MetaFilter posts tagged with psychology

Why Are People Always Having Sex With Dragons In Science Fiction?

jason's_planet — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 09:17:48 -0800

[NSFW] Why Are People Always Having Sex With Dragons In Science Fiction?

Menu Psychology

AceRock — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:13:04 -0800

Restaurants use menu psychology to entice diners. (SLNYT)

"If admen had souls, many would probably trade them for an opportunity every restaurateur already has: the ability to place an advertisement in every customer’s hand before they part with their money."

Accept defeat

AceRock — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:28:35 -0800

The Neuroscience of Screwing Up by Jonah Lehrer

The fact is, we carefully edit our reality, searching for evidence that confirms what we already believe. Although we pretend we’re empiricists — our views dictated by nothing but the facts — we’re actually blinkered, especially when it comes to information that contradicts our theories. The problem with science, then, isn’t that most experiments fail — it’s that most failures are ignored.

From WIRED's FAIL issue. Also from that issue: The Fall and Rise of Alec Baldwin, How Success Killed Duke Nukem, and Oracle's Lost Revolution.

he of the weird al hair and santa claus beard

kliuless — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:14:25 -0800

R.Sapolsky on the uniqueness of humans in relation to the rest of the animal world (via)

Signatures of Consciousness

AceRock — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:08:25 -0800

12 years in the making, a good working hypothesis about the nature of conciousness.

"For the past twelve years my research team has been using all the brain research tools at its disposal, from functional MRI to electro- and magneto-encephalography and even electrodes inserted deep in the human brain, to shed light on the brain mechanisms of consciousness. I am now happy to report that we have acquired a good working hypothesis. In experiment after experiment, we have seen the same signatures of consciousness: physiological markers that all, simultaneously, show a massive change when a person reports becoming aware of a piece of information (say a word, a digit or a sound)." - Stanislas Dehaene

You motherf$%&*#rs are all on notice

psmealey — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:36:02 -0800

Facebook Profiles Capture True Personality Online social networks such as Facebook are being used to express and communicate real personality, instead of an idealized virtual identity, according to new research from psychologist Sam Gosling at The University of Texas at Austin. Findings will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Researchers include: Gosling and Sam Gaddis (The University of Texas at Austin), Mitja Back, Juliane Stopfer and Boris Egloff (Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany), Simine Vazire (Washington University in St. Louis), and Stefan Schmukle (Westfälische Wilhelms-University Münster, Germany).

The Color of Sin - Why the Good Guys Wear White

filthy light thief — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:34:06 -0800

When the Chrysler car company released its new model Dodge Coronet in 1967, the theme of its ad campaign was the "White Hat Special," with some ads featuring the "Dodge Girl" in her signature white Stetson, saying that "Only the good guys could put together a deal like this." These ads didn't need any elaboration. Madison Avenue knew the potential buyers had all been raised on film and TV Westerns, and knew the symbolism of white hats. Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, the Lone Ranger — cinematic heroes wore white hats, and bad guys wore black. It was all very simple. The colors white and black have carried layers of moral meaning since long before American infatuation with cowboys and automobiles, and some scientists believe that those associations may be automatic and universal and ancient (abstract). Blackness and whiteness may be wired into our neurons, and tightly tangled up with notions of sin and virtue and cleanliness and dirt, according to research by doctoral student Gary D. Sherman and professor Gerald L. Clore, from the University of Virginia Psychology Department (print view). Clore and Sherman tested the concept of grounding of metaphors with a method similar to the the original studies performed by J. Ridley Stroop. The result showing something of the Stroop effect, but instead of displaying a delay in stating the name of colors because of the color of the text, there was a lag in identifying positive and negative words when colored black or white. And the amount of delay changed when the participants were primed to think about immorality.

First, they administered the color identification test with moral and immoral words. Then they asked the participants to hand-copy a very short first-person story about a workplace incident. Half the stories had ethical endings and half had unethical endings. Then they issued the color identification test again. For those who had little trouble with the color identification initially, exposure to the unethical story made it harder to identify word color when it didn't match the moral/immoral dimension of the word. "This shows you can bring this out in people," said Sherman. "We were struck how easily it could be moved around." But even more interesting was that for those who struggled more with the identification in the first test, priming immorality made these participants better at naming the color. This was a bit puzzling. Clore believes that for those already thinking about immorality, becoming even more attuned to it helped bring it to consciousness, where it could be controlled. "If you make something obvious, people appear to be able to regulate it," he said. "What we find with emotion is that if you make something really salient, people are better at making proper discrimination. By making it salient, people got rid of it."

A third study was performed, in which they asked people to rate several consumer products, some of which were cleaning products. Those who ranked cleaning products most highly turned out to be the individuals who had the hardest time identifying the colors when they didn't match the moral dimension of the words. This last test is associated with the Macbeth effect (abstract), where physical cleanliness is psychologically linked to concerns for moral purity. More fun with the Stroop test: Neuroscience for Kids, and the Stroop test and Mount Everest.

Psychological Science?

escabeche — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:14:44 -0800

"Research has shown that numerous psychological interventions are efficacious, effective, and cost-effective. However, these interventions are used infrequently with patients who would benefit from them, in part because clinical psychologists have not made a convincing case for the use of these interventions ... and because clinical psychologists do not themselves use these interventions even when given the opportunity to do so." In Psychological Science in the Public Interest, psychologists Timothy Baker, Richard McFall, and Varda Shoham argue that clinical psychology needs to embrace its status as a science in order to save itself as a profession. If that's too long, Walter Mischel -- yes, the marshmallow guy -- writes an accompanying editorial. : "The disconnect between much of clinical practice and the advances in psychological science is an unconscionable embarrassment..."

