# Question
Title: Are most self-help books properly rooted in cognitive sciences?
The following books are explained from a cognitive sciences perspective and rely strongly on psychology or sociology.

For example one of the books about seduction speaks of Pavlovian conditioning. Additionally, even though they don't often use words like "rationalization" the books are often written by psychologist.

**Are these books classified as psychology books?**

*Further clarification*

Under the name of Cognitive Sciences are going a lot topics.
From very *low level science* to more applied. But the books I've cited are at a very *high level* (and since that also less verifiable). This kind of stuff is still classified as "applied psychology" or something like that?

They don't deal with stuff like "rationalization" but with the consequences of it. (i.e. childish behaviour, assertive behaviour, seduction, manipulation, conditioning, emotions, self-esteem handling, NLP, and so on..)

# Answer
> 4 votes
You can probably classify non-fiction books written for a lay audience into three categories:

1. Books written by experts and summarizing research in a non-technical language that can be understood by non-experts. The only difference between such a book and a research article is that this book simplifies the findings and cites its sources in a vague and general manner.
2. Books written by non-experts who quote only those research findings that appear to support their opinion and dismiss (and do not mention) what contradicts them.
3. Fantasy, prejudice, and other ignorant ramblings.

Most of the Pick Up theory falls into the second category. People like Mystery are successful with their pick up routines in a specific setting and with a highly select sample of women (US, white, middle-class, club goers). So their methods are valid. What is completely false is their assumption that all women (and men) are the same and that their methods will work for everyone everywhere. They read some popular science books, and whenever they read something that resonates with their experience, they believe they have found the scientific proof for how and why what they did worked for them and they quote it in their books to give them credence. European Pick Up Adepts have found that much of what people like Mystery recommend (e.g. peacocking) does not work in their culture. Many others find that many women do not react favourably to other routines (e.g. push-and-pull). The very fact that even "master" PUAs have to "next" many women (or stand on the street for minutes before they find someone whose body language signals the right kind of susceptibility) shows that the popular claim that you can pick up any woman any time is nothing but a power fantasy and marketing lie. Pick Up only works for those women and men for whom it works, and that is all the "science" there is to it.

Dale Carnegie is a *motivational* speaker. His books fall into the third category. They are as true as religion. They have positive effects for those who believe in them, but you can be equally successful by doing everything completely different than he recommends. They don't "work", because they are true, but because they make you believe in yourself and give you the courage to try.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Sparring Mind lists an exhaustive list of the best cog sci books, focusing particularly on peer influence and persuasion.

The books range from selp-help tips and tricks to more focused research on a particular aspect of social psychology. The best thing about some of the books listed here is that the anecdotes are not just interesting to read, but are also well grounded in published psych research.

Some personal favorites from this list:

1. Cialdini's "Influence: Science and Practice" & "Yes! (50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive)"
2. Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow"
3. Heath brother's "Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die"
4. McGonigal's "The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works"

I also try to read up any new stuff that comes from Dan Ariely and Sheena Iyengar. I've found their insights very helpful to (and at times in opposition with) my day to day decision-making.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Everything is psychology. The question do these books have a basis in scientific principles of well established healthy psychology. Modern scientific progress is found through peer review. All of those books did not pass peer review and probably contain poor citations so technically the answer is no they are not well founded on psychological science.

However just because it isn't properly founded in correct methodology doesn't mean it cant contain nuggets for use in psychology. You can learn many things from tearing down a bad prototype engine and finding out what went wrong and right in the design.

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Tags: social-psychology, clinical-psychology
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title: Book about Asperger's for Asperger's

text:
# Question
Title: Book about Asperger's for Asperger's
Is there a book that people with Asperger's can read to better understand their diagnosis and how to cooperate with people?

# Answer
Aspergers as a diagnosis is no more its been merged into autism spectrum disorder. Its really not that bad of a diagnosis compared to full blown Autism or something like Schizo, Bipolar or BPD.

Here are some books and resources:

ASD Me Learning Functioning Spectrum

Autism Spectrum Disorders: Foundations, Characteristics, and Effective Strategies

Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew: Updated and Expanded Edition

Asperger's From Wikipedia

I can speak from personal experience the therapies for AS listed on wiki sometimes really work; CBT and anxiety medication really helped me. My brain kinda adapted to the anti-depressant though and I haven't found or really needed anything anxiety in a few months. You'll find social skills like cooperation are this wonderful thing you can practice online with friends and if you mess it up they will be really kind and understanding. I really fail when interacting with frenemies.

I have fun talking to people at Wrong Planet (an autism community) as well. Some people there are less functioning than AS so you have to have compassion and understanding. Others still are higher functioning than me which of course makes me a little jealous but I've learned that I'm not alone and neither are you.
> 4 votes

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Tags: reference-request, autism, aspergers
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# Question
Title: What is the difference between computational neuroscience, theoretical neuroscience, and neuroinformatics (if there is one)?
In particular, theoretical and computational neuroscience seem to be synonymous with each other. Neuroinformatics at least seems to deal somewhat more with solving things numerically and the usage and creation of algorithms and programs.

# Answer
> 6 votes
There is no difference between "computational neuroscience" and "theoretical neuroscience" in practice. The two are almost always used interchangeably.

Neuroinformatics, like bioinformatics, is more about managing data and designing analysis software (that's always somehow integrated with data storage and management). Generally, it is informational specialists that work in neuroinformatics, as it is basically applied information science (applied to neuroscience, specifically). In some ways, neuroinformatics can serve as a bridge between experimentalist and theoretician. Experimentalists use neuroinformatic software to analyze and save their data and store their results... then the theoreticians can take that and make a model, then informatics can design a new program that incorporates the model to help experimentalists analyze their data. This is a very ideal simplification, but it gives an idea of how the three play off each other.

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Tags: neuroscience, theoretical-neuroscience, computational-modeling
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# Question
Title: Why do people feel the need to make changes to a solution presented by another person?
There is an interesting phenomenon I have come across several times when working with groups, and that is the need some people have to make changes to a solution that someone else created.

The change is often superficial or doesn't substantively change the solution, however the person making the suggestion is often adamant that the change is vital.

In a question on the User Experience SE, some comments were made about how to plan for and mitigate this:

> People are natural complainers. So next time you present a design make sure there are 1 or more subtle defects you're sure they notice. They'll complain about those, you say ok and fix them. if you present a perfect design, they'll still find stuff regardless.

And:

> That reminds me of the Battle Chess duck - It was well known that producers had to make a change to everything that was done. The artist working on the queen animations came up with an innovative solution. He did the animations for the queen the way that he felt would be best, with one addition: he gave the queen a pet duck. He took great care to make sure that it never overlapped the "actual" animation. Eventually, it came time for the producer to review the animation set for the queen. His comments, "that looks great. Just one thing - get rid of the duck."

Is this a known phenomena in Cognitive Sciences?

It seems to indicate a need/desire on the part of the person making the suggestion to exert some control over an external process but I wonder if it is more elemental/basic than that?

# Answer
This sounds to me very much (but not exactly) like a phenomenon Dan Ariely has done some research on, which he terms 'the IKEA effect'. Of course, he will describe it better than me, specifically in Norton and Ariely (2012), Ariely et al (2008), and this TED talk.

Basically, what he's found is that people value things (furniture, lego models, plans) more when they themselves have contributed their own labour in creating them.

In Ariely et al (2008), they found that:

* People are more willing to do dull, monotonous paperwork for less money if their name goes on the top of the sheet, and less willing if the paper was shredded after they had finished.
* The same effect is found if you pay people to put together Lego models: people do more for less money if you don't take apart the models afterwards.

Norton and Ariely (2012) took a different approach, but showed largely the same thing:

* People believe that the IKEA furniture which they themselves assembled was worth more than anyone else's furniture (measured by how much they would pay to keep it)
* The same effect was found for origami animals.
* ..and for Lego models, but not if you take the model apart after you build it (because it's no longer the thing which **you** created).
* ...and not getting to finish assembling the furniture reduces this bias.

Hopefully, the link between this research and your question should be clear: by making changes to a solution, that solution becomes in some way 'ours', and because of that, we overestimate it's intrinsic value.

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# References

Michael I. Norton, Dan Ariely, and Daniel Mochon (2012), “The IKEA effect: When labor leads to love.” Journal of Consumer Psychology. Vol. 22: 453-460.

Dan Ariely, Emir Kamenica and Drazen Prelec (2008), “Man’s Search for Meaning: The Case of Legos.” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. Vol. 67: 671-677.
> 3 votes

# Answer
This is often a common phenomenon, but the context that you cited in your question might hold the key to one possible explanation. When you are presenting your design to someone who is "supposed" to evaluate your design, finding flaws enforces the self-efficacy of the evaluator and signals to him that he's doing his job well. So, the boost to self-efficacy/self-esteem might be a strong motivation for the evaluator to disproportionately criticize small issues with your design.

In addition, there is an even more fundamental human psychology that plays a role here -- the egocentricity/false consensus bias i.e. the idea that everyone else shares the same opinion about an idea as we do. The evaluator of the design might have an expectation of what the "correct" submission looks like, and any deviation from this expectation will be immediately noticed (and frowned upon). I've worked in a software development firm for a while and I see this happening all the time in teams that span product developers, product testers and product managers.

(Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False-consensus\_effect)
> 2 votes

# Answer
It is easy.

1. Something bad happened, spreads fast, and is related with psychological satisfaction.
2. Something good will be forgotten fast because you are satisfied you are done with it.

In your example, the solution does not satisfy audience. They wanna make changes. After changes they will forget about the solution, because the solution satisfied them. This is similar to bad customer service: see Bad Customer Service Interactions More Likely to be Shared Than Good Ones.

