Clipmarks | Silkweaver's 'psychology' clips

Complex decision? Don't sleep on it

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:09:34 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Since its publication two years ago by a Dutch research team in the journal Science, the earlier finding had been used to encourage decision-makers to make "snap" decisions (for example, in the best-selling book Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell) or to leave complex choices to the powers of unconscious thought ("Sleep on it", Dijksterhuis et al., Science, 2006).

But in the new study, to be published in The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, scientists ran four experiments in which participants were presented with complex decisions and asked to choose the best option immediately ("blink"), after a period of conscious deliberation ("think"), or after a period of distraction ("sleep on it"), which is claimed to encourage "unconscious thought processes".

In all experiments, there was some evidence that conscious deliberation can lead to better choices and little evidence for superiority of choices made "unconsciously".

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Neither snap judgements nor sleeping on a problem are any better than conscious thinking for making complex decisions, according to new research.

The finding debunks a controversial 2006 research result asserting that unconscious thought is superior for complex decisions, such as buying a house or car.

If anything, the new study suggests that conscious thought leads to better choices.

"Claims that we can make superior 'snap' decisions by trusting intuition or through the 'power' of unconscious thought have received a great deal of attention in the media," says University of New South Wales psychologist, Dr Ben Newell, lead author of the new study.

"At best, these sorts of headlines are misleading," says Dr Newell. "At worst, they're outright dangerous. In stark contrast to claims made by the Dutch research team and in the media, we found very little evidence of the superiority of unconscious thought for complex decisions.

Tags: behavior, decision making, rationality, intuition

Humans' response to risk can be unnecessarily dangerous, study

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:50:55 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: The results of Lotem's research may also be used by economists, politicians and psychologists, who need to know when people will take risks, says Prof. Lotem. A wider understanding of this phenomenon can affect business decisions, the economy ― and, hopefully, the number of road accidents in America each year.

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

The traffic light ahead of you is turning yellow. Do you gun the engine and speed through the intersection, trusting that others will wait for their green, or do you slow down and wait your turn?

That depends more on experience than personality, according to new research from Tel Aviv University.

people adopt risk-taking behaviors similar to those of animals like rats and bees.

this behavior, Prof. Lotem and his colleagues say, might not prepare humankind for the modern dangers we face every day –– like crossing the street, accepting a high-risk mortgage, or driving on the freeway.

What we have found is that people make decisions based on what option 'appears' to be better most of the time.

Under conditions in the natural world this would be the best strategy, but in modern life it has nothing do with the real inherent risks

the more complex the risk, the more difficult to predict how people will react.

Tags: behavior, psychology, risk management

I click, therefore I am: Toward outsourcing our identity

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:35:49 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: There are two complementary tendencies on the Net: one which encourages keeping multiple personalities, and the other which tends to gather them in a central personality. For instance, a survey said that most people on Twitter use more than one account and a site lets users create profiles for the different facets of their personality. We can set different email addresses (sometimes called “identities”) in email programs.

Other tendencies are toward reunification, as in OpenID, a “way to use a single digital identity across the Internet.” Furthermore, many social sites we could be part of, like BlogCatalog and MyBloglog will show the identity we choose to when we visit blogs, leaving a trace of our path.

Clip Source: www.indranet.org

We are scattered over the Net, a piece in a social networking site, another piece in a different site, in a dating site, we write in our blog and we comment on others’ blogs, meet on chats and join forums on the most diverse subjects.

Our identities are becoming ever more fluid, we feel affiliated with various situations with only a part of ourselves.

The real communities of family and friends too are now more like windows which maybe we would prefer to also manage in our computers.

Lifelogging projects want to extend the scope of our life activities which are processed and managed online.

One aspect of our online identities, explored by several experts, is the attenuation of inhibitions in online life.

The superego, our psyche’s structure devoted to criticizing ourselves, to inhibit our actions and desires, is weakened by our online activity.

Without superego pressure we can explore parts which are usually kept in the shadow.

Tags: web, psychology, personality, behavior

Seven reasons why people hate reason

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:45:46 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Very interesting reflections on reason and why people are still prejudiced about it. See the videos...

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

From religious fundamentalism to pseudoscience, it seems that forces are attacking the Enlightenment world view – characterised by rational, scientific thinking – from all sides.

