Category: Psychology

Light piece in The Guardian on the psychology of magic.

“…not content with just enjoying the tricks, psychologists are now using their effects on the mind to work out how we handle the floods of sensory information coming into our brains and process it into a mental picture of the world around us. Magic is a deception, a disruption of that orderly mental picture where things seem to float in mid-air or coins and cards vanish in front of our eyes. Scientists now believe that, by mapping out how our brains are deceived, they could even help to unlock some of the mysteries of consciousness itself.”

The idea of magic unlocking the mysteries of consciousness is a bit far-fetched. Still, if there’s a man for the job, it’s Professor Richard Wiseman, who was the youngest member of The Magic Circle before becoming a professional psychologist.
Bursting the magic bubble

As the eyes are the window to the soul, psychologists’ fascination with them is no surprise. In the first of two new studies, cognitive psychologists looked at whether there was a relationship between neuroticism and where people direct their visual attention.

The study found that those higher in neuroticism – essentially pessimists – tend to pay more attention to the lower part of the visual field. On the other hand those lower in neuroticism – optimists – paid more attention to the upper part. Now whether this has anything to do with how people behave in the real world is a hotly argued point in psychology – here’s a short description of ecological validity.

The final claim of the article that redirecting attention upwards might raise mood is highly speculative. Despite this, the BBC news story does the usual media job of generalising to the point of inanity.

On a more positive note for BBC News they do have a nice article about how parts of our brains ‘switch off’ when we blink. Researchers claim that this is why we don’t tend to experience a mini-blackout while blinking. This was investigated by lighting up the eye from the inside so researchers could differentiate between an eye blink and a dark scene (see photo above). Clever huh?
Does “feeling down” mean seeing down? Depressive symptoms and vertical selective attention [Article abstract]

New research, published in Health Psychology, has found that optimists recover more quickly than pessimists after a death or the onset of severe illness in the family. This is the latest in a line of research supporting the idea that being optimistic is good for your health. Optimists have been found to live as much as 19% longer – perhaps because they have more friends, persist at healthy behaviours and have stronger immune systems.

Participants in this research were assessed for optimism and pessimism using the Life Orientation Test, while sick days were used in this research as an indication of health levels. The authors argue that this is more accurate than self-report methods of assessing health. These tend to be open to a variety of problems including people simply forgetting or misreporting when they were ill.

So, how is possible to stay positive when life is treating you like a punch-bag? Dr Raj Persaud in his book ‘The Motivated Mind’ reports research into the differing mental habits of optimists and pessimists showing it’s all in how we interpret past successes and failures.

Half-Empty – When something bad happens to a pessimist, they assume it is representative of a pervasive problem. This can lead to ‘catastrophising’ – allowing a setback to have disastrous implications for the rest of your life. To compound the problem a pessimist will also assume that a problem encountered is permanent and personal.

Half-Full – When something bad happens to an optimist, they do the exact opposite. An optimist tends to restrict the event’s implications, avoid taking it personally and assume it is only a temporary state of affairs.

What about if something good happens to an optimist and a pessimist? Reverse the patterns seen above. An optimist will let it spill over into other areas of their life as well as assuming it’s personal and permanent.

And a pessimist doesn’t.

Pessimists, of course, will claim that optimists suffer from ‘False Hope Syndrome‘ – but that’s just typical of their negative thinking!

Optimism and Pessimism as Predictors of Change in Health After Death or Onset of Severe Illness in Family [PDF] Press Release

A study published this month in Neuropsychobiology has found that sustained caffeine use has no significant enhancing effects on performance or mood and does not provide a restorative effect after poor sleep. So are the approximately 90% of us who feel we get a boost from caffeine, just deluding ourselves?

Research into caffeine has produced mixed results. Previous studies have shown some associations between caffeine intake and increased alertness, vigilance and lower levels of fatigue – as we might expect. Even so, some researchers have found that the apparent benefits of caffeine are only seen in individuals who already use the drug. Those not already caffeine users show much smaller improvements. Other studies, however, have found different patterns.

