title: What causes a muscle to be unsteady?

text:
# Question
Title: What causes a muscle to be unsteady?
I have noticed for myself that sometimes, certain muscles may become unsteady. Here are three examples:

1. Sometimes it is more difficult to hold my hand still in the air.
2. Another example is how my calf muscles are not able to extend smoothly--when they get to a certain point, it sort of spasms and it is difficult to just maintain a slow steady movement.
3. Just today I noticed my right thumb, when holding down on the touch pad left click button, tends to spasm--my left thumb doesn't feel this way.

I also don't believe this can be contributed to lack of motor coordination since I have good coordination to play guitar with the finger picking style and therefore my fingers should be quite dexterous.

Though I am not sure if the first example is related to the other two. I am more curious about my thumb spasming since it can affect my guitar playing.

# Answer
> 4 votes
First, adrenalin reduces hand steadiness and increases anxiety (Basowitz, Korchin, Oken, Goldstein, & Gussack, 1956), so other causes of anxiety seem likely to reduce steadiness by promoting the release of adrenalin. Next, here's an odd reference for a more voluntary psychopharmacological cause of hand-arm unsteadiness: drug abuse (including alcohol; Kaur, Sandhu, & Sandhu, 2007). Caffeine and nicotine both impair hand steadiness, apparently without interacting (Smith, Tong, & Leigh, 1977; Heatherley, Hayward, Seers, & Rogers, 2005; Rogers et al., 2005; Richardson, Rogers, Elliman, & O'Dell, 1995; Bovim, Næss, Helle, & Sand, 1995; see also for a review of caffeine effects and original evidence of a lack of interactions with alcohol  Franks, Hagedorn, Hensley, Hensley, & Starmer, 1975). Daily consumption of caffeine does not appear related though, and the effect of active caffeine can be blocked medically (Arnold, Springer, Engel, & Helveston, 1993). A small dose of propranolol may also reduce hand tremors regardless of caffeine use (Humayun, Rader, Pieramici, Awh, & de Juan, 1997), though interested readers should consider precautions and contraindications regarding propranolol, including hypoglycaemia or diabetes, asthma, and abnormal blood pressure, among several others (Rossi, 2006).

Physical exertion (Mürbe et al., 2001; Simon & Dare, 1965; Halliday & Redfearn, 1956), skill in manual labor, and sex (Gray, Sustare, & Thompson, 1953) appear relevant as well. Gray and colleagues found greater hand steadiness in men, but a more recent study found the opposite, except in women during premenstrual phases and women using oral contraceptives (Hudgens, Fatkin, Billingsley, & Mazurczak, 1988). A loosely related sex difference emerged in a study of marksmanship, suggesting men's accuracy endures longer than women's (Johnson & Merullo, 1996); incidentally, this study found no effect of caffeine on marksmanship. Also, another study found lesser effects of caffeine on motor performance in women who use caffeine regularly (Jacobson & Thurman-Lacey, 1992). A particularly old study seems to have found a weakly negative (and quite possibly spurious) correlation between performance on a mental multiplication test and hand steadiness, as well as a positive experimental effect of humidity (Stecher, 1916).

An early electroencephalographic (EEG) study emphasized the distinction between low-frequency, high-amplitude tremors, and the opposite kind, suggesting that the latter is less affected by cortical activity (Lindqvist, 1941). Two relatively recent studies produced apparently conflicting evidence about the relationship between hand and finger tremors and EEG activity: one succeeded (Isokawa & Komisaruk, 1983) and another failed to influence hand tremors with rhythmic flashes of light, even though this induced changes in EEG activity (Lakie & Combes, 1999). Other articles on hand steadiness research have been published in psychological journals to which I don't have access; the first of these even considers personality factors such as extraversion (Treadwell, 1960; Fleishman, 1956; Lovell, 1941).

Last (for this edition of this answer), some evidence supports the effectiveness of yoga for hand steadiness (Telles, Hanumanthaiah, Nagarathna, & Nagendra, 1994), finger flexibility, grip strength and endurance (Garfinkel, Schumacher, Husain, Levy, & Reshetar, 1994; Madanmohan, Jatiya, Udupa, & Bhavanani, 2003; Dash & Telles, 2001; Madanmohan et al., 1992; Raghuraj, Nagarathna, Nagendra, & Telles, 1997; Raghuraj & Telles, 1997), and stability of knee extensors (Bukowski, Conway, Glentz, Kurland, & Galantino, 2006). These references were cited in a recent review that deserves mention itself (Donahoe-Fillmore, Brahler, Fisher, & Beasley, 2010).

**References**

\- Arnold, R. W., Springer, D. T., Engel, W. K., & Helveston, E. M. (1993). The effect of wrist rest, caffeine, and oral timolol on the hand steadiness of ophthalmologists. *Annals of Ophthalmology, 25*(7), 250–253.
\- Basowitz, H., Korchin, S. J., Oken, D., Goldstein, M. S., & Gussack, H. (1956). Anxiety and performance changes with minimal dose of epinephrine. *AMA Archives of Neurology & Psychiatry, 76*(1), 98–105.
\- Bovim, G., Næss, P., Helle, J., & Sand, T. (1995). Caffeine influence on the motor steadiness battery in neuropsychological tests. *Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 17*(3), 472–476.
\- Bukowski, E. L., Conway, A., Glentz, L. A., Kurland, K., & Galantino, M. L. (2006). The effect of iyengar yoga and strengthening exercises for people living with osteoarthritis of the knee: A case series. *International Quarterly of Community Health Education, 26*(3), 287–305.
\- Dash, M., & Telles, S. (2001). Improvement in hand grip strength in normal volunteers and rheumatoid arthritis patients following yoga training. *Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology, 45*(3), 355–360. Retrieved from http://yoga4arthritis.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/20010101\_ihgsnvrapfyt.pdf.
\- Donahoe-Fillmore, B., Brahler, C. J., Fisher, M. I., & Beasley, K. (2010). The effect of yoga postures on balance, flexibility, and strength in healthy high school females. *Journal of Women’s Health Physical Therapy, 34*(1), 10–17. Retrieved from http://www.researchgate.net/publication/232207909\_The\_Effect\_of\_Yoga\_Postures\_on\_Balance\_Flexibility\_and\_Strength\_in\_Healthy\_High\_School\_Females/file/72e7e515448e1c52be.pdf.
\- Franks, H. M., Hagedorn, H., Hensley, V. R., Hensley, W. J., & Starmer, G. A. (1975). The effect of caffeine on human performance, alone and in combination with ethanol. *Psychopharmacologia, 45*(2), 177–181.
\- Fleishman, E. A. (1956). Psychomotor selection tests: Research and application in the United States Air Force. *Personnel Psychology, 9*(4), 449–467.
\- Garfinkel, M. S., Schumacher Jr., H. R., Husain, A. B. I. D., Levy, M., & Reshetar, R. A. (1994). Evaluation of a yoga based regimen for treatment of osteoarthritis of the hands. *The Journal of Rheumatology, 21*(12), 2341–2343.
\- Gray, J. S., Sustare, G., & Thompson, A. (1953). An apparatus for measuring operational hand steadiness. *Journal of Applied Psychology, 37*(1), 57–58.
\- Halliday, A. M., & Redfearn, J. W. T. (1956). An analysis of the frequencies of finger tremor in healthy subjects. *The Journal of Physiology, 134*(3), 600–611. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1359164/pdf/jphysiol01371-0105.pdf.
\- Heatherley, S. V., Hayward, R. C., Seers, H. E., & Rogers, P. J. (2005). Cognitive and psychomotor performance, mood, and pressor effects of caffeine after 4, 6 and 8 h caffeine abstinence. *Psychopharmacology, 178*(4), 461–470.
\- Hudgens, G. A., Fatkin, L. T., Billingsley, P. A., & Mazurczak, J. (1988). Hand steadiness: effects of sex, menstrual phase, oral contraceptives, practice, and handgun weight. *Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 30*(1), 51–60.
\- Humayun, M. U., Rader, R. S., Pieramici, D. J., Awh, C. C., & de Juan, E. (1997). Quantitative measurement of the effects of caffeine and propranolol on surgeon hand tremor. *Archives of Ophthalmology, 115*(3), 371–374.
\- Isokawa, M., & Komisaruk, B. R. (1983). Convergence of finger tremor and EEG rhythm at the alpha frequency induced by rhythmical photic stimulation. *Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 55*(5), 580–585.
\- Jacobson, B. H., & Thurman-Lacey, S. R. (1992). Effect of caffeine on motor performance by caffeine-naïve and familiar subjects. *Perceptual and Motor Skills, 74*(1), 151–157.
\- Johnson, R. F., & Merullo, D. J. (1996). Effects of caffeine and gender on vigilance and marksmanship. *Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 40*(23), 1217–1221.
\- Kaur, G., Sandhu, S. S., & Sandhu, J. S. (2007). Comparison of arm-hand steadiness for shooting perfection in armed forces and Punjab police. *Anthropologist, 9*(4), 299–304. Retrieved from http://www.krepublishers.com/02-Journals/T-Anth/Anth-09-0-000-000-2007-Web/Anth-09-4-000-07-Abst-PDF/Anth-09-4-299-07-393-Kaur-Gaganpreet/Anth-09-4-299-07-393-Kaur-G-Tt.pdf.
\- Lakie, M., & Combes, N. (1999). The phase of postural hand tremor is not influenced by repetitive photic brain stimulation. *Clinical Neurophysiology, 110*(12), 2020–2025.
\- Lindqvist, T. (1941). Finger tremor and the α‐waves of the electro‐encephalogram. *Acta Medica Scandinavica, 108*(6), 580–585.
\- Lovell, C. (1941). A study of personal variation in hand-arm steadiness. *The American Journal of Psychology, 54*(2), 230–236.
\- Madanmohan, Jatiya, L., Udupa, K., & Bhavanani, A. B. (2003). Effect of yoga training on handgrip, respiratory pressures and pulmonary function. *Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology, 47*(4), 387–392. Retrieved from http://icyer.com/documents/18.pdf.
\- Madanmohan, Thombre, D. P., Bharathi, B., Nambinarayan, T. K., Thakur, S., Krishnamurthy, N., & Chandrabose, A. (1992). Effect of yoga training on reaction time, respiratory endurance and muscle strength. *Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology, 36*, 229–233. Retrieved from http://www.ijpp.com/IJPP%20archives/1992\_36\_4/229-233.pdf.
\- Mürbe, D., Hüttenbrink, K. B., Zahnert, T., Vogel, U., Tassabehji, M., Kuhlisch, E., & Hofmann, G. (2001). Tremor in otosurgery: Influence of physical strain on hand steadiness. *Otology & Neurotology, 22*(5), 672–677.
\- Raghuraj, P., Nagarathna, R., Nagendra, H. R., & Telles, S. (1997). Pranayama increases grip strength without lateralized effects. *Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology, 41*(2), 129–133. Retrieved from http://ow.ly/tL6NG.
\- Raghuraj, P., & Telles, S. (1997). Muscle power, dexterity skill and visual perception in community home girls trained yoga or sports and in regular school girls. *Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology, 41*(4), 409–415. Retrieved from http://www.libraryofyoga.com:8080/bitstream/handle/123456789/57/II.1997.25.doc?sequence=1.
\- Richardson, N. J., Rogers, P. J., Elliman, N. A., & O'Dell, R. J. (1995). Mood and performance effects of caffeine in relation to acute and chronic caffeine deprivation. *Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, 52*(2), 313–320.
\- Rogers, P. J., Heatherley, S. V., Hayward, R. C., Seers, H. E., Hill, J., & Kane, M. (2005). Effects of caffeine and caffeine withdrawal on mood and cognitive performance degraded by sleep restriction. *Psychopharmacology, 179*(4), 742–752.
\- Rossi, S. (Ed., 2006). *Australian Medicines Handbook*. Adelaide.
\- Simon, J. R., & Dare, C. E. (1965). Effects of physical exercise on hand steadiness. *The Laryngoscope, 75*(11), 1737–1740.
\- Smith, D. L., Tong, J. E., & Leigh, G. (1977). Combined effects of tobacco and caffeine on the components of choice reaction-time, heart rate, and hand steadiness. *Perceptual and Motor Skills, 45*(2), 635–639.
\- Stecher, L. I. (1916). The effect of humidity on nervousness and on general efficiency. In R. S. Woodworth (Ed.), *Archives of Psychology*, No. 38, pp. 40–65. New York: The Science Press / Columbia University. Retrieved from Google Books.
\- Telles, S., Hanumanthaiah, B. H., Nagarathna, R., & Nagendra, H. R. (1994). Plasticity of motor control systems demonstrated by yoga training. *Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology, 38*(2), 143–144. Retrieved from http://www.libraryofyoga.com:8080/bitstream/handle/123456789/60/II.1994.15.pdf?sequence=1.
\- Treadwell, E. (1960). The effects of depressant drugs on vigilance and psychomotor performance. *Experiments in Personality, 1*, 159–196. An alternate publication can be previewed through Google Books.