Perspective matters! You can go from point A to B by car, train, motorbike, bus, ship, plane, helicopter etc. Going with a car is your solution, but going with a train is somebody else's solution. It is all about satisfaction, psychology and perspective! Regards.
> -2 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, decision-making
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# Question
Title: Modern name for the two kind of ethics proposed by Nietzche
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%E2%80%93slave\_morality

> Nietzsche argued that there were *two fundamental types of morality*: '**Master morality**' and '**slave morality**'. **Slave** morality **values things like kindness, humility and sympathy, while master morality values pride, strength, and nobility**. Master morality weighs actions on a scale of good or bad consequences unlike slave morality which weighs actions on a scale of good or evil intentions.

In my opinion the effort of Nietzche of splitting the world in a dichotomy is really interesting for science and applied psychology. Since, ***if the master morality, doesn't have to deal with empathy*** it should follow that it's more ***based on competition***.

So it should be really useful for describing the **beliefs of nations like Japan, USA or China** (competitive, less assistentialistic) while the slave morality should fit more countries with a strong influence of church.

**Did someone continue the studies of Nietzche from a Psychological point of view?**

# Answer
> 1 votes
According to this answer: https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/a/6030/4425 I would say that Nietzche's moralities can be classified according to the research on universal values made by Schwartz <sup>(1992)</sup> on universal values

The **slave morality** deals with: Benevolence, universalism, and to some extent tradition

The **master morality** deals with: power and achievement

The researches seems to suggest what Nietzche was suggesting: **the two morality are diverging**.

> **benevolence** mostly relates to **agreeableness**
> **universalism** to **openness**
> and **traditionalism** to **agreeableness** and a few facets of other traits.
>
> **power** relates *negatively* to **agreeableness** and **openness**
> **Achievement** relates to certain facets of **extraversion**, **conscientiousness**, and (*negatively*:) **agreeableness**.

Feel free to improve my answer

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Tags: social-psychology
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# Question
Title: What do we call the "middle" variables in a complex research model?
Basic theory building goes like this: you create a theory which has an independent variable and a dependent variable. I have also been taught to use "explanatory variable" as synonym for "independent variable" and "goal variable" and "response variable" as synonyms for "dependent variable". Then you do empirical research and measure the connection strength, or find out that there is no connection after all :(

As this is rarely complex enough for theories in disciplines where humans are involved, there is also the option to create a multivariate model, where many independent variables will explain a dependent (or goal) variable. There, the terminology is still unambiguous.

But many models from recent publications are more complex than this. Consider this path model:

Continuance intention seems to be the goal variable, because it doesn't lead to any other variables. Interaction and User value are certainly independent variables in this model, because they don't depend on others. But what are Satisfaction and Flow experience? They depend on lots of other variables, but they are not our goal variable, because this model is about Continuance intention, not about Satisfaction or Flow experience.

So, what is the proper terminology for such variables stuck in the middle of a multi-level model?

Citation for the picture: Examining users′ intention to continue using social network games: A flow experience perspective Chiao-Chen Chang (2013) Telematics and Informatics 30 (4) p. 311-321

# Answer
I've always found it difficult to pack up real-world data into the neat boxes of methodology textbooks, but if you really need a label for these, I'd go with mediator variable.

From a famous article on these variables:

> Specifically, we differentiate between two often-confused functions of third variables: (a) the moderator function of third variables, which partitions a focal independent variable into subgroups that establish its domains of maximal effectiveness in regard to a given dependent variable, and (b) **the mediator function of a third variable, which represents the generative mechanism through which the focal independent variable is able to influence the dependent variable of interest**.

Reference:

Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator–mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. *Journal of personality and social psychology*, 51(6), 1173.
> 6 votes

# Answer
@Ana is correct. `Satisfaction` and `Flow Experience` are mediator variables in this path analytic model linking `Interaction` and `User Value` to `Continuance Intention to Use Social Network Games`. I don't see any indication that this is a multilevel model; I think you might be mistaken about that, or at least might be excluding any information that would make this relevant. There could be a second level fit to `Interaction` and `User Value` directly rather than to the two variables contained in each of those boxes, but I don't see any paths leading from those outer boxes, so I assume there is no second level...and again, "mediator variables" would still work as the term you probably want. In this model, the middle variables completely mediate the relationship of the leftmost variables to the rightmost, but `Flow Experience` only partially mediates the relationship of `Satisfaction` to the rightmost, because `Satisfaction` also has a direct pathway depicted. The coefficient of this pathway indicates any independent relationship those two variables have when controlling `Flow Experience`.

Another distinction can be made between the variables on the left with no inbound arrows and all others that do have inbound arrows: they are "exogenous" and "endogenous", respectively. That is, even though the mediator variables have both inbound and outbound arrows, they are endogenous. Only the leftmost four variables in this path diagram are exogenous. Exogenous variables are strictly independent, but only the rightmost variable is strictly dependent. All endogenous variables are at least dependent on some other variables, but in this path model, `Satisfaction` and `Flow Experience` may be treated as independent variables when estimating their paths to the final outcome variable on the right. They have dual status as in/dependent variables in this model, at least if it is estimated piece-by-piece. It might be misleading to call the mediator variables independent if the whole model is fit simultaneously via SEM.
> 2 votes

# Answer
To repeat what's been said, @Ana's answer is correct, to a point. I think a more powerful way to look the kind of data you're talking about is using structural equation modelling. In SEM terminology, your middle variables could either be manifest (if you're measuring them directly), or latent (if they're inferred from other variables). The terminology is explained quite well here.

It definitely does **not** have anything to do with neural networks, although they could at a stretch be used to model the same phenomenon.

Edit: I meant to also say that the language and analysis framework you use is often dependent on the specific field you're coming from. Mediation and moderation analyses are most common in social psychology, but to the best of my knowledge unheard of in cognitive psychology. SEM is more common in psychometrics, and for researchers looking at things like anxiety and OCD (I can't reference this, as I'm mostly going by who I know in my own university).
> 2 votes

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Tags: terminology, model
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# Question
Title: Increasing the quantity of something which is initially good will always lead to an excess?
Take this sentence from a psychological article on wikipedia about the comfort zone:

> However, White (2009) also observes that if the work of Robert Yerkes (1907) is considered in which he reported '**Anxiety improves performance until a certain optimum level** of arousal has been reached. **Beyond that point, performance deteriorates** as higher levels of anxiety are attained', **if a person steps beyond the optimum performance zone they enter a "danger zone" in which performance will decline rapidly** as higher levels of anxiety or discomfort occur.

In this case, scientific evidence are suggesting that anxiety **initially** improves the performance but when it raises it has the opposite effect. Since that the word "excess".

Sometime is really less intuitive that a raise of something which is initially good will become un-optimal.

An excess of perfectionism could lead to OCD and to an anankastic disorder. See: Is perfectionism related to OCD?

But it's very less intuitive. Starting from this consideration, at an intuitive level, I would guess that every good thing when applied and applied will become suboptimal.

(\*)The concept of "too-much" and "excess" is already bound to the consequence and applies only when there are negative consequences.

**Is it a generalizable result that very often the complete lack of something or the excessive presence of it can lead to problems?**

# Answer
It's a pretty huge question due to its generality, but at that level, it's probably safe to say most things can produce problems in excess. The only specific `things` you've mentioned are anxiety and perfectionism as far as I can tell. More specifics would help generate clearer answers, but @Prasanta's is good for anxiety, and your intuition resembles theory (if not necessarily reality) about the relationship between perfectionism and obsessive disorders.

More broadly, I recall reading a chapter (not sure which, but I'd guess it was David Buss') in John, Robins, and Pervin (2010) that argued personality traits in general tend to vary naturally because this increases the adaptive versatility of the society that contains individuals with different talents, responsibilities, and not all the same vulnerabilities. This is similar to the immunological theory that if all members of a species shared the same vulnerability to a certain pathogen, that pathogen could wipe out the entire species if it arose and spread. Individual differences protect the species (or the society) by increasing the likelihood that some individuals will be resistant to sudden selective pressures and survive in the case of catastrophe. The principle also works at less extreme levels of pressure: e.g., having some individuals high in neuroticism may improve the society's responsiveness to subtle, looming dangers that necessitate preventative effort well before the danger takes consequential effect. For example within this example, people who worry excessively about government conspiracies help ensure that the rest of us don't grow complacent about a lack of transparency in governmental functions. In a more evolutionary context, hypervigilant worrywarts would tend to help protect their neighbors from predators.

Given these selective pressures at the societal level that promote variation, some outliers may arise naturally. Even though neuroticism tends to be psychologically unhealthy, neurotic individuals may adapt optimally to certain circumstances, especially threatening ones. In this sense, "excess" depends on context: many excessively strong traits in normative contexts may be adaptive in rarer contexts. It's even conceivable that in certain circumstances, one could be excessively average! E.g., if a socially polarizing issue divides people into violently conflicting groups, having no strong leaning could endanger moderate individuals by making them misfits in either polarized group, especially if group protection is crucial. Such scenarios are probably applicable to a minority of selective pressures though, so your intuition about polar extremes being more problematic is probably more generally applicable, if somewhat unfalsifiable.

**Reference**
John, O. P., Robins, R. W., & Pervin, L. A. (Eds., 2010). *Handbook of personality: Theory and research*. Guilford Press.
> 2 votes

# Answer
I think what you are getting at is the concept of "stimulation". It has been shown in literature that individuals have varying "ideal" levels of stimulation and this can be measured using popular scales (Zuckerman's Sensation Seeking Scale being one of them). The stimulation - performance relationship can be thought of an inverted U-shaped curve with a peak stimulation point. If you are far to the left of this peak point, you feel bored and seek varied behavior to increase stimulation. If you are far to the right of this peak point, you feel anxious/restless. Both these states could potentially be detrimental to one's performance.