The debate seems black and white: you’re either with reason, or you’re against it.

Editorial: How to make reason more reasonable

1: Reason stands against values and morals

Shaping a moral and humane world requires more than reason, says Archbishop Rowan Williams

2: No one actually uses reason

If we had to think logically about everything we did, we’d never do anything at all, says neuroscientist Chris Frith.

Watch a related video

I hear "reason", I see lies

Science is routinely co-opted by governments and corporations to subvert people’s ability to make their own decisions, say sociologist David Miller and linguist Noam Chomsky.

Watch a related video.

4: Reason excludes creativity and intuition

5: Whose reason is it anyway?

6: Reason destroys itself

7: Reason is just another faith

Tags: philosophy, reason, psychology

Optimism is good for heart health, at least among men.

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:50:06 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Its known for long that ignorance is bliss, now we know it also improves one's health.

Clip Source: www.zmelifetips.com

Clip Source: www.brainmysteries.com

University of Rochester Medical Center researcher Robert Gramling, M.D., D.Sc., found that men who believed they were at lower-than-average risk for cardiovascular disease actually experienced a three times lower incidence of death from heart attacks and strokes.

Researchers were interested in measuring whether optimistic perceptions of risk might protect people from the fear-related coping behaviors (overeating comfort foods, too much alcohol, or avoiding the doctor) or the stress that can be associated with heart disease.

Men's views were more discordant. Almost half of the men who self-rated their risk to be "low" would have been classified by objective medical tests as having "high" or "very high" risk. Most women who rated their risk to be "low" were far more accurate than the men.

"Clearly, holding optimistic perceptions of risk has its advantages for men," said Gramling, an assistant professor of Family Medicine and Community and Preventive Medicine.

Tags: health, positive thinking, behavior, psychology

Men and women are programmed differently when it comes to temptation

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:19:06 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: "One interpretation of these studies is that men are unable to ward off temptation. We do not subscribe to this. Instead, we believe men simply interpret these interactions differently than women do," said Lydon. "We think that if men believed an attractive, available woman was a threat to their relationship, they might try to protect that relationship."

Clip Source: pastorbobturner.blogspot.com

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Temptation may be everywhere, but it's how the different sexes react to flirtation that determines the effect it will have on their relationships.

In a new study, psychologists determined men tend to look at their partners in a more negative light after meeting a single, attractive woman.

On the other hand, women are likelier to work to strengthen their current relationships after meeting an available, attractive man.

Men may not see their flirtations with an attractive woman as threatening to the relationship while women do, according to findings from a study in the July issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Researchers conducted seven laboratory experiments using 724 heterosexual men and women to see how college-aged men and women in serious relationships react when another attractive person enters the mix.

Tags: behavior, relations, gender differences

Why We're All Moral Hypocrites

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:59:09 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: The researchers then "constrained cognition" by asking subjects to memorize long strings of numbers. In this greatly distracted state, subjects became impartial. They thought their own transgressions were just as terrible as those of others.

This suggests that we are intuitively moral beings, but "when we are given time to think about it, we construct arguments about why what we did wasn’t that bad,"

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

Most of us, whether we admit it or not, are moral hypocrites. We judge others more severely than we judge ourselves.

Mounting evidence suggests moral decisions result from the jousting between our knee-jerk responses (think "survival instinct") and our slower, but more collected evaluations. Which is more responsible for our self-leniency?

a recent study presented people with two tasks.

One was described as tedious and time-consuming

the other, easy and brief.

The subjects were asked to assign each task to either themselves or the next participant.

They could do this independently or defer to a computer, which would assign the tasks randomly.

Eighty-five percent of 42 subjects passed up the computer’s objectivity and assigned themselves the short task – leaving the laborious one to someone else.

Furthermore, they thought their decision was fair

However, when 43 other subjects watched strangers make the same decision, they thought it unjust.

Tags: behavior, morality, psychology

Impossible Experiments (2)

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:22:54 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks:

Clip Source: blogs.psychologytoday.com

For Better or Worse

I'd like to take couples who are living together and randomly assign half of them to marry and the others to stay unmarried.

Then we could really know something about the implications of co-habitation vs. marriage.

