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Do we really have any control over our emotions?

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 06:00:44 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: "So, rather than a mysterious force welling up from within, Solomon views emotions as choices for which we have to take responsibility. Emotions are, in fact, strategies"
.

Clip Source: www.flickr.com

Clip Source: www.spring.org.uk

"A thought comes when it will, not when I will." - Nietzsche

Nietzsche's quote raises an important question about both thoughts and, implicitly, about emotions. Many people would say their emotions only come when they will and not when they want. So how do thoughts and emotions interact in everyday life and in therapeutic processes like cognitive behavioural therapy? Do we really have any control over our emotions or are they things that just happen to us?

Robert Solomon is the kind of philosopher who keeps his eye on psychological research but provides a birds-eye view.

emotions are not just things that happen to us. As existentialist philosophers like Sartre point out, we have a responsibility to take ownership of our emotions

emotions are in fact choices. But, not necessarily choices in the emotional moment, but patterns of choices over a period of time. Certain ways in which you tend to view the world: your appraisals.

I Never Heard of Anybody Getting a Dual Ph.D.

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 02:21:17 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: dulios recently mentioned to me that conservatives were talking about me on their threads, accusing me of lying about my education and experience. I'd say first, Google me. But, addressing it only once, this clip should be proof enough.

Clip Source: www.umich.edu

U-M study: More programs needed to aid students with mental illnesses

The other authors are Mark Holter, an assistant professor in the School of Social Work, and Deborah Megivern, a social work assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis. The authors studied 103 college programs nationwide and categorized them according to the services they provide. The national survey research was published in a recent issue of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal.

Clip Source: www.apa.org

American Psychological Foundation news

Megivern receives Todd E. Husted Memorial Award

Deborah Megivern, a doctoral candidate in social work and psychology at the University of Michigan School of Social Work has been named the 2000 recipient of the Todd E. Husted Memorial Award.

After earning her doctoral degree this year, Megivern will begin a new position as a postdoctoral researcher with the Center for Mental Health Services at Washington University in St. Louis.

Tags: social work, psychology, facts, truth

Atlas of the Real World

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:08:51 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Land area

The Atlas of the Real World uses software to depict the nations of the world, not by their physical size, but by their demographic importance on a range of subjects. Here, we select a series of travel- and news-related maps.

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Wealth in the year 1

The size of each territory shows the GDP, adjusted for local purchasing power, of the equivalent territory in 1 AD. The Americas appear small, partly because fewer people lived there in year 1 AD.

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Wealth in the year 1900

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Projected wealth in the year 2015

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Housing prices

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

HIV prevalence

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Alcohol consumption

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Nuclear weapons

2002

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Armed forces at war 1945-2004

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

War deaths 1945-2002

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Increase in emissions of carbon dioxide

Between 1980 and 2000, nearly three-quarters of all territories saw an increase in carbon dioxide emissions, with China, the United States and India leading the way.

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Decrease in emissions of carbon dioxide

1980 and 2000

The sapphire mines of Madagascar

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:53:24 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: The Big Picture from The Boston Globe

Clip Source: www.boston.com

Sapphires of various colors are shown, lined up at a local precious stone business in the Ilakaka, Madagascar

The tiny village of Ilakaka, Madagascar had barely 40 residents before 1998. Then, a large deposit of sapphires was discovered along a nearby riverbed, and caught the eye of some Thai businessmen in the gem trade. Word got out, and Ilakaka swelled to tens of thousands of residents - the center of a sapphire boom, today the source of nearly 50% of all the sapphires in the world. Illegal miners mixed with large-scale operations, all operating under little or no regulation, in a wild-west atmosphere of potential fortunes, lawlesness, violence and hardship. In the years since, the easily-mined sapphire fields have been picked clean, and the remaining miners often work in deep holes, climbing far underground. Mining is also a family effort

Palin-Biden Debate Drinking Game!

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:21:50 GMT

clipped by: dulios
clipper's remarks: Let's get it on!

Clip Source: wonkette.com

Palin-Biden Debate Drinking Game Begins NOW

Let’s make it fun — or hazy, at least — by taking a drink off your wine or beer when the following occurs:

PALIN evades a question by mentioning state rights.

BIDEN says he takes the train home every day.

PALIN fills time by listing all her kids, by their ridiculous names.

BIDEN talks about Scranton.

PALIN blames Iraq for 9/11.

BIDEN blames McCain for 9/11.

PALIN says “like” as a White Trash discourse particle or interjection.

BIDEN audibly laughs at Palin.

PALIN stares blankly when she can’t answer a question.

BIDEN makes a sarcastic joke that goes right over Palin’s head, along with about half the viewers.

PALIN says anything comically retarded about Russia or Canada.

The following situations call for One (1) Shot of Liquor:

PALIN doesn’t know what FDIC or SEC stand for.

BIDEN admits to plagiarizing the Constitution.

PALIN admits to dealing meth.

GWEN IFILL asks Sarah Palin about incestuous rape.