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensation\_seeking
> 3 votes

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Tags: social-psychology
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# Question
Title: Could an ethic stating that everyone should care about himself go into justifying exploitment?
Let's assume that one man has the following *belief*:

1) ***Everyone*** *has to take care of himself; **it's not mandatory for people to be nice** and good, **it's mandatory to defend ourselves** from others and to avoid letting the others exploit us.*

The first time he will need to rationalize one of his egoistic behaviours to avoid guilty feelings, the thought could become:

2) ***No one is guilty if he exploits someone****, since he should not let me exploit him.*

**Is there a correlation between the first and the second beliefs?**

Further explanation of what I'm wondering: in some way the first belief can be considered similar to assertiveness. It's a mantra about putting effort in every action of our life, going out of the comfort zone, and so on. The second instead is, in my opinion, a degeneration of the first thought, which is rationally prevented mostly by empathy.

Since the lack of empathy can result to disorders, is it correct to state that holding the second belief increases the likelihood that a person would be diagnosed with a disorder like psychopathy?

# Answer
> 1 votes
I don't know of direct research on these exact beliefs, but since you've asked, I'll offer some indirect theoretical support for a positive correlation hypothesis. First, I'll reframe your belief constructs in terms of known and studied phenomena.

> 1) **Everyone** has to take care of himself; **it's not mandatory for people to be nice** and good, **it's mandatory to defend ourselves** from others and to avoid letting the others exploit us.

This statement implies advocacy of independence, an internal locus of control, security values, wariness of others' intentions, and devaluation of benevolence. Attitudes like these may relate to conservatism, authoritarianism, social dominance orientation (SDO), and low agreeableness.

> 2) **No one is guilty if he exploits someone**, since he should not let me exploit him.

This resembles the just-world hypothesis and victim blaming in general. These attitudes also relate to internal locus of control, negative evaluations of others, devaluation of universalism (which is adjacent to benevolence in value space and opposite from power values, which are adjacent to security values), conservatism, authoritarianism, SDO, and low agreeableness.

Because your two statements resemble markers of attitudes with common correlates, it is likely these attitudes correlate directly (though not necessarily without mediation by their common correlates). As for your second question, in as much as victim blaming occurs to reduce cognitive dissonance or justify behaviors to others when questioned, it is likely to occur when one is resisting social or internal pressures to empathize with the victim. It's hard (though not impossible) to be diagnosed as disordered by being too empathetic, whereas it's much easier to be diagnosed with disorders like psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder for lack of empathy. Hence if one blames a victim to justify non-empathetic behavior to oneself or others, one is more likely to behave this way in the future, and more likely to be seen as lacking empathy by others. Yes, it stands to reason that one would increase one's chances of being diagnosed with a disorder by displaying such a symptom of empathy-deficient disorders...but this doesn't mean that believing the just-world hypothesis increases the likelihood of becoming a psychopath.

Being a psychopath probably increases the likelihood of believing the just-world hypothesis, but clinical definitions of psychopathy do not generally conceptualize psychopathy as caused by beliefs. Diagnoses may be caused (partially) by beliefs, but where the true disorder exists, it probably has other causes. However, psychopathy as a continuous personality trait might be affected by victim blaming. Since this definition is somewhat less strict, and it's probably even normal to score above the minimum on given measures of psychopathic personality dimensions, it's somewhat less remarkable if (i.e., more likely that) a belief affects these scores. For instance, it's not hard to imagine an experiment achieving an effect on psychopathic trait dimension scores by priming the just-world hypothesis. Self-perceptive processes and spreading activation of semantic networks that link various beliefs and attitudes marked by low empathy could easily explain such effects. For example, consider this experimental priming research design:

1. Participants are randomly sampled from the same population and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Both read vignettes about a homeless person being violently mugged, inducing strong emotions and cognitive dissonance.
    1. The experimental group's vignette presents the victim's background in a culpable light, such as by describing the victim's lack of effort to graduate from high school, get a job, control his alcohol addiction, stay away from dangerous people, and accept help from relatives and public support systems.
    2. The control group's vignette presents the victim's background in a neutral, relatively character-irrelevant manner, as by describing his favorite foods, colors, place of birth, normal performance in high school, and maybe a few normal relationships with others.
2. Both groups complete measures of psychoticism and rate agreement with various statements of the just-world hypothesis and general victim blame (as a manipulation check).
3. Group differences in psychoticism and its correlation with levels of just-world hypothesis endorsement are calculated. Hypothetically higher psychoticism in the experimental group and a positive correlation with just-world hypothesis endorsement, *if* found, are interpreted as support for the theory that just-world hypothesis belief and victim blaming attitudes induce psychotic states.
4. Participants could complete the same measures as in step 2 at a later time to assess lasting effects on trait-level psychoticism. Other measures with established convergent validity could also be introduced at later assessments (and probably administered first) to help rule out effects of familiarity with the original measures and memory of one's previous responses. Stronger manipulations would likely be required to produce reliable group differences at later assessments, but if not, this would be a pretty important result. Someone should probably try this experiment!

Of course, it's designed to be falsifiable, so a lack of support or even counterevidence could also result, and positive results would need to be interpreted cautiously. This design would only produce direct evidence of any effects on psychoticism, not psychopathy *per se*. There's also reason for ethical concern here, as one certainly wouldn't want to experimentally induce lasting changes in psychopathy, which is related after all. However, with a strong debriefing process that:

1. explains the moral relevance of the manipulation
    2. preaches caution about endorsement of the just-world hypothesis
    3. emphasizes that the experimental vignette was completely fictional and intended to reflect real stereotypes about homeless people that are often unfounded and socially harmful, and
    4. refers participants to the right mental health support resources if they are distressed, and maybe some charity or volunteer organizations that support the local homeless population if they are interested...

I think this design could pass institutional review.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, social-psychology, moral-psychology, attitudes
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# Question
Title: Does taking a deep breath reduce the experience of stress and negative emotions?
Sometimes when I have negative feelings, it seems that a deep breath resets these feelings. Does that really happen? Is there any research on the effect of taking a deep breath on reducing the experience of negative emotions?

# Answer
Yup; basically, it works. Varvogli and Darviri (2011) review research on diaphragmatic breathing, reporting:

> **Deep breathing** has been successfully used to decrease the **fatigue** associated with haemopoietic stem cell transplantation patients 55, to reduce the **anxiety** and asthma signs/symptoms of children with asthma 56, in the management of **acute stressful** tasks 57 showing that the slow-breathing technique can have a significant effect on improvement of the hemodynamic changes following the **acute stressful** tasks. Furthermore, it has been used to influence autonomic functions in patients with essential hypertension and thus reduce it 58–59, in the management of male adolescent **aggressive** behaviour 60, in long term prophylaxis of migraine 61, in **stress** related to dental visits 62.

Fatigue, anxiety, stress, and aggression are all negatively valent (see the diagram in this answer; aggression doesn't appear, but is a form of negative arousal). It wouldn't be surprising if effects on hypertension and migraine incidence are partially mediated by emotional changes either.

**References**
Varvogli, L., & Darviri, C. (2011). Stress management techniques: Evidence-based procedures that reduce stress and promote health. *Health Science Journal, 5*(2), 74–89. Retrieved from http://www.hsj.gr/volume5/issue2/521.pdf.

* As cited within Varvogli & Darviri (2011):

$55$. Sang-Dol, K., & Hee-Seung, K. (2005). Effects of a relaxation breathing exercise on fatigue in haemopoietic stem cell transplantation patients. *Journal of Clinical Nursing, 14*(1), 51–55.
$56$. Chiang, L. C., Ma, W. F., Huang, J. L., Tseng, L. F., & Hsueh, K. C. (2009) Effect of relaxation-breathing training on anxiety and asthma signs/symptoms of children with moderate-to-severe asthma: A randomized controlled trial. *International Journal of Nursing Studies, 46*(8), 1061–1070. Retrieved from ResearchGate.
$57$. Nogawa, M., Yamakoshi, T., Ikarashi, A., Tanaka, S., & Yamakoshi, K. (2007). Assessment of slow-breathing relaxation technique in acute stressful tasks using a multipurpose non-invasive beat-by-beat cardiovascular monitoring system. *Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc*, 5323–5325.
$58$. Mourya, M., Mahajan, A. S., Singh, N. P., & Jain, A. K. (2009). Effect of slow- and fast-breathing exercises on autonomic functions in patients with essential hypertension. *Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 15*(7), 711–717.
$59$. Kaushik, R. M., Kaushik, R., Mahajan, S. K., & Rajesh, V. (2006). Effects of mental relaxation and slow breathing in essential hypertension. *Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 14*(2), 120–126.
$60$. Gaines, T., & Barry, L. M. (2008). The effect of a self-monitored relaxation breathing exercise on male adolescent aggressive behavior. *Adolescence, 43*(170), 291–302.
$61$. Kaushik, R., Kaushik, R. M., Mahajan, S, K., & Rajesh, V. (2005). Biofeedback assisted diaphragmatic breathing and systematic relaxation versus propranolol in long term prophylaxis of migraine. *Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 13*(3), 165–174.
$62$. Biggs, Q. M., Kelly, K. S., & Toney J. D. (2003). The effects of deep diaphragmatic breathing and focused attention on dental anxiety in a private practice setting. *Journal of Dental Hygiene, 77*(2), 105–113.
> 7 votes

# Answer
Nick's answer is very thorough. I would add that the physiological symptoms of high-stress (muscle tightening, accelerated heartbeat, shallow quick breath) can be reversed by controlling breath voluntarily. So, when you change these physical conditions, emotional state often follows.
> 1 votes

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Tags: emotion, physiology, stress, mood
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# Question
Title: Scientific term for people who value following the rules
What is the psychological term for people who believe that:

* they have strong rights
* that others **should** be nice
* that others **should** respect unwritten **rules**
* that others **should not** lie

They believe in rules that everyone should respect. They may hate hypocrisy, but for sure they judge other's behaviour and thinks that others should behave according to the rules.

