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The ‘halo effect’ is a classic finding in social psychology. It is the idea that global evaluations about a person (e.g. she is likeable) bleed over into judgments about their specific traits (e.g. she is intelligent).

Hollywood stars demonstrate the halo effect perfectly. Because they are often attractive and likeable we naturally assume they are also intelligent, friendly, display good judgment and so on. That is, until we come across (sometimes plentiful) evidence to the contrary. (more…)

            Thanks to Jay Wilson for permission to use this Photo.

Based on a series of cross-national studies by the World Health Organization (WHO), the prevailing view in international psychiatric circles has been that schizophrenics tend to fare better in developing countries. However, in an article in the September, 2007 issue of Schizophrenia Bulletin, a review of evidence from other research indicates that the picture is far more complex. (more…)

              Thanks to Andrea Alfaro for permission to use this Photo. 

In last Monday’s episode, Dr. Phil brought us back to an episode that first aired 3 or 4 weeks ago. Using the unique medium of the Dr. Phlashback we can refamiliarize ourselves with the episode:

“Ken’s got enough money for fancy cars, cruises, and air hockey machines and I’m on welfare” “Keri makes the kids afraid to come visit and lies to the police” “He hits them” “She’s on drugs” “Well, I’m just gonna sit back and let ya’ll work this out.” (more…)

On Friday I had tea with Greg Niemeyer, a Berkeley art professor whose medium is games. I wanted to “gamify” the task I have been using to measure brain function. It is a letter-counting task: I see 4 letters and respond as fast as possible how many are A, B, C, or D. This takes about 600 msec — I’ve gotten a lot faster. Each session has 4 blocks of 50 trials and lasts a few minutes. From each session I get an average reaction time. I have been doing experiments to measure the effect of flaxseed oil (high in omega-3) on this task.

The task is quick, portable (requires only a laptop) and provides 200 fine-grained measurements (reaction times) per session. Flaxseed oil, I have found, not only produces long-lasting improvement in brain function (lasting weeks) but also a short-lived improvement that starts an hour or two after ingestion and lasts several hours. I developed the letter-counting task to measure the time course of the short-lived improvement. To measure the time course, I do the task every half-hour or so. The task has also turned out to be good for discovering other everyday events, such as exercise, that affect brain function. So far I have data from about 450 sessions.

                 Thanks to debaird for permission to use this Photo.

It hasn’t been hard. It could be more fun. The more fun, the easier the research and the more likely other people will do it. Games are fun. Can I make the task more fun by making it more like a game? I asked Greg what makes games enjoyable. In rough order of importance (most important first), he mentioned four things:

1. The right amount of difficulty. Too easy we get bored; too difficult we get frustrated. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has made this point.

2. Lots of feedback.

3. Varying problems to solve.

4. Color and sound.

I will try adding these to the letter-counting task. I made a simple RT task with elements of #2 (feedback) and #4 (color & sound). It was much too easy but I am sure that #2 and #4 made it more pleasant.

Check out this London Times article about medical self-experimentation.

Dr. Seth Roberts
Author of The Shangri-La Diet
Ashworth University Special Guest Blogger

*Dr. Seth Roberts is a renowned psychologist and author of the critically acclaimed book, The Shangri-La Diet.  Mr. Roberts is one of those rare types of innovative thinkers that change the way you perceive the world.  We’re honored that Seth Roberts has provided us with the opportunity to share his dynamic perspectives with the AU student community.  Seth’s dedication to scientific inquiry and experimental analysis serves as an inspiration to all those interested in the mysteries of the body and mind.  Visit Seth’s blog to learn more about Seth Roberts’ life and work.  Thanks Seth!

A diagnosis of borderline personality disorder could, theoretically, mean that the psychiatrist made a serious attempt at evaluating defense mechanisms and ego integrity; or at least a matching of symptoms to DSM criteria. It’s theoretically possible, yes. Other things that are theoretically possible include alien abduction, peace in our time, dual eigenstates, user friendly Movable Type upgrades, political discussions that don’t rely on information from Jon Stewart, Daleks, recession with low unemployment, Independents, Madonna/whores, a benignly rising Russia.

