Psychology Research

If scientists ever come up with a physics of the psyche, one of its first axioms might be the above title. We humans crave stimulation, and on many different levels. To experience ourselves as fully alive, we all have various “arousal requirements”-whether physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. And if we feel under-stimulated, we’ll generally complain of being bored, antsy, anxious, irritable, lonely, or even depressed. This post explores some of the less fortunate ramifications of our constant need for stimulation. Perhaps more than anything else, our arousal needs–and the negative emotions and states of mind we experience when these needs aren’t being met–can interfere with our better judgment. People who suffer accidents and injuries, for example, frequently do so because their personal arousal requirements compel them to take risks ranging from the not-entirely-prudent to the foolhardy or downright reckless. Others may join religious cults or fringe organizations because they’re frantically searching for a more fulfilling, spiritual life–but don’t really know where to turn. Their need to fit in somewhere , to fill the internal void of un-relatedness, drives them (at times, quite indiscriminately) to put their faith in an ideology, or charismatic leader, that can easily lead them astray. Since as a therapist I typically focus more on mental/emotional problems than physical or spiritual ones, I’ve become acutely aware of how experiencing an inner vacuum can lead people to make poor life choices, especially in relationships. Many people I’ve worked with who’ve gotten into bad or inappropriate relationships did so because at the time they felt alone, abandoned, or rejected. Consequently, they experienced an overwhelming need to prove to themselves they were still lovable. Perhaps they’d been having problems dating, or recently “loved and lost,” or maybe gone through a painfully one-sided divorce, which they’d strenuously sought to avert. Anxious to escape intolerable feelings of emptiness–the emptiness of loneliness or desertion–they rushed to embrace (as it were) the first person that came along. Unable to simply allow themselves to fully experience their disappointment, or grieve their loss, they propelled themselves headlong into a new relationship–one which they weren’t at all ready for. Additionally, they may have feared going within themselves (or, for that matter, eliciting professional help) to learn just why their relationship had gone sour. Feeling hollow, desolate and forsaken–and without the ability to self-soothe –they hastily paired up with the first available person they could find. It reminds me a little of the lyrics to B. J. Thomas’ song, “No Love at All,” in which he opines: “A little bit of love is better than no love/Even a bad love is better than no love/And even a sad love is better than no love at all.” In fact, in the mind of an individual unable to tolerate the emotional vacuum of dis-connectedness, it must certainly feel that almost anything is better than the unnerving void of being alone. But I myself would argue that if you can develop a secure, nurturing relationship with yourself , you’re in a much better position to “stabilize” your thoughts and feelings after a failed relationship and patiently wait for the right person. To me, such an alternative is far preferable to making any person the “right” person simply because he or she can immediately fill what is “abhorred” as an unbearable vacuum. Finally, the vacuum that some people strive so assiduously to avoid is really a “vacuum of self.” When we’re not enough for ourselves (i.e., can’t somehow fill our own vacuum), we can’t help but focus our attention on what we can import into ourselves to feel more whole and complete. Another PT blogger, Robert W. Firestone, recently made a similar point in a post entitled Emotional Hunger Vs. Love . As he put it, emotional hunger is the “pain and longing which people often act out in a desperate attempt to fill a void or emptiness.” When people precipitantly get into unhealthy relationships, it’s almost always to keep at bay some inner void they only vaguely understand. But to try to get from without what we haven’t yet learned to give ourselves from within is almost always an exercise in futility. Of course, there’s nothing wrong in striving to fulfill ourselves by pursuing people and things that might offer us what–personally–will afford us just the right degree of stimulation. As I stated earlier, although what is an optimal degree of stimulation varies with the individual, the basic need for such arousal is universal. And it’s certainly worthy of respect. But we still need to carefully monitor our behavior to ensure that our requirement for stimulation doesn’t ultimately end up jeopardizing our health or peace of mind. In instances where our best judgment is not available, we ought at least to confide in someone who cares about us as to whether we might possibly be getting ourselves into something questionable. Are we perhaps on the verge of making a decision that hasn’t really been thought out? that may be wrong-headed, or foolish? Many people I’ve worked with have told me that before they made what, ultimately, was a disastrous decision, friends and relatives had already warned them against it. So it’s not simply a matter of informing others about what you may be planning to do, but listening painstakingly to their feedback–whether it’s welcome or not. I’d caution anyone on the brink of acting impulsively to stop, reflect, and speak to people they trust before giving themselves final permission to embark on such a venture, or commit to such a relationship. Although it may be true that our need to fill a vacuum can productively direct our behaviors, it can also end up seriously threatening our welfare. To conclude, if you’re harboring some ambivalence about making a decision, most of the time it will be in your best interest not to until you’re able to resolve this ambivalence. At the very least, you might ask yourself the question, “Am I driven to do this because I’m desperate to fill a void inside me?” If the answer is “yes,” or “probably,” I’d suggest–before going any farther–that you talk to others. . . . Or, if at all possible, go within and consult your own wiser, more prudent self.