This study differs from many previously carried out by controlling for the effects of caffeine withdrawal. What it suggests is that these types of apparent enhancements are more the result of the alleviation of caffeine withdrawal. Caffeine withdrawal has already been recognised as a kind of disorder causing certain predictable symptoms including drowsiness, headaches and negative mood. It is the association in our minds between the alleviation of caffeine withdrawal symptoms and our morning cup of coffee that keep us coming back for more.

What studies like this suggest is that, overall, our cognitive functions are no more highly tuned if we use drinks containing caffeine than if we abstain completely. In fact there was some evidence found here that caffeine might actually be undermining the restorative effects of sleep.

There has been evidence from epidemiological studies of the long-term benefits of caffeine consumption – such as protection from cancer – but these are, at best, fairly speculative. Equally, caffeine does raise blood pressure and increase the risk of coronary heart disease and strokes.

The findings of this study are a blow to the perception that caffeinated drinks provide a boost to mental performance. After all, most people don’t drink tea or coffee for the long-term health benefits – they just want to wake up.

A word of warning to those inspired to give up: breaking a habit as ingrained as drinking tea or coffee can be difficult and it has been shown that a stepped approach is best. The symptoms of complete caffeine withdrawal can last up to 7 days and are not pleasant if experienced in one go. I know, I’ve tried it.

Dietary Caffeine, Performance and Mood: Enhancing and Restorative Effects after Controlling for Withdrawal Reversal [Article abstract]

Reanalysis of data collected from the most expensive research into the treatment of alcoholism has found little support for the use of psychological therapies.

The research compared a number of psychosocial treatments (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Motivational Enhancement Therapy and Twelve Step Facilitation – based on the method used by Alcoholics Anonymous) and found that they accounted for only 3% of the variability in the patient’s outcome. In other words, psychological therapies hardly had any beneficial effect in treating alcoholics.

The failure of current methods of treatment is particularly highlighted by the fact that this study found that, in clinical trials, untreated alcoholics showed significant improvements – almost as much as those who received treatment.

How is it that new therapies are often adopted before they have been properly tested? Part of the problem for psychology, despite the lip-service paid to the importance of the evidence base, is the relative ease of introducing new treatments. Unlike pharmaceutical treatments, psychological treatments are unlikely to have damaging side-effects. Combine this with the problem for much scientific research that negative results often go unreported, and the seeds are there for a proliferation of ineffective therapies.

Despite this seeming like bad news for psychological approaches to alcoholism, it shows the importance of the scientific method in psychology. The strength of any science is founded on its ability to admit when the evidence does not support the treatment methods currently used. And for alcoholism this evidence shows little support for psychological treatments.

This kind of evidence, however, does not show that psychological therapies are never going to be any use in the treatment of alcoholism, only that the correct method has not yet been found. Admitting failure is the first step towards finding a better way. This is why, sometimes a negative result is actually a positive one.
Are alcoholism treatments effective? The Project MATCH data. [Abstract + link to free PDF of study]Press release

The Guardian reports that:

“The government today vowed to press ahead with its controversial overhaul of mental health legislation, against the advice of MPs and peers.”

The draft Mental Health Bill is set to introduce ‘draconian measures‘ that could seriously erode the civil liberties of those suffering from mental ill health.

And:

“Mental health campaigners said they were “disappointed and angry” at the government’s decision yesterday to press ahead with legislation to allow the compulsory treatment of people who might not benefit from it.”

Further:

“Services for the mentally ill are in danger of becoming “clogged up with people who cannot be treated and should not be there”, if the latest proposals in the mental health bill become law, they warned.”

Guardian Mental Health Section

While the debate continues on psychological sex differences (discussed on PsyBlog here and here), a doctor and psychologist, Leonard Sax, argues that boys and girls should be educated differently.