Let’s assume there’s a difference between a diagnosis and a heuristic.

A diagnosis is based on pathology, or at least on a set of predetermined criteria. I diagnosis must be both reliable– multiple doctors would find the same diagnosis when given the same information, and valid– the diagnosis actually is the thing you say it is.

Many psychiatrists devalue diagnoses into heuristics, that is, they have intuitive “rules of thumb” that are extensions of their own cognitive biases.  This isn’t automatically good or bad; the heuristic is only as helpful as the bias.  For example, if the last ten people who you saw that smoked crack also had syphilis, on the 11th you might apply the heuristic, “where there’s crack, so there be syphilis, better get a blood test.”  Unfortunately, it could be applied the other way: the 11th patient with syphilis you see gets prejudged as a crack addict.

The diagnosis of a personality disorder is supposed to be valid, it’s supposed to mean something.  However, in general they are diagnosed very unrigorously, if such a thing can be imagined of psychiatrists.  They carry nearly none of the implications of causality (except, once in a while, sexual abuse), nor do they reflect a distinctive understanding of a person’s personality (e.g. borderline as distinct from narcissism.)

A good example is borderline.  If a psychiatrist calls it borderline, it may or may not be, actually, borderline personality, a la Kernberg.   So if a patient happens to know she was diagnosed with borderline (which she rarely will– it’s kept secret or encoded as “bipolar”) it doesn’t mean she can look it up on the internet for more information, because that’s not what the psychiatrist meant by the diagnosis.  “Articulate” has a certain meaning, look in the dictionary; it is fairly consistent throughout all settings except one: when it is used by a white guy to describe a black guy.  In that case, the word suddenly means something completely different than it ordinarily does: it means “not hung up about race.”  Here’s the point: the black guy may actually be articulate, or not be articulate– who knows?  But white people know exactly what it means in that context.  Similarly borderline: you may, indeed, have a borderline personality, or may not; but the diagnosis to the psychiatrist means something else.  n other words, it’s not at all a diagnosis, it’s a heuristic.

           Thanks to hoobygroovy for permission to use this Photo.

Devoid as these personality disorder heuristics are of their originally intended meanings, they do, however, reliably imply the same things to other psychiatrists.  Those “things” however, are uncoupled from the “official” diagnosis.  The heuristic may have a lot, or absolutely no, relationship to the diagnosis.  In other words, the term “borderline” is immensely reliable among psychiatrists, but not at all between psychiatrists and non-psychiatrists, who think it means something else.  What psychiatrists should have done is invented their own special word for the heuristic of “borderline.”  But they’re lazy.

So, as a public service, I’ll tell you what psychiatrists mean when they say borderline.  Once again, I’m saying that this is how the diagnosis is used by many psychiatrists. If you email me and say that I’m a jerk for not understanding the term, then you need to go buy yourself a helmet.

First, borderline is a heuristic of countertransference: if the psychiatrist feels frustrated, or exasperated, then the patient is borderline.

Second, borderline is meant as a synonym for any of the following: needy, argumentative, touchy/hypersensitive.

Third, it is generally reserved for the following four types: 

• Very attractive female, who comes for problems the psychiatrist considers ordinary: men, work/school, problems with parents, etc.  It is diagnosed here most often by female psychiatrists, and carries the connotation: “Grow up.”
• Overweight, typically white, female, who needs/wants benzos, especially Klonopin.  The implications are lack of self-control, and reliance on external supports.
• Thin female with a lot of anger.  By example, the woman who comes for treatment of “depression” but describes most life events in terms of attacks, sleights, harm, etc– i.e. power differentials.
• Gay man. 

If you are a patient, my point in telling you this is not “why did they diagnose me with borderline?” but rather, “oh my God, are you telling me he thinks I’m borderline just because I told him if I don’t get my twice a day klonopins, I’ll freak out?”

