# Question
Title: Why don't the Big 5 personality traits have more neutral names?
Lots of different areas of study appropriate common-language terms as jargon words with a specific meaning in the context of that particular field, but the names of the Big 5 personality traits have always bothered me. They appear to be rather prejudicial.

For example, scoring high on Agreeableness *sounds* like it should be a good thing to an uninformed person. But from a psychological perspective, highly agreeable people often allow themselves to be taken advantage of, and tend to be emotional doormats.

Openness is another one that is confusing. Nobody wants to believe they are closed-minded. But in reality, a person who scores low in Openness is consistent, cautious, and deliberate in their actions, which is not a bad thing at all in many circumstances.

Language has a tendency to bias our thinking in certain ways, and one would think this would be more of a problem in psychology than in other sciences. Other sciences either borrow obscure words from other languages or they make up new ones to avoid terms that are culturally or linguistically loaded.

Since there is a growing body of evidence that the Big 5 are more innate than learned, and since each dimension is a scale on which either extreme is considered a bad thing, it would seem to me that we'd want to use less partisan names for those traits.

Why aren't the descriptors more neutral in tone?

# Answer
Well, in a recent debate whether Big Five is... ahem... sexist, this was mentioned, which pertains your question:

> There’s another flaw when it comes to taking Big Five personality tests online. The online versions of the Big Five traits inform people of negative character traits, without explaining that the positivity or negativity of all characteristics is shaped by context.
>
> Costa believes that the Big Five’s willingness to point out negative traits makes the test more accurate: Myers-Briggs avoids “anything that could be negative. And that’s a great big marketing thing,” he says. But each potentially negative Big Five character trait is informed by the situation. “They’re only negative in certain contexts,” he says.
>
> For example, Costa explains, agreeable people are great for a blind date, but tend to be overly dependent. Disagreeable people, meanwhile, aren’t good at smoothing over arguments. But they’re also less likely to obediently follow immoral orders—such as those demonstrated by the Milgram experiment, wherein participants are asked to administer increasingly intense electric shocks to a victim. (The longer IPIP-NEO test briefly acknowledged the importance of context, noting, “agreeableness is not useful in situations that require tough or absolute objective decisions,” but the Big Five Inventory website offered no such explanations.)

For more context, Paul Costa is one the original authors of NEO-PI, one of the main instruments that shaped Big Five testing.

So, according to him, avoiding negativity either explicit (or the complementary/implicit one) in the design wasn't a goal because it hindered accuracy. I guess that doesn't completely answer the question about naming of the dimensions, but it's probably informative. (Do note that one of the Big 5 dimensions has a rather negative name--neuroticism.)

Costa's point about commercial tests' negativity-avoidance seems to apply to DISC as well.

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The factor-naming issue itself was covered in detail in a 1992 paper of McCrae and John (which has very high number of citations for a psychology paper):

> The consensus that five-factorists see among themselves may be puzzling to outsiders because the "disagreement among analysts as to factor titles" that Tupes and Christal noted still plagues the field (John, 1990b). Factor names reflect historical accidents, conceptual positions, and the entrenchment that comes from a published body of literature and from published instruments. There are two prominent systems for naming the factors, one derived from the lexical tradition and one from the questionnaire tradition.
>
> Many writers take Norman's (1963) annunciation of an "adequate taxonomy of personality attributes" derived from Cattell's reduction of natural language trait terms as the formal beginning of the FFM, and the factor numbers and names Norman chose—I: Extraversion or Surgency; II: Agreeableness; III: Conscientiousness; IV: Emotional Stability; and V: Culture—are often used. Peabody and Goldberg (1989) have noted that the order in which these factors emerged roughly parallels their representation among English language trait terms in the dictionary: Many more words can be found to describe aspects of Factors I through III than of Factors IV and V. The factor numbers, I to V, are thus meaningful designations. Roman numerals also have the advantage of being theoretically neutral; they seem to stand above the fray of disputed factor interpretations.
>
> The second tradition that led to the modern FFM comes from the analysis of questionnaires, and particularly from the work of H. J. Eysenck, who identified Extraversion (E) and Neuroticism (N) as major components of psychological tests. (It was Wiggins, 1968, who dubbed these the "Big Two," setting the stage for Goldberg's 1981 designation of the FFM as the "Big Five.") Costa and McCrae (1980) added a dimension they called Openness to Experience (O), and later (1985, 1989) created scales to measure Agreeableness (A) and Conscientiousness (C). A number of publications (e.g., Borkenau & Ostendorf, 1990; Funder & Colvin, 1988; Tellegen & Waller, in press; Wiggins & Pincus, 1989; Zuckerman, Bernieri, Koestner, & Rosenthal, 1989) have adopted this nomenclature. Note that N corresponds to low Emotional Stability, —IV, and O is a variant of Norman's Factor V.
>
> If the advantage of the Norman numbers is their theoretical neutrality, the disadvantage is their low mnemonic value. Initials, originally popularized by H. J. Eysenck, are easier to interpret, and they may be less theoretically laden than full names. To those for whom Neuroticism connotes psychiatric disorder, negative affectivity (Watson & Clark, 1984) or simply nervousness may seem more apt; all can be characterized by N. Likewise, E can also stand for energy or enthusiasm (cf. Watson & Clark, in press); O for originality; A for affiliation (Leary, 1957) or affection (Brand, 1984), and C for constraint (Tellegen, 1982) or control (Krug & Johns, 1986).

So yes, if the spelled-out names really bother interpretation-wise, an alternative is to use just the first letter designator (and/or numbers, but the latter seems a less popular approach). I did see recent papers do the former (use just the letters) although mainly in tables for compactness.

And in excruciating detail as to level of consensus on the naming of each factor (which seems to be roughly N \> E ~ A ~ C \> O), the same paper continues:

> The problem of what to call the factors is not merely a matter of convention. The labels refiect conceptualizations, and five-factor advocates differ in the details of their views on the factors, and thus in their preferred names. \[...\]
>
> There is probably the least controversy about the definition of N. N represents individual differences in the tendency to experience distress, and in the cognitive and behavioral styles that follow from this tendency. High N scorers experience chronic negative affects (Watson & Clark, 1984) and are prone to the development of a variety of psychiatric disorders (Zonderman, Stone, & Costa, 1989). The recurrent nervous tension, depression, frustration, guilt, and self-consciousness that such individuals feel is often associated with irrational thinking, low self-esteem, poor control of impulses and cravings, somatic complaints, and ineffective coping (McCrae & Costa, 1987). Individuals low in N are not necessarily high in positive mental health, however that may be defined—they are simply calm, relaxed, even-tempered, unflappable.
>
> Despite the long and common use of the term Extraversion, there is less consensus about E. Most of the differences can be traced to the fact that E and A together define the Interpersonal Circumplex, around which interpersonal terms are spaced almost evenly. The traditional axes of the circumplex are Dominance (or Status) and Affiliation (or Love; Wiggins, 1979), and the major dispute about E (Norman's Factor 1) concerns its alignment with these axes. Goldberg (1990), guided by his analyses of English language trait terms, and Wiggins (in press), guided by the interpersonal tradition, identify this factor with Dominance. McCrae and Costa (1989c) argue that E is best seen as located midway between Dominance and Warmth (although perhaps a bit closer to Dominance). This position, which Peabody and Goldberg (1989) designate as I', is close to the location of such traditional questionnaire measures of E as H. J. Eysenck and S. B. G. Eysenck's (1975) E scale and the EI scale of the MBTI.
>
> The advantage ofthe I' position is that it aligns the factor more closely with its noninterpersonal aspects, particularly positive emotionality. As Watson and Clark describe in their contribution to this issue, the tendencies to experience positive and negative emotions are not opposites, but orthogonal dimensions that define an affective plane. People who are cheerful, enthusiastic, optimistic, and energetic are not necessarily low in anxiety or depression—that depends on their level of N. But cheerful people consistently tend to be dominant, talkative, sociable, and warm, and Watson and Clark (in press) argue that positive emotionality should be seen as the core of E. This somewhat unorthodox view is probably a useful corrective to the narrowly interpersonal interpretation of E as sociability.
>
> E is distinguished by its breadth of content. In their review, Watson and Clark (in press) identified seven components of E: venturesomeness, affiliation, positive affectivity, energy, ascendance, and ambition. As Table 1 shows, Costa and McCrae's view of E is similarly broad, although they would divide affiliation into warmth and gregariousness and assign ambition to C." The fact that such a wide variety of interpersonal, affective, and temperamental variables covary probably accounts for the fact that this factor is so well represented in English language adjectives and so often described by personality theorists. The lexical literature suggests that individuals low in E can be described as quiet, reserved, retiring, shy, silent, and withdrawn (John, 1990a), and Q-sort correlates point to emotional blandness and overcontrol of impulses as additional attributes. Nowhere in this description is introspectiveness seen: Low E must be distinguished from Guilford's (1977) Thinking Introversion (which is more closely related to O and C). The confusion between social and thinking introversions is perpetuated in the MBTI, where both kinds of traits are attributed to individuals classified as Introverts. In fact, the MBTI EI scale is a relatively pure measure of low E (McCrae & Costa, 1989a).
>
> The label Agreeableness has been almost universally used for Norman's Factor II, but as Digman (1990) noted, "Agreeableness . . . seems tepid for a dimension that appears to involve the more humane aspects of humanity—characteristics such as altruism, nurturance, caring, and emotional support at the one end of the dimension, and hos tility, indifference to others, self-centeredness, spitefulness, and jealousy at the other" (pp. 422-424). Digman and Takemoto-Chock (1981) offered "Friendly Compliance versus Hostile Noncompliance" as an alternative descriptor for the factor, and Graziano and Eisenberg (in press) adopted the contrast "Agreeableness versus Antagonism." Because A must be orthogonal to E, the location—and thus the interpretation— of A depends to some extent on one's view of E. Again, Goldberg and Wiggins see this factor as Love or Warmth; Costa et al. (1991) note a cluster of attributes that blend Warmth and Submission, including trust, modesty, and compliance.
>
> Like A, C is a highly evaluated dimension; indeed, A and C are the classic dimensions of character, describing "good" versus "evil" and "strong-willed" versus "weak-willed" individuals. Perhaps it was these moral overtones that often led scientific psychologists to ignore these factors, but in fact, both represent objectively observable dimensions of individual differences. Some people are thorough, neat, wellorganized, diligent, and achievement-oriented, whereas others are not, and self-reports of these characteristics can be validated by peer or spouse ratings (McCrae & Costa, 1987).
>
> A number of different conceptions of C have been offered. Tellegen's (1982) Constraint and Hogan's (1986) Prudence reflect an inhibitive view of C as a dimension that holds impulsive behavior in check. Digman and Takemoto-Chock's (1981) Will to Achieve represents a proactive view of C as a dimension that organizes and directs behavior. The term Conscientiousness combines both aspects, because it can mean either governed by conscience or diligent and thorough. Empirically, both kinds of traits seem to covary.
>
> The greatest controversy concerns O, and the root ofthe controversy is the disparity between natural language and questionnaire studies. Studies of trait adjectives in English (Goldberg, 1990; John, 1990a) and German (Ostendorf, 1990) typically show a factor defined by such items as intelligent, imaginative, and perceptive, and researchers from Fiske (1949) to Hogan (1986) and Digman (1990) have identified this factor as some form of Intellect. However, many traits related to O are not represented among English trait adjectives—there is, for example, no single English word that means "sensitive to art and beauty" (McCrae, 1990). Researchers using questionnaires have typically found a much broader factor that includes, in addition to creativity and intellectual interests, differentiated emotions, aesthetic sensitivity, need for variety, and unconventional values. This broader concept can be traced to Rogers (1961), Rokeach (1960), and Coan (1974); McCrae and Costa (in press) have argued that O is seen structurally in the depth, scope, and permeability of consciousness, and motivationally in the need for variety and experience. Ideas, of course, form an important aspect of consciousness, but fantasies, feelings, sensations, and values are also experiences to which individuals can be more or less open. Several discussions of the relative merits of these two conceptions have been offered (Digman, 1990; John, 1990a; McCrae & Costa, 1985b, in press; Peabody & Goldberg, 1989). One point that should be emphasized is that neither Openness nor Intellect is equivalent to measured intelligence; O is a dimension of personality, not intellectual ability, and many people score high in O without having a correspondingly high IQ.
>
> A recent study illustrates the empirical basis for broadening the conception of this factor beyond Intellect. John (1989a) examined ACL and CQS data from expert raters at the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research. Based on a review of the literature, a panel of judges selected 112 prototype items from the ACL to mark the five dimensions. Many of the terms selected to represent O were consistent with either an Intellect or an Openness interpretation, including wide interests, imaginative, original, curious, and artistic. But because the literature emphasized the Intellect interpretation, judges also included such terms as wise, logical, and foresighted. When observer ratings on the 112 items were factored for a sample of 280 ratees, the five-factor model was clearly recovered, but wise, logical, and foresighted were not among the clear definers of the Intellect/Openness factor (Table 1 lists the six highest-loading adjectives). Empirical analyses shifted the factor from a clear Intellect to a mixed Intellect/Openness factor. When ACL factor scores were correlated with CQS ratings by the same experts, the significant correlates (|r | \> .40) showed the full range of traits associated with Openness. Individuals rated low on the factor were described by "judges in conventional terms," "favors conservative values," and "represses anxiety;" those rated high were described by "high degree of intellectual capacity," "enjoys aesthetic impressions," "has wide interests," and "unusual, unconventional thought." As seen in this list, O includes aspects of intellect, but is considerably broader in scope.

What is obvious from all this is that many researchers have gone to great lengths to put interpretive names to the factors. You can argue that that is a bad thing, but then I'm not here to argue the counterpoint, but to show it happened.

There are however some researchers which have argued that \[counter\]point, on the basis that interpretive naming can lead to further testable hypotheses as to the underlying mechanisms for the factors:

> Whatever the inadequacies of the natural language for scientific systematics, broad dimensions inferred from folk usage are not a bad place to start a taxonomy. Even in the biological taxonomy of animals, “the technical system evolved from the vernacular” (Simpson, 1961, pp. 12–13).
>
> Obviously, a system that initially derives from the natural language does not need to reify such terms indefinitely. Indeed, several of the dimensions included among the Big Five, most notably Extraversion and Neuroticism, have been the target of various physiological and mechanistic explanations (e.g., Canli et al., 2001; see also L. A. Clark, 2005). In research on emotion regulatory processes, the links between the Big Five, the chronic use of particular regulatory strategies, and their emotional and social consequences are being articulated (John & Gross, 2007). Similarly, the conceptual explication of Extraversion and Neuroticism as persistent dispositions toward thinking and behaving in ways that foster, respectively, positive and negative affective experiences (e.g., Tellegen, 1985; see also Clark & Watson, Chapter 9, this volume) promises to connect the Big Five with individual differences in affective functioning, which, in turn, may be studied in more tightly controlled laboratory settings (see Gross, Chapter 28, this volume). At this point, the Big Five differentiate domains of individual differences that have similar surface manifestations— just like the early animal taxonomy that was transformed by better accounts of evolutionary processes and by the advent of new tools, such as molecular genetics. Likewise, the structures and processes underlying these personality trait domains are now beginning to be explicated. Explanatory and mechanistic terms will likely change the definition and assessment of the Big Five dimensions as we know them today.
> 1 votes

# Answer
To this research psychologist, the labels seem fairly neutral compared to the labels in other personality taxonomies such as Meyers-Briggs (as discussed by Fizz). There's cultural baggage on a label like "Openness", but whether people would like to think they have it doesn't imply it's the wrong term. For example, perhaps the most contested term and construct in personality psychology is intelligence. Certainly people want to think they have it, but that doesn't mean it's the wrong label. Back to Openness, if people considered the whole label, Openness to new experience, they might better recognize that it isn't necessarily attractive. For example, not everyone likes museums or wants to try unfamiliar foods. There's risk in using everyday language, but there's also harm in using a fully neutral term like Type-A Personality, because it obscures the meaning and makes discussion and theory-building correspondingly more difficult.
> 0 votes

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Tags: measurement, personality, terminology, bias, psychology
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# Question
Title: why are all human brains so similar in brain structure, specialization of their parts and functioning?
As a result of my growing interest in neuroscience, I have begun to try and understand the functioning of the brain. However, I am always confronted by the following questions:

1. The brain is a highly specialized organ with innumerable nuclei and pathways, and yet the brain of one individual is surprisingly similar to that of another. Hence, it must be the case that the structure of the brain must, in part, be determined by our genes. If this assessment is correct, how much is our brain structure dependent on our genes?
2. Now consider the case of a newborn and suppose his/her brain structure has been established somehow. As he/she grows, the brain starts taking sensory input and learns to process it better through neuroplasticity. If so, then why does everyone's, say amygdala only process fear, anxiety, etc. What prevents it from maintaining autonomous functions? Are the functions of different parts also determined by our genetics? (Is neuroplasticity the only force dictating learning?)

In other words, why are all human brains so similar in brain structure, specialization of their parts and functioning?

Thank you

# Answer
Up until the 70s and 80s, there were decades of hot debate about whether some phenotype such as brain structure or some behavior were caused by genes or by environment. Wikipedia has a decent summary of the history and content of that debate, and I've linked to the section on estimating the relative contribution of genes vs. environment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature\_versus\_nurture#Heritability\_estimates

The current consensus is that the #1 question isn't very meaningful. Genes and environment are both 100% necessary conditions for a brain to develop. Yes, the similarity between brains (and between species) show that a lot of the structure is conserved, and much of that design depends on genes. But those genes wouldn't develop into a brain without very specific environmental conditions.

There are three quite distinct questions under #2. Cells and regions differentiate in the body; brain plasticity isn't 100%. Some structure is conserved. Consider that "modularity", one type of which is that different areas of the brain do distinct operations, is at least partially false. The brain is not at all like a computer with a motherboard with distinct components. It might help to consider how you would answer your question for why people's thumbs don't look like their other fingers. What prevents a thumb from developing into a finger? Are the functions of a thumb determined by genetics? This might help you to zero in on the specific processes of the brain that are the mechanisms that explain how genes and environments interact to produce phenotypes.
> 1 votes

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Tags: learning, brain-development
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# Question
Title: Decrease in d' with concurrent increase of criterion
I was reading about an experimental condition where subjects d' (sensitivity) decreases, while at the same time their criterion is increasing (a shift to the right). The authors were arguing with a decrease in the hit rates.