**What is the scientific term for this personality trait?**

# Answer
> 2 votes
The concept you are looking for is **social conformity**, which is opposed to **personal autonomy**.

Scales measuring this concept, such as the Feldman conformity scale (Feldman, 2003) and the conformity subscale of the "Portraits Value Questionnaire" (Schwartz et al., 2001), contain items similar to your examples, e.g.

* Obeying the rules and fitting in are signs of a strong and healthy society.

---

Sources:

* Feldman, S. (2007). Enforcing social conformity: A theory of authoritarianism. *Political Psychology, 24*, 41-74.
* Schwartz, S. H., Melech, G., Lehmann, A., Burgess, S., Harris, M., Owens, V. (2001). Extending the cross-cultural validity of the theory of basic human values with a different method of measurement. *Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 32*, 519–542.

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Tags: social-psychology, personality, moral-psychology
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# Question
Title: Is there a correlation or cause-effect relationship between attractiveness and feet?
My psychology professor is very hard to understand and can't speak English well. She was saying something about a study was done that found the best indicator of a physical attractiveness is feet, and that men preferred small feet and women prefer large feet. Does anyone know the study being referred to? I can sort of see what is being said, as perhaps women are attracted to tall men and there's a correlation between height and foot size. What confuses me is my prof was definitely saying something about "the best indicator" as if the most attractive part of a person is their feet. Can someone provide a reference to such a study?

# Answer
This is a weird one! Looks like your professor's on to something. Holmes' (2010) New Scientist article, "Why men are attracted to women with small feet" gives an interesting intro based on Atkinson and Rowe (2010), which was a rather hard-to-track-down poster (not that I've retrieved the original). They produced facial composites of eight women each based on longest and shortest foot length, and other composites based on other measurements, and had men rate their attractiveness. Composites look something like:

(source: newscientist.com) (Not sure which measurement was the criterion used for these two.)

As a dude myself, I guess I'd rank the left composite as more attractive, but opinions vary, and it's worth noting that both benefit from a basic effect of facial composites: they reduce asymmetries and increase normativity, which are attractiveness enhancements, speaking basically, objectively, and generally. In any case, hopefully this demonstrates the research method clearly enough.

Atkinson and Rowe found that about 7 out of 9 men preferred the composite formed from the faces (i.e., not displaying the feet!) of the eight women with the shortest feet over the composite of the eight with the longest feet. This isn't support for the "best indicator" status though. Composites based on thigh length demonstrated favor for women with long thighs in 8 out of 9 men, and 11 out of 12 men prefer a composite of narrow-hipped women! That one surprised me a bit. Better indicators out there, it seems. Holmes doesn't mention any results from Atkinson and Rowe regarding male foot length, but long torsos and small wrists seem more noteworthy, at least in terms of their relationships with attractive male faces.

For an original article on foot length and attractiveness, check out Voracek, Fisher, Rupp, Lucas, and Fessler (2007). There's quite a story to tell here, it seems to have everything you're looking for, and Fessler is hosting the article for free access, so I'll just hook you with an excerpt of the abstract:

> Relative foot length was smaller in young, nulliparous, and slim women...A vast majority of both men and women favored small feet in women, but large feet in men. One's own foot size appeared to correspond to evaluations of attractiveness; particularly, women with small feet preferred small feet in women in general. The preference for small feet in women was convergent across different methods of evaluating attractiveness.

**References**
\- Atkinson, J., & Rowe, M. (2010, June 17). *Pretty women have petite feet: An EP analysis of the homo sapiens skeleton.* Poster presented at the 22nd annual meeting of The Human Behavior and Evolution Society. Eugene, OR, USA: University of Oregon.
\- Voracek, M., Fisher, M. L., Rupp, B., Lucas, D., & Fessler, D. M. (2007). Sex differences in relative foot length and perceived attractiveness of female feet: Relationships among anthropometry, physique, and preference ratings. *Perceptual and Motor Skills, 104*(3), 1123–1138. Retrieved from http://www.danielmtfessler.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Voracek-et-al-2007-foot-length.pdf.
> 6 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, physical-attraction, correlation
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# Question
Title: Can a person "self-induce" the placebo effect?
Despite a recent dubious claim that placebos don't require deception (critiqued here), placebos appear to function on the basis that a subject believes `X` will have effect `Y`. Without knowing too much detail, we say that the subject's mind/body will assist or attempt to achieve `Y` upon the *perception* that `X` causes `Y`.

Can a person, *without* self-deception \[1\] and *with* knowledge of the placebo effect, induce a placebo response? Or can a person knowledgeable of the placebo effect induce the same "reactions" that a placebo can normally be used to induce?

**Consider a silly example.**

Persons A and B each have a headache. They are told that *balancing a spoon on one's nose eliminates headaches with very high success rates by conducting electricity via the sinuses*. Person A believes the claim. Person A balances a spoon on their nose, and their headache is eliminated.

Person B, having a background in medicine, doesn't believe it *at all*. Person B, to prove the point, balances the spoon on their nose and remains in pain.

At this point, is there any way for Person B to "simply decide" that this ritual, which he knows to be an attempt at a placebo, to start working?

Would there be a difference using a pill instead of something purely ritualistic?

<sub>\[1\] **self-deception**. \[for the purpose of this question,\] any mental activity in the general category of suspending one's "participation" in the full body knowledge they normally possess.</sub>

# Answer
> 2 votes
*Not an answer, because I couldn't find any studies, but too long for a comment:*

1. **Placebos aren't arbitrary.** You are not given chocolate chips as a placebo treatment for a cold. The placebeo has the form of a "real" treatment for the illness or disorder, e.g. a pill without an agent.

This means that in your experiment your subjects must treat themselves with what looks like a real treatment but isn't. It must look like it *could* work.
2. **Placebos are not administered without the knowledge of the sick person**, e.g. while that person sleeps. Placebos are administered in what is effectively a ritual: you go visit an expert, the expert speaks some magic words (the latin names of your organs and illness), the expert gives you a magic potion (the sugar pill), and touches you and transfers some of his or her power to you. Well, of course he doesn't, but the similarity between religious and magic rituals and what a doctor does are striking and have been studied by ethnologists.

This means that in your experiment your subjects must explicitly *treat* themselves and not just eat breakfast and decide after the fact that one of those chocolate chips was the placebo. They need to plan how, with what, and when they want to treat themselves, and then administer the treatment in the way it was designed.

If, in this way, you consider what a placebo actually is – a ritualised administration of a faux treatment – it becomes immediatly apparent that this treament contains several psychologically powerful elements that must certainly have some kind of effect.

# Answer
> 1 votes
It has been shown that even if you tell a patient this pill is placebo and it's not going to help you, there's still some positive effect. It's all about perception.

There was a really good TED talk with the topic *"Is there scientific proof we can heal ourselves?"* at TEDxAmericanRiviera presented by Lissa Rankin, MD.

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Tags: deception, placebo
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title: Do we only hear what we want to hear?

text:
# Question
Title: Do we only hear what we want to hear?
When I Google this, the results are about misinterpreting what we hear to suit what we want or expect. However, I'm interested to know if we ignore specific things we hear and focus on things we are interested in.

For example, if you are in a public hall, and there are 4 or 5 conversations within your hearing range, will you focus onto the ones you are interested in while completely ignoring the ones you are not?

# Answer
The answer ought to be a qualified "Yes." We don't *only* hear what we want, in as much as motivation has zero direct control over the transduction of auditory signals in a sensory sense. Motivation affects which way we turn our ears and whether we keep them in a room with sounds we want to hear vs. a room with sounds we don't want to hear, but if those sounds hit our ears, whether we want to hear them shouldn't affect whether the stereocilia in our cochleae wiggle and tell our brains all about it. That's the only qualification of the otherwise plainly affirmative answer that occurs to me.

In a perceptory sense, motivation matters a lot more, because transfer from echoic memory to working memory is a matter of attention, and motivation certainly affects attention. E.g., if you're listening for a particular sound, you'll notice it better (hence the cocktail party effect), and you'll even experience more false alarms in the signal detection sense. A personal example within the general example: all the sounds that had the same pitch and tone as the first note of my cell phone ringtone used to drive me nuts when I would take a shower while anticipating a call from a girl I really wanted to talk to, who would often call me unexpectedly and complain when I didn't answer.

Transfer from working memory to long-term memory is arguably even more sensitive to motivation, because it depends greatly on elaborative rehearsal. Hence the more obsessed (or just interested) you are with a particular topic is the more often and deeply you'll think about it, and the more likely you'll remember it after your working memory's fairly short duration is up. If you don't remember something, you can't say whether you heard it, so the better you remember is also the more evidence you can offer that you have heard it. This is important in an empirical epistemic sense for our purposes, partly because it exacerbates the effect as perceived retrospectively, and thus reinforces the folk theory in your title.
> 4 votes

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Tags: attention, hearing
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# Question
Title: Is this some sort of soft-coded Grapheme-Color synethesia?
I just found this remarkable optical illusion:

*To do: Fixate your gaze on the center of one of the figures and stare at it for some time (20-30 seconds) while it cycles (without moving your eyes). After several iterations you’ll start noticing that the empty outlines fill in with ghostly redish or bluish colors! These illusory colors are called “afterimages”. Interestingly, the colors of the afterimages vary, which is puzzling because they come from the same original figure. Moreover, the shape of the outlines determines the filled-in color, which is complementary to the color of the same shape in the original figure.*

My question:

Is this some sort of soft-coded Grapheme-Color synethesia? Do people with Grapheme-Color synethesia have hard-coded afterimages in their brains?

