Psychology

When a tree dies, or when we run across decaying wood in a forest, our first reaction is to think we should remove it. However, the ecology of the forest is such that saproxylic organisms, including fungi and insects, depend on the dead wood that naturally generates the dynamics of the forest. The fact is, however, that there is a real obsession to eliminate it as soon as possible because it seems dirty and like it will attract pests. The biggest problem associated with dead wood is that dead wood plays a very important role in forest life. The forest needs dead trees and decaying wood to…

Once again this year, consumers say they are weighing their options for making healthier choices. And 81 percent say they wish they had made healthier choices before - but 70 percent have no plans to make their holiday meals healthier this year even though 37 percent realize they can eat healthier with simple meal substitutions. Welcome to the world of Internet surveys. The survey of 1,022 adults was conducted by ORC International on behalf of Ready Pac Foods. This online omnibus was live on November 3-6, 2016. Key findings from the holiday survey include:Watching the scale: Weight was the…

Enter the concept of slight autism. We can define slight autism as a state of autistic perception that is noticeably but not diagnosably autistic. Here is how we can begin to explain it and understand it. There are at least three kinds of perception – not just one as assumed in psychology all along – and they are qualitatively distinct. There is social thinking and there is computer thinking. There is also a third kind, which is creative thinking, but for the time being we can assume it exists inside the first two – you can be socially creative in your thinking and computationally or…

Psychology studies the individual, and sociology studies the group. Social psychology studies the relation between the individual and the group, and for me that’s where all the action is. I study perception and the subjective organization of meaning ... *  *  *  *  *  Is it possible for someone to be slightly autistic? When we consider autistic perception the consensus today is that we are talking about Autism Spectrum Disorder. That is the mainstream psychiatry/psychology viewpoint. Yet, the question remains. If there is a continuum of autistic perception reaching…

In the mid-twentieth century, a social psychologist by the name of Harold Garfinkle (1965) wrote an article titled “Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies.” This became one of those articles – one of those stand-out pieces that becomes a signpost for a way of looking at the world. Now largely subsumed under the rubric of Social Identity Theory in psychology, there is a sizeable literature of twentieth century social psychology that issued forth from peculiarly sociological camps. I say peculiar because these sociologists had a way of codifying the structural force of social life and…

This election season, people have been blocking and un-friending those on “the other side”, families have been arguing, it's been a lot of stress. Tonight, one side may feel the stress associated with the loss and Dr. Sanam Hafeez, a New York City-based licensed clinical psychologist and teaching faculty member at Columbia University Teacher’s College has a term for it - Post Election Stress Disorder. And some thoughts on the signs of such Post Election Stress Disorder and what to do about it.  1. Upset stomach According to Dr. Hafeez, stressing out about the future of our…

Using a person's spoken or written words, new computer tools can identify with great accuracy whether that person is suicidal, mentally ill but not suicidal, or neither. Machine learning is up to 93 percent accurate in correctly classifying a suicidal person and 85 percent accurate in identifying a person who is suicidal, has a mental illness but is not suicidal, or neither. These results provide strong evidence for using advanced technology as a decision-support tool to help clinicians and caregivers identify and prevent suicidal behavior, says John Pestian, PhD, professor in the divisions…

Europe has a rabid distrust of science and medicine and a corresponding higher level of belief in in naturopathy, homeopathy and various other alternative techniques. Given that, it is little surprise that psychosomatic medicine has taken off in Europe. and especially in Germany. Psychosomatic issues - "it's all in your head" - have a long history but it was popularized by German psychiatrist Dr. Sigmund Freud in the early part of the 20th century. Today, psychiatrists officially disavow treatment for people who might be making it up but others have pursued mind-body relations. In Germany,…

All the life has been sucked out of our economy in the last few decades, and somehow we do not know what to do about it. Maybe that is because we are socialized into accepting our lives in modern society as an endless series of over-controlled disasters. By the time you get to the end of the day, you are so stressed out and tired that you have no energy for changing the world. We used to think that the internet was going to be an information super-highway that would create an Al-Gorean utopia where all problems and all daily tasks would be solved super-fast. When was the last time you heard…

As Hurricane Matthew dissipated and we all realized it was not as bad as predicted, we were relieved. Did we feel anger at the governor and the press for over-predicting the storm? No – how could we? It is a blessing to live in a modern technocratic society where you get immediate warnings and helpful advice – none of our ancestors had that kind of privilege. Next time a storm comes, will we decide not to worry because the media and politicians might be over-hyping it? No – we will not take any chances if at all possible.  Yet, somehow there is something unsettling about the…