# Question
Title: Is it possible that listening same music with your partner can synchronize emotionally?
Music forces us to feel emotions. Some music calms us, some music give us energy. What emotions music makes us feel can be different in each person but generally gives same emotions to us.

We have emotional turbulence in our daily routine. Sometimes our emotions sync with our partner but sometimes not. Is it possible that listening the same music with your partner can synchronize emotionally? Is there any scientific research for that? My field is not psychology so I am asking to you.

# Answer
> 2 votes
I think that one of the most basic and universal responses a person can have to **music** is *engagement*. When listeners are engaged with music, they follow the sounds closely connecting in an affective way to what they hear.

Moreover, music listening and music therapy is becoming an important topic of social neuroscience scientific inquiry (Kamioka et al., 2014). This branch of research is facilitated by *Hyperscanning EEG* which provides the opportunity to explore dynamic brain activities between two or more participants (Liu et al., 2018).

I'd like to suggest to you the following study by **Lindenberger and colleagues (2009)**. The authors recorded EEG from the brains of pairs of guitarists playing a short melody together to investigate the rate of cortical synchronization in the course of music-driven actions.

In order to measure the rate of brain synchronization, they implemented the *phase-locking index (PLI)* which reflects invariants of phases across trials measured from single electrodes. As you can see in the first figure both the participants playing and listening to each other music showed **fronto-central** activity and *Synchronization* measured by the PLI index suggested that the activity is the highest at **fronto-central** sites. Especially, in the image below you can see the PLI distribution in the **fronto-central brain regions** at the theta frequency.

Finally, they used another index called **Interbrain Phase Coherence (IPC)** which represents the degree of constancy in phase differences across trial between *two electrodes* measuring the activity from *two different brains*. In the figure below you can see synchronization between brains as measured by IPC: coherence was also strongest for fronto-central connections.

I hope that this paper partly answered your doubts. I do not know any study directly investigating brain synchronization in romantic couples, but if you think that romantic couples can be a discriminating factor to study brain synchronization while listening or practising music you could put on an experiment that considers romantic couples as an experimental group and friends/acquaintances as a control group. Always remember, however, that you must justify the choice of your experimental groups with strong literature.

***REFERENCES***

1. Kamioka H, Tsutani K, Yamada M, Park H, Okuizumi H, Tsuruoka K, Honda T, Okada S, Park S. (2014)Effectiveness of music therapy: a summary of systematic reviews based on randomized controlled trials of music interventions. *DOVEPRESS*. http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/PPA.S61340
2. Difei Liu, Shen Liu, Xiaoming Liu, Chong Zhang, Aosika Li, Chenggong Jin, Yijun Chen, Hangwei Wang and Xiaochu Zhang. Interactive Brain Activity: Review and Progress on EEG-Based Hyperscanning in Social Interactions. *Front. Psychol.*, 08 October 2018 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01862
3. Ulman Lindenberger, Shu-Chen Li, Walter Gruber and Viktor Müller. Brains swinging in concert: cortical phase synchronization while playing guitar. *BMC Neuroscience* 2009, 10:22 doi:10.1186/1471-2202-10-22

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Tags: social-psychology, emotion
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# Question
Title: How do I find Computer Science-Focused Cognitive Science Labs for Research?
I'm applying for Master's in Computer Science programs with the goal of gaining research experience and moving into the field of Cognitive Science to one day get my PhD.

I'm trying to find labs and professors right now that conduct computational cognitive science research, my interests right now are pretty broad, but I'm looking in general for Artificial Intelligence related research that leverages insights from psychology and neurology in order to develop more efficient algorithms. My interests are also pretty broad in the field of Computational Cognitive science because its really important to me right now to make sure I find a good advisor/ professor to work under while I develop what my more specific interests are.

Can anyone give me some names of labs or professors to look into? Or where would be good places to look for such labs? Its really overwhelming because many of these labs that I've found (for example, from this site) seem to be in departments such as Psychology and Neuroscience, I'm not sure if I should just be looking for labs that fall under the Computer Science department since that is what I will be under, also I noticed a lot of the labs have mostly Psych or Neuro students as well as opposed to CS, not sure if that means that lab doesn't tend to accept CS students? I was wondering if anyone can give me advice about how to best find research labs that fit this interdisciplinary theme that would accept computer science students to work under? Just looking for some guidance if any former or current graduate students who came from a Computer Science background about which labs offer Computational Cognitive Science focused themes.

Thanks so much!

tldr; Need computational cognitive science labs/ professors/ resources for a prospective Master's student with a Computer Science background looking to move more into Cognitive science.

# Answer
> 3 votes
The field you're talking about is probably computational neuroscience. In general, the advice I would give is that the department you are in doesn't much matter. There are people who study neuroscience that are in engineering, comp. sci, psychology, whatever. I know University of Chicago has an entire program in Computational Neuroscience. Probably the best thing to do is look up research in good journals (Neuron, Nature Neuroscience, Journal of Neuroscience, to name a few) and start popping off emails to professors. Most won't care that you have no background in biology or psychology, you can learn that on the way.

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Tags: cognitive-modeling, computational-modeling, brain-computer-interface, reproducible-research, collaboration
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# Question
Title: What exactly are the X and the Y axis of a brainwave?
I can't seem to wrap my head around how a bunch of organic transistors (neurons) could possibly produce a wave? What exactly is a brain wave? If you graph a brain wave what exactly would your X and Y axis represent? For example a sound wave is graphed with X axis being time and Y axis being pressure. If someone told me to recreate a brain wave and for this purpose gave me a bunch of neurons with complete and exact control of which neuron fires when how would I possibly create said wave?

# Answer
In the general case of EEG, the x-axis is time, and the y-axis is the voltage potential measured by an electrode placed on the scalp.

When others talk about "brain waves" they typically refer to oscillations visible in EEG electrode signals that have more power in a certain frequency range. For example, "Alpha brain waves" usually refer to EEG signals with maximum power in the range of 7-13 Hz. "Gamma waves" have frequencies \>30 Hz.

The dominant theory of the origin of the waves is that they are the result of large populations of individual neurons firing action potentials in a synchronized fashion.

So, if you had the ability to make, say, a 1,000 neurons near the surface of the scalp fire at the same time, a scalp electrode placed above those neurons should register a significant voltage potential deviation around the time of the trigger.
> 4 votes

# Answer
The EEG (or Local Field Potential - LFP) is the result of currents flowing in and out of every neuron in the brain. As this current flows, a dipole is created which creates an electric field - this is what is measured at the electrode. There are details in this excellent review.

It is true that neurons tend to fire synchronously during epochs of oscillations but that is only part of the story. The voltage measured by the electrode also includes sub-threshold activity and it must be noted that the contribution of a current is scaled by 1/(r^2) where r is the distance to the electrode. This means that EEG usually only measures activity from neurons close to the electrode. Activity of subcortical structures (hippocampus, amygdala) get attenuated because they are too far away. That is why you have to actually stick an electrode into the brain to measure from these structures.
> 1 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, brain-waves
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# Question
Title: How action potential is generated while dreaming
I would like to know what generates the action potential in the brain areas that is relevant to dreaming, since our sensory nervous systems don't work (or do they?). What else can generate the action potential needed for dreaming?

Thanks

# Answer
> 1 votes
There's a lot to unpack here, but maybe a good place to start is looking at the difference between an action potential and a brainwave. An action potential is the abrupt change in voltage of a single neuron in response to a pre-synaptic stimulus. Brainwaves are measured by EEG. They represent the sum of many neurons' activity.

If I understand the gist of your question, you want to know where the brain activity "comes from" during sleep/dreaming since there are no sensory stimuli. It's a good question, and a topic of research. Check out this article or any of Gyorgy Buzsaki's work. Also, you may be interested in the Default mode network.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, neuroscience, cognitive-neuroscience, dreams, brain
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# Question
Title: Is living with constant mindfulness necessarily good? or does it limit one's potential?
Isn't mindfulness is difficult for a thinker which usually philosophers are?

Mindfulness by definition is bringing awareness to present moment non judgmentally and I agree it may relax you. I believe it happens because you shrink your attention to such a short span, in a moment by moment fashion that complex thoughts can't be formed and thus you relieve yourself from any unpleasant (or pleasant) feeling that may arise from complex thoughts. In simple words, you reduce your suffering, if any, to at it's minimum by limiting input to senses.

However, is avoiding complex unpleasant thought always desirable? aren't these thoughts and their uncomfortable feelings motivates and inspire us introspect and change?

For example: In early childhood I had my belief and respect for patriarchal social system(disbelief in gender equality). It were some uncomfortable thoughts that made me correct myself and disregard such systems which causes unnecessary man made suffering. If every time I felt uncomfortable and practiced mindfulness to avoid them, I might passively be supporting such system till date.

You may say some thoughts are useful and worth attention & others not. Like worrying about upcoming college exam won't do any good, you may just use best of the time left. However can we say that with 100% certainty? The worry is something bringing your attention and focus to a problem at hand, may be you could be one in a million who will get a brilliant idea to handle such situation or device a undetectable way to cheat, or it may just help to focus and put 100% to prep for exam or it could keep you panicking, unproductive and prove itself a useless thought pattern. Similarly if you fail on an exam, there is no good in being sad about it or is there? may be the sadness is useful in making a neural pattern in brain to put more effort and time next semester.

Hence I even find judging thoughts worthiness is difficult and inconsistent. However if you are having too many negative thoughts keeping you on the edge on a regular basis may end up in health issue, in which we can regard it as certainly a problem.

