Minds and Models

What is depression?

2013-05-02T03:50:00.000-07:00

Depression is a common and very severe psychological disorder. It is an emotional state of great sadness and apprehension, feelings of worthlessness and guilt, social withdrawal, and loss of the usual drive and motivation (Davison and Neale, 2001).

Most of us will probably have an ample amount of sadness in our lives, though probably not to a degree that warrants the diagnosis of depression. However there are moves to broaden the clinical definition.

Depressed by Sander van der Wel

In the UK 10% of people will be diagnosed with depression at some point in their lives, and internationally this rate varies from 3% in Japan to 17% in the USA.

What are the symptoms?

A formal diagnosis of depressive disorder requires the presence of five of the following symptoms for at least two weeks, one of which must be either depressed mood or loss of interest and pleasure:

Sad, depressed mood.
Loss of interest and pleasure in usual activities.
Difficulties in sleeping.
Poor appetite and weight loss, or increased appetite and weight gain.
Loss of energy.
Feelings of worthlessness and guilt.
Difficulty in concentrating.
Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide.

Why do people get depressed?

The current biological model of depression suggests that the disorder relates to a malfunction of the neurotransmitter seratonin. This chemical is used by brain cells to communicate, and helps to controls mood, appetite and sleep. Chemical anti-depressant thereapies (e.g. Prozac) therefore try to boost levels of seratonin.

However, this explanation does not account for the varying worldwide prevalence of depression, nor can it explain why this neurotransmitter is faulty in the first place.

An alternative cognitive view is that some people develop faulty thinking styles, sets of negative 'schemas' about themselves, the world and the future (Beck, 1976). These are self-reinforcing and lead to negative mood and loss of motivation.

The answer may lie in a combination of the two approaches, as both drug and cognitive therapies have been found to be effective for depression. Reconciling the different approaches in psychology is an important challenge, not least in mental health.

References

Beck, A. (1976). Cognitive therapy and the emotional disorders. New York: International Universities Press.
Davidson, G. and Neale, S. (2001). Abnormal Psychology (8th Ed.) New York: Wiley.

The huge problems with the new system of psychiatric diagnosis

2013-03-07T04:20:00.000-08:00

The American Psychiatric Association publishes a manual for diagnosing mental disorders, called the DSM. This year they are publishing the 5th edition ("DSM-5") - in principle, an updated and more accurate version.

In practice, its revisions have been met with widespread dismay and alarm. In fact, I have yet to read anything positive about it.

Dr Doom! Image by JD Hancock.

Among the concerns that have been raised are the following:

Medicalising grief - grief due to sad/traumatic life events (what most of us would call 'normal' grief) is now viewed as a form of depressive disorder.
What happened to Aspergers' syndrome? - the new version bundles together autism and Aspergers', treating differences as just a matter of quantity. While there are similarities, it is confusing for the public and in many ways just absurd to say that, for example, severely disabled non-verbal autistic individuals have the same disorder as smart, highly functional 'Aspies'.
Mi slabelling unhealthy lifestyle choices - such things as promiscuous behaviour or refusal to be treated are now seen as aspects of mental illness.
A generally broadening of diagnosis - more and more diagnosis, more and more disorders. Which is especially suspicious when you consider the close financial links between the APA and major pharmaceutical companies - the very people who will gain from the increased use of psychiatric medication.

Perhaps the most damning verdict comes from Prof. Allen Frances who chaired the previous review of DSM. He states: "DSM 5 remains a reckless and poorly written document that will worsen diagnostic inflation, increase inappropriate treatment, create stigma, and cause confusion among clinicians and the public" (source here).

What is your view of the state of psychiatric diagnosis? Are you worried about mental illness being over-diagnosed, or about the treatments used?

This post is part of #BlogFlash2013 - 30 days of flash blogging - using

the prompt 'health' http://bit.ly/Y2BMEc

My top 5 brilliant psychology books for everyone

2013-03-06T12:13:00.000-08:00

The following books are fantastic for anyone with an interest in psychology:

Fascinating, easy-to-read psychology books...

Nature via Nurture: Genes, experience and what makes us human by Matt Ridley

An expert on making evolutionary theory accessible, here Ridley tackles the nature-nurture debate, trying to find answers to the extent to which we are ruled by our genes. The key idea which he explains here is that the genome is not detailed enough to be a complete masterplan, but instead interacts with the environment to make us who we are. He shows how some of the great thinkers in psychology have contributed, each in their own way, to our understanding of human nature.

Help! by Oliver Burkeman

Self-help books get a bad name, but how to distinguish the good from the bad (without having to read them all)? This book humourously runs through a vast range, current and classic. It debunks the likes of 'paraliminal' CDs and psycho-cybernetics, finds useful insights from some of the older titles in the genre, and gives intriguing summaries of many research findings. In a few cases he concludes, refreshingly, that he simply can't decide whether a technique works or not. It's light-hearted but well-researched throughout.

The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge

For years the structure of the brain has been viewed as static once we reach adulthood - no new neurons or functional change. Doidge elegantly summarises how the new field of neuroplasticity is changing that view, and how it applies to areas such as addiction and stroke recovery.

The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

A classic - essays about mysterious neurological conditions, each fascinating and very readable. From the title case of visual agnosia to tales of memory loss to autistic savants. Curiously, Sacks himself suffers from a rare neurological condition called prosopagnosia, meaning that he is unable to recognise faces.

50 Psychology Classics by Tom Butler-Bowden

This book deserves its place in my list due to its massive scope, and it's a book I wish had been around when I was first studying psychology. By summarising both classic and contemporary works, it opens up a real magic box of research in neat, 4-page summaries and clearly shows why each is relevant to real life. I loved the 'in a nutshell' 1-sentence summaries for each one too, and the links to related chapters.

What have I missed? Share your favourites in the comments.

This post is part of #BlogFlash2013 - 30 days of flash blogging - using

the prompt 'books' http://bit.ly/Y2BMEc

Lost innocence: what do addiction, anorexia and Milgram's electric shocks have in common?

2013-03-05T11:59:00.000-08:00

I recently heard several recovering substance abusers giving a talk about how they had become addicts.

All said that they had begun taking smaller amounts and/or 'safer' substances. At the start, none thought they were the kind of person who could take heroin. I asked if there was a moment at which they were aware that they were moving on from 'softer' drugs to heavier stuff but each said that there wasn't - they took a range of substances and it happened gradually.

Drugs such as cocaine can lie on the border between perceptions
of soft/hard drugs. Image by Foxtongue.

Gradual change in behaviour

This gradual change in behaviour and attitude reminded me of other areas of psychology where behaviour and attitudes gradually shift:

The staged electric shocks of the famous Milgram experiment - where participants began by giving a low level of shocks - 15V - to a stranger. Nobody thinks they would give the maximum 450V shock to a complete stranger, yet in Milgram's original study, 65% did (Milgram, 1963). Add in peer pressure, and that amount rose to over 90% (Milgram, 1974).

Eating disorders. With extreme dieting as with addiction, people are compelled to do 'just a bit more'. None would expect, at the start, that they would ever be willing to starve themselves to death. But the horrible truth is that many do - anorexia nervosa is the most deadly of psychological disorders.

In every case, the person starts as an innocent, unwilling to comtemplete the extreme behaviour, but becomes gradually sucked in by degrees.

