# Question
Title: Can the brain be trained into a state of persistent happiness?
Happiness is a state of mind. Can we retain this state even in the case of sadness, depression, or a dire situation through training? What methods could one use in order to train the brain to retain the happy state?

# Answer
> 4 votes
I'm not sure about the trained part, but there have been cases where people have spontaneously shifted into a very enjoyable state of mind for a very long time, for example: Eckhart Tolle, who supposedly spent 2 years in utter bliss.

# Answer
> 4 votes
This is a big question, but here are a few thoughts.

While we could argue about the details, concepts around set points and the hedonic treadmill have reasonable empirical support. The general finding is that life satisfaction ratings are fairly stable from year to year (Lucas & Donnellan, 2007) which suggests that there are relatively stable individual differences in the tendency to be happy or sad and such individual differences are only weakly related to factors in the external environment (see this discussion of subjective well-being. There have also been studies that have looked at the effect of particularly negative (e.g., divorce, unemployment, disability) and particularly positive (e.g., winning the lottery) events (e.g., Lucas, 2007). Longitudinal research looking at these events tends to show a short term effect of the event on well-being followed by a fairly substantial recovery of well-being levels over time. That said, research is conflict about whether such recovery (or return to base line in the case of positive events) is complete, there are individual differences in the recovery, and the recovery may take several years.

It's also worth noting that when surveyed, most people tend to report being satisfied with their life and generally happy.

More generally, emotional experience and well-being can be viewed as a functional homeostatic process. This is related to the idea that emotions serve functional purposes (e.g., Keltner & Gross, 1999). Such theories and the empirical evidence suggest that sustained experience of extreme happiness would be very unusual and possibly maladaptive.

Of course, there is evidence for the effectiveness of drugs and psychotherapy in treating depression and related disorders, where arguably the capacity to adaptively use emotions has broken down. But this is more about restoring people to normal levels of emotional functioning.

While I can't deny the possibility that such mood enhancement training could exist, I would be highly sceptical of any programs that promised to offer you long term ecstasy.

### References

* Lucas, R. E. (2007). Long-term disability is associated with lasting changes in subjective well-being: evidence from two nationally representative longitudinal studies. Journal of personality and social psychology, 92(4), 717.
* Lucas, R. E., & Donnellan, M. B. (2007). How stable is happiness? Using the STARTS model to estimate the stability of life satisfaction. Journal of Research in Personality, 41(5), 1091-1098.
* Keltner, D., & Gross, J. J. (1999). Functional accounts of emotions. Cognition & Emotion, 13(5), 467-480. http://www.personal.kent.edu/~dfresco/CBT\_Readings/keltner\_&\_gross.pdf

# Answer
> 3 votes
I would say it is impossible.

Being unhappy is a necessary experience to make the feeling of happiness arise. Maybe there is some joyful state that can persist over time without unhappiness but I doubt it.

As I see it, unhappiness at times comes with the deal of living.

# Answer
> 3 votes
You could try meditation. Meditation practices have been shown to have an effect size similar or higher to antidepressants.

"During the course of 2to 6 months, the mindfulness meditation program ES estimates ranged from 0.22 to 0.38 for anxiety symptoms and 0.23 to 0.30 for depressive symptoms. These small effects are comparable with what would be expected from the use of an antidepressant in a primary care population but without the associated toxicities. In a study using patient-level meta-analysis, Fournier et al81 found that for patients with mild to moderate depressive symptoms, antidepressants had an ES of 0.11 (95% CI, −0.18 to 0.41), whereas for those with severe depression, antidepressants had an ES of 0.17 (−0.08 to 0.43) compared with placebo."

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=1809754

"The richness of present-moment experience is the richness of life itself."

http://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/3/1/1/htm

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Tags: emotion, well-being, depression, brain-training
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title: What are the side effects of Anger?

text:
# Question
Title: What are the side effects of Anger?
Are there any side effects i.e. any hormonal changes , dopamine release when we get anger or while we shout or outburst in anger?

Because we feel satisfied getting anger in a situation than keeping our emotions shut!

# Answer
> 6 votes
This is actually a pretty complicated question.

In general, there isn't a lot of consistent evidence that would suggest that discrete emotions like anger have stereotyped response patterns. Anger is a fairly heterogeneous emotion category, meaning that it may not look the same (and have the same outcomes) in any given situation. Consequently, there may not be a good (or at least simple) answer to your question. This is the "psychological constructionist" argument (for a comprehensive overview, see Barrett & Russell, 2014).

On the other hand "basic emotion" proponents (Ekman, Izard, Panksepp) would suggest that activation of an "anger circuit" in the brain reliably produces a particular response pattern (e.g., feelings of unpleasantness, high arousal, approach motivation, certain facial expressions, hormonal changes, etc.). However, attempts to match these responses with specific emotions like anger have never quite worked out. Also, recent meta-analyses looking at emotion in the brain don't seem to support this perspective (e.g., Lindquist et al., 2012).

Edit: I don't find Wikipedia's explanation (linked by Mike) to be particularly convincing since it cites an article published 15 years ago. Emotion research has come a long way since then.

Edit2: Sources

1. For general psychological constructionist arguments about the nature of emotion, see: Barrett 2006 and Barrett 2014
2. For basic emotion arguments, see: Ekman & Cordaro 2011
3. For reviews on mapping physiological changes to emotions, see: Cacioppo et al. 2000, Stemmler 2004, and for a theory-driven review of reviews/meta-analyses see Quigley & Barrett 2014

# Answer
> 2 votes
You can glance at Wikipedia to get a first impression:

> According to Novaco, "Autonomic arousal is primarily engaged through adrenomedullary and adrenocortical hormonal activity. The secretion by the adrenal medulla of the catecholamines, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, and by the adrenal cortex of glucocorticoids provides a sympathetic system effect that mobilizes the body for immediate action (e.g. the release of glucose, stored in the liver and muscles as glycogen). In anger, the catecholamine activation is more strongly norepinephrine than epinephrine (the reverse being the case for fear). The adrenocortical effects, which have longer duration than the adrenomedullary ones, are mediated by secretions of the pituitary gland, which also influences testosterone levels. The pituitary-adrenocortical and pituitary-gonadal systems are thought to affect readiness or potentiation for anger responding.
>
> Neuroscience has shown that emotions are generated by multiple structures in the brain. The rapid, minimal, and evaluative processing of the emotional significance of the sensory data is done when the data passes through the amygdala in its travel from the sensory organs along certain neural pathways towards the limbic forebrain. Emotion caused by discrimination of stimulus features, thoughts, or memories however occurs when its information is relayed from the thalamus to the neocortex.

Anyhow I can't access the reference papers but this should be a good starting point..

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, emotion
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# Question
Title: What's the difference between inductive and deductive research in cog sci?
I'm not really clear on what the implications are for inductive vs deductive research methodology and analysis. Any examples or input would be great!

# Answer
As far as my knowledge goes, I don't think these two types of reasoning in cogsci are any different to other forms of inductive or deductive reasoning: one is a bottom-up approach and the other a top-down process.

Deductive reasoning starts at the general and moves towards the specific, going from theory to hypothesis, observation to a confirmation. This is good science: a priori we form specific predictions and test them in very restrictive lab settings. An example could be examining modular and embodied approaches to cognition, forming a specific hypothesis about a specific circumstance, and then testing it.

Inductive reasoning on the other hand works visa-versa, going from an observation to a pattern, a tentative hypothesis to a theory. This is not always a good way to work, especially for quantitative methods, as it relies upon post hoc interpretations of observed effects. Work of this form could be interested in understanding stress in the workplace, may interview people about it and then finally form a conclusion based upon these conversations.

The latter is more useful to *qualitative* research, the former is practically necessary for *quantitative* work.
> 1 votes

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Tags: methodology, reproducible-research
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# Question
Title: Is there an accurate online IQ test for measuring 160+ IQs?
Is there some (preferably free) online and accurate IQ test?
One which does not give me an genius IQ and then tries to sell me a diploma.
I need one which measures upto 160 sd15 (or higher). Such a test would probably document its norming process somehow.

# Answer
There are at least two problems with measuring high intelligence:

(1) Any IQ test has a maximum difficulty. That means that all subjects above a certain intelligence answer all questions correctly and get the same maximum score. This is called the "ceiling effect".

Now you might say, that we simply need to construct a test that is difficult enough for even the most intelligent person to make some mistakes.

(2) The problem with special "high IQ" tests is that you cannot draw a large enough sample to norm this test. An IQ score is not an absolute value, like height, where you measure from a zero point to a certain length and each length has a meaning in itself in relation to that zero point. IQ does not have a zero point (there is no measurable total absence of intelligence), and the values of an IQ test are defined in relation to the average intelligence of the population that person comes from.

To norm a test, it is applied to a large sample of the population, and the mean and the shape of the distribution are calculated. The mean is defined as 100, the distribution is defined by the standard deviation, which for an IQ test is 15. The norming is done for different countries and at different times. This also means, that you cannot compare an IQ score from France to one from Spain, and that you cannot compare an IQ score from 1950 to one from 2007, at least not without some mathematical trickery similar to calculating the temperature in Centigrade from one given in Fahrenheit.

Now, since there are very few very intelligent people, even if all of them took the test your sample would be too small to reliably calculate a mean and the distribution. (And you couldn't test any of them ever again, because they already took the test and know the questions.)

Finally, you wouldn't know how the scores from this test relate to scores from other tests. In an IQ test with which you test the whole population, the average is set to be 100. Since all different IQ tests are normed for the whole population, you can set all their means at 100 and compare their scores. For a test that tests only a non-average subset of the population, like very intelligent people, the average must be somewhere else, because of course highly intelligent people are not of average intelligence. But where do you set it in relation to the 100 of the average population? You would need their scores from a normal IQ test to calculate this, but (now the circle closes) since a normal IQ test cannot measure them due to the ceiling effect, you don't know where they are in relation to the average IQ of 100.