I was wondering how this is possible: An increase of criterion should decrease hit rates as well as false alarm rates (the subject becomes more conservative). As these are both proportionally decreased, sensitivity, defined as

$′=\_−\_$

should remain constant, or not?

Source: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-015-0903-8

# Answer
> 1 votes
Within the classical signal detection framework, the effect of bias is studied by keeping the signal and signal plus noise stimuli identical, which should keep d' constant, and manipulating the instructions to the subjects or the payoff/cost matrix to change the bias. Under these conditions, we expect d' to remain constant since it is defined by the signal and signal plus noise distributions. Changing the instructions or payoff/cost matrix can change the underlying distributions even if the stimuli are fixed because forcing someone to use an unnatural criterion could add additional noise. This will cause a decrease in d'. For fixed distributions, changing the criterion can only change d' (as defined by ZD−ZF and not mu2-mu1/sigma) if the distributions are not Gaussian.

The attached graphic looks like the experiments manipulated the stimuli/paradigm by changing the inter-stimulus interval (ISI). This seems to have changed the underlying signal and signal plus noise distributions and causes d' to increase as the bias decreases. Potentially the longer ISI gives the subject more processing time leading to an increased d'. Depending on how bias is calculated (cf. Two different values for criterion in signal detection theory?), the criterion could be staying constant relative to the noise alone stimuli, but the bias could be changing.

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Tags: psychophysics
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# Question
Title: What type of data can we get from fMRI to calculate correlations?
Lets say we want to compare the correlation between the activation one part of the brain and rise in value of other variable. The design would be within subjects.

What is the data that we can receive from the fMRI from one specific brain area(e.g. temporal cortex) to use to calculate the correlation.

# Answer
> 1 votes
The BOLD response is used in fMRI to provide a quantified measure of activation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haemodynamic\_response. It is based on the ratio of oxygenated vs. non-oxygenated blood, implying blood flow, and inferred to mean more processing or activation of those brain areas.

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Tags: fmri, data, correlation
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# Question
Title: Is doubting a claim more taxing in terms of energy spent by the brain?
I was at a conference some time ago in a university near my city, a Neurologist was part of the various talks held there, and in his words:

"There is a, let's call it Neuro-Psychologic interpretation of belief, that is actually supported by evidence, which in essence says we really, really don't like doubting what we believe. Because not only does it take slightly more energy to doubt any given claim, but by default we are believers. We believe things said to us, and then subject them to scrutiny in a second moment; this according to research conducted in Harvard using an fMRI. Now, if we add to this- in Piagetian terms which most of you are familiar with- the notion of a Schema, so, linked thoughts and expectations placed on the world to simplify actions and problem solving, we are in big trouble. Daniel Kahneman, a known researcher and Psychologist has basically set in stone the fact that we are lazy thinkers. We like to take shortcuts, we don't really like hard challenges and Confirmation Bias would rather us keep believing things we already do.

If we were to pick between rational discourse with the opposite side, or lash out or ignore them, we'd pick any options that would let us avoid confrontation, because it's really exhausting for the brain to take head on, a waterfall of information that disagrees with more or less your whole worldview, it's too much energy. So true skeptics who enjoy doubting are anomalous, lying or masochists if you ask me."

I translated this in English because it isn't the original language of the talk. Do his claims have any weight? It would be a stroke of luck if there was some researcher from Harvard to confirm what he said about the fMRI case. He mentioned Daniel Gilbert was part of it, but i can't find the actual published paper for some reason.

# Answer
> 4 votes
Overall, the claim seems to be that people prefer holding their current beliefs. This is well-documented, for example in a big literature on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive\_dissonance . Note that this may be culturally dependent; some Buddhist traditions explicitly value holding contradictory beliefs.

It's possible the study being referred to in the quoted passage is reported in this paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02226.x 'When the Truth Is Not Too Hard to Handle: An Event-Related Potential Study on the Pragmatics of Negation' (One author is at Harvard).

If so, the quoted speaker's comments are inconsistent with the findings. There was earlier work suggesting statements with negations might be more difficult to understand, but this paper doesn't find that. Their results "...suggest that negation poses no principled obstacle for readers to immediately relate incoming words to what they hold to be true."

I think it's fair to say that humans limit the mental effort they put in; this perspective is also summarized in the theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive\_miser

A word of caution: the quoted text seems to rely heavily on vague appeals to authority (e.g., Harvard) rather than references to specific empirical findings. This can be a red flag for argument quality.

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Tags: neuroscience, cognitive-neuroscience
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title: How can IQ below 40 be measured?

text:
# Question
Title: How can IQ below 40 be measured?
Common intelligence tests such as the WAIS or RIAS don't differentiate well (or at all) in very low IQ ranges, making it impossible to diagnose the degree of mental retardation according to the criteria put forward in the ICD-10.

How can IQ below 40 be measured?

# Answer
> 4 votes
With great difficulty. I'm half-joking because I'm not totally sure, but the first observation is that DSM-IV also used these brackets, so the ICD-10 isn't alone.

> The DSM-IV definition utilizes four degrees of severity that reflect the level of intellectual impairment: IQ levels between 50–55 to approximately 70 characterize mild mental retardation, 35—40 to 50–55 characterize moderate mental retardation, 20–25 to 35–40 characterize severe mental retardation, and IQ levels below 20–25 characterize profound mental retardation.

As far as actually testing the profound levels of retardation, it seem to me that alternative tests might be used in practice, e.g. a 2018 Texas HHS guideline says:

> In some situations, an individual’s limitations may be so extensive that a full scale IQ score cannot be obtained from a standardized intelligence test. In these situations, an estimate of the individual’s IQ score, or, IQ score equivalent should be stated with clinical justification. For example, if an individual’s ability to comprehend oral instruction or visual demonstration is not adequate for a formal appraisal of general intellectual functioning, the use of an Adaptive Behavior Composite (e.g., provided by the VABS) may serve as an estimate of the individual’s intellectual functioning when accompanied by a clinical justification explained in the DID report. However, not all measures of adaptive behavior (e.g., ABAS, ICAP, and SIB) are appropriate for establishing an IQ score equivalent.

VABS is the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales; there's a reasonably cited paper by Bölte and Poustka (2002) correlating the ABC subscale of that with IQ \< 70 (which is measured on the WISC-R/WAIS-R scale). But it also notes that the because of floor effects with WISC/WAIS we can't be certain that the substitute is really appropriate. It also cites some other papers some of which disagreed with this idea of substituting VABS for IQ.

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The ICD-11 has moved away from merely using the IQ as discriminator, but has kept it. The DSM-5 was a little bolder:

> DSM-5 abandoned specific IQ scores as a diagnostic criterion, although it retained the general notion of functioning two or more standard deviations below the general population.

As the Texas guideline explains further:

> the DSM-5 (pages 33-36) is the first edition to classify level of severity based on adaptive functioning rather than IQ score. The DSM-5 explains that “the various levels of severity are defined on the basis of adaptive functioning, and not IQ scores, because it is adaptive functioning that determines the level of supports required.” In other words, the DSM-5 recognizes that adaptive functioning has greater practical significance because it is a better indicator of the individual’s ability to function in society.

And Texas has basically adopted the DSM-5 in this regard, classifying ability by an (approved) ABL test, of which there are several, but since that's not the main topic here... I won't detail that any further.

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Tags: iq
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# Question
Title: Phrase used by jordan peterson about "revealing"
In his book *12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos* (Peterson, 2018) has following quote:

> If you will not **reveal** yourself to others, you cannot reveal yourself to yourself. That does not only mean that you suppress who you are, although it also means that. It means that so much of what you could be will never be forced by necessity to come forward. This is a biological truth, as well as a conceptual truth. When you explore boldly, when you voluntarily confront the unknown, you gather information and build your renewed self out of that information. That is the conceptual element. However, researchers have recently discovered that new genes in the central nervous system turn themselves on when an organism is placed (or places itself) in a new situation. These genes code for new proteins. These proteins are the building blocks for new structures in the brain. This means that a lot of you is still nascent, in the most physical of senses, and will not be called forth by stasis. You have to say something, go somewhere and do things to get turned on.

I am puzzled what he means by word **reveal** above?

why would you not want to reveal (whatever he means) yourself? Can you give some explanations what you think?

## References

Peterson, J. (2018). *12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos*. Toronto: Penguin Random House. ISBN: 0345816021

# Answer
> 3 votes
Re-reading the whole quote and not just the first 3 sentences there does seem to be some ramblings which need citations to back his claims.

The crux of your question:

> I am puzzled \[with\] what he means by \[the\] word **reveal** above?

why would you not want to reveal (whatever he means) yourself?

The first 3 sentences loosely refer to the concept of the johari window which I spoke about in another answer.

The basic concept of the johari window is that in order to reveal yourself fully to yourself (who you are) you need to reveal yourself to others. There can be abilities you have, and maybe aspects to your personality, which are unknown to you but others may see **if you allow them to see them**.

