch. On the other it just looks like a competition to see who has the largest group of (virtual) friends. And there's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. I would guess that having too many 'friend requests' is only problematic for people like Stephen Fry (see the article). Disagree? Let me know below...
Anything else from the week's psychology news you'd like to share with other PsyBlog readers? Comment away below.
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Labels: This Week
Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Us?
There's a new article on Psychology Today called Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature which should start a few conversations. And end a few marriages.
I won't comment any further other than to provide you a few excerpts, link to the article and ask you to vote (down at the bottom) on whether you would go along with any, some, all or none of this.
Here are just a few highlights:
OK, perhaps that's not radical enough for you. Try this:
Still not getting a headache? OK, try this:
Here's the whole article. Please come back after you've had a look and vote below on how many of these 'politically incorrect truths' you would go along with.
Soon it will be the weekend and hopefully you'll be kicking back with a few friends and shooting the breeze. And, as you pour yourself a glass of wine/litre of vodka/sparkling mineral water (delete as appropriate), settle back to enjoy the company of friends, suddenly a wicked thought will come to mind. Perhaps I'll mention that piece on politically incorrect truths about human nature...
Good luck.
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I won't comment any further other than to provide you a few excerpts, link to the article and ask you to vote (down at the bottom) on whether you would go along with any, some, all or none of this.
Here are just a few highlights:
"Humans are naturally polygamous
The history of western civilization aside, humans are naturally polygamous. Polyandry (a marriage of one woman to many men) is very rare, but polygyny (the marriage of one man to many women) is widely practiced in human societies, even though Judeo-Christian traditions hold that monogamy is the only natural form of marriage. We know that humans have been polygynous throughout most of history because men are taller than women."
OK, perhaps that's not radical enough for you. Try this:
"Most women benefit from polygyny, while most men benefit from monogamy
Most women benefit from polygyny, while most men benefit from monogamy. When there is resource inequality among men - the case in every human society - most women benefit from polygyny: women can share a wealthy man. Under monogamy, they are stuck with marrying a poorer man."
Still not getting a headache? OK, try this:
"Men sexually harass women because they are not sexist
Abuse, intimidation, and degradation are all part of men's repertoire of tactics employed in competitive situations. In other words, men are not treating women differently from men - the definition of discrimination, under which sexual harassment legally falls - but the opposite: Men harass women precisely because they are not discriminating between men and women."
Here's the whole article. Please come back after you've had a look and vote below on how many of these 'politically incorrect truths' you would go along with.
Soon it will be the weekend and hopefully you'll be kicking back with a few friends and shooting the breeze. And, as you pour yourself a glass of wine/litre of vodka/sparkling mineral water (delete as appropriate), settle back to enjoy the company of friends, suddenly a wicked thought will come to mind. Perhaps I'll mention that piece on politically incorrect truths about human nature...
Good luck.
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Labels: Evolution, Weird Psychology
Anti-Gay Hate Crimes Still Widespread
Think we live in a civilised society? Think again.
Research to be published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence shows that prejudice against minority sexual orientations still fuels violence and crime. The most comprehensive study to date found that in a US sample of 662 gay men, lesbians and bisexuals, almost 4 in 10 gay men and 1 in 8 lesbians and bisexuals have been the targets of violence or property crime because of their sexual orientation.
The author of the study, Professor Gregory Herek, explains further on his blog Beyond Homophobia:
These figures are important because few countries actually produce official statistics on hate crimes motivated by bias against minority sexual orientations (see the 2007 Hate Crime Survey). Actual levels are difficult to ascertain as many attacks (understandably) go unreported.
Read the abstract and download a pre-publication draft of the paper
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References - Click here to toggle visibility
Research to be published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence shows that prejudice against minority sexual orientations still fuels violence and crime. The most comprehensive study to date found that in a US sample of 662 gay men, lesbians and bisexuals, almost 4 in 10 gay men and 1 in 8 lesbians and bisexuals have been the targets of violence or property crime because of their sexual orientation.
The author of the study, Professor Gregory Herek, explains further on his blog Beyond Homophobia:
"I conducted the survey in 2005 with a nationally representative sample of 662 lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults. Participants reported their experiences with violence, property crimes, and harassment based on their sexual orientation since they turned 18 [...] Here are some key findings:
- 13% of respondents said they had been hit, beaten, physically attacked, or sexually assaulted because of their sexual orientation.