Similarities

There is a tendency in psychology to divide things up into areas - developmental psychology, social psychology, etc. Perhaps we should focus more on the similarities, and work towards theories that apply to a multitude of situations.

There could be many more examples of people's behaviour gradually shifting - people getting used to abuse, becoming indocrinated in cults, breaking laws... Please post your thoughts in the comments.

References

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioural study of obedience. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(4), 371-378.

Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. New York: Harper and Row.

This post is part of #BlogFlash2013 - 30 days of flash blogging - using
the prompt 'innocence' http://bit.ly/Y2BMEc

Modifying our brains - can we make a cyborg?

2013-03-04T03:10:00.000-08:00

With the recent developments in bionic eyes and bionic limbs hitting the news, an old question becomes ever more relevant - will we ever create true 'cyborgs' - part human, part robot?

In some ways we already are - if people's synthetic limbs can be connected to their brains in order to feel sensation. The US military has used controls wired to an insect brain to get a beetle to fly around with a tiny spy camera attached. They can actually control its movements remotely by stimulating its brain!

But still, these developments somehow feels like useful add-ons. Is there a line which will someday be crossed, requiring us to redefine what it means to be human?

How far will technology go? Image by The PIX-JOCKEY

What next?

One thing is for certain: this research is only going to go in on direction - it's going to get better and more sophisticated. Systems are going to become more sensitive, and increasingly miniaturised too. With further developments in creating artificial brain cells, it may one day be possible to have parts of the brain bionically replaced as well.

How will it feel to have synthetic brain parts?

In some ways, we already think with more than one 'brain' - our brains contain a primitive 'reptilian brain' composed of the brainstem and the thalamus which is responsible for basic bodily functions and basic emotions, and an evolutionarily newer 'thinking brain' - the neocortex - which is responsible for our more complicated perceptions and thoughts.

Perhaps these parts of the brain could be linked to Freud's ego and id - conscious and unconscious mind (Freud, 1910).

However, to 'think' with artificial brain parts? In some respects our mind can be reduced to the activity of a huge number of brain cells, each fairly simple. But for all our sophisticated modern neuroscience, the question of how this network leads to conscious thought - the 'mind-body problem' - has yet to be answered satisfactorily. It would certainly be interesting to know if people 'felt' different after having a synthetic brain system connected up.

Will it catch on?

At the moment, the new technology described above is helping people with visual or physical impairments. But if the technology became good enough, would it start to have a general appeal? Would we see athletes opt for bionic replacement body parts, for example?

And in terms of bionic brain parts, what would be the implications for personal safety and privacy if our brains had the same vulnerability to hackers as our computers currently have? Food for thought. Clearly there are a lot of questions - please post your thoughts in the comments!

Reference

Freud, S. (1910). The origin and development of psychoanalysis. (Translated by H.W. Chase). American Journal of Psychology, 21, 181-218.

This post is part of #BlogFlash2013 - 30 days of

flash blogging - using the prompt 'technology' http://bit.ly/Y2BMEc

What is laughter for?

2013-03-01T04:23:00.000-08:00

Laughter is a uniquely human trait, a form of communication which is universal - it doesn't depend on language or culture. Babies laugh long before they can speak, and laughing can promote social bonding and even improve your health.

Laughing is good for you. Image by nosha.

Good feeling

One of the simplest but most effective forms of stress relief is to laugh. Laughter, like exercise, produces endorphins, the body's 'natural high' chemicals. It may be hard to laugh in difficult situations, but doing so has been linked to a greater resistance to stress and illness (Berk et al., 2001).

Even better is laughing together with close friends, as social support can also help to relieve stress. Laughter has been shown to reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol (Berk et al., 1989) and therefore impacts directly on the body, apparently 'switching off' the stress response.

What is laughter for?

The obvious question to ask, drawing on evolutionary psychology, is what did laughter evolve for? The universal nature of laughter suggests that it is a genetic trait, as does the finding that people laugh much more in childhood than adulthood. Could it have a social function, or be involved in making people more attractive?

Laughing may have evolved for a socially shared purpose. Freud linked it to a relief of repressed tension, Nietzsche to existential angst, but neither of these seem to provide much an an explanation of laughter in babies and children, or for why relaxed people laugh more!

Most likely is that it was a form of communication in our early evolution, perhaps before language fully developed. Dunbar et al. (2012) propose that it evolved to facilitate social bonding. Which makes a lot of sense, given the emphasis friendship groups still place on having fun together.

Laughter Boosting - 3 Ideas

Seek out humor - find time to watch comic films/videos, even if it's just a short clip or two on the internet. Read funny books, and follow people on Twitter that share jokes and wit.
Look for the joke - our cognitive biases can promote us to view things negatively, but it is possible to form a habit of viewing the funny side!
Seeking others who laugh - mirror neurons in the brain help us to feel empathy for others' emotions (Jabbi et al., 2007), so if you are surrounded by mirthful people, it will boost your own tendency to laugh too.

What are your views on the psychological benefits of

laughter? Please share them in the comments.

References

Berk, L., Felten, D., Tan, S., Bittman, B., and Westengard, J. (2001). Modulation of neuroimmune parameters during the eustress of humorassociated mirthful laughter. Altern Ther Health Med, 7, 62–72; 74–76.

Berk, L., Tan, S., Fry, W., Napier, B., Lee, J. and Hubbard, R. (1989). Neuroendocrine and stress hormone changes during mirthful laughter. Am J Med Sci, 298, 391–6.

Dunbar R. I. M., Baron, R., Frangou, A., Pearce, E., van Leeuwen, E.J.C., Stow, J., Partridge, G., MacDonald, I., Barra, V. and van Vugt, M. (2012). Social laughter is correlated with an elevated pain threshold. Proc. R. Soc. B, 279(1731), 1161-1167.

Jabbi, M., Swart, M., Keysers, C. (2007). Empathy for positive and negative emotions in the gustatory cortex. NeuroImage, 34(4), 1744–53.

This post is part of BlogFlash 2013 - 30 days of
flash blogging - using the prompt 'laughter' http://bit.ly/Y2BMEc

Multiple intelligences theory and creativity

2013-02-28T04:53:00.000-08:00

Howard Gardner has set out a radically different view of intelligence from the traditional view of a general IQ score. Instead of a single ability called intelligence, as proposed by Spearman (1904), Gardner believed that there are many 'intelligences'.

What’s more, they are all unrelated – ability in one is totally separate from ability in any other. You do best in tasks which relate to your strongest intelligence, but levels in other intelligences can increase with practice.

The seven multiple intelligences first set out (Gardiner, 1983) are Linguistic, Visual/spatial, Mathematical/logical, Bodily/kinaesthetic, Musical, Interpersonal and Intrapersonal. Later, an eighth intelligence was added – Naturalist Intelligence.

Intelligences?

Gardner believes that it is wrong to view someone who is good at language or spatial reasoning as 'intelligent' and others who are good at music or sports as having a 'skill'. He states that each should be viewed as an intelligence, equal in status. Each has particular brain areas associated with it, and there is no reason other than prejudice and tradition to consider just some of these areas to be 'true' intelligence.

Gardner's 1983 book Frames of Minds states that there are seven intelligences, each one separate from the others. By using written exams, traditional academic subjects tend to draw mainly on just one of these - linguistic intelligence - but there are others which are of equal importance and value.