Again, these aren’t even accurate descriptions of the formal diagnosis borderline; number 3, for example, is better described as narcissism, especially when anorexia (restricting type) is involved.  But her anger makes the psychiatrist uncomfortable, so it gets labeled as borderline. I hope you see two obvious problems: first, the term is used pejoratively; but, more importantly, giving something a label alters the environment, in this case in the wrong way.  The above #3 female doesn’t need limit setting, she needs mirroring transference, etc. (And don’t forget about the narcissistic injury.)

But again, even though the term is used improperly and probably leads to worse treatment for the patient, it does mean the same wrong thing to most psychiatrists.  So when I’m being referred a “30 year old borderline,” I know almost exactly what I’m getting, even though it has nothing to do with borderline.  Frustrating?  You betcha.

But the sleight of hand is that it sounds like personality disorders are crappy and unreliable diagnoses and have little in common with their original meaning.  In fact, most psychiatric diagnosis are equally crappy and unreliable.  When you read articles saying “borderline is a pejorative term, and these patients are often really bipolar” what you need to understand is that “bipolar” is not a more valid or reliable diagnosis, it’s simply another heuristic.  It isn’t less pejorative, it isn’t more “real.”  It carries a different set of implications, but it isn’t a more rigorous, more “biological” classification.  It’s not like saying, “it’s not a unicorn, it’s a rhinoceros.”  It is like saying, “it’s not a unicorn, it’s a pegasus.”

This, by the way, is the reason why so many defenders of psychiatric diagnoses can’t accept that ”borderline” and “bipolar” are equally subjective terms.  They say, “the diagnosis of borderline has very poor inter-rater reliability; bipolar has high inter-rater reliability.”  But reliability is not the same as validity.  If you take twenty thousand members of the KKK, and ask them to “diagnose” the problem of contemporary society, their answer will be the same, i.e. reliable.  But it’s wrong, obviously.  The diagnosis of bipolar is reliable, but in the same way as the KKK’s diagnosis of society’s ills was reliable.  It may be completely wrong, it may be completely right, it may be partly right, partly wrong, in some cases but not others, etc.

If you want to know why I’ve used racial analogies throughout this post, it’s because these are all, in essence, prejudices.  “It’s bipolar.”  “It’s borderline.”  “It’s poverty.”  “It’s bad parenting.”  “It’s…”  Well? It’s not really any of those after all, is it?

The Last Psychiatrist
Ashworth University Contributing Blogger

*The Last Psychiatrist is an academic psychiatrist specializing in forensics, a respected author, and an award winning blogger.  Selected as one of the “Best Doctors In America”, The Last Psychiatrist prefers to remain anonymous in cyberspace and allow his/her work speak for itself through their acclaimed blog.  We would like to express our gratitude to this very talented professional for providing us with the opportunity to share his/her exemplary work with the Ashworth University  student community.  We encourage you to visit The Last Psychiatrist blog for additional insights.  Thanks Doc! 

A classic 1959 social psychology experiment demonstrates how and why we lie to ourselves. Understanding this experiment sheds a brilliant light on the dark world of our inner motivations.

The ground-breaking social psychological experiment of Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) provides a central insight into the stories we tell ourselves about why we think and behave the way we do. The experiment is filled with ingenious deception so the best way to understand it is to imagine you are taking part. So sit back, relax and travel back. The time is 1959 and you are an undergraduate student at Stanford University…

As part of your course you agree to take part in an experiment on ‘measures of performance’. You are told the experiment will take two hours. As you are required to act as an experimental subject for a certain number of hours in a year - this will be two more of them out of the way.

Little do you know, the experiment will actually become a classic in social psychology. And what will seem to you like accidents by the experimenters are all part of a carefully controlled deception. For now though, you are innocent.

The set-up

Once in the lab you are told the experiment is about how your expectations affect the actual experience of a task. Apparently there are two groups and in the other group they have been given a particular expectation about the study. To instil the expectation subtly, the participants in the other groups are informally briefed by a student who has apparently just completed the task. In your group, though, you’ll do the task with no expectations.

