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Status of introspection in psychological research today
Historically, psychological understanding was largely gained by introspection: the philosopher observed the workings of his own mind and deduced the principles of the human psyche from that.
During the nineteenth and early twentieth century this approach has slowly been superseded by principles of objective measurement that were developed in physics and the natural sciences. The question, if psychological measurement is possible, has not been conclusively answered, nevertheless it has become the standard practice and is, along with the experiment and statistical analysis, the main prerequisite for psychological research today.
But has introspection been completely banished from the canon of psychological methodologies, or does it still have a place in serious academic research?

do you mean psychology in general, or cognitive psychology?

In general, i.e. including cognitive psychology.

It hinges on what you want to call “introspection” and also on whether or not you intend “having a place” to be a descriptive or a normative statement. Self-experimentation and introspection about one's own mental processes (as opposed to structured or unstructured self-report of states, beliefs, feelings…) certainly aren't common anymore.

"having a place" = being used as a method for scientific progress. As for what I want to call "introspection", I'm open for anything that looks like introspection to you. I'd rather not attempt a definition that by accident does not include what you are thinking of and thus prevent you from answering here.

Your definition still doesn't clarify things: the “scientific progress” bit seems to bring in a lot of heavy philosophical notions I am loath to comment upon, the “being used” part suggests an empirical question about what people in psychology departments actually do. My answer to the latter interpretation of the question is contained in the last sentence of my previous comment: People don't do “introspection” the way it was understood at the beginnings of psychology anymore, self-report is common.

when you ask participant in survey: please answer how do you feel and rate it on lickert scale 1-5. Is that introspection?

I wouldn't put it past academic researchers to be very serious about introspection, especially for psychological research. We may not see as much of it now as we might've a century ago, but we might be looking in the "wrong" places. (These might be the right places by any other measure!) There are plenty of crappy journals and quack schools out there that take themselves very seriously. Whether the rest of us should is a tougher question, and @Psyche's answer is pretty solid in that regard. My main addition: the line dividing old-school introspection and modern self-report is thin and blurry

Okay, let's see if I can tackle this...
Almost all of my answer to this question is being drawn from the first chapter of Michael Posner's Foundations of Cognitive Science. I, myself, am just a rising freshman at a decently ranked American university who has been studying the cognitive science literature on my own for the last few years.
Here I will attempt to explain one (and perhaps the most significant) example of introspections in modern cognitive science: protocol analysis.
I've only recently learned about it, but with the book here in front of me, I'm sure I can manage to give a good summary of it.
Protocol analysis, simply put, is the use of verbal reports of mental activity as data. It's not quite the same as the introspection of early psychology. From Posner, "Although verbal reports date back to the introspectionists, the use of such reports as data should not be misconstrued as introspection. Introspection took subjects' verbalizations at face value as constituting a valid theory of their own thought processes. Protocol analysis today, however, treats verbal reports as a source of data to be accounted for with an experimenter-generated theory, perhaps in the form of a computer simulation.”
The instructions given to subjects about how to report their introspections seems to have a great impact on the content of verbal reports. Here are some examples:

You could ask someone to "Think aloud" as they are performing some task. ("25 plus 25. 2 plus 2 is 4, and 5 plus 5 is 10, so carry the one and the total is 50.")
You could ask them to report their mental processes as they are performing their tasks. These tend to elicit more theoretical answers ("I am now visually processing..."), especially since you're probably questioning college psychology students. These answers are usually not preferred by modern psychologists.
You could ask the subjects questions. ("How did you decide to do that?")

And so forth. The verbal reports get transcript-ed and then the experimenter then segments the report into parts that can be encoded (translated into a formal language, like mathematics) independently. Reliability of the data becomes higher the more simple and precise your coding scheme is. In fact, some systems have been invented for the automatic coding of segmented protocols, though they don't rival human experts quite yet.
After analyzing many subjects' narratives in this way, you have loads of rich data about how people think through a given task. Since we aren't introspectionists, of course, we don't interpret this data at face value. So how do we interpret it?
“Verbal protocols generally provide explicit information about the knowledge and information heeded in solving a problem rather than about the processes used. Consequently it is usually necessary to infer the processes from the verbal reports of information heeded instead of attempting to code processes directly.”
So protocol analysis is most useful for understanding the knowledge consulted when one is thinking through a task. The verbs that participants use to describe their thoughts often provide useful clues about the processes involved in completing a task. For example, the tenses of verbs can distinguish between the retrieval of information from memory and the planning of future actions.
Since we are cognitive scientists, after all, our interpretation of verbal reports are usually informed by information-processing theories of thinking aloud. In other words, our science of introspection improves our ability to derive correct conclusions from introspective data.
But yeah. As a tool for guiding the creation of more precise hypothesis of human thinking (with computational models), introspection is still quite useful. Today it's more diffident and rigorous and better informed, but still alive.
You also can't understate the role introspection probably informally plays in driving the hypothesizing of cognitive scientists. This has less rigor, however, and may even be holding us back.
I keep saying "us" like I'm a scientist already. I'm not. >_<

Written like a scientist anyway! :) FWIW, I think you qualify.


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What are the neurological mechanisms for a fear of heights when atop a building, but not in a plane?
A fear of heights (or acrophobia), can be debilitating (I know it can be for me).
My question is what is the neurological mechanisms that cause a fear of heights in a tall object such as a skyscraper or bridge, but not really occurring in a plane?
I have found that I can not stand too close to a window in the upper floors of a tall building, but will happily look out the window in a plane, inflight and while landing and taking off.

A fear of heights on buildings is very common because there are natural vestibular and vertigo responses within certain height ranges. Furthermore, the effect is heightened if you're exposed to the elements out on a balcony as opposed to within the building.
Fear of flying is almost always related to the sensations of landing and taking off. If you've flown before you'll notice that those two events are very turbulent and it even seems amazing that some airplanes can stay together. However, once in the air you don't have the same effects of acrophobia that many people have on high buildings. Essentially, all perspective of height is removed when you look out the window of an airplane and thus the cues that trigger acrophobia. Your brain sees it like a painting of things in the distance and doesn't process it as height in the same way at all.
Brandt, T., Arnold, F., Bes, W., & Kapteyn, T. S. (1989). "The mechanism of physiological height vertigo. I. Theoretical approach and psychophysics". Acta Otolaryngol, 5-6, 513-23.

Those are different phobias with different names:
Acrophobia- Fear of heights.
Altophobia- Fear of heights.
Batophobia- Fear of heights or being close to high buildings.
Aviophobia or Aviatophobia- Fear of flying.
Pteromerhanophobia- Fear of flying.
In fear of flying is fear of loosing control, fear of not trusting someone else. In fear of heights is lack of trust in oneself and ability to move.
EDIT: In neurological way there are two paths, short and log, in fear of heights the sort one activates first... IMO In Fear of flight there are no short path of fear.
Source: http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~knutson/ans/ledoux00.pdf

Great information, but, what I am after is the neurological processes that cause one and not the other, especially as they are similar, in that why is it when viewing outside the plane window (relaxed feeling) I do not get the same reaction as looking out a skyscraper window, or a cable car window (abject terror).

I did it, something is wrong with this computer I am using now.

ah yes, I know that feeling!

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If people did not have to work, what would motivate them to work?
In industrialized countries around the world, "work" appears to be something that most people try to avoid as much as they can, dreaming of winning a lottery so they will never have to work again -- and be free to do nothing or do what they like. Money serves as a motivator for work, because in these cultures you need money to stay alive, or at least to live well.
Many social welfare states pay a basic income to people unable to find work. Despite the fact that usually this basic income is not unconditional but a transitional payment only and bound to the receiver's attempts to find a job, there is quite a lot of hostility from those who force themselves to their jobs each morning, towards those who appear to be happy with having little and prefer not to work.
Around the world there are proponents of an unconditional basic income that would free individuals from the necessity to take up work. I don't want to go into the whys and wherefores of such a freedom, or into how such an income could be financed, but want to ask you:
If everybody received an unconditional basic income that was high enough to make their lives reasonably comfortable, what would incite people to do the work (like baking bread) that needs to get done?
I am not lookig for opinions or theories here, those already abound on the net, but for empirical evidence for:

which percentage of a populace can be expected to busy themselves without need, and
how those that like to laze around can be motivated to work without need.

B.F. Skinner in his utopian novel Walden Two attempts to design a society where no-one is required to work more than four hours a day and unwanted jobs result in more credit points than desirable jobs, so that some people clean the toilet and then have more free time than those working at their dream jobs, but this concept relies on a virtual currency of points that you have to earn, so there is a need to work to earn your living, even if it does not have a payment of traditional "money".
In my question, the motivator for work must not be anything that has to be fulfilled, but something that does not take away the freedom not to work. Something that makes even the least desirable job attractive. In the case of the toilet it might be something simple like this being your toilet, and if you don't clean it, you'll have to use it anyway. But there are public toilets. What would work there?

maybe getting into a flow state.