---
Tags: neuroscience, neural-network, motor
---


# Question
Title: CBT (or something similar): can it be used without a therapist?
Can one apply CBT without a therapist?
Or is there something similar that can be used without anyone's help?
Is there any danger in using it without anyone's help?

# Answer
> 6 votes
There is some research into the efficacy of self-help versus therapy. Usually these studies find that **self-help is less effective or not effective at all** (e.g. Ehlers et al., 2003, to give just one example), although the relative effectiveness depends on the type and severity of disorders. For example, fear of flying is probably easier to self-treat than a personality disorder like antisocial behavior. The problem with this research in the context of your question is, that the self-help in these studies does not consist in handing out CBT manuals to the patients, but "self-help booklets", and that of course these are limited in content when compared to the full knowledge of a therapist. So to answer your question, I will assume that the "patient" in question knows as much about CBT as any therapist would. Because that would be the prerequisite to applying CBT to him- or herself.

In my opinion there are several problems with self-therapy:

1. The first step in any therapy is a **careful diagnosis**. You want to know what your problem is, before you start working on something that you don't suffer from. E.g. you might *think* that you have a depression, when in truth you are suffering from something that also has depressive symptoms, e.g. social phobia or an eating disorder. Diagnostics is a science of its own and psychologists spend quite some time during their education to learn it. I don't think a layperson can reliably diagnose a psychological problem.
2. Even if you are an educated psychologist yourself, an honest self-diagnosis might be impossible. Most people – and psychologists are just normal people in this – **don't perceive themselves clearly, but are influenced by shame or misconceptions**. A typical example is an eating disorder: the whole problem with most eating disorders is that the patients are unable to understand that they have a completely faulty image of themselves. They believe they are overwheight, while they are in fact completely normal or even underwheight. Such a person would never diagnose herself with an eating disorder. Most other mental disorders are the same: the concerned persons don't perceive their problems as problems, or not accurately.
3. Let's assume you have an accurate diagnosis. Maybe a psychologists diagnosed you, or you are uncommonly objective in your self-assessment (although most likely you fool yourself here, but let's just assume you know what you have). There is the problem that even therapists don't usually know what a patient has at the beginning of a therapy, or not definitely or completely. Their **diagnoses are given provisionally, and adapted to new insights they may gain during therapy**.
4. Okay, but let's assume you really, really know what your problem is. Couldn't you help yourself? To answer that, we must understand what a psychological disorder is. There is this model that thinks of *all* human behavior, normal as well as deviant, as an adaptation to a certain surrounding. You are being abused by your parents, and you develop dissociation to deal with it. This strategy of survival persists even after the situation that caused it no longer exists, because it was a successful strategy and because either it still works (to some degree) or you find yourself unable to unlearn it. There is something inside yourself that keeps you applying the same solutions to the same problems over and over again, even though other solutions would be better. There might be an underlying fear, or simply a deeply ingrained learning, whatever it is, **you will find yourself faced with a very strong inner resistance against changing your behavior**. What the therapist does is he adapts the therapeutic strategy to your resistance. He observes how you react to the therapy and finds just the right amount of therapy to slip in under your resistance. He finds the kind of things you find yourself able to do. And he offers his emotional support. In a therapy you are not alone, there is someone you can fall back to, someone who understands, accepts and appreciates you *as you are*, and at the same time supports your attempts at change. It is more than just doing gymnastics exercises blindly each morning. If CBT was only a number of exercises, there would be no therapists, only researchers that published these books with exercises. But these exercises lack adaptability and the human interaction that breaks your resistance to change.
5. Okay, but what if I know my problem and I'm not self-delusional and I'm really able to deal with my inner resistance? Well, chances are that **you don't have a psychological disorder anyway**. If your fears and habits don't keep you from dealing with your problems, then you don't have problems. Or only because you don't suffer enough from them to take care of them.

---

All disorders show a certain percentage of what is called "**spontaneous remissions**": the problems disappear without therapy. I'm pretty sure that in some of these cases the persons dealt with their problems themselves in some way. *They got over it.* Not everyone remains hampered for life after child abuse. Some people look at that experience, limit it to the people who abused them, and have normal and healthy relationships with everyone else. Somehow some people get out of their disorders after some period of "darkness" and are able to lead a normal happy life without the help of a therapist. Probably reading a CBT manual and applying some of the insight to one's own life will help some people make a change on their own, and it very likely won't hurt any of the others, but most likely it was something in that person, a certain **resilience**, or something in their surroundings, like the **support** of friends or familiy members, or a fundamental **outside change**, like moving to a new city, that effected this self-healing, not a CBT manual.

---

* Ehlers, A., Clark, D. M., Hackmann, A., McManus, F., Fennell, M., Herbert, C., & Mayou, R. (2003). A randomized controlled trial of cognitive therapy, a self-help booklet, and repeated assessments as early interventions for posttraumatic stress disorder. *Archives of General Psychiatry, 60*(10), 1024-1032.

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology
---


# Question
Title: Longitudinal mobile mood tracking app with random reminders
The goal is to **take simple measurements of mood using Likert scale over an extended period of time** (e.g. two months).

I know there is a large number of mobile apps for tracking mood on every possible platform and there is an extensive list of those tools on Quantify Self website. All those tools allow you to record your mood in a simple format, customize your tracking, and choose yourself time when you want to record you mood. And this is exactly the point where all of those tools are missing a critical feature. To get a more reliable sample of a behaviour or experience, **you ought to sample the experience in a random time during the waking day, rather then give the person a choice of the time of sampling** (Csikszentmihalyi et al., 1987). Csikszentmihalyi et al. (1977) did just that by giving people pagers and send them random beeps, after which they filled the questionnaire. It's a basic rule in any longitudinal experience sampling studies that I remember from the first year undergraduate classes. The need of this kind of approach rises from the inability of respondents to provide an accurate retrospective information on their daily behaviour and experience.

So I am looking for mobile mood tracking tool that meets those particular requirements:

* it allows you to **set up waking time within which you want to receive random reminders**,
* it allows you to **set up number of reminders** you want to receive during the waking hours,
* during the day you receive a random reminder that directs you to a **single question asking you to rate your mood** at the moment, for example on 1-9 scale
* your **response is time-stamped and saved** either on the mobile phone or send directly to the server if possible.

