Psychology

What draws people to communal rituals has long been a topic of interest to sociologists and anthropologists.  What draws people to a communal ritual like walking on hot coals is a topic of interest for, well, everyone.   We all are fascinated by it but few want to do it, yet it has been going on (that we know of) since 1200 B.C. Is it mind over matter?  The power of faith?   Flesh burns at a lot lower temperature than the 1,000 degrees F hot coals are at but, we know scientifically, there are different heat capacities in different materials.   So it might take 4.18…

In 2008, when concerns about the birth place of future nominee and then campaign winner Barack Obama first surfaced, most felt like he should just show a birth certificate.   He didn't want to 'dignify' it then, to a point where it has dogged him for years and finally he showed the document, laying the issue to rest for all but the kookiest on the right.   But the kookiest on the left don't think it has anything to do with the Constitution at all, or that Pres. Obama's philandering father had multiple wives and got thrown out of Harvard because they were concerned about his conduct…

As everyone in the autism community knows all too well, April is Autism Awareness month and a good time to release autism documentaries.One, Wretches and Jabberers, is getting heavy promotion from the Autism Society and being shown in select AMC theaters across the country. It's a feel-good story with a hidden agenda; it's produced by Douglas Biklen, who promotes the debunked facilitated communication method. One of the stars, Tracy Thresher, is listed as having worked as a "lead trainer" at Biklen's Institute on Communication and Inclusion. In the documentary, the…

Dieting is hard work.  While ingesting the calories to gain weight is simple, the loss of those calories and the mental 'hunger' and the exercise it requires is no small thing. Given that, it's no surprise dieters who look for healthy food choices are happy to suspend disbelief it it allows them to abdicate responsibility to a menu in a restaurant - and so they are more likely than non-dieters to choose unhealthy foods that are labeled as healthy, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. It seems that dieter focus on food names can work to their disadvantage.…

Children eat fewer Easter eggs during the Easter holidays if parents let them decide how many they can have, according to Saima Ehsan and colleagues from the University of Surrey, who will present their research at the British Psychological Society's Annual Conference in Glasgow May 4th-6th. The research was designed to examine the impact of parental control on the diet of children aged 4-11 years old. Over the Easter holidays 37 children and their parents were randomly assigned to two different groups. One group was given instructions on how many eggs the child could eat.  The eggs were…

When we are 'up', we are happy, 'down' not so much.  'Right' is trustworthy while 'in left field' not so much, according to language and culture. But we don't all think right is right. Take handedness - people associate 'goodness' with the side they can act more fluently on.   Right-handed people prefer the product or job applicant positioned to their right. Lefties prefer the opposite. And those linguistic tropes? They probably "enshrine the preferences of the right-handed majority," says psychologist Daniel Casasanto, who believes "We use mental metaphors to structure…

I'll bet that headline made you read the rest, right? It incorporates all the language tricks used by advertisers in the little side ads that compete for your attention on the internet. Let's analyze the logic. The advertising agencies have decided that referring to someone’s mother gives authenticity, not just any mother, but a local mother. They also believe that readers will be attracted if something is shocking. The ad must suggest that whatever is being sold will be inexpensive, and that it helps with a personal problem having to do with pain, or aging, or body odor and so on. Last, the…

In the autism world, feel-good stories really don't come along all that long often, and heartwarming stories about severely impaired individuals all of a sudden speaking out in perfect English through the use of dedicated facilitators are uplifting stories. We want to believe that miracles happen, that geniuses exist inside nonverbal severely disabled people, just waiting for the chance to shine through the noble efforts of a selfless facilitator. Videos and stories of individuals suddenly communicating make their ways around the autism community, and while it is possible that great…

Some days I wonder if we were set up from the get-go to expect less, to hope for less, to dream of less. My son's prognosis was grim and bitter to the heart when he was a tender five. And yet here he is at 21 continually amazing us with the strides he makes. The public perception of autism continues to be one of grim stereotypes. Certainly there is a sizable minority edging to the halfway mark of moderately to severely disabled autistic individuals; this appears to be what the general public pictures when they hear the word autism. Just as certain is that my three children aren't there;…

Depression erodes intimate relationships not just by making one person withdrawn, needy, or hostile, but also because it impairs a depressed person's ability to perceive the others' thoughts and feelings. It impairs what psychologists call "empathic accuracy" and that can exacerbate alienation, depression in a vicious cycle.  A group of researchers set out to understand better these dynamics in relationships, particularly the role of gender.   The study in Psychological Science revealed what they call a surprising dynamic: "It's called the partner effect," said Reuma Gadassi, a…