Thanks to Paul Goyette for permission to use this Photo.
I just finished reading Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection, which is coming out towards the end of August. The book summarizes, in very accessible terms, thirty years of work by John Cacioppo of the University of Chicago and his colleagues.
It’s initially hard to get past the title. William Patrick, John’s coauthor, relates how a friend reading an early manuscript found the word “loneliness” to be disturbing, even more so than “rape,” “murder,” or “death.” This reaction fits perfectly with the major theme of the book–we humans are a very social bunch, and being cut off from other people, as in solitary confinement, might be the very worst punishment of all.
What I especially liked about the book is the constant, seamless integration of what we call “perspectives” in psychology, harkening back to William James. In other words, the neuroscience, social psychology, and cognitive science is all woven together so that you get the big picture. In other writing, John has compared psychology to a symphony, with the different perspectives contributing to the whole of our understanding just as the score, musicians, instruments, and conductor join together to produce fantastic music. He and William have definitely succeeded in bringing this integration to the study of loneliness. Given the all-too-frequent Balkanization of psychology into little subdomains, this approach is refreshing and informative.
Like William’s friend, I found myself feeling sad at times while reading the book. I don’t consider myself a lonely person, as I am blessed by having a close family and good friends. But I know a lot of lonely people, and reading the various case studies brought these people to mind in a vivid way. The sad mood lifted, however, when John would throw in some of his modest and self-deprecating humor, as in his description of his trip to “Grenada.” Enough said. You need to read the book to find out the rest. (more…)
WOW! Some experiment. Now, as to what the experiment teaches or doesn’t teach is the ultimate question.
It has been 35+ years since that experiment was done. There have been loads of changes in the prison system since the Stanford experiment. So, what happens today when you put good people in a bad situation? Well, there are a lot of factors that affect how that good person will react. For example, I know a person who was an exemplary citizen and that individual ended up serving 2 years in a state facility. That person was considered a model inmate, worked in the law library, and when released became heavily involved in criminal law and the justice system.
So, I think that how a person reacts to that environment depends a great deal on how their inner psyche has developed. I do not believe that most “good” people will deliberately injure someone simply because a person in authority has told them to do so.
I have many examples from a life of military and exposure to criminal inmates that debunk that ideology. But, those are simply my thoughts. GREAT video.
In 1971, Dr. Phillip Zimbardo conducted a controversial experiment to test humans’ behavioral responses to captivity, i.e. how humans react when placed in varying authoritative and submissive positions within a controlled environment. This experiment became known as “The Stanford Prison Experiment”—the implications of which have both fascinated and frightened the psychiatric community at large for more than three decades. I’ve included the first part of an excellent documentary for you to watch. After viewing this documentary, I’d be curious to know what you think Zimbardo’s experiment teaches us about the human psyche, if any such lesson can be learned within so-called “controlled environments” like Stanford’s make believe prison. Let us know what you think in the comments section. We’ll talk again soon…
The insights of cultural/media theorist Douglas Rushkoff are always contemporary and often prescient. He was deciphering the social codes of the virtual psyche, lifestyle, and marketplace before such concepts were formally identified by the so-called “machine.” TheMerchants Of Cool is a brilliant analysis of the incorporation of youth pop-culture that Ruskhoff created while working as a correspondent for PBS Frontline. This is a very entertaining documentary. You’ll learn a lot too. Let me know what you think in the comments section.
Thanks to Boris Anthony for permission to use this Photo.
Marshall McLuhan’s groundbreaking theories on media communications and the psycho-social impact of technological development made him both a very respected and controversial figure beginning in the 1950’s. Seen by many as a prophet of our contemporary media filtered age, McLuhan’s famous “the medium is the message” theory, in which the communications medium itself (microphone, television, computer, letter) is more directly related to the meaning and ultimate impact of a given message than the actual “content” (intellectual/rational meaning) continues to gain depth as the decades pass.
I recently discovered an excellent audio-video archive of McLuhan’s work on the CBC web site. This is a great primer for our psychology students unfamiliar with his work and I strongly encourage you to check this archive out by clicking here. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on McLuhan, a thinker who still truly remains ahead of his time.