Now, it sounds simple enough, but the only app I found that matches some aspects of it is Mappiness. They DO send you random reminders, and their project, idea, and app execution are awesome. But the problem with Mappiness is that it collects a lot of extra information that I don't need, and I personally got very annoyed with the length of their questionnaire (check yourself if you got an iPhone). I want a random notice, single question, 5-seconds of your time to respond, and some data export option.

Am I missing something here or such app doesn't exist and I need to write it? I realise that this question might be more relevant for http://productivity.stackexchange.com but it's hard to say, it's kind of a middle-area.

**References:**

Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Larson, R. (1987). Validity and reliability of the experience-sampling method. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 175(9), 526.

Csikszentmihalyi, M., Larson, R., & Prescott, S. (1977). The ecology of adolescent activity and experience. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 6(3), 281–294.

# Answer
The best thing I can find is somebody's side project on experience sampling (the code is on github), so not sure if it's being maintained or anything, but it does appear to do exactly what you want.
> 3 votes

# Answer
There is now a new app available for iOS - Reporter (from Nicholas Feltron) - that pretty much ticks all my boxes. It allows to design any experience sampling questionnaire with different type of answers (number, multiple choose, etc.), smart and intuitive interface, export options with JSON and CSV, as well as Dropbox synch of data. It also records background information such as weather, location, noise level which is simply an awesome addition. The notifications are send in random intervals and you can choose how many notifications you get. You can't set up specific waking/sleep times but you can notify app when you fog asleep - this one is not ideal but still works ok. Overall, definitely the best solution of this type on the market at the moment.
> 2 votes

# Answer
A recent study of adolescent depression (Kauer et al., 2012) used a Java program written at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) called Mobile Tracking Young People's Experiences or *mobiletype*. The program in this study saves encrypted, time-stamped data on the host phone and also uploads it to a MCRI website. It tells users to log a response by sound notification, and reminds them five minutes later if necessary. Responses can be logged at any time, but notifications only occur between 8 AM and 10 PM and at randomized intervals within blocks of time – I assume this schedule can be modified straightforwardly enough.

I see other studies using it as well, but haven't been able to find a way to obtain the program. The best leads I have found so far are a ClinicalTrials.gov page, a research projects page on beyondblue.org.au, and a couple studies that are used as references for the program (Reid et al., 2009; Kauer, Reid, Sanci, & Patton, 2009).

Another method that seems quite flexible and amenable to your requirements is Mood 24/7, which contacts respondents with SMS messages, to which they respond (Foreman, Hall, Bone, Cheng, & Kaplin, 2011). However, I'm not sure if you can modify the program to suit your specific purposes, as opposed to those for which Kaplin has programmed it.

FWIW, another study developed Track Your Happiness, which also seems to do very much what you want, but may not be reprogrammable without some help or at least permission from the programmer. Its use led to the high-profile publication I had in mind when I first started writing this answer (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010).

**References**

<sup> \- Foreman, A. C., Hall, C., Bone, K., Cheng, J., & Kaplin, A. (2011). Just text me: Using SMS technology for collaborative patient mood charting. *Journal of Participatory Medicine, 3*, e45. Retrieved from http://www.jopm.org/columns/innovations/2011/09/26/just-text-me-using-sms-technology-for-collaborative-patient-mood-charting/.
\- Kauer, S. D., Reid, S. C., Crooke, A. H. D., Khor, A., Hearps, S. J. C., Jorm, A. F., ... & Patton, G. (2012). Self-monitoring using mobile phones in the early stages of adolescent depression: randomized controlled trial. *Journal of Medical Internet Research, 14*(3). Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3414872/.
\- Kauer, S. D., Reid, S. C., Sanci, L., & Patton, G. C. (2009). Investigating the utility of mobile phones for collecting data about adolescent alcohol use and related mood, stress and coping behaviours: Lessons and recommendations. *Drug and Alcohol Review, 28*(1), 25–30. Retrieved from ResearchGate.
\- Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2010). A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. *Science, 330*(6006), 932–932. Retrieved from http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/images/application\_uploads/KILLINGSWORTH-WanderingMind.pdf.
\- Reid, S. C., Kauer, S. D., Dudgeon, P., Sanci, L. A., Shrier, L. A., & Patton, G. C. (2009). A mobile phone program to track young people’s experiences of mood, stress and coping. *Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 44*(6), 501–507. Retrieved from ResearchGate. </sup>
> 2 votes

---
Tags: reference-request, measurement, emotion, methodology, experimental-psychology
---


# Question
Title: Will hearing but not listening to a video mentor help me learn?
I have a A+ video mentor that I got through school. I was wondering if playing the videos as if they were music and just going about the rest of my tasks on the computer would help me to learn the information. Thank you.

# Answer
> 2 votes
From experience and some knowledge gathered from all over the place, yes and no. For example, if you want to do two things that are both mind-engaging, you'll probably end up doing both sloppily, or one much better than the other. But if one task is mundane and other mind engaging, like listening to music and doing math problem, or listening to a lecture and cleaning a room, you can probably do them both with no problem.

Also, "multitasking" does not actually exist. You can find many articles on this subject. What we think of as multitasking is actually task-switching. Your brain does not do two things at once, but switches from one thing to another. Task-switching is demanding a lot of energy, so some people may feel tired from it.

Some people are better than the other at task-switching, and can do it for some time without getting that much tired. I don't know how good you are at it, but you can try. If you haven't trained your mind to work efficiently like that, you might get better after some time, or just keep doing one thing at a time. (I know person who wasn't much of a "multitasker" but got better after some years of practically forcing it.) Hope this helps.

# Answer
> 0 votes
I have no experience at cognitive sciences formally, but what comes next is result of my own experience.

Firstly anyone can say, you can try and see.

But then, humans can multitask and it is a matter of choice. So when you keep your listening device and go about doing other works, if you do not condition your mind, what happens is known only to you, but if you consciously put effort to listen to it, even in bits and pieces, you will recon it later.

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, learning, auditory-discrimination
---


# Question
Title: Elaboration likelihood model: would attractiveness be a peripheral or central route?
In the elaboration likelihood model, if an advertisement contains an attractive person, would this be using the central route or peripheral route? I would guess it would be peripheral route, since people don't tend to think about if a person is attractive or not, but on the other hand, if the person does think about the person's appearance and finds them attractive, then it could be considered central.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Unless the advertisement is actually advertising the person's attractiveness directly, this should be a peripheral issue. Consider Wikipedia's description of the central route:

> Central-route processes involve **scrutiny** of persuasive communication (e.g., a speech or an advertisement) **to determine the arguments' merits**. Under these conditions, a person's cognitive **response to the message** determines its persuasive outcome. If they **evaluate a message as reliable, well-constructed and convincing**, it may be received favorably even if it contrasts with the receiver’s original position on the message.

Thus the only circumstance in which a person's attractiveness should be a central route is one in which the advertisement's argument is about the person's attractiveness per se...I'm not sure I can even think of a good example of such an advertisement. Even beauty product advertisements (which are about the product, not the person) routinely appeal through peripheral routes by using supermodels with immaculately styled hair, wearing much more makeup than the object of the advertisement – not to mention expensive clothes and other fashion accessories – in idealized, studio-lighted environments. If anything, factors like these obscure the real efficacy of the given beauty product, because most observers will just be overwhelmed by the model's beauty and by the desire to emulate it, regardless of how little the product in question has to do with it. Again, see Wikipedia on the peripheral route:

> Peripheral-route processes **do not involve elaboration of the message through cognitive processing of an argument's merits. They rely on a message's environmental characteristics**: the perceived credibility of the source, message presentation quality, **the source's attractiveness** or a catchy slogan, and is **frequently used when the argument is weak or lacks evidence**. The peripheral route is a mental shortcut which accepts (or rejects) a message based on external cues, rather than thought. It is used when the audience is unable to process the message due to the message's complexity or the audience's immaturity. The **commonest influences are rewards** such as food, **sex** or money, which create rapid changes in mind and action. Celebrity status, likability, humor and expertise are other factors governing the peripheral process. **Appearance can gain an individual's attention**; while it can create interest in a topic, it will not effect strong change. The goal of the peripheral process is to create change which can be weak (or temporary) compared with the strong, lasting change of the central route.

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, automaticity
---


# Question
Title: Why do the hemispheres of the brain control the opposite sides of the body?
**History of question:** This previous question asked about both hemispheric specialisation and control of opposite sides of the body. The point was made that these are two very different questions. So the original question has been reduced to the specialisation topic, and the "opposite sides" question is asked here.

So the question here is:

**Why do the hemispheres of the brain control or receive sensory input from the opposite sides of the body? What is the benefit or purpose of this?**

# Answer
> 4 votes
The formal name for crossing in biology is *decussation*. It is thought to be a result of anatomical development as well as a recovery mechanism. Essentially, it's an emergent result of negotiations between genetics, development, and environment. I've emphasized the relevant sentences in two abstracts below.

> **Abstract:** The crossing of nerve tracts from one hemisphere in the brain to the contralateral sense organ or limb is a common pattern throughout the CNS, which occurs at specialised bridging points called decussations or commissures. **Evolutionary and teleological arguments suggest that midline crossing emerged in response to distinct physiological and anatomical constraints. Several genetic and developmental disorders involve crossing defects or mirror movements, including Kallmann's and Klippel-Feil syndrome, and further defects can also result from injury. Crossed pathways are also involved in recovery after CNS lesions and may allow for compensation for damaged areas. The development of decussation is under the control of a host of signalling molecules.** Growing understanding of the molecular processes underlying the formation of these structures offers hope for new diagnostic and therapeutic interventions.

Vulliemoz, S., Raineteau, O., & Jabaudon, D. (2005). **Reaching beyond the midline: why are human brains cross wired?**. The Lancet Neurology, 4(2), 87-99.