The multiple intelligences theory suggests that we have
a range of separate types of intelligence. Image by Patrick Hoesly

Creativity

Gardner argues that a high level of intelligence would be necessary for a creative task - the difference between being good at playing the piano, for example, and being able to compose.

As mentioned above, school exams tend to emphasise certain types of intelligence, most obviously linguistic intelligence. However, they don't even fully test this. Why is that people who succeed at language school are not always the same as those who become great writers, journalists or poets? Part of the explanation could be that written exams only draw on one aspect of verbal-linguistic intelligence. Any test which draws largely on memory will not make much use of the higher reaches of linguistic abilities - the creative, imaginative, playful and symbolic uses of language.

Links to real life

Compared to traditional theories of IQ, this comes closer to explaining why people who are good at school are not always the same ones who succeed in life - because school only focuses on some aspects of intelligence. Someone with a strong interpersonal intelligence, for example, would thrive at networking and conferences, and might therefore do much better than their grades would suggest.

One implication could be that school curriculum be built more closely around these key intelligences. This would mean retaining current mathematics and language courses, but linking them more to creative and practical skills rather than memorisation. Music and sports/dance would be similar, but other areas of the school timetable might look very different. There would be more emphasis on psychological and relationship-based learning, as well as nature-based learning - something that Harry Potter's school Hogwarts had under the name Herbology!

Harry Potter's schooling may have drawn on naturalist
intelligence. Image by Michael Vough.

Genius

So where does that leave the concept of genius - how can someone be super-bright in multiple intelligences? Rather than genius being a matter of high IQ, each intelligence has its own examples of geniuses; Mozart was a genius in musical intelligence, for example, and Picasso a genius in visual-spatial intelligence. Although it is sometimes said that the theory proves that 'everyone is good at something', in fact you could be average at all of the intelligences! On the positive side, Gardner also notes that intelligences can increase with practice.

It is worth remembering that any theory of intelligence abilities only explains some aspects of performance. Things like motivation and learning are not really covered - a person could have a lot of potential in any of the intelligences, but not make use of it.

This is part of the Creativity in Education Series of
articles - every month on this blog -
click HERE for previous post.

Reference

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic Books.

See also: Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences

Kitty Genovese, and why people won't help

2013-02-26T07:25:00.000-08:00

Kitty Genovese - a young woman who was sexually assaulted and murdered in New Yor k in 1964.

In many ways, it was just one of many horrific crimes, but it caught the public imagination after a New York Times report announced that "Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police". Are people really so callous that they would watch a crime take place and do nothing about it?

The New York Times reported the story. Image by AhmadHashim.

Social psychology researchers began to ask the question - why is it that ordinary people, friendly and helpful in everyday life, can fail to act in an emergency situation?

Latane and Darley research

Researchers Latane and Darley (1969) theorised that people suffer from bystander apathy, where the presence of others makes people less likely to help. So in the Kitty Genovese case, the large number of observers could have been part of the problem - everyone thinks that someone else is responsible.

Latane and Darley conducted a series of studies, including:

Sounds of distress: here a participant would hear sounds of distress from another room. They were either with a friend, a stranger, or with a 'passive' confederate who had been instructed to do nothing. 70% of alone participants and 70% of friendship pairs reacted, but only 40% of stranger pairs and 7% of those who were with a passive confederate did anything to help.

The smoking room: here participants were asked to fill in a questionnare, and as they do so, the room fills with smoke in a simulated fire. When alone, 75% reported the smoke, but only 10% did so if the researchers put confederates in, who had been briefed to remain in the room and do nothing.

A later TV documentary ran a version of the smoking room experiment, and you can watch it here (around 2 mins in length):

Analysis

The two Latane and Darley experiments show a similar pattern - people are less willing to react if they are surrounded by others who are doing nothing.

It made little difference if the motivation was to help another person (sounds of distress) or save themselves (smoking room), suggesting that a lack of reaction is not due to being uncaring to others, but rather being inhibited by other bystanders. People's need to be socially accepted was conflicting with their desire to act.

Recent reviews

The Kitty Genovese murder case may have been misrepresented in psychology textbooks through the years, according to recent research. Manning et al. (2007) looked at the evidence and found the claim about the '38 witnesses' to be inaccurate. In fact, people did call the police, the murderer fled the scene after his first attempt to attack Kitty, and eventually committed the murder in a stairwell, and therefore out of sight from any witnesses at their windows.

So perhaps humans are not so uncaring after all, if there is a clear need for help.

References

Latane, B. and Darley, J. (1969). Bystander "Apathy". American Scientist, 57, 244-268.

Manning R., Levine, M. and Collins, A. (2007). The Kitty Genovese Murder and the social psychology of helping: the parable of the 38 witnesses. American Psychologist, 62, 555-562.

The 'tend and befriend' response (Taylor et al., 2000)

2013-02-25T09:37:00.000-08:00

We have all been there - giving a presentation or speech: the heart rate starts to rise, we feel our mouth getting dry, our hands clammy with sweat...

Giving a talk may trigger the signs of acute stress.
Image by Benson Kua

The traditional theory states that in cases of acute stress - such as being attacked or giving a speech - the body's fight-or-flight response (FoF) is activated. The sympathetic nervous system sends a message to the adrenal glands to release adrenalin, triggering a number of changes such as raised heart rate, sweating, and a release of glucose.

Or does it?

According to Shelley Taylor and colleagues, there are considerable sex differences in the way people respond to an immediate stressor. They suggest that rather than FoF, women experience a drive to care for offspring, make alliances and seek protection in times of stress, describing this as the tend-and-befriend reponse (Taylor et al., 2000).

Sex differences

It was already well-known that the 'adrenaline rush' of acute stress is longer and stronger in males (Frankenhauser, 1976). Taylor and colleagues drew on evolutionary psychology, giving a rationale based on gender roles among our ancestors:

Men would experience acute stress in hunting or warfare situations, where it would be advantageous to be able to fight more strongly.
Women would tend to experience acute stress when being attacked or during conflict within their tribe. Tending to be physically smaller than males, it would be more advantageous to seek allies and protection than to fight.

Evolutionary psychology studies the effect of human origins on
modern day behaviour. Image by VSmithUK

Evidence in modern life

This difference may help to explain why stimulants such as caffeine have been found to affect men and women differently. In a mildly stressful situation such as a meeting, caffeine was found to be helpful to women but harmful to men (St. Claire et al., 2010). This may be because it heightens the stress response, triggering fight or flight in men - associated with conflict and aggression - but tend-and-befriend in women.

Evaluation

There are objective biological differences between the sexes, but psychological differences are more contraversial. This is one of a number of differences which have been linked to our supposed gender roles in stone-age times - males as hunters, and females as gatherers and care-givers. However, this model of our evolutionary past is only a theory, based in part on the social system of current hunter gatherer societies. As Kate Clancy wrote in Scientific American this month, "so often the conclusions of the bad sort of evolutionary psychology match the stereotypes and cultural expectations we already hold about the world."

It is also possible to argue that sex differences in the response to stress derive from gender roles, i.e. that males and females are socialised to react differently to stress.

Nevertheless it is an important advance in the theory which seems to fit well with other observed data.

References

Frankenhauser, M., Dunne, E. and Lundberg, U. (1976). Sex differences in sympathetic-adrenal medullary reactions induced by different stresses. Psychopharmacology, 47, 1-5.