- 15% had been robbed or had their property stolen, vandalized, or purposely damaged.
- Combining these two groups, 21% had experienced either violence or a property crime.
- 14% said someone had tried to attack them, rob them, or damage their property, but didn't succeed.
- 23% had been threatened with violence.
- 13% had an object thrown at them.
- 49% had been verbally insulted or abused because of their sexual orientation."
It gets worse
On top of this, Professor Herek also found over half of the respondents manifested 'felt stigma'. As a result they perceived most employers were likely to discriminate against them. No wonder, then, that homosexual adults are much less likely than heterosexuals to tell others of their sexual orientation in many different social contexts.These figures are important because few countries actually produce official statistics on hate crimes motivated by bias against minority sexual orientations (see the 2007 Hate Crime Survey). Actual levels are difficult to ascertain as many attacks (understandably) go unreported.
Read the abstract and download a pre-publication draft of the paper
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References - Click here to toggle visibilityLabels: Prejudice
Myths Dispelled: Gamers Have Friends, Girls Like Grand Theft Auto
[Photo by Planet Sinclair]
New research dispels the well-worn stereotypes that computer gamers having no social skills and girls avoid violent games like Grand Theft Auto. A new study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, surveyed 1,254 children from the US. It asked how often children played computer games, which games, and what they got out of it (Olson et al., 2007).
The results revealed:
- 94% of young teens had played computer games in the last six months.
- Two-thirds of boys aged 12 to 14 and one in four girls had played an M-rated game (meant for those over 17) in the last six months.
- Children playing violent M-rated games were more likely to play in groups. Friendship groups amongst boys, in particular, were often based around violent computer games.
- One in five girls had played the violent game Grand Theft Auto 'a lot' in the last six months. It was their second favourite game, after The Sims - in which players manage a virtual person and their family.
- Children used games to help them manage their emotions. When angry or stressed they liked to use games to get these emotions out.
Gaming no longer unsociable
Things sure have changed in the last couple of decades. When I was a lad computer gaming was a very unsociable activity. This was partly because good multi-player games hadn't yet been developed. Now players can battle each other while sitting side-by-side, or virtually across the internet.This increase in the sociability of game playing must partly result from no longer having to 'wait your turn' while a friend's go keeps on going. Also, gaming technology is now so advanced and widespread most kids have access to it.
It all beats a rubber-keyed Spectrum 48k any day. Even one with a microdrive.
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References - Click here to toggle visibilityLabels: Gaming
Encephalon #26: Natalie Portman, Cognitive Dissonance
Couple of favourites for me are the piece on MindHacks about Natalie Portman (yes, that Natalie Portman) having co-authored a cognitive neuroscience study. The other one, also on MindHacks, describes a classic piece of psychological research into cognitive dissonance by Leon Festinger. I'm sure many of you will already know this study, but for those who don't, give it a read, then adjust your beliefs accordingly.
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Labels: Encephalon
Loudest Voice = Majority Opinion
New research reveals even if only one member of a group repeats their opinion, it is more likely to be seen by others as representative of the whole group.
A group of us are sat around shooting the breeze, talking about this that and everything else besides. Like all British people we always end up with a bit of weather-related chat when the conversation flags. And sure enough, before long, James is complaining about the unseasonably cool and wet weather that we're having at the moment.
"It just flies in the face of all that 'global warming' crapola, right?" says James.
Now, like the others I know a little bad weather in the short-term doesn't disprove a long-term trend. But, for whatever reason, I don't say anything and neither does anyone else.
He goes on: "Doesn't it just make you wonder what's really going on with all these environmental groups telling us we're ruining the planet and all the rest?"
There's no more talk on the subject until much later when I'm with one of the group on his own. We start on about global warming and the environment again. It soon becomes clear that he's been swayed by what James said earlier.
"Well no one really said anything against James and I just thought everyone agreed," he explains. "I thought you guys were all up to date with this sort of thing being scientific types?"
I explained to him that James' opinions probably bore no relation to what the rest of us thought - it's just we hadn't expressed our own opinions. I don't think he believed me, which was annoying. It seemed the simple act of one person expressing their opinion loudly and clearly in a group setting had convinced him we all felt the same way. Unfortunately, knowing that group, I saw nothing could be further from the truth.