> **Abstract:** Many vertebrate motor and sensory systems “decussate” or cross the midline to the opposite side of the body. The successful crossing of millions of axons during development requires a complex of tightly controlled regulatory processes. Because these processes have evolved in many distinct systems and organisms, **it seems reasonable to presume that decussation confers a significant functional advantage—yet if this is so, the nature of this advantage is not understood**. In this article, we examine constraints imposed by topology on the ways that a three-dimensional processor and environment can be wired together in a continuous, somatotopic, way. **We show that as the number of wiring connections grows, decussated arrangements become overwhelmingly more robust against wiring errors than seemingly simpler same-sided wiring schemes.** These results provide a predictive approach for understanding how 3D networks must be wired if they are to be robust, and therefore have implications both for future large-scale computational networks and for complex biomedical devices.

Shinbrot, T., & Young, W. (2008). **Why decussate? Topological constraints on 3d wiring**. The Anatomical Record, 291(10), 1278-1292.

---
Tags: neuroscience, lateralization
---


title: Why do people say they hate drama?

text:
# Question
Title: Why do people say they hate drama?
On social sites sometimes people will state, "I hate drama!", as if to say "if you cause drama, please go away."

My theory is the people who say this, in fact, actually like drama... as evidenced by the apparent hatred for it. Has there been any research into this?

People could also say, "I hate being kicked in the rear!", which I'm sure most people would hate, and if it happened commonly enough, people may start posting such on their profiles. This line of thinking leads me to believe that the statement of hatred for drama is the admission that drama is a commonly occurring problem.

Also, it seems to be as reasonable to state this on a profile as it is to hang a sign on a door reading, "I hate thieves!" or a sign on a backside saying, "I hate muggers!" Since people don't commonly hang these types of signs, why do they hang the drama sign on their profiles?

# Answer
> 7 votes
People certainly express a dislike for drama for different reasons, and I'm going to hazard explaining a few of them that I think are potentially useful:

1. Expressing an opinion on 'drama', especially on social media, is usually a response to a critical incident. Just as one generally does not go around complaining about dishonest auto mechanics (or car salesmen, or insurance salesmen, or crazy psychologists...) just to make conversation, one hopefully does not go around complaining about 'drama' unless one is responding to an event or set of events in-particular.

What's different about interpersonal conflict is that, unless one is a shut-in, there are limitless opportunities to experience it, and thus there's always a potential cue handy if one wishes to opine. And oh, how some people love to opine!

This critical incident hypothesis, if you will, is most likely to explain things like updating a profile or making a particular comment, etc. It isn't a sufficient explanation for a pattern of behavior, however - if it seems to be their favorite topic of discussion, it's probably not a simple critical incident.
2. If it's a person's favorite complaint, or perhaps with a dating-style site if it appears as a litmus test or chief complaint, it could be due to an on-going or past trauma. In other words, someone has experienced interpersonal conflict they find so unreasonable, and so deeply hurtful, that it's their most obvious non-negotiable list item when they go to think about what they don't want.
3. The reason the op eludes to is, in my favorite way to explain it, the louder he talked of his honor the faster we counted the spoons. This is something we may refer to as an evaluation heuristic: when people proclaim how much they are X, the most likely they are not-X; or the louder they state they hate Y, the more likely they are to exhibit the traits of Y.

In general, this can be an invaluably useful heuristic. As a woman if you encounter a man who often favors expressing how much he hates wife-beaters, for instance, you would likely do best to stay the hell away from him (as personal anecdote, one of the most vile human beings I've ever met often expressed his violent disgust for domestic violence); child-molesters are often witnessed as offering, unprompted, opinions about treating children well, etc. These sorts of things are red flags.

And what is a red flag, really? It's something out of the ordinary, not generally experienced, that we perceive as being "statistically correlated" with the experience of something bad. Sometimes these gut feelings are good, sometimes they are mistaken, and they can often be easily manipulated one way or the other - but one is generally wise to never simply ignore such intuitions.

Now, to be clear, this is only a heuristic - by definition it can be wrong, and it doesn't really 'explain' the behavior itself. It's just a good aid in decision-making.

So while this is often true and valid, I do not offer this as a real explanation for the behavior. For that I simply continue to...
4. Selective attentiveness. If a person is dishonest, they surely know the value of honesty - it gives people the benefit of doubts, and "confidence" is the resource they most require to be successful in their manipulations. As such, they are very much aware of honesty and dishonesty, and actively try to cultivate such opinions. If someone seems over-eager to gain your trust, there aren't many ways for that to end well - maybe trying to get you to buy a $20 bottle of fruit juice, at best.

However, as a criteria this one doesn't have total discriminatory power - people commonly victimized (the ill and disabled, for instance, people of low socio-economic class, etc), with PTSD, and certain personalities might be more focused on honesty and dishonesty. This is also made harder by context - if there is fear of being disbelieved or a lack of personal confidence in the self, this can be thrown way off and a person can be seen as dishonest falsely. Sadly, this same effect causes con-men to be believed because they learn to extort this heuristic and direct attention where they want it.
5. It's code for something else. What does "drama" even mean? As you point out, who the heck expresses a preference for interpersonal conflict and irrational attention seeking?

To them, it may have a specific meaning in their mind: a certain set of related behaviors, probably mimicking soap-opera like "blow simple, common experiences out of proportion".

Sometimes, I totally agree - it's important to have perspective, and if people always have a rain cloud over their head it can be fatiguing to be around them. However, all too often I've found this to be a flag for people who express no particular concern, empathy, or understanding of other people - they just don't care and don't want to be bothered with "other people's problems".

This all too often reflects a character of selfishness and unconcern with others feelings, emotions, and experiences; someone might be reaching out for a little understanding, or a kind word, or asking for help, or even suffering from a severe mental or physical illness, or just venting. Casually dismissing such things as "drama" is...well, a red flag for me. But again, that's just a heuristic I've found to be useful.
6. Critical mass, or "everyone else says it". I'm fun-loving, too! From a user-experience view (wearing a different hat), requiring that someone say 'something' without guidance or proper understanding of what someone should or should not say tends to get people to just put what they think is appropriate based upon what other people say or what you tell them they should put.

Depending on where you are, you can find a whole lot of people saying "no drama". I don't know if they even know what it means, any more than they know whether or not they are fun-loving or positive or outgoing or upbeat.
7. Boorishness. Some people just don't make good conversation, and maybe they just like to tilt at windmills.
8. They are middle-school or high-school aged girls. As a father of two of said human beings, it appears to be in the genetic or cultural makeup or realities of modern society that generate actual, imagined, or commentary on, drama.

**TLDR;**

They might just be, or are in close-contact with, high-school girls. For deeper thinking, see above.

# Answer
> 5 votes
To build on @ChuckSherrington's answer, I agree that what you're hypothesizing is essentially an application of reaction formation theory. I don't know if your particular applications have been studied, but the reaction formation process in general has been researched and supported (Baumeister, Dale, & Sommer, 1998). Self-deception is one of many factors that distinguishes implicit from explicit motivation (see also McClelland, Koestner, & Weinberger, 1989; Emmons & McAdams, 1991). Reaction formation seems a likely marker of self-deception in cases where implicit and explicit motives conflict...especially if the reaction formation involves complaining! Concordance among various kinds of motives (implicit, explicit, goals, values, strivings, etc.) is important for well-being (e.g., Job, Langens, & Brandstätter, 2009), so expressing negative attitudes like in your examples might be a sign of negative affect elevated by internal conflict.

However, I could easily see your hypothesis being falsified for good reasons. While it's true that people's personalities affect their choices of situations to which they expose themselves (e.g., Beck & Clark, 2009), many of the situations people find themselves in are certainly not chosen. Situations can thus operate independently of preexisting personality characteristics in affecting attitudes (e.g., McShane, 2009; see also the first figure in this answer depicting influences of both personality and external factors on attitudes).

More concretely speaking, it seems likely that many people who "hate drama" feel this way because they can't avoid it, regardless of whether they're actually trying. For instance, my personal experience with "drama" has probably increased due to indirect consequences of choices I've made based on entirely different motives, such as trying to save money by living with several roommates in cheap housing. Those experiences certainly taught me a new level of hatred for drama that now compels me to avoid living with roommates, but I'd sooner say I chose those experiences to avoid financial drama than to test my luck with social drama. Even at the times of those decisions (i.e., even before learning my new level of drama hatred), I recall feeling aversion to the social consequences of my financially driven decisions, not some guilty hint of secret excitement. This is anecdotal of course, but conversations with friends and colleagues lead me to believe my experiences weren't unrepresentative of typical roommate drama.

**References**

 \- Baumeister, R. F., Dale, K., & Sommer, K. L. (1998). Freudian defense mechanisms and empirical findings in modern social psychology: Reaction formation, projection, displacement, undoing, isolation, sublimation, and denial. *Journal of Personality, 66*(6), 1081–1124. Retrieved from http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/vollarj/baumesiter%20roy%20-%20freudian%20defense%20mechanisms.pdf.
\- Beck, L. A., & Clark, M. S. (2009). Choosing to enter or avoid diagnostic social situations. *Psychological Science, 20*(9), 1175–1181.
\- Emmons, R. A., & McAdams, D. P. (1991). Personal strivings and motive dispositions: Exploring the links. *Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17*(6), 648–654.
\- Job, V., Langens, T. A., & Brandstätter, V. (2009). Effects of achievement goal striving on well-being: The moderating role of the explicit achievement motive. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(8), 983-996. Retrieved from http://www.researchgate.net/publication/26268289\_Effects\_of\_achievement\_goal\_striving\_on\_well-being\_the\_moderating\_role\_of\_the\_explicit\_achievement\_motive/file/3deec5279fa74c183e.pdf.
\- McClelland, D. C., Koestner, R., & Weinberger, J. (1989). How do self-attributed and implicit motives differ? *Psychological Review, 96*(4), 690–702. Retrieved from http://lab4.psico.unimib.it/nettuno/forum/free\_download/mcclelland\_89\_355.pdf.
\- McShane, S. L. (2009). *Organizational behavior*, 7th ed. (pp. 106). McGraw-Hill. Retrieved from http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/dl/free/0070876940/355897/sample\_ch04.pdf.