To summarize, wouldn't being too much mindful may make you too adaptive to be mal-adaptive? wouldn't it may stop your thought processes which might have produced some good for society? and wouldn't it limit your potential.

# Answer
> Mindfulness by definition is bringing awareness to present moment non judgmentally and I agree it may relax you. I believe it happens because you shrink your attention to such a short span, in a moment by moment fashion that complex thoughts can't be formed and thus you relieve yourself from any unpleasant (or pleasant) feeling that may arise from complex thoughts. In simple words, you reduce your suffering, if any, to at it's minimum by limiting input to senses.

For me it is the opposite. In order to stay mindful and present you need a very stable and extended attention span. Philosophy, or just thoughts in general, are just mind wandering, it requires no effort, and no stable attention. And it changes nothing in reality. It actually limits your senses, mindfulness heightens your senses, because you are actually observing more input then when you are mindless.

> However, is avoiding complex unpleasant thought always desirable? aren't these thoughts and their uncomfortable feelings motivates and inspire us introspect and change?

What thoughts are you talking about? The content of the thought does not really matter, what matters is how you react to it. You could have thoughts about strawberries, but if you are allergic you may react in a negative way to them (resistance), if you love fruit you may react positive, and else just neutral. You can live on basic hedonistic principle if you want.

> If every time I felt uncomfortable and practiced mindfulness to avoid them, I might passively be supporting such system till date.

Mindfulness is not about avoiding anything, it is the opposite, observe the present with as much attention as possible, but without reacting to it. That means to observe thoughts as well, but not react to them.

> You may say some thoughts are useful and worth attention & others not. Like worrying about upcoming college exam won't do any good, you may just use best of the time left. However can we say that with 100% certainty? The worry is something bringing your attention and focus to a problem at hand, may be you could be one in a million who will get a brilliant idea to handle such situation or device a undetectable way to cheat, or it may just help to focus and put 100% to prep for exam or it could keep you panicking, unproductive and prove itself a useless thought pattern. Similarly if you fail on an exam, there is no good in being sad about it or is there? may be the sadness is useful in making a neural pattern in brain to put more effort and time next semester.

Worrying is not a single thought. Worrying is when you react to fear with fear. It creates a cycle, a loop of fear. Just observe the thought and the sensation you label fear, but don't react to it. Worrying doesn't help you focus, it is a distraction. It does the opposite. Yes it might get you so fearful and anxious and nervous that it makes you do something, but the result will not be of the same quality as when you do something calm and with full focus.

> To summarize, wouldn't being too much mindful may make you too adaptive to be mal-adaptive? wouldn't it may stop your thought processes which might have produced some good for society? and wouldn't it limit your potential.

If you get to that state of awareness of a zen monk where you have no thoughts at all, you would realize that society is just an illusion. How would you even be able to help someone if you are not mindful? If all you are aware of is your thoughts, how are you supposed to notice someone who needs help. What does it even mean to 'produce some good'? Thoughts limit potential. Thoughts are limited and limiting by nature. For example if you believe that a snake will kill you, you will stay away from snakes, and potentially never find out that their venom cures cancer (just an example). Or if you believe that slavery is something barbaric and could never happen in the modern world, you could become a slave and never realize it. In yoga and buddhism this is called karma. Thoughts that skew your perspective and make you only see reality from a specific relative perspective. If you want to learn more, I recommend this talk from david bohm, a theoretical physicists
> 0 votes

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Tags: mindfulness
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# Question
Title: If the instructions of a group intelligence test are misunderstood, are the results of that test invalid?
For example, a researcher is investigating synonyms and prepares a test. A participant undertaking the test incorrectly interprets the instructions, and understands the test to relate to antonyms rather than synonyms.

Does this then make the test results invalid?

# Answer
Kelley (1927) constructed test validity as:

> The problem of validity is that of whether a test really measures what it purports to measure, while the question of reliability is that of how accurately a test measures the thing which it does measure.

In the example provided, the test purports to measure some aspect of synonyms. The test actually (due to the misinterpretation) measures antonyms. Therefore, in the example provided, the test is not valid. If it were to argued that it was a valid test of synonyms, then you would also have to admit that it was not reliable and/or accurate.

Kelley's construction of validity remains in common use and adequate for the example provided. For a more complete view of validity, see Boag (2015).

**References**

Kelley, T. L. (1927). Interpretation of educational measurements. World Book. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b239527

Boag, S. (2015). Personality assessment,‘construct validity’, and the significance of theory. Personality and Individual Differences, 84, 36-44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.12.039
> 0 votes

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Tags: intelligence, cognitive, validation
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# Question
Title: What heuristic or bias is at play when drawing conclusions from headlines only?
I'm wondering why many people just read headlines when they scroll through social media and make up their minds based on this? What bias or heuristic is at play? Why don't people read the article?

I have considered availability bias because people will use the information that is available to them but that doesn't seem to capture the whole phenomenon. Why don't people click on the article to read it and assume they know the whole story based on the few words contained in the headline?

# Answer
> 2 votes
If the headline confirms a strongly held prior belief, or is antithetical to prior beliefs, then no need to read.

Consider an article titled, '*the world is round*' ... no need to read it as I already believe that.

An alternate title '*the world is flat*' ... no need to read that either.

An article 'the world is changing' may pique my interest and cause me to read further.

I wonder whether any heuristic or bias is at play, or whether an evaluation mechanism that judges the perceived benefit of reading the article versus the time opportunity cost of engaging with it.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I think that the conjunction fallacy might play a role in these instances. The fallacy assumes, according to Tversky & Kahneman (1983), that we tend to try to build a more plausible reason in our minds and thus string together the information with what is easier to believe. With an abundance of information, it is easier for people to piece stories together that support what they have already been exposed to, and thus tend not to extend their reasoning past this point, representativeness is at work, as well.

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1983). Extensional versus intuitive reasoning: The conjunction fallacy in probability judgment. Psychological Review, 90(4), 293

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Tags: bias
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# Question
Title: What is the relationship between fear and desire?
Are fear and desire located on the opposite sides of a spectrum or are they more like filters/lenses through which one can look simultaneously?

# Answer
The Atlas of personality, emotion and behaviour (Mobbs, 2020) is able to visualise emotions in two dimensions: affiliation and dominance. Fear is considered submissive and disaffiliative. Desire is more dominant and intrapersonal, that is, in itself neither affiliative or disaffiliative.

**Reference**

Mobbs AED (2020) An atlas of personality, emotion and behaviour. PLOS ONE 15(1): e0227877. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227877

**Declared interest**

I am the author of the atlas paper.
> 2 votes

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Tags: motivation, fear
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title: Why is music more addictive than film?

text:
# Question
Title: Why is music more addictive than film?
From my personal experience and from the (anecdotal) evidence it seems like music is way more addictive (for the lack of a better word) than film (movies).

For instance, when a new record from my favorite singer or band is released, I can listen to it a few times a day for several days or maybe even weeks. And then the frequency slowly tapers off, but I can still listen to it every week or month for many many years. For film it is completely different story. Even the movies that I consider absolute masterpieces, I would rewatch it maybe once every 6 months / year.

Why is it the case? Is it because visual media is more... intense, rich, contains more "meaning" per unit of display?

But even if that's the case, I would doubt it would explain such dramatic difference in watching / listening frequencies - once per 6 months and hundreds of times.

# Answer
You guessed it.

Listening to music is a passive activity. It causes no mental burden or stimuli to your thoughts. It is just allowing sound frequencies manipulate your brain and evoke whatever feelings they do in your mind. Whereas for watching movies, you need focus, to follow the story, and make sure you don't miss details. Human characters are involved, evoking love, happiness, disappointment, anger, stress, uncertainty, jealousy, envy, et; a huge emotional and mental burden. Very different from the relax "la-la land" world of music.
> 1 votes

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Tags: music
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# Question
Title: Is there actually a correlation between emotional trauma and homosexuality
One of the key talking points I hear to disparage homosexuality is that it stems from "a lack of a strong male figure" or some variation of that, putting aside the obvious irrelevancy of argument. I still am curious, is there any truth to the idea that trauma is correlated with homosexuality? And if so, can someone elaborate on it ie. is it equal across both genders? Does it result in Bisexuality or Gay more often? etc

# Answer
> 1 votes
The widely accepted answer to this question is that homosexuality is not a choice but science has no concrete answer as to exactly why people are homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual (or any other sexual orientations that one may identify with).

The Wikipedia page, Homosexuality, offers many great references and indicates that science has not definitive answer for what the 'cause' of homosexuality, only that it may be an interplay between generics, hormones, and environment.

# Answer
> 0 votes
No. We now know that some fathers react negatively to the gender nonconformity of their sons (i.e. their femininity) which is present and visible often from a very early age. The distant father hypothesis was discredited in the early 1980’s when large studies were carried out and found most gay men came from normal backgrounds. Further, the hypothesis would have to hold up cross-culturally. In Finland, gay men rate their fathers as warmer than straight men did. This is because Finn’s may react more affectionately to feminine boys than we do in the Anglo-sphere. The trauma model is useful to the religious because they can get self-hating men to put all of that guilt on their parents. Warren Throckmorton, a former gay conversion therapist, said most of the time the trauma model did not fit at all. But as conversion therapists, they told parents it was their fault and it led to some pretty awful familial disputes (even divorce) as parents quibbled over who “made their son gay”.

