Psychology
To be science, there must be a theoretical foundation. What does psychology lack? A theoretical foundation. In fact, the only true theoretical foundation of psychology is widely derided by psychologists and psychiatrists alike, yet much of the world can only name one person in the field - and that person is Dr. Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis.
Mark Solms, Ph.D., is the Chair of Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town and founder of the journal Neuropsychoanalysis, and at the upcoming National Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association on January 20th he will review…
Everyone has heard of the hangover, it is that sluggish feeling after drinking too much alcohol- A group of psychologists now contend that emotional experiences can induce physiological and internal brain states that persist for long periods of time after the emotional events have ended.
In other words, your emotions can cause a hangover.
This has an element of common sense. Most people at some time or another have felt "drained" after emotional experiences, and we remember them, because emotional experiences are better remembered than non-emotional ones. In the new study, the…
#1. The Democrat Party Will Become the
Party of Angry Black People
When Obama
came along, he brought with him a new ideology: the Democrat Party would now be
the party of Black people who are unhappy about being Black in America. No,
Obama himself was not an overtly angry Black person. On the surface, he was ‘no
drama Obama’. But, underneath that cool exterior lay a decidedly passive-aggressive
university professor who ardently believed all the same things that all Black
American university professors believe nowadays about white people, their colonial
ways, and the unending guilt-trip for…
When
I was a college professor, I used to tell my students the normal world is a
crazy place. It’s still true. Sometimes, the more things change, the more they
stay the same. According to Howard Becker (1963) “an unknown, but probably
quite large, number of people in the United States use marihuana. They do this
in spite of the fact that it is both illegal and disapproved” (p. 41). You may
notice that research was conducted over 50 years ago. Becker performed his famous research at the
end of the 1950s and it was published in book form in 1963. Yet, in all the
time since then, virtually…
One of the many classics in social psychology from
the mid-20th century was Leon Festinger’s When
Prophecy Fails (1956). The point of the study was to infiltrate a doomsday
cult. It was a cult whose leader had declared the world would come to an end on
a specific day. Festinger had his assistants ingratiate themselves to the point
of being accepted by the members enough to be able to bear witness to the
goings on of the cult. The real interest was centered around the day after –
what would these people do the day after doomsday? When the last day of existence
had come and gone, what would…
Judit Polgar - Immortal Chess Champion
Congratulations to the Immortal
Magnus Carlsen
New 2016
World Chess Champion!
Chess might not
seem any different than any other sport or game, but there is an important
difference. In chess, one competes alone, and it is a very drawish game, so it
is expected that no one will always win. That means there is an element of
variation that could be influenced by almost anything. It means you always have
a chance to win, but you will probably lose and tie as often as you win. It
also means that you end up playing not-to-lose. At high…
United States 2016 women’s chess champion Nazi Paikidze-Barnes has the guts to stand up to Iran!
Congratulations to Magnus Carlsen
New 2016 World Chess Champion!
Speaking out of both sides of my mouth at the same time, there is no one
skill that is easily had and affords a person mastery of chess. There is
obviously a constellation of intelligences, a skill set that is required, but
there is no fairness in minimizing chess mastery and saying it is only one
thing and either you have it or you don’t. In short, you have to work like a
dog to make chess master, and by the…
The top picture is of former European
Women's Chess Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk. It is there to show chess has
become quite sexy. Magnus Carlsen has spent his entire life since being a
youngster constantly reminding us that it is still quite smart, too!
Congratulations to Magnus Carlsen – New 2016 World Chess Champion!
“Chess, the eminently cerebral game, is
even thought provoking in ways unrelated to the movement of pieces on the
board.” Truer words were never spoken. So, begins a piece on chess
intelligence by Erk Lief of the
American Council on Science and Knowledge. It turns out…
There’s a widespread belief that actually existing democracies are in the grip of a fast-paced world dominated by breaking news and all things instant. The following contribution sets out to question this belief. It takes readers on a time journey. It sets out to probe the meaning of time, and explains why time has a malleable quality. It asks why time is a political matter and why, when they function well, democracies do intriguing things to people’s shared sense of time. The text is a revised version of a presentation to the international conference, The Toronto School: Then, Now, Next held…
After one of the most divisive presidential elections in American history, many of us may be anxious about dinner-table dialogue with family and friends this Thanksgiving. There is no denying that the way we communicate about politics has fundamentally changed with the proliferation of technology and social media. Twitter bots, fake news and echo chambers are just a few of the highlights from this election season. Much of how we’re conversing online can’t – and shouldn’t – be replicated around the family table. We are getting out of practice at conducting meaningful, respectful conversation.…