# Answer
> 4 votes
While the concept is more of a Freudian vestige in the modern world of psychology, it sounds like reaction formation

> A type of defense mechanism whereby unacceptable, anxiety-causing emotions or impulses are masked by an exaggerated version of the opposite emotions or impulses.

I think you are on the right track when you speak of the fact that they actually like drama, or harbor feelings that they are secretly dramatic.

# Answer
> 3 votes
I think there are valid points here both within the question and within Chuck's answer. Sometimes the individuals who complain the loudest about something, are indeed the one's facilitating the issue. I believe there is also another aspect to this.

With human progress and the advent of technology. Television introduced serial dramas, one category being soap operas. The whole premise of these was to bring regular drama to the family home, as entertainment. A more available medium than waiting to feed Christians to the lions (as an example, the modern day version being not unlike spectator sports). I believe that as we have been pulled out of our nature hunter and gathering states and being closeted into our technological worlds, we have a lot of excess 'adrenaline' that was necessary for our survival. I believe the human need for these natural battles have been transposed into a need for 'fabricated' or man-made battles.

However, I do not regard all protestations to be regarded as evidence of a masked subconscious (or otherwise) desire. As with the advent of technology has come the internet and the phenomena of online social networking. Bringing a, previously impossible, mixture of individuals together. This aided by the anonymity, so perceived safety of online communication, has led to a reckless bravado when dealing with conflict. The average user of these networks, does not consider the immediate possibility of threat or consequence of aggression, within online conflict; as compared to having an episode of road rage and risking the possibility of upsetting someone with a shotgun in their vehicle, and a willingness to use it.

Coupled with the difficulty of online communication. All body language; voice intonation, facial expressions, hand movements is removed. There is a great range in individual verbal skills when dealing with potential conflict, I believe, more so when these are being translated through an individual's literacy skills. So the potential for misunderstanding and frustration borne from the inability to communicate effectively is far greater than in face to face interactions.

The enormous variance of culture and languages, almost begs for misunderstandings. As what is commonplace within one location, could be a jailable offence elsewhere. An example being, where I live, we swear (curse) as part of our day to day vernacular. It is considered normal to "knock", which is insult lightly our friends. It is a sign of affection. To "bignote" oneself or ingratiate oneself to others, can be regarded as undesirable and fake. Now take that to many places and it's a recipe for disaster and it is hard for the natural cultural style of a person not to surface.

Basically, these factors all form a melting pot for conflict, arguments, perceived insults, retaliatory insults... "dramas". It is very possible for some people to get very sick and tired of this. Given that this type of technology is still in it's infancy, really, it wasn't around when I had my first child, it takes time for people to develop skills to navigate through this intricate maze of networking. Given that the majority of these sites, encourage people to actively display their "status", it makes sense that some people will put the sign on their electronic door saying.. "No more drama".

As to what proportion of individuals fall into which category at what point and for how long... It's like asking.. how long is a piece of string.

Edit. in response to your comment. I realize I have overlooked a pertinent point.

Stable, mature individuals with intact boundaries will be less inclined to involve themselves with drama. A propensity to become entrenched in drama reflects a degree of emotional immaturity and can also be a reflection of an emotional neediness or a present inner conflict of unresolved issues,. These individuals can carry unresolved anger or may be perpetuating a victim mentality. The involvement in drama and the resulting lack of resolution can lead to an adverse reaction to the conflict and the instinctive reaction to keep the drama away, hence the declarations of "I hate dramas".

As the underlying individual conflicts have not been resolved the individual is likely to become embroiled in another conflict resulting in drama.

---
Tags: social-psychology
---


# Question
Title: Is it good to take playful breaks at work?
I read this Washingon Post article about groups that are trying to encourage play in "workaholic" adults. I'm curious if anything is known on the psychological effects of taking playful breaks at work.

From personal experience, taking playful breaks seems to improve my productivity and resistance to distractions. On the other hand, maybe taking playful breaks makes work seem even more drab by comparison, lessening motivation?

# Answer
Building on @caseyr547's answer, and especially the second link in the first reply to your comment, **yes!**

From Cook's (2009) abstract (emphasis added):

> Over the past decade, there have been numerous claims in the popular media relating to having fun at work, touting a plethora of benefits for both individuals and organisations that have to date not been empirically investigated. Thus far, any research related to fun in the workplace has often been **indiscriminate with its use of terms, interspersing fun with humour and play, thus adding confusion to an already inadequately defined construct**. The aim of this research is two fold: to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the construct to **differentiate and define fun in a work context, and to measure the perceived impact of having fun in the workplace**. In order to locate fun as a unique construct, literature related to fun, humour and play/playfulness was reviewed and positioned in a nomological net utilising a three phase framework consisting of presage, process and product (3P). Four studies in this research program investigated the domain of fun activities in the workplace, the underlying structure of the construct, the process of having fun and the perceived impact of fun specifically in relation to job satisfaction, stress reduction, effectiveness and workplace relationships. Results identified a domain of **15 distinct fun activities**. Using multidimensional scaling, an underlying structure of **four neighbourhood clusters (humour and play, informal socialising, formal socialising and organisational activities)** and two dimensions (contextual connections with others and activity structure and intensity) were identified. The investigation of the process of fun was conducted by examining case vignettes using the 3P framework. Results suggest the **experience of fun at work is activity based, with an emotionally qualitative dimension that is highly socially interactive and engaging.** The organisational context for fun appears to be embodied in supportive management and colleagues, positive team dynamics and a non stressed environment. The participant experiencing the fun is usually in the role of contributor rather than observer, is **highly engaged, experiencing amusement, laughter, flow, social connection and as an outcome, an increase in positive mood. While humour and play contribute to the process of fun, fun appears to be a uniquely distinct construct. Finally, the present results suggest the perceived impact of having fun at work, while positive, was not reported globally to the extent suggested in the popular press. The most significant outcome of having fun was the reporting of improved positive mood after the fun event**, with the related cascading organisational effects discussed. Complimentary to this, having fun at work was **perceived to positively influence workplace relationships to a moderate-high degree, contribute to managing stress to a moderate degree, improved job satisfaction to moderate degree and was reported to have a little more than neutral, direct impact on workplace effectiveness. These outcomes must however be examined in the context of results, suggesting not only are different types of fun activities enjoyed more, but different types of activities are highly salient in relation to the particular organisational variable measured**. Results of this series of studies have provided a revised nomological net that can be used in further research to define the construct of fun in a workplace context. Supplementary to this, outcomes suggest having fun at work has positive impacts for both individuals and workplaces and therefore further investigation, at multiple organisational levels is required, ranging from individual disposition in relation to fun, to the effects of fun on workplace culture.

In summary, @what is right to be concerned about the definition of "playful break". The particular kind of fun activity in question seems to moderate the effects quite a bit. Popular media seems to have over-hyped the effects somewhat. Still, overall, fun is indeed fun – i.e., the behavior affects affect and cognition. It may also improve coworker relations, reduce stress, and make people happier with and better at their jobs...but these results may be too subjective to trust on their own, and deserve replication and reexamination.

**Reference**

Cook, K. (2009). *Fun at Work: Construct Definition and Perceived Impact in the Workplace.* (Doctoral dissertation.) Griffith University. Retrieved from https://www120.secure.griffith.edu.au/rch/file/16034620-6834-02f5-2d07-79df62b21e6c/1/02Whole.pdf.
> 2 votes

# Answer
Leisure at work is an important concept in the new psychological ideal of holistic employee treatment. It can work really well or really badly. If you love your job and your work load includes things considered leisure than you will be a psychologically more healthy individual. Those in the tourism industry or musicians among others can have such experiences. However for most people are working at an occupation where they derive little or no pleasure. Some originally enjoyed but have since lost the thrill.

People just burn out. Companies noticed this and have created better workplaces where productivity is increased by reducing stress. When the environment is less stressful and leisure is involved people can develop a positive association with the workplace. As people become more invested emotionally in the company the sense of family is increased and it is easier for people to work toward otherwise mundane goals. There are many different ways to reduce stress some active some passive. Food, entertainment, exercise, flex time, spirituality and self-reflection reduce stress. Companies and employees have to work together to find some holistic approach which works best. For instance it would be difficult to justify a company gym when your not already providing good health coverage or a day care when you allow no maternity leave.

Employers can use leisure time at work as a noose. At one of my previous jobs my boss knew that providing a holistic environment looked good to investors. He bought a big screen tv and ps3. He purchased video games he liked and it was primarily for his use. He tended to yell frequently and during one of his rants he accused someone of abusing the tv which they had not used at all. This environment was not healthy even though play was encouraged it was also punished.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: motivation, performance, io-psychology
---


# Question
Title: Are there international differences on how people react when they are guilty of something?
I talked about this with a friend: he told me that there are differences on how people react when they are accused of something. He mentioned that in some countries, people try to avoid it at any cost. In the case, he mentioned that my country (Brazil) has this feature. He also mentioned that he watched the Olympics with narration in both English (from England) and Portuguese (from Brazil) and the narration was quite different when someone made a mistake:

* Brazil: He hadn't luck.
* England: He didn't train enough.

He also argued that Brazilians prefer to *escape* to some metaphysical realm and that people from England follow a more pragmatic approach for when they do something wrong. He promised to deliver me some anthropological studies about that, but I guess he forgot it.