Generally speaking, most of the evidence points towards prenatal environment such as androgen exposure. Twin studies have conclusively shown the social environment and upbringing has little to no effect on male sexual orientation. Trauma models are ridiculous but popular. All of the evidence indicates sexual orientation is determined early in development and relies heavily upon biology set in the womb. Take a look at the Fraternal Birth Order effect for example, in which antibodies from earlier pregnancies interfere with male-typical brain arrangement leaving the attraction in the default ‘female’ position.

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Tags: personality, statistics
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# Question
Title: Resources for adults supporting a partner with childhood sexual trauma
This may be not the appropriate community, but I am looking for resources - books or articles - about how to improve the affective support towards an adult who suffered childhood sexual abuse.

I am starting a relationship with a person in her 30s who suffered constant sexual and physchological abuse as a child. She did not realize it until a few years ago, and she is going to therapy now. I am not trying to replace the professional help in any way, I just want to understand how to better support her when she talks about the things she had experienced, or when she feels guilty or unloved. I am doing my best to make her feel safe and loved, but sometimes I just don't know what to say.

I did some research, but found only books or articles for professional treatment, or guides on how to detect it. I understand the vastly difference between individual cases, but this is something so unrelated to my experience that any guidance will be very helpful.

Note: I am an academic researcher - on a completely different field -, so I might be able to cope with some technical terms or dense books.

# Answer
> 5 votes
Rape and sexual assault definitely does not only affect the assaulted, but also the friends and family as they can feel helpless, not knowing what is best to do to help and support the assaulted.

As I mentioned in the comments, support groups such as

provide support to survivor's partners, friends and family too.

The following books are recommended by Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre

* **Allies in healing: when the person you love was sexually abused as a child, by Laura Davis
ISBN: 978-0060552992**
Laura Davis is also the author of the well known book for survivors called *The Courage to Heal Workbook* which is a companion to the main book *The Courage to Heal* she co-authored with Ellen Bass
*Allies in Healing* is available through Amazon as a Kindle book for a much cheaper price than a printed copy if that suits you.
* **Ghosts in the bedroom: A guide for partners of incest survivors, by Ken Graber
ISBN: 978-1558741164**
Ken Graber draws from personal experience to show how partners can accept responsibility for their own issues, support the recovery of the incest or sexual abuse survivor, and work toward solving relationship problems together.

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Tags: ptsd, trauma, sexual-assault
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# Question
Title: Is it scientifically backed that sensory signals always go through limbic/emotional brain system?
From the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves:

> The daily challenge of dealing effectively with emotions is critical to the human condition because our brains are hard- wired to give emotions the upper hand. Here’s how it works: everything you see, smell, hear, taste and touch travels through your body in the form of electric signals. These signals pass from cell to cell until they reach their ultimate destination, your brain. They enter your brain at the base near the spinal cord, but must travel to your frontal lobe (behind your forehead) before reaching the place where rational, logical thinking takes place. The trouble is, they pass through your limbic system along the way—the place where emotions are produced. This journey ensures you experience things emotionally before your reason can kick into gear.

Is the presented as fact that senses such as seeing/sight go through Emotional/Limbic system prior to reaching Rational neo-cortex layer. Is this the current scientific stance?

# Answer
While it is true that emotional life is largely housed in the limbic system, the model seems to be over-simplistic to me. There are more complex emotions that are housed in the neocortex, not just the limbic system*. However, it can still be useful to teach for layman? Similarly to the triune brain model.

For a good introductory video course on emotion, see Human Emotion, host by June Gruber, prof in Yale.

* I believe I have this claim when watching this course, but I cannot find the particular video that make that statement.
> -1 votes

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Tags: emotion, brain, emotional-intelligence
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title: What is a background assumption?

text:
# Question
Title: What is a background assumption?
What is meant by *background assumption*?

# Answer
> 2 votes
A background assumption is something implied or assumed by what you say, but not explicitly stated.

For instance, if you say 'I feel happy'. It is implied or assumed that you exist. It is also implied or assumed that happiness exists. It is implied and assumed that you have feelings. It is implied that you have told the truth rather than a lie. A background assumption is that you and I both interpret happiness in a similar way.

Many things we say include background or implied assumptions. Fortunately, most people make similar background assumptions which means that they don't need to be stated, which greatly aids in efficient communication.

Did you notice that I made the assumption that we all make similar background assumptions?

This question may be better directed to https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/

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Tags: social-psychology, sociology
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# Question
Title: Identify kind of descriptive role playing game for self-discovery
There's a comic book called "Knights of the Dinner Table" about a bunch of rpg players.

In one issue, the only girl at the table GM's some kind of self-discovery game she learnt in her psychology class. She describes some situations and asks for details from the players, giving an example herself.

At one point, for example, she says:

> Ok, so you continue your journey down your own personal path. Soon you come to a large bear! What do you do? My bear turns out to be very tame and I'm able to hand feed it and befriend it! He decides to accompany me on my journey.

At the end, she explains what each thing symbolizes:

> The bear represents adversity and how you deal with it

Supposedly this is (loosely) based on a real exercise for self discovery. I would like to know more about the real exercise in which this is based, but I don't know how to start.

Any idea how this exercise is called, or how can I find more information about something similar?

Thanks.

# Answer
> 2 votes
I finally found it, apparently it's called The Forest Test

> Hindrances and annoyances that take away our happiness, entrenched fears, values that govern our choices and behavior. The forest test tries to clarify and interpret many of these issues based on the approach from which it was designed: relational psychoanalysis. According to this theory, our psychological suffering is rooted in underlying issues that we must bring to light in order to heal the hurts and move forward.
>
> For those who have not heard about this relational test, we should first say that it isn’t in any way conventional. The forest test doesn’t have enough reliability and validity to be part of normal clinical practice. However, we cannot rule out its relevance within the context and the theoretical framework from which it was created. It is, without a doubt, worth taking into account.
>
> The forest test is a projective test which can reveal the fears, hindrances and deepest interests of each patient.

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Tags: psychoanalysis
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# Question
Title: How can we measure the levels of Frustration?
Any technique or Matrix or Questionnaires, Qualitative or Quantitative Analysis

# Answer
> 2 votes
According to the Atlas of personality, emotion and behaviour (Mobbs, 2020), frustration is an emotion that can be visualised on the two dimensional grid as shown below.

The atlas paper describes a method for measuring emotions (and behaviours and personality traits) according to the orthogonal dimensions of affiliation and dominance. The neurobiological basis for the two dimensions are described in the paper as are the evolutionary associations with other vertebrates.

The atlas facilitates measuring such emotions using either a scalar or vector approach.

A scalar measure of frustration can be achieved by identifying proximate synonymic emotions, such as: aggravation, anger, annoyance, botheration, chagrin, derailment, discontentment, exasperation, impatience, and irritation. The proportion of these proximate synonyms that apply would be a scalar measure of frustration.

A vectored approach would be to draw a vector from the origin (or some other point) through the cell in which frustration is located (-1,1) and then extending to the extremity of the atlas. Many points on the vector would have a specific word descriptive of that point or segment along the vector. Fifteen related emotions are visualised to assist in the specification of the end point of the vector. (let me know if you would like others that better fit your need).

**References**

Mobbs, AED (2020) An atlas of personality, emotion and behaviour. PLOS ONE 15(1): e0227877. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227877

Mobbs, AED (2020) An Atlas of Personality, Emotion and Behaviour. figshare. Collection. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4792323.v1

**Declared interest**

I am the author of the atlas paper.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, emotion, measurement, abnormal-psychology, sentiment-analysis
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# Question
Title: Would the Milgram Experiment results be replicated in Eastern cultures?
When the Milgram Experiment was performed in the 1960s and replicated multiple times up until the 1980s, it was performed in Western cultures. When it was replicated in 2006, it was again performed in the USA. One of the interesting observations that was made, was that the subjects in most cases, agreed to continue the shock treatments if they were reassured that they cannot be held responsible for anything that happens and cannot be sued\*.

This to me, sounds to be an individualistic reaction to the experimenter's command as opposed to a collectivistic response where subjects would not only try to protect their self interests but would also act to protect the confederate being shocked from ill treatment\**. Is this an accurate assertion?

As we know, Western cultures are known to emphasize on individualism whereas Eastern cultures are known for inculcating collectivism. So, would the experimental results differ if the experiment were replicated today in an Eastern culture (Japan, for example)?

Have any such studies been conducted in the East?

<sub> \*Mentioned in Burger, Jerry M. (2008). "Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today? and also a video clip was featured on ABC News’s January 3, 2007, broadcast of Primetime. </sub>

<sub>\**Personal argument/reasoning</sub>

# Answer
> 6 votes
While I don't know of the Milgram studies being replicated cross cultural there's an older, less severe conformity study by Asch. Those use less authoritarian and more group conformity pressure.

Eastern cultures showed higher conformity and western showed falling conformity over time.

Bond, R. & Smith, Peter. (1996). Culture and conformity: A meta-analysis of studies using Asch's (1952b, 1956) line judgment task. *Psychological Bulletin*, *119*(1), 111-137. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.119.1.111

# Answer
> 6 votes
There is a 2009 article by Burger that reportedly reviews the Milgram experiment and all known replications. You might want to read through the replications carefully to see whether any such studies were performed in an eastern cultural context. Possibly even a close reading of the studies might suggest how much results vary across settings.

I found one study by Shanab (1974) which was conducted in Jordan, although that's not exactly an eastern culture.

> Using S. Milgram's (1974) paradigm, 48 Jordanian college students were tested for obedience. Results show experimental Ss gave significantly more shocks than the control Ss. Unlike the experimental Ss, the controls were free to either give or not give shock. No difference in obedience rate occurred between male and female Ss. In terms of overobedience, 62.5% of the experimental and 12.5% of the control Ss continued to deliver shock to the end of the shock scale.