Ryan Rode
Interactive Services Manager
Ashworth University Psychology Program
A study reported in the December 2007 Journal of Psychosomatic Research examined cognitive complaints in head-injured patients referred to the emergency department of a level 1 trauma center in the Netherlands. A sample of 79 patients (ranging in age from 18 to 60) who had been admitted for mild traumatic brain injury were followed up over six months post-admission. In addition to a battery of neuropsychological tests and use of the Rivermead Postconcussional Symptoms Questionnaire (RPSQ), patients were also asked to self-monitor their cognitive and memory problems over a 12-day period. Results indicated that 39 per cent of the sample self-reported cognitive problems. These complaints were strongly related to lower educational levels, emotional distress, personality, and poorer physical functioning (especially fatigue) but not to actual extent of injury. Severity of self-reported cognitive complaints was found not to be associated with the patients’ daily observations of cognitive problems or with outcome on a range of neuropsychological tests. The researchers concluded that self-reported cognitive complaints were more strongly related to preexisting personality factors, as well as physical and emotional problems rather than actual cognitive impairments. This would suggest that treatment of emotional distress and fatigue may also reduce cognitive complaints. They also concluded that neuropsychological screening and daily monitoring of complaints is a useful method to gather information about the frequency and pattern of cognitive problems in regular life.
*A man who has lived a fascinating life, Dr. Romeo Vitelli spent fifteen years as a staff psychologist in Millbrook Correctional Centre, a maximum-security prison run by the Ontario government. In 2003, he successfully escaped prison and went into full-time private practice and currently also serves as a Disaster Management volunteer with the Red Cross. He is one of the web’s most respected and trusted sources in matters of psychology. We here in the Ashworth University community are honored to share with Dr. Vitelli’s gifts with our students and would like to express our gratitude to him. Visit Providentia to learn more about the life and work of Dr. Romeo Vitelli.
In my spare (ha ha) time, I really need to sit down and compile a list of videos for classroom use, especially in biological psychology. So many new ones are popping up each day. I think the days of publishers providing a DVD of video clips along with textbooks are soon to be over.Nature launched their new site recently, and although the content covers the many branches of science found in the journal, several are appropriate for biopsych. I really enjoyed the clips on Brain-Machine Interfaces, and I plan to use with my students next quarter. I’ve always had a love for linguistics (I’m such a party girl), and the Language Evolution clips caught my eye. Evolution topics are well-represented, with clips on Neanderthal DNA and Hominid Evolution and Development. For fun, I had to watch the Moray eel films.
I liked the way the films featured the scientists working on the topic, discussing their work in their own words. Students, especially those with grad school plans, really need to see this.
Dr. Laura Freberg
Creator of Laura’s Psychology Blog
Ashworth University Contributing Blogger
*Since receiving her Ph.D. in Psychology from UCLA, Dr. Laura Freberg has earned a reputation for being one of the leading educational minds in the psychology field. She’s the author of numerous well respected textbooks and currently serves as a Professor of Psychology at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, CA. Dr. Freberg has been incredibly gracious in offering to share her insights with the Ashworth University student community and we are thrilled to have her as a member of our contributing bloggers’ network. Visit Laura’s great website and Laura’s Psychology Blog to learn more about her life and work. Thanks Dr. Freberg!
Mind-myth 6: Everyone has heard the idea that our left-brains are logical, verbal, rational and scientific while our right brains are spatial, emotional, intuitive and creative. Like some of the mind-myths covered in this series, there’s a solid grain of truth here but its extent has been wildly exaggerated.
Left side language
The biggest grain of truth is that our verbal powers are concentrated in the left side of our brains. It was Nobel Prize winner Roger W. Sperry who, in the 1960s, first showed that the left hemisphere is specialised for language (Corballis, 2007). He was studying patients suffering from crippling epileptic fits who had decided to undergo surgery to try and relieve their symptoms.
The surgery cut the bundle of white matter - the corpus callosum - that connects the two hemispheres of the brain. Along with successfully treating their epilepsy, these ’split-brain’ patients exhibited some strange new symptoms.
Sperry found that after the surgery patients were unable to name objects with the, now disconnected, right side of their brains. Their left-brains, however, seemed to have retained this ability. This lead him to propose that the left hemisphere is specialised for language.
But this specialisation didn’t mean the right hemisphere had no language powers at all. Further experiments suggested the right hemisphere could indeed still process language, just to a lesser degree. For example, patients were able to point to the written names of objects which were presented to their right-brain, although they found themselves unable to say the word. Click here to read the rest of this entry…
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