# Question
Title: Which term is meant in this example of defence mechanism?
The very popular Russian blog author evo\_lutio gives examples of three defence mechanisms, which she describes as "*gnomes, or rather gnome-like pointed hats we put on our counterparts to explain their desinterest to us*".

Further, the first example is compared to the *Dopey* character, so that we believe our partner to be not able to understand our value until we explain it to him/her in detail, "*to help giving us what we need*".

My question is how (and if) does this relate with "official" psychological terms; first I had an impression it is a projection but it's of course not because it is not recognition of own weakness in the partner; I guess it has something to do with narcisstic defence mechanisms, maybe sort of cognitive distortion?

# Answer
> 3 votes
## Preamble

Before I go into my answer, I should point out that where the psychoanalytical theory of psychological defence mechanisms originated from Sigmund Freud, his theories are considered by many to be pseudoscientific. More can be read in my answer to this in meta

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## TL;DR

The *Gnomes* concept in the LiveJournal Blog does not fit any definition of the defence mechanisms.

## Psychological Defence Mechanisms

In psychoanalytic theory, defence mechanisms are psychological strategies brought into play by the unconscious mind to manipulate, deny, or distort reality in order to defend against feelings of anxiety and unacceptable impulses and to maintain one's self-schema or other schemas.

Saul McLeod (2009) provided a list of all of the psychological defence mechanisms put together by Sigmund Freud.

These have Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) number F01.393, and if you look at the MeSH Tree Structures for F01.393, these are expanded providing the following (NIH, 2018):

## A Different Take on Defence Mechanisms in LiveJournal Blog (Evolution, 2017)

Taken from the question, and an English translation is available here.

In her blog, Evolution explained...

> Gnomes, or rather dwarf caps, are such psycho-protection that people use to explain themselves the indifference of a partner.
>
> Stupid, Stesnyasha and Bednyasha, remember?
>
> Not only women, but also men like to put such a cap on the figure of an interesting person.
>
> Why is this done?
>
> Around then, why do people wear crowns.
>
> When one wants to get something from a person, but he does not give (usually love, recognition, approval, respect, in general food for self-esteem), it is necessary to extract something from it, for which the crowns and caps are used.
>
> You need to wear a crown (imagine yourself powerful and significant) on your figure, and put a stupid cap on the figure of a person (imagine him stupid and dependent) and then from the height of his greatness, considering the defectiveness of the second, to help him give you what you want to take.

This does not fit any definition of the defence mechanisms developed by Freud, or expanded in MeSH. What is being described here is domestic abuse through manipulation and coersion via demoralisation of the significant other.

## References

Evolution (2017). *Gnomes* \[Online\]
Retrieved from:
Russian Original: https://evo-lutio.livejournal.com/591726.html
English Translation: https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fevo-lutio.livejournal.com%2F591726.html

McLeod, S. A. (2009). *Defense mechanisms*. \[Online\]
Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/defense-mechanisms.html

NIH (2018). *Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)* \[Online\]
Retrieved from: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh

# Answer
> 1 votes
Honestly it's horribly unclear to me what the source is talking about... but it may be that it's just a convoluted way of talking about stereotyping. And yes, the latter is considered a defence mechanism even if not in the classical Freudian theory.

On the other hand, let's read more of the blog, alas via machine translation:

> There is also the cap of Stesnyashi.
>
> This is another imaginary flaw that you endow those who do not do what you want.
>
> Stesnyasha, in contrast to Foolish understands how to. But it can not. Because he is shy. He is not sure that you need his investments, so he does not invest. He is a dwarf unsure of himself, his self-esteem is low, especially when he looks down at the grandeur of your crown. Therefore, it must be supported, encouraged and encouraged to active behavior. He wants to, but he does not say anything. We must explain that you do not mind that you are happy with his investments. \[...\]
>
> This especially applies to "feminine men." They are always capricious, so their mother brought up. Moreover, if they live in a geyrope, you yourself know what kind of manners there are, there all the men are like women, and just a little bit of a snot is chewing. With them you need to be active, generous, do not ask for too much and often invest yourself. Then they will open their shell and trust you. But you need to prove to them their reliability.

I would honestly summarize all this with one word: drivel of the special kind known as psychobabble... or more explicitly: an attempt to invent (just 3?) personality types based on stereotypes... from a children's tale. (Which of the seven dwarves was the "feminine man" anyway? The shy one, Bashful?) Maybe something is lost in \[machine\] translation, but I doubt it's enough to substantially change the meaning of all of that blog entry. I've read in a question here that an MBTI variant was popular in the Soviet Union, but this blog is way below that. Yet from other parts of the blog I get the impression that the author may be deriding such stereotyping, but it's not terribly clear if that's his only intent:

> Pay attention, that on no one imagined foolish caps, you need a priori respect for people.
>
> People are not stupid you, not weak and do not need your navigators.

If anything, this fairly upvoted question is a good example of what questions not to ask here: obscure texts in foreign languages, perhaps bordering actual psychology, perhaps not.

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Tags: definition
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title: What are extrinsic motives?

text:
# Question
Title: What are extrinsic motives?
In a chapter on motivation in the book "Pädagogische Psychologie", I read that Schaffner and Schiefele say:

> Allerdings werden Zielorientierungen als kognitiv repräsentierte und bewusste Merkmale verstanden, sodass sie dem extrinsischen Leistungsmotiv näher stehen als dem intrinsischen.
>
> (*English translation based on Google Translate*) However, goal orientations are understood as cognitively represented and conscious features, so that they are closer to the extrinsic performance motive than to the intrinsic one.

Since the term 'extrinsic motive' was mentioned in just one sentence, I do not fully understand what it means.

I do know that we might make the distinction between implicit and explicit motives and that the awareness of the motive is a crucial factor in this scenario. But is there a justification to call cognitively represented features of which we are aware extrinsic motives?

# Answer
> 2 votes
I think the key distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is not the *awareness* of the motive, but the *locus of origin* of the motive.

We are very much aware of intrinsic motives. For example: Hunger- Going without food for a long time makes us hungry, a state we are aware of, and we consume food. The act of consuming food when hungry is intrinsically motivated, and emerges from *within* us, without the effect of any external agent. However, Ryan and Deci's self-determination theory (SDT) did not mention (as far as I know) intrinsic motives as being connected to a physiological need. SDT's intrinsic motives were connected to psychological needs, in doing activities which were enjoyable in themselves, unconnected to an external reward.

As you have mentioned, we are also aware of our extrinsic motives, for example, motivation to work a 9-to-5 job to earn money to buy food which satiates hunger, a primary need.

My interpretation is that since extrinsically motivated activities are oriented towards an external goal and since "goals are cognitive representations of what individuals are trying to accomplish and their purposes or reasons for doing the task" (3), hence the authors are stating that extrinsic motives have cognitive representations.

My conflict is that granted, extrinsic motivation is goal-oriented but isn't intrinsic motivation also goal-oriented? For example, mastery in a task if often considered to be intrinsically motivated. Does that not mean the mastery=goal? As you will see from the table of motivational terms in (4) (see *Garcia and Pintrich, 1996* in the table), intrinsic motives are also goals, according to many behavioural scientists. That would make intrinsic motives to also be cognitively represented.

Quoting (3),

> In their discussion of the accessibility of motivational constructs, Murphy and Alexander really raise two issues; one concerns the consciousness or cognitive accessibility of motivational constructs and the other concerns the accuracy of individuals’ reports of their motivation. From an achievement goal theory perspective, the issue of cognitive consciousness or accessibility is not as major a problem as it may be for models that assume there are some ‘‘deeply-held, pervasive motives, needs, or drives’’ to use Murphy and Alexander terms (this issue). Goal theory assumes that goals are cognitive representations of what individuals are trying to accomplish and their purposes or reasons for doing the task. As such, they are inherently cognitive and assumed to be accessible by the individual; they are not unconscious motives as in psychodynamic theory, nor are they deeply held needs or motives as in some models of motivation (cf. Deci & Ryan, 1985; McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell, 1953; Murray, 1938). In fact, the metaphor of ‘‘excavating’’ deeply held motives or needs and bringing them to the ‘‘surface’’ or into the ‘‘light’’ of day through various methods such as projective tests or intensive psychotherapy is not really applicable to achievement goal theory. In contrast, the discussion of goal constructs ﬂows from the general cognitive revolution in psychology and goals are assumed to be internal, cognitive representations or knowledge structures.

In conclusion, I don't understand why only extrinsic motives have been given a cognitive representation and not intrinsic motives, in the text.

I highly recommend you to go through (3) and (4), since this seems to be a matter of confusion regarding how motivational constructs are defined. There has been considerable debate regarding the definitions of motivational constructs and what concepts they encompass. The quoted line in the question seems to be a result of this very dilemma.

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***References:***

1) *Psychology*, Ciccarelli, fourth edition.

2) http://ccdf.ca/ccdf/NewCoach/english/ccoachb/issue\_b1c\_basics.htm

3) Pintrich, P. R. (2000). An achievement goal theory perspective on issues in motivation terminology, theory, and research. Contemporary educational psychology, 25(1), 92-104.

4) Murphy, P. K., & Alexander, P. A. (2000). A motivated exploration of motivation terminology. Contemporary educational psychology, 25(1), 3-53.