So on the face of it, I could not find a replication of the Milgram experiment in an Eastern context.

### References

* Burger, J. M. (2009). Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today?. American Psychologist, 64(1), 1. PDF
* Shanab, M. E., & Yahya, K. A. (1978). A cross-cultural study of obedience. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society.

# Answer
> 4 votes
I found the review made in 2012, which has India results among others:
Blass, T. (2012). A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Studies of Obedience Using the Milgram Paradigm: A Review. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6(2), 196–205. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2011.00417.x

>

But it is from 1983. I failed to found any East culture Milgram's experiment replications after 2000.

The last known replication was made in Polland in 2015:
Doliński, D., Grzyb, T., Folwarczny, M., Grzybała, P., Krzyszycha, K., Martynowska, K., & Trojanowski, J. (2017). Would You Deliver an Electric Shock in 2015? Obedience in the Experimental Paradigm Developed by Stanley Milgram in the 50 Years Following the Original Studies. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8(8), 927–933. doi:10.1177/1948550617693060

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Tags: social-psychology, cross-cultural-psychology
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# Question
Title: Why is the occipital lobe behind instead of in front?
These are regions of our brain:

Our eyes are in front below our forehead, however, the visual area Occipital Lobe is behind. Are there any biological reasons for this? why shouldn't Occipital Lobe be in forehead instead?

I'm thinking of one thing but I don't know whether it's correct: The signals to run from the eyes thru' other regions for linking knowledge.

# Answer
From the retina, visual signals next travel through the lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus. This nucleus is quite centrally located, about as much in the middle of the brain as possible, and much much more ancient (evolutionarily, and developmentally) than the folded outer part of the brain that is highly recognizable in humans.

This entire folded brain region including frontal/parietal/temporal/occipital lobes is called the neocortex, and it is quite recent in evolution, only appearing in mammals.

In other vertebrates, the next step in visual processing is the optic tectum, also found in the center of the brain. In mammals we typically call this the superior colliculus, and it still functions in eye movements and visual target localization.

The position of visual cortex in humans is determined simply by the part of neocortex that gets direct inputs from the visual part of thalamus, so it is likely that it inherits somewhat from the organization of the thalamus, where you can notice that the LGN is located towards the back part of the thalamus, but note that LGN isn't simply the structure furthest back (MGN, the auditory thalamus, is further back, for example). Otherwise, there is no need or reason for the visual cortex to be in any particular part of the brain, only that it needs some space for itself apart from other regions. Input isn't coming directly from the retina in the eyes, so there is no improvement to path length to have the visual cortex anywhere else.

Vision isn't even forward-focusing in many mammals, this is a trait that you really only see in carnivores and primates that use binocular vision to make an improved 3D map of the world in front. Prey animals like rodents and many herbivores have vision that is more concerned with what is above or on any side rather than what is in front.

See also, to some extent, https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/35532/why-do-some-bad-traits-evolve-and-good-ones-dont
> 6 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, vision, neural-network, brain, human-factors
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# Question
Title: Do people who experience heautoscopy become unable to see their reflected image in a mirror?
I understand that people who experience **autoscopy** can see their body image outside them without a mirror. I had read many years back in a paper that people who experience the inverse phenomenon called **"heautoscopy"** become unable to see their body image in a mirror. I am not able to trace that paper. It is correct? Is there any place I can read more about it?

# Answer
While acknowledging the fact that Google delivers personalized results, I am fairly sure a Google search for "heautoscopy" will deliver you bucket loads of papers to read - I have copied a random handful for your convenience below under 'further reading'.

However, a popular source seems to contradict your definition, as it states heautoscopy as being:

> A hallucination in which one sees one's own body from a distance. Heautoscopy may occur as a symptom in schizophrenia and epilepsy.

Your own referenced Brugger (2002) paper gives a nice definition of both terms in one go:

> In an **autoscopic hallucination** the *observer's perspective is clearly body-centred, and the visual image of one's own body appears as a mirror reversal*. **Heautoscopy** (i.e., the encounter with an alter ego or doppelgänger), is defined as a *reduplication not only of bodily appearance, but also of aspects of one's psychological self*.

Not being able to see ones own reflection in a mirror would be an entirely different phenomenon, more akin to mirrored-self misidentification

<sub>**Further reading**
**-** Blanke & Mohr, *Brain Res Brain Res Rev* (2005); **50**(1): 184-99
**-** Brugger, *Cogn Neuropsychiatry* (2002); **7**(3): 179-94
**-** Brugger *et al*., *J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry* (1994); **57**(7): 838–39</sub>
> 3 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, vision, consciousness, brain, hallucinations
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# Question
Title: Explaining mathematically why most people chose 7 when asked to chose a number between 1-10
Last day, I watched a video at ‘Numberphile’ which made a strange demand. According to the video, if you ask people to randomly pick any one integer between 1 and 10 (both inclusive), people are more likely to choose 7. They also said that around 45% of people prefer the given choice. I will post the link to this video at the comments.

According to them, the explanation of this strange phenomenon is that when asked to make a random choice, 1 and 10 gets the least preference since they are the endpoints and so, they don’t seem to be random to the one making the choice. 5 gets cancelled next as it lies exactly midway between the endpoints. Even numbers get cancelled next as the human brain associates a sense of order with multiples of 2 and so, doesn’t find them quite random. (Here’s where I step in to contribute something more to the theory- my personal guess is that the brain does the same for multiples of all integers, only that it does it lesser as the integer increases. Thus, odd prime numbers must be interpreted by the brain as more random species. I exclude 2 since it never really gets a chance to participate in our intuitive domain of prime numbers). After eliminating them all, 3 and 7 are left, out of which 3 gets cancelled out for being too small in magnitude and 7 wins the game at the end.

Now, I didn’t find the stream of reasons quite convincing. So, I decided to do a small personal survey to check the authenticity of the given fact. Therefore, I posted a status on WhatsApp urging people to give me a random number between 1 and 10 and the results were just midway between what ‘Numberphile’ predicted and what one may intuitively argue on the statistical basis that every integer has equal choices. Before I tell you the results, I must mention that they should not be taken too seriously as the sample space of the survey is as small as only 55 people and anyone with a basic knowledge of statistics knows that such a small sample space isn’t enough to conclude something about a larger population. You’ll get the results of my lovely survey in a tabular format in the first image that I add in this post.

Without doubt, 7 won the game (never challenge your favorite YouTube channel), but instead of getting the desired 45% majority, it succeeded in only a 20. Moreover, 3 is the runner up which continues confirming our hypothesis. The next big thing to notice is that the endpoints got least majority as was predicted earlier.

Now, going into my personal guess, it seems it’s a great triumph for someone who never studied the human brain. The three prime numbers of the list (which constitute only 33% of the total) have been chosen by almost 46% of the sample space.

Now, it’s time to talk about where the survey is messing up with the given theory. First of all, 3 is not singly the runners up- it shares the second position with 6 (which is an even number) and our theory has no explanation for this. The second big blow comes if we separately observe the even numbers. It can be seen that the even numbers get almost 42% choices which is not very far away from the midpoint of 50%. So, this hypothesis of eliminating the even numbers seems to be a bit bizarre. But, again, we must remember that our sample space was not big enough to yield extremely precise results.

Last but not the least, I calculated the average of the 55 choices and it came to be around 5.49, which is insanely close to the ideal expectation of 5.50, a result, which relies solely on the assumption that all the choices are equally probable. I can’t come up with any concrete explanation for this beautiful accuracy. Maybe, we can try to justify ourselves by saying things like the super majority of 7 was somewhat balanced by the second best performance of 3 and the votes for 4 and 5 balance that of 6 and so on. But, this justification looks very weak and fragile.

Below are the tables showcasing the data.

I shifted my question from Mathematics stack exchange to here because i believe this is something meant for this forum!

So I welcome any answer which will describe this better.

# Answer
This is a really fun problem! Intuitively, the numbers all have latent features (isEven, isPrime, etc), so they live in a richly structured space. So far so good, but the (typical) structure of that space for people is an empirical question, you can't just introspect or ask a mathematician.

There's actually quite a bit of work on this, because the numbers make a convenient test case if your goal is to figure out how to infer the properties of structured representations in general. A lot of it is descended from "The internal representation of numbers" (Shepard, Kilpatric, Cunningham 1975) which uses multidimensional scaling on similarity judgements. Tenenbaum had another crack at it in 1996 using expectation maximization, but you might want to skip forward to Navarro and Griffiths (2008) "Latent features in similarity judgments: A nonparametric Bayesian approach." because who doesn't love Bayesian nonparametrics? That's probably not the final word on this, there's got to be some newer shinier way to extract latent features coming soon to a journal near you. But I'm pretty sure these methods mostly agree on the main features of your whatsapp poll, and in particular they all find that 7 is weird in the sense of not very similar to the other small numbers.
> 4 votes

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Tags: computational-modeling
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# Question
Title: What is the independent variable in this memory experiment?
I am planning the following memory experiment:

Participants study a list of words, a random half of which are followed by an instruction to remember and the other half by an instruction to forget. Afterwards, they are given a recognition memory test which includes words that they have previously studied, unstudied words that sound similar to studied words they had been instructed to remember, unstudied words that sound similar to studied words they had been instructed to forget, and unstudied words that are unrelated to studied words. Participants have to respond "yes" to words they recognize as having studied regardless of the associated memory instruction (remember or forget) and "no" to the words they don't.