More outrageously, take people who are not in a serious romantic relationship, and assign half of them, at random, to marry.

Single people are randomly assigned to a spouse who is chosen at random, or to a spouse who fits their description of their perfect partner, or to stay single

Who do you think would end up the happiest a decade later?

Enter the Matrx

I would create an "experience machine" that gave people the illusion that they were living a vibrant and exciting life.

Philosophers have long wondered whether people care only about their own feelings of happiness or whether they truly do want to be accomplishing something meaningful in their lives.

If we could offer people the choice to go into this machine, we would

figuring out what the answer really was

Tags: psychology

Impossible Experiments (1)

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:15:29 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Continue on the second part of this clip.

Clip Source: blogs.psychologytoday.com

What psychology experiment would you love to carry out if neither ethics nor practical reality stood in your way? For the August issue of Psychology Today, I asked several PT bloggers this question and printed four responses.

Musical Storks

I would collect all newborn babies and randomly reassign them to new parents. I'm confident that we will confirm the 50-0-50 rule: Adult personality is roughly 50% genetic, 0% how they are raised by their parents, and 50% socialization outside the family by peers and friends

Universal Grammar

I would entirely determine the sentences and words children are presented with during their infancy and childhood. For instance, you could entirely deprive children of examples of some linguistic constructions.

Then see whether children develop a normal linguistic competence. If so, that would be very strong evidence that we possess a dedicated cognitive mechanism to help us acquire language

Tags: psychology

Intuition can be explained

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:34:31 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: However, these memories are stored only if they affect us. In other words, for experience to be built up, there must be commitment.

This means, according to Lars-Erik Björklund, that we can never read or calculate our way to all the knowledge and abilities we need in our professional life. Practical experience is indispensable and needs to be reevaluated.

Clip Source: artfiles.art.com

Clip Source: www.liu.se

Intuition, or tacit knowledge, is difficult to measure, so it is often denigrated.

A dissertation in education research shows that there is a neurobiological explanation for how experience-based knowledge is created.

The fact that people with long experience are often better at what they do, that practice makes perfect, is nothing new. But no good explanations have been put forward as to why this is the case.

A few years ago neuroscientists discovered that the human brain has dual systems for receiving and analyzing sensory impressions, one conscious and one unconscious.

In the unconscious, that is the non-declarative system, our sensory impressions are compared with previously stored images.

We all have an inner picture book of stored experiences based on what has happened to us previously in life. We also remember the outcome -¬ did it end well or badly? With the aid of these stored sensory impressions, we unconsciously assess the situation at hand and can predict the outcome.

Tags: intuition, neuroscience, psychology, experience

'Mind's eye' influences visual perception

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:59:19 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: The new findings offer an objective tool to assess the often-slippery concept of imagination.

This is an interesting and fascinating experiment.

It is perhaps a far shot but this may point towards the roots of human's
ability and inclination to envision a future reality and than change the world around to fit this reality.

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Letting your imagination run away with you may actually influence how you see the world.

New research from Vanderbilt University has found that mental imagery—what we see with the "mind's eye"—directly impacts our visual perception.

The research was published online June 26 by the journal Current Biology in a paper titled, "The Functional Impact of Mental Imagery on Conscious Perception."

"We found that imagery leads to a short-term memory trace that can bias future perception,"

"This is the first research to definitively show that imagining something changes vision both while you are imagining it and later on."

"These findings are important because they suggest a potential mechanism by which top-down expectations or recollections of previous experiences might shape perception itself,"

"Our results show that even a single instance of imagery can tilt how you see the world one way or another, dramatically, if the conditions are right."

Tags: perception, imagination, brain, psychology

Study shows that chronic grief activates pleasure areas of the brain

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:51:23 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.eurekalert.org

Grief is universal, and most of us will probably experience the pain grief brings at some point in our lives, usually with the death of a loved one. In time, we move on, accepting the loss.

But for a substantial minority, it's impossible to let go, and even years later, any reminder of their loss � a picture, a memory � brings on a fresh wave of grief and yearning.

The question is, why? Why do some grieve and ultimately adapt, while others can't get over the loss of someone held dear?

Reporting in the journal NeuroImage, scientists at UCLA suggest that such long-term or "complicated" grief activates neurons in the reward centers of the brain, possibly giving these memories addiction-like properties.