As for why you would not want to reveal yourself, there can be numerous reasons. One example was used by Peterson in the same part of the book (Rule 8: Tell the truth — or, at least, don't lie)

> Consider the person who insists that everything is right in her life. She avoids conflict, and smiles, and does what she is asked to do. She finds a niche and hides in it. She does not question authority or put her own ideas forward, and does not complain when mistreated. She strives for invisibility, like a fish in the centre of a swarming school.

This person is hiding herself. She is not revealing her thoughts and ideas, so therefore she is not **revealing herself**.

If she revealed her thoughts and ideas she would be seen and heard, therefore putting the knowledge out there that she can think for herself.

On the other hand, she may not see that she **can** think for herself. Maybe she thinks her ideas are not going to be correct or even be considered.

To find out more about the concept of the johari window, the links in the other answer (linked above) could help.

After those first 3 sentences, the quote gives *so-called* explanations referring to genes in the central nervous system (CNS) which I cannot vouch for and feel maybe a bit far fetched, although I must point out that I am not fully conversant with the neuroscience. The problem with this part of the quote is that nothing mentioned is referenced, just like the first 3 sentences.

What I have found through basic internet searches is as follows:

> Genetics of the nervous system refers to the study of genetics affecting the development, physiology and functions of the nervous system and diseases thereof
> (nature.com n.d.)

> Several diseases that directly affect the nervous system have a genetic component: some are due to a mutation in a single gene, others are proving to have a more complex mode of inheritance. As our understanding of the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disorders deepens, common themes begin to emerge...
> (National Center for Biotechnology Information 1998)

Whether this part of the quote can be relevant to the situation may be answered by others here, but seeing as you haven't asked about that directly I feel a separate question would be needed for that.

##References

National Center for Biotechnology Information (1998). *The Nervous System*. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22197

nature.com (n.d.). *Genetics of the nervous system*. Retreived from https://www.nature.com/subjects/genetics-of-the-nervous-system

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Tags: learning, self, self-control, self-discipline
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# Question
Title: Any research on IQ (general) and coping with abstract concepts?
Is there any good research on how general IQ correlates with levels of abstractions people can easily handle?

I understand, that abstractions are different, but here it's probably enough to cover base logical reasoning, set (in math sense) membership and such, maybe some other classification. Also, of course there are situations when language already contains metaphors, which allow people to reason (like "file" can be put into "folder"). My question is more about situations, when there are no suitable ready metaphors ("X" can contain "Y"). (memory can also be a factor?)

The notion of complexity of abstract concept systems is also interesting (if there are several), but my hope is to find an answer for any good notion. Basically, "common sense" logic whatever it is is probably enough reference point.

The idea is simple. Lets say, people with IQ greater than X can understand and recognize part-whole relationship and use that understanding in their work. Then, of course, it is easy to calculate how accessible some system is: IQ has very simple statistical definition (given standard deviation).

I am not a psychologist so I do not quite know even what are the right terms to search. However, my interest is in making software applications accessible to more users and user interfaces oftentimes rely on users handling of abstract concepts. So my interest is pragmatic. Still I think this question is more on psychology side than UX.

I believe IQ matters because if a user can't figure out something in a "moment" (in seconds), system is not usable.

# Answer
I think the answer here is easier than you imagine. Many of the tasks associated with IQ and general intelligence tests contain tasks that are specifically about abstraction. For example, an SAT reading comprehension question depends on verbal and reading skills, but tasks like in an IQ test (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s\_Progressive\_Matrices) don't correspond to any existing verbal or other knowledge and are therefore tapping a type of abstract thinking.

If that's not what you meant by abstract, consider researching what kinds of cognitive operations are associated with the types of abstraction you had in mind.

Also, note there are a lot of threads in this group about intelligence, and many of them cover the same useful ground, such as different types of intelligence, the difference between IQ and general intelligence, etc. Wikipedia is also a good source on those definitions.
> 0 votes

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Tags: iq, correlation
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# Question
Title: How accurate are diagnoses on Autism to Children under 3 years old?
I have a son with autism. He was diagnosed under 3 years old. 2 years old to be exactly. After I doubted several pediatricians that claimed that wouldn't be a valid diagnose after 5 years old. I discovered by myself that it wasn't entirely true. I've read that specialists would diagnose under 2, or even, babies. I want to know because other parents say their doctors say to wait from 2 to 3 years old or even more.

# Answer
There was a study which examines the exact question you posed. This study, which was conducted by Stone et al. (1999) compared accuracy of diagnosis of autism and a pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS).

With regard to autism, the study suggested 2 conclusions:

> (1) the identification of an autism spectrum disorder can be made reliably in children below the age of 3; and (2) the specific diagnosis of autism can be made reliably in children under 3 years, as long as the diagnosticians have experience evaluating young children. The latter conclusion is presented more tentatively, given the limited sample of clinicians employed in the present study. Further study of the impact of experience on diagnostic reliability at young ages, using lager samples of clinicians, would shed additional light on the issue.

Regardless of the initial diagnosis, the large majority of children remained on the autism spectrum at the 1 year follow-up.

> Of the children who received a diagnosis of autism at age 2, 96% remained on the autism spectrum at age 3, and 72% retained the specific diagnosis of autism. Although the results suggest that symptomatology improved for 28% of these children, only 1 child (4%) improved to the extent he "left" the autism spectrum.

They also pointed out that diagnostic stability did not vary as a function of whether the same or a different clinician made the Time 2 diagnosis, proving further support for the robustness of the diagnosis.

## Additional Information after issues surrounding debate were raised.

With regard to the debates over autism, there is a factsheet on the debates at autism-help.org and the debate covers the causes of autism (genetics etc), lack of definitive test for autism

> due to the significant variance of symptoms among people with autistic traits, as well as a lack of knowledge about the etiology of the condition. Those with Asperger syndrome may be highly functional cognitively but lack ‘social’ skills, whereas others with so-called “profound Autism” may be non-verbal and deficient in elementary skills.

and there are issues surrounding the diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome as opposed to autism.

> \[M\]any autism spectrum adults and neurotypical (non-autistic) allies in the autism rights movement do not consider Autism to be a disorder, but simply a different way of perceiving and behaving. These people believe that at least some of the difficulties encountered by people with Autism may result from prejudice and lack of accommodation from society.

Stone et al. (1999) is cited in over 200 papers including many over the past 5 years. One of them is Roberts, et al. (2019), where they also point out that ASD can be reliably diagnosed by 24 months, although the average age of diagnosis is 2 years later.

Clark, et al. (2018) also highlights that early diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder is considered best practice, increasing access to early intervention. They investigated the school age outcomes of children who received an early, as opposed to later, diagnosis of ASD. The abstract highlights that:

> Children diagnosed early accessed more intervention, demonstrated better verbal and overall cognition at school age, were more likely to attend mainstream school and required less ongoing support than children diagnosed later.

So while raising the debates about autism diagnosis in the last 20 years is a valid argument, it does seem that the 1999 paper still stands as valid, even though changes were made in the DSM with the publication of DSM-5. But then again, when you look at following studies,

> DSM-5 resulted in 47.79% fewer toddlers being diagnosed with ASD compared to those on the DSM-IV. Toddlers diagnosed according to DSM-5 exhibited greater levels of autism symptomatology than those diagnosed with DSM-IV, but the latter group still exhibited significant levels of autism symptomatology
> (Matson, et al. 2012).

So has the change created a problem where some are no longer diagnosed when they should have been? That would be open to opinion I believe.

## References

Clark, M. L. E., Vinen, Z., Barbaro, J., & Dissanayake, C. (2018). School age outcomes of children diagnosed early and later with autism spectrum disorder. *Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 48*(1), 92-102. doi: 10.1007/s10803-017-3279-x

Matson, J. L., Kozlowski, A. M., Hattier, M. A., Horovitz, M., & Sipes, M. (2012). DSM-IV vs DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for toddlers with autism. *Developmental Neurorehabilitation, 15*(3), 185-190. doi: 10.3109/17518423.2012.672341

Roberts, M. Y., Stern, Y., Hampton, L. H., Grauzer, J. M., Miller, A., Levin, A., ... & Estabrook, R. (2019). Beyond pass‐fail: Examining the potential utility of two thresholds in the autism screening process. *Autism Research, 12*(1), 112-122. doi: 10.1002/aur.2045

Stone, W. L., Lee, E. B., Ashford, L., Brissie, J., Hepburn, S. L., Coonrod, E. E., & Weiss, B. H. (1999). Can autism be diagnosed accurately in children under 3 years?. *The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 40*(2), 219-226. doi: 10.1111/1469-7610.00435
> 2 votes

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Tags: autism
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# Question
Title: If 10 words are presented at the same time, is it still considered a 'free recall' test?
I'm a little bit confused about the definition of a free recall test. According to Wikipedia:

> Items are usually presented one at a time for a short duration, ...

If 10 items are presented at the same time for a short duration and subjects are asked to recall them later, could you still say this is a free recall test?

# Answer
> 3 votes
Free recall refers to not being given exemplars during the retrieval task. For example, multiple choice would be called recognition here, not recall. The format of the presentation such as simultaneous vs. serial, or format of the recall in terms of ordering or grouping, would not affect the term free recall.