If participants falsely recognize (respond "yes") to more similar sounding unstudied words than unrelated unstudied words it is taken as evidence that they encoded the sound of the words they studied. Comparing "yes" responses between unstudied words that sound similar to remember instructed study words and those that sound similar to forget instructed study words can reveal whether the process of remembering or forgetting is more likely to lead to the encoding of sound.

With the above analyses in mind it would make sense that the dependent variable is the "yes" response. But is the independent variable the memory instruction? the type of unstudied word on the recognition test? or something else?

# Answer
It seems this experiment is trying to test two different things:

> If participants falsely recognize (respond "yes") to more similar sounding unstudied words than unrelated unstudied words it is taken as evidence that they encoded the sound of the words they studied.

For this part of the experiment, the independent variable is the type of word on the recognition test, specifically **whether the words on the recognition test sound similar to the studied words or not**. In this case, the dependent variable is the likelihood of recognizing the words, with the hypothesis being that participants will be more likely to recognize words that sound similar to the studied words than words that are unrelated to the studied words.

> Comparing "yes" responses between unstudied words that sound similar to remember instructed study words and those that sound similar to forget instructed study words can reveal whether the process of remembering or forgetting is more likely to lead to the encoding of sound.

For this part of the experiment, the independent variable is the memory-instruction (and **whether words on the test sound like remember-instructed or forget-instructed words**, since these variables go hand-in-hand). In this case, the dependent variable is still the likelihood of recognizing the words, with the hypothesis (probably) being that participants will be more likely to recognize words that sound similar to remember-instructed words than words that sound similar to forget-instructed words.

Edit: I just realized you designed the experiment. I would recommend choosing a single hypothesis because there seem to be two hypotheses and corresponding independent variables which makes things kind of confusing.
> 1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, experiment-design
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# Question
Title: What is the exact meaning of a "calculating" person?
I am not a psychologist so forgive the dumb question. I frequently read the "calculating" sign attributed to people with anti-social behavior like psychopaths, but I fail to understand what this word exactly mean. According to Merriam-Webster, calculating is "marked by prudent analysis or by shrewd consideration of self-interest". However, I am not sure I understand what exactly is bad about this. Surely we are all better off doing some prudent analysis about the situations we are in, no? Would you just jump into a job without analyzing whether it is good for you or not? How about when you decide to get married, do you just jump into a marriage without thinking about the possibility of the success of the marriage? Perhaps the second part of the definition is negative, I mean the "self-interest" part, but then this sounds like being selfish, as opposed to how this word is commonly attributed to antisocial or even criminal behaviour.

Looking at it differently, the opposite of the definition above is perhaps "marked by no analysis and consideration of self-interest." Now yes, the second part seems altruistic, but the first part is something that no one would want.

I am sure I am missing the obvious, perhaps it is because English is not my main language, so I would appreciate some explanation on this word from a psychology perspective.

Thanks

# Answer
The thesaurus may assist. The Synonyms of 'calculating' are: artful, astute, calculative, canny, conniving, crafty, cunning, deceitful, devious, dexterous, dirty, disingenuous, foxy, guileful, machiavellian, manipulative, scheming, shrewd, slick, slippery, sly, subtle, underhand, unscrupulous, and wily.

Acknowledging that everyone pursues self-interest to an extent, the intent of the definition appears to suggest that a 'calculating' person has little empathy or consideration of others.

Synonyms extracted from Merriam-Webster and Oxford.
> 3 votes

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Tags: personality-disorder
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# Question
Title: Multiple "levels" of association in classical conditioning?
Sorry if this appears a silly question - If I understand correctly, the objective of classical conditioning, is to pair a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus, so the neutral stimulus starts producing the same unconditioned response corresponding to unconditioned stimulus. My question is - can there be multiple "levels" of stimuli that can end up producing the same unconditioned response ?

For example, referring to the famous dog salivating experiment, the dog learns to associate ringing bell stimulus with food because it was paired with food stimulus. Now if we start pairing another stimulus say, "bang the door", with "ring door-bell", would the dog be able to eventually salivate on "bang the door" stimulus ? Would it learn that "bang the door" would then be followed with "ringing door bell" and eventually "food" stimuli and thus learn multiple "levels" of associations between the stimuli ? If yes, how many such "levels" can an animal like rat or dog form these associations for ?

# Answer
Found answer to my own question. This is called "higher order conditioning": https://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Higher+Order+Conditioning#:~:text=Higher%20Order%20Conditioning%20(also%20known,produce%20salivating)%20to%20produce%20the
> 1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology
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# Question
Title: Measuring serotonin in the brain with a sample of spinal fluid
Is it possible to measure serotonin with a sample of spinal fluid?

# Answer
It is entirely possible to sample serotonin levels from cerebral spinal fluid (CFS) taken via a lumbar puncture, also known as a spinal tap, to the spinal column from the central nervous system (CNS).

This is the most accurate method of measuring neurotransmitter levels in the brain\* without risking damage to cerebral tissue, although it is safer and almost as accurate to take the sample from platelets extracted a blood sample. The reason it is safer is because you don't have to go through nerve tissue, and because CSF does not contain the defences of blood to deal with toxins and pathogens (potential infections).

*note*. It is perhaps more accurate to use a tissue sample, although this would take longer to analyse and damage grey matter. In animal studies we use in vivo microdialysis, but this is only worthwhile in controlled (extremely clean) experimental conditions.
> 3 votes

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Tags: brain, serotonin
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# Question
Title: Is using tensorflow for Spiking neural networks a "good" idea?
I recently started working with Spiking Neural Networks and was hoping for some input from others. I saw there were many libraries/platforms specifically made for working with SNN's (Brian, PyNN, NEURON, etc...) however I was wondering if there were any tradeoffs in using plain, old popular Tensorflow for SNN implementation. Is there a reason that it is underresearched? Has anyone tried or working on this?

Thanks for any feedback anyone can offer,

# Answer
> 1 votes
One of the key issues with spiking neural networks is that while SNN are computationally more powerful than the so called 2nd generation neural networks (artificial neural networks), they are also computationally 'much' more expensive. This means you need a lot of computational power to effectively use them, and limits their use by the wider data science community and therefore the development of the method, which is mostly stuck in research groups. Many of whom are working on the issue of efficiency, while IBM amongst others is working on the hardware issue.

Another issue for the poor adoption and development of SNNs is that, at the time of writing, they are not able to effectively conducting supervised learning. So while SNNs are good at dealing with specific tasks for which they have been hard coded, they are not generally applicable to a wider range of problems without considerable coding. By comparison ANNs are highly versatile and **easily** applicable to a wide range of data science problems. It has been suggested elsewhere that for SNNs to be general purpose, we would need to more accurately mimic learning in the mammalian brain in order to conduct supervised learning tasks. There are recent steps in the right direction that take a simplified approach by adding a reward process in to the NN, which in my opinion (with a background in 'reward systems') is a good start. But this is all very recent compared to ANNs, and really the 'further research is required' slogan strongly applies before SNNs are more widely adopted within both data science and computational psychology/neuroscience. Although as you can see here the TensorFlow community is starting to work on utilising SNNs. Google (TensorFlow) itself is well onboard with studying SNNs, and is one of the strongest leaders in the field of machine learning, so you should expect to see a lot more work from google here, which will spread the the wider data science community. With that said I cannot see a reason not to use TensorFlow, it is, however, worth looking into IBMs ML offerings too given there interest in developing hardware for SNNs, and how Snap ML out performs TensorFlow.

In summary, SNNs are computationally powerful in theory, but are computationally expensive compared to ANNs with current technology. SNNs also have a supervised learning problem which means that this need to be developed to allow SNNs to be used more generally, and wider adoption. This would lead to more use of SNNs and therefore more development. SNNs are likely a future of machine learning as research and technology develops, but its currently mostly limited to academic investigation and understanding.

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Tags: neural-network
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# Question
Title: What is the most accurate method of discerning between “irredeemable evil” and “temporary insanity”?
To be precise, by "evil" I am referring specifically to the weakness of the trait of (or compulsion) for “genuine care and concern for the wellbeing of others” with respect to the strength of the trait of (or compulsion for) "the pursuit of self-interest".

Or, more succinctly, the weakness of the force of conscience as a constraining force on the predatory compulsion of self-interest.

> “The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man."
> ~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Some humans seem to lack this “genuine care and concern for the wellbeing of others”
Of those who do, there seem to be at least 2 distinct groups:
1: Those who lack it permanently. (irredeemably evil)
2: Those who lack it only temporarily. (temporary insanity)

By "temporary insanity" I am referring to the phenomenon of people who seem to act without care and concern for the well being of others, but who seem to do so because they lack the ability to control their fear at the time and are later genuinely remorseful for their behavior.

By "irredeemably evil" I am referring to those who never experience any genuine remorse for such behavior.

**Difficulty #1: The seeming absence of a single underlying cause**

Psychopathy is probably the best example of "irredeemable" evil. There are methods like the PCL-R to detect this particular type of evil. However, there seems to be growing evidence that narcissism also has a strong heritable component. The methods for detecting psychopathy do not seem to be applicable to narcissism.

To add to the difficulty of the problem, the evidence would seem to suggest that the absence of moral constraint to predatory compulsions may not have a single cause.

For example, there is some evidence to suggest that psychopathy may be the result of weak pain signals in general.

One interpretation of this is that conscience emerges and is strengthened by the process of persistent pain giving rise to rumination. i.e. When our actions harm others, the persistent guilt that we feel, gives rise to a resolve to change our behavior both to relieve the pain in the moment and to avoid feeling this pain again in the future. However, if the pain signal is too weak to give rise to rumination, then the conscience does not form.