# Answer
> 2 votes
It sounds like you're describing cultural differences in the *fundamental attribution error*, which, according to Wikipedia, is:

> People's tendency to place an undue emphasis on internal characteristics to explain someone else's behavior in a given situation, rather than considering external factors. It does not explain interpretations of one's own behavior, where situational factors are more easily recognized and can thus be taken into consideration.

Here's an excerpt from the cultural differences section (emphasis added):

> There are many cultural differences which arise when attempting to explain this error \[(Lagdridge & Butt, 2004)\]. Previous research has shown that cultural differences exist in the susceptibility of making fundamental attribution error: people from individualistic cultures are more prone to the error while people from collectivistic cultures are less prone \[(Miller, 1984)\].
>
> It has been found that there is a differential attention to social factors between independent peoples and interdependent peoples in both social and nonsocial contexts. Takahiko Masuda and his colleagues (2004) in their cartoon figure presentation experiment showed that Japanese people's judgments on the target character's facial expression are more influenced by surrounding faces than those of the Americans, whereas Masuda and Nisbett (2001) concluded from their underwater scenes animated cartoon experiment that Americans are also more likely than Japanese participants to mark references to focal objects (i.e. fish) instead of contexts (i.e. rocks and plants). These discrepancies in the salience of different factors to people from different cultures suggest that **Asians tend to attribute behavior to situation while Westerners attribute the same behavior to the actor**. Consistently, Morris & Peng (1994) found from their fish behavior attribution experiment that **more American than Chinese participants perceive the behavior** (e.g. an individual fish swimming in front of a group of fish) **as internally rather than externally caused**.
>
> One explanation for this difference in attribution lies in the way in which people of different cultural orientation perceive themselves in the environment. Particularly, Markus and Kitayama (1991) mentioned how (individualistic) **Westerners tend to see themselves as independent agents** and therefore focus more on individual objects rather than contextual details.

To apply this information to your specific comparison between England and Brazil, consider the following:

* Brazilian culture is fairly moderate in terms of individualism vs. collectivism.
    + Tu, Lin, & Chang (2011) found India more individualistic, China more collectivistic, and Russia roughly equivalent to Brazilian culture in terms of individualism/collectivism.
* English culture is highly individualistic (Way & Lieberman, 2010).
    + See the second figure depicting cultural differences in individualism/collectivism in this answer
    + Way and Lieberman found English culture more individualistic than Russian and Indian culture.
    + However, Way and Lieberman found Indian culture less individualistic than Russian culture.

Therefore the contrast between American and Chinese culture – which is a contrast between extremes of individualism and collectivism, respectively – applies to a lesser extent when contrasting England and Brazil. This contrast points in the direction your friend observed: individualistic cultures (including English) attribute successes and failures to personal factors (including effort) more often than collectivistic cultures, which tend to attribute such outcomes to situational factors (including "luck"). Brazilian culture isn't especially collectivistic, but it is probably less strongly individualistic than English culture.

It's very cool that your friend could pick up on these cultural differences in attributional tendencies among Olympics commentators! Hopefully that wasn't due to confirmation bias!

**References**

 \- Lagdridge, D., & Butt, T. (2004). The fundamental attribution error: A phenomenological critique. *British Journal of Social Psychology, 43*(3), 357–369.
\- Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. *Psychological Review, 98*(2), 224–253. Retrieved from the International Association for Chinese Management Research.
\- Masuda, T., Ellsworth, P. C., Mesquita, B., Leu, J., & van de Veerdonk, E. (2004). *A face in the crowd or a crowd in the face: Japanese and American perceptions of others’ emotions*. (Unpublished manuscript). Hokkaido University.
\- Masuda, T., & Nisbett, R. E. (2001). Attending holistically versus analytically: Comparing the context sensitivity of Japanese and Americans. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81*(5), 922–934.
\- Miller, J. G. (1984). Culture and the development of everyday social explanation. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46*(5), 961–978. Retrieved from http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/n/x/nxy906/COMPS/indivdualismandcollectivism/culture%20lit/to%20print/Miller1984culturalexplanation.pdf.
\- Morris, M. W., & Peng, K. (1994). Culture and cause: American and Chinese attributions for social and physical events. *Journal of Personality and Social psychology, 67*(6), 949–971. Retrieved from http://www.southalabama.edu/psychology/gordon/EmotionCulture%281994%29MorrisPeng.pdf.
\- Tu, Y. T., Lin, S. Y., & Chang, Y. Y. (2011). A cross-cultural comparison by individualism/collectivism among Brazil, Russia, India and China. *International Business Research, 4*(2), 175–182. Retrieved from http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ibr/article/viewFile/10019/7136.
\- Way, B. M., & Lieberman, M. D. (2010). Is there a genetic contribution to cultural differences? Collectivism, individualism and genetic markers of social sensitivity. *Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 5*(2–3), 203–211. Retrieved from http://www.replicatedtypo.com/science/genetic-components-and-cultural-differences-the-social-sensitivity-hypothesis/1620/.

---
Tags: social-psychology, cross-cultural-psychology, attribution
---


# Question
Title: Do the neural substrates behind motivation to retain/dispose of property govern whether certain people view their friends and partners as possessions?
I'm trying to understand why people have sometimes have the ability to sever ties with valuable connections, e.g., people that have up until that time meant a lot to them. Colloquially, people use the term "throw it all away", and I'm wondering if there's any truth to that.

Hoarders, on the other hand, can place a lot of value on objects that are generally considered to be refuse.

Looking into hoarding and it's associated disorders, I found some very recent information in Wang et al (2012) regarding some of the neural substrates of acquisitive behavior (which forms some of the physiological basis of hoarding). These researchers found activation in the orbitalfrontal cortex (OFC), a common substrate of obsessive compulsive disorder, associated with acquisitiveness, and activation in the nucleus accumbens (a motor nucleus within the basal ganglia often associated with addictive behaviors) when possessive participants valued a popular "hot" item. There was also activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is associated with monetary valuation of a stimulus, during "disposal" of items that they had acquired during the experiment.

Firstly, **is the treatment of people like property an earmark of any notable (Axis II or otherwise) DSM disorder?**

Secondly, **in the case where we assume those that do treat others as property to be acquired and disposed of accordingly, do these same anatomical regions in the OFC govern this behavior?**

---

> Wang, J.M., Seidler, R.D., et al (2012),The neural bases of acquisitiveness: Decisions to acquire and discard everyday goods differ across frames, items, and individuals. *Neuropsychologia, 50*:939– 948

# Answer
I can't speak to your first question, but I think the second question could be profitably reframed. The orbitofrontal cortex seems to **represent incentive/reward value of primary sensory information** and is thus linked to the "hot" decision-making system, which manages decisions where there is a gain/loss of reward at stake or risk--this would necessarily cover property and personal relationships, which are both sources of reward. So it's less that the part of the brain that manages property may sometimes also manage personal relationships, and more that **this particular part of the brain is responsible for representing incentive or reward options, which are relevant to different kinds of rewards**, including property and people.

Reference (just a good place to start, really): Rolls ET, Grabenhorst F. The orbitofrontal cortex and beyond: from affect to decision-making. Prog Neurobiol. 2008 Nov;86(3):216-44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pneurobio.2008.09.001
> 6 votes

# Answer
There is an element of selfish antisociality in the alternately possessive and dismissive social behavior you describe. This may imply or otherwise resemble symptoms of:

* An unhealthy attachment style due to the lack of relational investment
* Borderline personality / emotional dysregulation disorder, which is marked by love/hate relationships
* Any of the dark triad traits (see Jakobwitz & Egan, 2006) due to the selfish, manipulative lack of empathy:
    + "Machiavellianism is characterized by manipulation and exploitation of others, a cynical disregard for morality, and a focus on self-interest and deception."
    + "Narcissism is characterized by grandiosity, pride, egotism, and a lack of empathy."
    + "Psychopathy is characterized by enduring antisocial behavior, impulsivity, selfishness, callousness, and remorselessness."

Emotional dysregulation / borderline, narcissistic, and antisocial (which very closely resembles psychopathy, especially secondary) personality disorders are all Axis II disorders, so I'd say yes, the behavior you describe is a warning sign of such plausible psychopathologies.

Dysfunction in the OFC may play a role in the development of antisocial disorders, including psychopathy. An excellent review of relevant research is freely available (Séguin, 2004). This review also mentions OCD, so I think it might just have everything you're looking for!

**References**

 \- Jakobwitz, S., & Egan, V. (2006). The dark triad and normal personality traits. *Personality and Individual Differences, 40*(2), 331–339.
\- Séguin, J. R. (2004). Neurocognitive elements of antisocial behavior: Relevance of an orbitofrontal cortex account. *Brain and Cognition, 55*(1), 185–197. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3283581/.
> 2 votes

---
Tags: abnormal-psychology, motivation, cognitive-neuroscience
---


# Question
Title: What is the appropriate action when using poorly worded scales from previous literature?
I work with questionnaire data and am fairly sensitive to good practice in questionnaire construction. Usually I generate my own, but when I draw on existing literature to use reliably reproduced measurement scales, sometimes the items are poorly worded or vague enough that I would not consider them appropriate or valid. Consider the item:

"Weeds should be eradicated because they inhibit the full development of useful and ornamental plants."

A participant can say that they disagree with this item. So do they think weeds shouldn't be eradicated? Or that they *should* be eradicated, but not for the reason given. Maybe they think that weeds *do* inhibit the full development of useful plants, but that is not sufficient cause for eradication of weeds. The question is vague enough that it doesn't confer any useful information about the participant's broader view on weeds except in the one fringe case where they agree with it as stated. Clearly it should be split into two items and already the scale is much improved by it.