As far as I know science is only beginning to gather empirical data on this matter. I think I read in the news about a pilot study which is being conducted in Canada at the time of writing this comment (or has been conducted not so long ago).

If you take a look at games like minecraft, they have quite a lot of players who do not work (students, college students, etc). These people first mine thousands of blocks, then rearrange them in a creative way. There's absolutely no need to do so, it is entirely voluntary, yet people end up moving hundreds of thousands of blocks to do something creative or to fulfill their design.
Players of minecraft explore the game environment, make tools, extract raw resources and ultimately make virtual structures like in the image below.

Statistically speaking, minecraft has more players(11 million paid users) and instructional videos(with millions of views) on YouTube than any other game I know of.
From this, it appears that in a world without need to work, creativity, design and "market of 1 person" would motivate people to do something. Cleaning toilets is not such thing. Maybe painting toilets, or designing them is.

as someone who has painted a toilet before, I can most certainly agree to this.

Well, you would presumably clean the toilet before painting, then keep the toilet clean as to not spoil the art (unless you were a clever artist, and made the "dirtiness" of the toilet part of the work of art!)

I think in one of "American Pie" movies or similar comedies one of "burnout" characters who got condemned by his father to clean toilets says that it's actually not so bad if you are "stoned enough". I guess changing the brain chemistry may be a way to motivate people to do menial tasks in an unconditional income society. Another movie, "Interstate 60" depicts a society where availability of another super drug controls the population and ensures that essential tasks, like cleaning get done

[This started as a comment but became really long, hence an answer.]
The hostility is real but the premise that more than a small minority of people forgo “working” by laziness is in fact very questionable, in several ways. People might dream of winning the lottery but there is very little evidence that they generally avoid “work”. In fact, with the same income, people who are unemployed report being less happy than people who have a job. There are however reasons to think that the eagerness with which someone looks for a work of the “traditional” salaried kind might be endogenous. If there is no job to be found, then you will stop looking for one and exposing yourself to constant humiliation (see this post by Chris Dillow for some evidence on this). This is unrelated to some pre-existing “preference for work” or fundamental psychological “laziness”. Psychologically, it could be related to “learned helplessness”.
Another obvious issue is that to the extent that unemployment benefits or basic income give an incentive not to work, it would only have a strong impact for people close to this level. There is no invariant threshold beyond which needs are met and whatever this basic income, there would therefore still be an incentive to earn more. In fact, people have been predicting that we would soon satisfy all our “basic needs” and work much less for quite some time (just came across one such prediction from Keynes, writing in the 1930s). In some sense most people today are richer than the elite of a few centuries ago (certainly in Europe) and yet this hasn't happened. We are very sensitive to our position in society, just create perceived “needs” all the time, etc. A static view of needs, incentives and motivation just isn't enough to account for that.
Also completely ignored is the problem of what counts as “work” in a society. Many people are already very busy doing things that aren't recognized as proper work. In fact, whether it is domestic production, charitable or creative activities or simply sports or “hobbies”, very few people if any are completely inactive, barring clinical depression or debilitating illnesses. The simple answer to the first question is therefore “100%”. There is no need for some “laziness” trait to explain being busy or not, the main issue is what activities are deemed productive or deserving in a particular society and about fairness in the distribution of income (“They are going fishing with our money”). Note that no matter how time-consuming they are, many activities regarding as feminine like caring for children or homemaking are still not considered “work”, not fully at least.
Incidentally, the appeal of the lottery and the reason some people might stop working after winning it is that it's not just making you comfortable, it's making you (what feels like being) filthy rich. It's therefore not a good model to understand ordinary decisions about work. Furthermore, as far as I can tell, people who are very rich (and not somewhere between a poorly paid job and welfare or even merely having above-average income) are not particularly inactive. Many work long hours although they could be “comfortable” working less or not at all, some work very late in life, others might engage in activities that would not be regarded as “work” but are pretty exhausting nonetheless (say golfing around the world). Some of these activities might be regarded as work, others might be classified as leisure, deserved or undeserved (i.e. “being lazy”), but in any case people do not engage in them merely to reach some comfortable income and stop there.
Finally, there is a direct contradiction between your notion that some works “needs” to be done and your search for a motivation “without need”. If nobody bakes bread and you want to eat some, then you need to bake it. In fact, no matter what monetary income you might provide, if nobody produces anything then this money is worth nothing and certainly won't be enough to buy bread and live comfortably. The “problem” therefore takes care of itself and it makes these things-that-need-to-be-done-but-that-nobody-needs-to-do purely theoretical. This is why “income high enough to make their lives reasonably comfortable” is kind of begging the question. We just live in a particular time, place, and society. You cannot meaningfully abstract that away and say anything interesting, let alone get “empirical” evidence on some abstract situation that bears no resemblance with actual human experience.

i think death is what motivates people to work:
working is doing something and trying to be remembered, much like Picasso, Einstein... Every human would want to do something in his life, something to be remembered for, everyone wants to make a change, make a difference, the ultimate dream of every human being able is to change the world. And that's why they work.
Every human on this earth is somewhat egoist, our ego tell us to work, be remembered, be one of the greatest ever been, we work for the hope that someone will remember us after dying, and not just disappear, like we have never existed.

Actually death is what motivates me to not work. It's all meaningless and web of lies. I won't mind working  for finite time if I was immortal

Doing creative and unique(new) things will motivate you. But only if there is another person or living/virtual "creature" that can appreciate that or you can tell/show it to that "creature".
I don't consider taking drugs or other stimulants/inhibitors to make you do something, because it's a distorted will or changed behavior and not your own will.
Human brain will probably loose all reasons to continue supporting the body etc. when you start loosing the "purpose" of life. Which is basically to replicate (have children etc.) or help others.
E.g. when you are isolated very long time alone, you might start to have suicidal thoughts. That's why a lot of prisoners that are being sentenced to 20 or more years often commit suicides.
But every other answer to this question from others is valid too.
Feeling and being important is what is important ;)

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Is there a causal connection between repressive sexual morality and antisocial behavior?
Wilhelm Reich believed that certain forms of deviant behavior result mostly or in part from the repressive sexual morality of a society (Reich, 1930). Reich believes that the majority of antisocial impulses are caused by the repression and dissatisfaction of basic sexual needs from childhood onwards.
In Bronisław Malinowski's The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia (1929), Reich finds evidence for a connection between a sex-positive morality and the reduction of deviant behavior:

Children in the Trobriand Islands know no sex repression and no sexual
  secrecy. Their sex life is allowed to develop naturally, freely, and
  unhampered through every stage of life, with full satisfaction. The
  children engage freely in the sexual activities which correspond to
  their age. Nonetheless, or rather just for this reason, the society of
  the Trobrianders knew, in the third decade of our century, no sexual
  perversions, no functional psychoses, no psychoneuroses, no sex
  murder; they have no word for theft; homosexuality and masturbation,
  to them, mean nothing but an unnatural and imperfect means of sexual
  gratification, a sing of a disturbed capacity to reach normal
  satisfaction. To the children of the Trobrianders, the strict,
  obsessional training for excremental control which undermines the
  civilization of the white race is unknown. The Trobrianders,
  therefore, are spontaneously clean, orderly, social without
  compulsion, intelligent, and industrious. The socially accepted form
  of sexual life is spontaneous monogamy without compulsion, a
  relationship which can be dissolved without difficulities; thus, there
  is no promiscuity. (Reich, 1942; italics in the original)

Reich's views have long since been shown to be naively optimistic, but what I am interested in is not a refutation of his theory, but recent research in the matter:
What do current empirical psychology and cognitive sciences say to a hypothesised connection between unrepressed sexuality and the absence of anti-social deviant behavior?

Sources:

Reich, W. (1930). Die Sexualität im Kulturkampf. Vienna: Münsterverlag. [Translated as Reich, W. (1945) The Sexual Revolution. Orgone Institute Press.]
Reich, W. (1942). The Function of the Orgasm. Orgone Institute Press.

How is antisocial defined in the context of this question?

Those were also very small groups. I can barely imagine a methology that would lead to answering that question, but the connection between overcrowding and agression are quite good documented, I remember reading about social experiments on rats and pidgeons.

Alfred Kinsey's studies show a noteworthy occurrence of bisexual/homosexual behavior and multiple partners in the population, despite the fixture of heterosexual monogamy in our culture. EDIT: This first statement is intended to demonstrate that non-heterosexual behavior does naturally occur in the population. I am rewriting the rest to be much less ambiguous.
James A. Haught wrote that Western religion has always been a haven for the sexually repressed. One could argue strongly against sexual repression in light of the Catholic church abuse scandals. The next logical step is that sexual repression creates pathology, and thus anti-social behavior.

Imagination can show many things that have nothing to do with reality.