# Answer
Very cool image! As for your question, your link includes a link to the authors' poster, which allows you to "read more about the illusion and possible explanations."

From the poster:

> In conclusion, the observations so far suggest that the afterimage effect is not due to higher level effects of shape-specific coloured afterimages but rather to a rapid spreading of local patch-based afterimages within the outlines presented after the image.

From Wikipedia: "Like all forms of synesthesia, grapheme → color synesthesia is involuntary, consistent..." This illusion operates involuntarily as well, but is manipulable by the image designer, as the poster shows. Hence I think it's safe to say this has nothing to do with synesthesia as an abnormal condition, but it could probably be described in perceptual terms that apply to normative function. You might want to look for more of the authors' work or contact them if you're sufficiently curious! Please share with us here whatever info you receive if you do.
> 3 votes

# Answer
Nick's answer links to the very interesting geometrical discussion by the authors, but they leave out some background. The color after-image phenomena is best described by opponent-process theory. The basic idea is that the neural systems representing color have a competitive nature. So the system that codes for red and green is the same system and cannot mix red and green. This also explains why, for the most common variant of color-blindness, subjects can not differentiate between red and green.

The wiki gives the primary opponent colors:

The after-image opponent process itself is a static phenomena. You can see it by staring at this flag for 1 minute, then staring at a white surface. The authors extend this in a very interesting way.
> 3 votes

# Answer
My problem with explaining the illusion in terms of complementary colours using the opponent process theory is that the two alternating colours, red and blue, in the illusion aren't actually complementary, at least not according to the colour chart in Keegan's answer where red complements green and blue complements yellow.

The theory might well account for afterimages, but is that what we're seeing here? Could it be rather a *pre*-image? The brain is filling in the shape with the colour it expects on the basis of past experience. The blind spot in the retina provides another example of visual confabulation/interpolation using surrounding detail. Why one should expect blue for the four-pointed star shape in one orientation and red in the other needs further explanation of course.
> 1 votes

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Tags: perception, synesthesia, optical-illusion
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# Question
Title: Is Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) a science or pseudoscience?
**Are there some branches of NLP which are considered scientific?**

> Bandler and Grinder also claim that NLP can treat problems such as phobias, depression, habit disorder, psychosomatic illnesses, myopia,\[8\] allergy, common cold\[9\] and learning disorders, often in a single session.\[10\]\[11\]\[12\]\[13\] NLP has been adopted by some hypnotherapists and in seminars marketed to business and government.\[14\]\[15\] Reviews of empirical research find that NLP's core tenets are poorly supported.\[16\] The balance of scientific evidence reveals NLP to be a largely discredited pseudoscience. Scientific reviews show it contains numerous factual errors,\[14\]\[17\] and fails to produce the results asserted by proponents.\[16\]\[18\] According to Devilly (2005),\[19\] NLP has had a consequent decline in prevalence since the 1970s. Criticisms go beyond lack of empirical evidence for effectiveness, saying NLP exhibits pseudoscientific characteristics,\[19\] title,\[20\] concepts and terminology as well.\[21\]\[22\] NLP is cited as an example of pseudoscience when teaching scientific literacy at the professional and university level.\[23\]\[24\]\[25\]\[26\]\[27\]\[28\]\[29\]\[30\]\[31\]\[32\] NLP also appears on peer reviewed expert-consensus based lists of discredited interventions.\[16\]

Source: Wikipedia. I've made a fast search on Wikipedia, but I cannot access the papers. Also, going deep into this topic would be really demanding.

# Answer
> 4 votes
We have quite a few questions on this site about Neuro-linguistic-programming. In general I think it is more productive to talk about a particular scientific claim or a particular treatment rather than an entire paradigm. Paradigms that are not grounded in the scientific method may incidentally reflect the truth when studied relative to scientific standards.

In general, this question on NLP and sales effectiveness has mostly been answered in a general sense. In particular, @what's answer makes reference to the scientific evaluation section on Wikipedia which basically states that NLP is not scientifically based or validated.

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Tags: neuro-linguistic-prog
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# Question
Title: 12 percent of our dreams are in black and white?
Pavan Teja says on Psychtronics:

> Did you know that ... 12 percent of our dreams are in black and white?

Is this true?

**EDIT**

The 12% even split up between young and old. From "Do we only dream in colour? A comparison of reported dream colour in younger and older adults with different experiences of black and white media":

> ... Moreover, there were inter-group differences in the recall quality of colour and black and white dreams that point to the possibility that true greyscale dreams occur only in people with black and white media experience.

# Answer
It's difficult to tell. Dreams are very hard to analyse scientifically since they can't be objectively measured, only self-reported. Dreams are notoriously difficult to recall after waking, so it's almost impossible to tell for certain.

There are some self-report studies which do assert that some proportion of dreams are in black and white, but this pattern is not seen in dream reports in various historical sources, so a plausible explanation is that black-and-white dreaming is caused mainly by exposure to black-and-white film media throughout the early 20th century, and that the percentage of dreams that are in black-and-white are skewed toward older populations who grew up with black-and-white films (though I don't personally know of any hard data on this point)

See this article by Schwitzgebel, 2001, who recounts several primary sources to this effect: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/267/1/dreamb&w010430.pdf

### Reference

Schwitzgebel, E. (2002). Why did we think we dreamed in black and white?. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 33(4), 649-660. PDF
> 7 votes

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Tags: dreams, color, visualization
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title: Is photographic memory possible?

text:
# Question
Title: Is photographic memory possible?
Photographic memory is a fairly well known phenomena, but is it theoretically possible?

In Marvin Minsky's *The Society of Mind* claims it is a myth:

> "...we often hear about people with 'photographic memories' that enable them to quickly memorize all the fine details of a complicated picture or a page of text in a few seconds. So far as I can tell, all of these tales are unfounded myths, and only professional magicians or charlatans can produce such demonstrations."

There have been a few claims of photographic memory, but only one person was ever reported to have passed tests supporting that claim: a woman named Elizabeth, who later married Charles Stromeyer, the man who had performed the studies within which Elizabeth demonstrated these purported skills.

Given the relationship between the researcher and the subject, and lack of reproduced test results, even that one example is rather suspect.

Are there any evidence to support that perfect long-term visual storage and retrieval of memories are theoretically possible? By what mechanism would this likely work?

# Answer
> 10 votes
I personally have had the experience that you can train your ability to hold a mental image of what you see.

I have been drawing from life as a hobby off and on for more than twenty years, and one of the exercises that help you with learning to draw in a realistic manner is to look at your subject for several seconds and then turn to your canvas and draw what you have seen without looking back at it. With time you become better at this until you can hold a rather detailed representation of what you saw in your mind. This image is limited to what you focussed on, obviously, so parts of the background or anything you found uninteresting will be blurred or missing, and the detail is not very fine, so I can't count matches. And it most certainly does not work for random dots.

But I draw only as a hobby, spend little time on it even at my most intense phases and have long stretches of time where I don't draw at all. I believe I could get very much better at this, and don't need autims to accomplish it.

Minsky (or you) will probably counter that I'm "using mnemonics and other, non-eidetic memory enhancing exercises", but looking at your example of "quickly memoriz\[ing\] ... a page of text in a few seconds", I see a problem that would make eidetic memory – in the sense of storing the raw data of what you see without processing it – pretty much impossible anyway:

Only the central 2° of your field of vision are focussed and sharp. If you look at a page of text without letting your eyes roam over it, you will have a thumbnail-sized area of sharp and readable text, and a whole page of blurred text. If you want to know how blurred, focus on the dot at the end of this sentence and try to read the lines below it. So obviously, if you want to store a whole page (or any detailed image), you'll have to let your eyes "scan" it. But what do you do, when you do that? You send a row of images to your brain, and your brain has to process them to build the whole page from that. That's processing, if you want to put a name to it. So, to say this clearly: **It is impossible to view a whole page without processing it.**

What this means is that everybody who looks at anything through their eyes has to process the information. And what happens during this processing? No-one knows, not even Marvin Minsky. Maybe it remains raw and unchanged apart from the assembly. But maybe – or rather, very likely – there's a whole lot of top-down processing going on, making sense of what is seen, relating it to other stored information, preparing it for easy storage. Perhaps there are individuals whose brains are exceptionally quick at this, and who have a larger than average storage capacity in their working memories. From the outside this would look a lot like eidetic memory.

# Answer
> 4 votes
Depending on what you consider 'photographic memory', there is a documented psychological syndrome called 'hyperthymesia' or 'highly superior autobiographical memory'. People with this condition can recall mundane aspects of nearly every day of their lives, such as what shoes a stranger was wearing 20 years ago. It's not quite the same as what 'eidetic memory' refers to but it does reflect an exceptionally acute memory system.

According to Wikipedia there are 25 recorded cases in peer-reviewed journals. The Wiki article is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthymesia

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Tags: memory, long-term-memory
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# Question
Title: Is pacemaker action potential considered a calcium dependent or sodium/calcium dependent?
Is a sinoatrial node action potential (AP) considered a Ca2+ dependent (No Na+) action potential? I was under the understanding that Ca2+ dependent APs were present only in Purkinje and endocrine cells, while cardiac and skeletal myocytes elicited Na+/Ca2+ dependent APs. But I am not sure which category sinoatrial node APs fall under.

# Answer
> 3 votes
The initiation of SA node action potential is through slow Na+ channels (slow, inward depolarising current, note there are no fast Na channels. These pacemaker setting Na channels only act when it is VERY hyperpolarised, won't initiate otherwise). As the membrane potential rises, you get the additional opening of T-type calcium channels and then the opening of L-type calcium channels. These all add to the depolarisation until you reach the threshold potential where an AP can then fire. I think some K+ channels also close during this early depolarisation.