St. Claire, L., Hayward, R., and Rogers, P. (2010). Interactive Effects of Caffeine Consumption and Stressful Circumstances on Components of Stress: Caffeine Makes Men Less, But Women More Effective as Partners Under Stress. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 40 (12), 3106-3129

Taylor, S.E., Klein, L.C., Lewis, B.P., Gruenewald, T.L., Gurung, R.A.R. and Updegraff, J.A. (2000). Biobehavioral responses to stress in females: Tend-and-befriend, not fight-or-flight. Psychological Review, 107, 411–429.

Procrastination and the effects of pressure

2013-02-18T08:02:00.000-08:00

I write this post not as someone who can take the moral high-ground on procrastination, but as someone who has struggled with it!

It is all too easy to focus on the enjoyable stuff, and leave the hard work until later.

And such bad habits may actually be reinforced by our education system, with its emphasis on short pieces of written work such as essays, which can be done in a focused burst of effort. Indeed, as a student I often got better marks for essays that I left till later, perhaps because they had more coherence through being written with maximum attention and in a single sitting.

Deadlines cause a gradual increase of pressure. Image by hufse

So can last-minute pressure be a positive thing?

"nothing more useless than a bored archaeologist"

The benefits of pressure are humorously suggested in Douglas Adams' 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' where main character Arthur Dent converses with a clone named Lintilla:

LINTILLA: Come! You can help us. We’ve a lot of digging to do and the automatic drill’s broken down.
ARTHUR: I don’t think you can dig your way off a planet, can you?
LINTILLA: No. I said we’re archaeologists.
ARTHUR: Ah! You don’t look as if you’re in good condition for digging with your arm in a sling. Is it broken?
LINTILLA: Oh no. It’s just a pseudo-fracture.
ARTHUR: Huh?
LINTILLA: Pseudo-fracture. It’s artificially induced. All the pain, swelling, and immobility of a fracture, without the inconvenience of a fracture itself.
ARTHUR: Oh. Is that good?
LINTILLA: Good?
ARTHUR: Yes, particularly?
LINTILLA: Well, you wouldn’t want me to have a broken arm would you?
ARTHUR: Well no, of course not. I mean I hardly know you.
LINTILLA: Right. But the effect is useful.
ARTHUR: Is it?
LINTILLA: Yes, of course it is. Crisis Psychology: the benefits of working under extreme pressure - nothing more useless than a bored archaeologist.

(source: here)

Crisis Psychology?

It appears that Adams invented this term - when the expression 'crisis' is used in real psychology, it tends to refer to traumatic life events and people suffering from PTSD.

However, after a few years of thinking about it, the quote started to make some sense to me. Perhaps the it was the pressure of those essay deadlines that made me work better (or at least harder).

But as anyone who has given a speech or done a music exam can tell you, pressure can be destructive, too.

The Yerkes-Dodson Law

One of psychology's oldest theories can help to explain why pressure is sometimes useful and sometimes harmful. The Yerkes-Dodson Law (Yerkes and Dodson, 1908) states that performance is best when the arousal/stress level is medium, and people perform less well at either low or high levels of arousal:

The Yerkes-Dodson Law - peak performance comes at
a medium level of arousal or stress. (Image source: here)

For most people working towards a deadline, they will move gradually from the left-hand side to the right-hand side of the above graph:

At the beginning, procrastinating and working slowly and sporadically (low arousal, low performance)
As the deadline approaches, working hard and efficiently (medium arousal, high performance)
In the final hour(s), working frantically and making errors (high arousal, low performance)

What does this mean in practice?

Deadlines are a fact of life - and if we move them (by getting an extension), that simply defers the problem.

But rather than relaxation, what we may actually need is more pressure, earlier on. This will help us reach peak performance - or the state of 'flow' - sooner, and therefore achieve more.

Coming soon: 5 ways to increase the stakes and get better results

Please comment below if you have experienced good or bad effects of pressure.

References

Yerkes, R.M. and Dodson, J.D. (1908). The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation. Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology, 18, 459–482.

What is a field experiment? (and what isn't?)

2013-02-08T06:45:00.001-08:00

An important research issue and a common area of confusion: field experiments - what exactly are they, and in what way are they different from other methods such as natural experiments and naturalistic observation?

Understanding experiments is fundamental to Psychology.
Image: Guardian education.

Here's an example of a classic field experiment from the history of psychology:

Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) - the researchers gave elementary

school teachers faked predictions about their pupils IQ, and found

that the children lived up to the predictions - a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In 'the field'

So the first and most obvious thing about field experiments is that they take place out in the real world - a participant's own environment such as the home, school or workplace.

This makes them different from the majority of psychology experiments, which take place in a laboratory or some similarly artificial environment.

Psychologists like labs, because in a lab you can keep things controlled - noise, timings, minimise distractions. The real world, on the other hand, is messy. So why do research there? It avoids several key problems of lab experiments:

Artificiality: studies in a lab tend to be more artificial.
Evaluation apprehension: people's behaviour changes due to worry about being tested - they are more at ease in their own environment.
Limited choice of tasks: more activities are possible in the real world than in the confines of a lab, so more types of behaviour can be tested.

Is it a true experiment?

Field experiments should not be confused with other types of research which take place in the real world, e.g. naturalistic observation, which fail to control variables and therefore don't demonstrate cause-and-effect.

Simply watching everyday behaviour as it happens is
not an experiment - it is an observation. Image: gerlos

If termed a 'field experiment', a study must be experimental and must involve manipulation of an independent variable (IV) and measuring of a dependent variable (DV). Two further key characteristics of any true experiment are:

The experimenter has control over the IV
Participants are randomly allocated to conditions

Some field experiments struggle to meet the second of these conditions. There can be a grey area, but if not a true experiment in all respects, it might be best to describe a study as a quasi-experiment - meaning it is nearly but not entirely experimental.

What about natural experiments?

A natural experiment is a study which resembles an experiment in some way, but is naturally occurring - not set up by the researcher.

For example, if some students choose to use mind-maps for revision and some don't, you could compare their exam scores. This would be similar to an IV and DV in an experiment, but be totally uncontrolled.

Natural experiments have no direct manipulation of the IV and no random allocation to conditions. Confounding variables can't be ruled out. In other words, they are definitely not true experiments in any respect. They do take place in the real world, but that doesn't make them field experiments!

Any questions? Ask them in the comments.

Reference

Rosenthal, R. and Jacobson, L. (1966). Teacher expectations. Psychological Reports, 19, 115-118.

The Stanford Prison Experiment

2013-02-06T00:22:00.000-08:00

This surprising and contraversial social psychology study aimed to look at the effects of social roles on our behaviour. One view is that people choose roles that suit their personaility - for example, a strict and aggressive person might choose to become a prison guard. Another view is that people change their behaviour to fit the role. This was the belief of Phillip Zimbardo and his colleagues Craig Haney and Curtis Banks.

The set-up of the experiment

The study was based around a fake prison, constructed in the basement of the Psychology Department of the prestigious Stanford University in California. 75 volunteers were narrowed down to a group of 24 participants, of which 9 were given the role of prisoners, 9 were to be guards, and the remainder as alternates in case of participants withdrawing. Haney et al. (1973) report that the men chosen were all normal, healthy male college students, and were predominantly middle class and white. It was an observation-experiment, where the social role was manipulated, and key findings were the observed behaviour of the participants. Participants were randomly assigned to the role of either prisoner or guard, and signed a contract which guaranteed them basic living rights and $15 a day for their time.