This is true. Perhaps imagine was not the best word to use. The questions I posed were rhetorical and intended to point out that Kinsey's studies would not have been based in reality had such restrictions been imposed.

caseyr547, I never said that having multiple partners means anti-social behavior or anything like that. And before you start throwing homophobe around, know that I'm in a same-sex marriage.

Kinsey should not be relied upon as much as I may have initially intended. His research though ground-breaking, is not necessarily up-to-date.

According to several studies in Sex Differences in Antisocial Behaviour: Conduct Disorder, Delinquency, and Violence in the Dunedin Longitudinal Study (Cambridge Studies in Criminology) page 50 and 109. Unrepressed sexuality in teens especially amoung females from risk groups correlates to antisocial behavior. The research only shows a correlation due to social factors rather than a causation. The relationship is more likely to be reverse causality from a underlying biological or social structure than sexuality itself.


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What, if anything, sets humans apart from other species?
As I grew up, I was taught that the difference between humans and animals was that human beings have free will and animals do not. The basis is that animals will act accordingly to the nature of their species. I never fully understood this statement and still wonder whether it is a valid claim.
From an evolutionary  perspective, we would be regarded as a species at the top of the food chain. The main advantage in our development is our brains.
If we put aside the differences in what human beings are capable of, e.g. making clothes, machinery, etc., is there a real distinction between human beings and other animals? Do we really have free will, or an illusion of free will? Or are we behaving, as other animals, in accordance with the nature of our species?
I know this is a big question and could result in a range of debates over my definitions. So for the sake of clarity, let's keep this question limited to what defines a human brain as opposed to an animal brain and any evidence that supports any significant difference, allowing for the fact that the human brain is well-developed (as opposed to, e.g. to our canines).

What is your definition of free will?

I've found Robert Sapolsky's presentations very informative (and amusing) on this subject. See for example this presentation:
http://fora.tv/2011/02/15/Robert_Sapolsky_Are_Humans_Just_Another_Primate

Even with all the research I don't think at this point we really know for sure. Until an animal can articulate clearly in communication with us, we can only speculate through all the experiments and studies. I do certainly appreciate the breadth of research @carolyn included and appreciate all the research continuing to be done. When I observe my cats I wonder how we can be so sure that they do not have a mind (conscious and subconscious) as we do. I believe it is all about awareness and it is the continued research that will raise our awareness and enlighten us some day. (The earth was once f

Some articles with some information pertinent to your question, hope this helps:
According to "Human and animal cognition: Continuity and discontinuity" (Premack, 2007), that as several species have skills once thought to be unique to humans, that this suggests that there is a misleading (the article's word) disparity between 'brain' and 'mind'.  So the article's focus is on:

What are the dissimilarities?

When examining 8 aspects, or competencies, including teaching, short-term memory, causal reasoning, planning, deception, transitive inference, theory of mind, and language, the authors found that the similarities to be minor, but the dissimilarities to be very large and that there is no disparity.
Each of these points are discussed in depth in the article (too big for this answer); however, the article's author concludes with a fundamental difference:

Animal competencies are mainly adaptations restricted to a single goal. Human competencies are domain-general and serve numerous goals. For instance “planning” may be tied to episodic memory, suggesting a broad competence.

Going further, according to "Evolution of the brain and intelligence", (Roth and Dicke, 2005), that a main difference is due to:

factors that correlate better with intelligence are
  the number of cortical neurons and conduction velocity,
  as the basis for information-processing capacity.

and critically (bolding mine):

The outstanding intelligence of humans
  appears to result from a combination and enhancement
  of properties found in non-human primates, such as
  theory of mind, imitation and language, rather than from
  ‘unique’ properties.

it was a great learning experience writing this answer!

It is not that we are just generally smarter then animals, but we posses cognitive tools of a different kind that they don't. Two of them are language and the ability to simulate the future.
Regarding language, there is a wide consensus today that human language has some unique complexities that no animal form of communication has (see Pinker's "The Language Instinct"). It includes intricate syntactical structures and generative engines of vocabulary. Noam Chomsky was the first to argue that language is a universal capability, i.e. every healthy human being would be able to use it, and thus pre-wired into our brains from birth (and by that also debunking the Behavioral assumption that we are born tabula rasa).
The ability to simulate the future is the simply using our imagination to forecast the results of different actions or events. Again, you can every now and then find an animal that seems to know how certain actions will results, but it is always a product of learning from the past, while trying and erring. In contrast, people can imagine how the world would response to certain actions, without encountering a similar situation previously. (I'm sorry, but I can't recall right now a good reference for this. If you insist in the comments, I could run a quick search).
Of course these two features are not all that sets us apart from animals, qualitatively, and there a certainly more that hopefully would be brought in answers of others. However, as I personally see it, these two are special, since they equip us with unique cognitive abilities of a different kind and of dedicated brain machinery (but that's for a different question).

Whenever I come across the language argument I cannot help thinking of Wittgenstein's "if a lion could speak, we could not understand him." (Wittgenstein, L., & Cumming, M. (1958). Philosophical investigations (Vol. 255). Oxford: Blackwell.p.223) I live in a place where there are 29 official languages. I somehow manage to understand two of them. Since the other 27 are not available to me could I think that they do not have the capacity for language? The dog barks, maybe saying something to me, but I have the same understanding as in the case of those 27 languages, namely none. I just wonder.

I love this debate! (is the comments area suitable for it?). Nevertheless, I find this type of argument counterproductive, since ultimately we would always have this epistemological barrier. In reality, there is no known human language that cannot be translated into a another. And every such human language obeys universal principles (albeit in fact this set of principles is not yet properly defined, and there have been found exceptions). Communication protocols of animals, however, do not reach the same complexities or obey these rules.

Not that I don't agree with you, but for the sake of argument, since you love it, "there is no known human language that cannot be translated into a another" implies that there is someone who knows both languages. Let's say that there is a language X that nobody knows. Before someone picks it up we are in the same position as in the case of animal communication. Language might be base on motivation, drives, and affects (primary processes). Now the dog's basic motivations or affects may build up different sets of principles to which we might not have access.

The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness (http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf) says that what non-human animals possess the neural substrates for consciousness. What we might have 'extra' is self-awareness. That made us the storytellers. "Until animals have their own storytellers, humans will always have the most glorious part of the story, and with this proverbial concept in mind, the symposium will address the notion that humans do not alone possess the neurological faculties that constitute consciousness as it is presently understood." (fcmconference.org/)

The state of a human language not being translatable will always be temporary. When it comes to animals, many times we have deciphered their means of communication, revealing that it can be complex, but not quite as complex as human language. We are unique in that sense. Regarding the excerpt you brought from Cambridge, it refers to consciousness, which I agree non-human animals posses.

Right, it is about consciousness. I think that self-awareness is what could make the humans different. This could count for language and simulation of the future, you spoke about.

Interesting thought indeed!

For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened that unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk.

Actually, animals are able to imagine the future, at least to the extent that they use prospective control of their movements. And there are fantastic arguments for animals being self-aware, considering self-related processing as a feature of at least mammals if not many more animals (Northoff and Panksepp, The trans-species concept of self and the subcortical-cortical midline system, 2008).
A core self may be based on an integrating neuronal mechanism that accounts for self-related processing, integrating exteroception (perception of the external world via sight, sound, etc.) and interoception (perception of internal states of being) with emotional processing all in relation to a goal. It is coordinated action in the world, colored by emotional evaluation of anticipated and realized results. In fact, Solms and Panksepp (The "Id" Knows More than the "Ego" Admits: Neuropsychoanalytic and Primal Consciousness Perspectives on the Interface Between Affective and Cognitive Neuroscience, 2012) make a convincing case for affective consciousness, that attributing a positive or negative value to an experience and the arising movements/behaviors might be the whole point of consciousness.
Similar to other social animals, humans move in ways that reveal their attention, intentions, and feelings (Colwyn Trevarthen – pretty much everything he's written), but there are a few things that are different. Humans have an internal mechanism for time-keeping which Trevarthen describes as the Intrinsic Motive Pulse, or the natural flow of energy cycles in our brain that shape our movements and create a sense of time, allowing us to create memories and anticipate the future in unique ways. Rhythms between infants and adults are the same, so that we are able to communicate non-verbally, sharing pulse and quality to create narratives in a "communicative musicality" (Malloch, Mother and infants and communicative musicality, 1999).
Anyway, we begin to make cooperative meaning with one another from the moment we are born; that leads eventually to the transmission of culture, even across generations (Trevarthen, What is it like to be a person who knows nothing?). We make symbols and rituals that fill our world with meaning. Language is a product of the ways in which people are able to create consensual domains (Maturana, Biology of Language, 1978), the root of which is in sympathetic movement (Delafield-Butt and Trevarthen, Theories of the development of human communication, year?).

Interesting stuff. Welcome to Cognitive Sciences!