Perhaps you wonder why you’re being told all this, but nevertheless it makes it seem a bit more exciting now that you know some of the mechanics behind the experiment.

So you settle down to the first task you are given, and quickly realise it is extremely boring. You are asked to move some spools around in a box for half an hour, then for the next half an hour you move pegs around a board. Frankly, watching paint dry would have been preferable.

At the end of the tasks the experimenter thanks you for taking part, then tells you that many other people find the task pretty interesting. This is a little confusing - the task was very boring. Whatever. You let it pass.

Experimental slip-up

Then the experimenter looks a little embarrassed and starts to explain haltingly that there’s been a cock-up. He says they need your help. The participant coming in after you is in the other condition they mentioned before you did the task - the condition in which they have an expectation before carrying out the task. This expectation is that the task is actually really interesting. Unfortunately the person who usually sets up their expectation hasn’t turned up.

So, they ask if you wouldn’t mind doing it. Not only that but they offer to pay you $1. Because it’s 1959 and you’re a student this is not completely insignificant for only a few minutes work. And, they tell you that they can use you again in the future. It sounds like easy money so you agree to take part. This is great - what started out as a simple fulfilment of a course component has unearthed a little ready cash for you.

You are quickly introduced to the next participant who is about to do the same task you just completed. As instructed you tell her that the task she’s about to do is really interesting. She smiles, thanks you and disappears off into the test room. You feel a pang of regret for getting her hopes up. Then the experimenter returns, thanks you again, and once again tells you that many people enjoy the task and hopes you found it interesting.

Then you are ushered through to another room where you are interviewed about the experiment you’ve just done. One of the questions asks you about how interesting the task was that you were given to do. This makes you pause for a minute and think.

Now it seems to you that the task wasn’t as boring as you first thought. You start to see how even the repetitive movements of the spools and pegs had a certain symmetrical beauty. And it was all in the name of science after all. This was a worthwhile endeavour and you hope the experimenters get some interesting results out of it.

The task still couldn’t be classified as great fun, but perhaps it wasn’t that bad. You figure that, on reflection, it wasn’t as bad as you first thought. You rate it moderately interesting.

After the experiment you go and talk to your friend who was also doing the experiment. Comparing notes you found that your experiences were almost identical except for one vital difference. She was offered way more than you to brief the next student: $20! This is when it first occurs to you that there’s been some trickery at work here.

       Thanks to Matthew Fitzgerald for permission to use this Photo.

You ask her about the task with the spools and pegs:

“Oh,” she replies. “That was sooooo boring, I gave it the lowest rating possible.”

“No,” you insist. “It wasn’t that bad. Actually when you think about it, it was pretty interesting.”

She looks at you incredulously.

What the hell is going on?

Cognitive dissonance

What you’ve just experienced is the power of cognitive dissonance. Social psychologists studying cognitive dissonance are interested in the way we deal with two thoughts that contradict each other - and how we deal with this contradiction.

In this case: you thought the task was boring to start off with then you were paid to tell someone else the task was interesting. But, you’re not the kind of person to casually go around lying to people. So how can you resolve your view of yourself as an honest person with lying to the next participant? The amount of money you were paid hardly salves your conscience - it was nice but not that nice.

Your mind resolves this conundrum by deciding that actually the study was pretty interesting after all. You are helped to this conclusion by the experimenter who tells you other people also thought the study was pretty interesting.

Your friend, meanwhile, has no need of these mental machinations. She merely thinks to herself: I’ve been paid $20 to lie, that’s a small fortune for a student like me, and more than justifies my fibbing. The task was boring and still is boring whatever the experimenter tells me.

A beautiful theory

Since this experiment numerous studies of cognitive dissonance have been carried out and the effect is well-established. Its beauty is that it explains so many of our everyday behaviours. Here are some examples provided by Morton Hunt in his classic work ‘The Story of Psychology

• When trying to join a group, the harder they make the barriers to entry, the more you value your membership. To resolve the dissonance between the hoops you were forced to jump through, and the reality of what turns out to be a pretty average club, we convince ourselves the club is, in fact, fantastic.
• People will interpret the same information in radically different ways to support their own views of the world. When deciding our view on a contentious point, we conveniently forget what jars with our own theory and remember everything that fits.
• People quickly adjust their values to fit their behaviour, even when it is clearly immoral. Those stealing from their employer will claim that “Everyone does it” so they would be losing out if they didn’t, or alternatively that “I’m underpaid so I deserve a little extra on the side.”