Conclusion:

While you can create an intelligence test to measure the intelligence of highly intelligent people, this test will not give you a result that has any meaning in relation to the IQ, so in fact it is not an IQ test.

IQ is not intelligence (a trait), but a construct. IQ is what is measured by an IQ test, as the saying goes. A high intelligence test measures a different construct.
> 24 votes

# Answer
What you are asking for does not really exist, no serious IQ test would ever give a score of 160.

IQ scores get swamped with noise more than ~30 points from the mean.

For example, an IQ of 160 means you are are more intelligent than 99.996% percent of people while an IQ of 150 means you are more intelligent than 99.957% of people. No test could claim to measure that difference with a strait face.
> 9 votes

# Answer
To add to the existing answers (of which @what's gets special mention), an issue I don't think has really been addressed is the statistical reason for it being so difficult to measure extremely high IQs.

By design, IQ is scaled so that it's normally distributed, with a mean of 100, and a standard deviation (SD) of 15. A well known feature of the normal distribution is that 68% of values are within one SD of the mean, 95% within 2, and 99.75 within 3. This means that only .03% of IQ scores are more than 3 SDs from the mean: above $100 + 15\*3 = 145$, or below $100 - 15\*3 = 55$.

It's even more unusual to find values over 160 (4 SDs) or under 40, with 99.993% of IQs being within this range. This means that only .0035% of people are likely to have IQs over 160. If you normed your IQ test on a sample of 1 million people (which is obviously totally unrealistic), you would only find ~30 with a 160+ IQ, rendering it impossible to accurately estimate a single individuals IQ in that range.

> Simulated distribution of IQ for a population of 7 million (1/1000 the global population). Vertical lines indicate standard deviations (15 points). In this simulation, 238 people have IQs \> 160.
> 7 votes

# Answer
Have a look at the different High IQ societies here: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/High\_IQ\_society

The best societies to look at for 160+ are:

**All of them have references to test** (some of it is online).

***For ease of access, here are the societies from top 5% onwards***

* Top 5% (95th percentile; 1/20; IQ 124 sd15, IQ 126 sd16): International High IQ Society
* Top 2% (98th percentile; 1/50; IQ 130 sd15, IQ 132 sd16): Encefálica Society, High Potentials Society, Mensa International, Mysterium Society
* Top 1% (99th percentile; 1/100; IQ 135 sd15, IQ 137 sd16): Intertel, Top One Percent Society
* Top 0.7% (99.3rd percentile; 1/147; IQ 137 sd15): Sunesis Society(Defunct)
* Top 0.5% (99.5th percentile; 1/200; IQ 139 sd15, IQ 141 sd16): Colloquy (Society), Poetic Genius Society\[2\]
* Top 0.37% (99.63rd percentile; 1/270; IQ 140 sd15): Infinity International Society, HispanIQ International Society
* Top 0.3% (99.7th percentile; 3/1000; IQ 141 sd15, IQ 144 sd16): Cerebrals Society
* Top 0.2% (99.8th percentile; 1/500; IQ 143 sd15, IQ 146 sd16): exactiq high IQ society
* Top 0.13% (99.87th percentile; 13/10000; IQ 145 sd15, IQ 148 sd16): CIVIQ Society
* Top 0.1% (99.9th percentile; 1/1000; IQ 146 sd15, IQ 149 sd16): Glia Society, International High IQ Society Milenija, International Society for Philosophical Enquiry, Iquadrivium Society\[2\], One-in-a-Thousand Society\[2\], Triple Nine Society
* Top 0.003% (99.997th percentile; 3/100000; IQ 160 sd15, IQ 164 sd16): Prometheus Society, Tetra Society
* Top 0.001% (99.999th percentile, 1/100000; IQ 164 sd 15, IQ 168 sd 16): eximia high IQ society, The Ultranet\[3\]
* Top 0.0001% (99.9999th percentile; 1/1000000; IQ 172 sd15, IQ 176 sd16): Mega Society, GenerIQ Society
* Top 0.0000001% (99.9999999th percentile; 1/1,000,000,000; IQ 190 sd15, IQ 196 sd16): Giga Society
> 3 votes

# Answer
The oldest and largest high IQ society in the world is Mensa. They offer membership only to those who have an IQ in the top 2%. They administer their own test to qualify those who seek membership.

There are also online IQ tests that claim to be Mensa IQ tests, but I am unsure of their validity. However, Mensa only recognize the results of tests that they personally supervise, so any online IQ test proclaiming you a genius is just a novelty really, as online IQ tests are not recognized as having any special significance by any 3rd party.

If you are really serious about knowing how your IQ compares, I would suggest getting in contact with Mensa since they are the experts about that.
> 1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, intelligence, test
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# Question
Title: How can I understand the phenomenon of mood better?
I have been trying to understand the psychology of liking, for example a particular object(human or non-human). But I am unable to proceed with my experiments(I am just an amateur) because I myself discover that I like things at one moment and show no interest in them some other moment in time. Most of the things I see depend also on my mood. So it is this aspect called "mood" upon which I request the community members to throw some light upon.

What is the psychology of mood? Are there any books or mature/good reference materials to understand this phenomenon of mood better?

# Answer
Are you interested in mood, emotion, or affect? Or all three?

Mood is considered a "diffuse" affective state, whereas emotions are "object specific." If you're interested in this distinction, look up Mathias Siemer's work. Gerald Clore also does work on mood.

If you're interested in emotions, then this is a bit harder to tell you who to look up. There's a vast body of literature on many different things relating to emotions. If you're interested in pure theory, look up Paul Ekman, Klaus Scherer, and Lisa Feldman Barrett. If you're interested in emotion regulation, look up James Gross. If you're interested in positive emotions, look up Barbara Frederickson. The list goes on! If you want a not particularly comprehensive overview, you can look at the *Handbook of Emotions*.

If you're interested in affect (arousal and valence), look up James Russell.

Hope this helps.
> 5 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, emotion, mood
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# Question
Title: Are there any pragmatic uses of hallucinogens?
Hallucinogens (psilocybin, LSD and others) are often regarded as risky substances, therefore they are banned in most places.

Are there ways of using these substances that can be beneficial?
Or in other words can a hallucination, or a set of hallucinations, have a positive value?

# Answer
> 8 votes
Hallucinogens play an important psycho-social role in many societies. Their positive impact seem to be primarily religious (see Tripping the Way to God: Hallucinogens and Religion).

However they do play an important role in the lab inducing a state similar to psychosis. They also play a limited role in psychiatry. Psychedelic psychotherapy as the name suggested is the combination of hallucinogens with a form of psychotherapy. It is not widely practiced. Research into cannabidiol\], a cannabis constituent with anti-psychotic properties instead of the typical high anxiety and psychosis symptoms, has been published; see "Cannabidiol, a Cannabis sativa constituent, as an antipsychotic drug" by Zuardi et al, 2006.

Eli Lilly tried to make a drug based on these glutamate receptors interactions called LY2140023. It was shown to be ineffective by itself. Many hallucinogens are used for alternative primary purpose like benadryl and nitrous oxide (laughing gas).

# Answer
> 2 votes
A paper I've read (Roche, 2010) gives a rather pessimistic view about the revelatory powers of hallucinogenics and suggests that they are rather detrimental to a rational worldview if used in the long-term. However the author also acknowledges that there is a correlation between intuitive thinking and the hallucinogenic experience. The paper draws on many sources and is very interesting to read.

A quote from Terrence McKenna who used LSD exuberantly..

> So I did it and...there was a something, like a flower, like a chrysanthemum in orange and yellow that was sort of spinning, spinning, and then it was like I was pushed from behind and I fell through the chrysanthemum into another place that didn't seem like a state of mind, it seemed like another place. And what was going on in this place aside from the tastefully soffited indirect lighting, and the crawling geometric hallucinations along the domed walls, what was happening was that there were a lot of beings in there, what I call self-transforming machine elves. Sort of like jeweled basketballs all dribbling their way toward me. And if they'd had faces they would have been grinning, but they didn't have faces. And they assured me that they loved me and they told me not to be amazed; not to give way to astonishment.
>
> — (McKenna, 1993)

Psilocybin has been studied to alleviate depression in cancer patients in a well-designed study (Griffiths et al. 2016). Excerpt from the abstract:

> The effects of psilocybin were studied in 51 cancer patients with life-threatening diagnoses and symptoms of depression and/or anxiety. This randomized, double-blind, cross-over trial investigated the effects of a very low (placebo-like) dose (1 or 3 mg/70 kg) vs. a high dose (22 or 30 mg/70 kg) of psilocybin administered in counterbalanced sequence with 5 weeks between sessions and a 6-month follow-up. Instructions to participants and staff minimized expectancy effects. Participants, staff, and community observers rated participant moods, attitudes, and behaviors throughout the study. High-dose psilocybin produced large decreases in clinician- and self-rated measures of depressed mood and anxiety, along with increases in quality of life, life meaning, and optimism, and decreases in death anxiety. At 6-month follow-up, these changes were sustained, with about 80% of participants continuing to show clinically significant decreases in depressed mood and anxiety. Participants attributed improvements in attitudes about life/self, mood, relationships, and spirituality to the high-dose experience, with \>80% endorsing moderately or greater increased well-being/life satisfaction.

## References

Griffiths, R. R., Johnson, M. W., Carducci, M. A., Umbricht, A., Richards, W. A., Richards, B. D., ... & Klinedinst, M. A. (2016). Psilocybin produces substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer: A randomized double-blind trial. *Journal of psychopharmacology, 30*(12), 1181-1197. doi: 10.1177/0269881116675513

McKenna, T. (1993). *Alien Dreamtime* \[video\].