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Tags: motivation, goals
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# Question
Title: What extent is non linear dynamics and chaos helpful to study brain function?
Recently I've started reading dynamical systems in neuroscience by izhikevich and was fascinated by the subject. I would like to pursue PhD in computational neuroscience after my masters. Is it worth to choose this area as my Phd topic? or will it lead me to dead end? If possible can some one suggest the leading researchers/labs working in this direction?

# Answer
> 4 votes
Since this an active and relatively new area of research, nobody can tell you for certain where it will lead.

Whether it will "dead end" is perhaps the wrong way to think about it too. All lines of research have their limits, and when those limits are reached, those researchers who found the limits are often the ones best equipped to move on to the next "thing". If you choose to study it and it turns out to be a less productive area than you had hoped, you will still have learned a large set of useful skills that you can apply to other methods.

As for the usefulness of brain dynamics, the short answer is they have their place and are very promising in certain areas of behavioral science. In particular, coordination and motor control appear to be very well suited to these models. A small but growing body of scientists believe dynamics is the next big thing in cognitive science, though it is still unclear whether this is the case. It sounds like you already have a good primer on the utility of nonlinear dynamics for computational neuroscience with what you're reading. For a more general discussion of their promise and potential for other areas of cognitive science, and a proposal that dynamical systems can essentially *replace* computational neuroscience, see Chemero (2011). For a concise criticism of the approach see Wagenmakers, van der Mass, and Farrell (2012).

: Chemero, A. (2011). Radical embodied cognitive science. MIT press.

: Wagenmakers, E. J., van der Maas, H. L., & Farrell, S. (2012). Abstract Concepts Require Concrete Models: Why Cognitive Scientists Have Not Yet Embraced Nonlinearly Coupled, Dynamical, Self‐Organized Critical, Synergistic, Scale‐Free, Exquisitely Context‐Sensitive, Interaction‐Dominant, Multifractal, Interdependent Brain‐Body‐Niche Systems. Topics in Cognitive Science, 4(1), 87-93.

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Tags: neuroscience, cognitive-neuroscience, theoretical-neuroscience, computational-modeling
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# Question
Title: What is the name of the bias that associate a thing as good because it has a relation to another good thing?
A customer buys X from "brand A" and has positive experience with it. "Brand A" also sells Y. Now the customer things it is good to buy Y because of his/her positive experience with buying X from brand A and that since it was good, buying Y from brand A should also be good. They bought Y because of association.

What would be the name of the psychological process or cognitive bias that lead the customer to buy Y ?

# Answer
> 9 votes
It's called the Halo Effect:

> The halo effect is a ... cognitive bias, where a person making an initial assessment of another person, place, or thing will assume ambiguous information based upon concrete information.
>
> The term halo effect is used in marketing to explain customer bias toward certain products because of favorable experience with other products made by the same company. ... A notable example is the manner in which the popularity of Apple’s iPod generated enthusiasm for the corporation's other products.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, neuroscience, bias, psychology, behavioral-economics
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# Question
Title: To what extent does AFQT correlate with IQ?
Wikipedia has a pretty non-informative page as to the nature of the (US) Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) as it mostly talks of results ranges etc. What I could descipher from there is it that it has three (or maybe four, depending on how one counts) \[sub\]parts,

* Arithmetic Reasoning (AR) – 30 questions in 36 minutes
* Mathematics Knowledge (MK) – 25 questions in 24 minutes
* Verbal Expression (VE)= (WK)+(PC)
    + Word Knowledge (WK) – 35 questions in 11 minutes
    + Paragraph Comprehension (PC) – 11 questions in 22 minutes

and

> The formula for computing an AFQT score is: AR + MK + (2 x VE).

That sounds a bit like SAT... and a quick search found one paper that talks of "cognitive skills as measured by the AFQT". (SAT is pretty well correlated with IQ.) So, to what extent does AFQT correlate to more traditional IQ \[sub-\]scores?

# Answer
An answer is found in an official memo, albeit from 1980, where

* the correlation of AFQT with WAIS (no version specified) was stated as 0.8 based on a Army "fact sheet" from 1965; the details of the comparative test could not be found
* an Air Force comparison found (in 1974) that the correlation (again with WAIS, no version specified) for white enlistees was (again) 0.8 but 0.77 for black enlistees.

(This ~0.8 is actually about the same as the correlation of IQ tests with SAT.) I don't know if the AFQT is still the same as back then.

A official-looking 2006 concordance/translation table of AFQT score with SAT scores can also be found, although it's rather summary; it doesn't mention a correlation coefficient.
> 3 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, measurement, test, iq, military-psychology
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# Question
Title: Does practicing Ravens Progressive Matrices tests inflate your IQ score?
I'm 16 years old and a year ago I got obsessed about IQ. I took a Raven IQ test and scored 115. Then during the autumn and winter of last year I took some more IQ tests using RPM and scored 126 on almost all of them. I took the Raven IQ test again in January of this year. I scored 126 on it. I wasn't convinced. So I researched the most accurate online IQ test and found the Norwegian Mensa Practice test took it and scored 128. A couple months after that I took the Mensa Denmark practice test formerly known as iqtest.dk. I scored IQ 121 on it.

Is it because I took so many Raven IQ tests my score is so high? Does that mean that my IQ isn't in the 120's? Where would you put my Non-Verbal/Spatial IQ? Also I'm planning to take the WAIS next year and don't know what to do. I want my scores to be 100% true and not at all inflated. Would this affect it? And if so how can I change that?

Edit: Just wanted to add that I didn't get feedback on the correct answers.

# Answer
> 10 votes
Yes, practice even as simple retest improves scores in matrices-like tests:

> Raven’s APM scores increase significantly on repeated testing without any targeted training (e.g., Bors & Vigneau, 2003; Bors & Forrin, 1995; Denney & Heidrich, 1990).
>
> * Bors DA, Vigneau F. The effect of practice on Raven’s advanced progressive matrices. Learning and Individual Differences. 2003;13(4):291–312.
> * Bors DA, Forrin B. Age, speed of information processing, recall, and fluid intelligence. Intelligence. 1995;20(3):229–248.
> * Denney NW, Heidrich SM, Training effects on Raven's progressive matrices in young, middle-aged, and elderly adults. Psychol Aging. 1990 Mar; 5(1):144-5.

I'm not surprised by this finding because the number of conceptually different problems in such matrices tests is limited. They questions are all basically variations on a few base patterns. The latter part is claim from memory, but I've read it somewhere besides my own observation; let me find where. (Also, I should try to quantify the improvement retest gives.)

I couldn't find the original place where I've read about the structure of Raven's, but I found newer research that found improvement in restest in particular problem types:

The (small) sample here was of 13-year olds... so this should be pretty relevant to your age. On the other hand, I'm not sure how much the finding extends (quantitatively) to adults.

Some researchers went as far as explaining the Flynn effect by this kind of better rule-based inference underlying retest improvement in Raven's:

> We present a new model of the Flynn effect. It is proposed that Flynn effect gains are partly a function of the degree to which a test is dependent on rules or heuristics. This means that testees can become better at solving ‘rule-dependent’ problems over time in response to changing environments, which lead to the improvement of lower-order cognitive processes (such as implicit learning and aspects of working memory). These in turn lead to apparent IQ gains that are partially independent of general intelligence. We argue that the Flynn effect is directly analogous to IQ gains via retesting, noting that Raven's Progressive Matrices is particularly sensitive to both the effects of retesting and the Flynn effect.

And a bit more from the paper itself:

> The biggest Flynn effect gains have been recorded on tests of fluid intelligence, in particular the Raven's Progressive Matrices (five-seven points per decade; Flynn, 1987, 2007, 2009). The smallest gains typically occur on measures of crystallized knowledge (Jensen, 1998a). It must be noted that not all measures of IQ show long-term gains. For example, purely psychophysical elementary cognitive tasks (ECTs), such as inspection and reaction times, show no Flynn effect (Nettlebeck & Wilson, 2004; Silverman, 2010). \[...\]
>
> Studies by Verguts et al. (1999) and Verguts and De Boeck (2002) \[...\] have found that in experiments, participants do repeatedly reapply a small number of rules when attempting to solve RPM-type items. The rule induction process seems to be characterized by the sequential sampling of rules, each of which have a certain probably of being resampled (Verguts et al., 1999). Furthermore, the speed with which individuals are able to sample and induce rules is strongly related to prior task exposure (Verguts & De Boeck, 2002). These studies indicate that narrower abilities matter in solving RPM items, and that furthermore, reliance upon these narrow abilities increases with increasing test experience. This is consistent with the phenomenology of both retesting and Flynn effects \[...\]
>
> * Verguts, T., De Boeck, P, & Maris, E. (1999). Generation speed in Raven's Progressive Matrices Test. Intelligence, 27, 329–345.
> * Verguts, T., & De Boeck, P. (2002). The induction of solution rules in Raven's Progressive Matrices Test. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 14, 521–547.

I'm guessing I've read one the Verguts' papers, or at least something else citing their results (in the past).

# Answer
> 3 votes
A general principle is that skill transfer is domain specific and based on common elements.

So if you've learnt something about the Raven's items, I would expect improvement and skill acquisition transfer to be ordered from greatest to least as follows:

* doing the actual Raven's test with the exact same items again
* doing other versions of Raven's using different item sets
* doing other tests based on similar matrix-style abstract reasoning items
* doing other tests measuring abstract reasoning using other item styles

If you've only studied Raven items, then I doubt you'll get much transfer to the broad array of item-types included in other measures of intelligence.