During the action potential rising phase (after threshold), it is primarily L-type Ca channels that are bringing Ca into the cell (the other channels close off a bit). As you reach the peak of the action potential, the L-type channels close and the K+ dawgs open, causing the repolarisation phase. Also note that the speed in which Ca2+ can move in through L-type channels is somewhat compromised compared to other channels, so it's slower and causes that slower up/rising phase (which is what you want in a pacemaker cell - check out the link for the shape of the SA node AP).

http://cvphysiology.com/Arrhythmias/A004.htm

# Answer
> 2 votes
Cardiac cells rely on calcium for upstroke of the action potential, which is why they tend to have a slower rise than cells that rely on sodium for upstroke.

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Tags: neuroscience
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# Question
Title: Where does Freud say, "The unconscious mind can only wish?"
Where does Freud say, "The unconscious mind can only wish?" I've been tasked with either agreeing or disagreeing with this statement, but I cannot find exactly where Freud is said to have made this statement, thus no context.

# Answer
Paco Mitchell at Depth Insights lists the following reference for “the unconscious can only wish”:

> For an informed critique of Freud’s comment and of psychoanalytic theory in general, see C. G. Jung, *The Theory of Psychoanalysis* (New York: Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 1915).

Full text is available at Archive.org. You may also want to search for "can only wish" on Scribd's copy of Jung's *Freud and Psychoanalysis*, and Archive.org's full text of William White's *Mechanisms of Character Formation: An Introduction to Psychoanalysis*. These provide plenty more context, though I'm not seeing a direct reference to the original source of the quote...
> 4 votes

# Answer
The "quote" seems not to be verbatim, at least not from Freud. Ferenczi (1910, p. 21) describes Freud's views of the unconscious with the words:

> "Das Unbewußte kann nichts als wünschen", sagt Freud. \["The unconscious can only wish," says Freud.\]

Others, like Kaplan (1917), von Geijerstam (1920), or Jung (see Nick's answer), have used similar phrases to summarize Freud's theory. The idea expressed in the "quote" must be older than Frenczi's publication from 1910, so it belongs to Freud's first "topography" of the psyche (Unconscious, Pre-Conscious, Conscious) and does not related to the second (Id, Ego, Super-Ego).

Whether Freud ever "said" or wrote the exact words like Ferenczi gives them, is unclear. I cannot find any variation of the phrase in Freud's published works, which proves nothing, only that he might have used slightly different words than I can think of. But then he might have actually *said* them – in a conversation or conference presentation –, or Ferenczi might mean that Freud's views can be summarized with this phrase.

Whatever the origin of the "quote", the important aspect in it becomes clear when we look at the context these autors put it in. Frenczi writes that

> wenn zwei Menschen sich begegnen ... das Unbewußte stets den Versuch der Übertragung macht. \[if two people meet ... the unconscious always attempts transference. ("There is no 'No' in the unconscious ... the unconscious can only wish," says Freud.)\]

Wilhelm Reich (1928, p. 260), in a review, poses the rethorical questiion, if this is true:

> Oder sollte sich der Freudsche Satz "Das Unbewußte kann nur wünschen", also nichts ablehnen, nichts verneinen, als unrichtig herausstellen? \[Or should Freud's statement that "The uncouscious can only wish", i.e. refuse nothing, deny nothing, prove to be false?\]

So apparently the idea expressed by Freud is that not only can the unconscious not do anything else than wish, it also *must* wish, always.

Freud himself expressed his theory in the *Interpretation of Dreams* (1900, p. 573), where he writes of the unconscious,

> welches kein anderes Ziel seiner Arbeit als Wunscherfüllung kennt und über keine anderen Kräfte als die der Wunschregungen verfügt. \[which knows no other aim than wish-fulfilment, and which has at its disposal no forces other than the wish-impulses. (trans. A. A. Brill, 1911)\]

With these hints I'll leave the rest of your assignment to you. We want to avoid that your teacher googles your essay and wants to give the course credit to me ;-) Find out about the origin of the unconscious, what it consists of and what it does, and the answer to your question should be apparent.

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Sources:

* Ferenczi, S. (1910). *Introjektion und Übertragung* \[Introjection and transference\]. Leipzig: Deuticke.
* Reich, W. (1928). Referate: Fortschritte der Sexualwissenschaft und Psychoanalyse, herausgegeben von Dr. Wilhelm Stekel \[Review of Advances of Sexology and Psychoanalysis, edited by Dr. Wilhelm Stekel\]. *Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, 14*(2), p. 259-266.
* Freud, S. (1900). *Die Traumdeutung* \[The interpretation of dreams\]. Leipzig. Deuticke.
> 2 votes

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Tags: reference-request, psychoanalysis
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# Question
Title: How is "mislabeling" cognitive distortion different from "labeling"?
David Burns in his book *Feeling Good* describes "labeling and mislabeling" cognitive distortions:

> Personal labeling means creating a completely negative self-image based on your errors. It is an extreme form of overgeneralization. The philosophy behind it is "The measure of a man is the mistakes he makes." There is a good chance you are involved in a personal labeling whenever you describe your mistakes with sentences beginning with "I'm a..." For example, when you miss your putt on the eighteenth hole, you might say, "I'm a born loser" instead of "I goofed up on my putt." Similarly, when the stock you invested in goes down instead of up, you might think, "I'm a failure" instead of "I made a mistake."
>
> Labeling yourself is not only self-defeating, it is irrational. Your self cannot be equated with any one thing you do. Your life is a complex and ever-changing flow of thoughts, emotions, and actions. To put it another way, you are more like a river than a statue. Stop trying to define yourself with negative labels—they are overly simplistic and wrong. Would you think of yourself exclusively as an "eater" just because you eat, or a "breather" just because you breathe? This is nonsense, but such nonsense becomes painful when you label yourself out of a sense of your own inadequacies.
>
> When you label other people, you will invariably generate hostility. A common example is the boss who sees his occasionally irritable secretary as "an uncooperative bitch." Because of this label, he resents her and jumps at every chance to criticize her. She, in turn, labels him an "insensitive chauvinist" and complains about him at every opportunity. So, around and around they go at each other's throats, focusing on every weakness or imperfection as proof of the other's worthlessness.
>
> Mislabeling involves describing an event with words that are inaccurate and emotionally heavily loaded. For example, a woman on a diet ate a dish of ice cream and thought, "How disgusting and repulsive of me. I'm a pig." These thoughts made her so upset she ate the whole quart of ice cream!

But labeling and mislabeling seem equivalent. I see no difference between, "She's irritated by me, therefore she's an uncooperative bitch," and, "I ate a dish, therefore I'm a pig". How does David Burns differentiate between these cognitive distortions? How do other cognitive therapists differentiate?

# Answer
> 4 votes
It seems that in this case David Burns describes Labeling as an overgeneralization, not necessarily a misattribution. As in his example, a breather does breathe, it is just not the only aspect of the breather.

Mislabeling in this example is an inaccurate label, not an overgeneralization but qualitatively false, and "emotionally heavily loaded".

This explanation would fit with regular English semantics for the words, so it seems to make sense. I would not qualify the terms Labeling and Mislabeling as rigidly defined per this text though.

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Tags: attribution
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# Question
Title: Is there psychological research on seduction?
I've been reading a lot of books about seduction. Most of them rely on (approximative) psychological basis and presents really interesting insights. Robert Greene - Art of seduction, for example presents a lot of interesting factual happening and present some intuitive psychological interpretation. The generalization made by Mistery and Greene are not very scientific. But it's possible to try to give an interpretation of the facts described by this books based on cognitive science.

There are really many fields of applied psychology. However, it seems to me that there is no official Seduction psychology. For example, topics might include stereotypes, concept of beauty, importance of beauty, appearance and so on.

* **Is there psychological research on seduction?**
* **What field of psychology does research on seduction?**

# Answer
> 15 votes
### Attraction

Social psychology deals extensively with (sexual, erotic, friendly) human-to-human attraction. If you understand attraction, you know how to seduce.

It is true that social psychology does not provide a manual for seduction, and in my opinion this may have two reasons. Social psychology is not an applied, but a basic science, interested in understanding human behavior, not directing it. And there may be ethical objections to providing scientifically proven methods for maliciously manipulating the most intimate emotions, thus providing "weapons" in the "war of the sexes" and causing further discontent in an area of human interaction that is already rife with accusations of abuse. Economic psychology, an applied psychological field, provides manuals of seduction for human-to-product attraction. This is called "persuasive communication". It seems to me that human dating behavior is dysfunctional enough as it is, and does not need more manipulative methods – and what else is seduction if not manipulating someone who would not be attracted to you as you are into being attracted? –, but rather to be freed from them so that we could approach each other with more honesty and mutual understanding and less fear.

### Dating Anxiety

Dysfunctions are the speciality of clinical psychology, and in fact clinical psychology has developed treatments (and manuals) for what is commonly (among psychologists) called "dating anxiety" or "heterosocial anxiety".

A short introduction into dating anxiety is provided by Grover, Esterline and Nangle (2014); a conprehensive description of the concept and research (up to their publication) is provided by Hope and Heimberg (1990). A related concept is "courtship disorder" (Freund, 1983).

The treatment of dating anxiety is similar to that of phobias:

* *Psychoeducation and modification of (false) cognitive biases:* The therapist explains that dating anxiety is a common occurence, why it happens, and how dating works, including the perspective (and fears) of the "other side", thus reducing shame and increasing self- and mutual understanding.
* *Social skills training:* Many people suffering from dating anxiety lack in social skills, so a part of the therapy is training how to more successfully interact with other people in general, outside of dating.
* *Practice dating:* Patients train dating with the therapist or with other patients in a group setting.
* *Systematic desensibilisation:* Confronting the patient with desirable persons and frightening situations will cause his fears to abate with habituation. There is a case study of using surrogate partners for this (Zentner & Knox, 2013), but usually the patient has to do this as a homework.