Once you start to think about it, the list of situations in which people resolve cognitive dissonance through rationalizations becomes ever longer and longer. If you’re honest with yourself, I’m sure you can think of many times when you’ve done it yourself. I know I can.

Being aware of this can help us avoid falling foul of the most dangerous consequences of cognitive dissonance: believing our own lies. 

You can read Festinger and Carlsmith’s entire report at Classics in the History of Psychology.

Jeremy Dean
Creator of PsyBlog
Ashworth University Contributing Blogger

*Having already attained his law degree, Mr. Jeremy Dean is now studying for an MSc in Research Methods in Psychology at University College London.  Through his widely read and acclaimed blog, PsyBlog, Jeremy is committed to providing an insider’s view of psychology without the journalistic sensationalism.  We’re privileged to share this unique view with our students and sincerely appreciate Jeremy for providing us with this opportunity.  Visit PsyBlog to learn more about Jeremy’s life and work.    

Can you correctly identify emotions if they only briefly flicker across the face?  How good do you think you are? 

Try the test.  

Was a certain emotion harder or easier for you?  Did it seem like some of the faces flickered faster than others?  It may not have anything to do with the emotion.  It might be the test.

Did you notice how some emotions flicker across the screen faster than others? (They don’t, really.)  This might lead you to conclude that you are not as good at perceiving certain emotions.  But that might not be the case.  

The problem with the test is that certain expressions in this test lateralize to one side of the face– the expression is mostly visible on one side.  (See contempt 4 and 8.)  Depending on which emotion is displayed, and which side of the brain is dominant in you, reading one side of the face may be easier or harder for you. 

For example, contempt goes to the boy’s (4) left face, but girl’s (8) right.  It might have been easier (or harder) for you to perceive if it went to a given side. 

To show this, get a mirror, place it perpendicularly on the screen on the z-axis (out), facing the side of the expression.  Then, look into the mirror (not the screen) and see if the expression is easier or harder.  If it is, the problem for you is lateralization, not expression reading. 

As a rule of thumb, anger and contempt are naturally (i.e spontaneously) expressed on the left face of right handed people.  

                 Thanks to John Elliot for permission to use this Photo.

As an aside, I wonder if people who are “face blind” (can’t read faces) aren’t a) majority left handed; b) have the most difficulty reading right handed people’s expressions, especially anger.  Can they tell when a dog is happy or sad? (Considerably more symmetric in facial expression, don’t ask me why.)  

As an interesting experiment, photograph yourself making the various emotions.  Then, video yourself (and I don’t know how you’d do this) spontaneously making the expressions, for real (have a friend bring you a naked chick, a bag of maggots, your rival, Sandra Oh, etc) and compare.   

How does your fake differ from your natural?  Look carefully.  What part of your face did you “forget” to fake? 

Liars are easy to spot, because they are faking their expressions.  Pathological liars, however, are much more difficult, because they aren’t really faking. 

The Last Psychiatrist
Ashworth University Contributing Blogger

*The Last Psychiatrist is an academic psychiatrist specializing in forensics, a respected author, and an award winning blogger.  Selected as one of the “Best Doctors In America”, The Last Psychiatrist prefers to remain anonymous in cyberspace and allow his/her work speak for itself through their acclaimed blog.  We would like to express our gratitude to this very talented professional for providing us with the opportunity to share his/her exemplary work with the Ashworth University  student community.  We encourage you to visit The Last Psychiatrist blog for additional insights.  Thanks Doc! 