# Answer
> 3 votes
Memory recall is generally tested with one of three paradigms: serial, cued, and free. In serial recall the subject must recall the items in a specified order (e.g., forward or backwards). In cued recall, the items are usually presented in pairs and the subject is told to recall the matching item to one half of the pair. In free recall, subjects can repeat the items in whatever order they want.

Typically items are presented to subjects one at a time, so the experimenter can know in what order they are encoded. There is no reason that multiple items cannot be presented at once (e.g., words in a grid). How the items are presented is independent of the recall procedure (i.e., cued, serial, free).

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, performance, short-term-memory
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# Question
Title: What is it called when you imagine what other people would say or do in a certain situation?
For example, some Christians say that to know how to act, we just need to "imagine how Jesus would act in this situation." The same goes for people we know personally, as in: "What will my boss say if I tell him that?"

It looks similar to Mentalization, but I wonder if there are other more specific theories about this.

# Answer
> 4 votes
Humans have a natural ability to predict the behavior of others called folk psychology:

> ... folk psychology, or commonsense psychology, is a human capacity to explain and predict the behavior and mental state of other people. ... Traditionally, the study of folk psychology has focused on how everyday people—those without formal training in the various academic fields of science—go about attributing mental states.

That is, folk psychology relies on first determining other people's mental state, and then using that information to predict their behavior. This underlying ability to predict mental state is often referred to in the literature as "mind-reading" (not to be confused with telepathy), or more formally, theory of mind or mentalization.

It seems that humans have some mental model of how other people's minds work, and they use this model to predict their behavior. Note however, that lay people use a model that is not (scientifically) valid - that is, it is not an accurate representation of how minds actually work - and hence predictions often fail. Such mental models are presumably sufficiently accurate in everyday situations to be useful nonetheless.

How humans do this is subject to some debate. The leading mechanism is called theory-theory:

> This theory asserts that individuals hold a basic or 'naïve' theory of psychology ("folk psychology") to infer the mental states of others, such as their beliefs, desires or emotions. This information is used to understand the intentions behind that person's actions or predict future behavior.

That is, according to theory-theory, people have an explicit model - one that they learn through experience, and can articulate and apply explicitly - of other people's minds.

One challenge to theory-theory is that humans are far too adept at mind-reading for an explicit model. A competing implicit mechanism is proposed by simulation theory:

> ... a theory that holds that humans anticipate and make sense of the behavior of others by activating mental processes that, if carried into action, would produce similar behavior. This includes intentional behavior as well as the expression of emotions. The theory states that children use their own emotions to predict what others will do. Therefore, we project our own mental states onto others.

In other words, simulation theory suggests that humans have a way to simulate their own mental state - that is, pretend to be in someone else's shoes - and use that to predict the behavior of others.

As there is much evidence both for and against each theory, a hybrid 2-systems account has also been proposed by eg, Frith & Frith (2008), Apperly & Butterfill (2009).

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, social-psychology, cognitive-modeling, theory-of-mind, projection
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# Question
Title: Can we really motivate ourselves "on-demand"?
There are so many articles online and books selling on the idea that we should motivate ourselves daily, as motivation doesn't last long. Many cite numerous experiments and advise on techniques you can supposedly use, because some experiment showed positive results.

From all the popular psychology and life coaching books on Motivation, all I can gather is that motivation is something a person should think about constantly and regulate on their own, on a daily basis.(10 proven ways to motivate yourself,...and similar titles).

Can you really talk yourself into feeling motivated? Or is motivation something that just happens subconsciously? Is popular psychology really onto something or their claims too big?

Edit: My question is not answered with the suggested answer in the comment section. I'm not interested in obstacles to motivation, I'm interested in whether one can consciously spark motivation within oneself, regardless of existing obstacles.

# Answer
There is not much possibility to talk yourself into being motivated. However, personal narratives can help us redirect our motivations or manage them more productively. To take this more abstractly, consider a person who just ate a large meal. If they are not hungry, could they talk themselves into being hungry? (Rarely.) However, if a person is craving a certain type of food, they could notice that and consciously decide to redirect that interest into a different type of food, and then that intention might lead to actual behavior. This could also apply to longer-term goals, such as pursuing more education; but that process is only possible to the extent that other, existing motivations are borrowed to a new target. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination\_theory for a popular theory of overall social motivations.

Motivation is not just subconscious, to the extent that we can have sensations around desire and goal states, e.g., be aware of urges and drives. All cognition includes subconscious processes: absolutely.

Popular psychology is wildly profitable but often quite unrelated to the latest empirical science. The incentive is to be convincing and be shared, not to be accurate. 'The Secret' is a good example: super popular and entirely inconsistent with physics. Finally, the note "...nobody can claim anything" is a bit vague.
> 4 votes

# Answer
What do you mean by motivating yourself on demand?

If you mean you are completely take responsibility for yourself, then Cameron Brick's answer is better than me.

But if you mean you can proactively seek for an external factor as your **extrinsic motivation**, then yes, why not? People do that all the time. I suppose one reason to hire tutor is to have them to set discipline for yourself, right? Services like Beeminder can charge users money if they fail to achieve a result before a deadline. Does that count as motivating yourself on demand?
> 1 votes

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Tags: motivation
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title: Are the images in our heads physical?

text:
# Question
Title: Are the images in our heads physical?
I can think of a banana in my mind, and I can see it, it's there, but it's not really there at the same time. It doesn't feel physical, but for me to be able to see it, it must be physical, right? Are the images just a collection of neurons firing?

# Answer
> 4 votes
**Question: Are the images just a collection of neurons firing?**

**Answer:** Evidence from clinical neurology and cognitive neuroscience at present shows that all mental activities, not just the image of a banana, occur from neural firings. Without neural firings, no mental activities can occur. What’s more, when the neural firings change, the mental activities invariably change accordingly. That’s why mental activities change whenever neural firings change because of diseases affecting their neural circuits (stroke, trauma, tumor, encephalitis, hypoglycemia, migraine aura, epileptic activity, neurotransmission-interfering drugs, etc.) or because of electrical or magnetic stimulation to the neural circuits. There has never been a scientific report documenting a mental activity occurring by itself without neural firings.

Now, one can postulate that a mental image is something that occurs separately and additionally to the neural firing or one can postulate that a mental image is something that occurs inherently in the neural firing without any additional entity occurring. At present, I think there is no consensus on this yet. But, in my opinion, I favor the second case as some authors do. For example, **Moutoussis K (ref 1)**: *“… a specific brain–activation pattern, leading to the formation of a specific percept. … specific, individual perceptual experiences are caused by specific, individual brain activation pattern …”*, **Roederer JG (ref 2)**: *“when does a specific distribution of neural firings actually become a mental image? This neural activity distribution does not become anything – it is the image.”*, and **Ukachoke C (ref 3)**: *“…a mental process is the information-processing process, which is an entity that functionally occurs intrinsically in the physical neural process, not an additional entity that occurs separately from the neural process…”*. (If you’re interested in more detailed discussion, you can read ref 3; I think it provides a good, systematic, and evidence-based argument for the case.)

**Question: It** (the mental image of banana) **doesn't feel physical, but for me to be able to see it, it must be physical, right? Are the images in our heads physical?**

**Answer:** This, the mental image of banana, is an interesting phenomenon that’s baffled philosophers, neuroscientists, and others who ponder over it for a long time. It (the mental image of banana) and other similar phenomena, such as the sound of the note C, the odor of the rose, and the feeling of a pinprick, that occur in our minds are called **qualia \[ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7\]**. Each has unique phenomenal characteristics that cannot be described by other phenomena and has to be experienced directly to know what it is like: what the mental image of banana is like, what the sound of the note C is like, what the odor of the rose is like, etc. (You never can describe these phenomena to anyone who has never had experiences of similar kinds of phenomena before, such as, you never can describe what the color red is like to the congenitally blind person, etc.) Again, at present, I don’t think there is a consensus on what qualia are. So, whether they are physical phenomena or not are still unsettled.

However, some author argues that qualia are physical phenomena and actually are just special kinds of information in the nervous system that neural circuits use to communicate some special information among them. These special kinds of information can occur from neural firings in some special ways. Because neurons are firing in some special ways, special kinds of information with those baffling phenomenal characteristics (vision, sound, odor, etc. in our mind) can occur. This is how qualia (including the mental image of banana) occur in the brain. If this is the case and if we count information as a physical entity, then qualia are physical entities. But they are not conventional physical entities like mass, energy, or force, because they are a different kind of physical entities – they are information entities. That’s why they (including the mental image of banana) don’t feel physical to you. (If you’re interested in more detailed discussion, you can read this article (ref 8))

**References.**

1. Moutoussis K. The machine behind the stage: A neurobiological approach toward theoretical issues of sensory perception. Front Psychol. 2016;7:1357.
2. Roederer JG. Pragmatic information in biology and physics. Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2016 Mar 13;374(2063). PII: 20150152.
3. Ukachoke C. Theorem II: The Mind is the Composite of All Information-processing Processes of the Brain. In: The Basic Theory of the Mind. 1st ed, 2018. Bangkok, Thailand.
4. Kanai R, Tsuchiya N. Qualia. Current Biology. 2012 May;22(10):392–396.
5. Tye M. Qualia. Zalta EN, editor. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
6. Kind A. Qualia. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
7. Qualia. Wikipedia.
8. Ukachoke C. Chapter 3 – Qualia, Conscious Awareness, and Conscious Experiences. In: The Basic Theory of the Mind. 1st ed, 2018. Bangkok, Thailand.