It is astonishing how young a woman may be and yet be thought of as old, and how old a man may be and yet be thought of as young. I’ve been considering it. A lot. This started after I had my gallbladder removed, although I don’t think that everyone necessarily experiences this as a side effect. When I was recuperating (already I’m introducing a wonderfully youthful phrase, right?), I caught the end of one of the world’s best movies, SUNSET BOULEVARD.  Enthralled, I watched it for the twentieth time, but–and this is the crucial factor–for first time in about ten years. Let me ask you: without checking– no Googling now, no going to IMDB–how old would you say Norma Desmond is?  C’mon, be honest? When she’s clutching her neck, gritting her teeth, having lost her mind over her younger lover, saying in her delirium, “I’m ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille,”  How old do you think she is meant to be? Ready? Norma Desmond is 50. Gloria Swanson, when she played the character, was fifty. You don’t believe me? Here’s what William Holden says to her: “Joe Gillis: There’s nothing tragic about being fifty. Not unless you’re trying to be twenty-five.” She shoots him pretty soon afterwards. BANG. BANG. BANG. As far as I’m concerned, the fact that she only fires three shots shows enormous, not to say superhuman, self-restraint. I would have murdered anybody who said that to me a whole bunch more, then revived him, and then murdered him again. And I would have been confident  that had I been tried to a jury of my peers–my actual peers–not only would I be acquitted, I’d be thanked individually by each and every one of those women.  Maybe they would throw me a parade. When I was ranting about this to my friend, Santa Fe artist Ines Kramer (( www.InesKramer.com ) but since we’ve known each other since junior high, however, I usually just call her Ines), she immediately started her own list. Said Ines in yesterday’s email: “‘I’m older than Norma Desmond’ is the name of a fab new game. I’ve begun thinking of others.” I think she’s right. These are the folks who came to mind for Ines; she figured out she is older than: Baby Jane Ralph Cramden Miss Jean Brodie Butch Cassidy Ethel Mertz Once I saw Ethel Mertz on Ines’s list, I instantly thought of Edith Bunker (alliteration will do that to a girl). It took a little while, but I figured out that since Edith’s character was meant to have graduated from high school in 1943, and the show debuted in 1971, Edith was (wait for it) 46. I’m going to say this again, okay? Ready? Edith Bunker was 46. I am SIX YEARS OLDER THAN EDITH BUNKER. I don’t know how old Aunt Bea from The Andy Griffith Show was meant to be, but I’m probably older than she is. Once parting shot before I go: I was desperately, pathetically grateful to discover that I am still younger than the old Italian ladies in the movie MARTY–but not by much:   “Aunt Catherine: So I’m an old garbage bag put in the street, huh?… These are the worst years, I tell you. It’s going to happen to you. I’m afraid to look in a mirror.  I’m afraid I’m gonna see an old lady with white hair, just like the old ladies in the park with little bundles and black shawls waiting for the coffin.  I’m fifty-six years old. And what am I gonna do with myself? I’ve got strength in my hands. I want to clean. I want to cook. I want to make dinner for my children.  Am I an old dog to lay near the fire till my eyes close? These are terrible years, Theresa, terrible years… It’s gonna happen to you. It’s gonna happen to you!”  And you want to know what’s really amazing? The actress who said those words, Augusta Ciolli, was only 54 when MARTY was filmed. It’s not that I’m bitter, though. Really. Who else can we think of? Help me out, seriously. Give me some more examples, please. Trust me, there will be more about this in a later post.