Diagnoses of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are on the rise, most notably amongst boys – something Dr Sax partly ascribes to an approach to child-rearing that is ‘gender-neutral’. Perhaps by wilfully ignoring the differences between boys and girls we are not educating them as well as we could be.

There is gathering evidence that, on average, boys and girls process all sorts of stimuli in quite different ways. There is evidence for hemispheric differences, with male brains being more compartmentalised, female brains better integrated.

Perhaps as a result, girls are better at interpreting facial expressions and talking about emotions. Boys, on the other hand, take more risks, are more likely to over-estimate their own ability and are generally more attracted to violence and conflict.

Apart from that, boys and girls’ learning styles are different, with girls tending to ask for help while boys use the teacher as a last resort. Similarly, the two sexes respond to different motivational techniques – boys responding much better to time-constrained tasks and pressure situations than girls.

Dr Sax also points out that attributing the differences between boys and girls to the idea that girls mature quicker than boys is too simplistic. Certainly linguistic abilities develop more quickly in girls, but it is the spatial abilities that develop more quickly in boys.

This not a strong enough argument for single-sex education (not something it seems Dr Sax is advocating), but certainly these are differences that need to be understood by educators. Acceptance of these findings is particularly important in a society where to talk about the average psychological differences between boys and girls can be extremely controversial.
Zenit (Article on Dr Sax)
Dr Leonard Sax’s website

People talk as though terrorists are ‘other’ than us, and while their actions are certainly ‘other’, experts on terrorists have discovered their backgrounds are often very normal. Terrorists are only human — too human — and that can be even more frightening.

Attempts to create a profile of an average terrorist have proved extremely difficult – as difficult as creating a profile of an average ‘normal’ person. Research into the personality traits of terrorists reveals they have nothing particular in common. Terrorists share the same range of personality traits as might be found in any average office.

The stereotype that terrorists are psychopaths, or are mentally unstable in some way, is a controversial point. The psychologist Jerrold Post has suggested that terrorists are impelled to commit these acts by deep psychological problems. The weight of evidence, however supports the view that terrorists, while they often have very strong religious or ideological beliefs, are generally quite sane.

Heskin (1984) has studied members of the Irish Repulican Army (the IRA), Rasch (1979) a group of West Germany terrorists and Becker (1984), members of the Baader-Meinhoff Gang. All of these found little evidence of psychopathology.

Apart from that it makes sense for terrorist leaders to avoid recruiting psychopaths to their cause: the mentally unstable would prove themselves liabilities to the organisation.

If anything, then, terrorists are notable for their normality, for their ability to blend into the background and remain unnoticed. Those recruited tend to be of average appearance, normal in behaviour in the situation they are in, fairly young – between 20 and 25 – and reasonably well educated, often to university level.
The sociology and psychology of terrorism: who becomes a terrorist and why? [Summary of research, PDF file]More on London bombings: Psychology of Terrorism, Why We Are Glued To The TV and Guardian Journos Disorientated

There was a contradictory and confusing article in The Guardian yesterday about the psychological after-effects on the survivors of the London bombings. We are encouraged to provide support but Dr Reddy tells us that counselling is probably not necessary as:

“…less than 5% of survivors and witnesses of the tube and bus bombings were likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).”

While on the other hand Dr Thompson says,

“…one would predict that 40% will find their reactions haven’t returned to normal in the next few weeks.”

In which case:

“They will probably feel anxious, depressed, suffer nightmares or flashbacks and generally be much more fearful – making it very difficult to carry on with the normal things in life.”

And the article finishes with the information that:

“Dr Stephen Joseph, reader in health psychology at the University of Warwick, sounded a positive note for the longer-term. The psychologist said between 30 and 70% of survivors of traumatic events reported positive after-effects.”

Well that’s all alright then isn’t it? I may have just witnessed a horrific bomb blast but at least there’s a fair chance that my life will improve over the long-term.
The Guardian
More on London bombings: Profile of a Terrorist, Why We Are Glued To The TV and The Psychology of Terrorism