# Answer
> 1 votes
This is a classic and unsolved problem and there are many related posts here and in the philosophy stack exchange. For starters, see these resources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard\_problem\_of\_consciousness: discusses the problem of explaining mental phenomena

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard\_problem\_of\_consciousness#Neural\_correlates\_of\_consciousness: connects to the neural activity you mention

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Tags: neuroscience
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title: is it unconcious?

text:
# Question
Title: is it unconcious?
Roughly speaking, I as well as some other people probably have observer following. (1) Sometimes ideas start to come to me out of nowhere, (2) then we sometimes analyze it further and either reject or accept some of these idea. My question is what are the terms for these two incidents:which part of me is responsible for generating these sometimes out of nowhere coming ideas, and which part of me is responsible for filtering and analyzing them? Why how these random ideas come from?

# Answer
This broad article introduces theories of what unconscious thought is and how it relates to conscious thoughts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscious\_thought\_theory . I recommend it.

1) All thinking is preceded by or relies on unconscious processes. Consciousness gives a narrow view of all cognition in the same sort of way that our eyes only see a narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum.

2) This step is referred to as \[mostly\] 'conscious' thought/cognition. Note that the difference between conscious and unconscious processes is gradual and continuous rather than categorical; they overlap.

There's a persistent complication in your question that you keep bringing up "me". It's not necessary to resolve which self or selves were involved to discuss unconscious cognition. The self is a controversial topic. I encourage Sam Harris' book Waking Up, Chapter 2, on this topic: https://samharris.org/books/waking-up/
> 2 votes

# Answer
This would actually be the scientific approach, which has been well established for centuries:

> The concept of Memory \- in the field of cognitive science

Especially the differentiation between **recall** and **recognition**. Also **Flashbulb memories**, **Eureka effect** and especially **Priming**! are all related to preconscious or subliminal concepts

Anatomy related to memory is the (ancient) Hippocampus (which also does random activation as a process) and also the Cortex (especially prefrontal cortex) for self-awareness and consciousness.

**EDIT:** **Because of the question, in how far my answer is related**

Well to say that in the long lasting field of **cognitive sciences** the concept of unconsciousness is not really of a main topic, because things like Priming (which all relates to things that happened in the past and therefore always involves memory) or Eureka-Effect are inherently related to un- or subconscious processes. The wikipedia article on memory is describing concepts that are common in acedemic psychology for at least 50 years. Example: If you ask someone if he/she can remember a certain word that has been shown to them 5 min. ago (an example of the work of cognitive scientists including mathematics), this information is probably available in the persons, but it might not be retreivable in that moment - and in common language you would say that you are not conscious about that information. Priming describes this process of knowing about something, while not being aware of knowing it. So the word consciousness itself is not sufficient in describing the manifold processes that are happening. But surely all human related aspects like consciousness, memory, behavior, physiology, emotions and so on are interconnected with one-another.

Another important aspects - the brain is **auto-activating** and 'always-on' and is just a giant filter machine. Everything is running in parallel and is subconsciously active in an abstract layer of anatomically connections (especially involving the prefrontal cortex) or electromagnetic signals coding information over time or on any other layer that is involved in the brain as a whole. You can compare consciousness as some kind of tip of the iceberg, when a thought is strongly activated and reaches some kind of threshold.
> 0 votes

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Tags: personality, consciousness, unconscious, self
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# Question
Title: What are the possible causes of pettiness?
There is a question about pettiness Is it possible to quantify 'pettiness' in a personality?

Which gives a good example of how some people can focus on seemingly unimportant issues, when there are more obvious issues that would seem to warrant attention.

What would cause a person to focus, even fixate on small, petty things; for example:

1. a co-worker's tardiness, when the employer's company is facing a takeover and jobs may be lost.
2. the makeup one of the school Mum's was wearing, when there's been a robbery at the school

I am wondering what the possible causes of pettiness may be?

# Answer
There can always be many variables for what causes human behavior, within this answer I will focus on three more obvious or, perhap, likely causes for pettiness within individuals.
This could be one of a variety of causes stemming from the following:

* Schadenfreude
* Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (or related disorders)
* Disorders on the Autistic spectrum

**Schadenfreude:**

In the majority of situations this would be the most likely cause of such pettiness, as it is applicable to a more mainstream type of behavior. The chance to show up a deficit or shortcoming in another, motivated by jealousy of, or a feeling of unease stemming from threat by, that person..

> We are primed for pettiness, programmed to notice seemingly inconsequential gradations, but for good reason: Being chronically dissatisfied is an effective stimulus to best your more complacent peers. (1)

This could well be the result of schadenfreude (translated to harm-joy), which refers to the pleasure people gain from the misfortunes of someone they perceive to be a high achiever or be envious of. This is based on envy derived from poor self esteem and/or lack of validation of that person's self esteem and a reaction to a perceived threat, from a fellow high-achiever.

The greater the focus on seemingly petty things, the greater the individual's psychic conflict or neediness and by this I refer to, the need for validation of self-worth and reaffirming their rank as a human being within a given community. For such anxiety to cloud judgement to give a, seemingly, inconsequential issue, precedence over what seem to be more important issues. For this individual the need to validate themselves as a person is greater than national, global or even cosmic issues for which this individual has no control over, and which may have no immediate effect on that person's life.

> The present research shows that people with low self-esteem experience more schadenfreude toward the misfortune of a high- achiever than those with high self-esteem and that this relationship is mediated by the self-threat evoked by the high-achiever. Moreover, the indirect relationship between self-esteem and schadenfreude is contingent on an opportunity of self-affirmation. When no self-affirmation opportunity is available, low-self-esteem participants experience a stronger self-threat when confronted with a high-achiever, and this self-threat increases their schadenfreude. (2)

* **Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)**

Although OCD is usually referring to the compulsive ritualised activities of an individual, as a result of an underlying obsession. If an observer with OCD, witness what may be regarded to most people as petty, but the observed behavior happens to cross into the area of obsession for that person, it could well be that person's attempt to alleviate their own anxiety that is triggered by the perceived aberrant behavior. An example being, observing someone leave the toilet cubicle and restroom without washing their hands.

> Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, or OCD, is an anxiety disorder and is characterized by recurrent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and/or repetitive behaviors (compulsions). Repetitive behaviors such as hand-washing, counting or cleaning are often performed with the hope of preventing obsessive thoughts or making them go away. Performing these so-called "rituals," however, provides only temporary relief, and not performing them markedly increases anxiety

* **Disorders on the Autistic spectrum**

People with disorders that lie on the autistic spectrum, can frequently have preoccupation or obsession with details, that may seem inconsequential to others, or even petty. As with OCD, this perceived pettiness could be an attempt to alleviate the individual's anxiety and to assist in making sense of the world, as this type of individual is frequently inflexible and views the world through a set of structured ideas, that do not easily facilitate or blend with the fluid nature of life and human behavior.

> “Obsessions”, “circumscribed interests”, “special interests”, “routines”, “rituals” , “preoccupations” are some of the terms used when describing the behaviour of young children with autism. These behaviours belong to one of the three core areas of impairment in children with autism. (4)

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References:

* Why You Think You'll Never Stack Up by Carlin Flora, Psychology Today (1)
* Self-Esteem, Self-Affirmation, and Schadenfreude
Wilco W. van Dijk, Guido M. van Koningsbruggen, Jaap W. Ouwerkerk and Yoka M. Wesseling DOI: 10.1037/a0026331 PDF (2)
* Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Brain and Behavior Research Foundation
* Restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behaviour, interest and activities
Dr Avril V Brereton, Monash University PDF (4)
> 3 votes

# Answer
Another general possibility is a personality geared towards perfectionism, which is one of the components of Conscientiousness, one of the Big Five personality traits. Individuals who strive for perfect solutions may focus on trivial components.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientiousness

A similar issue is described as maximizing vs. satisficing: does one take a "good enough" answer, or obsess about diminishing returns? This link explains the concept in psychology.

> https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/science-choice/201506/satisficing-vs-maximizing
> 1 votes

# Answer
Narcissism may be petty by definition. For example, materialism plays to the desire of admiration in Narcissistic Personality Disorder. More generally, I'd associate it with a certain kind of maturity deficit. Such are common in Cluster B personality disorders and not just Narcissistic Personality Disorder:Notes on Narcissistic Personality Disorder. So, Envy would be one component. Failure to tolerate any criticism. Rash responses, temper tantrums. Keeping up with the Jonses'.

From this I'd expect pettiness to correspond with relatively low Openness to experience, low Agreeableness, High Neuroticism. Most petty people I've known aren't especially Extroverted. Conscientiousness overlaps in Narcissism in odd ways.

Low Openness, and High Neuroticism tends to correspond with Low Fluid Intelligence.

So I'm not sure if pettiness itself can be measured directly, but I think measures of the Big 5 Personality Traits and Fluid Intelligence can be used to indicate this quality.