The Stanford Prison Experiment: prisoners and guards were
randomly assigned to their roles. Image source here).

At the start of the study, the prisoners were unexpectedly arrested by the local police, and then driven blindfolded to the mock prison. There they were stripped naked, deloused, and given a loose uncomfortable prison 'smock' to wear. Guards were given a uniform and mirrored sunglasses.

Running the study

The nine prisoners were equally divided between three prison cells, and remained in the prison for 24 hours a day. Guards however did 8-hour shifts in groups of 3, and went home in between shifts. The prison had several rooms as guards' quarters, a small recreation area for the prisoners (set up with cameras for observation) and a 2'x2' broom cupboard which was available to use for solitary confinement.

Lead psychologist Zimbardo stayed in the prison also, taking the role of 'prison warden'.

Findings

The main observation is that both prisoners and guards quickly adopted their roles, with the guards becoming increasingly brutal in their treatment of prisoners. The prisoners appeared highly stressed and several were released early. However, a curious finding was that they didn't ask to quit the experiment - instead they requested parole from Zimbardo.

The psychologists too became deeply involved with the scenario and lost objectivity, failing to take a detached view of the abuses they were witnessing - it took intervention from Zimbardo's fiancee Christina Maslach to bring the study to an early finish after just 6 days rather than the planned two weeks.

Discussion

Despite its undoubted ethical issues, the research was considered a success and findings have been related to many real-life situations, such as the abuses in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Zimbardo and colleagues argued that they had proven how people conformed to their social roles, and how institutions can lead to people behaving in dehumanised ways. They believed that putting people in a role where they are expected to wield power over others will tend to lead to people conforming to that role (Haney et al., 1973).

However, others disagree. Reicher and Haslam (2008) state that brutal behaviour requires strong leaders, chaotic social change and a harmful ideology. They believe that Zimbardo inadvertantly provided all of these conditions in the Stanford prison experiment. In their own BBC prison experiment, during which it was prisoners rather than guards who took advantage of social chaos to become aggressive and bullying, the key factor was how willing people were to join a social group, and the influence of their 'normal' social identity outside the study.

It has also been questioned how representative the volunteer sample was of the general population. Carnaghan and McFarland (2007) found the people who volunteered for a (fake) prison experiment were psychologically different from average psychology research participants, and more likely to believe in harsh authority.

What is your view on the Stanford prison experiment? Was it a useful contribution to our understanding of human behaviour? Please leave a comment below.

References

Carnaghan, T. and McFarland, S. (2007). Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 603-614.
Haney, C., Banks, W.C. and Zimbardo, P.G. (1973). A study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison. Naval Research Review, 30, 4-17.
Haslam, S.A. and Reicher, S.D. (2008). Questioning the banality of evil. The Psychologist, 21(1), 16-19.

External Link: The Stanford Prison Experiment Website (with slideshow)
External Link: Interviews with some of the researchers and participants.

Time management and stress

2013-02-03T13:58:00.000-08:00

Time pressure can cause great stress - yet people tend to manage time pretty badly. It is all too easy to focus on enjoyable but non-essential tasks when time seems plentiful, and to procrastinate on important ones. One reason is a cognitive bias called the planning fallacy (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979), whereby people fail to account for how long tasks will take. And according to the Yerkes-Dodson law (Yerkes and Dodson, 1908), last-minute pressure will result in a poorer performance, too:

The Yerkes-Dodson Law states that performance is best at
medium levels of arousal, or stress (image source here).

Some stressors in our lives are difficult or impossible to control - a busy commute, the demands of family caring duties, etc. Therefore researchers and occupational psychologists have becoming increasingly interested in better time management as a stress reduction strategy - managing our time is a learnable skill, and something that is relevant to nearly everyone.

ABC analysis

In an ABC analysis (not to be confused with the ABC model in cognitive therapy), the individual creates a 'to do' list, for example their work tasks for the day, and prioritises each item as:

A: High priority - important and urgent; failing to do these would have unpleasant consequences
B: Medium priority - important, but not necessarily urgent.
C: Low importance - enjoyable but not essential e.g. social networking

Then the tasks are scheduled accordingly. Typically, the 'A' tasks are done first, as failing to finish these would cause maximum stress, and the 'C's last in whatever time remains.

Read more here

Pareto analysis - the '80-20 rule'

An alternative strategy is the Pareto analysis, named after economist Vilfredo Pareto, whose 'pareto principle' stated that 80% of land is owned by 20% of people. This ratio was later expanded to hold true (or approximately true) for a range economic activity - e.g. 20% of customers make 80% of purchases.

In terms of time management, the key idea is that 20% of the work takes up 80% of the time, and vice-versa. By completing the bulk of quick tasks first, we relieve the pressure of a long to-do list and allow ourselves to focus on the smaller number of more complicated items.

Evaluation

These strategies won't work in every situation. They rely on a list of tasks, and flexibility about the order in which they are done. The ABC analysis risks leaving 'C' tasks permanently undone, while the 80-20 rule won't hold true in every situation. Nevertheless, they offer easy and motivating ways to divide up a long list of tasks.

References

Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A. (1979). Intuitive prediction: biases and corrective procedures. TIMS Studies in Management Science, 12, 313–327.
Yerkes, R.M. and Dodson, J.D. (1908). The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation. Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology, 18, 459–482.

External link: 10 tips for time management

Genius, and the 10-year rule

2013-02-01T04:11:00.000-08:00

There is a popular idea that people of genius are somehow separate from 'ordinary' people - just lucky to be exceptional. However a growing body of research suggests that great achievements stem from a combination of a bit of talent and... lots of practice.

Ten years to greatness

Robinson (2011) states: "There can be no doubt that geniuses have worked habitually and continually. Long years of relevant labour have often preceded a scientific breakthrough."

This can be made even more specific: the 10 year rule states that 10 years of focussed endeavor at a task is required before a great breakthrough will be made. For example, Einstein had his first insights into special relativity in 1895, and published the theory in full in 1905.

Einstein statue. Image by matman73072

A 'weak' version of the rule states that at least 10 years are needed - but it may often be more. There are many examples of this - scientists, writers, composers... even the 'child prodigy' Mozart, who started composing aged 5, but published his first truly world class composition around 12 years after his first piece. A rare exception is Isaac Newton, whose first great insights were achieved at the age of 22, after five years of study at Cambridge (Robinson, 2011).

10,000 hours

One problem with the 10-year rule is that it isn't very specific about what people are doing for those ten years. A way of analysing it more precisely is to consider the number of hours a person spends practising their skills - 10,000 hours has been suggested as a key threshold.

Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers discusses this idea in detail. He gives the examples of The Beatles and Bill Gates - in both cases, thousands of hours of practice lead to great success (Gladwell, 2008).

This is of course a lot of work - but possible for anyone who tries hard enough. Gladwell describes the rule as "daunting and empowering" and adds: "I always say to young writers who are struggling, well, how many drafts do you do? And then I say, what, you only do three drafts? I do ten." (Gladwell, 2008).

Why 10 thousand hours, rather than five, eight or 12? Sloboda et al. (1996) studied musicians' diaries to gauge how much they practiced, and what type of practice they did. They found that those who practiced most achieved highest level of success. What's more, this was the only variable that mattered - not, for example, their initial level of talent, or their personality type.