Roche, G. T. (2010). Seeing Snakes: On Delusion, Knowledge, and the Drug Experience. In Dale Jacquette, ed. *Cannabis Philosophy for Everyone: What Were We Just Talking About? Chapter 2*, 35-49. Oxford: Blackwell. doi: 10.1002/9781444324440.ch2

# Answer
> 0 votes
Psychotroph substances assume to have a lot of potential.

Due they where banned pretty soon after their appearance in western culture, we know almost nothing about them. In some cultures there is a large knowledge about spiritual usage, but as it is in cultural things, near to none scientific research. In the UK they started research in the 1990s and it seems like LSD/Psylocibin (which seem to have nearby exact the same effect on our brain) can be used to tread phobia and psychcological traumata in manifold issues.

Albert Hofmann(who discovered LSD) said, LSD would not alter the consciousness but expand it. Like an catalystic converter wich is needet to use the full potential of our consciousness. In his book "LSD - Mein Sorgenkind" he wrote that the things a proband sees are not hallucination but input to his sensory organ which he doesn't know and wich might overexcite him. This catches up with expirienced users of such drugs(multiple 10 times to over 100 uses), wich tell that the chance of horrortrips lowered with every usage and also they gained the abillity to "controll" their expirience in some form.

Beside of this, there are many artists wich tell that their creativity expand under influence of LSD, and even a single use in lifetime had expand the creativity.

It's assumed that depressive people have a high chance to better their condition. But the chance of horrortrips, even if this chance is really low, is a too high risk to use it in that issue.

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Tags: psychopharmacology, hallucinations
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title: Psychology of Sympathizing with Death

text:
# Question
Title: Psychology of Sympathizing with Death
1. Why do we sympathize in general when we see something or someone dying even if we personally don't know it/them?
2. Is there any species other than humans which sympathize with the death of its own species?
3. Is there any species other than humans which sympathize with the death of other species?

# Answer
> 1 votes
1. Empathy (exists because cooperation can lead to better survival chances)
2. Elephants, apes (chimpanzee), donkeys.
3. Dolphins at least see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy#Evolution

https://books.google.ch/books?hl=en&lr=&id=tNaTfIlMh8wC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=empathy+death+animal&ots=2J8RPQfOy3&sig=BJuNrb4k7JtiVAFqmWEbeZjiFB8#v=onepage&q=dolphin&f=false

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Tags: animal-cognition, health-psychology
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# Question
Title: How to engage in the conceptualization process to measure a psychological construct such as femininity?
I am in class for Research Methods and I am having troubles with a conceptualizations process. The question is to describe the conceptualization process you would employ to measure femininity. How exactly do you do that?

# Answer
> 3 votes
Conceptualization in a research methods context basically means generating a precise definition. You and I might have different ideas of what it means to be feminine, which would make it difficult to measure. In order to conduct research that measures femininity, a precise definition is needed so that everyone has a common understanding of what exactly it is that is being measured. You might start this process by identifying different aspects of femininity and generating a list. Then you could try to summarize your list with a few sentences that describes your conceptualization or definition of femininity.

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Tags: social-psychology, measurement, methodology
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# Question
Title: What is the bias/thought process that results in distrust of "formal" knowledge in favor of "folk" knowledge?
An interesting effect I've noticed is that certain groups of people seem to accept "folk knowledge" and value it over significantly better founded "formal" or scientific knowledge. In particular this is notable in many discussions of Psychology and vaccinations. Scientific evidence is clearly on one side, but an odd distrust seems to exist for some which makes the unproven or disproven "folk" knowledge more acceptable to them.

This effect seems sort of like Illusory Superiority, but it seems to not quite be that; Illusory Superiority is the tendency of one person to overestimate *their own* abilities or knowledge. It's possible a number of biases are at work but I can't think of a single one which fully covers what's at work when one outright rejects facts based solely on *other* sources, rather than one's own experiences or topical knowledge (which certainly influence one's willingness to believe facts).

Is this a known/named effect? Is there anything that drives these oddly specific examples of distrust against logic-based evidence?

# Answer
This might be a matter of social proof; people generally absorb folk knowledge in a less-impersonal way than formal knowledge (your grandmother says it works, instead of hearing/reading that it might work from a reporter who read the abstract of the paper that says so). I don't know if there has been formal work examining the role of social proof in the acceptance of folk knowledge, though.
> 4 votes

# Answer
One way to understand why people think this way is to replace the word "scientist" with "industry scientist". I think most of us would not trust a scientific study about smoking funded by the Tobocco Institute, or study on global warming funded by Exxon. The view, as I understand it, of many of the anti-vaxxers is that the studies done showing vaccines are safe were done by the drug companies selling those drugs, and therefore aren't to be trusted. While I disagree with them, I am quite concerned by how much of the testing that is done to determine drug safety and efficacy is carried out by the industry itself, and is therefore prone to conflicts of interest, so I don't consider it a totally crazy point of view.
> 0 votes

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Tags: terminology, social-psychology, bias
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# Question
Title: How can I structure this question to check for availability bias?
I'm preparing a survey right now and one of the questions I'm looking to answer is: How much does availability bias effect the decision making process for *\[given behaviour\]*?

My question is: What's the best way to structure a survey question, or set of questions to test for this heuristic?

My current thinking is that I shouldn't mention specific options a respondent may select, because doing so will prime the respondents.

i.e. I can't mention specific detergent brands and then ask "Which detergent brand are you most likely to buy this month?", as that data won't be valid.

But the possible options a respondent might give if the question is completely open are endless.

Does anybody have any experience in this type of survey and can lend some insight?

# Answer
> 1 votes
it seems that you can use randomization of options to decrease bias. That is, present every respondent with multiple choices but in completely random order. Also, bias might be directly tested on two groups, say A&B. Only difference will be the order of available answers.

This manual seems to be very helpful: Handbook of Survey Research, Ch.9 Question and Questionnaire Design

This is shorter insight: SurveyMonkey Blog: Question Order Matters

# Answer
> 1 votes
A few options.

* You could start with an open ended question and then move to closed ended questions for leading brands and perhaps any other options listed in the previously open ended process.
* You could use an input box that takes text and shows partial matches which people then select (e.g., a bit like in Facebook when selecting a friend)

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Tags: consumer-psychology, behavioral-economics, survey, bias
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# Question
Title: Cause and cure of silly behavior in children
What can be some of the causes/reasons that a child (in the 7-year-old range) to speak in a silly voice and in a silly way, more than an average child? I don't know how to be more specific by silly voice and in a silly way, but I mean that the child speaks with a different voice, usually mimicking a spoiled 2-year old in a way that is not the natural way that he usually speaks and It is pretty annoying and not very likable. It happens very often when the child communicates with grown ups. I am guessing it can be an attempt to draw attention or be liked more but I'm not a psychologist so I thought I'd ask. What are some of the causes of this type of behavior in children, and what are some of the cures for it? Is there a difference between causes in girls and boys? If you think I need to ask this question in Parenting SE, please let me know. thanks.

# Answer
Without knowing the child *and the adults* in question it is impossible to give more than some very general advice.

The current psychological view on parenting is that a child's behavior can be shaped by conditioning, both in wanted and unwanted ways. E.g. if you withdraw adult attention from the unwanted behavior (this includes not punishing it) and reinforce wanted behavior by rewarding it with attention and smiles, the child's behavior should change, if it is not pathological (which the current case does not sound like). Very likely this child behaves as he does because he cannot get what he wants any other way. His "silly" behahavior "works" in that it gets on your nerves and causes you to react. Through your reaction you have taught this child to act "silly".

If you think there is more to this child's behavior you might want to talk to a child psychologist in person.
> 1 votes

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Tags: behavior
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# Question
Title: Reconciling one-dimensional valence with distinct mechanisms for reward/punishment
It is a widespread notion in psychology that there are two dimensions to emotion: valence (aversiveness or attractiveness of some entity) and intensity. However, recent experimental studies in neuropsychology (e.g. those listed below) have given strong evidence for two distinct pathways which process reward and punishment associated with some input. This in turn compellingly suggests that valence is in fact made up of two independent dimensions, and I'm guessing there are behavioral studies reaching similar conclusions (i.e. that persons are able to have "mixed feelings"). How do we reconcile these views? Are we forced to reject one-dimensional valence on the basis of the evidence?

Distinct pathways for reward/punishment:

* Paton, Joseph J., and Kenway Louie. "Reward and punishment illuminated." Nature neuroscience 15.6 (2012): 807. (http://www.researchgate.net/publication/225043743\_Reward\_and\_punishment\_illuminated/file/e0b495227b6d325c3d.pdf)
* Fujiwara, Juri, et al. "Segregated and integrated coding of reward and punishment in the cingulate cortex." Journal of Neurophysiology 101.6 (2009): 3284-3293.
* Monosov, Ilya E., and Okihide Hikosaka. "Regionally distinct processing of rewards and punishments by the primate ventromedial prefrontal cortex." The Journal of Neuroscience 32.30 (2012): 10318-10330.

# Answer
A meta-analysis of 397 neuroimaging studies was just published looking at this very question (see here).

They tested three hypotheses:

1. **Bipolarity** \- negative and positive are on the same continuum
2. **Bivalence** \- negative and positive are independent
3. **Affective workspace** \- valence is supported by a "flexible set of valence-general regions".

Their analyses are rather complicated, but they didn't find much support for the bipolarity or bivalence hypotheses. Instead, in support of the affective workspace hypothesis, they conclude (emphasis mine):

> These findings suggest that, **at the level of regional brain activity, there is no single region or even voxel that uniquely represents positivity or negativity**. Limbic tissue, including the anterior insula, rostral ACC/ventromedial prefrontal cortex, dorsal ACC, amygdala, ventral striatum, as well as several other regions including the thalamus and occipitotemporal cortex, appears to contain cells that are part of the brain’s valence-general affective workspace or “affective neural reference space

But they note that some brain regions have *preferences* for negativity or positivity, meaning that these brain regions may *tend to* represent negativity or positivity over the other.