Some Notes on Meanness in Narcissism from Psychology Today
> 0 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, developmental-psychology
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# Question
Title: What is the difference between "target" and "foil" in experimental design?
What is the difference between

> "target"

and

> "foil"

in experimental design in psychology? And how is a foil different from a distractor?

# Answer
Often, experimental designs in psychology contain a target participant (who receives the experimental manipulation) and then also other types, such as:

control: no intervention, or a different intervention confederate: fake participant (actor, or often research assistant) observer: in social influence paradigms

perhaps foil is a confederate. Hard to know without you providing the source.
> 0 votes

# Answer
A target is:

> A stimulus that a research participant or subject is searching for or trying to concentrate on, and that in research is often accompanied by distractors.

And a foil is:

> In research methodology, another name for a distractor.

For example, in a multiple choice question, the correct answer is the "target", and the rest are "foils" or distractors. This is similar to a police lineup, where the suspect is the "target", and the rest are "foils" or fillers. "Foil" and "distractor" are synonyms.
> 2 votes

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Tags: terminology, experimental-psychology, experiment-design, terms
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# Question
Title: Does the autistic child have a “theory of mind”?
Theory of Mind involves understanding another person's knowledge, beliefs, emotions, and intentions and applying that knowledge to navigate the social world.

# Answer
> 4 votes
*note: See comment by Arnon Weinberg; though this answer refers to theory of mind deficits in autism, it appears this is outdated thinking (note the age of some of the references).*

Theory of mind refers to an ability to recognize that others have a mind, and that others may have knowledge/beliefs/motivations that are different from their own.

Children (and adults) with autism as a group have deficits in tests meant to assay theory of mind, though of course the degree of impairment depends on the individual and different tests may give different results.

Tests that assay theory of mind are often dependent on other skills, however, including language and visual social skills (such as eye contact) that are also often impaired with autism, making it more difficult to separate out those related skills from theory of mind itself. However, even after controlling for language skills, people with autism still have deficits in theory of mind.

I don't think it is correct to think of theory of mind as a binary yes/no, although some approaches to the concept do treat it as such. Neurotypically developing children show different elements of the theory of mind at different stages of development. Sometimes theory of mind is separated into "orders", where higher functioning people with autism tend to have more issues with second-order theory of mind, where one recognizes not only that someone else has a mind of their own but also that a third person is able to think about that person's thoughts.

Some individuals with autism who have theory of mind deficits are still able to develop skills to cope and can understand cognitively that others have minds different from their own. Importantly, however, "theory of mind" itself refers to an innate cognitive ability, sort of a natural or automatic accounting for the thoughts of others.

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Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A. M., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the autistic child have a “theory of mind”?. Cognition, 21(1), 37-46.

Baron‐Cohen, S., Jolliffe, T., Mortimore, C., & Robertson, M. (1997). Another advanced test of theory of mind: Evidence from very high functioning adults with autism or Asperger syndrome. Journal of Child psychology and Psychiatry, 38(7), 813-822.

Baron-Cohen, S. (2000). Theory of mind and autism: A fifteen year review. Understanding other minds: Perspectives from developmental cognitive neuroscience, 2, 3-20.

Frith, U., & Happé, F. (1994). Autism: Beyond “theory of mind”. Cognition, 50(1-3), 115-132.

Ozonoff, S., Pennington, B. F., & Rogers, S. J. (1991). Executive function deficits in high‐functioning autistic individuals: relationship to theory of mind. Journal of child Psychology and Psychiatry, 32(7), 1081-1105.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, psychology
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# Question
Title: At what age a child would develop a sense of racism or a minority discrimination?
I wonder if what happened with my son(6yo) is a matter of concern or just a coincidence.

I think I need to give a bit of background to help analyze what happened. We are an Arab family live in the UK, majority of my town is of European/Caucasian ethnicity, although there are few Arab families we know about, but we don't really communicate much. He is the only student who speaks Arabic in his class (there are Polish and maybe other European languages), I don't know about the rest of the school, but if I guess, there isn't in this school.

Me and him were in the car, I was looking for a place to park, and just went by a car park but it wasn't available for normal parking (contract parking). I said: We can't park here. He said: Why? Is it because we speak Arabic?

At the beginning I laughed, and told him there is no such thing, but couple of seconds later I was wondering, how would he develop such idea?

I know this might sound like a troll, but I swear that what really happened, and I am concerned if my son is facing any acts of racism/discrimination, maybe in the school.

# Answer
Children as young as two to three years old are able to pick up on racial categories and stereotypes, and to infer that others' behavior is driven by race (also gender and other categories).

Of course, at that age children are actively exploring causes in the world of all types, so a comment asking about Arabic language does not mean that a child is experiencing extensive discrimination due to race - on the other hand, I think it would be naive to think anyone with any minority characteristic is not experiencing *any* discrimination ever, especially in comments from other kids who are themselves learning about the world and other people. It also could have been something overheard on TV, it could have been from a *discussion* of discrimination rather than an *experience*, etc.

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Corenblum, B., & Annis, R. C. (1993). Development of racial identity in minority and majority children: An affect discrepancy model. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science/Revue canadienne des sciences du comportement, 25(4), 499.

Hirschfeld, L. A. (2008). Children’s developing conceptions of race. Handbook of race, racism, and the developing child, 37-54.

Katz, P. A., & Kofkin, J. A. (1997). Race, gender, and young children. Developmental psychopathology: Perspectives on adjustment, risk, and disorder, 21, 51-74.

Pauker, K., Ambady, N., & Apfelbaum, E. P. (2010). Race salience and essentialist thinking in racial stereotype development. Child Development, 81(6), 1799-1813.

Taylor, R. G. (1966). Racial stereotypes in young children. The Journal of Psychology, 64(2), 137-142.
> 3 votes

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Tags: social-psychology, racism
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# Question
Title: Are there any official guidelines of person-centred therapy?
I understand that the person-centred therapy is based on humanistic psychology.

Humanistic psychology is sceptical about the use of the scientific method to study human behaviour. Rogers (1965, p. 190) said that: 'it is the dedicated, personal search of a disciplined, open-minded individual which discovers and creates new knowledge ... no refinement of laboratory or statistical method can do this.'

Regarding this I understand that the research for humanistic is mostly qualitative and not quantitative.

What would you refer to as evidence/research for person-centred therapy? Is there any official manual for it?

Rogers, C. R. (1965). Some Thoughts Regarding the Current Philosophy of the Behavioral Sciences. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 5(2), 182–194. https://doi.org/10.1177/002216786500500207

# Answer
> 4 votes
Humanistic approaches to psychotherapy are wide ranging and not just person-centred therapy. Some allow the scientific approach into the therapeutic discussion, and some don't.

Person Centred Therapy (PCT) is very different to the Freudian approach to therapy, and how the therapy is provided will be dependent on the form of therapy the therapist works within — integrative or pure person-centred.

## Is there any official manual?

There is no "official manual" I know of, but you can gain a lot of knowledge on the person-centred approach by reading Mearns, et al. (2013) which was a core reading material in one of the years of my training in integrative psychotherapy. There is also a YouTube copy of an old documentary showing Carl Rogers demonstrating PCT.

The difference with PCT compared to other forms of therapy is that therapy is not led by the therapist. Therapy and the sessions are led purely by the client and what they wish to bring to the session — hence the name Person-Centred Therapy. From a pure person-centred approach, you are not necessarily completely shunning the scientific approach to therapy. You are just not pushing the scientific approach to therapy towards the client.

> Distrust of experts runs deep among person-centred practitioners. The person-centred counsellor must learn to wear her expertise as an invisible garment in order to be an effective counsellor (Mearns, et al., 2013).

The Counselling Directory (n.d.) also points out the following:

> In some psychotherapeutic approaches, the therapist and their observations are deemed ‘expert’. The person-centred approach moves away from this idea, and instead trusts that we have an innate tendency to find fulfilment in our own personal potentials (self-actualisation). By facilitating this, the approach helps the client to recognise their own capacity for not only self-healing, but personal growth too.

## What would you refer to as evidence/research for person-centred therapy?

I haven't found a PDF or other form of access to the article as of yet, but according the the abstract, Rogers (1979) discusses the theory and research behind this approach.

Some may consider this form of therapy to be pseudoscientific as it doesn't follow the Popper classification of science (Popper, 1959 & 1963), and some believe that although Rogers put the approach forward as a different form of therapy, it should be seen as a way of working as a therapist in all therapies — with congruence, empathy and unconditional positive regard.

Interestingly though, in an encounter group run by Carl Rogers, he said there were times when he had to break all his own rules, emphasising that it was more important to be spontaneous and real than to be carefully empathic or relentlessly unconditionally positively regarding – meaning that sometimes he would violate the core principles of his own theory of PCT. He might direct a person on what they must do or tell them forcibly that what they were doing was wrong (Geraghty, 2016).

## References

Counselling Directory (n.d.). *Person-centred therapy*. Retrieved from: https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/person-centred-therapy.html

Geraghty, A. (2016). We need to talk about love. *Therapy Today 27*(1), pp. 20-23.

Mearns, D., Thorne, B. & McLeod, J. (2013). *Person-Centred Counselling in Action, 4th Edition (Counselling in Action Series)*. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Popper, K. P. (1959). The Logic of Scientific Discovery. New York: Routledge.