'Practice' by Nosha

Type of practice

An interesting further aspect of the Sloboda et al. study is that the most successful musicians had two further aspects to their practice as well as quantity:

They practiced more regularly than the other musicians
They tended to practice formal skills in the morning.

The time of day finding contributes to an emerging body of research about the relationship between sleep patterns and cognition. Sleep is already known to be related to memory, decision making and skill acquisition. It also presents a challenge - to find out what is underlying these optimum conditions for acquisition of skills.

This is part of the Creativity in Education Series of
articles - every month on this blog -
click HERE for previous post.

References

Robinson, A. (2011). Does Genius Follow the Ten-Year Rule? Psychology Today, February 1, 2011
Sloboda, J.A., Davidson, J.W., Howe, M.J.A. and Moore, D.G. (1996). The role of practice in the development of performing musicians. British Journal of Psychology, 87(2), 287–309.

Coping – dealing with stress

2013-01-28T04:28:00.003-08:00

Coping in psychology is defined in much the same way as the everyday use of the word - it is how people manage their own behaviour and emotions to master, minimise or tolarate stressful situations.

The study of coping can be traced back to the psychoanalytic approach and Freud's work on ego-defense, but current thinking focuses on cognition and the interaction between the person and the environment. This is known as the transactional model of stress.

Meditation is a form of stress management. Image by Mara ~earth light~

There are several forms of coping, i.e. ways that individuals naturally attempt to deal with a stressful situation. The different forms of coping fall into two main categories:

Problem-focused coping: how we tackle and deal with stressors directly (items below labelled ‘P’).
Emotion-focused coping: how we attempt to make ourselves feel better (items below labelled ‘E’).

Examples include:

(P) Confrontative coping – “I stood my ground and tried to get my way”; “I let them know I was angry.”
(P) Planful problem solving – “I tried to get to the root of the problem”; “I tackled one thing at a time.”

Planful problem solving tends to lead to better outcomes and is associated with better psychological health than confrontative coping (Folkman et al., 1986).

(E) Distancing – “I carried on as normal”; “I tried to forget about it.”
(E) Seeking social support – “I discussed it with my best friend.”
(E) Escape-avoidance – “I wished the problem would go away”; “I tried to make myself feel better by drinking, eating, smoking etc”; “I avoided people in general.”
(E) Accepting responsibility – “I realised I brought it on myself”; “I apologised.”
(E) Positive reappraisal – “I grew as a person”; “I learned from this”; “I found new faith.”

Positive reappraisal leads to more satisfactory outcomes than distancing. However, distancing tends to be used when the situation is difficult to change (Folkman et al., 1986).

Reference

Folkman, S., Lazarus, R.S., Gruen, R.J. and DeLongis, A. (1986). Appraisal, coping, health status, and psychological symptoms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50(3), 571-579.

See also: DeLongis et al. (1982) - the role of everyday hassles in stress.

Bennet-Levy and Marteau (1984) - Fear and ugliness of animals

2013-01-24T04:49:00.001-08:00

Phobia - how much is innate? This is the question asked by Bennet-Levy and Marteau, who conducted an intriguing study linking animals' perceived ugliness to levels of fear. Why do we find bugs and creepy crawlies to be disgusting-looking? Could there be an evolutionary adaptation, prompting us to avoid potentially deadly reptiles, spiders and scorpions?

Image by BBC Nature

While phobias can be learned from observing a fearful adult such a parent, it is at least partly genetic as well. Cook and Mineka (1989) showed that infant rhesus monkeys more easily learn to fear a snake than a neutral stimulus such as a bunch of flowers. We seem to be genetically 'prepared' to fear dangerous things in our environments (Seligman, 1971).

Bennet-Levy and Marteau believed that preparedness for phobia is apparent in how ugly we find a creature. They used correlation to compare the results of three rating scales. In response to 29 animals and insects, participants were asked to state:

Ugliness of the creature/how strange it looked
Harmfulness of the creature
Their own fear of the creature

The results showed a strong correlation between people's fear of the animals and the animal's appearance. In particular, a high level of fear was linked to how strange and ugly the animal the animal was viewed - with high levels of ugliness being reported for the animals which look most different from human form in terms of skin type, number of legs, etc.

The researchers stated that findings could have implications for the treatment of animal phobias.

A limitation of the study is that it only used small animals as examples, and the results may not generalise to larger animals. It would appear from everyday experience that people often find large, dangerous animals, such as bears and leopards, to be quite beautiful. This may link to the fact that most large land animals are mammals - and therefore share more physical features with humans than insects, arachnids or reptiles do.

References

Bennet-Levy, J and Marteau, T (1984). Fear of Animals: What is prepared? British Journal of Psychology, 75, 37-42.
Cook, M and Mineka, S. (1989). Observational conditioning of fear to fear-relevant versus fear-irrelavant stimuli in rhesus monkeys. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 98, 448-459.
Seligman, M. (1971). Phobias and Preparedness. Behaviour therapy, 2, 307-320.

PTSD - images and words act differently in post-traumatic stress

2013-01-21T06:18:00.001-08:00

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a serious psychological condition which can affect people who have suffered from a traumatic event. Victims of robberies, assaults and traffic accidents may be at risk of PTSD. Symptoms can include flashbacks or nightmares about the event, persistant thoughts or fears related to the events, as well as anger and tension.

The diagnosis evolved from the effects of war on soldiers - including symptoms once described as shell shock - and it is estimated, for example, that around 30% of Vietnam veterans experienced PTSD at some point after returning from the Vietman War (Tull, 2009). Of course, civilian victims of war are also highly prone to the disorder.

PTSD: War veterans may experience flashbacks, on which
traditional therapy methods will make little impact.

In order to study the role of imagery in traumatic events, Hagenaars and colleagues played traumatic videos to participants, some of whom were made to keep still. Those who kept still had more intrusive images during the following week, but the manipulation had no effect on intrusive thoughts.

According to theorist Chris Brewin, this is because images are connected to a separate part of memory, one which is harder to consciously access and may cause flashbacks after a traumatic event. Talking therapies are likely to influence mainly the verbal areas of memory, and therefore may ease intrusive thoughts and fears but have little impact on such imagery.

ADDED: In February 2013, the media reported that deaths from suicide in the US military are now at a higher rate than combat deaths. This doesn't even count suicides among veterans, which come to a considerably larger number.

For students doing research into images and memory, this is a useful example of a practical application of such research.

References

Hagenaars, M.A., Brewin, C.R., van Minnen, A., Holmes, E.A. & Hoogduin, K.A.L. (2010). Intrusive images and intrusive thoughts as different phenomena: Two experimental studies. Memory, 18(10), 76-84.
Tull, M. (2009). About.com guide to PTSD. Available at http://ptsd.about.com/od/prevalence/a/MilitaryPTSD.htm

REM sleep and creativity

2013-01-01T12:27:00.000-08:00

It's a curious thought, but evidence is growing that sleep can play a big role in cognition. It's been known for many years that problem solving is improved by a spell of REM sleep in comparison to wake or deep sleep (Cartwight, 1971). More recently, sleep has been shown to play a role in memory, too (Walker et al., 1993).

What is REM sleep?