PALIN insults Biden for having hair plugs.

12 Greek Words You Should Know

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:01:36 GMT

clipped by: hitchhiker08

Clip Source: www.dailywritingtips.com

12 Greek Words You Should Know

Along with Latin, Greek is probably the language that most influenced other languages around the world. Many English words derive directly from Greek ones

knowing their origin and meaning is important.

1. Acme

The highest point of a structure.

2. Acropolis

Acro means edge or extremity, while polis means city.

The word Acropolis is commonly associated with Greece’s capital Athens

3. Agora

was an open market place, present in most cities of the ancient Greece.

4. Anathema

a noun and it means a formal ban

riginal Greek meaning for this word was “something offered to the gods.”

5. Anemia

a condition characterized by a qualitative or quantitative deficiency of the red blood cells (or of the hemoglobin)

6. Ethos

accustomed place

7. Dogma

belief or set of principles held by a religion,

8. Eureka

is used to celebrate a discovery

9. Genesis

means birth or origin

10. Phobia

phobia is a fear

11. Plethora

when you go beyond what is needed or appropriate

12. Kudos

means fame or glory

Tags: greek, language, english

How to Improve Your Self-Control

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:03:33 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: Some people seem to find it easy to resist temptation while others can be relied on to always yield to self-gratification. To a certain extent we have to accept our starting point on the self-control sliding scale and do the best we can with it.
3. How to improve your self-control:
Global processing. This means trying to focus on the wood rather than the trees.
Abstract reasoning. This means trying to avoid considering the specific details of the situation at hand in favour of thinking about how actions fit into an overall framework - being philosophical.
High-level categorisation. This means thinking about high-level concepts rather than specific instances. Any long-term project, whether in business, academia or elsewhere can easily get bogged down by focusing too much on the minutiae of everyday processes and forgetting the ultimate goal.

Clip Source: www.spring.org.uk

"It's all right letting yourself go, as long as you can get yourself back." ~Mick Jagger

New research suggests self-control can be improved using abstract reasoning.

1. Evidence that abstract thinking improves self-control

It never ceases to amaze just how different two people's views of exactly the same event can be: one person's freedom fighter is another's terrorist. But the way in which we view people or events isn't just constrained by unchangeable patterns of thought that are set in stone. Dr Fujita and colleagues explored the idea that simple manipulations of how we construe the world can have a direct effect on self-control. Their hunch was that thinking from a more abstract, high-level perspective increases self-control.

2. How personality and the situation affect self-control

Self-control is not just affected by how we are thinking at a specific moment, that would be too easy. We have each developed different amounts of self-control.

Tags: self control

How Randomness Rules Our World and Why We Cannot See It

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 21:34:52 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: ” Embrace the random. Find the pattern. Know the difference."...

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Although our intuitions can be useful in dealing with other people and social relationships (which evolved as common and important for a social primate species such as ours when we were struggling to survive in the harsh environs of the Paleolithic), they are misleading when it comes to such probabilistic problems as gambling.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Extraordinary events do not always require extraordinary causes. Given enough time, they can happen by chance. Knowing this, Mlodinow says, “we can improve our skill at decision making and tame some of the biases that lead us to make poor judgments and poor choices ... and we can learn to judge decisions by the spectrum of potential outcomes they might have produced rather than by the particular result that actually occurred.” Embrace the random. Find the pattern. Know the difference.

Artist Builds Temple of Science

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 19:17:40 GMT

clipped by: einbar

Clip Source: blog.wired.com

Artist Builds Temple of Science

At a time when the gulf between religion and science is growing ever greater, an artist has erected a temple for scientific worship

Jonathon Keats, designer of the petri dish God, built The Atheon to get people thinking about what a scientific religion (or religious science?)

Keats' conception of that idea took shape as a two-story building complete with stained-glass windows patterned after cosmic microwave background radiation and a liturgy based on the sounds of the Big Bang. The Atheon opened Sept. 27

Wired.com: Do you actually take the worship of the science seriously, or is it a parody?

he just wants to give people a chance to think. In December, he'll host a public discussion at the Atheon, with people invited to bring their own models.

I'm much more attracted to science for its questioning quality, and this overlaps with a respect for mystery in religion

The Power of a Handshake: How Touch Sustains Personal and Business Relationships

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:13:22 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Recent research from Zak's neuroeconomics lab has shown that the human brain uses oxytocin to unconsciously assess if a person is trustworthy using our memory of past encounters and all of our senses, including touch. If the stranger is a good match for other trustworthy people, the brain releases oxytocin, telling us it is safe to trust.

Interesting read.

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

A solid handshake is more important for landing a job than your resume, according to research from the University of Iowa.

This is something anyone in sales knows implicitly. But they might be surprised to learn that the power of a handshake is rooted not in competition, but in empathy -- and even love.

Legend has it that the practice of clasping the right hands developed to ensure that neither man could wield a weapon at close range.

But it may, instead, have its root in the age old need to connect with other people. It's a first step toward affiliation: the building of a bond with another person.

