Laura’s Psychology Blog

My dissertation advisor was fond of repeating a quote attributed to Albert Einstein–”If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.”  One might assume that physics is harder to explain than psychology, but that is not always the case. In spite of over 30 years in the classroom, I occasionally find myself thinking–there has to be a better way to get this across to students.

Enter Wray Herbert, who combines a true love of things psychological and extensive experience in journalism. Not only is Wray a wonderful blogger, who participated as our discussant in our Psychology Blogging symposium at 2008 APS, but he has now ventured into writing books about psychology. His latest is On Second Thought: Outsmarting Your Mind’s Hard-Wired Habits, due out September 14 for Random House. In On Second Thought, Wray tackles the extensive, and often difficult and jargon-infested, literature on decision-making. Although our ancestors obviously had good enough decision-making skills to survive, they left us with some predispositions that lead us in some seemingly crazy directions–launching the Challenger, the Bay of Pigs invasion, and those everyday little things we decide to do that leave us scratching our heads later–What was I thinking?

Time to brush up on those decision-making skills...

We can all brush up on decision-making, and finding out where we go astray is a terrific first step. Wray not only educates with his usual classy clarity, but provides real-world examples that draw you along, learning a lot without really being aware that you’re learning a lot. You can check out an excerpt, in which he applies decision-making theories to a real-life case of backcountry skiers versus an avalanche.  Teaching social is going to be a lot easier this year. Thanks, Wray!

My friends at mindfreedom.org passed along an important news release to me about tonight’s Nightline show. Given my late brother’s connection with Nightline (Leroy served as Executive Producer for many years), I am more than happy to do so. 

The issue under discussion is the use of restraint and electric shock on children and adults with severe disabilities. Back in the 60s, UCLA’s Ivar Lovaas came under considerable fire for suggesting electric shock used in operant condition to stop self-injurious behavior. Dr. Matthew Israel’s rebuttal to the MDRI’s concerns on behalf of the Judge Rotenberg Center, linked below, presents a similar view.

As the parent of a daughter with autism, this is a very painful topic, as I can’t imagine allowing anyone to hurt my child. In 2010, we have to find better ways of managing problem behavior. At the same time, I have not had to face the challenges of the parents and families served by the JRC.

You can read the Judge Rotenberg rebuttal to the MDRI here.

Washington, DC – June 30, 2010 – Mental Disability Rights 
International’s (MDRI) latest report and “urgent appeal” to the United 
Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, to demand the United States 
government end the torture of people with disabilities immediately, 
will be the topic of tonight’s ABC Nightline.

Torture not Treatment: Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the 
United States on Children and Adults with Disabilities at the Judge 
Rotenberg Center (JRC), documents the use of electric shocks on the 
legs, arms, torsos and soles of feet of children and adults with 
disabilities – for weeks, months and sometimes years. JRC uses 
punishments as treatment and US advocates have been trying for decades 
to close the school and end these practices.

Nightline host, Cynthia McFadden, interviewed MDRI Executive Director 
Eric Rosenthal, JD and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on 
Torture, Manfred Nowak for the piece.

Laurie Ahern, President of MDRI and author of the report, states, “The 
cruelty perpetrated against children and adults at JRC is 
psychological and physical abuse, couched in the name of ‘treatment.’ 
The severe pain and suffering leveled against residents there violates 
the United Nations Convention against Torture.”

MDRI is an international human rights organization dedicated to the 
rights protection and full participation in society of people with 
disabilities worldwide.

ABC Nightline airs at 11:30 pm EST, following your local news. Be sure 
and check your local listings.
###

Here in California, we just finished another primary election, and I find it personally refreshing to get a short break from the phone calls and mailers, at least until November rolls around. As I watch little if any network television (with the notable exception of college football), I am at least spared the indignity of having all of this negativity spewed into my own living room.

For those of us who find contemporary politicking unpleasant at best, neuroscience offers a solution! You don’t like politicians’ speeches you say? Well, enter the experts at MindSign, who promise to “take your political speech, both video and or audio and compare it to our database to see if speech is more or less activating than the average brain response for all similar speeches over each and every demographic and political affiliation.”  Oh, they will evaluate your print ads, television ads, and website, too, for $2000 per participant hour plus time needed to prepare reports (they recommend a minimum of 16 participants). So if you don’t like one speech, hey–no worries–they’ll come up with another one you’ll love, tailored to whatever “political affiliation” niche you occupy!