REM sleep is a phase of light sleep where the brain is very active. It is characterized by dreams and by a much greater state of physical arousal than other sleep phases. The initials REM stand for rapid eye movement, as the eyes are known to flick rapidly from side to side during this phase. We go through 4-5 such phases in a typical night's sleep.

Light sleep doesn't lead to REM. Image: Smath

Link with creativity

If sleep can affect problem solving and memory, then it could play a role in creativity too. It is known that creative types tend to be more active in the evening than other people, and that 'morning people' are more proactive. Top musicians tend to schedule their practice for the morning. And there are many anecdotal accounts of sleep leading to creative ideas, from Paul McCartney's composition of 'Yesterday' to Here Kekulé's discovery of the formula for the benzene ring.

Current Research

Wagner et al. (2004) have found that sleep aids the processes of linking ideas into new combinations, helping to form creative insights. Again, this was found to occur during REM sleep. Cai et al. (2009) found that creativity was boosted following REM sleep compared to a non-REM sleep. Both studies concluded that their findings were not due to improved memory after REM.

'Dream Fairy' by AlexandriaLaNier

There is more to be learned on this, and research studies tend to involve fairly artificial task, but it certainly seems relevant to people's real-life creative work, and to the common practice of putting a problem aside with the intention of 'sleeping on it'.

This is part of the Creativity in Education Series of
articles - every month on this blog -
click HERE for previous post.

References

Cai, D.J., Mednick, S.A., Harrison, E.M., Kanady, J.C. and Mednick, S.C. (2009). REM, not incubation, improves creativity by priming associative networks. PNAS, 106(25), 10130-10134.
Cartwright, R. (1971). Problem solving in REM, NREM and waking. Am. Psychol. Sleep Soc., 9, 108.
Wagner, U; Gais, S; Haider, H; Verleger, R; Born, J. (2004). Sleep inspires insight. Nature, 427, 352–5.
Walker, M.P., Brakefield, T, Hobson, J.A. and Stickgold, R. (2003). Dissociable stages of human memory consolidation and reconsolidation. Nature, 425, 616-20.

Retrieval in Memory

2012-12-20T12:58:00.000-08:00

When we study memory, there tends to be a lot of emphasis on how memories are stored - where in the brain? How much can be held? How long for? However, without successful retrieval, encoding and storage count for very little.

The problem is that retrieval of information from a busy, cluttered memory is not always easy. The context in which we encode things can play a role in how easy it is to remember them, with items being harder to retrieve or recognize in an unfamiliar setting (most people have experienced this with faces, e.g. seeing a neighbour when abroad on holiday). Similarly, even when we really should know a word or name, and we know that we know it, sometimes it doesn't quite come, at least not straight away. The concept of something being on the 'tip of your tongue' goes across cultures and has been around for hundreds of years.

It is a common experience that a memory
is 'on the tip of your tongue'.

It is relatively easy to invoke the tip of the tongue (TOT) phenomenon - giving a person a list of 10 definitions of rare words will usually bring about the experience at least once. Brown & McNeill (1966) researched the phenomenon, stating that a participant "would appear to be in mild torment, something like on the brink of a sneeze, and if he found the word his relief was considerable". The researchers also found that giving a cue such as the first letter of a word was often enough to 'trigger' the memory.

TOT occurs roughly twice a week in most adults (Schacter, 2001). It is thought to be uncommon in young children - although I don't know of any research into 3-4 year olds, my experience as a parent suggests that children at that age often struggle to find the right word but are more willing than adults to substitute a different word.

One more thing - lots of research into memory uses words - here is an interesting test into memory and retrieval for faces.

References

Brown, R. and McNeill, D. (1966). The "tip-of-the-tongue" phenomenon. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 5, 325-337.
Schacter, D. L. (2001). The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Reitman (1974) - displacement or decay in STM?

2012-12-06T03:17:00.000-08:00

We all know that information can leave our memories in a matter of seconds -even just walking from one room to the next, it can be easy to foget what you came for.

Why is information forgotten from so easily from short-term memory (STM)? Two prominent theories are:

Trace decay theory - the idea that information simply fades over time. It has been suggested STM has a duration of 30 seconds without rehearsal (Peterson and Peterson, 1959).
Displacement interference theory - the idea that old information is pushed out by new information. This fits with the observation that STM can only hold a very limited amount of information - around seven items (Miller, 1956).

So which is correct? Judith Reitman explains that it is hard to measure decay without giving a distraction task which also potentially leads to displacement - e.g. asking participants to count backwards for a few seconds.

To address this problem, Reitman used a task involving tones. As these didn't use verbal memory, it distracted attention from the target items without displacment. Previous studies had shown that participants were not able to do the task at the same time as rehearsing the target words.

Early versions of her tone-distraction studies showed STM lasting longer than expected - could it be that there is no STM decay at all, and STM forgetting is just due to displacement?

Tones provide distraction without verbal displacement.

Ultimately, Reitman concluded that both play a role - displacement is important, but even with a tone-only task, decay still occurs.

Reference

Reitman, J.S. (1974). Without surruptitious rehearsal, information in short-term memory decays. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 13, 365-377.

Creativity and collaboration

2012-12-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

A genius - "an exceptionally intelligent person or one with exceptional skill in a particular area". However this modern concept of genius is a newer meaning of a word which was, in classical times, applied to the process or the experience - rather like the idea of a muse.

'Genius of Water' by Firesign

However, after many years of trying to describe genius in terms of individual abilities and goals, psychology is beginning to look beyond the concept of the lone genius.

Creative groups

Sawyer (2007) states that in both business and music, collaboration is the key to breakthrough ideas. In his view, ideas don't tend to come from a genius having an 'aha' moment, but from the accumulation of lots of good 'small sparks'.

According to Sawyer's research, successful creative teams have certain characteristics, including:

Deep listening
Group members building on each other's ideas
Working with ideas which are often unclear at first

Sawyer's research on musician's seems a natural fit - musicians tend to work in bands and orchestras, and collaborate in order to create work. But what about other artists such as writers? Isn't that a solo effort?

Image by jsthomasphotography

In fact, there are few if any writers who don't produce their work with considerable feedback from peer reviewers and editors. Many creative writers attend writer groups and workshops, and share work online. Historically, successful writers and artists have tended to form creative communities.

Thinking together

There is a sound psychological basis for the importance of collaboration. Mercer (2000) points out that both language and thought are collaborative processes. We make sense of the world by understanding ideas and their contexts, and this understanding is built up and shared with others.

A new trend in Psychology?

An rapidly increasing level of detail in neuroscience coupled with powerful brain scans have allowed us to understand more about the processes in the individual brain. But if the most important aspects of creativity involve collaboration and the sharing of meanings, then searching for creativity inside an individual brain may be futile.

MRI scan by Wellcome Images

What is your view of the role of collaboration in creativity?

This is part of the Creativity in Education Series of
articles - every month on this blog
click HERE for the previous post.

References

Mercer, N. (2000). Words and Minds: How We Use Language to Think Together. London: Routledge.
Sawyer, R.K. (2007). Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration. New York: Basic Books.

Comparing treatments for depression

2012-11-17T06:37:00.000-08:00

Elkin and colleagues (1995) aimed to compare recovery rates for three major treatments of depression - an antidepressant drug (imipramine), CBT, and interpersonal therapy (IPT), in comparison with a placebo. Their study was large-scale and systematic and it delivered some surprising results - none of the treatments performed better than the placebo for mildly depressed patients. For more severe cases, IPT performed better than CBT, and both were outperformed by medication.