Aaron Beck & Cognitive Therapy

Non Prosequitur — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:05:20 -0800

“The psychoanalytic mystique was overwhelming. It was a little bit like the evangelical movement.” How Aaron Beck and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helped increase empiricism in psychotherapy.

"Want to play a chord? Try not to die."

zarq — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 09:46:28 -0800

Piano Stairs! (Not everyone thinks they're a good idea.) Also see "The Deepest Trash Can". Both videos are from Volkswagon Sweden, whose new English-language website, TheFunTheory is still under construction. But here's the Swedish-language version.

The Anxious Mind

homunculus — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:16:47 -0800

Understanding the Anxious Mind. A good article on the psychology of anxiety and how an anxious temperament at birth can ebb and flow during one's lifetime. [Via]

The Holy Grail of the Unconscious

Hackworth — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:53:24 -0800

The Red Book , full of calligraphy and grand illustrations, is Carl Jung's last unpublished book. Written in private and quite possibly never intended to actually be published, it has been called full of "infinite wisdom" and conversely "the work of a psychotic". It has been carefully guarded for the past 40 years by his family, who only recently have been convinced of the importance of its publishing. This is the story of how it happened.

the consumption renews the appetite

nickyskye — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 06:33:14 -0800

Seeking - How the brain hard-wires us to love Google, Twitter, and texting.

Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking

netbros — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:07:43 -0800

The Art of the Prank offers insights, information, news and discussions about pranks, hoaxes, culture jamming and reality hacking around the world. Includes topics such as The History of Pranks, The Prank As Art, and the Sociology and Psychology of Pranks. Get pranking. Recent posts include: Mexico 17 Brazil 0 soccer match, The Pynchon Hoax, and a Microsoft Viral stunt.

A wife doubts her husband's doubt about their marriage.

shivohum — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 09:41:44 -0800

What would you do if your husband of many years, with whom you had created a family and with whom you led what you considered to be a successful life, suddenly said he thought he no longer loved you? One woman's approach: refuse to believe it. Not everyone agrees.

Forgiveness

homunculus — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 22:39:30 -0800

Forgive and Forget? "Rwanda's warring population has a lot to account for, and a lot to reconcile. Can science point the way to understanding?"

A boy called Sue

acb — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 07:37:39 -0800

A new US study, recently published in Social Science Quarterly, has shown that the more uncommon or feminine a boy's first name is, the greater the likelihood that he will end up in prison.

While Shippensburg University professor David Kalist's report in Social Science Quarterly shows that "unpopular names are likely not the cause of crime," he explains that factors often associated with those names can "increase the tendency toward juvenile delinquency." Boys with unpopular, girlish or uncommon names often are ridiculed by peers, come from families of low socioeconomic status and face discrimination in the workforce based on a preconceived bias about their names, according to the study, which analysed more than 15,000 names.

King - uhum - Prince of Pop

Sova — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:37:38 -0800

Was Michael Jackson A Pedophile? No! Jackson Was A Homosexual Autohebephile! J Michael Bailey tries to explain both the sexuality and appearance of Michael Jackson in one grand theory. Bailey's diagnosis of 'homosexual hebephilia' considers Jackson's personal esthetic desire to be reflexively linked to his sexual attraction to young boys, wishing to create his own body as a target of sexual arousal. Bailey previously published The Man Who Would Be Queen, which accused trans women of an analogous disorder and sparked a fire of controversy. (Previously.)

"Men are born for games."

j.edwards — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:17:04 -0800

At the recent Games for Change conference, Brenda Brathwaite debuted her game Train. The WSJ blog Speakeasy interviews her: Players load boxcars with tiny yellow figurines and are asked to move the trains from one end of the course to the other. They pull cards that either impede their progress or free some of the characters. Once a train reaches the "finish line," the game is completed and it is revealed that the destination of the trains is Auschwitz. Nobody "wins.". Abe Stein comments on playing.

Dancing Manias and Mass Hysteria

homunculus — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:36:22 -0800

Dancing plagues and mass hysteria: how distress and pious fear have led to bizarre outbreaks across the ages. [Via]

Picky picky

AceRock — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:32:27 -0800

Women may not be so picky after all. Researchers at Northwestern University have been finding some interesting things about human mating by holding and studying speed-dating events (pdf). Speed dating research has also produced findings about whether or not people actually know what they initially desire in a mate (pdf) and about the disastrous effects of giving off a desperate vibe (pdf). How these new findings fit in with (or refute) previous evolutionary research (pdf) on mating preferences has yet to be determined.

Wait, wait, I almost have it!

CaptKyle — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:22:45 -0800

Why do we get "tip of the tongue" moments?? We’ve all experienced the tip of the tongue moment where we wanted to say something but just couldn’t remember the word. But what causes this momentary lapses in vocabulary?

neuroscience and behavior videos

nickyskye — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:39:37 -0800

At Psychoanalyst TV, we aggregate psychology and neuroscience videos, and put them on our own TV channels. Its companion site, Neurological Correlates, A Neuroscience Tabloid of Dysfunctional Behavior - Mostly Psychopaths, Narcissists, Obesity and Addiction. Includes such gems as Visualizing Desire and Sadobabies - Runaways in San Francisco.

Happy Stabbiversary!

william_boot — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:37:43 -0800

Fourteen years ago I was stabbed in the throat.

Thought Suppression

homunculus — Fri, 22 May 2009 20:21:52 -0800

Why Thought Suppression is Counter-Productive: How pushing a thought out of consciousness can bring it back with a vengeance. [Via]