Thank you for refuting the points about the supposed human uniqueness of self-awareness and language in particular. I've never seen good reason for these assumptions, and would've felt the need to look up stuff like this myself if I had seen the question and its previous answers before seeing yours.

Our large cortex allows us to produce survival behaviour more sophisticated than any other species. Our basic traits are co-operation, competition and cheating. We excel at all three and can switch in a heartbeat according to the perceived situation.
I suggest an evolutionary feedback loop between the traits and cortex size. Cheating, for example, only works if one or more others can be deceived. If their cortex is as large as yours you are less likely to succeed. The traits drive behaviour at every social grouping: family, tribe, nation, economic bloc. Language is only a tool for the traits.
However in recent times the aforementioned feedback loop may have stopped working or even reversed. Increasing our species is reshaped by relative levels of fertility and promiscuity more than any other factor. We cannot countenance eugenics. Can we countenance the consequence of that distaste?

Welcome to Psychology.SE. Please visit our site [tour]. There are a lot of bold claims in your answer without corroborated evidence. We work differently to many SE sites, where we have a strict policy that all answers should be backed up with reliable references so that the answer can be independently verified, regardless of the reader's/answerer's background. If you still have trouble with this, feel free to visit the [help] or [meta]. Unreferenced claims can be challenged and lead to deletion of your answer.

I have seen the behaviours you mention at the beginning of your answer within apes. How are we different to those apes regarding these behaviours?

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
With the brain's propensity for homeostasis, how can some drugs be labelled addictive and others not?
The human body is always striving for homeostasis. One of the purposes of the brain is to maintain homeostasis, but also the brain needs to maintain homeostasis within itself.
Ergo:
Given the use of any drug, that acts of the brain, will cause a change in brain chemistry.
Why are some drugs are regarded as addictive and others are not?

Generally those of a more dopamergic nature are more addictive as well.

Here is a part answer to your question.
According to the article Drug Facts: Understanding Drug Abuse and Addiction and Drugs, Brains, and Behavior: The Science of Addiction, addiction is a disease caused by some types of drugs.  Specifically, they rewire the brain to cause an overstimulus of the 'reward' centres and by imitating some of the pre-existing neurochemical messengers in the brain - essentially, 'tricking' the brain that homeostasis is maintained.
Related, the article "Why does the rapid delivery of drugs to
the brain promote addiction?" (Samaha and Robinson, 2005) concluded that the rate of delivery is an important factor:

that rapidly
  delivered drugs might promote addiction by promoting
  forms of neurobehavioural plasticity that contribute to
  the compulsive pursuit of drugs.


text:
Is the process of long term potentiation (LTP) definitively linked with brain plasticity?
Given that the process of Long Term Potentiation (LTP) is one of the processes that increases synaptic efficacy:
Is it reasonable to conclude that the process of LTP is sufficient and necessary to control plasticity of circuits within the brain?
Can we assume that the biochemical factors that modulate LTP are also intrinsically linked with brain plasticity?

I am afraid I don't understand the question. What do you mean by “can be used as a definitive link” or “intrinsically linked”? Both notions appear somewhat related but brain plasticity is broader and perhaps most often mentioned when discussing other, larger changes in the brain. Also, it's a somewhat vague notion so that it might not be useful to look for a canonical definition of what counts as “brain plasticity”.

@GaëlLaurans I took a crack at what I think he is saying, let me know, Skippy, if I have missed the boat.

Feel free to kick it around a bit more, I was just trying to clarify what Gael was asking.

What about LTD (Long Term Depression)? Shouldn't it be part of the picture, too?

Although LTP might be necessary for brain plasticity, I would doubt that it is also sufficient. There is quite a lot of literature about homeostatic plasticity (for a review, see Turrigiano & Nelson, 2004) and synaptic scaling (for another review, see Turrigiano, 2008) which seem to be necessary to keep LTP working in the long run.
References
Turrigiano GG, Nelson SB (2004) Homeostatic plasticity in the developing nervous system. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 5, 97-107. Full text
Turrigiano GG (2008) The self-tuning neuron: synaptic scaling of excitatory synapses. Cell 135, 422-435. Full text


text:
Is there a psychological condition which promotes literal and overly complicated thinking?
Quote from Sheldon Cooper, Big Bang Theory IMDB

Leonard: You convinced me. Maybe tonight we should sneak in and
  shampoo her carpet.
  Sheldon: You don't think that crosses the line?
  Leonard: Yes... For God's sake, Sheldon, do I have to... hold up a
  sarcasm sign every time I open my mouth?
  Sheldon: You have a sarcasm
  sign?

Some people tend to think very literally and also over-complicate things.
This causes much misunderstanding when communicating with people, especially with the advent of texting, email and social networking, as the verbal and nonverbal cues are absent.
It sometimes causes difficulty when completing tasks, as those with this condition can misinterpret what is required of them. This can be an asset academically. A  "misinterpretation" (or better put, a different interpretation) in one way, will, usually mean there is a gain in another aspect.
When someone truly does not understand something, others might think that person is  joking. Others may not understand their humor, as he/she will make a joke about something, he/she sees as obvious and will be taken seriously by others.
Another way to describe this "condition" is to use the example of sudokus and cryptic crosswords. Someone might make mistakes in the easy ones, and find the more difficult ones easier to solve, looking for a more complicated solution than the one that was there and already apparent.  To solve complex problems is, often, easier than the straightforward and simple.

Is this a known condition?
What, neurologically, may cause this in the brain?
Could this be some form of "retardation"?
Are there ways to improve this?

The behavior of the character Sheldon Cooper was frequently found to be consistent with Asperger Syndrome, although the character is not written/designed as such. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_Cooper#Asperger_syndrome for further information.

Perhaps this is a kind of anxiety. The individual fears some perception, and responds be being more precise than the conversational-situation warrants. I don't know prevalent definitions, and am answering in hopes it will stimulate a more-complete answer from someone.

@Skippy it seems a mod considered it a 'comment', instead of being a 'wrong/low-grade answer'

That was me. The answer did not cite any sources and was primarily opinion based. It was flagged as not an answer and so I converted it to a comment.

In my opinion, Everyone has his way of expressing Sarcasm, some express it more than others, so if you are not used to the way that person express it, sometimes you are not able to really know if he's talking with sarcasm or not.

As a side note, in the DSM-V, Asperger Syndrome has been removed and is grouped under Autism Spectrum Disorders,

I have found some information regarding literal thinking, but I think the "enjoys complicated thinking" is confounding things a bit, would it be all right to focus on just the former?

Also, this is quite hard to answer (even though it's been anonymized) without you potentially feeling judged.  I'm concerned about that.

RE: over-thinking being an asset in academic situations: I used to interpret questions on test or assignments very differently from other people and the Instructor. Everyone would stare at me like I had two heads, and the Instructor would say, "Well, I see what you are thinking, but, that is not what the question asked." For me, this was simply how I read the words of the question, not from overthinking, but overthinking can lead to wrong interpretations, usually due to test anxiety (which I usually didn't have).

You seem to be describing different ways go about thinking about things in the general description of your question.

However, I'm going to think about it (ironic, ha) and your specific questions as generally in the context of the title of the topic and as how you first tend to describe it, or I interpreted it at first glance, which is over-complicating or over-analyzing things - which can be very subjective actually.  I may be way off in regards to your question though.

Is this a known condition?

I've heard many times in general productivity type books the phrase "paralysis by analysis" used.  No formal term I know of unless the other answers have defined/found one.  I experience this when I'm not on cogsci to distract me actually, lol.

What, neurologically, may cause this in the brain?

From what I've found in my experience, and to be specific without a citation (hope noone calls me out here), I would say the GABAA-ρ subclass receptors being stimulated or not to the correct intensity.  I'll just leave it at that...heh.

Could this be some form of "retardation"?

I'm not sure how you're defining retardation.  Retardation, to me, is an extremely serious condition and is very obvious to anyone else - kind of like certain effects of down syndrome.
If you're defining it as an type of physiological state...like if someone was excessively drunk, then I suppose so.  I would generally look at it as being defined by the meaning of the words its made up of in Latin:
Wikipedia:

From Middle English, from Anglo-Norman or Latin, from Anglo-Norman
  retarder, from Latin retardāre (“to retard”), from re- + tardus
  (“slow”)

So, "slow thinking" is how I would think it - you seem to explain a phenomenon where too much fast thinking happens at once to the point of confusion or just different ways people go about thinking about things.  It seems like retardation would not be a characteristic of what you explain.

Are there ways to improve this?

I'm going to go with a practical answer here.
Writing everything down on paper helps a lot.  There was actually a citation I found way back that showed changes in GABA receptor stimulation from this.
Meditation usually helps.  Exercise too.
If one wants to be hardcore about it, they could "artificially" try to stimulate their GABAA-ρ subclass receptors.