Isn’t this supposed to be the United States of America?  The united part seems to be endangered as we watch partisan politics play out in Washington.  The recent votes on the stimulus package were cast explicitly along party lines.  Such partisanship sends a message of failed cooperation among our leaders that detracts from the successful passage of the bill.  If our legislators honestly can agree only with members of their own party as to the strengths and weaknesses of the stimulus package, then the dramatic disagreement across parties as to the bill’s merits is quite worrisome.  If, however, our legislators believe that voting with their own political party and against the opposition is more important than seriously considering the merits of the bill, are they not putting partisan politics ahead of the national interest?  Either possibility undermines trust in our leaders and what they tell us.  Few natural events — including strictly partisan votes — can be neatly explained according to a single level of analysis such as an in terms of the political forces at work.  Although I grant the political and other social forces in play, I believe there may be forces emanating from individual personalities that make such group behavior more likely.  For example, I am concerned that perhaps we have become a nation of people so disrespectful of one anothers’ beliefs that we have lost the habit of respecting those with whom we disagree.  Rather, we prefer to demean others so as make ourselves look better, or to amuse one another, or simply because it is so much easier than seeing the other person’s point of view.  If I were a member of the legislative branch and I truly, deeply respected those on the other side of the aisle, I believe I would be deeply disturbed by the sort of inter-party attacks and struggles that are currently taking place.  Many national legislators have spoken of their political principles in the past weeks, but what about their personal principles of respecting not only those with whom they agree, but also those with whom they disagree? If members of Congress and the executive branch extended genuine respect to one another, wouldn’t they recognize that it is more important to vote for that which is best for the country rather than for that which may promote their political party?  If they truly respected one another, wouldn’t the best and brightest among them join in a thoughtful give-and-take to promote good legislation above partisanship? I hope I am wrong that our lawmakers are so partisan that it is interfering with their ability to work together.  I hope I am wrong that our lawmakers see one another as opponents first and citizen-leaders of this nation second.  I further hope that those lawmakers are behaving on behalf of us all in ways that perhaps I, as a non-politician and Washington outsider, cannot discern.   If, however, I am correct that this partisanship is both excessive and weakens our nation, then I ask our lawmakers to remember their personal as well as their political principles.  I would ask both our legislators and we ourselves to respect and judge charitably others’ motives and beliefs. I realize that to make judgments that are sympathetic and charitable in these times may not feel either natural or easy, particularly when the media regularly report on various individuals’ corrupt and illegal behaviors.  Nonetheless there are many reasons wise people from many cultures extol the virtues of judging with care.   (If we are worried about corruption, instead of condemning everyone, let us enhance our enforcement agencies, and vote out problematic leaders).   There are gains for us all when we extend respect to those with other political opinions.  After all, to answer my opening question, this is the United States, and with the good work of our leaders, it will remain so in the future.  Unity doesn’t require agreement on all counts, but it does require a personal reaching out, a mental effort to understand the other and to find common ground.  There are times when other people are so dangerous and potentially destructive that compromising is not an option.  That is not the case, however, with the Republicans, Democrats, and Independents currently in Congress.  What is required in crafting legistlation is finding common ground.  What makes that so challenging at the personal level, however, is that the best compromises often require us to question our own beliefs and our own ideas, to realize that we ourselves are as prone to be mistaken as the next person. Although such self-awarness is challenging, it allows us to better understand what is really more open to pragmatic negotiation than might first appear to be the case. There are, of course, many political forces that have led to (what I regard as) overly partisan politics, such as the nature of electoral districts , and national tradition .  Those political forces, however, do not act by themselves.  They cannot be divorced from influences originating at other levels, such as the individual and personal.  Personally, I think this would be a good time to see members of congress working together effectively and generously.  