This meta-analysis isn't definitive, but it's the best we have right now.
> 3 votes

# Answer
I think that we are. But the notion of 'valence' is already problematic, as a variation on mathematical negation, which produces bizarre mathematical artifacts like Russel's Paradox.

It is tempting to follow natural language and find two balancing processes always add up to a sign and a magnitude. But in fact no two processes are ever going to consistently align in perfectly opposite directions, and in the gaps there is still interesting behavior. Something as clean as real negation only ever occurs in language and in theory.

We know from earlier studies of memory that positive or negative memories are the result of separate reactions from the back-brain and the frontal lobe, and that people can actually become attached to negative stimuli like physical pain for the pleasure they produce.

One would expect the same sort of balancing act, if not exactly the same process in a less direct form, to explain the effects of reward and punishment. So there will be places, parallel to the situation of attraction to pain, where reward and punishment do not align as opposites. (Situations of getting attention through punishment, or in its aftermath come to mind.) In such situations, the notion of valence only gets in the way.
> 0 votes

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Tags: emotion, neuropsychology
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# Question
Title: Have different mental strengths evolved in men and women?
I think that men and women are different mentally (but nonetheless equals), however this way of thinking is very hard for me to explain philosophically, so I'd like to learn about what roots this concept might have in science.

It seems logical that per our different roles throughout history, especially in more primitive times, men and women would have evolved different strengths in areas our brains to excel in different ways.

**Have different mental strengths evolved in men and women?**

**Edit:** By "mental strengths", more specifically I mean specific types of cognitive thought processing. Behavioral capacities, for example. Areas of our brains that function at different strengths.

# Answer
There is little neurological evidence that finds a difference between men and women. However there are psychological studies that do find a *small difference in mental strengths*. This interesting TED talk debunking psychological myths by a lecturer from the University of Liverpool discusses the psychological differences between men and women.

Males and females are ***slightly different*** when it comes to **spacial awareness** (the top 1/3 of females perform as well as the top 1/2 of men) and **language** (the top 1/3 of men perform as well as the top 1/2 of women), but the difference is so slight that its not worth taking into consideration.

*I moved this answer over from the biology question.*
> 9 votes

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Tags: intelligence, evolutionary-psychology
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# Question
Title: Why clothes' color is different than it appeared in stores?
This is my first time askin on Cog Sci board, not sure this is a right place to ask but I think it's something relates to Psychology and Cognitive Science.

So yesterday I bought a shirt that looked very nice on my with its grayish color. I brought it back home and tried it again but I was surprised that the color was not as grayish as I had seen in the store, but rather bluish. Thought I picked up the wrong one so I asked my roommate but he said that it had happened to him once before that the color didn't turn out to be exactly the same as he had seen in store.

I'm interested in that phenomena but don't really have enough knowledge in that field to search for a right term or word. So can you please explain that phenomena in short and which field/term should I dig into in order to explore it more?

Thank you

# Answer
> 4 votes
It's difficult to say why this happened in your particular situation, but one contributing factor may be that color perception is relative. How a particular color is perceived depends on the surrounding colors. The best way to demonstrate this is through an optical illusion:

It looks like there are two different color hearts, but all of the hearts *are exactly the same color*. The illusion is created because the "green" hearts are striped with orange lines, and the "blue" hearts are striped with purple lines. Since color processing is relative, the different stripes cause us to perceive the underlying color very differently.This illusion comes from Akiyoshi Kitaoka's website, where there are several more examples.

# Answer
> 2 votes
The issue is probably the same as with fruits. Different lights produce different appearance. LED light has been shown to produce daylight appearance. I however can't find a high quality source.

http://news.discovery.com/human/led-lights-grocery-shopping-110308.htm

# Answer
> 1 votes
Lighting in the store makes a lot of difference. Though there isn't much incandescent any more, florescent bulbs vary. The reflective properties of the area matter, too. My biggest problem is matching socks having a brown component with my clothes. Under one light they're brown. Under another light they're green. When I get to work I'm dismayed.

Also, stores place items together in an ideal situation to sell, which often does not exist outside the store.

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Tags: color, metacognition
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# Question
Title: How can you forgive (and not only forget) evildoers without any remorse?
Given the mental and physical health benefits of forgiveness, how is it usually approached in psychological treatment? Despite hours of reading, I still don't understand, and can't even pinpoint why not. Please remark the following assumptions which restrict my definition of 'malefactor' to forgive:

> 1. The malefactor fails to repent or rue in any way, such as Mutsuhiro Watanabe (who tortured Captain Louis Zamperini about whom I write below) or the Holocaust perpetrators.
>
> 2. I ask about genuine forgiveness of the malefactor, and not merely forgetfulness.
>
> 3. The malefactor recognised his/her actions' turpitude but still wilfully executed them.

This question was motivated by such virtuous paragons as Ms Eva Kor and Capt Louis Zamperini, the latter of whom advised someone else by citing Mark Twain:

> “Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”

I recognise the futility in simply remaining enraged about past injustices, so I'd argue that one should act to resolve this resentment, such as by apprehending and punishing their captors. This is exactly the argument that has bewitched me but that I'd like to surmount; I want to appreciate: How and why could (even) tortured war veterans and concentration camp survivors decide against any revenge?

# Answer
The prerequisite for forgiveness is actually completely straightforward and easy to comprehend:

## Understand and accept the humanity of the perpetrator.

Most people are convinced that there is a fundamental difference between themselves and those that commit heineous crimes. Once you understand that the difference is at best gradual; once you face your own propensity for cruelty and violence; once you understand how an unfortunate combination of hereditary and environmental factors have lead to the deed -- you have laid the foundation upon which you may forgive the individual guilt.

This is really a broad topic, but think how the Milgram experiments showed how almost anyone could be talked into torturing another even without any valid reason. Now add to that everything that can go wrong in a person's life and it becomes quite understandable how someone can break and turn into a "monster". I am often surprised there is actually *so little* major crime!

For some victims it is helpful to learn what made the person that abused them who they are.

The second part is the *wish to forgive*. For that you need to understand the futility and destructiveness of revenge. Revenge does not bring back a killed loved one; it does not undo the experience of torture; all it does is turn *you* into the kind of person you despise: a person that tortures and kills. Successful revenge does not lead to happiness. Where forgiveness can cause a feeling of enlightenment and release, revenge fixes the state of loss and trauma and adds to it your own guilt.

Therapy will grant you a space and time for sorrow and rage and then attempt to help you let go and realize that a good and happy life are still possible if you turn towards it and allow it to happen.

This is usually not something that can be achieved by reading books. If you suffer from trauma you will profit from seeing a qualified therapist.
> 3 votes

# Answer
I think forgiving is a reasoned view. If we do not forgive people we lock ourselves into bigotry, viewing everyone's intentions reactively and with confirmation bias as to who we think they are. People who do evil by accepted definitions of same, might instead be viewed as representing one extreme of a spectrum. If overcoming confirmation bias is a learned skill, the ability to forgive might also be a learned skill and something we can choose to do better at.
> 0 votes

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Tags: clinical-psychology, positive-psychology, positive-thinking
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title: The belief becoming the self

text:
# Question
Title: The belief becoming the self
Is there a terminology or specific topic that explains the behaviour or phenomenon expressed in the following quote?

> The greatest anomaly of belief is that it is so powerful it takes over the identity of a man. People of belief believe so strongly that they become the belief. They are the belief. So anything or anyone that questions their belief is taken as a personal attack on themselves and their person. Belief is so powerful and deeply set in delusion that even if presented with verifiable proof and facts to the contrary; the believer reacts with emotional outburst ranging from anger to rage to violence even murder. In the case of phylogenetic group or culture insanity it leads to war and genocide.

# Answer
> 1 votes
If I have understood things right, I think it is some form of 'Cognitive dissonance'

According to wikipedia,"cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values"

I remember experiencing the feel in one of the Ayn Rand books. As kids, our basic belief would be that our parents love us the most. Their love is the purest form of unconditional love. No matter what you do, they will always love and be for you for what you are. Suddenly , one day you wake up to the fact that the belief you have is entirely foolish. Your parents love you not for 'what you are' but just because 'who you are - their child'. You question yourself if your parents(as persons) would love you the same way if you had not been their kid. Because the answer to the question is a simple no. I cried at the very thought. Our mind tries to defend the previous comforting belief and disprove the new bitter realization and then helplessly experience outbursts.

This is more seen in case of religious beliefs as said in the quote. Your deep rooted beliefs are shattered and the mind can't smoothly accept the new version - Cognitive Dissonance, as they term it.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, social-psychology
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# Question
Title: Does 3rd person reference to self change perception of self?
If you refer to yourself in the third person for a day how does your understanding of self change? For example are you more inclined to consider your actions and motivations from and external perspective and perhaps question them more deeply? Or perhaps, does an exercise like this lead to detachment from self and perhaps some form of depersonalization? And is there any research in this area?

# Answer
One way to think about this is called "self-distancing" (e.g., Kross & Ayduk, 2011), which has primarily been studied in terms of emotion regulation. Self-distancing is when you view your experiences from a third-person perspective. This is generally considered to be an adaptive form of self-reflection (as opposed to rumination, which is generally considered to be maladaptive). However, as a rule, most things are neither purely adaptive or maladaptive.

Self-distancing is a relatively potent strategy for dampening negative emotions (Webb, Miles & Sheeran, 2012) and is associated with reduced cardiovascular reactivity to negative experiences (Ayduk & Kross, 2008). It's also associated with a reduction in intrusive thoughts and more problem-solving behavior (Ayduk & Kross, 2010).