In general, practice effects (especially, item specific practice effects) tend to decline over time. For example, if you wait six months, a year, or more, then practice effects will generally be less of a concern.

@Fizz also provides references and arguments to support the claims that Raven's may be particularly predisposed to practice effects given the inherently small number of item types and patterns. This can be contrasted, for example, with measures of verbal ability such as advanced vocabulary items which would take serious study to obtain score improvements across item sets.

Practice effects will also generally be amplified if you have actively studied the items or otherwise obtained feedback on correct answers. Perhaps this explains practice effects on the Ravens in that often people will get intrinsic feedback from the test about whether a response seems correct which allows some test-takers to infer rules about the test.

So in short, experience with the Raven's might bias subsequent Raven's test scores. But if you move away from matrix-style abstract reasoning measures, then transfer effects are unlikely to be an issue.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, intelligence, iq
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title: Name of association phenomenon

text:
# Question
Title: Name of association phenomenon
What is the name of the problem to explain how the neural activation for "red circle and a blue triangle" is different from "blue circle and red triangle"? Just activating the neurons for "red", "blue", "circle", "triangle" is not enough.

# Answer
Representing the relation between objects + their attributes in neurons is called The Binding Problem. The Wikipedia article I've linked to is a bit questionable at the moment, so you may want to read the paper "Biologically Plausible, Human-Scale Knowledge Representation" instead. In the paper, the authors describe different ways of encoding symbols and their relation in neurons, using the NEF and SPA.

The paper shows how populations of neurons can represent vectors and symbols can be defined as vectors. Relations between symbols can be defined as operations on these symbols carried out by connection weights between populations.

For example, the scenario in the original post could be represented as:

$V = BLUE\*CIRCLE + RED\*TRIANGLE$

Where each word is it's own N-dimensional vector, $+$ is vector addition and $\*$ is circular convolution.

Further discussion of this model can be found in this StackExchange answer.
> 4 votes

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Tags: terminology, theoretical-neuroscience
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# Question
Title: What is the name of the cognitive bias where an expert overestimates the knowledge of others?
I'm looking for a name of a cognitive bias that describes the following phenomenon:

A person has been exposed to some area of expertise from a very early age (think 7-10), and for an extended period of time. This can be sports, computers, musical instruments, etc. As the child matures, **the child does not realize that such exposure has created a level of competency where even advanced tasks are easy for them**.

After growing up such child may be surprised to find out that ordinary people do not have his/her level of expertise. As adults, such people can continue to write books or give advice, being \[completely\] oblivious that others do not come even close to their level of expertise.

**What is the name of this cognitive bias, where individuals do not realize that other people do not share the same level of expertise?**

# Answer
> 13 votes
This sounds similar to the "curse of knowledge" phenomenon (also called the "curse of expertise" by at least one publication that I found).

From Wikipedia:

"The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias according to which better-informed people find it extremely difficult to think about problems from the perspective of lesser-informed people."

Some references:

* Camerer, C., Loewenstein, G., & Weber, M. (1989). The curse of knowledge in economic settings: An experimental analysis. The Journal of Political Economy, 1232-1254.
* Birch, S. A., & Bloom, P. (2007). The curse of knowledge in reasoning about false beliefs. Psychological Science, 18(5), 382-386.
* Hinds, P. J. (1999). The curse of expertise: The effects of expertise and debiasing methods on prediction of novice performance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 5(2), 205.

# Answer
> 4 votes
Reminds me of (one side of) the Dunning–Kruger effect, where "people of high ability incorrectly assume that tasks that are easy for them are also easy for other people."

# Answer
> 2 votes
As I am from an education background -I can't do, so I teach. from Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism\_(philosophy\_of\_education)#Person-Centered\_Messages : The main premise of Constructivism is the ability to construct person-centered messages to accomplish one’s goal. Griffin explains a person-centered message is a “tailor-made message for a specific individual and context” (Griffin 101). If carry through with their person-centered message then they are able to manipulate their original message in mind and adjust it to whatever level the person they are talking to will best understand it.\[1\] 1. Glaserfeld, E. (1989). Constructivism in education. Oxford, England: Pergamon Press. p. 162.

The expert is unaware of how learning in his field is developed so cannot meet the person he is communicating with, where they are in the development process.

Is there a term for 'empathy' of conceptual cognitive framework? This is what the expert lacks.

The expert is efficient in using heuristics. To examine the heuristc employed and discover where the other person is connected takes effortand away from the comfort zone. I would put forward "laziness" or "disinterest" but that suggests agency(intentional action) so to be kind to those loveable boffins lets make it a symptom ie the bias of being stuck in habituated heuristics.

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Tags: learning, terminology, bias
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# Question
Title: Parallel arrangement of capacitor and resistor in leaky integrate-and-fire model
I have read from several sources that in the leaky integrate-and-fire model of a single neuron resistor (leakage) and capacitor (membrane potential) are arranged in parallel. Look at the following RC circuit, taken from the book Neuronal Dynamics:

The author says:

> The cell membrane acts like a capacitor in parallel with a resistor which is in line with a battery of potential $u\_{rest}$.

But I think capacitor and resistor are arranged in series. Can anybody please explain why it is said that they are arranged in parallel?

# Answer
I see your confusion is caused by $u\_{rest}$. Indeed that diagram is somewhat confusing because $u\_{rest}$ is not the main source relative to which to consider the topology of the circuit. The main source is actually a current source designated by $I(t)$ in your diagram. With respect to that source R and C are in parallel. If that's not convincing enough, consider another (information) source which presents a different (but still leaky) integrate and fire model, sans a $u\_{rest}$:

In the latter diagram, $I\_{dc}$ is the equivalent of $I(t)$ in yours. In the alternative circuit, the firing actually comes from a voltage-controlled switch, which is indeed in series with the RC circuit (to the left of it).
> 5 votes

# Answer
The resistor is the conductance of the ion channels in the membrane. The capacitor is the membrane itself, which acts as a capacitor (a non-conductive center sandwiched between electrically active materials). There are two ways for "current" to flow between the outside and inside of the cell. One is through ion channels (the resistor), and one is for charges to collect on one side of the membrane and to push charges away from the other side of the membrane (the capacitor). These are in parallel, as they are independent ways for electrical activity on one side of the membrane to affect electrical activity on the other side of the membrane.
> 2 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, computational-modeling, electrophysiology
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# Question
Title: What would happen to the human brain after running out of memory?
According to this answer humans have enough memory to store 300 years of TV shows. However, of course, it is disputable, as storage system would be completely different from storing TV shows (videos) on von Neumann-like computer. Probably, the resolution of human brain is higher as well. Therefore it's really hard to put an actual duration, but we know it's finite.

But is it known what would happen after running out of this memory? Does it just rewrites the old information? Does the brain really needs to be completely filled with information in order for this mechanism come into effect or is it happening constantly?

# Answer
> 1 votes
**I’m not sure that there is an answer to this question in the literature, and I doubt that we’ve ever studied cases of “running out of memory”.** But it’s an interesting question, so I’ll venture to answer it. ***However, my answer, at best, will be just an assumption based on current knowledge and based on similar situations in other cognitive functions. Yet, I hope that it will give some ideas regarding this question*.** Or, better yet, other people will provide more comments and ideas that improve this answer.

We may never have seen cases of “running out of memory”, but we all certainly have encountered situations that we run out of our abilities to do something, such as to break our own sport records, to learn to speak a foreign language, and to memorize as many digits as we can in a single glance. What does the brain do when it encounters situations that it runs out of its abilities? The answer is it adapts itself by the process called neuroplasticity (ref 1, ref 2). Although, generally, our abilities will improve to some degree, this neuroplastic adaptation takes time and does not guarantee that it will be successful (e.g., we may never be able to break the Olympic running records ourselves or to remember 1,000 digits in a single glance) because we all have biological limits. What does the brain do when it reaches those limits? From observations, I think it just accepts the limits and does nothing more.

From this, it is logical to think that if anyone really runs out of memory, the first thing that the brain does will probably be not rewriting the old memory but modifying its memory synapses because it has the ability to form new memory form modifying its memory synapses (ref 3, ref 4, ref 5). But after some time, it may reach its ability to further modify its synapses for new memory, what happens then? Does it rewrite the old memory? I have no references to answer this question, but I doubt that it does. To rewrite the old memory means to destroy the previous structure of synapses that hold the old memory and build the new structure of synapses to hold the new memory. The brain will end up having the same amount of memory but wasting its resource to do that. Is it worth it? Also, there are technical issues such as which old memory to be erased, how to locate the scattered synapses that hold the to-be-erased memory, and how to dismantle those synapses. Perhaps it’s best to just accept its limits and do nothing more as in the other situations above.

**References**

1. Adult Neuroplasticity: More Than 40 Years of Research

**Today it is generally accepted that the adult brain is far from being fixed. A number of factors such as stress, adrenal and gonadal hormones, neurotransmitters, growth factors, certain drugs, environmental stimulation, learning, and aging change neuronal structures and functions. The processes that these factors may induce are morphological alterations in brain areas, changes in neuron morphology, network alterations including changes in neuronal connectivity, the generation of new neurons (neurogenesis), and neurobiochemical changes.** Here we review several aspects of neuroplasticity and discuss the functional implications of the neuroplastic capacities of the adult and differentiated brain with reference to the history of their discovery.”