Even if the opposing parties weren’t able to fashion a good compromise now, increasing such bipartisanship today could lead to better legislation tomorrow.  * * * Caveat Emptor: The author is a psychologist and possesses no special political expertise.  This post represents his personal opinion as a citizen and a voter.   © 2009 Psychology Today. 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If you hold a small water balloon between your two hands and squeeze one side, the water has to go somewhere. This is a lovely global metaphor, as it is perfectly descriptive of the human experience. If we have a pattern of behavior and we clamp down on it without actually addressing its genesis, as well as its applicability or necessity in our lives, it tends to come out sideways. What this speaks to, in part, is our degree of mindfulness. If we are paying attention, we understand where things start and where they have the potential to go. Should we have a trying day at work and don’t shake it off, someone is going to get the brunt of it. If we are irresponsible — intentionally or unintentionally — and suffer the consequences of that irresponsibility, we are likely to act out our frustration in some way, even though that frustration is, ultimately, with ourselves. And so it goes. Without attending to our lives and our experience, we lose the equanimity that provides us balance, as well as a sense of control and safety. Without attending to the underlying patterns of behavior that create, and therefore drive, our lives and our experience, we can end up constantly spinning in repeated patterns of behavior. Scenario 1 : A client of mine is driven by a compulsive need to "fill a space" that he feels in his life. That space has, over the years, been filled with productive, non-productive and destructive things, but, no matter their character, those things become consuming for him. On the productive side, we have a man who never finished high school getting a GED, going back to college and getting a Bachelors degree, then a Masters, all in record time. On the non-productive side, we have a man who has spent hours on the Internet surfing for collectables on E-bay. On the destructive side, this compulsion to "fill the void" has led to a pattern of serial addiction and all its attendant behavior that ranges from alcohol, to pain meds, to gambling, to spending, to porn, to an emotional affair. What has never been addressed by this fellow is the sense of lack or emptiness; what I have often referred to as the " God-shaped hole ". Productive, unproductive or destructive — the lack of redress regarding the underlying issue continues to prompt the obsessive-compulsive complex that prompts his addictions, which persist unabated. Scenario 2 : Another client of mine has been sober for 17 years. He came to me for some career counseling and, during the course of our conversations, his father, who had been ill, began to decline toward imminent death. My client confided in me that, when he went to Hospice to speak with his father, he would drink a nip of Vodka and a beer before going inside. He was quick to point out that he was not drinking in any other circumstance and that his drinking was confined to the nip and the beer. His father died and he stopped drinking that day. That was 3 years ago. In the first case, the individual is not attending to his underlying patterns of behavior, and, in clamping down on them or completing a cycle of activity, the obsessive-compulsive complex that is the mechanism for soothing his sense of emptiness pops up somewhere else – there’s the water balloon. In the second case, the individual had learned a number of effective coping mechanisms that disallowed his engaging in the numbing/avoiding behavior of his addiction. When confronted with a situation that was too overwhelming for those new coping mechanisms, he fell back on old behaviors. But when the situation ceased to be an issue, those old coping mechanisms were taken out of play. That’s not the water balloon – it’s a conscious act. This circumstance is not confined to addictive behavior – these examples were both convenient and coincident – but is reflective of all instances where an underlying template or pattern comes into play for us repeatedly, to whatever effect. The key for us is attending to the cycles, responses, reactions and self-created circumstances that define our experience. The "take away" here falls back on the old adage of forensic psychology that says, " The way that people do one thing is the way that they do everything. " What this intones is that people are nothing if not consistent.  If we are to evolve and change, we need to be introspective, mindful and attentive to our patterns, templates and cycles of behavior — as well as the genesis of our actions — bringing all of this under the umbrella of mindful and conscious control, rather than letting those things run free…and run us in the process.   © 2009 Michael J. Formica, All Rights Reserved My Psychology Today Therapists Profile My Website Email Me Directly Telephone Consultations   © 2009 Psychology Today. This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact blogs@psychologytoday.com so we can take legal action immediately.