The study, carried out by Kimberlee Weaver and colleagues, found we can tell that three different people expressing the same opinion better represents the group than one person expressing the same opinion three times - but not by much.
In fact, if one person in a group repeats the same opinion three times, it has 90% of the effect of three different people in that group expressing the same opinion. When you think about it, that is strange. Indeed, I'm not sure I'd even believe it if I hadn't already read many other psychology studies that point to the illogical and unreasonable ways our minds sometimes work.
Where does this effect come from? The authors argue it comes down to memory. Because repetition increases the accessibility of an opinion, we assume it has a high prevalence. In everyday life we are likely to hear the same opinion many times in different places. We then put all these together to judge the general mood of a group. When one person repeats their opinion, we simply over apply the rule.
Similarly, and more worryingly, when an opinion is repeatedly broadcast at us by the same organisation - think of a particular media conglomerate or an advertiser - we're likely to come to believe it represents the general opinion. That's despite the fact it is analogous to the same person repeating themselves over and over again.
So, next time James spouts off, I'll make a point of speaking up. And make sure I repeat myself. Several times.
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Reference
Weaver, K., Garcia, S.M., Schwarz, N., & Miller, D.T. (2007) Inferring the popularity of an opinion from its familiarity: A repetitive voice can sound like a chorus. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(5), 821-833.
A group of us are sat around shooting the breeze, talking about this that and everything else besides. Like all British people we always end up with a bit of weather-related chat when the conversation flags. And sure enough, before long, James is complaining about the unseasonably cool and wet weather that we're having at the moment.
"It just flies in the face of all that 'global warming' crapola, right?" says James.
Now, like the others I know a little bad weather in the short-term doesn't disprove a long-term trend. But, for whatever reason, I don't say anything and neither does anyone else.
He goes on: "Doesn't it just make you wonder what's really going on with all these environmental groups telling us we're ruining the planet and all the rest?"
The power of repetition
This is starting to get me going a little - I actually think humans are ruining the environment and causing global warming. Again, though, I'm lazy and only mumble a few words in disagreement. I half think James is just trying to wind us up to get the conversation going. Still, I let it go.There's no more talk on the subject until much later when I'm with one of the group on his own. We start on about global warming and the environment again. It soon becomes clear that he's been swayed by what James said earlier.
"Well no one really said anything against James and I just thought everyone agreed," he explains. "I thought you guys were all up to date with this sort of thing being scientific types?"
I explained to him that James' opinions probably bore no relation to what the rest of us thought - it's just we hadn't expressed our own opinions. I don't think he believed me, which was annoying. It seemed the simple act of one person expressing their opinion loudly and clearly in a group setting had convinced him we all felt the same way. Unfortunately, knowing that group, I saw nothing could be further from the truth.
Our strange brains
A study published recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology examined exactly this situation to test how people judge the distribution of opinion.The study, carried out by Kimberlee Weaver and colleagues, found we can tell that three different people expressing the same opinion better represents the group than one person expressing the same opinion three times - but not by much.
In fact, if one person in a group repeats the same opinion three times, it has 90% of the effect of three different people in that group expressing the same opinion. When you think about it, that is strange. Indeed, I'm not sure I'd even believe it if I hadn't already read many other psychology studies that point to the illogical and unreasonable ways our minds sometimes work.
Where does this effect come from? The authors argue it comes down to memory. Because repetition increases the accessibility of an opinion, we assume it has a high prevalence. In everyday life we are likely to hear the same opinion many times in different places. We then put all these together to judge the general mood of a group. When one person repeats their opinion, we simply over apply the rule.
Familiarity doesn't breed contempt
The theme of this research is something that has been known and used by advertisers and influencers for decades. Familiarity doesn't breed contempt at all, it breeds attraction. Making your voice heard is the only way to let others know what you think. Otherwise they will think you agree with the loudest person.Similarly, and more worryingly, when an opinion is repeatedly broadcast at us by the same organisation - think of a particular media conglomerate or an advertiser - we're likely to come to believe it represents the general opinion. That's despite the fact it is analogous to the same person repeating themselves over and over again.
So, next time James spouts off, I'll make a point of speaking up. And make sure I repeat myself. Several times.
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ReferenceWeaver, K., Garcia, S.M., Schwarz, N., & Miller, D.T. (2007) Inferring the popularity of an opinion from its familiarity: A repetitive voice can sound like a chorus. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(5), 821-833.
Labels: Persuasion