2. Changes in plasticity across the lifespan: Cause of disease and target for intervention

**We conceptualize brain plasticity as an intrinsic property of the nervous system enabling rapid adaptation in response to changes in an organism's internal and external environment.** In prenatal and early postnatal development, plasticity allows for the formation of organized nervous system circuitry and the establishment of functional networks. **As the individual is exposed to various sensory stimuli in the environment, brain plasticity allows for functional and structural adaptation and underlies learning and memory.** We argue that the mechanisms of plasticity change over the lifespan with different slopes of change in different individuals.”

3. Synapses and Memory Storage

**We now understand in considerable molecular detail the mechanisms underlying long-term synaptic plasticity and the importance that such plastic changes play in memory storage, across a broad range of species and forms of memory.** One surprising finding is the remarkable degree of conservation of memory mechanisms in different brain regions within a species and across species widely separated by evolution. However, although it is now clear that long-term synaptic plasticity is a key step in memory storage, it is important to note that a simple enhancement in the efficacy of a synapse is not sufficient to store a complex memory. Rather, changes in synaptic function must occur within the context of an ensemble of neurons to produce a specific alteration in information flow through a neural circuit.”

4. The Corticohippocampal Circuit, Synaptic Plasticity, and Memory

**Synaptic plasticity serves as a cellular substrate for information storage in the central nervous system.** The entorhinal cortex (EC) and hippocampus are interconnected brain areas supporting basic cognitive functions important for the formation and retrieval of declarative memories. Here, we discuss how information flow in the EC–hippocampal loop is organized through circuit design. We highlight recently identified corticohippocampal and intrahippocampal connections and how these long-range and local microcircuits contribute to learning. This review also describes various forms of activity-dependent mechanisms that change the strength of corticohippocampal synaptic transmission. **A key point to emerge from these studies is that patterned activity and interaction of coincident inputs gives rise to associational plasticity and long-term regulation of information flow. Finally, we offer insights about how learning-related synaptic plasticity within the corticohippocampal circuit during sensory experiences may enable adaptive behaviors for encoding spatial, episodic, social, and contextual memories**.”
5. Learning to learn – intrinsic plasticity as a metaplasticity mechanism for memory formation

“Use it or lose it” is a popular adage often associated with use-dependent enhancement of cognitive abilities. Much research has focused on understanding exactly how the brain changes as a function of experience. **Such experience-dependent plasticity involves both structural and functional alterations that contribute to adaptive behaviors, such as learning and memory**, as well as maladaptive behaviors, including anxiety disorders, phobias, and posttraumatic stress disorder.”

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Tags: neuroscience, memory, brain
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# Question
Title: Whats analysis of both sides is called in psychology?
What is the scientific term or psychological term for visualizing a phenomenon, news or event in history or in daily life from both perspective. For example some event that happened in your country or a war your country fought, the basic sentiment of most people will be in support of their country or military but if you want to put forward a case both in favor and against of that war without following the general emotional consensus in your country what that would be called?

# Answer
> 2 votes
As highlighted in the comments, not all observations necessarily **need** a term in psychology, but there is a term for this.

Therapy plans will often involve getting the client to try to look at their situation (past or present) in a different context. Some people would call this "wearing other peoples shoes", or in other words they might say "if I were in their shoes...", and some will call it looking at it from another person's viewpoint or perspective.

The more accepted term you are after is Emotional Intelligence (Bertram, et al. 2016), also known as Emotional quotient (EQ) and Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EIQ), yet I dislike the terms involving intelligence because it insinuates that those who find difficulty with looking at certain people's points of view are not as intelligent as others who can. Yet this is not necessarily the case.

Emotional Intelligence involves the capability of individuals to recognize their own emotions and those of others, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, use emotional information to guide thinking and behaviour, and manage and/or adjust emotions to adapt to environments or achieve one's goal(s) (Coleman, 2008), and Jeremy E. Sherman, PhD. calls it Empathic Intelligence (Sherman, 2009).

## References

Bertram K., Randazzo J., Alabi N., Levenson J., Doucette J. T., & Barbosa, P. (2016). Strong correlations between empathy, emotional intelligence, and personality traits among podiatric medical students: A cross-sectional study. *Education for Health*, (29)3, 186.
DOI: 10.4103/1357-6283.204224, PMID 28406102

Colman, Andrew (2008). *A Dictionary of Psychology* (3 ed.). Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/acref/9780199534067.001.0001

Sherman, J. (2009). Empathic Intelligence: To put yourself in their shoes, unlace yours. *PsychologyToday* \[Online\]
Retrieved from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ambigamy/200905/empathic-intelligence-put-yourself-in-their-shoes-unlace-yours

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Tags: social-psychology, terminology, social-networks, sociology
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# Question
Title: Is low self-esteem, a brain chemical imbalance problem, rather than a personality defect, and can't be fixed by any amount of counselling/self-help?
I am asking this question because I recently observed something within myself:-

I think I used to be a Borderliner plus Bipolar. I was very sensitive, and slightest of events will either induce mania in me or will just thrash me into severe depression and low self-esteem.

But since I am taking a certain medication, I have observed that I am now not experiencing above mentioned behavior within me. I am much more resilient to criticism.

# Answer
> 3 votes
Low self-esteem can be the result of severeal things, implying depression and other mental disorders, past experiences (harassement for example). We **can** "fix" low self-esteem through non-drug therapy, but sometimes we **can't**. There is no fixed answer, it varies from person to person.

---

**My personnal experience :** I am a schizoaffective and asperger person, for me, self-esteem is something really instable because of depressive/hypomaniac phases and schizophrenic symptoms. It is not something that I can control, except with high medication.

**Sources and readings :**

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Tags: psychiatry, psychology, brain, therapy, medication
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# Question
Title: Is there a term for people who hate (or don't prefer ) things that are mainstream?
There are people who hate (or don't prefer ) things that are mainstream, is there a term for them ?

Any references to cognitive reasons for some people being odd in that way would be helpful.

# Answer
> 3 votes
This is more an anthropology question than psychology. Counter cultures and cults definitely are against mainstream society.

In America during the 60s there was a counter culture revolution. People found ideas from other cultures or invented cultural ideas and tried to bring them into mainstream. We called them all hippies at that time but now they are just ordinary people because their cultural revolution was largely popularized. People primarily associate hippies with a leftist movement but the Jesus freaks or Jesus movement was the equivalent in the religious conservative realm. Jesus freaks moved outside the realms of ordinary church. They were fundamentalist but spawned a diverse set of beliefs. The Jesus movement was also absorbed into mainstream culture and these two polar groups are a large reason why American belief systems are polarized between left and right in certain demographics at the moment.

Cults aggrandize a certain person, group of people or idea above family, government and the typical place of religion. I lived in Texas for a while so the first example that comes to my mind is Waco's Koresh who formed the group that was destroyed at their compound by the Clinton administration. He had a messiah complex mixed with some kind of hypersexualism. He was very charismatic and drew many people into his group with his pazazz. The of course the oft rumoured but very oft not found fundamental mormons which allow their people to be polygamist but god forbid any of those women ask to do polyandry. Putting a leader of a mormon church breakaway in jail became a national priority because in addition to the the polygamy there was incest in his groups.

Subcultures tend to be inside the realms of mainstream but hold to specific values that set the distinct. This might include the cowboy subculture, city dweller, yankee and southerner, various sexuality types, religious in various degrees and types. Freud had an interesting view that I've chosen to cherish his idea was like don't let yourself be defined by your sexuality (or other characteristic) instead embrace being human and all that it means.

Indeed people are drawn into counter-cultures outside of mainstream sometimes for positive and negative reasons. In general disenfranchisement by mainstream policies or values tends to lead people into depressive states which allows them to make atypical decisions to escape the pain of sadness. Oft people are drawn into cults by the charisma and happiness offered by the cult head or central idea. People tend to be born into subcultures and then choose to remain or seek out another group.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Consider **iconoclast**:

> n.
> One who attacks and seeks to overthrow traditional or popular ideas or institutions.

The previous answer covers various forms of reasoning on a larger scale. It can also be something much simpler, like being burned by popular trends, or finding that mainstream culture doesn't suit you (more unique individuals, etc).

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, terminology
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# Question
Title: What is the bias that arises because a thing is way more common than the rest?
So I have a sentence: `Hence this option is free of abundance bias`

I've made up the phrase "abundance bias" and I want to replace it with the proper scientific term. What is the exact term that would denote that the option will account for all subtleties and won't be biased towards stuff that happens to be more common?

Like for example, if a doctor sees 100 patients with X and someone who has Y (which has symptoms similar to X) comes in. The doctor fails to consider any subtleties that might make it different from X and just diagnoses X. This doctor has the "abundance bias" because the X was more common. You could say it's actually confirmation bias but that'll be when the doctor diagnoses based on his subjective experience and personal judgement rather than X being more widespread.

So, what is the right scientific term that would mean the same thing as "abundance bias"? Basically, the cognitive bias that arises when a particular thing is perceived to be much more common than the rest and hence it is considered to be the only case and the rest is disregarded/not considered

# Answer
> 5 votes
Wikipedia refers to "regressive bias" though I admit I have never heard the term used, defined as:

> A certain state of mind wherein high values and high likelihoods are overestimated while low values and low likelihoods are underestimated

However, in addition to not recalling this term's use before, I also did not find it used in quite that context in the majority of results on Google Scholar for "regressive bias" - so I would use it only with caution (and probably not at all in the context you refer to) and along with your own definition if at all.