If you're interested in learning more about this, look up Ozlem Ayduk and Ethan Kross.
> 4 votes

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Tags: language, self
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# Question
Title: How many hours of speech do kids hear before learning a language?
I'd like some estimates of how many hours of English speech kids typically are exposed to before reaching various levels of mastery.

I realize this is a very fuzzy question, but I'm sure ballpark numbers must exist. The motivation for this question is trying to get a lower bound for the required size of a training corpus for automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Children, when they learn their first language, do not learn this language, rather they "learn the world". An adult spends some time of his day on learning a (second) language, and much time on other tasks. For an adult, the two (or more) activities are mostly separate. For a child learning a first language, learning this language is inseparably entwined with learning about what his perceptions mean and what his actions effect. It takes a normal child about 12 to 16 years to fully grasp the depths of his mother tongue, because a basic understanding of the world takes that long. And with "the depths" I do not mean all the words and perfect grammar, but a basic average ability to understand and express yourself in your mother tongue.

For a teenage or adult native English speaker learning a *second* language, an average of 575 (for "easy" languages) and 2200 class hours (for "difficult" languages) was estimated to reach a high level of proficiency (sources at Wikipedia). To this you have to add homework and self-directed learning for and after classes, so your overall learning hours will multiply. Numbers will differ for native speakers of other languages (because learning a language that is similar or even related to your own is easier).

(Do not forget that humans need time for knowledge to "settle". If you try to learn to much in too little time, the new knowledge pushes out what has not yet been "fixed" in your long term memory. So you need to spread these actual learning hours over several months or years, allowing for rest and active practise.)

# Answer
> 0 votes
Learning a language is a fuzzy concept and I am not sure how it relates to ASR. Individuals who are born deaf can often learn and master written and spoken language. To an extent many are exposed to hundreds (thousands) of hours of speech while observing mouth shapes and feeling the face and throat, but they have never heard the speech. I am not sure how this relates to ASR.

I think pre-lingually deaf individuals who receive a cochlear implant later in life are a good comparison for ASR. They have the advantage of having a fully developed brain and motor system and a grasp (possibly mastery) of the language prior to the implant unlike infants. They tend to reach asymptotic speech recognition performance within a few months.

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Tags: learning
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# Question
Title: Is it possible to become totally envy free?
Can we develop a particular mind set for being totally envy free; to stop envying others?

# Answer
> 14 votes
Smith and Kim's (2007) review article in the prestigious *Psychological Bulletin* titled "Comprehending Envy" might be a good starting point. They define envy as

> an unpleasant, often painful emotion characterized by feelings of inferiority, hostility, and resentment caused by an awareness of a desired attribute enjoyed by another person or group of persons.

They are also clear to distinguish proper envy from several other emotions including benign envy, longing, jealousy, and resentment.

**Individual differences in experiencing envy:** As a starting point, from a trait personality perspective, people differ in their tendency to experience various emotions. In particular neuroticism is associated with a tendency to experience negative emotions. Smith and Kim (2007) mention several self-report scales:

* "Dispositional envy scale (DES; R. H. Smith, Parrott,Diener, Hoyle, & Kim, 1999) consists of eight items, four of which ask respondents to indicate the degree and frequency of their experiences of envy"; copy of items
* "measure of enviousness developed by Gold (1996) uses a number of items containing familiar idioms that were argued to encourage truthful responses."

Table 2 from Smith et al (1999) report the means and SDs for the items of the DES. The means and sds are generally less than 2.5 on a 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree scale (e.g., I feel envy everyday M=2.3). This suggests that a bit over half the participants are either disagreeing or strongly disagreeing with the test items. The scale showed moderately strong positive correlations with neuroticism and negative correlations with self-esteem. Thus, you might conclude that some people rarely consciously experience envy. That said, some researchers consider that this might be due to social desirability in responding or even at a deeper level, people may not even realise that they are experiencing envy.

Thus, while social desirability might explain some of the individual differences, I think that some people just rarely experience envy. That said, this still leaves open the question of how people who do experience negative effects from envy, might reduce such effects.

**Coping with envy:** Smith and Kim (2007) review research on coping with envy:

> Types of strategies for coping with envy. Salovey and Rodin (1988) followed up their survey by examining what strategies people use to cope with envy and jealousy and to assess which seemed most effective in doing so. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing their emotional reactions to envy-provoking situations in a number of domains and the frequency with which they used three distinctive coping strategies (self-reliance, selfbolstering, and selective ignoring). A number of important, suggestive findings emerged. Self-reliance, which included items tapping emotional control (e.g., “refrain from feeling angry”), perseverance (“don’t give up”), and goal commitment (e.g., “become committed to the goal”), and to a lesser extent, selective ignoring (“decide it isn’t so important”) were associated with reduced envy. Self-bolstering (e.g., “think about my good qualities”) was unrelated to reduced envy; however, for those participants already experiencing envy, it was associated with less depression and, along with self-reliance, with less anger, both affects associated with the experience of envy. Salovey and Rodin (1988) interpreted these findings to mean that the more effective strategies for reducing initial envy appear to be stimulus focused rather than self-focused.

### References

* Smith, R. H., Parrott, W. G., Diener, E. F., Hoyle, R. H., & Kim, S. H. (1999). Dispositional envy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(8), 1007-1020.
* Salovey, P., & Rodin, J. (1988). Coping with envy and jealousy. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 7, 15–33.
* Smith, R. H., & Kim, S. H. (2007). Comprehending envy. Psychological bulletin, 133(1), 46. PDF

# Answer
> 8 votes
More recent research suggests that when people talk about envy, they may actually refer to two different kinds of emotions. One is the classic "evil" form of envy and the other is a benign kind of envy, which is also painful but not hostile.

Quoting the abstract from Van de Ven et al. (2009):

> Envy is the painful emotion caused by the good fortune of others. This research empirically supports the distinction between two qualitatively different types of envy, namely benign and malicious envy. It reveals that the experience of benign envy leads to a moving-up motivation aimed at improving one's own position, whereas the experience of malicious envy leads to a pulling-down motivation aimed at damaging the position of the superior other.

The same thing can also be found with regard to trait envy. Because of their personality, some people lean more towards the benign kind of envy whereas others react more with malicious envy when they encounter other people who are better than them in something. The two forms of envy can be distinguished with a more recent dispositional envy scale (BeMaS) by Lange and Crusius (2015).

A common denominator of this research seems to be that envy as an emotion has its functional sides (at least for the person experiencing envy). Because, either way, it pushes people to level differences to others who outperform them (there may be collateral damage though). Interestingly, benign envy seems to motivate people to push harder to reach ones goal more strongly than other related emotions, such as admiration (Van de Ven et al., 2011), which feels good but doesn't motivate. No pain, no gain. In other words, what I am trying to say is that, maybe, it is not so desirable to be completely envy free, even if that would be possible. Maybe the more important question is how can we stop feeling the evil kind of envy, but instead use the motivating qualities of benign envy to push us a little further.

**References**

Lange, J., & Crusius, J. (2015). Dispositional envy revisited: Unraveling the motivational dynamics of benign and malicious envy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41, 284-294.

Van de Ven, N., Zeelenberg, M., & Pieters, R. (2009). Leveling up and down: The experience of benign and malicious envy. Emotion, 3, 419–429.

Van de Ven, N., Zeelenberg, M., & Pieters, R. (2011). Why envy outperforms admiration. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(6), 784–795.

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Tags: social-psychology, emotion, well-being
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# Question
Title: What is the evolutionary purpose of envy?
I am seeking for a general explanation within the context of evolutionary psychology.

1) What is the purpose of envy?

2) Is it safe to assume that experiences with envy should reach a maximum during peak reproductive years? Is it a causal relationship, or just correlation?

(To add to the above: At least in modern societies, where basic survival has been for the most part dealt with, how often can envy be ultimately traced back and attributed to primordial instincts?)

I also have a more specific question, which is the following:

3) In the context of a romantic relationship, assuming there are no other potential mates as external threats, and the two partners are not competing for resources in the same domain, are there any reasons for which romantic partners could be envious of each other?

I am not a psychologist, so please feel free to edit the question if you think it lacks specificity.

# Answer
> 5 votes
A lot of sources might be of use here, but one thing in your question is not clear to me - when you write "envy", do you mean a kind of resentment towards someone with material possessions that you don't have, or a jealousy in a romantic context? Everything that I would write is about the first meaning, and I have no idea about anything connected with the second. I don't really understand it, or questions number 2 and 3. Whence the data about it?

Basically, a negative feeling towards someone with a larger lot of things (like food) is quite easily understandable in an evolutionary context - someone with more goods has a larger chance to survive and produce an offspring, thus feeling bad about it motivates us to reduce the difference. As fitness is not absolute, but relative, reducing someone's fitness enlarges ours. More nuanced view would be that it rather motivates us and enhances cognitive abilities, and it is indeed what some have found - a link.

Somewhat different story comes from modern behavioral economics. It claims that humans have something that they call social preferences, or "other-regarding preferences" (Gintis 2009). An few examples - Fehr and Schmidt show that agents have a concern for the welfare of others and income distribution, with equality being preferred. Further studies has shown that in experimental games, such as Ultimatum Game, Dictator’s Game or Prisoners’ Dilemma, participants observing the interactions of others were punishing those who did not cooperate or share, although their interest was not involved and punishing itself was costly for them – they punished altruistically (Fehr and Gachter 2002). This also allowed for cooperation to flourish, while if such third-party punishment was not allowed, cooperation broke down.

Fehr and Gachter’s data were then explained by postulating an evolutionary mechanism that brought about these patterns of behaviour - specifically group selection, which was deemed possible precisely because of altruistic punishment, in which individuals were acting in the interest of their groups at some cost for themselves. A bit different conclusions were reached by Charness and Rabin (2002), who claimed that participants were more concerned with increasing social welfare, especially that of the worst-off, rather than with equity, as was in previous models. Later, the Fehr and Gachter model of inequity aversion was challenged and the same data were said to better explained by egalitarian motives, which tend to lead to punishment of the highest earner (Fowler et.al. 2005).