Much of this is similar to what "Pick-Up Artists" teach to the "Seduction Community".

### Pick-Up Artists and the Seduction Community

There are only about a handful (psychological, linguistic and sociological) research publications dealing with the seduction community and pick-up artists. Looking at all publications that came up through a Google Scholar search for the phrase "'pick up artist' OR 'pickup artist'" and similar searches on PsychINFO, I found the following:

* Pick-up artists use verbal techniques to establish inequality in social status (the authors of the paper call this "doing inequality"), which they then immediately overcome by showing affiliation and affection and making compliments. In this way pick-up artists avoid the impression of threat and dishonor that many women have when men approach them in an openly positive way (Hambling-Jones & Merrision, 2012).
* Pick-up artists "perform on a stage", where they are critically judged by an audience, and in the face of this high social risk many techniques only indirectly serve to "pick up" the woman, or not at all, but rather serve to "save face" (Lee, 2009).
* The three phases of human courtship behavior – attraction, building comfort and trust, and seduction – have been confirmed by social, physiological and evolutionary psychology (Oesch & Miklousic, 2011).
* The assertive and negative (e.g. devaluing the prospective partner) courting methods propagated in pick-up are being used more by men who show high scores in the dark triad of personality traits (narcissism, machiavellism, psychopathy), an "unrestricted" sociosexual orientation (i.e. they tend to sexual contacts without emotional involvement), and a high need for sex and dominance (Crecelius, 2013). Women with low self-esteem, high interpersonal dependence, a strong desire for affiliation and an "unrestricted" sociosexual orientation are more receptive to these negative courtship methods (ibd.).
* Tales of failed pick-ups serve to establish homosocial cohesion among male adolescents (Korobov, 2009).
* The sexual conquests serve to prove heterosexuality and masculinity and establish "alpha male status" among pick-up artists (Larsen, Kyselova, Monari & Sørensen, 2012).

There are some more publications, mostly sociological, but they are all essayistic and not based on empirical studies. They deal mostly with defective male self-schemata and male degradation of women. In my eyes they don't provide anything new to an already over-emotional and mostly destructive discussion, so I don't list or summarize them here.

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Sources:

* Crecelius, E. (2013). *Dispositional factors that predict the use and success of negative short-term mating tactics* (Dissertation). California State University, Fullerton.
* Freund, K., Scher, H., & Hucker, S. (1983). The courtship disorders. *Archives of Sexual Behavior*, 12(5), 369-379.
* Grover, R. L., Esterline, K. M., & Nangle, D. W. (2014). Dating anxiety in adolescents. In L. Grossman & S. Walfish (Eds.), *Translating Psychological Research into Practice* (pp. 405-407). New York: Springer.
* Hambling-Jones, O., & Merrison, A. J. (2012). Inequity in the pursuit of intimacy: An analysis of British pick-up artist interactions. *Journal of Pragmatics, 44*, 1115-1127.
* Hope, D. A., & Heimberg, R. G. (1990). Dating anxiety. In H. Leitenberg (Ed.), *Handbook of Social and Evaluation Anxiety* (S. 217–246). New York: Plenum.
* Korobov, N. (2009). ‘He's got no game’: young men's stories about failed romantic and sexual experiences. *Journal of Gender Studies, 18*(2), 99-114.
* Larsen, V., Kyselova, M., Monari, K., & Sørensen, S. (2012). *Beyond ›The Game‹: Performing masculinity* (Dissertation). Roskilde University, Dänemark.
* Lee, J. (2009). Escaping embarrassment: Face-work in the rap cipher. *Social Psychology Quarterly, 72*(4), 306-324.
* Oesch, N., & Miklousic, I. (2011). The dating mind: Evolutionary psychology and the emerging science of human courtship. *Evolutionary Psychology, 10*(5), 899-909.
* Zentner, M., & Knox, D. (2013). Surrogates in relationship therapy: A case study in learning how to talk, touch, and kiss. *Psychology Journal, 10*(2), 63-68.

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Tags: social-psychology, sexuality, physical-attraction
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# Question
Title: Are there scientific alternatives to Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)?
According to these answers ,  and to wikipedia, NLP seems to be a pseudoscience, which has shown no real effectiveness, and so on.

Are there scientific proved alternatives to NLP?

# Answer
> 6 votes
In general positive psychology, coaching, and counselling are all fields that endeavour to help people achieve their potential. All these areas have scientific literature built around them. That said, there is a degree to which coaching and counselling are practical skills. Most psychologists aspire to follow the scientist-practitioner model. That said, specific practitioners may vary in the degree to which they follow this model versus using more intuitive approaches.

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# Question
Title: Which are the most accredited tests for measuring personality traits?
I'm lacking of an academic background. I thought there were only 4 or 16 personality traits. But a fast search on google is showing a huge number: according to this link they should be 638.

Is this information correct?

Which are the most accredited tests for measuring personality traits?

# Answer
**How many personality factors are there?** The history of personality testing can be summarised in terms of an initial period where there was a vast number of personality traits. In response to this, there have been various attempts to synthesise these traits into a smaller number of underlying factors. There is a huge literature on this process (e.g., Digman, 1990; McCrae & John, 1992).

There are a lot of researchers who have proposed variations on the five factor model (commonly labeled OCEAN: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion agreeableness, and neuroticism). That said, you will find a range of other factorial models (e.g., Eysenk's three factor model; the HEXACO six factor model).

There has also been subsequent challenges to the resulting dominance of factorial models. For example, see the research of Sampo Paunonen (e.g., Paunonen & Ashton, 2001) which suggests that we may have gone too far in embracing the factorial models of personality.

Related to this debate, there are a range of hiearchical theories of personality where facets are nested within factors. So you can either get a very general representation of personality with say 5 factors, and a more detailed representation with say 30 facets.

**What are valid measures of these factors?** There are a large number of well validated personality tests. Tests are typically built around particular representations of personality. There are a range of free measures of the Big 5 listed here with some discussion around validity.

The NEO is one of the most well-known and used commercial measures of the Big 5. That said, there are a wide range of well validated commercial personality tests available.

### References

* Digman, J. M. (1990). Personality structure: Emergence of the five-factor model. Annual review of psychology, 41(1), 417-440.
* McCrae, R. R., & John, O. P. (1992). An introduction to the five‐factor model and its applications. Journal of personality, 60(2), 175-215.
* Paunonen, S. V., & Ashton, M. C. (2001). Big five factors and facets and the prediction of behavior. Journal of personality and social psychology, 81(3), 524.
> 4 votes

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Tags: personality, test
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# Question
Title: Do introverts tend to experience more psychological problems?
Are there any evidence suggesting that the more introvert people could be more subject to psychological problems?

Is possible to hypothesize that one of the causes is the lack of ideas in comparison with other people from the community?

# Answer
Several other disorders relate to introversion, including:

* Avoidant personality disorder (Morey et al., 2002)
* Obsessive-compulsive disorder (Samuels et al., 2000)
* Schizotypal personality disorder (Funder, 1997? Don't have it on-hand, but will try to verify this later when I do.)
* Schizoid personality disorder (Morey et al., 2002)
* Generalized anxiety disorder in young adults (ages 25–39; Kessler et al., 2008)

I would not expect lack of ideas to mediate these relationships. Introversion is sometimes thought to relate to "richer inner worlds" (can't recall where I read that, and I don't put a lot of stock in the claim). Introversion relates negatively to openness to experience, but seems to have a complex relationship with creativity. A common theory about introversion is that it relates to interest in reading (found some such evidence in Chinese adolescents so far; Lau & Cheung, 1988); this would certainly help with any lack of ideas.

**References**
\- Funder, D. C. (1997). *The personality puzzle*. W. W. Norton & Co.
\- Kessler, R. C., Gruber, M., Hettema, J. M., Hwang, I., Sampson, N., & Yonkers, K. A. (2008). Comorbid major depression and generalized anxiety disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey follow-up. *Psychological Medicine, 38*(3), 365–374.
\- Lau, S., & Cheung, S. M. (1988). Reading interests of Chinese adolescents: Effects of personal and social factors. *International Journal of Psychology, 23*(1-6), 695–705.
\- Morey, L. C., Gunderson, J. G., Quigley, B. D., Shea, M. T., Skodol, A. E., McGlashan, T. H., ... & Zanarini, M. C. (2002). The representation of borderline, avoidant, obsessive-compulsive, and schizotypal personality disorders by the five-factor model. *Journal of Personality Disorders, 16*(3), 215–234.
\- Samuels, J., Nestadt, G., Bienvenu, O. J., Costa, P. T., Riddle, M. A., Liang, K. Y., ... & Cullen, B. (2000). Personality disorders and normal personality dimensions in obsessive—compulsive disorder. *The British Journal of Psychiatry, 177*(5), 457–462. Retrieved from http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/177/5/457.long.
> 6 votes

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Tags: abnormal-psychology, personality
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# Question
Title: Super polymath feasibility: Is it possible to have the highest intellectual ability in every area?
Could a single individual have the abilities of Gauss in mathematics, play soccer like Messi, write like Dostoyevsky, play chess like Carlsen, have ideas in physics comparable to those of Einstein, have the talent of Mozart in music, and so on for every area?

Since this have never happened, maybe there are limitations to how talented a person can be, or time limitations for a single individual to develop all of them. What does neuroscience have to say about it?

Note: I got this question from Sigma Society (in Portuguese). I've found nothing more about it, maybe because it's too speculative.