You could also possibly refer to the default effect although this mainly refers to a default *action* rather than a default conclusion, one could argue these are one and the same (i.e., if the default diagnosis for the symptom is X).

The availability heuristic is also relevant. Although this bias is normally focused on recency of exposure, surely the most common diagnoses would be most 'available' simply because it is encountered more often, whereas it is unlikely that the doctor has recently experienced disease Y. Of course, once they do encounter someone with Y, the availability heuristic would suggest that in the future they will be more likely to diagnose or at least consider Y when X is more likely based on simple probability.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, bias
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title: Is it possible to over burden yourself?

text:
# Question
Title: Is it possible to over burden yourself?
If someone thinks a lot about their future like what are they going to do 1 year down the line or how will the live the rest of their lives and some of these ideas can be really extreme like taking a vow of celibacy in their thoughts. Can they end up over-burdening themselves and if yes then what could be the possible solution to it. Also what are the symptoms of such a man/woman?

Thanks in advance!

# Answer
As indicated in my comment, it is possible to "overburden" yourself, and there are different degrees of effects from overburdening depending on severity and timescales. Any overburden with enough time can lead to burnout (Carter, 2013). Other names for burnout include "mental breakdown" or "nervous exhaustion/breakdown". Another form of burnout, but essentially the same thing is Compassion Fatigue (Carter, 2014)

## Definition of Burnout

Burnout is a state of chronic stress that has led to extreme physical and emotional exhaustion, which in turn can lead to cynicism, detachment, and feelings of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment.

Carter (2013) has given a good rundown of the problem, but I would suggest subsituting the section header **Signs of Ineffectiveness and Lack of Accomplishment** with **Feelings of Ineffectiveness and Lack of Accomplishment can lead to...**

## Prevention/Remedy for Burnout

This can be a huge subject, but to narrow it down in a nutshell, as burnout is caused by chronic stress, the only way to prevent it or remedy it is to do whatever relieves stress for you and incorporate it into your day, **every day**. Burning the candle at both ends along with the midnight oil every day is going to lead to burnout.

## References

Carter, S. B. (2013). The Tell Tale Signs of Burnout ... Do You Have Them? *PsychologyToday* \[Online\]
Retrieved from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/high-octane-women/201311/the-tell-tale-signs-burnout-do-you-have-them

Carter, S. B. (2014). Are You Suffering from Compassion Fatigue?: What to do when showing compassion feels like a burden *PsychologyToday* \[Online\]
Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/high-octane-women/201407/are-you-suffering-compassion-fatigue
> 2 votes

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Tags: personality
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# Question
Title: Paper discussing economic rationale of IQ-based hiring practices
**TL;DR**

**I'm looking for a paper that explicitly quantifies the ROI an employer would likely derive if personnel selection involved intelligence testing and only those +2 SD in cognitive ability were hired.**

There's a correlation between IQ and job performance, ranging from .20s for low complexity jobs and .50 for high complexity jobs. Hardly unity (r = 1.00) but regardless, it's still considered to be the best predictor of job performance.

A number of years ago as an undergrad I read a paper discussing the economic rationale of an employer administering an IQ test and only selecting candidates who scored +2 SD above the mean. From the pool of candidates remaining, the employer would then interview for the best candidate as per usual. The author's thinking was along the following lines:

* Suppose you had a group of employees who you were paying an annual salary of \\$100,000 and their productivity was normally distributed between say, \\$100,000 - \\$300,000 (mean = $200,000).
* By selecting those who are +2 SD in cognitive ability, the employer would increase the chances that those who are hired will return them closer to $300,000 per year.
* Total economic gain = Number of employees x Increased return ($) x Duration of tenure

This topic is relevant to a publication I'm preparing and I've been racking my brain trying to find it. For the life of me I simply cannot find it.

Does this ring a bell for anyone? Ideally, I'd like the specific one that I'm mentioning, but failing that, something in a similar vein. Essentially: suppose you hired only those \>130 IQ -- regardless of the rightfulness/wrongfulness of doing so, what I want to know is what the $ amount benefit to the employer would be.

# Answer
I believe I know which paper you're referring to. My guess is the widely cited Schmidt & Hunter (1998) paper. The paper summarizes 85 years of practical and theoretical implications of research in personnel selection. To see that they address what you're asking for, here is a quote from the paper

> If a superior worker is defined as one whose performance (output) is at the 84th percentile (that is, 1 SD above the mean), then a superior worker in a lower level job produces 19% more output than an average worker, a superior skilled worker produces 32% more output than the average skilled worker, and a superior manager or professional produces output 48% above the average for those jobs. These differences are large and they indicate that the payoff from using valid hiring methods to predict later job performance is quite large.

Then later they state

> At one extreme, if an organization must hire all who apply for the job, no hiring procedure has any practical value. At the other extreme, if the organization has the luxury of hiring only the top scoring 1%, the practical value of gains from selection per person hired will be extremely large. But few organizations can afford to reject 99% of all job applicants.

However, a more recent paper on the subject has been published. That's the Schmidt, Oh & Shaffer (2016), which summarizes 100 years of practical and theoretical implications of research in personnel selection. This paper is an update on the former, so you may as well just look only at this latest one.
> 4 votes

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Tags: measurement, reference-request, intelligence, iq, selection-recruitment
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# Question
Title: How does a female measure her own attractiveness?
In theory, a female who is above average should reject most advances because she can afford to wait until they are approached by a male of high value. Whereas a female of low attractiveness cannot afford to reject most advances.

But how does a female gauge her own attractiveness in the first place?

What would make sense is that in the first few years of adult life a female should simply reject all advances. A process of simply collecting statistical data on her own attractiveness.

Then females who are approached at a low level during this period would become more easily approachable whereas females who are approached at a high level would become more stand-offish.

Does any of this correspond to reality?

# Answer
> 4 votes
From p. 207 of Geoffrey Miller (2001). The mating mind: how sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature. Anchor Books. ISBN 0-385-49517-X

> In our research on mate search strategies, colleague Peter Todd and I found that a rule we call "Try a Dozen" performs as well as the 37 percent rule under a wide range of conditions. Try a Dozen is simple: interview a dozen possible mates, remember the best of them, and then pick the very next prospect who is even more attractive. You do not have to estimate the total number of potential mates you will encounter in your reproductive lifetime; you only have to bet that you will meet at least fifty or so. Humans seem to follow something like the Try a Dozen rule: we get to know a number of opposite-sex friends during adolescence, fall in love at least once, remember that loved one very clearly, and tend to marry the next person who seems even more attractive. Each individual is "satisficing"\- looking for someone who is pretty good and good enough, rather than the absolute best they could possibly find. But at the evolutionary level, these satisficing rules impose sexual selection that is almost as strong as the most complicated, perfectionist decision strategy.

I also turned up a 1998 review by Miller and Todd "Mate Choice Turn Cognitive", which does get to mating strategies in its final pages, best summarized by:

> By sampling a much smaller number of prospects initially, say a dozen, one can actually attain a higher expected mate value than the 37% rule delivers (although a lower chance of finding the very highest-valued prospect), with much lower search costs and a much lower risk of being stuck with a low-value mate\[64,65\] (Fig. 3).
> More importantly, the ‘secretary problem’ ignores the problem that a prospect you desire may reject you. This mutual choice constraint makes the search much harder\[64,65\]. Game-theory models of ‘two-sided matching’ address these complexities\[61\] directly, and propose various search strategies which guarantee that a population reaches a ‘stable matching’: a pairwise assortment of individuals where no individual would prefer to be mated with someone else who would also prefer to be mated with them. However, two-sided matching models typically assume strict monogamy (no ‘extra-pair copulations’), complete information and exhaustive preferences: everyone has complete, consistent, transitive preferences across all possible prospects that they encounter.
>
> * 61. Roth, A.E. and Sotomayor, M.A.O. (1990) Two-sided Matching: a Study in Game-theoretic Modeling and Analysis, Cambridge University Press
> * 64. Todd, P.M. (1997) Searching for the next best mate, in Simulating Social Phenomena (Conte, R., Hegselmann, R. and Terna, P., eds), pp. 419–436, Springer-Verlag
> * 65. Todd, P.M. and Miller, G.F. Heuristics for mate search, in Simple Heuristics that Make us Smart (Gigerenzer, G., Todd, P.M. and the ABC Research Group), Oxford University Press (in press)

So yeah, the problem is not that simple (as optimal stopping) if one considers mating a game (in the sense of game theory). I haven't yet looked at the latter line of research... but it's a whole book. The idea seems centered on the stable marriage problem. An optimal algorithm also involves a number of rounds, with rejection and "maybe" answers; from Wikipedia:

> * In the first round, first a) each unengaged man proposes to the woman he prefers most, and then b) each woman replies "maybe" to her suitor she most prefers and "no" to all other suitors. She is then provisionally "engaged" to the suitor she most prefers so far, and that suitor is likewise provisionally engaged to her.
> * In each subsequent round, first a) each unengaged man proposes to the most-preferred woman to whom he has not yet proposed (regardless of whether the woman is already engaged), and then b) each woman replies "maybe" if she is currently not engaged or if she prefers this guy over her current provisional partner (in this case, she rejects her current provisional partner who becomes unengaged). The provisional nature of engagements preserves the right of an already-engaged woman to "trade up" (and, in the process, to "jilt" her until-then partner).
> * This process is repeated until everyone is engaged.