Literal thinking can be associated with circumstantial thinking, and could be the result of thought 1 or communication disorders:

Circumstantial thinking
   A type of thought disorder in which each of a series of thoughts seems
   less closely related to the original thought than the one before it at
   first, but the patient's thoughts eventually return to the original
   subject.

Circumstantial thinking can be a symptom of autism, some schizophrenia and schizotypal affects.
The assumption can be made that verbal skills are a prerequisite for effective communication. (without discussion of the mute or deaf)
Metaphorical intelligence is inversely linked to literal thinking.

that the ability to process metaphors functions as a relatively stable
  individual differences variable, and that those who are “less able” to
  process metaphors can be said to have a more “literal” thinking style.
  ...
  Frozen metaphors are those that are in common use in the language and
  which are often thought to be treated as single linguistic units by
  native speakers. Novel metaphors are ones in which ideas are combined
  in new or unusual ways.

Logical thinking is not linked to creative thinking. Creative thinking is linked with metaphorical thinking.

Divergent (as opposed to “convergent”) thinking is a relatively old
  concept, proposed by Guilford (1967). He described the convergent
  thinker as a person who finds it easy to deal with problems requiring
  one conventional correct answer, clearly obtainable from the
  information provided. The divergent thinker, on the other hand, is
  better able to solve problems requiring the generation of several
  equally acceptable answers where the emphasis is on the quantity,
  variety and originality of responses. Those who engage more readily in
  divergent thinking are more likely to display metaphoric intelligence. 2
Creative thinking (divergent thinking) and critical thinking
  (convergent thinking) are two powerful aspects of effective thinking  3

A photographic or eidetic memory,  is often associated with high intelligence or savant intelligence.
There is evidence that suggests that the creation of photographic or eidetic memories is impaired by concurrent verbalisation.   An interesting point that the mental processes involving this talent are not only independent from verbal skills, but, potentially, hindered by such. One thing it does reveal, is that verbal skills are not linked to this type of "genius".

Research has shown that if a person verbalizes during the time he or
  she is scanning the original picture, this interferes with eidetic
  image formation.

The same features of simultaneous brilliance with impaired social skills and varying cognitive impairments, are observed with "savants".  4
I think a better question would be, what processes cause literal thinkers, who may be highly intelligent in some ways; to frequently over complicate or misinterpret, seemingly, simple concepts?
Literal and over complicated thinking can be linked with a logical thinker, who lacks creative thought skills. Some of the complications could be the result of interpreting problems literally and missing metaphorical meanings.
1. The Confusing Area of Disturbed Thinking
Journal of Personality Assessment
Volume 40, Issue 5, 1976
Preview
Access options
DOI:10.1207/s15327752jpa4005_5
Bert Loro
2. Dr. Jeannette Littlemore
English for International Students Unit
University of Birmingham
Birmingham
B15 2TT
U.K.
3. Critical Thinking and the Art of Learning and Living
John F. Kennedy
4.  Is there such a thing as a photographic memory? And if so, can it be learned?
Alan Searleman,
Professor of psychology
St. Lawrence University

Is there a psychological condition which promotes literal and overly complicated thinking?

Yes, I think so... Its called intelligence.

Is this a known condition?

You want a literal answer?  Then "Yes"

What, neurologically, may cause this in the brain?

Something amiss in the corpus callosum

Are there ways to improve this?

If you can teach an engineer to write original music, then maybe so.
Commentary
This question reminds me of the "Professional Test" where the first question is: How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?
The claim at the end of the test is: "according to the statistics of Andersen Consulting Worldwide, around 90% of the professionals failed the exam. (But most preschoolers got it correct which disproves the theory that most "professionals" have the brains of a four year old :)".  Hence the popularity of this test.
I first saw this test over 10yrs ago and have been trying not to overcomplicate things ever since, to little avail however.  About 7yrs ago I moved into an apartment and wanted to move the landline phone closer to my pc.  So I'm planning how to run the wire up and down walls and across the floor when my friend said "Why don't you buy a $10 cordless phone from walmart and put it where ever you want?  Sheesh!".  You know I couldn't make this up!  No seriously, I really couldn't make this up.  I'm way too logical and literal to be that creative.  So, am I stupid?  Retarded?  Autistic?  Nah, I'm just a guy.  A straight guy and  I'm right-handed.
Want to guess the sex of the friend who suggested the cordless phone?  Oh and she is straight too.
If you need someone to point out the obvious, find a straight gal or gay man.
Now I'm not saying that a condition can't be made of behavior more extreme than is displayed by your typical guy, and given a name like autism or something else, but it seems to me to be mainly varying degrees of communication between areas of the brain, coupled with overall intelligence, that determine how complicated or simplistic a solution will be.
We all have our areas where we excel.  Some folks do well in the arts.  My excellence happens to be overcomplicating things and doing extremely well with complicated, boring, mundane problems that would send any artsy person straight to the rubber room.  Its ironic how I simplified this one, however.  So maybe that's evidence the condition can be improved. ;)  Now I'm going to go write a symphony... just as soon as I finish designing this bridge.
Summary
In case you missed it, larger corpus callosum is associated with left-handed people, musicians, artists, gay men, and straight women.  Tendencies to miss simple solutions and to overcomplicate are associated with right-handed, logical, and engineering types (the antithesis of lefties, musicians, and most engineers are men, etc).  Therefore, smaller corpus callosum is associated with overcomplication.  That seems simple enough.
Note: Some have a tendency to skim over hyperlinks, I do it too, however these hyperlinks are informative and/or very funny and are essential to understanding my claim.
Another note: Some research has indicated that its not the size of the corpus callosum that matters, just how "connected" it is.  For the sake of simplicity in my answer, I used the words "large" and "small".

I (male) was great at divergent and artistic things, former wife was best at convergent things. It was fine if we each had largely separate areas of responsibility, but when we had to consider and agree, it didn't go well. I might get overwhelmed and give up, or she might not wish to consider options... etc. You have to consider "failure modes" like these. People have a back-up personality style, which tends to be a more pronounced form of "normal" for them, and a secondary back-up style where they quit or lash out if they are driven too hard. Gentle people can become very aggressive.

To the best of my knowledge this is due to neuroplasticity, and the conditioning of the brain. This means that somethings might be considered by some over-complicated which are actually seen as simple by others, such as cryptic crosswords.
Something that do don't address is complicated vs complexity:

Complex is used to refer to the level of components in a system. If a
  problem is complex, it means that it has many components. Complexity
  does not evoke difficulty.
On the other hand, complicated refers to a high level of difficulty.
  If a problem is complicated, there might be or might not be many parts
  but it will certainly take a lot of hard work to solve.

Source: What is the difference between “complicated” and “complex”?

When organizing your clothes are you going for a totally ordered set or a partially ordered set? ;)

"Totally Ordered" is an undecidable proposition. That is: there is no upper bound on "organization", which I think contributes to the problem of over-complicating things. There is no natural stopping point, unless you run out of time or energy and must decide. In nature, such people would simply be eaten by a bear and this problem would not arise.

In at least one sense, your two conditions can be seen as contradictory: literal thinking is intrinsically empirical in nature, and is not overly complicated, at least from an analytic perspective.
There's a famous story that illustrates this, involving the pioneering Soviet neuropsychologist Alexander Luria:

The uncompromising empiricism of traditional indigenous people may
  explain why they tend to be suspicious of abstract thinking. When the
  Russian psychologist Alexander Luria (1902–77) tried to test the
  reasoning skills of a nomadic people in central Asia, they refused to
  cooperate. For example, Luria gave one man the following information:
  ‘All bears in the North are white, and a friend who lives in the North
  has sent me a letter saying that he had seen a bear.’ He then asked
  the man what the colour of the bear was. The answer may be obvious to
  us, but the man replied: ‘How should I know? Ask your friend who saw
  the bear.’ Another man explained, ‘We always speak only of what we
  see; we don’t talk about what we haven't seen.’ ¹

As an aside, this development of increasing abstraction in thinking — away from the literal — as the technology and information densities of our societies have grown is one of the plausible explanations for the Flynn Effect (see this Guardian article)
¹ Not the best of sources, but it’s an old and well-known story.


text:
What is the effect of displayed online personal identifiers on online communication?
Online interaction provides an interesting avenue for experiment and experience.  People are able to hide or fabricate their personal details including age, sex, and appearance.
For the purposes of this question I am using the term "personal identifiers" as any indication of a person's age, sex, name, race, place of residence, etc*
As a user here, I have experimented with showing my real name, changing my user name; having a photo of myself as a kangaroo, and whether or not to display my age, provide my real age, or at one point used an age of 93 years. I have also played with whether or not to show my country (the kangaroo reveals I am at ease with this).
I am most active on Stack Overflow, which is a programming site, and my belief is that programming is a male dominated field. So when I address a user, with no personal identifiers, I find myself assuming that they are male. I have noticed that when people assume I am of the opposite sex (to what I am, not what they are!), I respond differently.
This has led me to think about the value of maintaining a certain anonymity and which aspects of one's identity are best revealed in various online settings.
Questions

What information is there about perceived personal identifiers and how this affects  people's online behaviour?
What information is there regarding a person's reaction when they know they are being treated as if they are a person with different identifiers?

