Category: Psychology

Olympics: Performing may help your performance

A story refuting the old advice that sportsmen should abstain from sex before their events. The evidence is currently only anecdotal, so this story is not incredibly scientific. Still, as far as I’m aware the old abstinence advice was 98% old wives tale as well. Either way, I imagine the effect of sex is heavily dependent on how close to your event you are making the O face.

[From The Scotsman]

Aussie journo’s take on positive psychology

You’ve got to love the Australian approach to life. Here’s an article about a new ‘Happiness Institute’ that has just been set up in Sydney. Central to their approach is the new area of positive psychology, drawn from the works of Martin Seligman. The head of this institute is Dr Timothy Sharp, a clinical psychologist for ten years who has been working at Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital in the Pain Management and Research Centre. And is our author excited to meet the good doctor? The answer comes in paragraph two: “I thought he’d be a tosser.” Not strong on the psychology but a fun article nevertheless.

Psychology and love

Two partners who are unlikely to be splitting up any time soon. Here are a few of my favourite stories: newleyweds advised to lower hopes, opposites ‘do not attract’. And finally my absolute favourite for sheer scare tactics: Being single ‘worse than smoking’. That research sponsored of course by the British Couples Marketing Board.

Dating is still one of those old fashioned backwaters between the sexes. There’s only one place where women ask men out: those snappy US sitcoms that we’re all so keen on. In reality (most of the time) it’s the blokes that make the running. Obviously women aren’t passive in the process; in fact more often than not they’re more aware and in control of the subtle maneuvering. Online though, women are freer to be direct.

Raise your self-esteem with a computer game

Back in the days when I allowed myself to play computer games I used to find Quake extremely good for venting anger. I don’t think it did anything for my self-esteem though. Mainly it just made me want to use a chainsaw to rip people’s heads off. Researchers at McGill University have more constructive ideas.

Less choice is better for us

This story has been picked up all over the place. Barry Schwartz’s arguments about how too much choice makes us unhappy are just general enough that they can be applied to every area of our lives. I’m always sceptical about such general arguments, especially when they tend to lump everyone into two groups: the ‘satisficer’ and the ‘maximiser’. Perhaps that’s just the media spin though, I haven’t read his book.

Here are a couple of the stories:

Suppress it and you’ll dream about it…

The usual criticism of Freud’s work is that many of his theories are largely unverifiable. Certainly no evidence has been found for two of his most well-known ideas – the Oedipus and Electra complexes. But in psychology it’s not wise to take sides too quickly. Here is a report of the first study to confirm Freud’s theory of dreams:

Read all about it! Psychologist BF Skinner kept daughter in box like rat!

Some part of us as human beings is deeply opposed to experimentation on ourselves. Even if it is only a psychology experiment that doesn’t (normally) involve direct physical or mental pain. Unfortunately some of the greatest experiments in psychology involved duping the participants to get data on a particular hypothesis. No one likes to be duped, which may explain how occasionally we like to typecast psychologists as crazies. It’s a way of getting our own back at a perceived injustice. And sometimes psychologists themselves are the worst offenders:

“A new book has rekindled old rumours that renowned psychologist BF Skinner used his baby daughter in his experiments. Stop this rubbish about me and my dad, says Deborah Skinner Buzan”

I’ve been reading The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker. It restates the case for the strength of the genetic component of our personalities. Rightly or wrongly, reading Pinker’s impassioned prose has made me even more nervous about my own free will. As if to put a few more nails into the coffin, neuroscientists also claim to be able to see the brain making our decisions about three-quarters of a second before we are aware of doing so ourselves.

So perhaps it is time to break out of ingrained patterns by following the advice of the protagonist of The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart. In the book he decides to make the major decisions of his life by simply rolling a dice. A Guardian article explains how Cockcroft [Rhinehart’s real name] was first inspired to write the book:

“At the time, Cockcroft was studying and teaching psychology, and one summer he was leading a seminar on freedom – Nietzsche and Sartre – and he asked his class at one point whether perhaps the ultimate freedom was not to ‘get away from habit and causality and make all your decisions by casting dice’. His students were either so appalled or so intrigued by the idea that Cockcroft knew immediately that this was something worth writing about.”

Come on, why not? Let’s mix it up, it’ll be fun.