Judging someone’s personality can be explosive.  A positive judgment can propel a person forward in life, like fuel can propel a rocket.  A negative judgment can explode a person’s plans, leaving behind only shattered hopes and dreams.  Examples of judgments that can propel a person forward include when: voters judge a candidate as capable of leading, and elect her to office. a career counselor perceives an employee to be bright and conscientious and helps him to find high-level employment. an awards committee judges a candidate’s character and achievements  as worthy of a a prize, bestows that prize, and in that way helps her to attain her goals over time. community members discover that one of their own is from a well-respected family, which raises his status among those who know him. Although positive judgments abound, negative judgments like these can take their toll: voters judge a candidate’s personality as lacking in moral fiber; the description "sticks" and the candidate’s political future is over. a jury determines that the defendant’s nature is to deceive others, lie, and cheat; the jury convicts the man and the judge sends him to jail. a psychiatrist assesses a person’s mental status and concludes that she is out of touch with reality, psychologically incompetent, and therefore must be institutionalized. At other times, an individual may react so powerfully to a negative judgment as to destroy him or herself: a murderer may kill his victim because (he perceived) the victim had demeaned his personality – insulted him. The murderer’s only remaining future is in jail. a man in a jealous state seeks evidence of his wife’s infidelity, concludes, "My wife is a slut," and kills her. He, too, spends the rest of his life in jail. another husband learns that other people believe his wife slept with another man. Some judge the husband as "less of a man" to put up with her. The only way to reclaim his reputation, he may decide, is to harm his wife, still further jeopardizng his own future — and hers. Organizations render judgments that steer some people off-course while pushing others further toward their goals: when a manager judges someone as lazy and careless, that person’s career may be sidetracked or ended.  When a teacher judges a student as gifted, the student’s future in the school and in getting a job may be assured.  Self-judgments affect us too: judge yourself as unable to succeed and you may be less likely to even try. judge yourself as able to carry out a task and you will be more likely to do well. There are numerous lesser judgments which we engage in every day: judging who is on time, who to trust with one’s house key, who left the lights on. We judge who can be trusted with our investments , or who can borrow our car. We make judgments we hope never to test: which relatives might care for us (or our children) in case disaster strikes and we are unable to do so ourselves. Judgments of character can provoke an explosion among groups who hold a stake in the assessment and are dismayed by the process.  Court-room trials can trigger riots if people believe someone was wrongly convicted. Accusations of slander are leveled against people who criticize those we admire.  A potentially-stigmatizing psychiatric diagnosis may be criticized, and outraged commentary may be posted on the web if it appears biased in some ways. When a member of a rich and powerful family is treated as "better than others" members of the public are sure to point it out. Judgments, like explosives, can detonate in a controllled fashion, or unpredictably. My hypothesis is that both those who judge personality and those who criticize such judgments often lose sight of the explosive territory they enter. Even professional psychologists are limited in understanding why, for example, when they interpret a client’s behavior (a form of judgment) the client so often resists. By understanding personality judgment in the broad sweep of our cultural history, it will be possible to better come to grips with judgments of ourselves and others, and to better inform ourselves as to when and how it makes sense to judge.  Making judgments is never easy. It has never been easy. It has never been done perfectly. Yet it always has been done because it must be done. This post and those to follow continue what I began in November 2008 , illuminating the natural history of judging personality that takes place around us, and has (I have argued) taken place throughout history. In the coming weeks, I will continue with my examination of judging personality, including the earliest evidence of such practices.   *** Welcome back to readers of the "Judging Personality" series of posts… Click here for more information about the Personality Analyst posts, including schedules, coverage, key terminology, etc.. Click here for previous posts in the series. Notes: Berg, I. A. & Fox, V. (1947). Factors in homicides committed by 200 males. Journal of Social Psychology , 26, 109-119. 