Thus, envy could be interpreted as really an urge to restore fairness. This urge might of course be a mistake, since some inequality could be fair, but for our hunter-gatherer minds it is still a bad thing.

Some involve envy in their more general theories. For example, Binmore has a whole, somewhat complicated, game-theoretical explanation of fairness as an equilibrium-selection device. If you were to buy his theory, it would answer your first question - the purpose of envy in this theory is to maintain stable social system in hunter-gatherer bands, as large inequalities would lead to hierarchy and a possible dissolution of their social contract. Envy construed in such a way is also a criterion of fairness, not just for Binmore, but for quite many modern welfare economists: assignment of goods is deemed fair only if nobody envies the bundle of commodities assigned to someone else (while envying here means not only to compare just material goods, but also what comes with them - few would envy in this way a millionaire with a terminal cancer).

# Answer
> 0 votes
Distinguish and separate envy and jealousy. Jealousy is one of many facets of fear within the community whilst envy is fear within self. Yet both stem from inner insecurities and are therefore difficult to separate in a logical sense. I suppose one can break it like this: Jealousy usually involves only one other person whilst envy may involve a number of people and a number of issues. Yet both feelings - however 'real' they are - come from one place only.. the person/patient themselves. The core within that person has to be found and they have to define the meaning of the two words themselves.

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Tags: social-psychology, emotion, evolutionary-psychology
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# Question
Title: What psychological or sociological concepts form the basis of Principled Negotiation?
Although the various forwards mention that organizational behavior and social psychology are two of the fields that form the basis for the techniques taught at Harvard Law School's Negotiation and Leadership Program, the majority of the material that I've read (Getting to Yes, Getting Past No, Difficult Conversations) tends to frame things in contexts that the average person can easily grasp - romantic relationships, the office environment, and other social conversations.

I want to understand the psychological and sociological underpinnings to this idea, in addition to the application of it (which is covered well in the books I mentioned). However, I'm not sure what exactly terms I should be looking for, and most of my searches are resulting in more business-eqsue style publications.

What concepts can I research to understand the basis of Principled Negotiation and the other communication techniques presented in these works?

# Answer
That' a very difficult question because research on negotiations is so varied and multidisciplinary. There is prescriptive research stemming from a decision analysis approach and game theory, descriptive research from behavioral economics, and more process-oriented, social-cognitive research.

As an excellent starting point into psychological research on negotiation I would recommend Leigh Thompson's book:

Thompson, Leigh. 2013. The Mind and the Heart of the Negotiator. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 6th ed.
> 2 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, io-psychology, communication, leadership
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# Question
Title: A good place to start learning Behaviorism for a Newbie?
I've developed an interest in Behavioral Psychology. I don't have any background and I'm not taking any Psychology course or anything. I just want to learn. I was wondering if there's a good "Beginners" book on this topic, or a good place to start. Googling returned varied results, which confused me.

**Summing up what I'm looking for:**

* An ordered series of Book titles (ordered by beginner level to expert level)
* A website/blog/forum to follow

Thank you.

# Answer
It would be better to follow a series of instructional courses provided on the internet. MIT in their Opencourseware has provided an Introduction to Psychology class lectures through iTunesU. They also provide a structured study guide for the rest of their Psychology courses (some have videos). Each course has a syllabus and assigned book reading.
> 5 votes

# Answer
A great open lecture set is Human Behavioral Biology by Robert Sopolsky through Stanford. It's on YouTube. I also recommend Paul Bloom's Intro to Psych through Yale open courses.
> 4 votes

# Answer
Karen Pryor's book *Don't Shoot the Dog* is an ideal introduction to Behaviorism for the layman.
> 0 votes

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Tags: reference-request, behaviorism
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# Question
Title: Why superimposing PET data on MRI scan images instead of doing fMRI scans?
I'm currently reading this paper:

Savic & Lindström (2008). *PET and MRI show differences in cerebral asymmetry and functional connectivity between homo- and heterosexual subjects*.

It certainly is an interesting study but I just can't understand what the benefit is of mapping PET data on MRI scan images instead of doing fMRI scans. Any ideas what the benefits are?

Also, I found out that reference 64 is referenced in the text but missing in the reference list. I was thinking that PNAS is peer reviewed...

All right then, any feedback is much appreciated.

# Answer
> 2 votes
They used MRI to compare asymmetry in hemispheric *volumes* across the groups. Hemispheric volume is not something that is changing over time, and so it doesn't require the use of functional neuroimaging (e.g., fMRI).

Instead, if we want to be accurate when measuring volume and making comparisons across groups, we need to have high spatial resolution of the cerebral hemispheres. fMRI does not have the same degree of spatial resolution as MRI. Consequently, MRI is much better for studying anatomy, whereas fMRI is good for studying function (due to its relatively high temporal resolution). So when imaging hemispheric volumes, MRI is better suited for the task.

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Tags: fmri
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# Question
Title: What causes someone to frequently see particular patterns of digits when they look at a clock?
Over the past few years when I randomly choose to look at a clock I typically see particular patterns of times. The main pattern is repeating digits (e.g., 04:04; 11:11; 16:16). This occurs on multiple clock-based devices.

What can explain the tendency to frequently see particular patterns of time when checking the time?

# Answer
> 9 votes
In general humans are excellent at seeing patterns in randomness. It seems like you have attached special meaning to certain patterns. It seems similar to the way people form superstitions.

Checking the time may also be something that we do so regularly and automatically that we do not know how often we do it. And it may be that the pattern confirming cases rise up and appear to be of significance, whereas the many other non-conforming patterns go unnoticed.

We also have a fairly reasonable internal clock. And people also form habits. So it may also be that you have habituated to checking the time more frequently around these times.

# Answer
> 0 votes
Often I listen that this phenomenon has to do with the reticular activating system of the brain. For more details: http://www.innovateus.net/health/what-function-reticular-activating-system

Also these type of event are labeled as synchronicity, a concept tagged by Carl Jung (psychic phenomenon). For more details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX\_nMwYa-nw

Depends on the observer how to interpret this signs.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology
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# Question
Title: Why do people avoid taking the last "donut"?
In many contexts (family, colleagues, etc), say there is a box of donuts for people to take (or any kind of treat or snack). A lot of the times we can observe that there will be only one left and people just avoid taking the last one.

Is there a psychological theory/reasoning behind this?

# Answer
> 23 votes
What is interesting about this phenomenon is that it runs counter to the **scarcity principle**. Countless research has shown that the more scarce a commodity is, the more desirable it becomes. This is often capitalized on in marketing ("limited edition" and so on). Thus, the last donut should actually be even more attractive than one of many donuts. So something additional must be happening here.

Daniel Effron and Dale Miller did a series of experiments on this question. Their data is very nice because it shows that both things happen at the same time. The less supply or the more demand for a commodity (they used stuff like chocolate or the opportunity to watch a funny video), the more people wanted to have it. At the same time, they were slower or less likely to take it. The latter tendency increased with the number of group members. Effron and Miller show that this is related to a reduced feeling of entitlement--they call it **"diffusion of entitlement"**. So we want the last piece of chocolate more, but don't think we are entitled to it.

So what's the difference to the effects of scarcity in consumer situations ("black friday")? Effron and Miller discuss that it might be equality norms that are more important when we are in small groups. In contrast, in consumer contexts it might be more a norm of first come first served. It might be a matter of anonymity as well I guess. Whatever it may be, this data adds to research showing that often we are less selfish and care more for the outcome of others than a standard economics approach (homo oeconomicus) would suggest.

Source:

Effron, Daniel and Dale T. Miller. 2011. Diffusion of entitlement: An inhibitory effect of scarcity on consumption. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 47: 378-383.

# Answer
> 8 votes
This is a cultural/situational phenomenon. I know that in my parents' generation (which grew up with poverty), it is common courtesy to never take the last piece of cake/whatever. The host always has to make sure there's plenty, because 1 piece left means that people are still hungry. Nowadays most people (in my culture and generation) are not so hesitant.

My mother has told me about this, and said that is was some kind of social taboo to take the last piece. I believe it's about not being perceived as greedy or desperate, and rather show altruism through sacrifice and sharing. The more sought-after an object is, the more valuable it will be. The poorer people are, the more valuable all kinds of food, cake etc will be. The higher the value of an object, the more egocentric you have to be to claim it for yourself without sharing. Thus people leave the last bit to avoid being seen as greedy or desperate, as greedy people will be seen as a burden in a poor society. Looking desperate makes you look like you can't take care of yourself.

In my own culture and generation, food is plenty everywhere, the perceived value is low, and you usually won't be seen as greedy if you take the last piece. If you are eating with friends and family, you might still chose to stay off the last piece, because "maybe someone wants it more than me". It's about sharing with those that you care for.

In evolutionary pscyhology, this makes good sense. Science has already shown that people with altruistic genes and behavior are perceived as more attractive (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081014134027.htm), and our ancestors had a better chance surviving if they cooperated instead of competing for resources.

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Tags: social-psychology, consumer-psychology, norms
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title: Is volition a reality or an illusion?

text:
# Question
Title: Is volition a reality or an illusion?
Keeping religious sentiments aside, here is a question raised on the Buddhism SE that attempts to answer a similar question from the Buddhist point of view.

You see, Buddhism has a concept of *anatman* or no-self that attempts to explain the conditioned-self as a cause-and-effect phenomena arising through the interaction of the five aggregates (sensations, mental-formations, thoughts, feelings, etc.) and doesn't have a permanent or essential existence of its own. However, I would like to know what does the science or *psychology* has to say about this?

Does something called `I` exists as a soul/essence separate from the physical body? **More importantly**, does `volition`, or more commonly called `will-power` exists or it is just an illusion?