On the other hand, narcissists seem to typically have normal levels of pain for themselves but lack the affective empathy which would trigger similar levels of pain when other humans are suffering. One interpretation of this is that the persistent pain which gives rise to the rumination which gives rise to conscience does not arise, due not to the inability to experience pain in general, but rather to the inability to experience pain of others due to the absence of affective empathy.

Given these different ways in which the growth of conscience can be interrupted, it's possible that the most effective means of discernment between "irredeemable evil" an "temporary insanity" might be to identify the traits of those who have a fully developed conscience and look for the absence of those traits in the individual in question.

**Difficulty #2: Variance in the size of the circle of genuine care and concern.**

To further add to the difficulty of this problem, it seems that the size of the circle of "genuine care and concern" varies considerably amongst humans.

For some, it extends only to kin.
For others it might extend to a larger tribe.
For others still, it might, as some religions would encourage us, extend to all humans or even all living beings.

To be more precise, therefore, given that evil is the perception of the absence of "genuine care and concern for the well being of others", and that those who lack "genuine care and concern for the well being of others" will feel compelled to fake it in order to survive and thrive in society, this question seems to break down into the following 2 components:

1: pre-discovery: What is the most accurate method that potential prey can use to detect that the "care and concern" displayed by the skilled predator is, in fact, a deception?

2: post-discovery: Having witnessed evidence of the absence of "genuine care and concern for the well being of others", what is the most accurate means of determining if this is due to a permanent versus temporary inability to expand the circle of care and concern?

# Answer
> 1 votes
It almost seems like a two-valued judgment, where you either have the trait or don't, but the context seems to matter. Someone may perform irredeemably evil acts, yet go home to their family with whom they have a genuine concern for their wellbeing. Especially when talking about the issue using the construct of psychopathy where:

> By foregrounding intrinsic evil, psychopathy marginalizes social problems and excuses institutional failures at rehabilitation. We need not understand a criminal's troubled past or environmental influences. We need not reach out a hand to help him along a pathway to redemption. The psychopath is irredeemable, a dangerous outsider who must be contained or banished. Circular in its reasoning, psychopathy is nonetheless alluring in its simplicity (Franklin 2011).

Franklin essentially views the construct as subjective, rightfully so, since those who often lead or protect our society might commit or allow acts that would fall into the category of irredeemable evil, in terms of participating or profiting from genocide or interfering in other nations politics that may cause great harm to that particular population. Bandura (1990), views it as a problem of cognition, where the individual's thoughts are reconstrued or even formed to justify their actions, where the benefits seem to outweigh any moral sanctions that would regularly prevent the behavior from being performed. He gives the example of the soldier that kills, where they have reframed the act of murder as something to be proud of, rather than something that is forbidden and evil.

If one gets behind the construct of psychopathy, there could be an argument made that they may lack the proper cognitive skills to buffer themselves against moral disengagement, making them act the way they do.

References: Bandura, A. (1990). Selective activation and disengagement of moral control. Journal of Social Issues, 46(1), 27-46 https://sci-hub.se/https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1990.tb00270.x

Franklin. K. (2011). https://www.wbur.org/npr/136433233/expert-panel-weighing-the-value-of-a-test-for-psychopaths Retrived 19, July 2020.

# Answer
> 1 votes
The lexical approach may assist. The lexical hypothesis states that, ‘All aspects of human personality, which are or have been of importance, interest or utility, have already become recorded in the substance of language’(Cattell, 1943) and, ‘When an idea is important, people are likely to have a word for it … the more important something is, … the more words there are likely to be’(Miller, 1996). The atlas of personality, emotion and behaviour uses a lexical approach to visualise words using the axes of affiliation and dominance (Mobbs, 2020).

A sample of synonyms of **evil** are: abhorrent, abominable, appalling, atrocious, awful, baleful, base, bent, contemptible, corrupt, criminal, crooked, cruel, damaging, dangerous, depraved, despicable, destructive, disagreeable, disgusting, dishonourable, dreadful, fiendish, filthy, foul, harmful, heinous, hideous, horrendous, horrible, horrid, hurtful, immoral, inhuman, inhumane, iniquitous, loathsome, malevolent, malicious, malignant, mischievous, monstrous, nasty, nauseating, nauseous, noxious, obnoxious, obscene, odious, offensive, pernicious, perverse, perverted, poisonous, repellent, repugnant, repulsive, revolting, rotten, ruinous, scandalous, shocking, sickening, stormy, threatening, ugly, unclean, unethical, unlawful, unprincipled, unscrupulous, venomous, vicious, vile, villainous, wanton, wicked, woeful, wrong.

A sample of synonyms of **insane** are: absurd, asinine, bananas, barmy, bats, batty, bedlam, bizarre, bonkers, certifiable, crackbrained, cracked, crackers, crackpot, crazed, crazy, cuckoo, daffy, daft, delirious, demented, deranged, devilish, dippy, disturbed, dotty, enraged, exasperated, extreme, fanciful, fantastic, farcical, fatuous, featherheaded, fool, foolish, fruity, gaga, half-baked, half-witted, hare-brained, haywire, hysterical, idiotic, ill-conceived, illogical, imbecilic, immoderate, inane, incensed, inept, intolerable, irrational, irritated, jerky, kookie, laughable, lavish, loony, ludicrous, lunatic, mad, mad\_as\_a\_hatter, maniac, maniacal, manic, mental, mentally\_ill, mindless, moronic, non compos mentis, nonsensical, not\_all\_there, nuts, nutty, nutty\_as\_a\_fruitcake, pointless, potty, preposterous, psycho, psychopathic, psychotic, raving\_mad, ridiculous, round\_the\_bend, scatty, schizophrenic, screwball, screwy, senseless, silly, simpleminded, stark\_raving\_mad, stiff, stupid, unbalanced, unconscionable, unhinged, unmerciful, unreal, unrealistic, unreasonable, unsound, unstable, unwise, vexed, wacko, wacky, weird, whacko, whacky, wild, witless, zany.

Both evil and insane are visualised according to the atlas below along with other constructs for the purpose of comparison (Jones & Paulhus, 2014; DSM-5; ICD-11).

From a linguistic / lexical perspective, the primary difference between evil and insane is the level of dominance. Evil implying intent whereas insanity implies the absence of intent. The visual analysis also appears to support the concept that insanity is associated with a complete absence of empathy.

**References**

Cattell RB. The description of personality: basic traits resolved into clusters. J Abnorm Soc Psychol. 1943; 38: 476–506. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054116

Miller GA. The science of words. New York: Scientific American Library; 1996.

Mobbs AED (2020) An atlas of personality, emotion and behaviour. PLoS ONE 15(1): e0227877. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227877

Jones DN, Paulhus DL. Introducing the short Dark Triad (SD3): a brief measure of dark personality traits. Assessment. 2014; 21: 28–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191113514105

Oxford and Merriam-Webster thesauri.

American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5. 5th ed. Washington, DC: Author; 2013.

World Health Organization. International statistical classification of diseases and related health problems. 11th ed. World Health Organization; 2018. https://icd.who.int

**Declared interest**: I am the author of the atlas paper.

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Tags: moral-psychology
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title: Is there a name for this feeling?

text:
# Question
Title: Is there a name for this feeling?
With the intent of being seen as a big shot, a person induces unsuspecting observers to underestimate them by intentionally failing in trivial tasks but then successfully completing more complex tasks.

# Answer
The emotions may include: duplicitousness, slipperiness, artfulness, craftiness, deviousness, wiliness, cunningness, deceitfulness, slyness, sneakiness, crookedness, vanity, haughtiness, pretentiousness, affectation, conceitedness, smugness, superciliousness, bumptiousness, condescension, obstreperousness, grandiosity, hubris.
> 2 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, social-psychology, emotion, personality, behaviorism
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title: Personality at Birth

text:
# Question
Title: Personality at Birth
What factors determine the personality of a newborn baby?

Do all newborns exhibit identical behaviour? If not, are genetics responsible for the differences?

References consulted so far:

1. Is Personality More Nature or More Nurture? Behavioural and Molecular Genetics
2. Are Personality Traits Caused by Genes or Environment?
3. Do Genes Influence Personality?

# Answer
The *nature vs nurture* debate is long standing. Nurture presumably plays little or no role for the majority of newborns (see prenatal discussion below), therefore nature (genetics) would be the only influencing factor. Subsequent to birth, nurture presumably plays an increasingly greater role as time progresses. Some (but not all) twin studies demonstrate some impact of genetics on behaviour (Johnson, 2002; Plomin 1976).

The behaviour of newborns are generally referred to as being instinctive or innate and may include goal-directed behaviours such as suckling, looking, smelling and imprinting. Researchers such as Lorenz and Sluckin are foundational on early life behaviour research. I also contributed to an article on newborn instinctual behaviours.

The impact of prenatal stressors on the newborn have been considered in relation to maternal mental health (Erickson, 2017), alcohol abuse (Lange, 2017; McLachlan, 2019), substance abuse (Forray, 2016) and gestational diabetes (Schmidt, 2019):

1. **Mother’s mental health**: The findings were that there was no support for relationships between prenatal mental health indicators and infant temperament in multiple studies.
2. **Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder**: The reported prevalence is less than 1% of births, however, the implications on the newborn are profound with as many as 30% of adults in correctional facilities suffering Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.
3. **Substance abuse**: Whilst birth and health problems have been widely investigated, little could be found on the implications on personality of the newborn.
4. **Diabetes**: Whilst birth and health problems have been widely investigated, little could be found on the implications on personality of the newborn.