People exploit this in the field of competitive video gaming, where an offensive (A**LDominator), humorous (ShootinPutin2012) or girly (FluffyKitty) names are used to deceive or frustrate an opponent. Being repeatedly defeated by these names would feel more frustrating than by something like (mike1274)


text:
What evidence is there that the adult brain can produce new neurons?
At school I was taught that the adult brain did not produce new neurons. That we had the maximum number of neurons and this would only diminish over time due to events, like head injuries, drinking excessive quantities of alcohol, various other processes, not to mention the general atrophy the body experiences through the process of aging.
I remember sitting through a Neuroscience lecture (about 15 years ago), and learning, that studies had shown that whilst exercising enabled the brain to produce new neurons.
What is the latest evidence that the adult brain can produce new neurons?

Please note the link is not to the lecture I refer to.

Yes, there are some cells that are capable of replicating in your brain. I have read some articles about that recently, but I am unable to find them. I too, was told in the School that brain cells in adults cannot replicate. It was only a few years back.

The progress in genetics, neuroscience, technology is extremely quick when compared with other areas of human activities.

Yes, that's great. Especially for paralyzed people, neurological diseases or people who was born with bad brain tissue or had some accident etc.

The adult brain, at least we were taught so, could not engage neurogenesis (birth of neurons). However, stem cells can be used to artificially generate new neurons.

For a comprehensive review, see:
Berg, D.A., Belnoue, L.,Song,H., Simon A. (2013) Neurotransmitter-mediated control of neurogenesis in the adult vertebrate brain.  Development, 140(12), 2548-2561. [DOI].
Briefly,

active adult neurogenesis is confined to two distinct
  locations: the subventricular zone (SVZ) of the lateral ventricles in
  the forebrain; and the subgranular zone (SGZ) of the dentate gyrus
  (DG) in the hippocampus

These areas contain radial glial-like cells, which act as neural stem cells, and the growth of which is modulated by the respective neurotransmitters.  For example, cells which are GABAnergic will be modulated (enhanced in the SVZ and inhibited in the DG) via GABA that has diffused out of the synapses of neighboring cells

GABA is released from parvalbumin-expressing interneurons in the adult dentate gyrus
  (DG) and inhibits the activation of quiescent RGLs through activation of the γ 2-subunit-containing GABA A
  receptor.
In the SVZ, GABA also signals to and depolarizes neural
  progenitor cells, but the mechanism of release is different from that
  in the DG (Wang et al., 2003; Liu et al., 2005). Migrating
  neuroblasts release GABA in a non-synaptic, non-vesicular fashion,
  which tonically activates signaling in progenitor cells.

There are mechanisms through which the progenitor cells are stimulated that rely on neurotransmitters, but are not specific to cell subtype:

Neurotransmitters control neurogenesis without subtype specificity. If NSCs have restricted potential, transmitters could act on both NSCs and/or amplifying populations.

It's still a complicated story, but the long and short of it is, in specific regions of the brain, adult neurogenesis is known to be possible and some of the neurotransmitter-based growth factors are now being elucidated.


text:
Why do some people only work well under pressure?
It is  common for people to procrastinate. Putting off tasks until  the resulting deadlines get closer and  there comes a point at which the person will fire into action.
(whether this point leaves the person with enough time to complete task is another question).
Why is it that some people seem to only work well under pressure? Why is it that people find it difficult to discipline themselves and have all their task complete well before deadlines are due?

Just added a couple more relevant tags

@Skippy Don't feel like you have to force questions just to keep the count up, you can let them develop organically.  Thanks for putting in all of the effort!

@Skippy Well, we've all gone back and forth on that since day one.  Yes, ideally one should read up a little before asking a question, but I've asked plenty of questions without doing an extensive literature search, and I think the consensus is it's probably okay not to if the question is well-formed and there's at least some background research.

Procrastination is a common behavior of individuals with ADD. ADD is usually treated with a stimulant drug like Adderall, which boosts the action of norepinephrine. Norepinephrine is involved in the fight-or-flight response, and is linked to urgency. ADD individuals are deficient in norepinephrine under everyday circumstances (no pressure,) making it harder to focus on work, but when confronted with an urgency scenario (or treated with a stimulant) they perform well.

I have often wondered about this, as I know I do this, even setting myself arbitrary deadlines, not always with the best results.  The following is not an opinion, but based on some information found while, ironically, taking a 'break' from my PhD drafting.
According to "In Search of the Arousal Procrastinator", (Pychyl, 2008), the notion of 'working under pressure' could be based on their cognitive dissonance, concluding (in part):

a common theme about self-deception and task delay. We often rationalize our current delay because we don't feel like  working on the task by evoking (irrational) beliefs like, "I'll feel more like it tomorrow" or "I work better under pressure." Although this may be the case on rare occasions for some tasks, on the whole these thoughts are simply rationalizations to justify further delay and make us feel good in the short run.

However, according to "Procrastination or 'intentional delay'?" (Novotney), there could be benefits in the procrastination, as it may lead to better planning of what is needed to be done, so the pressure of the deadline is not necessarily entirely harmful.
Other resources cited in the above links:
Ferrari, J. R. (1992). Psychometric validation of two procrastination inventories for adults: Arousal and avoidance measures. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 14, 97-110
Ferrari, J.R., Johnson, J.L., McCown, W.G. (1995). Procrastination and Task Avoidance: Theory, Research, and Treatment. New York: Springer.
Schouwenburg, H.C., Lay, C., Pychyl, T.A., Ferrari, J.R. (Eds.) (2004). Counseling the Procrastinator in Academic Settings. Washington, DC: APA.
Burka, J.B., & Yuen, L.M. (2nd Edition). (2008). Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It Now. New York City: Da Capo Lifelong Books.

I think it is often a myth that people work better under pressure. Most people who say they work better under pressure have not really tried working under normal conditions. Even if a person thinks he works better under pressure, he may work better under normal conditions. That being said, pressure (more specifically time pressure) helps in providing closure to tasks.
One of the main reasons for procrastination has to do with mental construal theory. Basically goals that are far from a person in time, space or both seem very abstract. So it is difficult to initiate abstract goals. Goals that are close in time and space are more specific. Thus they are easier to implement. To make abstract goals more concrete one should use implementation intentions and mental contrasting. That is, form specific "if then" plans to initiate a goal. Mental constrasting provides both a idealistic and realistic picture of your goal accomplishment.
As an example, suppose you want to get started on some assignment. Mental contrasting would mean that you visualize yourself completing the assignment and the feelings associated with it (e.g. happiness, pride, etc.). Then you would visualize the obstacles preventing you from reaching the goal (e.g. feeling tired, hungry, good tv show on). This provides a sort of "energization" to initiate action. Then you would form the implementation intentions based off these obstacles. However, forming too many implementation intentions could be counterproductive. Note that this assumes that the goal intention is strong in the first place.
Sources
Simpson, W.K., & Pychyl, T.A. (2009). In search of the arousal procrastinator: An investigation of the relation between procrastination, arousal-based personality traits and beliefs about procrastination motivations Personality and Individual Differences, 47, 906-911.
The effect of temporal distance on level of mental construal
Nira Liberman,a,* Michael D. Sagristano,b and Yaacov Tropeb
W Leroy, S. (2009). Why is it so hard to do my work? The challenge of attention residue when switching between work tasks. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Vol. 109. pp 168-181.


text:
What is the psychological basis for people coming together during a disaster or major event?
Something I have witnessed several times, and got me wondering, what is the psychological basis for people coming together in response to a disaster or a major event?  Be it large scale or local.
An example is one that I was right in the middle of (and at one stage was in very serious danger) - the Queensland floods of 2011, which is encapsulated nicely in this video-editorial "Hope Lives Here". Now, a couple of points from the editorial - the narrator states that as the city of Brisbane has grown, people have become more distant and are not likely to even know their neighbours' names.
This is obviously not just pertinent to the example above, but is repeated in many places.
However, when push comes to shove, and when a community of strangers are faced with a catastrophe, destruction, loss and are basically 'forced into a corner' - this is when the community comes together. Following the example, a 'Mud Army' started up of people helping strangers get back on their feet (I was involved in that, despite just coming out of surgery a few weeks before).
When the danger passes, life goes back to normal (generally) and we all seem to go our separate ways.
What is the psychological basis (more in depth than the linked editorial) for why we come together in a disaster or major event?