When it comes to procrastination, social disapproval looms large as a cause. Not always but in many instances, fear of disapproval is a reason for not doing something. This might apply to not going for a higher degree in a family in which education has never been valued; or not confronting someone who holds opinions with which you disagree for fear of losing the relationship; or hiding out and writing in a diary instead of publishing your views to a wider audience because of fears of negative evaluation, etc.

Forestalling possible criticism by laying low or hiding out has its appeal: it resolves anxieties and keeps you out of trouble. But it doesn’t get you ahead, it doesn’t’ serve your more adult interests, and it makes for a rather boring life.

A vicious cycle gets set up: to protect themselves from confirmation of self doubts, shy persons avoid social evaluation; this contributes to the uncertainty that fed their doubts about self worth to begin with.  Self doubt prevents initiative taking which in turn prevents corrective feedback, hence more uncertainty is created.

A catalyst is needed to break out of this cycle. A catalyst could be a new understanding, a justification or a strong feeling, like anger.

        Thanks to vieilles_annonces for permission to use this Photo.

One perspective that could act as a catalyst is the notion of being duped by your emotional child. The term ‘dupe’ means to deceive, trick or mislead. I suppose it strains credulity to think that a part of one’s own self seeks to resort to such measures to protect the personality. But unconscious protective measures do operate and of course we are thankful when they work  to protect against real threats.

But I have found it useful to consider this possibility when dialoguing with oneself: should I or shouldn’t I? If a threat is imaginary then you have been duped into believing otherwise. Usually, of course, this isn’t discovered…because you have not taken the trouble to test the waters.

I have found that often I have been duped by that part of myself that worries about the social dangers of embarrassment, humiliation or failure. And now I tend to discount that inner voice that councels caution. It has taken a life time of trial and error, but hindsight now tells me: courageous steps would have been the better course of action. 

Dr. Mark Sanford
Creator of Reluctance.org
AU Contributing Blogger

*Dr. Mark Sanford is a well respected sociologist and certified business coach residing in the California Bay Area.  Through his acclaimed blog, Reluctance.org, Dr. Sanford communicates effective strategies for overcoming problems related to self defeating inhibitions.  We’d like to thank Dr. Sanford for the opportunity to share his inspiring perspectives with the AU student community and are excited to welcome him to our contributing bloggers’ network.  Visit Reluctance.org to learn more about the life and work of Dr. Mark Sanford.  Thanks Mark!

Today we were treated to another dose of “Dr. Phil Now!” where Dr. Philistine investigated the very current phenomenon of school shootings. Obviously, we shouldn’t belittle the trauma felt by victims of any violence, nor should we condone brutal, inhumane behavior. At the same time, it might be just as wrong to refrain from belittling Dr. Phil, allowing his brutal, inhumane brand of psychology to persist without criticism. This issue touches upon many political ramifications such as gun control, education policy, and the rights and freedoms afforded to individuals (particularly young people). The most interesting fallacy related to school shootings, though, is not overtly political, but rather historical. Dr. Phil repeats an oft reported error so familiar to media reports, expert explications, and uneasy community meetings: these acts of violence are new and anomalous. This is an irrefutable—and perhaps deliberate—distortion of the historical record.

A Columbine survivor and guest added: “one thing got me into college, I thought it didn’t happen there.” Again, this is the historical record being annihilated. Even between the Columbine shooting and the Virginia Tech massacre (which apparently re-opened this victim’s eyes) there were at least 9 shootings on college campuses resulting in 19 deaths and many more injuries. In fact, there are dozens more similar acts of violence going back to at least 1936 where a student at Lehigh University killed himself and his English professor after demanded that his grade be changed. In 1966, for instance, a meticulously planned shooting by a deranged, well-armed shooter took place atop the Tower at the University of Texas which killed 16 and wounded more than 30 more.

In fact, a reasonable (though necessarily morbid) examination of the relevant history shows that almost all the common assumptions are wrong. Some of the most deadly school related killings in modern times don’t even take place in America, but rather as part of broader conflicts in places like Bratunac in Yugoslavia, Stalino in Ukraine, Hue in Vietnam, and Beslen in Russia. As these events also illustrate, such attacks are also often not the result of, as Dr. Phil muses, “heartbroken teenage boys” and “loners” but rather adults (or, more ominously by groups of adults) with deep felt social, political, and personal grudges. Even in America, the deadliest school-related killing was not perpetrated by a depressed, socially awkward adolescent at a modern, suburban campus.