200 males convicted of 1st or 2nd degree murder, murdered their wives for reasons of infidelity or arguments over money; males murdered other males for perceived insults. "A man whose wife is unfaithful…will be judged" Vandello, J. A., & Cohen, D. (2003). Male honor and female fidelity: Implicit cultural scripts that perpetuate domestic violence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 997-1010. © Copyright 2009, John D. Mayer © 2009 Psychology Today. 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Addiction differs from such DSM-IV disorders as, say, schizophrenia, in that having the condition qualifies a person as an expert. "What alcohol does to me is reality," alcoholics believe, "and so I know all about alcoholism." Susan Cheever, who added her not especially insightful 1999 book, Note Found in a Bottle , to the massive first-person literature on alcoholism, is considered an alcoholism expert. In truth, Ms. Cheevers’ condition actually expresses her, and our cultural, confusion about alcoholism. On a broader scale, Americans believe that the drinking they see around them is how all humans experience alcohol. Human beings are social animals pluperfect. What they and the people they know do is the way the world is. And this myopia is nowhere more apparent than with alcohol. The three major determinants of people’s drinking experiences are: (1) the people they know (friends and family), (2) their social class and cultural group, (3) their historic era. Cheever seems to recognize the social causes of her problem in the New York Times post, Proof , when she described wanton and destructive drinking at the parties she used to frequent. These experiences represented the impact of all major social factors in Cheever’s life – social group, family, historic era. While she and her friends once drank with abandon, however, Cheever and the United States are now undergoing an anti-alcohol cultural wave. That the Times publishes so many Proof posts by recovering alcoholics and active problem drinkers is actually proof of one thing: we are undergoing a national reaction against drinking. Per our current cultural view of addiction, Cheever considers herself an unavoidable victim of the disease of alcoholism – her heritage MADE her an alcoholic. Reviewing her biographical memoir about her father, novelist John Cheever, Home Before Dark , Goodreads declared, "Anyone not convinced of a genetic trait for alcoholism should read this. Cheever’s father, mother and brother were all heavy drinkers if not frank alcoholics." Obviously, therefore, the Cheever family are genetic alcoholics. But this distinctly American view is not consistent with Cheever’s own descriptions, nor with scientific material she relates. In her post to the Proof blog, Cheever describes Bruce Alexander’s famous Rat Park experiment, where animals were habituated to narcotics in an isolated cage, then placed in a large enclosure with other rats and rodent amusements (e.g., a ferris wheel). The addicted rats totally eschewed morphine solution in favor of plain drinking water in Rat Park. This does not support a disease perspective on addictions, as I made clear in The Meaning of Addiction . If simple-minded animals respond to a rich, socially-engaging setting by quitting narcotics cold rat, then how much more likely is human drinking and drug-taking to reflect people’s social milieus? Cheever feels her book will warn others like her of the dangers of alcohol and enable them to avoid the traps she fell into. But the existence of so many similar volumes before hers (including such best-sellers in recent memory as Jill Robinson’s Bed Time Story and Caroline Knapp’s Drinking: A Love Story ) without a notable reduction in alcoholism suggests her hopes won’t be realized. Indeed, remarkably, while Americans drink less currently, more of them report having alcoholic symptoms (with which Americans are now well familiar)! How is this paradox possible? The vision of inescapable alcoholism Cheever depicts is not one that is universally shared – in some cultures the whole idea is completely absent. Here’s the rub – cultures without this image have lower alcoholism rates. In his book The Natural History of Alcoholism , George Vaillant found when following the lives of inner-city Boston men from adolescence to seniority that Irish-Americans in his sample were almost ten times as likely to become alcoholic as their Italian, Jewish, and Greek neighbors! The Irish Americans Vaillant studied had an extravagant view of alcohol. According to Vaillant: "It is consistent with Irish culture to see the use of alcohol in terms of black or white, good or evil, drunkenness or complete abstinence." Conveying the idea of alcohol’s irresistible power, and in fact drinking that way, is to convince people their drinking is uncontrollable and to encourage such drinking. Here’s the irony: to the extent that people read and believe views like Cheever’s – make them a part of their internal baggage like they are a part of Cheever’s – they will be susceptible to alcoholism. © 2009 Psychology Today. This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact blogs@psychologytoday.com so we can take legal action immediately.