Critics of the study raised several issues, and as Elkin (1999:15) later acknowledged: "the various issues raised all reduce to one basic question: Was cognitive therapy... being delivered in an adequate fashion?"

How good is the therapist? Image by sanickels

Considerable efforts had been made to ensure that each therapy was given a fair chance by selecting suitable therapists and then training them in the specific methods of IPT/CBT:

"...therapists were to be carefully selected to have training, experience, and interests relevant to their respective treatments, were to use guidelines provided by treatment manuals... and were to receive intensive supervision during a training/pilot phase of the study... and receive additional monitoring and consultation during the outcome study.’

Nevertheless, she acknowledges that there may not have been an equal comparison - there were several reasons to belive that CBT therapists in the study may have performed less well than their IPT counterparts:

IPT trainers spoke with more enthusiasm about the competence level of the their therapists compared to CBT trainers
On 137 occasions, CBT therapists were given feedback that a session had fallen below standard, while this only occurred on 12 occassions among the IPT group.
The therapists chosen for IPT, "which is quite similar to “older” psychodynamically-oriented therapies" (Elkin, 1999: 19) were on average older and more experienced.
IPT therapists found the approach similar to their everyday clinical practice, whereas CBT therapists had a lot of new skills to learn.
A retrospective rating by supervisors of how close each therapist was to their idea of an 'ideal therapist' led to higher scores for IPT therapists than CBT therapists in the study (5.3 compared to 3.7, where 7 is the best score).

Overall, Elkin concludes that the performance of the therapist is of huge importance and that future studies should build in more reliable ways of measuring this. However she notes that this is a challenging task: "there is not yet a great deal of agreement about what is meant by competence or how best to measure it." (Elkin, 1999: 21)

References

Elkin, I. (1999). A major dilemma in psychotherapy outcome research: disentangling therapists from therapies. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 6(1), 10-32.

Elkin, I., Gibbons, R.D., Shea, M.T., Sotsky, S.M., Watkins, J.T., Pilkonis, P.A. and Hedeker, D.(1995). Initial severity and differential treatment outcome in the National Institute of Mental Health Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 63(5), 841-847.

Extract from Robert Sternberg interview - intelligence and creativity

2012-11-01T06:25:00.000-07:00

Robert Sternberg is a psychologist and former president of the American Psychological Association who researches into intelligence and creativity. In this transcription of an interview, he talks about how his triarchic theory of intelligence emerged, and how he now focuses more on the study of creativity:

So here are these people who are, you know like, really, very, very high IQ - five standard deviations above the mean. And who the hell are they? ... That was my experience at Yale. That there were [many] people were selected by our system in the United States for being very good in analytical abilities, and they have reasonably successful careers. Rena Subotnik's study showed that, the Terman study showed that- That people who have high IQs do do well in society. I mean, there are some people who say "I don't believe that." And that's crap. Of course they do. I mean, the society is certainly set up in a way that if someone has an IQ that's pretty high- They have a better chance of success. But , then there's a big difference between being a reasonably successful accountant or lawyer or scientist and being a great one. And what both Terman and Subotnik found, studying these very high IQ people is that most of them didn't really do the really great stuff.

So, then I started studying the creative side of intelligence. And I realized, well, then there are these creative people who are very frustrated because they can't convince anyone to listen to them. They, you know, they have these wonderful ideas and nobody pays any attention. And I started studying the practical side of intelligence, and that led to the triarchic theory. And that stayed around for a while. And then I realized that that didn't do it either because it's-it's really about figuring out what you do well. It's about capitalizing on strengths and figuring out what you don't do well, and compensating and correcting for weaknesses- That you could be high in all three, but if you can't leverage your strengths you're in trouble.

Well then I started studying creativity, because I realized creativity is not just about the intelligence part. Intelligence is a part of creativity, but I believe in large part creativity is in an attitude toward life. It's in a frame of decision-making, where you're willing to take risks and defy the crowd and surmount obstacles and do things that other people are just not willing to do. It's about having courage. It's about tolerating ambiguity. And these are the kinds of traits that Frank Barron and others have identified. But they're not intellectual traits.

(Slight edits made for clarity). Read the full interview transcript here.

This is part of the Creativity in Education Series of
articles - every month on this blog -
click HERE for previous post.

Types of encoding - Baddeley (1966)

2012-10-18T04:40:00.000-07:00

Semantic processing in LTM; acoustic in STM

One of the most basic distinctions between long-term and short-term memory is that they process information in different ways.

What is the evidence? One of the best studies was done by Baddeley (1966), who went on to create the working memory model a few years later.

Participants were given lists of words with similar sounds (e.g. cat, mat...), similar meaning (large, big...) or lists of dissimilar words. Over the short term, there were many errors with similar sounding (acoustically similar) words, but in the long-term, mistakes were made for material with a similar meaning (semantically similar).

Short words such as 'cat' were used. Image by Digo_Souza

Baddeley concluded that the STM uses acoustic processing, and LTM uses semantic processing. However, the study is limited in that it only tests memory for words, and visual processing is not accounted for.

Reference

Baddeley, A.D. (1966). The influence of acoustic and semantic similarities on long-term memory for word sequences. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18, 302-309.

Bias in diagnosis

2012-10-02T05:56:00.000-07:00

Ideally, everyone should be treated equally and diagnosed only on the basis of their symptoms, as listed in manuals such as the DSM-V.

In reality, diagnosis is subject to bias and subjectivity. Diagnosis doesn’t take place just in a psychiatrist’s office. It also takes place in a particular part of the world, in a country or region with its own unique attitudes to mental illnesses and prejudices about behaviour. Even a well-trained clinician may have unconscious biases which affect their judgement.

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Gender

There are considerable gender differences in levels of disorders. Of course, much of this is due to biological differences, and so it is hard to determine the extent of gender stereotyping by practitioners. Warner (1978) found that when presented with the identical personality disorder symptoms, mental health professionals tended to label women as histrionic personality disorder and men with antisocial personality disorder. It may be that certain symptoms of these conditions link to prevailing social stereotypes about problem behaviour. Other disorders such as depression have also been linked to gender bias.

Race

Lewis et al. (1990) give 139 psychiatrists one of two case histories, which were identical except that one patient was described as ‘black Afro-Caribbean’, and the other was described as ‘white’. They found in the case of the ‘black’ patient, their participants were more likely to recommend drug treatment, and more likely to deem behaviour as ‘violent and criminal’.

Cultural Variation

Clinicians need to take into account a patient’s culture. Some disorders are specific to a particular culture. For example:

Taijin Kyofusho – An intense fear that one’s body, body parts or bodily functions are displeasing, embarrassing or offensive to other people (described by psychiatrists in Japan).

This indicates that even the most reliable system of diagnosis may be a lot more culturally-biased that we like to think. Even disorders that have a largely physiological basis may interact with a patient's system of values and social norms, and may be influenced by the reaction of those around them.

References

Lewis, G., Croft-Jeffreys, C. and David, A. (1990). Are British psychiatrists racist? The British Journal of Psychiatry, 157, 410-415.
Warner, R. (1978) The diagnosis of antisocial and hysterical personality disorders: An example of sex bias. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 166(12), 839-845.