"After the loved one dies, those who adapt to the loss stop getting this neural reward. But those who don't adapt continue to crave it, because each time they do see a cue, they still get that neural reward.

all of this is outside of conscious thought, so there isn't an intention about it

Tags: neuroscience, psychology

10 Ways We Get the Odds Wrong

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 02:26:25 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: And the two last ones:

IX. We Love Sunlight But Fear Nuclear Power

Why "natural" risks are easier to accept.

X. We Should Fear Fear Itself

Why worrying about risk is itself risky.

Though the odds of dying in a terror attack like 9/11 or contracting Ebola are infinitesimal, the effects of chronic stress caused by constant fear are significant. Studies have found that the more people were exposed to media portrayals of the 2001 attacks, the more anxious and depressed they were. Chronically elevated stress harms our physiology, says Ropeik. "It interferes with the formation of bone, lowers immune response, increases the likelihood of clinical depression and diabetes, impairs our memory and our fertility, and contributes to long-term cardiovascular damage and high blood pressure."

Clip Source: www.psychologytoday.com

Our brains are terrible at assessing modern risks. Here's how to think straight about dangers in your midst.

Our emotions push us to make snap judgments that once were sensible—but may not be anymore.

I. We Fear Snakes, Not Cars

Risk and emotion are inseparable.

II. We Fear Spectacular, Unlikely Events

Fear skews risk analysis in predictable ways.

III. We Fear Cancer But Not Heart Disease

We underestimate threats that creep up on us.

IV. No Pesticide in My Backyard—Unless I Put it There

We prefer that which (we think) we can control.

V. We Speed Up When We Put Our Seat belts On

We substitute one risk for another.

VI. Teens May Think Too Much About Risk—And Not Feel Enough

Why using your cortex isn't always smart.

VII. Why Young Men Will Never Get Good Rates on Car Insurance

The "risk thermostat" varies widely.

VIII. We Worry About Teen Marijuana Use, But Not About Teen Sports

Risk arguments cannot be divorced from values.

Tags: behavioral science, psychology, stress managment

The Nearest Thing to Mind Reading

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 12:24:06 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: “A person can put up a good face and avoid disclosing different types of information,” he added. “You would think depressed people party less, talk less, laugh less and interact less. But the students who reported having the most depressive symptoms did those things as much as anyone else.”

The researchers uncovered a few things: Stream of consciousness writing often speaks more loudly about private personality traits than do public forms of expression and those who read personal narratives written by other people can most often come up with an accurate judgment of that person’s character.

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Instead of focusing on personal Web sites and blogs, UA psychology researchers used stream of consciousness writings in their research to determine a more accurate measure of individual personlity traits.

Stream of consciousness, a century-old literary device, is helping University of Arizona researchers get to the core of individual personality.

But UA assistant psychology professor Matthias R. Mehl and Shannon E. Holleran, a doctoral degree candidate in psychology, wanted to delve into the difficult-to-measure, private nuances of personality. So they set out on a study using stream of consciousness writing.

They found that reading private thoughts manifest in a writing surge resulted in the ability to make “surprisingly accurate” measures of a person’s personality traits.

Mehl said “the general sense is that just by looking at someone’s picture or Web site or by reading somebody’s blog, you can get a very good sense of what that person is like.”

That may not be entirely true.

Tags: psychology, behavioral science

The ghostly gaze of science

Thu, 29 May 2008 11:54:47 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Are you looking at me ???

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

An award-winning visual illusion developed by university psychologists will be shown as part of this year’s Glasgow Science Festival on 15 June.

The illusion plays on the way our minds decipher the direction of an individual’s gaze. From a distance the two figures in the Ghostly Gaze image appear to be looking at each other but as the image gets larger the figures appear to be looking straight ahead.

University of Glasgow lecturer in Psychology, Rob Jenkins, said: “Gaze direction is an important cue in social interactions. In most circumstances we are very accurate in judging where other people are looking, but under some conditions normal gaze perception can be led astray.

“The technique I used to create the image involves blending the fine detail from one photo with the broad strokes of a conflicting photo. Which photo is dominant then depends on the viewing distance. The illusion helps us to understand eye contact, and the sense of being stared at.”

Tags: visual illusions