## A practical Experiment:

Suppose `I` (as soul/mind/any-other-hypothetical) *decide* to lift my arm right now, and the very next instant my arm lifted in the air. I would like to know *what* exactly triggered the decision to lift? If it were `I` (soul/mind/etc..) that made the decision, then why would electrodes attached to my brain show that the impulse to move the hand came before I was aware of it? The electrodes reading seem to imply that:

1. Either the arm has a mind of its own apart from the primary mind (sort of a separate CPU core in a multi-core processor) that took the decision (seems less likely to me). OR
2. Some external force (in nature) triggered the decision (seems more likely to me).

I would like to know what is Psychology's take on this?

**EDIT:** The conventional explanation to this in terms of the `subconscious` being the causal factor seems incomplete at best. As mentioned in a comment on @ArnonWeinberg's answer, all it means is that we don't know. Subconscious seems like a hypothetical chaos that we ascribe all phenomena that we are unable to explain scientifically. In the above experiment for instance, what caused the subconscious mind to make that decision at that exact moment?

# Answer
> 7 votes
This question is very similar to others on this forum, and I think almost everything in the question is answered there.

**Does something exist separate from the physical body?**

I don't think you will find the answer to that question in cognitive science, but rather in philosophy. Taken from one of the answers:

> Your thought experiment hinges on the debate of materialism (the mind is a physical thing) versus dualism (the mind is a different kind of thing than other physical things). Most cognitive scientists believe that materialism is the correct view.

It is unclear whether or not science will ever definitively settle this question, but it may place some constraints on the role (if any) of non-physical entities. As I mentioned in my reply:

> The large body of research that was spurred on by Libet's experiment has significantly changed our understanding of the role of "thought" or "will" or "volition" in the causal chain, such that they now appear to be a side-effect rather than cause of physical action.

**Why would electrodes show that the impulse to move the hand came earlier than I was aware of it?**

I think you are missing a 3rd option: Much of what happens in the brain is outside of our awareness. This is called the unconscious mind. The brain is a very complicated system, so exact causes for behaviours are still elusive, but the implication behind the Libet experiment is that the decision to move is made unconsciously - still inside the brain, but outside awareness.

EDIT (re updated question):

I'm not sure what you mean by "Subconscious seems like a hypothetical chaos that we ascribe all phenomena that we are unable to explain scientifically"... Non-scientific terms such as "soul" or "mind" or "will" certainly fall under that category, as they don't add any information, and there are no tools available to study them, thus we know nothing about them. The "unconscious mind" on the other hand, refers to physical, measurable processes in the brain, just ones outside our conscious awareness. Cognitive scientists learn about unconscious processes through cognitive research, fMRI scans, and other tools of neuroscience for example. Thus we have a great deal of knowledge about how the unconscious mind works.

**What causes the unconscious mind to make decisions?**

Again, this question comes down to the choice between materialism and dualism - the choice is yours to make.

Consider a simpler question: Say a computer makes a beeping sound a few seconds after someone presses a key - what caused it to do that? (1) The computer needs a speaker with which to make the sound (hardware); (2) the computer needs a program that uses the speaker (software); and (3) it needs a user to press a key to run the program (input).

Now consider a much more complex machine: Say a human lifts their arm a few seconds after someone says "atten-hut!" - what caused them to do that? (1) The human needs an arm to lift (biology); (2) the human needs to know when to salute (learning); and (3) they need someone to call them to attention (stimulus). Like any machine, all actions are a result of its internal mechanisms, current state, and external environment.

But what if the computer makes a beeping sound with no one around to press a key? Maybe at some point in the past someone ran a program that makes beeping sounds randomly every once in a while. Or maybe it did it of its own "free will"? What do you think?

And what if a human lifts their arm with no one around to salute? Maybe at some point in their past, the person learned to salute for fun when they are bored and alone. Or maybe it was their "free will"? What do you think?

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Tags: philosophy-of-mind, self
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title: Psychology: Grafitti/Grafitti Vandal(s)

text:
# Question
Title: Psychology: Grafitti/Grafitti Vandal(s)
What's the psychology behind grafittit?

What mentality do graffiti vandals have?

# Answer
> 1 votes
> Teens who get involved in graffiti **'tagging' may be showing early symptoms of a personality disorder**, an Australian psychiatrist says.
>
> He says the study, presented at an international child and adolescent mental health conference in Melbourne this week, found that **teens who graffiti "are significantly different to those who do not graffiti"**.
>
> "These young people ... were **very antisocial** on a range of other factors. They weren't just mildly conduct disordered, they were s**coring to the extreme range of antisocial behaviour.**"
>
> He says the study found adolescent graffitists had done around six to eight other acts, such as setting fires, beating people up and stealing.
>
> "You can pick many of these young people somewhere around the age of three," he says.
>
> "The average kindergarten teacher will tell you, I don't like that child, I can't work with them, they spit at me, they spit at the other kids, they hit people, they won't learn.
>
> "You can certainly predict which ones will go on to antisocial behaviour, and within that graffiti is going to be one of the things that stands out."
>
> Martin says **tagging conveys a number of messages**, from saying "hello, I'm here" to being a territorial marker and an expression of rage against authority. http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2006/09/13/1737822.htm

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Tags: social-psychology
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# Question
Title: Food sharing and mutual aid among the homeless
Since the time of Peter Kropotkin, it's been observed and theorized that cooperation and mutual aid are more common in austere environments. A classic biological example would be slime mold spore-making (Starssman & Queller, 2011), and anecdotal example would be people coming together to face a natural disaster. I am interested in more systematic studies of this in modern human society under more extended time-frames than reactions to disaster.

In monkeys, apes, and primitive human societies, a typical measure of cooperation and mutual aid is food sharing (Jaeggi & Gurven, 2013). I am interested in seeing studies like this that use naturalistic measures like this, instead of artificial games like dictator or ultimatum (even though these do provide interesting economic and anthropological results at times; Henrich et al., 2001).

One of the few truly austere environments remaining in Western society is the plight of the homeless. For example, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (1999) has found that 28% of homeless people nationwide sometimes or often do not get enough to eat (compared with 12% for the poor), 20% eat one meal a day or less, and 40% reported that they went one or more days in the last 30 days without anything to eat (compared to 3% for the poor).

Yet, consistent with the Kropotkin's views, anecdotal evidence (i.e. what I hear from friends that have been run aways, and from the occasional homeless that I have a chance to talk to) suggests that food sharing is common among the homeless. As a highlight, here is an anecdote I encountered recently of reddit (empasis added by me):

> This is why I, as a homeless person, gets **offered more food from other homeless people than from wealthier people I come in contact with**. This holds even though there is no pity parties among the homeless, and many food sharers will stab your back in a heartbeat if they perceive longer term gains. Or, in some cases, when more primal needs are at stake.

This brings me to my questions:

* **How common is food sharing among the homeless?**
* Is it primarily driven by empathy/egalitarianism, reciprocity, tolerated theft, or other mechanisms?
* How does it compare to rates of food sharing in modern hunter-gatherer societies?

I am more interested in anthropological studies done in western populations and developed countries, especially big urban centers, but comparisons to homeless populations in developing countries is of interest as well. I also prefer academic studies instead of governmental/activist ones, since the latter tend to have a policy bias; but I'll take what I can get!

### References

Jaeggi, A. V., & Gurven, M. (2013). Reciprocity explains food sharing in humans and other primates independent of kin selection and tolerated scrounging: a phylogenetic meta-analysis. *Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences*, 280(1768).

Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E., Gintis, H., & McElreath, R. (2001). In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies. *American Economic Review*, 91 (2), 73-78

Strassmann, J., & Queller, D. (2011). Evolution of cooperation and control of cheating in a social microbe. *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences*, 108(2).

U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (1999). *Homelessness: Programs and the People They Serve – Findings of the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients*.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I spent over 5 weeks hanging out with homeless people in Kalamazoo, MI by a nearby homeless shelter. I engaged with them nearly every minute of free time I had after work and on weekends. What I observed regarding food was actually an abundance. When someone releases a study indicating that someone doesn't get "enough" to eat, that is extremely subjective. I used to eat once a day myself out of pure choice and habit. The homeless may eat only once or twice a day, but they likely have many options throughout the day if they are in the right location such as in Kalamazoo. No one went hungry near the shelter, yet many chose not to eat. They also chose where to eat since there were often many locations offering food. In fact, some of them declined when I offered to take them out to eat.

They do not hoard food for lack of anywhere to put it. Thus, they are often willing to share this food but usually do not even need to share since they can grab their own. From my experiences, I do not recall anyone giving out of their own loss given their full knowledge that more food would come tomorrow. I've seen more sharing with cigarettes and dimes, but this is clearly not a need and is, in general, a means of befriending people. Theft was very common as I was regularly told stories of how their clothes or shoes were stolen. Thus, befriending people was a rather good idea and made it less likely to have your things stolen or to get into fights. Perhaps other homeless communities are not as well-off as the one in Kalamazoo, but my own experience leads me to believe that it's not the same as watching people band together in a mutual experience of hardship. Most of the people I saw seemed deficient in the mental arena. They seemed to be stuck in high school relationship mentality with elementary school cognitive prowess. Only a handful of people seemed more capable and simply mooched the system. Perhaps you need someone's input who has been with competent yet unfortunate homeless people, but I thought I'd share my own experience.

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Tags: social-psychology, reference-request, prosocial-behavior, anthropology
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# Question
Title: How did the concepts of left and right direction develop in the human mind?
*I hope this is the correct forum to ask; if not, please migrate to a better place.*

How did humans came to agree on a distinction between the directions "right" and "left"? I could think of two alternative ways:

1. Biology: the right hand is usually stronger, so humans can agree that the direction of the stronger hand is "right" and the other direction is "left".
2. Astronomy: in the northern hemisphere, when people look to the direction of the rising sun (= east), they see it turning slightly to the right of them (= south). So they could agree that the direction the sun turns to is "right" and the other direction is "left".