What Exactly Does "Brain Activation" Mean?

Now the word in all of this that catches my eye is “activating.”  I’m sure the MindSign website is a bit dummied down (couldn’t find much in the way of technical data there or published reports), but to me, “activation” of the brain can mean many things–maybe the brain is “activated” because you really hate something.

I understand the need to get the most “bang for the advertising buck,” but shouldn’t politicians be sharing their real views with voters instead of whatever they think we want to hear? I find it somewhat disturbing that the political services page on MindSign is called “Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Once again, technology races along far ahead of any type of discussion about the ethics of its use.

We have been very fortunate in the past few years to have experienced few glitches in our technology at home. Yes, there was the occasional hard drive crash, but we have learned to back up everything with super redundancy. So the two-day Internet outage we just experienced was definitely out of the norm.

This may just be the world's most ancient modem...

When we first went down, we of course called Charter tech support, and again, with our learning from past experience, we moved through the automated menu (yes, I know how to restart the modem) in a few seconds to get to a real person. Unfortunately for us, our city was experiencing an outage, so we just sat back to wait. When our connectivity was still down 24 hours later, however, we began to suspect something else was afoot. This was confirmed when a quick survey of the neighborhood found that everybody else was up and running. Mr. F hunted back through our Charter bills (I confess to being an avid filer) until he found a direct phone line for Internet service. Interestingly enough, this number was no longer printed on the more current bills. The nice lady on the phone said she’d send out a tech person that day.

We never did find out exactly what happened to our service, which came on about an hour before the tech arrived. We thought we should let him look around anyway, so did not cancel the visit. Charter replaced our modem, which was an antique Surfboard, and all seems well.

What was interesting to me about this situation was how funny it felt to be without connectivity. I was wondering if my ACC was extra active due to my sense of isolation.

Yes, we do have phones and our iPad, but we live in an odd shadow where neither Sprint nor AT&T coverage is adequate to do much. We have to walk down our driveway to use our cellphones, so we are among the very few to retain a land line (which, I might add, was AWFUL during this last primary election–we are NOT representative of the American public in any way, shape, or form, so perhaps the pollsters will think of some new techniques). AT&T gives us one to two bars at home, which allowed us to check our email on the iPad, but not much else.  A trip to the Nautical Bean allowed us an opportunity to catch up with a bit more speed.

Karla, of course, was very unhappy with the situation, as she spends quite a bit of time on the Internet. She said she likes to look up definitions of words in particular. I did point out that we owned many hardcopy dictionaries, but she gave me one of those generational looks of disdain as if I’d suggested we go back to stone tools and arrowheads. 

So it’s back to work as usual this morning. I have to confess that I did accomplish quite of bit of writing in the absence of Internet intrusions, and I might just try turning off my email, etc. for certain periods of the day. I was just reading a fascinating article by Karon MacLean about the “cultural pasttime of interruption handling,” and her words seemed quite appropriate for the day.

"Here I am at the 'HOME" of the Boston Cream Pie!"

Here are some of the things I am reading for today:

X-TREME eating 2010

“With close to 30 percent of young Americans too heavy to join the military, you’d think that restaurants would at least stop introducing new heavyweight items.”

What happens when we become angry?

“Inducing emotions generates profound changes in the autonomous nervous system, which controls the cardiovascular response, and also in the endocrine system. In addition, changes in cerebral activity also occur, especially in the frontal and temporal lobes…”

Comparing income with peers causes unhappiness

Researchers analysing data from a Europe-wide survey found three-quarters of those asked thought it important to compare their incomes with others.

But those who compared salaries seem less content, especially if they looked at those of friends and family rather than work colleagues.

Einstein’s Brain unlocked!

“Now we can see scores of ways in which astrocytes could be involved in many cognitive processes,” Fields says. “And now it’s not so crazy to find that there were abnormally high numbers of astrocytes in the parts of Einstein’s brain involved in imagery and mathematical ability and that sort of thing.”

the science of self-motivation

“The popular idea is that self-affirmations enhance people’s ability to meet their goals,” Professor Albarracin said. “It seems, however, that when it comes to performing a specific behavior, asking questions is a more promising way of achieving your objectives.”

Blaeberries as an aid to Diabetes?

“Dr Hoggard added: “Traditional folk remedies have cited the blaeberry as a natural resource to help combat diabetes for centuries.”