So, Miller and Todd cleary don't think this stable marriage problem is too relevant for reality. Unfortunately, by the time of their review (which is now two decades old), there's wasn't much else proposed that was taking into account the mutual-choice aspect of mating and the "satisficing" nature of human choice in general (that Miller and Todd favor).

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Tags: sexuality
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# Question
Title: Venus effect explained in greater detail?
I stumbled upon this fact but I can't seem to understand the websites that are trying to explain it. I could only understand wikipedia's explanation

> This psychological effect is often used in the cinema, where an actor will be shown apparently looking at himself or herself in the mirror. What viewers see is different from what the actor sees, because the camera is not right behind the actor, but the position of the actor is often chosen so that his or her image is nicely framed in the mirror for the camera.

but I don't think my understanding is sufficient.

So correct me if I'm wrong but, the idea is that, contrary to our quick assumptions, Venus isn't actually admiring herself in the mirror but she's actually looking at the viewer (me)? Am I right?

I'm just wondering why all the other websites are talking about mirror angles, like how she actually would not be able to see her face (really?) and there's one saying that Venus' face is actually between me (the viewer) and the mirror, uhhh what? So does that mean she's actually painting herself?

I'm so confused.

# Answer
The Venus Effect is just as you understand it. The painting the effect is referring to is depicting the woman admiring herself in the mirror, when in fact, if you study it properly you will see that she would not be able to see herself in the mirror, but she wuld be able to see the artist (or you) as the viewer.

If you look at the diagrams I put together below, you will see from the first diagram how the venus effect works.

**Image 1:** The Venus Effect in play. The viewer can see Venus, but there is no way Venus can see herself, when in fact she can see the viewer in the mirror.

**Image 2:** The Venus Effect is not in play. The viewer cannot see Venus, Venus can see herself, and she cannot see the viewer
> 1 votes

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Tags: perception
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# Question
Title: Depression Causing Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)
Whilst trying to think of non-chemical/hormonal causes of low self-esteem when reading Is low self-esteem, a brain chemical imbalance problem, rather than a personality defect, and can't be fixed by any amount of counselling/self-help?, I have been considering Body Dysmorphia Disorder (BDD).

Whilst it is a mental disorder in its own right, I have been thinking that BDD can cause depression due to the constant upset caused by the feelings concerning the body, but not the other way round; yet the UK mental health charity, Mind, states.

> No one knows exactly what causes BDD. However, recent research suggests that there are a number of different risk factors that could mean you are more likely to experience BDD, such as:
>
> * abuse or bullying
> * low self-esteem
> * fear of being alone or isolated
> * perfectionism or competing with others
> * genetics
> * depression or anxiety

**I am asking here specifically about depression** because for the other reasons in MINDs list such as perfectionism or bullying, anxiety could cause BDD in my thinking.

With *risk not necessarily meaning cause*, in order for the risk to be quantified, there needs to be indication from studies and past clients that depression led to BDD rather than the other way round, and yet I am not convinced of this.

What studies are available which indicate that depression can cause BDD rather than the other way round?

# Answer
> 1 votes
## TL;DR:

In one study I found, major depression preceded onset of BDD in 22% of cases (Gunstad & Phillips, 2003).

## More Complete Answer

Reading Phillips & Stout (2006) linked in the answer by @Fizz, they state that (emphasis added)

> Our findings additionally suggest that **BDD is not simply a symptom of depression**. If it were, BDD would be expected to remit around the time of depression remission and during subsequent months.

Also highlighted in Phillips & Stout (2006) was the fact that a double-blind cross-over study in BDD found that the SRI clomipramine reduced depressive symptoms more than the non-SRI antidepressant desipramine; this finding suggests that depression was secondary to BDD (Hollander et al., 1999).

In Phillips & Stout's study:

> \[D\]uring the 3 months after remission of major depression, BDD persisted for most subjects, with fewer than 30% of subjects attaining full remission from BDD.

To add to this, Gunstad & Phillips (2003) had this to say:

> \[O\]ur finding that major depression usually began after BDD may simply reflect the fact that major depressive disorder typically begins in the mid-20s, whereas BDD usually begins in the early to middle teenage years. An alternative explanation is that major depression may reflect depressive symptoms and demoralization as a secondary complication of BDD. Although it cannot be determined whether one disorder causes another, our clinical impression is that the major depression that so frequently co-occurs with BDD is often due to BDD; however, this does not always appear to be the case. Indeed, in this study major depression preceded onset of BDD in 22% of cases. It is also worth noting that onset of social phobia usually preceded onset of BDD, as would be expected based on social phobia’s usual age of onset. This suggests that in this study, “primary” social phobia was differentiated from the marked social anxiety typically caused by BDD, which would be expected to begin at the time of, or after, onset of BDD. It is sometimes difficult clinically to differentiate primary social phobia from social anxiety secondary to BDD.

## References

Gunstad, J., & Phillips, K. A. (2003). Axis I Comorbidity in Body Dysmorphic Disorder. *Comprehensive Psychiatry*, 44(4), 270–276.
DOI: 10.1016/S0010-440X(03)00088-9 PCMID: PMC1613797
Free PDF: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1613797/pdf/nihms12699.pdf

Hollander, E., Allen, A., Kwon, J., Aronowitz, B., Schmeidler, J., Wong, C., & Simeon, D. (1999). Clomipramine vs desipramine crossover trial in body dysmorphic disorder: selective efficacy of a serotonin reuptake inhibitor in imagined ugliness. *Archives of General Psychiatry*, 56(11), 1033-1039.
DOI: 10.1001/archpsyc.56.11.1033 PMID: 10565503

Phillips, K. A., & Stout, R. L. (2006). Associations in the Longitudinal Course of Body Dysmorphic Disorder with Major Depression, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Social Phobia. *Journal of Psychiatric Research*, 40(4), 360–369.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2005.10.001 PMCID: PMC2786172
Free PDF: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2786172/pdf/nihms92762.pdf

# Answer
> 2 votes
TLDR version: it appears depression-as-a-risk-factor-for-BDD hasn't actually been studied, so the quoted UK NGO claims might stem from a blurring of risk factors and comorbidity.

---

Let's start by recalling what risk factor actually means (it does not mean cause):

> Risk factors are characteristics at the biological, psychological, family, community, or cultural level that precede and are associated with a higher likelihood of negative outcomes.

So support the quoted passage in your question, one would only have to show that depression (from whatever cause) can happen before BDD in some individuals. If someone is predisposed to "go off the deep end" because of their body, they could possibly do that for any other perceived insufficiency in themselves (like thinking they're not being smart enough). The criteria to BDD are extremely specific, only a preoccupation with physical appearance counts; if someone ruminates or obsesses or over their (perceived) lack of intelligence, that doesn't qualify for BDD. With this in mind, depression being a risk factor for BDD doesn't so improbable.

Alas, I came up empty for an actual longitudinal study where depression got worse before BDD... but I did find one close enough:

> We found several significant longitudinal associations between BDD and the comorbid disorders we examined. The association was strongest for depression. Time-varying associations showed that improvement in BDD and major depression were closely linked in time, with significant associations in both directions: improvement in major depression predicted BDD remission, and improvement in BDD predicted major depression remission. This finding suggests that the same etiologic processes contribute to both BDD and major depression in some subjects.

The reason they could only talk of improvements (and not deterioration) is that this study had a treatment-based time frame. So there's wasn't much in the way of naturalistic observation sans treatment. That would probably require a much longer time scale... and I'm not convinced someone could get funding for that... especially since it raises ethics questions like observing depression getting worse in some patients but not doing anything about it, just so BDD aggravation could be observed.

On the other hand, the common sense logic (that you had) that depression might usually come after BDD, turns out to be supported by this study (well, again based on remission):

> in our sample depression may be largely secondary to BDD for many subjects, as a substantial proportion remitted from major depression following BDD remission. Conversely, after remission of depression, BDD tended to improve but less markedly. Our findings additionally suggest that BDD is not simply a symptom of depression. If it were, BDD would be expected to remit around the time of depression remission and during subsequent months.

Frankly, I suspect that the NGO page in question might have simply confused (or amalgamated) risk factors with comorbidity. I'm saying this because a 2015 research paper notes that very little is know about risk factors for BDD. According to that paper, the only things which have been investigated as risk factors for BDD being:

* "perceived teasing about general appearance"
* "emotional, physical, or sexual abuse or neglect resulting in poor attachment and body shame"
* "a genetic predisposition for a need for symmetry or order"
* "being excessively self-conscious about appearance changes during adolescence"

So, my conclusion from all this: it sounds somewhat plausible that depression is a risk factor for BDD (based on the common etiology \[in some people\] hypothesis), although it doesn't seem to have been formally/directly investigated, and the reverse occurence of events (BDD first, then depression) sounds a bit more common/likely.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, depression, self
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# Question
Title: Questions on Interpreting Factor Analysis Results and Scores
I am trying to learn factor analysis and I thought it would be a good idea to try and very poorly "mimic" the computation for IQ scores with a dataset of dummy values as a way to "learn by example".

To start off, this is what I intend to do, and I don't know if this methodology is correct or not: I have the loadings for that factor determined. Now that I have the loadings, I want to generate a score for each of the samples. That will leave me with a population of scores that I can then standardize around a mean of 100. From there I would plot a normal distribution. Whenever I get a new sample, I can then generate a score for it and see where it falls on the distribution.

To get my results, I am using Python's Sklearn library, specifically the `FactorAnalysis` class. I noticed that the `FactorAnalysis` class has a `score_samples()` method. The output score for each sample is the log-likelihood of the sample.