Is there any evidence to one or the other or to another explanation?

# Answer
There is a perspective called the "sociological imagination" that can be used to "frame," or interpret, perceptions. In part, this perspective involves an awareness toward the linkages between history and biography, between social structure and consciousness, and between "knowledge" and its socio-cultural contexts.

The words you question are simply tools or descriptive labels applied to some "sense" and useful for both individual and communal understanding of space-time. There is a class of words (called "closed" class words) -- called so because, unlike nouns and verbs, it is tremendously difficult to invent new words (icons or symbols) for the associated concepts. These words fall into a class of words that have their foundation in protolanguage -- with associated, generally-accepted, emerging concepts from early hunting and gathering societies 100,000BC-80,000BC. At this early stage, knowledge transfer (education) was through socialization of the young (largely an informal process where children learned both through their play and through observing and imitating their elders).

Specifically to your question, some close class words indicate relative direction (to, from, through, left, right, up, down) in the manner of vectors. Other words such as above, below, in, on, at, next to, and by serve to orient relative to other objects.

Suppose one had to explain the meaning of the words “left” and “right” to someone who had never heard those words before. Further suppose, that you had to explain such in a purely verbal manner -- without drawing pictures or pointing at things or otherwise making gestures. One would perhaps start by appealing to a shared experience, communal concept, or draw upon mathematics (geometry). But what if one were constrained to make no assumptions about where the person is coming from or how much geography he or she knows? You then might hope that they knew something about the stars or the sky. One could begin with up and down and move on to the motions of objects in the sky.

Another way the concept of "left" and "right" could have emerged to common understanding is through anatomy (human or otherwise). Socializing methods of butchering flesh, combat training, and burial rites all would include relative orientation, placement, and direction.

The cognitive origin of the notions of "left" and "right" emerge from common experience and/or how experience relates to tangible objects or phenomenon.

This rabbit hole goes a lot deeper; however, for the sake of being cogent and succinct, I am observing some self-imposed boundaries. There are egocentric coordinate acculturation conventions and spatiality (geo-centric, stellar-centric, (sub)atomic-centric) traditions that can shake things up a bit but I believe such begin to tangent off point.

---

References:

* Calvin, W. (2004). A brief history of the mind: From apes to intellect and beyond. New York: Oxford University Press.
* The New Ambidextrous Universe: Symmetry and Asymmetry from Mirror Reflections to Superstrings: Third Revised Edition. By Martin Gardner. 2005.
* The Handedness of the Universe. Roger A. Hegstrom and Dilip K. Kondepudi in Scientific American, Vol. 262, pages 108-115; January 1990.
* Alien Pizza, Anyone? On other worlds, biochemistry could have taken a different turn. Davide Castelvecchi in Science News, Vol. 172, No. 7, pages 107-; August 18, 2007
* THEORIES. (n.d.). Retrieved March 3, 2015, from http://www.trinity.edu/mkearl/theory.html#imag
> 4 votes

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Tags: language
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# Question
Title: Can I use other softwares than Linger to run a self-paced reading task
I want to run an SPR experiment where participants will read sentences at their own pace. My problem lies in the fact of using 2 different languages English and Arabic at the same time. I tried it with Linger, but I failed to upload the files. Could any one of you suggest another software by which I can run SPR tasks in Arabic and English?

# Answer
> 2 votes
You can use Ibex, if you want to run it online: http://spellout.net/ibexfarm/

But in any case you should be able to upload the files in Linger, you'll need to do it centered since Linger doesn't support right-to-left languages. And you should check the encoding of the files. It should be ISO 8859-15 and *not* UTF-8.

# Answer
> 1 votes
There's a program called Paradigm that has built-in support for Self-Paced Reading, it also handles Arabic characters. You'll just type in your sentences and then use back-slashes to specify each segment. For example:

The actress\shot\the officer\who\was standing\on the balcony

Paradigm will log a timestamp for the onset of each segment (in Excel) so it's pretty easy to analyze.

Here's their website:

http://www.paradigmexperiments.com

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Tags: social-psychology, experimental-psychology
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# Question
Title: Is the depletion effect of self-control reliable?
Although a lot of research (Muraven, 1998) has indicated the ego depletion of self-control, a recent paper (Xu, 2014) claims that they fail to replicate the depletion effect: impaired performance in subsequent tasks. So, is the depletion effect of self-control reliable?

### References

# Answer
Short answer: We don't really know yet, but we should know soon.

Long answer:

There has been much research about the ego-depletion effect. The effect has been found in many published studies. As cited in APS Observer (2014):

> A recent meta-analysis revealed a medium effect size (d = 0.62) across 198 tests of the ego-depletion effect (Hagger, Wood, Stiff, & Chatzisarantis, 2010).

However, there have been some doubts whether these results reflect publication bias (only studies that found the effect may have been published, those that have found no effect or the reverse effect may have landed in the "file drawer") or weak methods (small samples).

APS Observer (2014):

> Despite these findings, some researchers have questioned the strength of the ego-depletion effect. A recent analysis conducted by Carter and McCullough (2013, 2014) suggested that the effect may be quite small or entirely an artifact of publication bias. The researchers cite evidence that many tests of the effect were substantially underpowered suggesting that the likelihood of finding such a large number of significant effects in the literature is improbable. Although the interpretation of these analyses have been questioned (Hagger & Chatzisarantis, 2014), it is possible that publication bias may have inflated the size of the effect evident from the literature.

That is why the APS journal Perspectives on Psychological Science has accepted the proposal for a large scale replication project led by Alex O. Holcombe and Martin S. Hagger.

APS Observer (2014):

> By using preregistered replications across multiple laboratories, this \[project\] will allow for a precise, objective estimate of the size of the ego depletion effect.

More details about the project can be accessed at its website on the Open Science Framework.

**References**

Carter, E. C., & McCullough, M. E. (2013). Is ego depletion too incredible? Evidence for the overestimation of the depletion effect. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36, 683-684. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X13000952

Carter, E. C., & McCullough, M. E. (2014). Publication bias and the limited strength model of self-control: Has the evidence for ego depletion been overestimated? Frontiers in Psychology, 5. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00823

Hagger, M. S., & Chatzisarantis, N. L. D. (2014). It is premature to regard the ego-depletion effect as ‘too incredible’. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 298. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00298

Hagger, M. S., Wood, C., Stiff, C., & Chatzisarantis, N. L. D. (2010). Ego depletion and the strength model of self-control: A meta-analysis, Psychological Bulletin, 136, 495-525.
> 11 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, motivation, self-discipline
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# Question
Title: What is it about the nature of slow-wave sleep that makes it difficult to awaken the sleeper?
In humans, delta wave sleep ("slow wave" sleep, stages III and IV by AASM criteria) is more common in children and becomes only a small percentage of total sleep time in adults.

Cortical EEG waves have notably low frequencies (sometimes as low as 1Hz) during these stages. I've always modeled this in my own understanding as the brain "polling" the environment at a lower rate, but why do stimuli that coincide directly with the peaks of the cortical waves still not seem to arouse or awaken the person sleeping? Clearly there are some physiological "shunts" occurring in the brainstem and cortex to dampen the effects of external stimuli, but why see any activity at all, then?

# Answer
> 3 votes
Slow EEG waves reflect a slow oscillation in cortical neurons, between a depolarized state (UP-State) and hyper polarized state (DOWN-state; Steriade et al., 1993a, 1993b). During the down-state, neurons are disfacilitated (they can't really be activated by external stimuli or depolarized; Contreras et al., 1996). As the brain progress into deep sleep (lots of large-amplitude slow waves), not only cortical but also thalamic neurons becomes more and more hyper polarized (Amzica & Steriade, 2001). Steriade (2006) proposed that this progressive hyper polarization that is occurring during deep sleep might protect the brain from interference from the external world and facilitate memory consolidation, because the brain becomes "non-responsive" to the external environment. Indeed, this thalamo-cortical hyper polarization occuring during the down-state might "gate" the brain from external influence.

Recent neuroimaging studies in humans (Schabus et al., 2012) indeed showed that during the DOWN state, there was no cortical response to auditory stimuli in fMRI. Thus we think that those waves, either in N2 (K-Complex) or N3 (SW), protect the sleep brain from external influence.

Sources :

1. Steriade M, Nuñez A, Amzica F. A novel slow (\< 1 Hz) oscillation of neocortical neurons in vivo: depolarizing and hyperpolarizing components. Journal of Neuroscience. 1993;13(8):3252–3265.
2. Steriade M, Contreras D, Curró Dossi R, Nuñez A. The slow (\< 1 Hz) oscillation in reticular thalamic and thalamocortical neurons: scenario of sleep rhythm generation in interacting thalamic and neocortical networks. J Neurosci. 1993;13(8):3284–3299.
3. Contreras D, Timofeev I, Steriade M. Mechanisms of long-lasting hyperpolarizations underlying slow sleep oscillations in cat corticothalamic networks. J Physiol (Lond). 1996;494 ( Pt 1):251–264.
4. Amzica F, Steriade M. Electrophysiological correlates of sleep delta waves. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology. 1998;107(2):69–83. doi:10.1016/S0013-4694(98)00051-0.
5. Steriade M. Grouping of brain rhythms in corticothalamic systems. Neuroscience. 2006;137(4):1087–1106. doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2005.10.029.
6. Schabus M, Dang Vu TT, Heib DPJ, et al. The Fate of Incoming Stimuli during NREM Sleep is Determined by Spindles and the Phase of the Slow Oscillation. Front Neurol. 2012;3:40. doi:10.3389/fneur.2012.00040.

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Tags: sleep, physiology
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