Popper, K. P. (1963). Science as Falsification. In Conjectures and Refutations, New York: Routledge and Keagan Paul, pp. 33-39

Rogers, C. R. (1979). The Foundations of the Person-Centered Approach. *Education, 100*(2), 98-107.

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Tags: person-centered-therapy
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# Question
Title: What does it mean to "accept my shortcomings"?
The need to accept one's faults and shortcomings; or accept oneself in whole, with all faults and shortcomings; or self-acceptance is being repeatedly stressed by psychologists.

However, I've always had problems with this. Whenever I was hearing something along the lines of "acceptance is a necessary precondition of change" from a professional therapists I would usually start arguing with him. This is what was reaching me:

> To be able to change something in your life you must decide you want to change nothing.

So for example, an alcohol addict must decide he will continue drinking until he meets his grave in order to be able to stop drinking? This seemed to me to be either an oxymoron or a particularly twisted form of self-delusion.

Today I read in a newspaper an interview with a professional psychologist and dietician, who was criticizing people who oppose the promotion of self-acceptance among obese people. She elaborated that the dichotomy between obese people accepting their bodies and the fact that obesity is unhealthy and is a both personal and societal problem to be solved is a false one. She pointed out that people who think that way are thinking stereotypically, that this stems from lack of knowledge, that this is a way people cope with cognitive dissonances, etc etc. She claimed that according to research positive motivation is far better than negative motivation that stems from the society rejecting obese people and from obese people not accepting their bodies; instead, if the society accepts obese people and obese people accept themselves, we will take a step closer towards solving the problem of obesity. She explicitly claimed that this does not mean, contrary to a popular belief, that an obese people will not wish to lose weight.

Ah. So apparently, contrary to what I was understanding, "acceptance" in the mouths of psychologists does not mean "decision not to change". Then what does "acceptance" mean?

These are the definitions of '*accept*' according to the Cambridge Dictionary:

> * to agree to take something
> * to say yes to an offer or invitation
> * to consider something or someone as satisfactory
> * to believe that something is true

Definitions 1-2 seem clearly not relevant here.

Definition 3 seems to me to be this exact faulty definition that I had in mind and that was preventing me from understanding was psychologists were really trying to communicate. For example, I suppose, the verb "accept" is used here in the same definition as in the sentence "\*The editorial board rejected Mr. Smith's paper two times already, but finally *accepted* the third revision for publication\*". So the paper had to be changed two times until finally it was deemed satisfactory and no longer in need of change.

Finally, definition 4, while not *obviously* inapplicable, nonetheless doesn't seem to be relevant here: I have feeling psychologists, when they are saying that obese people should accept themselves, don't actually mean "*obese people should stop deluding themselves into thinking they are thin*".

Therefore, what does a psychologist mean when they say "*acceptance*" or "*to accept*"?

# Answer
I suppose the word "accept" you hear comes from the acceptance and commitment therapy, or ACT. According to the link, the healthy attitudes towards the problem (e.g. obesity) are:

* **A**ccept your reactions and be present
* **C**hoose a valued direction
* **T**ake action

So to answer your question, it is about **accepting your reactions**, **your emotions** about the problem, not the problem itself. An obese person can be shame, guilt or embarrass about their obseity, and they want to avoid such emotions. This, according to my understanding about the approach, means that they want to avoid facing the truth that they are obese, and thus the action to change cannot be followed. By accepting such emotions, they can dissipate them.

Therefore, it's not about you want to change nothing, nor finding the problematic situation satisfactory, nor believing you don't have such problem, but about **accepting the negative emotions when facing the reality**.
> 1 votes

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Tags: terminology, cbt
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# Question
Title: Do humans really feel that a \$99 price tag is significantly lower than a \$100 one?
Do humans really feel that a \\$99 price tag is significantly lower than a \\$100 one?

Is there a name for this phenomenon and research supporting it?

# Answer
The Wikipedia page of Psychological Pricing giving this chart:

Why?

> Kaushik Basu used game theory in 1997 to argue that rational consumers value their own time and effort at calculation. Such consumers process the price from left to right and tend to mentally replace the last two digits of the price with an estimate of the mean "cent component" of all goods in the marketplace.

Also related on UX Stack Exchange: Is there any advantage in marketing my product for £99.99 instead of £100?
> 0 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, decision-making
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# Question
Title: Are there samples of false but beneficial beliefs?
Many people have false beliefs.

The fact that they have those shows that those beliefs may carry some evolutionary advantage.

If so, how?

How can false beliefs be profitable?

# Answer
I guess it depends on what you mean by "false beliefs". If you mean beliefs such as magical thinking, illusory patterns, superstitious beliefs, etc, then the following may help.

From an evolutionary perspective, Foster and Koko (2009) argue that false beliefs such as superstitious thoughts/rituals may arise due to the consequence of making a false-negative error (i.e. dismissing a real pattern) being potentially dire, while making a false-positive error (identifying a non-existant pattern) may have little consequence at all.

A psychological explanation that is popular is the formation of false-beliefs as a means of gaining control over ones environment. Keinan (2002) proposes three ways in which engaging in false-beliefs may improve one's sense of control:

1. these beliefs may provide an explanatory power over perhaps
inexplicable events, making the environment seem predictable and
controllable;
2. false-beliefs may appear to provide a means of controlling a situation, such as engaging in a superstitious ritual;
3. engaging in false-beliefs may create a self-fulfilling prophecy (the person's faith in their beliefs may make them more optimistic of the situation, reduce their stress, and subsequently improve their performance).
> 6 votes

# Answer
I proposed people have false beliefs for lying.

For example, an insurance agent may say that their product is good even though their product is bad.

Here, the false beliefs, if it is false, only hurt the customers. The insurance agent doesn't lose money if the customers buy the overpriced product.

The difference between false beliefs and lying is thin. Here, because the insurance agent is not losing money anyway, the insurance agent then truly believe the lie so he can more convincingly convince others of the lie.

Most false believes in democratic countries can be thought of as a way to convince people of certain beliefs.

For example, all proponents of Trump believe that Trump is innocent while all opponents of Trump believe that Trump colludes with Russians.

Here, neither truly care about the truth and no evidence will convince them otherwise. They just believe whatever idea that serves their political interests.

This is not the same with "lying". With normal lying, the "secret" will go out. The "liars" truly believe their lies so they can more easily convince the swing voters.

Another sample is how useful IQ is for success. The answer is of course yes. However, the left will think that IQ is not essential for success so they can demand bigger governments for teachers' budget.

The right will say that the poor are poor because they are lazy. The idea that most people simply don't have the right genes to success is not entertained because it's politically incorrect.
> -1 votes

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Tags: personality
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# Question
Title: Measuring originality of a person on a sentence completion task
I conducted an experiment where I had 20 people complete 100 sentences with only one word. They had to come up with their completion independently of others and could give any answer they thought was suitable.

Here's a sample question with responses from 20 people:

Yesterday I bought a:

1. House
2. (No answer)
3. Sandwich
4. Car
5. Ticket
6. Sandwich

...

19. Car
20. Sandwich

I now need to measure, how creative every participant was, meaning I want to rate each participant on a certain scale from completely uncreative to absolutely creative (let's say 0 is uncreative, sticks to popular answers and 100 is highly creative with unique answers to every question).

Please help me find suitable formula for rating each participant's originality of responses.

Crucially important: some sentences were left unanswered by some people, meaning total number of answers for a question was smaller.

Thank you.

# Answer
First, I am a bit worried about your comment:

> (a) They are told to finish a sentence differently of others.

Are they given any other instructions? Do the answers have to "make sense" somehow? What's to stop someone from answering "yesterday I bought a stomach" for instance? That would certainly be unique. You do say they had to have answers they thought were "suitable" but, still, that's a huge range! Maybe not "stomach" but what about "heart lung machine"?

Second, I think you have to precisely define what you mean by "creative". You say (also in a comment) that "least used words mean higher creativity" but I am not so sure that I agree.

But, if you want the least used word and you want to account for the "no answers" then one way is:

1. All no answers get a 0 score on creativity.
2. Call the number of answers (excluding those with no answers) $N$
3. For each answer, call the number of people who gave that answer $Q\_i$ where i ranges from 1 to the number of different answers.
4. The creativity score of each answer is $N/Q\_i$

The key is step 4. There are certainly other formulas you could use. Which one to choose depends on what you want the distribution of creativity to look like and whether you thing "only person with this answer" is twice as creative as "one of two people with this answer".

But, again, I'd hesitate to call this creativity.
> 1 votes

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Tags: psychology
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# Question
Title: someone who doesn't grasp that others don't know what they know
I once heard of a disorder that described someone that didn't readily understand that others don't know what they know. So, the person would often start conversations with vague comments about esoteric concepts then become aggravated when other's weren't familiar. Does this have a name?

# Answer
> 2 votes
The skill of understanding that other people have different knowledge, beliefs, etc, falls under the concept of theory of mind (note that the name is possibly a bit misleading...it's not referring to some scientific theory or to philosophy of mind but rather to this ability to understand that others have different minds).

Difficulties with theory of mind are a common aspect of autism, but can arise from other causes as well including schizophrenia. I don't know of a specific term to describe precisely the symptom you are describing, however, and there may not be such a term.

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Tags: personality-disorder
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