There are other examples that are much more shockingly bad, but have been reproduced enough times that they form reliable scales. Is it better to use them as-is, with all their flaws, or to use them as fully as possible while fixing any glaring errors, or not to use them at all?

# Answer
**If you change the items in a questionnaire, you have a different questionnaire.** All the psychometric properties such as reliability or validity and the normative data no longer apply. You need to be able to compare your measurement to a normative sample to receive a meaningful measurement. If you change a questionnaire, you have to test it against your construct, calculate its reliability etc., and normalize it over a large representative sample. Otherwise any conclusions you draw from your experiments will be at best tentative and potentially false.

**The meaning of a questionnaire item is not the literal meaning *you* make of that "sentence", but the relation that the behavior of answering this item has with other behavior that you know represents your construct.** For example, the item "Weeds should be eradicated because they inhibit the full development of useful and ornamental plants." is from a questionnaire on environmental attitudes (Milfont & Duckitt, 2004) and measures "necessity of development" (NoD). If a significant number of your sample answer "yes" to the question about weeds, and they also rate high in NoD in a valid NoD task, then this item can be used to measure NoD. If you change the words, this correlation might no longer hold.

---

* Milfont, T. L., & Duckitt, J. (2004). The structure of environmental attitudes: A first- and second-order confirmatory factor analysis. *Journal of Environmental Psychology, 24*, 289–303. Available online at http://gip.uniovi.es/gdiyad/docume/arti\_jep01.pdf.
> 2 votes

# Answer
# Intro

Here's a slightly more compromising (yet arguably more demanding) answer than what's, which is probably a good representative of how the idea of changing items will generally be received by reviewers, supervisors, or substantive theorists. From the perspective of a methodology nerd (don't mean to deny @what that dubious distinction too BTW), there are some reasons to consider reworking this questionnaire and certainly very many other measures in common usage. It's true that this changes the latent construct and threatens its comparability to that estimated in previous research, but changes may be justified, and comparability may be worth sacrificing or even entirely undesirable if the measurement model in previous research was just that badly invalid.

It's also true that there is a lot of sophisticated, challenging, expensive work to do in the construct validation process, but as such, much of this work never gets done. For both theoretical and practical reasons, as much of this work as is feasible should be completed, reported, and kept up-to-date, and it's not necessarily any less important to do when one isn't motivated to change the measure. Building on a long line of previous research by using old methods mostly protects comparability of results within that line of research; it doesn't protect the line of research as a whole from its systemic flaws. Enough long lines of heralded theory have fallen over time to discourage complacency based on unquestioning deference to seemingly established methods.

# Scrutiny of Milfont & Duckitt (2004)

## *The question in question is questionable.*

To demonstrate the methodological vulnerabilities of even relatively modern research, I'll nitpick your specific example. First, as you've noted, the focal question itself is **double- or even triple-barreled**:

1. Should weeds be eradicated?
2. Do weeds inhibit the full development of *useful* plants?
    * Do weeds inhibit the full development of *ornamental* plants?

This decreases interpretability of results somewhat needlessly (the measure is long enough already that one extra question wouldn't hurt noticeably...and what good does the distinction between useful and ornamental plants do?) and probably increases measurement error, as respondents are likely to rate their agreement somewhat haphazardly based on whichever part of the question elicits the strongest attitudinal response.

Second, this particular item loads rather weakly ($\lambda=.38)$ on a factor (the tenth and least reliable factor, $\alpha=.58$) with no negatively-weighted items. Milfont and Duckitt (2004) critique another measure for possessing unbalanced subscales, which by their own admission are "open to **acquiescence bias**". Yet they haven't fully balanced their own subscales, including also those for factors 2, 4, and 6 – this is just one shy of the number of unbalanced subscales in the measure they critique!

Regardless, "balancing" subscale items doesn't eliminate acquiescence bias; it only "balances" its effects on latent factor scores to the extent that they are calculated based on an equal number of equally-and-oppositely weighted items. In the authors' own usage of the measure (the structural equation model in Figure 1, p. 299), it appears that factor scores were based on the items weighted by their factor loadings, which are not equal. Hence even the factors that do have equal numbers of oppositely-weighted items (of which there are only two: factors 3 and 8) do not truly balance the effects of acquiescence bias.

Furthermore, even the false ideal of a set of items with equal, opposite, and balanced weighting would not truly balance acquiescence effects, as these also depend on item content and respondents' item-specific expertise (McClendon, 1991a), both of which vary across items, of course. In the case of our double/triple-barreled question, the second/third barrel particularly concerns horticultural knowledge, so this item seems likely to suffer specially from acquiescence bias due to that second/third barrel that arguably does more harm than good. Personally, I'm somewhat surprised to find theoretical basis for suspecting that this expertise issue with one (or two) particular barrel(s) causes more acquiescence problems than the ambiguity of the question overall (McClendon, 1991b), as is due to its compound nature. Acquiescence may be measurable and controllable (Billiet & McClendon, 2000), but it's not always a big threat, it's not the only response-style-based threat (Hinz, Michalski, Schwarz, & Herzberg, 2007), and balancing oppositely-weighted items halfheartedly is surely an incomplete amelioration (Schriesheim & Hill, 1981).

## *The model is not a model model.*

This leads to further concerns with the overall measurement model. It seems to have been developed with methods that are somewhat **inappropriate for Likert rating data**, which are technically ordinal (i.e., discrete and ranked). The authors don't specify how exactly they handled item scoring, so they probably gave it the simple, conventional treatment as continuous data. This is not altogether indefensible with a seven-point Likert scale (see this answer on Cross Validated), but it's not ideal. The particular item in question appears on a scale with only four items, which is probably insufficient for producing a scale score by simple summation or averaging according to classical test theory (CTT); this may further explain the scale's relatively dismal $\alpha$ reliability. Nonetheless, the authors probably used some such CTT method to calculate the scale scores they tested for gender differences in their Table 4, as they haven't referred to these as factor scores, much less specified which kind of factor scores they might be (see DiStefano, Zhu, & Mîndrilă, (2009) for a review of six popular options).

Moreover, the scale scoring system appears to have been developed through application of principal components and principal axis factor extraction from a simple covariance matrix that probably treated the data as continuous, as well as maximum likelihood estimation of a confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) model's fit to that same matrix. See this question on Cross Validated, "Factor analysis of questionnaires composed of Likert items" for discussion of preferable methods and other unaddressed issues, including:

* Other estimation algorithms that are less biased by ordinal data than maximum likelihood
* Fitting latent factor models to a polychoric correlation matrix, not a covariance matrix
* Exploration of bifactor structure in the case of a strong general factor amidst multiple dimensions
    + This may be a particularly important alternative to consider alongside a second-order model.
* Preemptive control of various biases, including extreme response style, as via unfolding models

It's also a bit fishy to perform exploratory factor analysis on the same sample as a CFA (see yet another question on Cross Validated, "Regression testing after dimension reduction"), though at least Milfont and Duckitt (2004) did this in the less objectionable order to confirm and explore somewhat distinct latent structures. In sum, reasons such as these may explain the authors' failure to achieve good model fit by the conventional standards they cited themselves. When model fit is inadequate, path coefficients may be biased, which may pose several further problems for the proposed latent factor structure.

# General reflection on alternative priorities

In the end, problems such as these vary widely in consequentiality depending on the egregiousness of particular instances. Older measures probably generally suffer more for their age, as many of the methodological issues I've raised here arise from relatively modern research. Unfortunately, this may threaten the validity of retrospective comparisons most where they might otherwise be most richly informative – where lines of research reach back across several decades and even generations – but other sociological factors (e.g., cohort effects) may limit the equivalence of old research to new research anyway. Reasons such as these to give up on traditional methods are at least as numerous and important as reasons to adhere loyally.

In more modern instances such as Milfont and Duckitt (2004), there may be less to lose by parting ways with less established and replicated methods (though I see their article has been cited at least 180 times already), but there may also be less to gain. **Some of these issues I've raised may be fairly inconsequential, or if resolved, might even absolve their theory** by improving model fit and demonstrating a lack of cause for further concern. One simply can't be sure without trying.

How much of this effort is worthwhile is an open question, a balancing act, a fundamental career choice, and even a bit of a gamble. Deep, unresolved, and even unresolvable epistemic problems underlie every application of empirical scientific methodology – this may be especially true of the social sciences – but time spent on basic research is not generally time spent directly on application of theory to contemporarily exigent problems. Thus one confronts the **fundamental dilemma of addressing "real-world problems" now vs. theoretical problems for future applications**, and through it the career choice of applied vs. theoretical and methodological research.

One way to strike a balance is to prognosticate the societal impact of your options, and in any given choice to go with the option most likely to matter. If your methodological problem seems more pragmatically consequential than your applied problem, solve it first, or instead if necessary! (This I've stated as an idealized, no-brainer platitude, but intended to reflect a subtler judgment call.) Another is to contribute in the ways you value most – the ways most motivating for you, be they immediate career advancement or long-term legacy – as service to your own values is service you're most likely to perform best and most valuably to all beneficiaries (yourself included). Another is to consider your implicit motives and core strengths: **what do you like to do, and what do you do best?** These factors will affect the value of your work too, and should inform your choices of basic priorities and specific endeavors.

Hopefully you can find ways to make these priorities align in your work, but everyone's bound to face conflicts. I'm working through some of these conflicts presently myself – hence the indulgence in the preceding exegesis – but I'll spare you further autobiography. Ponder instead the wisdom of Peppy Hare, and let me know if you've got some data and want to collaborate on updating your measurement models!