It is likely that I've not identified all relevant studies in relation to prenatal stressors affecting the personality and would welcome the advice of others.

**References**

Johnson, W., Krueger, R. F., Bouchard, T. J., & McGue, M. (2002). The personalities of twins: Just ordinary folks. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 5(2), 125-131. https://doi.org/10.1375/twin.5.2.125

Plomin, R., Willerman, L. & Loehlin, J.C. Resemblance in appearance and the equal environments assumption in twin studies of personality traits. Behav Genet 6, 43–52 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01065677

Sluckin, W. (2017). Imprinting and early learning. Transaction Publishers.

Sluckin, W., Herbert, M., & Sluckin, A. (1983). Maternal bonding. Blackwell.

Lorenz, K. (2002). King Solomon's ring: new light on animal ways. Psychology Press.

Mobbs, E. J., Mobbs, G. A., & Mobbs, A. E. (2016). Imprinting, latchment and displacement: a mini review of early instinctual behaviour in newborn infants influencing breastfeeding success. Acta Paediatrica, 105(1), 24-30. https://doi.org/10.1111/apa.13034

Erickson, N. L., Gartstein, M. A., & Dotson, J. A. W. (2017). Review of prenatal maternal mental health and the development of infant temperament. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jogn.2017.03.008

Forray A. (2016). Substance use during pregnancy. F1000Research, 5, F1000 Faculty Rev-887. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.7645.1

Schmidt, C.B., Voorhorst, I., van de Gaar, V.H.W. et al. Diabetes distress is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes in women with gestational diabetes: a prospective cohort study. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth 19, 223 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-019-2376-6

Lange, S., Probst, C., Gmel, G., Rehm, J., Burd, L., & Popova, S. (2017). Global Prevalence of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Among Children and Youth: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA pediatrics, 171(10), 948–956. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2017.1919

McLachlan, K., McNeil, A., Pei, J. et al. Prevalence and characteristics of adults with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder in corrections: a Canadian case ascertainment study. BMC Public Health 19, 43 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-6292-x
> 2 votes

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Tags: learning, personality, genetics
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# Question
Title: Does limiting mental activity during the day increase mental performance later in the day?
Is there any scientific evidence to support the idea that you only have so much cognitive energy in a given day; and if so, would the mental abilities of someone who focuses on as little as possible all day be greater than someone who stays engaged all day long? Can the brain experience fatigue?

In Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book *Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience* (1990), he says:

> At this point in our scientific knowledge we are on the verge of being able to estimate how much information the central nervous system is capable of processing. It seems we can manage at most seven bits of information - such as differentiated sounds, or visual stimuli, or recognizable nuances of emotion of thought - at any one time, and that the shortest time it takes to discriminate between one set of bits and another is about 1/18 of a second.

He goes on to infer that "psychic energy" should be invested and shouldn't be wasted. At least, this was my interpretation.

# Answer
Very interesting question, however, cognitive exhaustion may be a learned phenomena ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5413468/ ) as referenced by this 2017 article finding it to be conditioned to the individual. Though I cannot provide a concrete answer, I would estimate that cognitive stamina, so to speak, can be trained into the individual much like aerobic or muscular stamina.
> 1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, intelligence, metacognition
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# Question
Title: How can positive and negative mindsets influence interpersonal relationships with others?
I want to know how positive and negative mindset can influence interpersonal relationships with others. For example: if you have a negative mindset, would people not want to relate with you?

# Answer
> 2 votes
The lexical approach may assist. The lexical hypothesis states that, ‘All aspects of human personality, which are or have been of importance, interest or utility, have already become recorded in the substance of language’(Cattell, 1943) and, ‘When an idea is important, people are likely to have a word for it … the more important something is, … the more words there are likely to be’(Miller, 1996). The atlas of personality, emotion and behaviour uses a lexical approach to visualise words using the axes of affiliation and dominance (Mobbs, 2020).

Relevant synonyms are:

* **positive**: assured, beneficial, clear, complete, confident, constructive, convincing, decisive, effective, persuasive, practical, pragmatic, proper, real, regular, sanguine, satisfied, sure, unreserved, useful, wholehearted, worthwhile.
* **negative**: adversarial, adverse, damaging, derogatory, destructive, dismissive, disparaging, hostile, inhospitable, prejudicial, untoward.

At face value, people with the traits associated with positive are more likely to attract others. The traits associated with negative are more likely to dissuade others from associating with the individual.

The visualisation of positive and negative according to the atlas approach is shown below.

**References**

Cattell RB. The description of personality: basic traits resolved into clusters. J Abnorm Soc Psychol. 1943; 38: 476–506. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054116

Miller GA. The science of words. New York: Scientific American Library; 1996.

Mobbs AED (2020) An atlas of personality, emotion and behaviour. PLoS ONE 15(1): e0227877. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227877

**Declared interest**: I am the author of the atlas paper.

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Tags: social-psychology, emotion, personality, behavior, attitudes
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# Question
Title: Objective differences between extroverts and introverts
What are the empirical, measurable, objective differences between extroverts and introverts? I'm not interested in self-report studies, only objective measurements.

# Answer
The lexical approach may assist. The lexical hypothesis states that, ‘All aspects of human personality, which are or have been of importance, interest or utility, have already become recorded in the substance of language’(Cattell, 1943) and, ‘When an idea is important, people are likely to have a word for it … the more important something is, … the more words there are likely to be’(Miller, 1996). The atlas of personality, emotion and behaviour uses a lexical approach to visualise words using the axes of affiliation and dominance (Mobbs, 2020).

Synonyms are:

**Extrovert**: affable, companionable, cordial, demonstrative, exhibitionist, expansive, extroverted, exuberant, friendly, genial, good-humoured, gregarious, lively, outgoing, show-off, showman, sociable, social, socialite, socializer, uninhibited, unreserved.

**Introvert**: introspective, introverted, loner, private, recluse, remote, reverse, secret, secretive, shrinking violet, solitary, standoffish, unobtrusive, wallflower.

The visualisation of extrovert and introvert according to the atlas approach is shown below:

Therefore, the empirical, measurable, objective differences between extroverts and introverts are:

* Both introversion and extroversion are neither dominant or submissive behaviours. Dominance is roughly equivalent to agency for those familiar with Bakan's definition.
* Introverted behaviours are those which isolate the individual from others.
* Extroverted behaviours are those which connect the individual to others.

Note: The extroverted behaviours occupy a single cell of the atlas whereas the introverted behaviours occupy two cells. I would interpret this as an opportunity for improved classification in future editions of the atlas.

**References**

Cattell RB. The description of personality: basic traits resolved into clusters. J Abnorm Soc Psychol. 1943; 38: 476–506. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054116

Miller GA. The science of words. New York: Scientific American Library; 1996.

Mobbs AED (2020) An atlas of personality, emotion and behaviour. PLoS ONE 15(1): e0227877. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227877

**Declared interest**: I am the author of the atlas paper.
> 1 votes

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Tags: personality, introversion, extraversion
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# Question
Title: Is the concept of the 'inner child' considered to be pseudoscience?
I have seen some text that said some pains in body caused by inner child like this,so i like to know does inner Child is a pseudoscience, so i have seen the Wikipedia, and seen some information :

> Further developments Within the framework of psychosynthesis, the inner child is often characterized as a subpersonality or may also be seen as a central element surrounded by subpersonalities.\[4\]
>
> Internal Family Systems therapy (IFS therapy) expanded the concept considerably by positing that there is not just one inner child sub-personality, but many. IFS therapy calls wounded inner child sub-personalities "exiles" because they tend to be excluded from waking thought in order to avoid/defend against the pain carried in those memories. IFS therapy has a method that aims to gain safe access to a person's exiles, witnessing the stories of their origins in childhood, and healing them.

So i googled the and seems is classified as Science, so my result is that inner child is classified as science, so i tied to understand the science meaning and psychology and found this text:

> What is the difference between psychology and pseudoscience?
>
> Psychology is a science because it is based on rigorous research and empirical evidence. It can be distinguished from pseudoscience and folk wisdom because it's theories can be followed through with evidence while the other two are mere intelligent

based of this, Their must detected some pains in academic papers that be related to inner child and found some common human situation which inner child react in some specific pasterns, so i googled the **inner child pasterns pain** and found :

and some others paper ...

So based of this information i think finding some pattern in humans mental behaviors and some software method for cutting the release and happy feeling could be classified as Science, but if you don't mind, i would like to know, your views point about this classification.

Thanks.

# Answer
> 3 votes
The quick answer to your question is that the concept of the *Inner Child* does have a scientific backing, though not in a traditional sense when following the deliniation laid down by Karl Popper (1959).

When looking at the science behind the concept, you need to unpick it from the pseudoscience put across in many books such as the one mentioned in the Wikipedia article you linked — Lucia Capacchione's *Recovery of Your Inner Child* (Capacchione, 1991).

The fact pointed out in the book that its roots are within ancient mythology and fairy tales is a little weak. However, the links made later within the same part of the book are more accurate in that they come from Neo-Freudian psychologist Carl Jung, along with Eric Berne's *Transactional Analysis* ("nurturing parent", "protective parent", "critical parent" etc. in the Parent, Adult, and Child ego states) and Sigmund Freud himself (see: ego-defense mechanisms).