This article might be helpful. In particular, humans need social connections (according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs). Stress initiates people to come together. It was thought that women would come together during disaster and men would fight (i.e. the fight and flight response). However men also come together during disaster.
A distinction must be made between acute and chronic stress. Acute stress (e.g. once in a life time natural disasters) promote social bonding and connection. Chronic stress (e.g. smoking, ruminating a lot, etc.), however, does not seem to produce the same effect. When the acute stress is removed, there is no imminent need for social bonding with strangers.
From a biological basis, it seems that oxytocin might play a key role. In particular, oxytocin is released as a reaction to a social experience. So if a people see others in distress they may release oxytocin which promotes prosocial behavior.

Wonderful answer - makes excellent sense, and yes, on reflection the stress I felt during the event was very different to when I am say, under pressure at work.


text:
The psychology of humility. Why do we not value our efforts?
This question has crossed my mind a few times, and quite recently on reflection it came up again.
Why is it that we rarely value the worth of our efforts?
By this I mean, why do people often have difficulty in valuing their own work, contributions, sacrifices and in many cases, themselves. Yet, many are quick to praise similar work, contributions and sacrifices of others.
An example is that I don't see my work as a teacher as being of any value, I am not really fussed about my PhD and the published papers,  don't accept compliments well, and even (as some may have noticed) don't feel that I am a particularly good contributor here or on my other SE sites, and as for my own self-value, I literally don't think about it.  But will seek to praise others on their good work etc (note, this is strictly an example)

According to this article, jealousy may cause a person to view themselves more as the person he is jealous of. So if you work hard, write great papers, etc. you may be jealous of another person who has similar attributes. Thus you would view yourself more like him.
Also in social comparison theory there is the idea of upward and downward social comparisons. If you compare yourself to someone who similar to yourself or more "fortunate" than yourself, you will feel bad. On the other hand, if you compare yourself to someone who is less fortunate than yourself you will feel good. This is why facebook often makes people feel bad about themselves. They see people with trip photos and smiling photos and compare that to their "boring" lives.
Source
Changing Me to Keep You
State Jealousy Promotes Perceiving Similarity Between the Self and a Romantic Rival


text:
What is the causal relationship between extreme jealousy and poor mental health?
Jealousy can be a powerful and destructive force. It can take over reason.
Can severe to extreme jealousy precipitate or contribute to poor mental health, at the extreme, psychosis.
Or, is it poor mental health that can manifest pathological jealousy?
or both.

"My friend buys a new car. Obviously I'll feel jealous"

What is obvious about this?
Friend, his Pleasure and your Jealousy, does it appear to be a logical frame of mind?
When we accept this belief to be obvious, then it becomes our way of thinking. Therefore, the belief as small as this, may be lying somewhere in our rational neurons, never allowing us to question the logic behind its existence...
Jealousy stems from the immaturity and the fact that we use the term friend very loosely. The one whom a person is jealous of, can not be considered to be a friend.
Secondly, we are always told that it's the competition that takes us through in life. Competition is a very strong ideology. If not explained in a positive sense, it may give birth to jealousy... Therefore, you may find otherwise rational people being envious of others nearly everyday...
The one belief that snatches away peace and spiritual awareness like no other sentiment ever can...

I think it can go both ways. According to Tesser's Self Evaluation Maintenance Theory, any two people in a relationship make themselves feel better by comparing themselves to each other. The key idea is that if you are closer to a person then you will tend to feel more jealous. For example, suppose your best friend got a really fancy car. You will naturally feel jealous. However, what if someone told you that Bill Gates got a really fancy car? You wouldn't feel jealous.This is similar to mental construal theory mentioned in this post.
If you tend to be jealous of someone close to you all the time I would think this would lead to depression. Depression is marked by rumination which is what happens if you are constantly jealous. Then again, if you are depressed because of some acute stress (e.g. death in a family) then you could feel jealous of other people without this particular stress.
One of the best ways of overcoming jealousy is to accept that you are jealous and empathize/congratulate the person you are jealous of. Exercises like mindfulness meditation would help promote empathetic behaviors.


text:
Are individuals who are generally jealous more likely to experience sexual jealousy?
Some people are just jealous of many things they perceive others to possess. Materially or as part of that person.
Is a person who is prone to jealousy more likely to be jealous in romantic relationships?
or does sexual jealousy have different roots.

As Parrot and Smith have said (1993), "envy and jealousy are confounded by laypersons and scholars alike (Schoeck, 1969)", while in psychology, philosophy, and the social sciences in general, a distinction is drawn between jealousy and envy:

[E]nvy occurs when a person lacks another's superior quality,
  achievment, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the
  other lacked it. It occurs when this shortcoming exists in a domain
  that is self-definitional (Salovey & Rodin, 1984), and it intensifies
  with self-dissatisfaction and when superioority in alternative
  comparison domains is lacking (R. H. Smith, Diener, & Garonzik, 1990).
  ...
  Jealousy, by contrast, necessarily occurs in the context of relationships. It occurs when a person fears losing an important
  relationship with another person to a rival—in particular, losing a
  relationship that is formative to one's sense of self (Hupka, 1991;
  Rorty, 1988, chap. 7). (Parrot & Smith, 1993)

As studies have shown, envy appears to be characterized by feelings of inferiority, longing, resentment, and disapproval of the emotion. Jealousy appears to be characterized by fear of loss, distrust, anxiety, and anger. (Parrot & Smith, 1993).
So, if you write: "Some people are just jealous of many things they perceive others to possess. Materially or as part of that person.", then you are actually not talking about jealousy, but about envy, and your question must read:
Are envious individuals more likely to experience sexual jealousy?
As experiments and surveys show, both envy and jealousy are caused by threatened self-esteem (DeSteno, Valdesolo & Bartlett, 2006; Parrot, 1991), so it might be concluded that the propensity for both emotions would be equally high or low in one individual. But that is not necessarily so. Findings suggest that

a distinction might be made between different types of self-esteem, or
  between different routes to lowering self-esteem. ... In envy one's
  own appraisal leads to dissatisfaction with oneself. In jealousy, the
  reflected appraisal of another leads to a lack of security and
  confidence. (Parrott, 1991)

Feelings of jealousy appear to be equally high in different individuals (and both sexes) if they face the same situations (Salovey & Rodin, 1985). Nevertheless there might be

certain personality characteristics that might make some people
  particulaly prone to jealousy. ... The people whose responses
  indicated a high degree of jealousy were those who also reported these
  three personality characteristics: having a low opinion of themselves,
  seeing a large discrepancy between how they really are and what they
  would ideally like to be and valuing highly such visible achievements
  as becoming wealthy, famous, well-liked and, especially, physically
  attractive. (Salovey & Rodin, 1985)

Variance in self-esteem is attributable to genetics, parenting style, perceived appearance, and past experiences of success and failure (Emler, 2001). Nevertheless, in intensity of jealousy was mostly moderated by how secure and committed the current relationship felt (Salovey & Rodin, 1985). Thus it seems that environment factors play at least an equally strong role in promoting jealousy as personality traits or states. Because, of course, "close and loving relationships with others later in life do contribute positively to self-esteem. But" – and here the circle closes – "the likelihood of forming and sustaining successful relationships of these kinds is itself higher when self-esteem is higher in the first place." (Emler, 2001)

Sources:

DeSteno, D., Valdesolo, P., & Bartlett, M. Y. (2006). Jealousy and the threatened self: Getting to the heart of the green-eyed monster. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 626-641. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.91.4.626
Emler, N. (2001). Self-esteem: The costs and causes of low self-worth. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Parrott, W. G. (1991). The emotional experiences of envy and jealousy. In P. Salovey (Ed.), The Psychology of Jealousy and Envy (pp. 3-30). New York: Guilford Press.
Parrott, W. G., & Smith, R. H. (1993). Distinguishing the experiences of envy and jealousy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 906-920. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.64.6.906
Salovey, P., & Rodin, J. (1985). The heart of jealousy. Psychology Today, 19, 22-29.

Generally I like the process of achieving knowledge to be visible, and personally, I would leave the question as it was. That way everyone has the opportunity to think about the relationship between envy and jealousy and either come to a different conclusion than I did and post a different answer, or learn something new. If you prefer to edit your question, I would delete the first part of my answer, because it is now obsolete.


text:
What causes pathological jealousy?
Taking the meaning of the word pathological to mean maladaptive and unhealthy.
What is/are the aetiology of pathological jealousy?
What conditions are associated with features of pathological jealousy?
Discussion can concern neurological or psychological problems or both.

Just a note - this line Discussion can concern neurological or psychological problems or both makes this sound like a homework problem...