Holiday cards have been arriving from old friends: college roommates, childhood pals. Most of us haven’t seen each other in years, even decades. Inside a card that arrived yesterday, a lush flocked confection featuring the Three Kings, the sender wrote a note suggesting that we meet for coffee the next time she’s in town. Why did this make me freeze? No bad blood seethes between me and the sender. We were friends . We shared clothes, stayed up late watching The Twilight Zone , and made cookies together — but that was then and this is now, and were we to meet again, she’d see that she is all grown up and I am not. Some of us look grown up but aren’t. We walk around with suits and briefcases and car keys and annuities. But inside, we are five. Ten. Twelve. Sixteen. We sit in boardrooms, travel the world, even write books. But we are kids, still playing dress-up, playing house. Our bodies matured but our minds did not. Now – playing catch-up, playing spy - we feel left out of the adult world, certain that our would-be peers are whispering behind our backs, or speaking in a code we do not know. See? What a childish fear, right there. They’re all talking in code! We are the ones at whom others have hissed Grow up! so many times that we now tune it out. They call us flighty, scatterbrained, irresponsible, illogical, impatient. Here’s another word for it: We’re immature. We are stuck in the past not usually by choice but because, like dud popcorn kernels or bonsai trees, we failed to grow. The ones who were supposed to show us how to grow did not. They did not know or were not there. Or traumas held us in their grip. Portals inscribed with mystical initiation-signs glimmered, awaiting us, but no: We wandered back the other way or balked. We’re stuck. Can childishness be fixed? Perhaps. Should it? Well, is it hurting anyone? The childish are not well-suited to parenthood or high-stress jobs. The downsides loom. The fears. Imagine wanting to hide under beds. Imagine wanting to flee down the street in sneakers, to the swingset, to the sand – while juggling house payments and wearing bifocals. It’s hard. Then again, some aspects of childhood are worth retaining. Wonder, joy, dreams — you know the drill. In the 2002 film Mr. Deeds , a remake of the 1939 classic, a simple country bumpkin (played by Adam Sandler, who has built a successful career on portraying childish adults who become heroes without selling out and without quite growing up) inherits a fortune. Addressing a crowd of New Yorkers faced with a brutal business decision, Longfellow Deeds argues that adults have lost touch with their childhood dreams. A man in the crowd confesses that, at age eleven, he dreamed of becoming a veterinarian but that he now owns a chain of slaughterhouses. "We’ve all compromised," Deeds intones. Another man in the crowd, who at eleven dreamed of becoming a magician, now operates a porn site. "Our eleven-year-old selves," Deeds says, "would wanna kick us in the ass all over the place." I’m still not ready to meet that friend for coffee.   © 2008 Psychology Today. This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact blogs@psychologytoday.com so we can take legal action immediately.

The New York Times has an obituary to psychologist Robert Zajonc , who made some of the most significant discoveries in cognitive science. What I didn’t know is that he’d also been bombed, captured by the Nazi’s, made his escape, joined the French resistance and acted as a translator for the Allied forces during the War. Zajonc was one of those unsung heroes of psychology who you probably know through his discoveries, even if you don’t recognise the name. He discovered the ‘ mere exposure effect ‘, the effect of birth order on IQ, the interaction between audience and expertise, and that smiles can lift the mood as well as be triggered by happiness. Professor Zajonc was perhaps best known for discovering what he called the “mere exposure” effect. In a seminal experiment, published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1968, he showed subjects a series of random shapes in rapid succession. The shapes appeared and disappeared so quickly that it was impossible to discern that some of them were actually repeated. Nevertheless, when subjects were later asked which shapes they found most pleasing, they reliably chose the ones to which they had been exposed the most often, though they had no conscious awareness of the fact. I had the experience of reading through the piece thinking, ‘wow, I didn’t realise all these discoveries were from the same guy’. Link to NYT obituary for psychologist Robert Zajonc (via AHP ).