Here are some of the questions I have:

* Is my approach in generating a distribution based on the samples' factor scores flawed? How do they do it in practice?
* Is the log-likelihood of a sample even an appropriate score to use? (If not, what alternative ways are there to score a sample?)
* I have gone ahead and generated the scores using the `score_samples()` method for all the samples, but they range between -4 and -49. Is there a reason they would be negative?
* If you are only looking for 1 latent factor, is it good practice to set the number of factors to 1 or should you leave it unspecified anyways?

Here are the loadings if I leave set the number of factors to 1:

```
            Factor 1
variable 1  0.082558
variable 2  0.107940
variable 3  0.199645
variable 4  0.612495
variable 5  0.623707

```

Here are the loadings if I do not specify the number of factors:

```
             Factor 1   Factor 2   Factor 3  Factor 4  Factor 5
variable 1   0.263914   0.426346  -0.012893   -0.0       0.0
variable 2   0.297078   0.415269  -0.002193    0.0      -0.0
variable 3   0.243590  -0.005131   0.085178   -0.0      -0.0
variable 4   0.487537  -0.224135  -0.019501   -0.0      -0.0
variable 5   0.484462  -0.248173  -0.008902    0.0       0.0

```

# Answer
> Is my approach in generating a distribution based on the samples' factor scores flawed? How do they do it in practice?

I found this somewhat difficult to follow. But in general, you should be able to approximate a set of test scores using a multivariate normal distribution where the covariance matrix implies positive correlations between all tests. Some might be larger and some smaller, but the idea is that all ability tests are correlated. And general mental ability can be estimated as the first unrotated factor that results from such tests.

> Is the log-likelihood of a sample even an appropriate score to use? (If not, what alternative ways are there to score a sample?)

This sounds more like how you evaluate a model. E.g., how you evaluate a factor analytic solutions. In general, factor saved scores will be a weighted composite of the scores on the component tests.

In R, you can use `factanal`

```
factanal(x, factors, data = NULL, covmat = NULL, n.obs = NA,
         subset, na.action, start = NULL,
         scores = c("none", "regression", "Bartlett"),
         rotation = "varimax", control = NULL, ...)

```

See the `scores` argument. There are a few different methods.

> I have gone ahead and generated the scores using the score\_samples() method for all the samples, but they range between -4 and -49. Is there a reason they would be negative?

I don't know Python. But in general, factor saved scores are typically quantified in such a way that they are z-scores (e.g., mean = 0, sd = 1).

> If you are only looking for 1 latent factor, is it good practice to set the number of factors to 1 or should you leave it unspecified anyways?

You need to either extract only one factor or ensure that you apply no rotation to the extract factors. Without a rotation, the first factor will be equivalent to just one factor. If you rotate, variation will be partitioned across the extracted factors.
> 3 votes

---
Tags: statistics, iq, correlation
---


title: People who climb the social hierarchy

text:
# Question
Title: People who climb the social hierarchy
We know that people on top of the social hierarchy have (at least in developed countries) 30 or more years average life expectancy , more stable marriages, happier life and so on. So my question is for people who managed to get from the bottom to the top, what is their expected divorce rate, life expectancy and so on. It is more like the bottom or more like the top. Any research would help.

# Answer
I think you want the term Life Course Social Mobility. Try searching for it and the outcomes of interest, e.g., life expectancy:

It is difficult to summarize across many different outcomes, and it also depends on a) the starting and ending classes as well as b) the life stage when the transition occurs and c) the speed of the transition.

So I think the question as originally phrased, whether they appear more like the bottom or the top, cannot be answered in the general case. It is generally going to be in-between.
> 6 votes

---
Tags: social-psychology
---


# Question
Title: How is memory structured (from a modeling perspective)?
My understanding is that memory is neither purely associationist (fully connected graph with weights) nor purely hierarchical (tree). What structure does biological evidence point towards? I'm interested in the mathematical representation.

# Answer
> 2 votes
The structure of memory depends on what you're trying to model. Since there are many types of memory, this question is almost too broad. So instead of giving you a systematic review, I'll give a quick tour of some models I know which should give you a starting point.

List memorization appears to be modeled by a combination of neuron weight updates and integrators saving symbols modeled as vectors. See "An Integrated Model of Context, Short-Term, and Long-Term Memory" by Jan Gosmann.

Task/procedural memory has been modeled as a stack-like data-structure while still representing the symbols as vectors. See "A scaleable spiking neural model of action planning" by Blouw et al.

Spatial memory is weirder and seems to be best modeled as a function space. See "Vector-based navigation using grid-like representations in artificial agents" by Banino et al.

Visual memory has some nice models too, but I don't know them that well.

---
Tags: memory, cognitive-modeling
---


# Question
Title: What's the best way to calculate an index score based on reaction time, variance and accuracy?
Say I have a go/no-go task and my output data includes 3 parameters: average reaction time, variance of reaction time, and number of errors. I want to composite all of the parameters into a single index score.

What is the best way to do it? All of the parameters are equally important to me.

# Answer
> 1 votes
This overlaps a lot with these two questions: So check them out

Regarding some specifics of your question, reaction time variance will often be strongly correlated with reaction time mean. So in routine measures of individual differences where speed is the main focus, it may be sufficient to focus on mean reaction time and accuracy. E.g., mean reaction time possibly with some sort of penalty for errors (see the above answers).

If you are wanting to get very precise, then there are a range of modelling approaches that may be relevant (e.g., this question on LBA and diffusion models).

With regards to go-no-go, I believe there are fairly standardised procedures for scoring such tests.

---
Tags: cognitive-psychology, methodology, attention, psychophysics, task-analysis
---


# Question
Title: What is the difference between psychosis and neurosis?
Given such a sentence by a Test of English as a Foreign Language textbook,

> Mental disorder include psychosis and neurosis.

I googled and found a page

In introduction, the pages says,

> Psychosis and neurosis are terms used to describe mental conditions. Sometimes these words are used **interchangeably** to refer to the same condition.

Only what I clearly could deduct from the page is psychosis is brought about particularly by the use of alcohol and illicit use of drugs and their withdrawal.

Could anyone support me to distinguish these two symptoms more clearly ( and hopefully in a simpler way? )

# Answer
**Short answer**
Psychosis can result in a loss of a sense of reality. Neurosis leaves the person suffering in contact with the here and now. Further, *neurosis* is an old term and was used as an umbrella term. Now its use has declined and rather more specific diagnoses are used.

**Background**
\- Psychosis is according to Medicine Net:

> \[A\] mental illness that markedly interferes with a person's capacity to meet life's everyday demands. \[It is\] a thought disorder in which reality testing is grossly impaired. Symptoms can include \[hallucinations, such as\] seeing, hearing, smelling, or tasting things that are not there; paranoia; and delusional thoughts. \[...\] Psychosis can occur as a result of brain injury or disease, and is seen particularly in schizophrenia and bipolar disorders.

> \[A\] disturbing psychological disorders that still let the sufferer remain in contact with reality. This term plays a central role in Freudian psychoanalysis. In Freud's theory "neurosis" means "a personality or mental disturbance not due to any known neurological or organic dysfunction \[brain or body problem\]" (Reber, 1985). Freud used it as a label for a group of related symptoms of psychological problems that are distressing and painful. **Unlike psychoses, which are psychological disorders that severely distort reality, neuroses leave physical, psychological and social reality intact.** According to Freud, neuroses reflect poorly resolved unconscious emotional conflicts, which lead to psychological defense mechanisms that attempt to protect the person from consciously experiencing these conflicts but result in the observed behavioral and psychological symptoms.
>
> Neurosis takes many different forms, including
>
> * anxiety disorders: excessive severe worrying.
> * phobias: abnormally intense fears with no objective cause.
> * obsessive-compulsive disorders: repetitive acts, such as repeatedly checking whether doors are locked, oven is turned off, etc.; repetitive handwashing and intense concern about "germs," etc.
> * hysterical disorder (not the everyday meaning of intense over-excitement), such as: conversion disorder: psychological problem showing up as a "physical" disorder that cannot be result from physical pathology (e.g., "glove anesthesia" is apparent lack of pain perception from the hand, which cannot happen as a result of damage to the nervous system). dissociation disorders: multiple personalities (real cases are much rarer than the "celebrety cases" that reflect the intense interest people have in this peculiar condition); depersonalization in which a person no longer feels "real" and feels that his/her experiences are not real, to the point of feeling an arm or a leg is abnormally small or not even a part of one's own body. Factitious disorders: physical symptoms, such as dizziness, rash, vomiting, fever, etc., and psychological symptoms, such as hallucinations and memory loss, that turn out to be under the sufferer's control.

Note that the term neurosis has fallen out of favor, and that the subtypes mentioned above are taking hold. In general, Freudian analysis has lost its hold on in psychiatry. Now neurosis is divided into finer pieces, like panic disorder, social anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder (source: NY Times)
> 4 votes

# Answer
## Definition of *Neurosis*

Today, *neurosis* (plural: *neuroses*) is a class of functional mental disorders involving chronic distress but neither delusions nor hallucinations (Wikipedia).

As well as other theories, neuroses play a central role in Freudian psychoanalysis (whereby all of Freud's theories are considered by many to be pseudoscientific. More can be read in my answer to this in meta).

