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Transactional Analysis 1: ego states & basic transactions
Note: This isn’t in any way complete but rather an attempt at collecting useful links.
Types of psychiatric medications
Cutting down the dissonance: the psychology of gullibility
Two years ago, 14-year-old Nathan Zohner, a student at Eagle Rock Junior High in Idaho Falls, announced on the Internet that he had circulated a petition demanding strict control of a chemical known as dihydrogen monoxide. This substance, he wrote, caused excessive sweating and vomiting, can be lethal if accidentally inhaled, contributes to erosion, and has been found in tumors of cancer patients. The student asked 50 people whether they supported the ban. Forty-three said yes, six were undecided, and only one knew that dihydrogen monoxide was… water.
While embracing a ban on H2O seems more foolish than dangerous, this anecdote shows how quickly people embrace some kinds of ideas without subjecting them to critical scrutiny. The human propensity to accept ideas at face value—no matter how illogical—is the fertile soil in which pseudoscience grows. Beliefs in UFOs, astrology, extrasensory perception, palm reading, crystal therapy, or guardian angels do not meet scientific criteria for rational plausibility (such as experimental reproducibility or Karl Popper’s idea of falsifiability) and generally rely on anecdotes instead of hard evidence for support, though they may partake of scientific-sounding terms or rationales; all such concepts can be safely described as pseudoscience. Why do people embrace irrational belief systems even after repeated disconfirmation by scientists?
It is easy to dismiss these ideas as amusing and eccentric, but in some situations they pose concrete dangers to individuals; they occasionally even affect society. Former First Lady Nancy Reagan revealed in her autobiography that she employed a psychic for seven years to schedule dates for important meetings; more recently, Hillary Rodham Clinton admitted to having imaginary conversations with Eleanor Roosevelt on the advice of New Age guru Jean Houston. These public figures are hardly alone in seeking answers from the stars and soothsayers; the persistence and popularity of such beliefs reflect the many perceived benefits in pseudoscience. Psychologists agree that all belief systems — astrology, Objectivism, religion — ease anxiety about the human condition, and provide the illusion of security, predictability, control, and hope in an otherwise chaotic world.
Scott Lilienfeld, assistant professor of psychology at Emory University and consulting editor at the Skeptical Inquirer, identifies two major catalysts for the prevalence of pseudoscientific beliefs: the information explosion (often a misinformation explosion) and the low level of scientific literacy in the general population. He cites poll data indicating that only 7 percent of the population can answer basic scientific questions like “What is DNA?” or “What is a molecule?” And when science cannot provide answers, or when people refuse to accept a scientific explanation (such as when fertility treatments don’t work), pseudoscience often provides highly individualized explanations. “People believe in things like astrology because it works for them better than anything else,” says Herbert Gans, the Robert S. Lynd professor of sociology at Columbia. “Your own system is the most efficient one, whether it’s a guardian angel, a rabbit’s foot, or a God watching over you. And if it doesn’t work, there’s always an excuse for it.”
Another reason people find pseudoscience plausible is a cognitive ability to “see” relationships that don’t exist. “We have an adaptive reflex to make sense of the world, and there is a strong motivation to do this,” says Lilienfeld. “We need this ability, because the world is such a complex and chaotic place, but sometimes it can backfire.” This outgrowth of our normal capacity for pattern recognition accounts for the “face on Mars” (a group of rocks that allegedly resembles a face) or the belief that a full moon causes an increase in the crime rate. When people believe in something strongly — whether it is an image on Mars or a causal interpretation of a chronological association — they are unlikely to let it go, even if it has been repeatedly discounted.
In some cases, contradictory evidence can even strengthen the belief. As Leon Festinger and colleagues discussed in When Prophecy Fails, holding two contradictory beliefs leads to cognitive dissonance, a state few minds find tolerable. A believer may then selectively reinterpret data, reinforcing one of the beliefs regardless of the strength of the contradictory case. Festinger infiltrated a doomsday cult whose members were convinced the earth was going to blow up; when the date passed and the earth didn’t explode, the cult attributed the planet’s survival to the power of their prayers. “When people can’t reconcile scientific data with their own beliefs, they minimize one of them—science—and escape into mysticism, which is more reliable to them,” says Dr. Jeffrey Schaler, adjunct professor of psychology at American University.
Belief systems tend to respond to challenges according to this pattern, says Lilienfeld. When researching a cherished belief or coming across information about it, a person may process the data as if wearing blinders, registering only the affirming information. The malleability of memory compounds this effect. “Once you have a belief, the way you look at evidence changes,” says Tory Higgins, chair of the psychology department at Columbia, whose research specialty is mechanisms of cognition. “When you search your memory, you are more likely to retrieve information that will support it and avoid exposure to information that will disconfirm it. If you fail to avoid it, you attack the validity and credibility of the source, or categorize it as an exception.”
Dr. Robert Glick, head of the Columbia Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, calls belief systems “societal pain relievers.” “People will recruit anything from their environment that will ensure and protect their safety,” he says. “It gives you a sense that you’re not alone, and helps ease feelings of being powerless.” Power—whether an increase in a person’s perceived power or an abdication of it—is a major component of pseudoscience, and Glick explains people’s relations to power in Freudian terms. He describes belief systems as a metaphoric representation of our parents, providing a release from authority and responsibility. “People have a built-in predilection that wishes for assistance and support. This is an extension of childhood, where there were always people around us who control our life. Beliefs like astrology and even religion are a projection that there are forces in the heavens that are like your parents.”
