Category: Psychology

The New Yorker has a new article by Malcolm Gladwell on the art of criminal profiling:

“The best minds in the F.B.I. had given the Wichita detectives a blueprint for their investigation. Look for an American male with a possible connection to the military. His I.Q. will be above 105. He will like to masturbate, and will be aloof and selfish in bed. He will drive a decent car. He will be a “now” person. He won’t be comfortable with women. But he may have women friends. He will be a lone wolf. But he will be able to function in social settings. He won’t be unmemorable. But he will be unknowable. He will be either never married, divorced, or married, and if he was or is married his wife will be younger or older. He may or may not live in a rental, and might be lower class, upper lower class, lower middle class or middle class. And he will be crazy like a fox, as opposed to being mental.

If you’re keeping score, that’s a Jacques Statement, two Barnum Statements, four Rainbow Ruses, a Good Chance Guess, two predictions that aren’t really predictions because they could never be verified – and nothing even close to the salient fact that BTK was a pillar of his community, the president of his church and the married father of two.”

Continue reading “Malcolm Gladwell on the Art of Criminal Profiling”

Are your conditions for happiness primarily external? Biochemist turned Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard has a message for you. The Dalai Lama’s right-hand man explains that the mind is malleable and happiness can be learned and measured:

Continue reading “World’s Happiest Man: Joy Can Be Learned”

Neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran provides an introduction to how we study the brain’s deficits using three cool examples:

Continue reading “Ramachandran on Capgras Syndrome, Phantom Limbs & Synaesthesia”

The Times (of London) has a good skeptical piece by Professor Raymond Tallis on the dubious rise of neurolaw:

The legal profession in America is taking an increasing interest in neuroscience. There is a flourishing academic discipline of “neurolaw” and neurolawyers are penetrating the legal system. Vanderbilt University recently opened a $27 million neuroimaging centre and hopes to enrol students in a programme in the law and neuroscience. In the courts, as in the trial of serial rapist and murderer Bobby Joe Long, brain-scan evidence is being invoked in support of pleas of diminished responsibility. The idea is abroad that developments in neuroscience – in particular the observation of activity in the living brain, using techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging – have shown us that we are not as free, or as accountable for our actions, as we traditionally thought.

Which leads defence lawyers to try arguing their clients didn’t commit murder – it’s their brains that are to blame.

Continue reading ““Neurolaw” is Dubious at Best”

A wry smile, courtesy of The Onion:

“Data collected at bars and fraternity parties on the UMass campus has yielded unexpected conclusions with regard to the practice of binge drinking,” study head Dr. Albert Greaves said. “Over the course of our research, a consistent pattern emerged demonstrating that binge drinking seriously kicks ass.”

“There was this one bar called The Depot, where they serve beer in these humongous three-foot glasses that are like giant boots,” Greaves continued. “You have to stand back and tilt the thing to drink it all. Our team conducted an experiment to see who could finish one off the fastest. Myself, Dr. Milton Laurian and these eight 20-year-old test subjects lined up against a wall and started chugging away. After completing the test and subsequently throwing up all over the place, I could only conclude that downing huge-ass boot beers is really awesome.”

Now read on (via The Language Log).

Continue reading “College Binge Drinking ‘Seriously Kicks Ass’”

From The New Yorker:

[Trainee clinical psychologist, David] Roberts began showing TV clips during therapy sessions [with schizophrenia patients]. Soon he had narrowed his selections down to one show: television’s purest expression of social dysfunction, “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Roberts considers Larry David to be the perfect proxy for a schizophrenic person. “On his way into his dentist’s office, he holds the door open for a woman, and, as a result, she’s seen first,” he said. “He stews, he fumes, he explodes. He’s breaking the social rules that folks with schizophrenia often break. […] It’s a classic example of a major social cognitive error-jumping to conclusions – that schizophrenic patients are prone to.”

Continue reading “Larry David is Role Model for Schizophrenia Sufferers”

Continuing my search for intelligent life in the blogosphere, I wanted to introduce you to a blog I’ve belatedly realised is excellent. ‘Overcoming Bias‘ is from Oxford University’s ‘Future of Humanity Institute‘ whose mission statement says they are:

“…pursu[ing the] big picture questions for humanity. We study how anticipated technological developments may affect the human condition in fundamental ways, and how we can better understand, evaluate, and respond to radical change.”

Continue reading “Big Picture Questions for Humanity from ‘Overcoming Bias’”