**References**

 \- Billiet, J. B., & McClendon, M. J. (2000). Modeling acquiescence in measurement models for two balanced sets of items. *Structural Equation Modeling, 7*(4), 608–628.
\- DiStefano, C., Zhu, M., & Mîndrilă, D. (2009). Understanding and using factor scores: Considerations for the applied researcher. *Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 14*(20), 1–11. Retrieved from http://pareonline.net/pdf/v14n20.pdf.
\- Hinz, A., Michalski, D., Schwarz, R., & Herzberg, P. Y. (2007). The acquiescence effect in responding to a questionnaire. *GMS Psycho-Social Medicine, 4*. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2736523/.
\- McClendon, M. J. (1991a). Acquiescence and recency response-order effects in interview surveys. *Sociological Methods & Research, 20*(1), 60–103.
\- McClendon, M. J. (1991b). Acquiescence: Tests of the cognitive limitations and question ambiguity hypotheses. *Journal of Official Statistics, 7*(2), 153–166.
\- Milfont, T. L., & Duckitt, J. (2004). The structure of environmental attitudes: A first- and second-order confirmatory factor analysis. *Journal of Environmental Psychology, 24*, 289–303. Retrieved from http://gip.uniovi.es/gdiyad/docume/arti\_jep01.pdf.
\- Schriesheim, C. A., & Hill, K. D. (1981). Controlling acquiescence response bias by item reversals: The effect on questionnaire validity. *Educational and Psychological Measurement, 41*(4), 1101–1114.

> 2 votes

# Answer
To reiterate @what's answer, here are a few simple rules.

### Change wording when...

* You want to improve the scale and are prepared to engage in a thorough validation process of the new scale. E.g., comparing the new with the old version; re-running factor analyses, reliability analyses, validation. Naturally you'd only do this if you felt that you could make a substantial improvement to the scale.
* You need to substantially adapt a scale to your context. E.g., the test was looking at attitudes to X and you want to look at attitudes to Y. You only have room in your scale for a subset of the items. In all these cases, you are only loosely drawing on the existing validity information for the scale. And adapting a scale to your context should not be your first choice if there is an existing scale already suited to your context.

### Don't change wording when...

* You think that minor changes would make the scale better (e.g., by adding/removing an item; tweaking the wording). Such changes prevent you from comparing your data to other normative studies. While if the changes are minor, the changes to the psychometrics are also likely to be minor, this is ultimately an empirical question. And thus, you are limited in drawing on the psychometric evidence of other studies after you have made changes. Thus, it is rarely worth it.

### Thoughts on changes

When using an unmodified scale, you can just refer to it. However, if you do make changes, you need to supply a copy of the full modified scale somewhere when you publish.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: measurement
---


# Question
Title: What exactly is meant when it is said that only you can make yourself happy?
From Lifehack:

> **Thinking that having a significant other will complete you.**
>
> If you are not a whole person already, then having a romantic partner will not make you whole. Plus, it puts a lot of pressure on the other person to “make you happy.” You need to be happy with yourself with or without someone. Having a significant other doesn’t make you happier. Only you can make yourself happy.

Also, on many other self help sites I have noticed similar statements.

I don't understand this. For example, because you are a human, you probably want to have a man or woman in your life who would love you both mentally and physically, so how exactly are you going to make yourself happy if you don't have that significant other or can't get one?

Does that quote mean that you need to forget/suppress your human needs?

# Answer
That's simple. Many celebrities commit suicide, or are drug addicts. Why? They have the money, they have the lover, they have the fans, they have the fame, the power. They have it all. Do they? No, that's not the case.

Lets define happiness; we don't know what happiness is, but we do know:

* It's not about the money
* It's not about the fame, the power
* It's not about love. Or is it? I'll discuss that in a minute.
* The suicide rate is higher in developed, not poor countries, that means the rich are less happy than the poor. I live in Lebanon, a small country next to Syria and Israel, it's shitty here, and we are ranked I think as the 10th happiest population :)

I'll talk about love in a bit, but lets talk about happiness in general; if all the things listed above doesn't make you happy, what does?

What makes you happy (I believe) is the hope for a better day. When you lose the hope, you lose everything you ever had; you lose the reason for staying alive.

Why isn't Stephen Hawking sad? Because he continues to discover new things, people appreciate these things, it makes him happy and hopeful that one day he'll be regarded as the greatest scientist. He doesn't care about money. What could he do with money? Go to a club, get a beer?

Lets talk about celebrities, they have everything, it's not good, because when you say, *"I have everything,"* what you really mean is, *"I have nothing else to do."*

> George Eastman, founder of the Kodak corporation and inventor of the "snap-shot" camera, shot himself in the heart after leaving a note reading: "To my friends: My work is done, why wait?"

Those who think that their work is done, are less happy.

---

**Wait a second! This question is about love.**

Lets ask two questions:

* When do people want get married?
* Why do they want to get married?

I've never been in love; I'm not romantic, but the answer is pretty easy.

The answer to the first question, you can have a girlfriend forever. People tend to want to get married when they are financially stable, and therefore they want to **start a family**.

The answer to the second question is because they want to start a family, AKA **have kids.**

Why the hell would they want that? Well yes, there's love and all that silly stuff :) but I'm answering a philosophical question, I have to have a better answer than that shit :)

I don't know about you, but in my society, when the women are like 28 years old and not in love, other women start to tell them *"Go on, what are you waiting for? Marry anyone; have kids; you don't want to be alone all your life; no one will marry you if you can't have kids."*

* Think of life as a video game: you pass a level, you go to another level, just like Super Mario, and finally he rescues the princess!

Being in love – I mean the state where you dream about the other person and can't eat or sleep – is only temporary. When you get married, it's routine. Kids are the next challenge for you; you hope that your kids will grow up; you hope that they graduate; that's hope I talked about above; every day there's new challenge. Those who can't continue the game will quit, divorce or something.

But it's not her, your wife, that's making you happy; the best that she can do is raise **your** self esteem, encouraging **you**, but notice it's all about **you**.

No one would love someone that doesn't make him happy, in the sense that if you're a programmer, you can't love someone who hates programmers and keep calling them nerds sitting in front of a laptop all day; the other person will be lowering your self esteem.

But you can't expect someone to make you happy, as I discussed above; happiness is about you fulfilling your dreams, challenging yourself. How can your partner fulfill your dreams if you never had a dream?
> 4 votes

# Answer
It's mostly a fairly **vapid truism**(see the rhetorical sense). Here's a diagram from a popular theory from a positive psychologist at my doctoral alma mater of **\[what really makes people happy (or not)**:
(source: edbatista.com) (Lyubomirsky, 2008)
Thus the truer truism would be, "You can make yourself happ**ier, to some extent**..." but it's tricky enough to justify the existence of very many books, studies, even the entire field of , due to catches like the *hedonic treadmill* (essentially the process by which our pleasures "get old").

As for **the need for others**, it's something of a personality variable, or two (McAdams & Constantian, 1983), or maybe three by a different theory's construction (i.e., relatedness, not all three here). That is to say it's **not universal, much less invariant**. In reading @huseyintugrulbuyukisik's answer, consider the following question: https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/q/169/4086 You'll find an answer from me based on a recent evolutionary psychological review there as well. It largely supports your assumption that people will want a significant other sooner or later, and surely this is true for most people.

However, there are certainly **exceptions to the false "rule"**:

* **Asexuality** may best describe as much as 1.1% of the general population (Bogaert, 2004, 2006).
* **Asociality** is a commonly familiar amotivational characteristic that relates to several other traits, states, and disorders, including:
    1. **Introversion**, a "Big Five" trait dating back to Carl Jung
    2. **Depression**, which is a broader state of amotivation and negative affect
    3. Avoidant, schizoid, and schizotypal personality, social anxiety, and autism spectrum **disorders**
* Several cultural references may serve to flesh out the variation in **human experience of solitude**:
    + The history of hermitude, non-cenobitic (*eremitic*) monasticism, anchorites, stylites, poustiniks, self-sufficiency enthusiasts, loners, and misanthropes
    + An investigative report on solitarily confined inmates
    + A nonfiction book and a movie based on it with a particularly poignant ending (mind the spoilers in the preceding links!)
    + An excellent, recent album by the Australian band Tame Impala, *Lonerism*, that partly celebrates self-awareness:
    > "This album is like...someone growing up and discovering other people and just realising their place is not involved with the rest of the world kind of thing. Like discovering that you're a loner."\[27\]..."It's about the persona of someone who is really isolated – but not necessarily deliberately. Most of the songs are really about other people, being amongst other people. It's really just the idea of being someone who doesn't feel part of the rest of the world, someone trying to figure out where their place amongst everyone else is, and having a really confusing time with it and then slowly accepting that it's in their blood just to be a solitary wanderer. It's meant to put it in a positive light but also a negative light, as the album progresses."\[10\]\[13\]
    > Parker revealed that the album title and general themes of isolation and introspection were selected when "We were touring so much and doing all these gigs and going to places with people. It reminded me of when I was a kid trying to be social and trying to be a people person and realising that I'm not. The last years of touring and me being a people person is just something that's not in my blood. All these cool parties just make me realise I'm just a total outcast. I just can't really talk to anyone without feeling stupid." and "sometimes I just want to run home and never come out of my bedroom again".\[27\]

**References**

 \- Bogaert, A. F. (2004). Asexuality: Prevalence and associated factors in a national probability sample. *Journal of Sex Research, 41*(3), 279–287.
\- Bogaert, A. F. (2006). Toward a conceptual understanding of asexuality. *Review of General Psychology, 10*(3), 241–250.
\- Lyubomirsky, S. (2008). *The how of happiness: A scientific approach to getting the life you want*. Penguin.
\- McAdams, D. P., & Constantian, C. A. (1983). Intimacy and affiliation motives in daily living: An experience sampling analysis. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45*(4), 851–861.

> 6 votes

---
Tags: social-psychology, motivation, personality, well-being
---