Category: Psychology

A press briefing was held in London yesterday in which a few psychologists speculated on the electorate’s mood. Due to the predictable content, the story only just limped into the news. Perhaps they should have tried for something a little more radical than: The war on Iraq was a bit of a problem for Labour but they’ll win anyway.

If the Conservative or Liberal Democrat parties really want to win, they might think about hiring a few psychologists to do a really cruel dissection of Tony Blair’s character and behaviour. Then spread it across all the papers and stick it up on all the billboards in the country. A vicious and sustained character assassination is their only chance of winning short of an actual assassination.

How bad do you want it boys?
IC Wales

One species, two genders. Yes, biologically we are fundamentally different, but what about psychologically? Is the difference between men and women all a ‘social construction’? What if you give dolls to a male child? What if you treat him like a girl? What if you dress him like a girl? And what if you surgically reconstruct his genitalia so that, anatomically, he looks like a girl?

Will he be a girl?

Whether you know what the psychological evidence has to say or not, you’ll recognise that this issue is political dynamite. If there are fundamental psychological differences between men and women, then perhaps some forms of discrimination are valid? Perhaps it is right that men go to work and women stay at home to bring up the children?

Of course these things don’t follow, one from the other, but it doesn’t stop people associating these arguments with each other. Bear this in mind while you read the Scientific American article and if you should choose to share this information with people more concerned with political correctness than scientific accuracy.
His Brain, Her Brain [Scientific American]

“Workers distracted by email and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers, new research has claimed. The study for computing firm Hewlett Packard warned of a rise in “infomania”, with people becoming addicted to email and text messages.”
BBC News

An excellent technique for learning a new skill is to find someone who is already successful at what you want to learn, and copy their technique. This is at the root of Rodcorp’s blog, “How we work.” Try it out with today’s post on how Franz Liszt used to read a book while practising the piano.

I can tell you from personal experience that this is not a technique for beginners.
How we work: Franz Liszt

With the General Election only a few short weeks away, there’s election fever here in the UK. Well, even if the populace hasn’t quite reached fever pitch, there’s certainly a fever amongst the politicians. And part of the reason was discovered a few years ago in a psychological study of how the electorate judge the canditates. Unlike the five dimensions of personality which are normally used, people judge politicians on only two dimensions: How trustworthy are they? How energetic are they?

This neatly explains why politicians spend the run-up to elections rushing around trying to be honest with ordinary people. It’s a simple as that.

I do hope Tony’s notoriously dicky heart can keep up with the pace. Faster Tony! Faster!
[via The Guardian]

“Nicolas Cherbuin, a psychologist at the Australian National University in Canberra, said there was still a lot that was unknown about the roles played by the two sides [of the brain], and that the site of particular brain functions could vary from person to person. So, Mr Cherbuin, and a fellow university psychologist, Cobie Brinkman, developed the high-tech hard hat.

By plugging the hard hat’s thermometer, an infrared probe, into the ears of a test subject, the two psychologists can monitor which side of the brain is swinging into action as the person performs particular tasks. “The blood flow affects the temperature of the eardrum very quickly because it is very thin,” Mr Cherbuin said.”
From The Sydney Morning Herald

In discussing the upcoming election here in the UK, Raj Persaud on All In the Mind asks whether politicians ever answer a question. Apparently when asked by a professional interviewer, the average number of responses that directly address the original question is 40%. This rises to 75% when the question is asked by a member of the public. Why? Because professional interviewers tend to ask trapping questions that if you did actually answer would make you look stupid either way.

Also on the show there’s some good stuff about brainwashing, while next week Raj is going speed-dating. Just don’t tell the wife Raj!
Radio 4’s All In the Mind

The mental health charity SaneLine is staring into the abyss of financial ruin after the government stopped its funding and the tsunami appeal diverted many of its donors. The charity provides a telephone helpline staffed by volunteers that gives advice to those with mental health difficulties.

The papers have reported a variety of different stories over the last month, some conflicting, others potentially congruent. SaneLine might take anywhere between 50,000 and 500,000 calls each year (in face the former figure is closer to the truth). The charity apparently made a mistake in its applications for government funding. And/or perhaps the Department of Health failed to pay them the money they were owed under previous funding agreements.

As so often in government it’s impossible to know exactly what is really going on. What they say is happening is probably just a smoke-screen for the real behind-the-scenes machinations. Whatever the truth, it seems incredible that the government is taking away funding from a charity that provides such a valuable service.
Help Save SaneLine

Cognitive psychologists are very interested in how we recognise faces (here’s a previous entry on face blindness). In their attempts to work out precisely how we manage this task they’re always carrying out strange experiments. None stranger than this article entitled: “The role of eyebrows in face recognition”.

This research actually found that eyebrows are more important in face recognition than the eyes. Plus they can make you look sexy:

“Practitioners in the field of facial aesthetics, such as make-up artists and cosmetic surgeons, have long appreciated the influence of eyebrows on attractiveness (eg Cosio and Robins 2000). During the 18th century, in fact, in Western Europe full eyebrows were considered so essential to facial beauty that some upper-class women and courtiers would affix mouse hide to their foreheads.”

You may laugh now, but you’ll be taking it seriously when Naomi Campbell is striding down the catwalk with two small fake-fur pelts dangling from her forehead.