The ‘rubber hand illusion’ is where we can be fooled into feeling a sensation in a fake hand. A group of researchers have used this same technique with arm amputees and found that they can induce sensations that seem to be located in the rubber hand even in people who have had their real hand amputated. The study has just been published online by the neurology journal Brain , and it could have important implications for the development of prosthetic limbs that can relay touch sensations which could seem to be experienced in the mechanical fingers. The study is from the same team that recently hit the headlines with their virtual reality ‘body swapping’ study , which, like the ‘rubber hand illusion’, is based on the same general principal. This is the now widely replicated finding that when we see a fake but convincing body part being touched, and we feel a genuine sensation on the actual body part, our brain ‘moves’ the sensation to where the fake body part is. The ‘body swapping’ study used camera trickery to do this – each person had a camera by their eyes but had goggles which displayed what the person sitting opposite saw. When they shook hands, each person saw themselves from the other person’s perspective and with the genuine touch from the handshake, it produced the illusion that the person was located ‘inside’ their opposite. However, the ‘rubber hand illusion’ is a much simpler way of producing a similar effect. It requires that you sit with your real hand out of sight, under the table perhaps, and a rubber arm placed on top of the table as if it were in the natural position of your limb. When both the real hand and the false hand are touched in an identical way, such as the little finger being stroked with a pen, the sensation seems to be located in the rubber hand, despite the fact you know it to be fake and you’re aware your real hand is under the table. There’s a video of it online if you want to see an example of the set-up. This is obviously a little difficult to do with people who have had their arm amputated, but the researchers used the same procedure but stroked the stump of the amputated limb. Probably because this stimulates the remaining nerve fibres, the same illusion was triggered, and the sensation ‘moved’ to the rubber hand. To check the effect wasn’t just the participants saying what the experimenters wanted to hear, they wired the participants up to a skin conductance measure – something known to increase when people are stressed. They then stabbed the rubber hand with a syringe. When this happened after the illusion was induced, the stress response was significantly greater, indicating that the effect was real and compelling enough to increase anxiety. Interestingly, the illusion was weaker in people who had their hand amputated for longer periods. This is likely due to the fact that the mapping of how brain areas represent body parts slowly rearranges after amputation. It continues rearranging over time and areas previously used to represent the hand start to be used for representing other existing body parts, making the illusion less compelling. This also explains why phantom limbs often fade or ‘warp’ over time. UPDATE: I’ve just noticed that Scientific American has a good brief article on the rubber hand illusion that appeared this month. UPDATE TWO: Neurophilosophy also takes a look at the study and actually does a better job than me! Link to open-access study from Brain .

I remember one on-all night as a first year medical intern at 4 AM. My first year teammate was exhausted and our senior resident looked worn out . After working a straight 20 hour shift with no breaks, we were beat. In my twenties, I looked fresh, and could continue to work in the Emergency Room like the Energizer Bunny. I knew I could go on all night without sleep but would also feel my speech would be somewhat off the next day. This was more of a subjective observation as others told me I looked just fine. My head would feel heavy and full, I felt my speech was not as clear as usual, and I’d still work the whole next day. This schedule went on for months. There is a caveat, though. My fellow intern and I had a brilliant idea which we put into effect the first few weeks: she had a hard time staying awake after midnight and, instead, I felt better if I went on through the night and then got a few hours of sleep before the next workday. She would go to bed at midnight and I would take care of all hospital needs until 4 AM. We would then switch places, she would take care of all consults and I would try to get some sleep from 4 AM to 8 AM. The deal was in place as long as the other one didn’t feel overwhelmed with all the admissions and consults. We never called the other one for back-up; we took the hectic schedule as those hours made a great difference in our performance the following day. We usually worked weekends and had a full free weekend every few months. My colleague and I were married to doctors and we both had young children. This was almost two decades ago. At the time, residents stayed awake and worked all night long for months and even years. Doctors took pride of their ability – whether because of a genetic-based capability or an ability to adapt to an environmental demand. The idea was: if you wanted to be a doctor, you first needed to live up to the challenge. While practicing physicians understand that reducing errors and improving working conditions are of essence, many of us have also observed some new attitudes. Not that there weren’t ever senior residents taking advantage of the younger ones. And yet, some of the younger physicians will now say their time is up and they may be more reluctant to seeing any more patients although there may be a need. Other doctors would present a smoother transition before their shift is up. Many experienced physicians miss the old days with a bitter-sweet taste. Many believe they chose the challenges of being available to serve in extreme circumstances. Medicine has been a profession of service although the current practicing scenario has converted into more of a commodity. If these young doctors are burning out when they haven’t even started practicing medicine, what will happen next? There is a well-anticipated shortage of physicians expected in the coming years. Add the younger generation’s expectations to live a better life with less work and many young women doctors already planning a part-time practice. Food for thought: Do you share long work hours? Do you believe both male and female physicians should have similar opportunities? Do you believe physicians who train less hours or who work less hours than their counterparts can develop a similar degree of expertise as their counterparts?   © 2008 Psychology Today. This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact blogs@psychologytoday.com so we can take legal action immediately.