                 Thanks to caribb for permission to use this Photo.

Instead, it was at a rural Bath, Michigan schoolhouse in the year 1927 when a 55 year old school board treasurer and farmer killed 45 students and teachers, injuring 58 more. Disgruntled over his foreclosed farm, difficult family situation, and other townspeople who ignored his fight for lower taxes, the killer used dynamite and combinations of shrapnel to destroy his own home and set of explosions in three locations at the township’s only school. The purpose of recounting these gruesome events is not to glorify them or even compare body counts as part of a dismal contest, but instead to point out that they are not completely new phenomena, nor do they follow (at least with any great regularity) any of the characteristics so meticulously mapped out and emphasized by Dr. Phil. This is quite different from Santayana’s famous claim that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (George Santayana Reason in Common Sense). It is difficult to see how anything can be repeated when it is forgotten, covered up, or unknown to begin with.

There are many conceptions of history. Hegel and Marx posit dialectics where various stages and interactions are thought to lead to progress and eventually a teleological perfection. Others, like Walter Benjamin, read history as a persistent accumulation of chaos and catastropher, with progress coming in the form of the backward-flung angel hurling through the post-lapsarian state (Illuminations). In this sense, it doesn’t really matter whether our age is the pinnacle of human existence or the nadir, or even if our time is not substantially different from anything that has already occurred. What is important is that virtually all reputable sciences, philosophies, and psychological movements (predicated on the idea that past events affect subsequent consciousness) must take account of past events and consider a broader historical context. Otherwise, as Dr. Phil demonstrates, one’s historical perspective mirrors that dangerous relationship where the subject becomes an illogical and introverted, social outsider obsessed with destruction.

Seth Woolf
Creator of Deconstructing Phil
Ashworth University Contributing Blogger 

*Although Mr. Seth Woolf is currently pursuing a law career in Boston, Massachusetts—he may need to change horses in midstream, as he’s already fast becoming an underground legend in the psychology world, not for his theories on Freud or Žižek or even Foucault for that matter, but for his groundbreaking work on the enigma that is Dr. Phil McGraw.  The recently launched blog, Deconstructing Phil, is insightful, funny, disturbing, and always original.  We’re excited to have Seth Woolf as a member of our contributing bloggers’ network and we’d like to thank Seth for the opportunity to share his perspectives with our Ashworth University student community.  All kidding aside, there is a lot to be learned on Deconstructing Phil and we encourage you to visit and tell your friends about Seth’s blog as he continues spiraling out of control into Dr. Phil’s mind.  Thanks Seth!

The tone of an email is incredibly easy to misinterpret, explains emotional intelligence expert Daniel Goleman, writing in the New York Times. The main problem is there is no channel to convey our emotion - other than emoticons which are notoriously crude.

We’ve all done it: written something that’s meant to be a joke in an email and then received a cold response when the message is misunderstood. Or received an email we can’t make head nor tail of. Is this a joke or are they being serious?

Causes of miscommunication

Common email misperceptions include:

Positive emails are reinterpreted as neutral while neutral emails become negative.

• Recipients rate jokes as less funny than the person who sent them.
• Emailers overestimate how effectively they can communicate feelings.
• Recipients also overestimate how well they can understand feelings.
• Small initial differences between email correspondents can easily grow, sometimes causing the breakdown of relationships.

The cause of these misperceptions is the gap between how we feel when we are writing and the ambiguous meaning of the actual words on the screen. As we are writing we ‘hear’ the emotional content of an email, but forget there’s no way to telepathically send this emotional content to the recipient. Researchers suggest we do this because people are naturally egocentric, we assume that others understand how we are feeling when often they don’t.

             Thanks to Jules Minus for permission to use this Photo.

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