I think there are many determinants of jealousy. The very basic one is evolutionary explanation. For example, jealousy was necessary for male to extend his genes. If he wasn't, the another male could "take over" his female partner.
Another (more interesting for me) explanation is psychoanalytic one. You can read more for example in Bowlby's books, but also more classic ones. As "more classic" I mean these works which talk about Oedipus complex or other phenomenon which influence our approach (e.g.projection) to other people in future.
1) Buss,Larsen,Westen,Semmelroth - Sex Differences in Jealousy: Evolution, Physiology, and Psychology
2) White, Gregory L.; Mullen, Paul E. (1989) Jealousy: Theory, research, and clinical strategies.
3) Pines, Aronson (2006), Antecedents, correlates, and consequences of sexual jealousy
4) Bowlby (1953) Some pathological processes set in train by early mother-child separation

The explanation of the second alternative is a bit "short".. but I voted +1 for the source of info!


text:
How effective are pharmaceutical or therapeutic treatments for jealousy?
This is the last of a series of questions I've posted about jealousy (see here, here, and here).

What pharmaceutical and therapeutic treatments, if any, have been developed for managing acute jealousy
How effective are these treatments?

No problem Skippy! Is there a tag you'd like me to add for you? I would have added more but tags are not my strongest area TBH.

I've added some tags

Pharmaceutical:
Well, I can tell you there are no pharmaceutical treatments you can take that JUST help you manage "acute jealousy."  Essentially, any drug you would take that may help wouldn't just target "jealousy."  If there even is one that helps you to manage it it will have a global effect and probably be something like an SSRI, SNRI, amphetamine, some other drug that is probably going to end up making you feel worse in the long run.
Pharmaceutical wise, I really just found one study that referenced it at all and it's not very helpful.  Scroll down though, the CBT part is very encouraging.
Because this is such a specific topic really the only thing I found in relation to pharmaceuticals and jealousy was...if you have parkinson's and you are taking dopamine agonists, you can get "delusional jealousy".  So I'd avoid dopamine agonists...maybe?  But you probably don't have parkinson's.  It could be extrapolated to the general population to just say "hey, dopamine agonists may cause 'delusional jealousy'" but that's unlikely - and kind of useless information.  MAYBE you could try a dopamine antagonist (antipsychotic) but those things SUCK so much - just trust me it's not worth it...in fact it's a stupid idea to bring up.

Mov Disord. 2012 Nov;27(13):1679-82. doi: 10.1002/mds.25129. Epub 2012
Nov 13.
Dopamine agonists and delusional jealousy in Parkinson's disease: a
cross-sectional prevalence study.
Poletti M, Perugi G, Logi C, Romano A, Del Dotto P, Ceravolo R, Rossi
G, Pepe P,  Dell'Osso L, Bonuccelli U.
Department of Neuroscience, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
BACKGROUND: Delusional jealousy (DJ) has been described in patients
with Parkinson's disease (PD) on dopaminergic therapy, but a role for
dopaminergic therapy in DJ has not been established. METHODS: The
current cross-sectional study on DJ investigated its association with
dopaminergic therapies compared with their associations with
hallucinations  and its prevalence in PD patients. Eight hundred five
consecutive patients with PD were enrolled between January 2009 and
June 2010. RESULTS: DJ was identified in 20 patients (2.48%) and
hallucinations in 193 patients (23.98%). In the multivariate logistic
regression analyses, dopamine agonists were significantly associated
with DJ (odds ratio, 18.1; 95% CI,
3.0-infinity; P = .0002) but not with hallucinations (odds ratio, 0.73; 95% CI,
0.49-1.10; P = .133). CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that dopamine agonist treatment represents a  risk factor for DJ in PD
independent of the presence of a dementing disorder, and the presence
of this additional nonmotor side effect should be investigated in this
clinical population.
Copyright © 2012 Movement Disorder Society.
PMID: 23150469  [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Edit
Now this was an interesting mini-study I came across along with a whole bunch of other results with the word "pathological jealousy."

J Clin Psychiatry. 1990 Aug;51(8):345-6. Successful fluoxetine
treatment of pathologic jealousy. Lane RD. Source Department of
Psychiatry, University of Health Sciences, Chicago Medical School,
Ill. Abstract A 39-year-old man suddenly became convinced that his
wife had once been unfaithful to him, and soon thereafter he became
depressed. Symptoms of depression responded to imipramine, but the
jealousy did not. A trial of fluoxetine was attempted because of the
obsessional nature of the jealousy. Fluoxetine 60 mg/day resulted in
complete remission of the pathologic jealousy, consistent with the
known efficacy of fluoxetine in obsessive compulsive disorder. PMID:
2380161 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

However, once again, I'm sure that's not the only affect he experienced.  THere were also a few hits with risperdone and primazone actually.  They didn't even have abstracts tho.
Then we have the implication that it may be involved in OCD:

Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 1997 Feb;31(1):133-8.
Morbid jealousy as a variant of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Parker G, Barrett E.
School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Randwick,
Australia.
OBJECTIVE: To present a representative case vignette and review
several previous  reports, and to then suggest that a percentage of
those with morbid jealousy may  have a variant of obsessive-compulsive
disorder (OCD). CLINICAL PICTURE: A patient presented volunteering a
diagnosis of depression and  anxiety following recent work and marital
stresses, before describing recent jealousy and harassment of his wife
over an earlier relationship. Obsessional thinking patterns and
compulsive behaviours are described, and it is proposed that the
picture supports a diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
TREATMENT AND OUTCOME: The patient was treated as if he had an
obsessive-compulsive disorder, and reported dissipation of his
concerns after cognitive-behavioural intervention. CONCLUSIONS: The
proposition is an important one as a diagnosis of morbid jealousy
often invites therapeutic pessimism, and as managements effective for
OCD (both drug and behavioural) may well be helpful.
PMID: 9088498  [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Which ends with successful treatment with cognitive behavioral therapy as well as (they insinuate) some pharmaceutical treatment having to do with his OCD.
This leads me into my next section though:
Therapeutic
In my opinion:

Jealousy is so specific that said person with jealousy is going to
have to deal with it with something like CBT (although there are several medicines that >could help to treat it...you would probably agree with me that some of their side affects >arn't worth it if one were to try them, said jealous person also has to consider whether >or not their jealousy is "pathological") - not to sound like a
broken record.  There just isn't anything as proven out there.  Said
jealous person also needs to do things that expands their "options"
which would be the ultimate cure - even if it's just meeting randoms
on plenty of fish, there's not much to lose.  In my opinion, it should
be looked at as just gambling or like a slot machine.  Otherwise, if
said jealous person does not change any of their habits....the pattern
of jealousy will continue.

Now I'm going to give you some (the very rare) CBT studies involving specifically jealousy.  I don't have access to the full text of these, if you do - maybe you want to look into them more.  If you generalize "jealousy" into "depression" then I don't even need to really cite all of the studies that show how much CBT works.

Br J Psychiatry. 1996 May;168(5):588-93.
The effectiveness of cognitive therapy in the treatment of
non-psychotic morbid jealousy.
Dolan M, Bishay N.
Ashworth Hospital, Maghull, Liverpool.
BACKGROUND: Although a cognitive-behavioural formulation of morbid
jealousy has been described there is little empirical research into
the practical usefulness of this model. This study evaluated the
effectiveness of treating non-psychotic morbid jealousy using a
cognitive approach. METHOD: Cognitive-behavioural and emotional
measures of jealousy were calibrated  by comparison with 40
non-jealous normal controls. These instruments were used as measures
of change to assess the effectiveness of cognitive therapy in altering
cognitive errors in 30 morbidly jealous out-patient referrals, divided
into delayed and immediate treatment subgroups to assess the stability
of the condition. Both groups completed all measures immediately
before and after treatment, and at follow-up. RESULTS: The instruments
demonstrated significant differences between jealous and non-jealous
subjects on cognitive-behavioural and emotional aspects of jealousy.
The delayed treatment group showed no significant alteration in scores
on any of  the instruments after 12 weeks on the waiting list,
confirming the stability of the condition. In the majority of cases
cognitive therapy aimed at the modification of dysfunctional cognitive
processes resulted in a significant improvement on all jealousy
measures, immediately after treatment and at follow-up. The
improvement reported by patients was supported by the partner's
ratings. CONCLUSION: The results support the postulation of the
cognitive model that modification of cognitive schema by a
schema-focused treatment package results in a significant reduction in
disturbance in all aspects of the jealousy syndrome.
PMID: 8733797  [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Next:

Br J Psychiatry. 1989 Mar;154:386-9.
An uncontrolled study of cognitive therapy for morbid jealousy.
Bishay NR, Petersen N, Tarrier N.
North Manchester General Hospital, Crumpsall.
Thirteen patients presenting with morbid jealousy were treated using a
cognitive  approach adapted from Beck's cognitive therapy for
depression. Cognitions in morbid jealousy showed the characteristics
of automatic thoughts as described by  Beck, and were based on faulty
assumptions derived from interpretations of past experiences. The
cognitive treatment directed mainly at the faulty assumptions resulted
in improvements in TEN (10 out of 13!) patients and no change in one; two patients
dropped out of treatment. The results are considered encouraging.
PMID: 2597841  [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Once again if one were to just generalize the "jealousy" to depression, then click below.  There's a wide variety of them.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=cognitive+behavioral+therapy+depression