Neuroscientists have shown that when we are trusted by a stranger, this engages the same brain systems as other kinds of social bonds, from friendship to the love of a parent for a child to the love of your spouse.

Tags: brain, behavior, neuroscience, oxytocin

When you get around to it, check this out

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 03:43:29 GMT

clipped by: tommy2balmy
clipper's remarks: Structured procrastination requires a certain amount of self-deception, since one is in effect constantly perpetrating a pyramid scheme on oneself. One needs to be able to recognize and commit oneself to tasks with inflated importance and unreal deadlines, while making oneself feel that they are important and urgent. This is not a problem, because virtually all procrastinators have excellent self-deceptive skills also. And what could be more noble than using one character flaw to offset the bad effects of another?

Clip Source: structuredprocrastination.com

All procrastinators put off things they have to do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait work for you. The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing

the procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.

Tasks that seem most urgent and important are on top. But there are also worthwhile tasks to perform lower down on the list. Doing these tasks becomes a way of not doing the things higher up on the list. With this sort of appropriate task structure, the procrastinator becomes a useful citizen. Indeed, the procrastinator can even acquire, as I have, a reputation for getting a lot done.

At this point you may be asking, "How about the important tasks at the top of the list, that one never does?" Admittedly, there is a potential problem here.

The trick is to pick the right sorts of projects for the top of the list.

Tags: procrastination

The Physiology And Psychology Of Voting

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:04:16 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: The researchers used a multiple regression analysis to compare the effects of change in skin conductance levels in response to threatening images, gender, age, education, and income on support for socially “protective” policies such as the ones listed above. The only two statistically significant effects were those of education (less education translated into more support for conservative policies) and skin conductance. That in itself means that -- within the confines of this study -- physiology trumps gender, age and income, traditionally considered highly relevant causal factors in politics by social scientists. Moreover, the regression coefficient associated with skin conductance was more than 56 times that of education! !!!

Clip Source: www.scientificblogging.com

In case you haven’t noticed, election season is upon us! Ok, it has been upon us for almost two years, but never mind that. Pollsters are busy trying to determine why people might be voting for one candidate or another, with special attention being paid to the so-called undecided voters, on whose last-minute whim the fate of the nation -- and the world -- seems to hinge.

Two recent studies, however, provide much food for thought about why people vote one way or the other, and about the reasons they give to themselves and others. A paper by Douglas Oxley and collaborators in Science (19 September) investigated the effect of physiological reactions to a perceived threat on people’s political opinions

Oxley and colleagues discovered that people who react physiologically (as measured by changes in their skin conductance) to sudden noises or to threatening images are much more likely to support conservative issues like gun control, the war in Iraq, restrictions in immigration and so forth.

Tags: voting, education, elections, physiology, psychology

Whoops! Flirting with Palin Earns Zardari a Fatwa

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 06:11:22 GMT

clipped by: dulios
clipper's remarks:

Though fatwas, or religious edicts, can range from advice on daily life to death sentences, this one does not call for any action or violence.

Whew!

Clip Source: www.csmonitor.com

Flirting with Palin earns Pakistani president a fatwa

With some overly friendly comments to Gov. Sarah Palin at the United Nations, Asif Ali Zardari has succeeded in uniting one of Pakistan's hard-line mosques and its feminists after a few weeks in office.

A radical Muslim prayer leader said the president shamed the nation for "indecent gestures, filthy remarks, and repeated praise of a non-Muslim lady wearing a short skirt."

Feminists charged that once again a male Pakistani leader has embarrassed the country with sexist remarks. And across the board, the Pakistani press has shown disapproval.

Clipmarks |

Do we really have any control over our emotions?

I Never Heard of Anybody Getting a Dual Ph.D.

U-M study: More programs needed to aid students with mental illnesses

Atlas of the Real World

Land area

International immigrants

Tourist destinations

Net incoming tourism

Aircraft travel

Rail travel

Mopeds and motorcycles

Wealth in the year 1

Wealth in the year 1900

Projected wealth in the year 2015

Housing prices

HIV prevalence

Alcohol consumption

Nuclear weapons

Armed forces at war 1945-2004

War deaths 1945-2002

Increase in emissions of carbon dioxide

Decrease in emissions of carbon dioxide

The sapphire mines of Madagascar

Palin-Biden Debate Drinking Game!

Palin-Biden Debate Drinking Game Begins NOW

12 Greek Words You Should Know

12 Greek Words You Should Know

How to Improve Your Self-Control

1. Evidence that abstract thinking improves self-control

2. How personality and the situation affect self-control

How Randomness Rules Our World and Why We Cannot See It

Artist Builds Temple of Science

Artist Builds Temple of Science

The Power of a Handshake: How Touch Sustains Personal and Business Relationships

When you get around to it, check this out

The Physiology And Psychology Of Voting

Whoops! Flirting with Palin Earns Zardari a Fatwa

Flirting with Palin earns Pakistani president a fatwa