While it may be fun to read horoscopes in the newspaper, can real harm come from believing strongly in pseudoscience? Lilienfeld advises citizens to consider how pseudosciences pose concrete threats by weakening critical thinking and minimizing a person’s sense of control and responsibility. For individuals, this phenomenon can translate into thousands of dollars wasted on quack remedies—not to mention the medical danger to patients who forgo more reliable treatments. The risks extend to the societal level. “We need to be able to sift through the information overload we’re presented with each day and make sound judgments on everything from advertising to voting for politicians,” Lilienfeld says.
Gans offers a more forgiving point of view. “If someone believes strongly in something like guardian angels, and they’re not in a mental hospital, and we haven’t provided a better answer, why not?” says Gans. “But if you’re just sitting inside your house all day and say, ‘Well, my guardian angel is going to take care of everything,’ then that’s bad.” And perhaps not too far from supporting a ban on dihydrogen monoxide.
The “Door” Study
This video shows footage from a 1998 study by Daniel Simons and Daniel Levin in which a participant fails to notice when the person he is talking to is replaced by someone else. The study was among the first to demonstrate that the phenomenon of “change blindness” can occur outside the laboratory. This was the first of many studies by Simons, Levin, and colleagues to explore how change blindness can occur in the real world.
If it’s the last, you’ll like it the best. That is the finding of a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
“Endings affect us in lots of ways, and one is this ‘positivity effect,’” says University of Michigan psychologist Ed O’Brien, who conducted the study with colleague Phoebe C. Ellsworth.
Graduation from college, the last kiss before going off to war: we experience these “lasts” with deep pleasure and affection - in fact, more than we may have felt about those places or people the day before.
Even long painful experiences that end pleasantly are rated more highly than short ones ending painfully.
But does the last-is-best bias obtain in everyday life, with insignificant events? It does, the study found. Moreover, says O’Brien, it doesn’t even have to be a real last one to be experienced as best. “When you simply tell people something is the last, they may like that thing more.”
(More on the study)
Why is this so? The authors have a few theories.
Among these: “It’s something motivational,” says O’Brien. “You think: ‘I might as well reap the benefits of this experience even though it’s going to end,’ or ‘I want to get something good out of this while I still can.’”
Another, says O’Brien: “Many experiences have happy endings - from the movies and shows we watch to dessert at the end of a meal - and so people may have a general expectation that things end well, which could bleed over into these insignificant or unrelated judgments.”
The findings of what O’Brien humbly calls “our little chocolate test” could have serious implications. Professors marking the last exam may give it the best grade even if it’s not objectively better than the preceding ones. Employers may be inclined to hire the last-interviewed job applicant. Awareness of this bias could make such subjective judgments fairer.
Of course, endings don’t bring up only positive emotions, O’Brien notes. Often there’s also sadness about loss - that bittersweet feeling.
If its bittersweet chocolate and the last one you think you’ll eat, however, chances are the taste will be sweet.
“When The Last Is Best”, Medical News Today
What kinds of experiences hinder intellectual development and what kinds of environmental “nutrients” promote it?
Here are some of the factors associated with reduced mental ability:
In contrast, a healthy and stimulating environment can raise IQ scores, as several intervention studies with at-risk children have shown. In one longitudinal study called the Abecedarian Project, inner-city children who got lots of mental enrichment at home and in child care or school, starting in infancy, showed signficant IQ gains and had much better school achievement than did children in a control group (Campbell & Ramey, 1995).
In another important study, of abandoned children living in Romanian orphanages, researchers randomly assigned some children to remain in the orphanages and others to move to good foster homes.
By age 4, the fostered children scored dramatically higher on IQ tests that did those left behind. Children who moved before age 2 showed the largest gains, almost 15 points on average. A comparison group of children reared in their biological homes did even better, with average test scores 10 to 20 points higher than those of the foster children (Nelson et al., 2007).
(Since this study was done, Romania has stopped institutionalizing abandoned children younger than 2 years unless the infants are seriously disabled.)
Perhaps the best evidence for the importance of environmental influences on intelligence is the fact that around the world, IQ scores have been climbing steadily for at least three generations (Flynn, 1987, 1999).
The fastest increase in a group’s average IQ scores ever reported has occurred in Kenya, where IQ scores of rural 6- to 8-year-old children jumped about 11 points between 1984 and 1998 (Daley et al., 2003). Genes cannot possibly have changed enough to account for these findings, and most scientists attribute the increases to improvements in education, the growth in jobs requiring abstract thought, and better health.
We see, then, that although heredity may provide the range of a child’s intellectual potential—a Homer Simpson can never become an Einstein—many other factors affect where in that range the child will fall.
from: Invitation to Psychology by Carole Wade, Carol Tavris
Big Ideas in Social Psychology
from: Social Psychology - David G. Myers
“We know that obesity can be socially contagious, but now we know that social networks play a significant role in weight loss as well, particularly team-based weight loss competitions,” said lead author Tricia Leahey, Ph.D., of The Miriam Hospital and Alpert Medical School. “In our study, weight loss clearly clustered within teams, which suggests that teammates influenced each other, perhaps by providing accountability, setting expectations of weight loss, and providing encouragement and support.”
Study Finds Weight Loss Can Be Contagious