Therories from Eric Berne, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung are all often dismissed as pseudoscientific because they do not meet the falisifiability criteria within Karl Popper's demarcation between science and pseudoscience (Popper, 1959; McLeod, 2020). However, Sven Ove Hansson (1996; 2008; 2013) points out that Popper's criteria is too tight and excludes legitimate sciences. — See also my answer to the question on pseudoscience within Freudian and Neo-Freudian theories for more information on this.

When reading the synopsis from the jacket of Whitney Hugh Missildine's book *Your Inner Child of the Past* (Missildine, 1963), notice the sections of text marked by me in bold below:

> What was your childhood like? Were your parents always making you do things? Criticizing you? Or did you always get your own way? Were you often punished as a child? Did your parents continually fuss at you with anxious reminders and directions? Did you feel neglected, even unwanted? Or were you the boss of the family for whom all sacrifices were made?
>
> This remarkable book helps you to free yourself from the tensions that can be set up in childhood (even by parents who try hard to do their best) and continue to exhaust you in adult life. By describing — **and illustrating with case histories** — various child-parent relationships and their results, Dr. Missildine shows you how to recall the forgotten child you once were. He demonstrates how that child — who might have been overdisciplined or overindulged or subjected to any of a dozen common parental attitudes — still persists in the adult You.
>
> You see how your 'inner child of the past' continues to act out old habits, old angers, fears and confusions. That 'child' today makes you, perhaps, oversensitive, or unable to relate to people, or subject to rages or procrastination or compulsive spending or being overcritical of others (or of yourself), and in other ways causes you pain or disturbs your marriage or family or working life.
>
> To help you make peace with this 'inner child' and thus free your energies for adult living is the author's purpose. His concept of retraining the 'inner child' has led to happier, more productive lives for many of his own patients. In this book he speaks so clearly and interestingly, and with such warmth and sympathy, that you will find yourself relaxed and eager to begin discovering and coming to terms with your inner child of the past.

Using case histories bolsters claims made and provides the evidential science behind the theory. Maybe not the hard evidence purists around may be looking for (scientific equipment measuring something as evidence of existence for example), but evidence nevertheless.

When the Wikipedia article mentions that IFS therapy (Internal Family Systems therapy)...

> calls wounded inner child sub-personalities "exiles" because they tend to be excluded from waking thought in order to avoid/defend against the pain carried in those memories. IFS therapy has a method that aims to gain safe access to a person's exiles, witnessing the stories of their origins in childhood, and healing them.

This is coming from the Freudian concept of ego-defense mechanisms of repression, and possibly denial. Detachment occurs often in abuse, rape and assault, and if occurred in childhood, the sense of "loss of childhood" can come into play.

There are issues with inner child therapy in these cases which I discussed in my answer to Can people improve their memory by training themselves to recall previously forgotten memories?, as trying and recall the whole memory **can but not always** lead to a change in the memories of what actually happened (False Memory Syndrome). However, if fully trained in this delicate area of inner child therapy and it is carefuly managed, it can be beneficial.

## References

Capacchione, L. (1991). *Recovery of your inner child: The highly acclaimed method for liberating your inner self*. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Hansson, S. O. (1996). *Defining Pseudoscience*. Philosophia Naturalis, 33(1): pp. 169—176
**Still to find DOI/PMID reference**

Hansson, S. O. (2008). *Science and Pseudo-Science*. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2017 Edition) \[Online\]
Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/pseudo-science

Hansson, S. O. (2013). Defining Pseudoscience and Science. In M. Pigliucci, M. Boudry (Eds.) *Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem*(pp. 61—77). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

McLeod, S. A. (2020). *Karl popper - theory of falsification*. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/behaviorism.html

Missildine, W. H. (1963). *Your Inner Child of the Past*. New York: Simon & Schuster.

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

## Other source links

Ego-defense mechanisms (Simply Psychology)
https://www.simplypsychology.org/defense-mechanisms.html

Transactional Analysis (Wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional\_analysis

# Answer
> 2 votes
I Google(-scholared) the term too and indeed I would classify it as pseudoscience.

The hits are mainly books, or dodgy journal papers. No hits that are pointing to the more established journals. While recognizing this doesn't prove that the concept of the inner child is bogus, or that it's not classified a science, it is a strong indicator that the concept has not (yet?) been embraced by scientists.

The term sounds to fit the idea of the 'pure, innocent, unblemished' beings children are supposed to be, not yet molded to fit society. I guess it's an interesting idea, but it sounds New Agie to me.

However, there are people way more proficient in Psychology hangin' around here, so a more authorative answer can likely be expected anytime soon.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, psychoanalysis, inner-child
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# Question
Title: Does self-actualisation happen during the journey or after achieve the goal
Let say one is talented in music, and wants to become a great musician. Does self-actualisation refer to **mental state during the journey of pursuing goal**, or the **mental state after achieve the goal**. Originally I thought it's the latter. Recently I read about the concept of arrival fallacy, which casts doubt over my understanding.

Self-actualisation in Maslow Theory (wiki):

> the desire for self-fulfillment, namely the tendency for him \[the individual\] to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.

Arrival fallacy (article link):

> “Arrival fallacy is this illusion that once we make it, once we attain our goal or reach our destination, we will reach lasting happiness,” said Tal Ben-Shahar, the Harvard-trained positive psychology expert who is credited with coining the term.

# Answer
## Short answer

According to Maslow, you reach self-actualisation when you reach the goal. Not juring your journey. The arrival fallacy refers to the fact that if you reach that goal, it doesn't necessarily mean that you will stay there.

Take away any of the levels below self-actualisation, and you will not reach the top goal. If once you reach there, one of the lower levels goes for some reason, you will lose the position of having been self-actualised.

Maslow himself said:

> Though, in principle, self-actualization is easy, in practice it rarely happens (by my criteria, certainly in less than 1% of the adult population. For this, there are many, many reasons at various levels of discourse, including all of the determinants of psychopathology that we not know. (Maslow, 2013)

## Full answer

My answer to Is self-actualization really a need? gives a clue.

We need to determine what self-actualisation actually is. Maslow described it (emphasis mine) as follows: (Maslow, 1943)

> This term, first coined by Kurt Goldstein (1939), is being used in this paper in a much more specific and limited fashion. It refers to **the desire for self-fulfillment**, namely, **to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially**. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, **to become everything that one is capable of becoming**.
>
> The specific form that these needs will take will of course vary greatly from person to person. In one individual it may take the form of the desire to be an ideal mother, in another it may be expressed athletically, and in still another it may be expressed in painting pictures or in inventions. It is not necessarily a creative urge although in people who have any capacities for creation it will take this form.
>
> The clear emergence of these needs rests upon prior satisfaction of the physiological, safety, love and esteem needs. We shall call people who are satisfied in these needs, basically satisfied people, and it is from these that we may expect the fullest (and healthiest) creativeness (Kardiner, 1941). Since, in our society, basically satisfied people are the exception, we do not know much about self-actualization, either experimentally or clinically. It remains a challenging problem for research.

Maslow's hierarchy is visually put together as follows:

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons Under Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0)

In the triangle's levels, Physiological, Safety, Love and Belonging, Esteem, and Self Actualization which are on the left are the goals at each level. The items inside each level are your needs for each goal. If, for example, you don’t have all your needs for the physiological goal level, you cannot have safety, even if you have all the prerequisite needs in the safety level.

To attain the sixth level or stage: self-actualisation, is **the goal** of Maslow's Theory, **not a need**. Take away any of the levels below self-actualisation, and you will not reach the top goal. And as stated by Maslow (1943) — see above — and in the **TLDR summary** of @NickStauner's answer to Does evidence support Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs?,

> One sequence can't fit all (it didn't claim to), but it makes sense in general, and so do the exceptions, and so do other motive models.

Maslow himself said:

> Though, in principle, self-actualization is easy, in practice it rarely happens (by my criteria, certainly in less than 1% of the adult population. For this, there are many, many reasons at various levels of discourse, including all of the determinants of psychopathology that we not know. (Maslow, 2013)

also, the fact that "most of us function most of the time on a level lower than that of self-actualization" he called it the *psychopathology of normality*. (Loevinger, 1976)

## References

Goldstein, K. (1939). *The organism: A holistic approach to biology derived from pathological data in man*. Salt Lake City, UT: American Book Publishing.
DOI: 10.1037/10021-000

Loevinger, J. (1976) *Ego Development: Conceptions and Theories (Jossey-Bass Behavioral Science Series)*. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc

Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. *Psychological Review*, 50 (4), 370–96.
DOI: \[10.1037/h0054346\]\[14\]
**FREE via** http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm.

Maslow, A. H. (2013). *Toward a psychology of being*. Simon and Schuster \[eBook\].
> 1 votes

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Tags: happiness
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title: Searching for Silva Method papers

text:
# Question
Title: Searching for Silva Method papers
I have tried to find some papers about Silva Method when that i seen this text in Wikipedia:

> James Randi wrote that the Silva Method "claims to develop improved memory, learning ability, and paranormal powers like telepathy. Much of the course consists of 'visiting' absent persons imagined by students and performing diagnoses on them. No tests of the validity of this practice have been done; such tests are discouraged by the teachers of the system."

so i tried this tags(**psychology "Silva"**) and not find any paper, So if there is not any paper on silva methods, why does it happen? is it not scientific issue or ...?

# Answer
> 2 votes
James Randi is a famous skeptic who challenges paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices may give the appearance of being scientific, but, are untestable. James Randi's claim is that the Silva method is untestable and, therefore, unscientific. In other words, the Silva method has no observable (or statistically significant) effect on memory, learning or telepathy.

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Tags: brain-waves
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