# Answer
> 2 votes
I'm inclined to see it as more a matter of statistics. Since you're asking a question of rank, the possibility depends on the population. For an extreme example, if you were the last man on earth, you'd be your own super polymath by default! Given a population of $N\>7\rm B$, competition is of course much fiercer. Since the chance of being #1 in any skill is infinitesimal to begin with, the chance of being #1 in multiple skills is several times more infinitesimal. Granted, these are not independent probabilities; there is evidence of a general factor of intelligence.

Nonetheless, math, soccer, creative writing, chess, physics, and music all involve somewhat different kinds of intelligence; quantitative, kinesthetic, verbal, strategic, spatial, and musical intelligences may all be partially independent. Furthermore, none of these are purely intuitive for anyone. Culture-dependent conventions influence each to at least limited extents. Therefore experience comes into play, and some amount of practice may be necessary to express ability in any of these domains. The more separate domains a person of any innate ability attempts to master through practice is the thinner the person's time for each will be spread, which further reduces one's competitiveness versus specialists.

In issues of rank, sometimes very small practical differences separate the performances of competitors; you need only watch a few minutes of the Olympics to see this principle demonstrated. You may also disagree with scoring systems in the Olympics if you watch a little longer. This indicates another problem with high-level competition: ability measurement becomes less reliable at extremes. See a related question: How can psychometry measure the very high IQ's in adults? Taking this into account, we now face the dual challenge of first producing an incredibly improbable individual with maximally extraordinary abilities, then having identified this individual (itself not a trivial task), performing accurate assessments demonstrating her/his superiority over all others. Again, from a statistical standpoint, odds aren't good.

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Tags: intelligence, cognitive-neuroscience
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# Question
Title: Do the students that report "friendly" teachers perform better on standardized tests?
I'll preface this by saying that I've been considering this question in light of the "Summer of Love" initiative and subsequent blog posts, which are looking at the extent to which comments are "friendly" on Stack Exchange.

Much of the impetus behind the movement is a commitment to treating new members better, and it's safe to assume that a majority of these new members are here for help in the process of learning something (e.g., programming, statistics, new software). Comments can both set the tone while also being a means through which to deliver learning.

The actual Stack Exchange study is measuring the response of a third party to the comments made on the site, but, as more readily available system, I'd like to find out if a teacher who projects a "friendly" attitude positively affects the learning process. Conversely, it's not ideal if a teacher uses "unorthodox" methods to motivate students (e.g., sarcasm), but controlling for all other factors, could these methods actually motivate some students to learn better?

While the analogy between educators, students, and Stack Exchange participants is far from perfect, is there support in the educational psychology literature for the notion that teachers reported by students as "friendlier" (on average) help those students achieve higher levels of performance on standardized tests and other evaluations?

# Answer
> 4 votes
There's a different way to treat the question, as being *"are instructor evaluations by students an effective way to measure performance?"*.

There's an obvious moral hazard created by student evaluations where the attempt to incentivize educator's to perform well makes a form of collusion attractive: Students get good grades and teachers are rewarded with good feedback. Other things being equal, that could indicate a lowering of standards rather then improved performance.

It's a bit of a stretch to apply this directly to the context of SE, but bear in mind that if a policy change ("be nice") is intended to improve quality, it's important to monitor quality independently from the supposed surrogate metric. You may find that people report a friendlier environment while overall quality decreases.

The book "How to teach mathematics, 2nd Ed", Steven kranz 1999 devotes a section to the subject of teacher evaluations and cites several studies. I'll describe some of them, with a bias towards those critical of such evaluations. The book is more balanced.

"How'm I doing", Ceci & Williams (1997) laments the lack of experimental data to support the increasing weight given to such evaluations. They do claim studies show a positive correlation between higher grades and higher ratings (your original question), though as I just mentioned you can paint the causation picture in a sinister way. For example, I would imagine bad questions/answers that get bad feedback will elicit complaints of "unfriendliness". Discouraging people from giving negative feedback would reduce those and thus improve reported "friendliness", but quality seems likely to suffer.

Another study described is Ambady & rosenthal (1993) which compared the teacher ratings given by a group after a full term group To those given by a seperate group after viewing a 30 second segment of the teacher's recorded lecture (without sound). The ratings agreed to a high degree which, either way you look at it, suggests that "first impressions" are either a good predictor or strongly bias the final rating given.

The core study detailed demonstrated that a deliberate change in delivery style (enthusiasm) had a significant (statistically and quantitatively) effect on how the teacher's knowledgeability, accessibility, and tolerance were rated. Read the paper for caveats and study design.

"Dr. Jekyll or Professor Hyde?" by Martino is cited (I could not locate a pdf) which contains multiple examples of samples evaluations from students in a course which state completely opposite evaluations. The obvious question being, If A and B have roughly identical interactions with you, yet one claims you're friendly and the other says you're mean, what are you really?.

The book goes on to detail multiple studies that show evaluations do have many good properties such as consistency over time, good correlation with peer evaluation and so on. I suggest you follow up on it to complete the partial and rather biased view I gave.

1. http://www.amazon.com/How-Teach-Mathematics-Steven-Krantz/dp/0821813986
2. https://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs301/sp14/resources/Williams\_Howm\_I\_Doing.pdf
3. http://ambadylab.stanford.edu/pubs/1993Ambady.pdf

# Answer
> 5 votes
I am answering this in parts, as an overview for issues relating to learning outcomes and perceived teacher friendliness.

To assist, I would categorise friendliness to mean encouragement and rapport (respect may or may not be correlated within this).

Firstly to address integrating theories of teaching and learning.

> Theories of learning and theories of teaching often originate and operate independently from one another. This article attempts to contribute to the integration of the two types of theories. First, the cognitive, affective and regulative activities students use to learn are analyzed. Next, different ways in which teachers can regulate the learning and thinking activities of students are discussed, as well as the teaching strategies they can use for that aim. The third part focuses on different ways in which student-regulation and teacher-regulation of learning act upon one another. Congruence and friction between these modes of control are discussed. From this interplay implications are derived for process-oriented teaching, aimed at promoting congruence and constructive friction, avoiding destructive friction and reducing the gap between learning and teaching. 1

Secondly a study that shows the beneficial and cyclic effect of an encouraging teacher/student relationship. *(note the reverse is true for students caught within a negative cycle)*

> On the basis of a new model of motivation, the authors examined the effects of 3 dimensions of teacher (n = 14) behavior (involvement, structure, and autonomy support) on 144 children's (Grades 3–5) behavioral and emotional engagement across a school year. Correlational and path analyses revealed that teacher involvement was central to children's experiences in the classroom and that teacher provision of both autonomy support and optimal structure predicted children's motivation across the school year. Reciprocal effects of student motivation on teacher behavior were also found. Students who showed higher initial behavioral engagement received subsequently more of all 3 teacher behaviors. These findings suggest that students who are behaviorally disengaged receive teacher responses that should further undermine their motivation. The importance of the student–teacher relationship, especially interpersonal involvement, in optimizing student motivation is highlighted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved) 2

This study examines the effects of positive versus negative verbal reinforcement on different personality types. It would appear that not all people perform best within the cycle of "friendliness".

> However, there was a highly significant interaction between these variables; extraverts performed better under positive than negative reinforcement, whilst introverts performed better under negative than positive reinforcement. 3

Which brings me to my last point, which is that motivation appears to be improved by a balance between friendliness creating a tension within the classroom. It also shows that both positive and negative reinforcement are necessary.

> **Motivation**
> • Set a feeling or tone for the lesson. Instructors should try to establish a friendly, open atmosphere that shows the participants they will help them learn.
> • Set an appropriate level of concern. The level of tension must be adjusted to meet the level of importance of the objective. If the material has a high level of importance, a higher level of tension/stress should be established in the class. However, people learn best under low to moderate stress; if the stress is too high, it becomes a barrier to learning.
>
> **Reinforcement**
> • Positive reinforcement is normally used by instructors who are teaching participants new skills. As the name implies, positive reinforcement is "good" and reinforces "good" (or positive) behavior.
> • Negative reinforcement is the contingent removal of a noxious stimulus that tends to increase the behavior. The contingent presentation of a noxious stimulus that tends to decrease a behavior is called Punishment. Reinforcing a behavior will never lead to extinction of that behavior by definition. Punishment and Time Out lead to extinction of a particular behavior, but positive or negative reinforcement of that behavior never will 4

**In conclusion**
From the available studies, an underlying friendliness, which enables approachability b students, facilitates learning, but a certain level of discipline and the boundary creating an unequal relationship is also necessary. Suggesting that balance is the key and there are no hard and fast rules, as people have varying learning styles.

**1** Congruence and friction between learning and teaching Jan D Vermunt, Nico Verloop Leiden University, ICLON — Graduate School of Education, P.O. Box 9555, 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0959-4752(98)00028-0, How to Cite or Link Using DOI Permissions & Reprints

 **2** Motivation in the classroom: Reciprocal effects of teacher behavior and student engagement across the school year. Skinner, Ellen A.; Belmont, Michael J. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 85(4), Dec 1993, 571-581. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.85.4.571

 **3** Effects of positive and negative verbal reinforcement on performance as a function of extraversion-introversion: Some tests of Gray's theory John Boddy, Annabel Carver, Kevin Rowley Department of Psychology, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, England http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(86)90111-X, How to Cite or Link Using DOI Permissions & Reprints

 **4** Carrie Ekey, Literacy Coaches Training, Feb. 2012 PRINCIPLES OF ADULT LEARNING By Stephen LiebSenior Technical Writer and Planner, Arizona Department of Health Servicesand part-time Instructor, South Mountain Community Collegefrom VISION, Fall 1991

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Tags: reference-request, performance, test, educational-psychology, attitudes
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