I have this half-baked theory learning tools (like flash cards) could be used to train people to think in certain ways the same way they help me remember important facts. By forming associations between the stimulus on one side of the card & the reward on the other, you could retrain certain negative, automatic thoughts.
Well, here are some Self-esteem Games that, admittedly, made me smile.
After this rather disturbing post on Craigslist on the “pros” of getting a vasectomy, here’s one rather large con: getting a vasectomy may put you at risk for certain type of dementia.
Telling your child (or perhaps anyone) that they’re smart could be far more disastrous than anyone suspected. Children that are told they’re smart stop applying effort. Having to work hard at something become something that the smart kids shouldn’t have to do, and don’t do, and fear of failure prevents them from trying.
I was constantly told I was smart growing up. By my parents, schoolteachers, other students. Everyone. Being smart is part of my identity. It’s kind of scary to think that this is the source of the “genius slacker” archetype.
“Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,” she explains. “They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.”
Praise isn’t always effective, and praise isn’t always enough. Self-esteem isn’t a good predictor of success, but real feedback can help people make changes. The key isn’t to give general praise, or make people think they can’t improve (because their intelligence is innate), but to give the kind of praise & criticism that can lead to specific changes in behavior & improvement.
sources: The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids , Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Eduction alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. — Calvin Coolidge 1872
In my neuropsych class I learned that if you’re in an accident & the brain’s ability to control the body is damaged, you’ll actually be amazingly calm. Sure you’ll be freaking out, but since the brain can’t send a signal to the body that tells it to increase your heart rate, to pespire, to breath faster, etc., you don’t feel nervous. This has been confirmed by people who’ve either recovered, or whose condition only affected them from the neck down & who’ve found other ways to communicate, such as blinking.
While a lot of scientists are looking inside the brain for the root of emotion, others look to the body.
This is brought home by two things I’ve recently read. One is a recap of an important experiment in which subjects are divided into two groups - both receive a stimulant (adrenaline), but one half is put in a friendly environment with people who are playful, and the other half is told that the drug they just took will make them nervous. Both groups have a heightened experience, but they have vastly different ones.
They all had the same physiological activity, but the interpretations were vastly different. The group that was surrounded by positive influnces had a great, positive experience. The group that was told they may experience some nervousness, did. The source of the emotions was the physical response to the adrenaline, but the interpretation of it was due entirely to circumstance.
This is part of why I like to be on time for job interviews - if I’m late, I may have to run to catch the train, and I know I can’t distinguish a faster heartbeat from genuine nervousness in those situations.
So you get caught in a feedback loop of sorts - the brain tells the body to prepare for “fight or flight” and when the body does it, the brain interprets what it feels as nervousness and the cycle continues. The same can be true for excitement and happiness, though such extreme happiness is, sadly, rare in our culture. Given this, it’s easy to see why anxiety is such a difficult problem, and why sedatives and muscle relaxants are so popular.
The other article I read is of a woman who has brain damage & shows no signs of responsiveness, but when they put her in an MRI machine, all the right areas light up when she’s presented with stimulus (such a people talking, or being asked to imagine acting in certain ways, such as playing tennis). Some scientists think this is original thought, others believe it’s just a reaction to the stimulus, like aeomeba moving towards or away from light.
It’s hard to imagine a life where you cannot contact the outside world, not even to communicate whether or not you’re conscious or alive, though given what we know about emotions such as fear & anxiety, it’s possible she isn’t as scared as we would imagine.
The next time you experience an extreme emotion, take a moment to think about it - where is this emotion located? Is it a thought or is it something in the body? What differentiates this emotion from other emotions?
This is a pretty cool do-it-yourself experiment that demonstrates just how fallible we can be.
(I counted 14 passes.)
That’s what psychiatrist J. Anderson Thomson Jr. believes. While treating an 18 year old college student for depression…
He discovered that his client’s parents had pressured her to attend the university and major in science, even though her real interest lay in the arts. In the course of therapy, he helped her become more assertive about her goals. When she transferred to another school and changed majors, he says, her depression lifted.
He theorized that the depression was “not simply a disease to be eliminated, but a way of eliciting support from family and friends.”
Stephen S. Ilardi … suggests that depression results from a “mismatch” between human beings adapted for hunter-gatherer societies and the contemporary world.
Ilardi combines group therapy sessions with a set of lifestyle changes, each of which has proven effective against depression: aerobic exercise; ingestion of omega-3 fatty acids; light; positive social interaction; substituting activity for rumination; and increased sleep. The goal is for patients to live more like their Paleolithic ancestors.
The results of the 14-week regimen so far have been encouraging. In an ongoing study of 79 patients, with two-thirds assigned to his therapy and the rest to a control group treated mainly with antidepressant medication or traditional psychotherapy, Ilardi reports a 74% favorable response, compared with 16% for the controls.
While there’s nothing particularly evolutionary about a holistic treatment method that combines a number of treatments, the belief that depression is useful as a signalling tool isn’t something that’s talked about much.
Read The mind, as it evolves: Depression as a survival tool? Some new treatments assume so.
When I was growing up - maybe 15 years ago, the D train in Brooklyn passed by this really cool art installation. Using existing slots in the wall, a graffitti artist painted a short animation - each slot housing a single frame. It’s since been vandalized and nobody’s ever replicated it, but for the few years it existed, it was one of the cooler features of the NY subway system.
Now an ad agency is seeking to repeat the experience, but with advertising. By showing different frames of an ad at regular intervals in the subway tunnel, an animated ad will play outside the window while you’re riding along.
Personally, I prefer a good book or good conversation to animated ads and I’m not sure I’d welcome the distraction, but for better or for worse, the metroVISTA is here.
Wow, this made me uncomfortable. This is for everyone that thinks their job is a pointless waste of time and hates everyone they work with (including themselves).
The Gomlich Effect takes its name from an episode of South Park where Chef explains the massive success of boy bands.
The Gomlich Effect is [t]he law of physics that states, “If one girl screams for something, it will make other girls scream. And then, it grows exponentiously until all girls within a five-mile radius are screaming.”
Well it turns out, it really works. When shown photos of men, women rated them as being more attractive if there was a woman in the photo smiling at the man. Of course, men have known this for years - it’s easier to meet women if you’re already with women. It’s just that we’ve kept it a secret until now.
Source: Social transmission of face preferences among humans. via BPS Research Digest.
By using MRI machines and sophisticated pattern recognition software, scientists were able to predict with 70% accuracy whether someone intended to add or subtract two numbers. While we’re still several decades away from being able to figure out complex information, such as where you put your car keys, or whether or not you committed a crime, this simple demonstration shows immense possibilities for the future of brain scanning technology.
Source: Not-So-Secret Intentions In The Brain (medicalnewstoday.com)
See Also: Tapping Brains for Future Crimes (wired.com)