However, the term *neurosis* was coined by the Scottish doctor William Cullen in 1769 to refer to "disorders of sense and motion" caused by a "general affection of the nervous system." Cullen used the term to describe various nervous disorders and symptoms that could not be explained physiologically.

According to C. George Boeree, professor emeritus at Shippensburg University, the symptoms of neurosis as described today may involve:

> ... anxiety, sadness or depression, anger, irritability, mental confusion, low sense of self-worth, etc., behavioral symptoms such as phobic avoidance, vigilance, impulsive and compulsive acts, lethargy, etc., cognitive problems such as unpleasant or disturbing thoughts, repetition of thoughts and obsession, habitual fantasizing, negativity and cynicism, etc. Interpersonally, neurosis involves dependency, aggressiveness, perfectionism, schizoid isolation, socio-culturally inappropriate behaviors, etc. (Wikipedia & Boeree, 2002).

As for any declination of use for the term *neurosis* mentioned by @AliceD in his answer, although people are not generally labelled as suffering from a neurosis or even a psychosis, *neurosis* is as pointed out, an umbrella term for a range of mental health problems **and is different to *psychoses*** — another umbrella term.

In fact the current version of the *Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition* (DSM-5) talks of *neurotic disposition* and *neuroticism* within certain mental health problems, e.g.:

> Behavioral inhibition and neurotic disposition (i.e., negative affectivity \[neuroticism\] and anxiety sensitivity) are closely associated with agoraphobia but are relevant to most anxiety disorders (phobic disorders, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder). Anxiety sensitivity (the disposition to believe that symptoms of anxiety are harmful) is also characteristic of individuals with agoraphobia.

The terms *neurosis* and *neurotic* are also used in the ICD-10 (2016) Chapter V F40–48.

## Definition of *Psychosis*

A *psychosis* (plural: *psychoses*), as mentioned before, is an unberella term for a range of mental health problems. A psychosis is an abnormal condition of the mind that results in difficulties telling what is real and what is not. Symptoms may include false beliefs and seeing or hearing things that others do not see or hear. Other symptoms may include incoherent speech and behavior that is inappropriate for the situation (Wikipedia & NIMH, n.d.).

From your research, you deduced that

> psychosis is brought about particularly by the use of alcohol and illicit use of drugs and their withdrawal.

Use of alcohol and illicit use of drugs and their withdrawal does not only create psychoses, but can instead cause a neurotic mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression (American Addiction Centers).

## Sometimes, mental health problems can cross the devide both ways between *Neuroses* and *Psychoses*.

Take for example below:

Table put together in my notes whilst training
* Although BPD, Bipolar Disorder and PTSD are generally neuroses, they can involve psychotic episodes in some cases.

Psychotic episodes in PTSD can involve flashbacks (the sense of being back at the traumatic event) through hallucinations affecting touch, taste, smell, sound and sight either affecting one of the senses or a combination of them. Bipolar clients (Mind, 2018) can experience visual or auditory hallucinations. **Note: I have just noticed webpage linked to at Mind has been updated since I wrote my training notes and the link here is kept for completeness of information on Bipolar Disorder.** Information on psychotic episodes can be found by clicking the *bipolar moods and symptoms* link on the page.

> Psychotic symptoms can include:
>
> * delusions, such as paranoia
> * hallucinations, such as hearing voices
>
> Not everyone with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder experiences psychosis, but some people do. It's more common during manic episodes, but can happen during depressive episodes too. These kinds of experiences can feel very real to you at the time, which may make it hard to understand other people's concerns about you.
>
> (See our pages on psychosis for more information.)

## References

Boeree, C. G. (2002). A Bio-Social Theory of Neurosis. *Shippensburg University* \[Online\]
Retreived from: http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/genpsyneurosis.html

Mind, 2018. Bipolar Disorder. \[Online\]
Retreieved from: http://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/bipolar-disorder

NIMH (n.d.). RAISE Questions and Answers. *NIMH* \[Online\]
Retreived from: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/schizophrenia/raise/raise-questions-and-answers.shtml
> 4 votes

---
Tags: terminology, psychosis, freud
---


# Question
Title: Why do some people bond with their captors and vice versa?
Why do some people in hostage and/or kidnapping situations end up identifying with their captors, and vice versa?

Are there certain triggers or aspects of the situation that make it more or less likely to occur?

# Answer
What you are describing is a condition popularly known as the Stockholm Syndrome. It should be noted that very little research has been conducted into this condition, and it has not been classified as a disorder. However, very briefly, Stockholm Syndrome leads to a hostage developing an emotional bond with their captor, where they sympathize with them and form positive feelings towards them.

It is believed that this syndrome is a coping mechanism (Cantor C, Price J), a result of spending intimate time with their captor where they are subjected to abuse. The captives are in an incredible amount of stress and typically lose the ability to think rationally and reasonably. Their primary motive is to survive, and this instinct leads them to develop defense mechanisms. Hatred, in this situation, would not be productive, and obedience is the only way to survive.

It is believed that 3 aspects make it more likely for the syndrome to develop:

* **Long duration of time spent together**

Spending a longer duration of time with their captors leads the hostages to believe that their captors truly will not kill them. They believe that the captors are their friends and they will get out of this messy situation together.
* **Intimate and continual contact between the captor and the hostage**

In order to ensure that they do not anger their captor in order to escape violence at their hands, the focus of the captives is on obedience and pleasing their captors, for which they try to get to know their captors during the period of their captivity. This 'humanizes' their captors. Moreover, the captives want to make sure that their feelings do not appear fake, and eventually begin believing that they are genuine.
* **Small acts of kindness**

During the course of the captivity, if the captor shows an unexpected act of kindness, or simply chooses to not behave violently, it may lead the captive to become affectionate towards their captor. In a situation where a person is made to fear for their life, this small act can be seen as merciful on the captor's part.

Women are said to be more likely to develop Stockholm Syndrome. (Graham, Dee L. R.) Societal conditions lead the women to be afraid of male violence. This fear encourages them to engage in actions that would please the male, and bond with them to survive. Similarly, the captives bond with their captors and attempt to please them to survive.

A lesser known condition is the Lima Syndrome, where the abductors develop sympathy towards their captives.

As mentioned in the beginning, these conditions are still widely contested and much more research is required.
> 1 votes

---
Tags: social-psychology
---


# Question
Title: Does psychology lose it's validity when the subject is versed in psychology?
Quite often, I find myself conforming to typical psychological principals, and exhibiting predictable behavior based on external stimuli. However, upon better research of the psychology behind past decisions that I've made, I become more likely to involve psychology theory in future decisions of the same kind.

But knowing the psychology behind typical decision making processes invariably changes the decision process you experience. It would seem that psychologists should be able to operate in a perfectly logical manner, however, as the saying often goes "All therapists are nuts!"

It's here I feel that traditional psychoanalysis fails. How can you apply psychology and analyze patterns in the thought process of a person if that person is versed enough in psychology to avoid traditional fallacies and pitfalls?

I would be especially interested to see any psychoanalysis studies done purely on psychologists.

# Answer
> 2 votes
There are two different traditions referenced in this question, psychoanalysis and decision making. If by psychoanalysis you mean the tradition of Freud and Jung, my understanding is that it didn't survive first contact with evidence-based practice and is now mainly of historical interest. Maybe some surviving approaches claim their roots in this, I'm not sure, I don't know much about the clinical side of psych. I do know a little bit about decision making though, the other half of this question, and there knowing the psychology makes surprisingly little difference to people's decisions. You can learn to recognize a base-rate-neglect style question and memorize the answers to the CRT, which will put you in the minority ~20% who tend to get these kinds of questions right, but mostly decision biases are as compelling as perceptual illusions: even knowing that it's an illusion doesn't stop you from seeing the illusion in most cases. The reason why is probably the same for both! Just like the visual illusions, it looks like many decision-illusions are not so much a flaw in the system as an artifact of how people deal with uncertainty efficiently and effectively using limited resources.

For more on this you might enjoy Kahneman's 'Thinking fast and slow' or Ariely's 'Predictably irrational'. These don't directly address the 'studies on psychologists' thing, but do give lots of examples of hard-to-unsee effects that most definitely persist after reading about them.

---
Tags: social-psychology, perception, experimental-psychology, bias
---


# Question
Title: How is "the innermost child" framed in psychology?
In art and literature, the adults are usually depicted as having a trapped child in their hearts:

The child is pure and naive, but is trapped in the adult body who is struggling to survive. I think this would simply be called as repression, and maybe in extreme case it can lead to dissociative identity disorder? I think that in order to give a satisfactory answer, literature studies should also be included.

# Answer
What you are talking about is mentioned in psychology to be the “inner child”.

Inner Child Therapy is used within many different forms of therapy. The inner child is often characterized as a subpersonality within the framework of psychosynthesis or may also be seen as a central element surrounded by subpersonalities. Virtually every talk therapy approach acknowledges and ascribes some meaning to the inner child, but in some cases they use a different label. Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) has expanded the concept considerably in recognizing that there isn't just one inner child subpersonality, but many.

> Inner child therapy has been designed to help those who, as children, have been hurt by the adults and circumstances around them. They may have been hurt, not just by major, easily recognised traumas such as physical or sexual abuse or death of, or abandonment by, a parent, but also by the daily drip drip traumas such as neglect, rejection, criticism, humiliation, bullying, denial or confusion. (Christopher, 2016)

## References

Christopher, J. (2016). *Inner child therapy* \[Online\]
Retreived from: https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counsellor-articles/inner-child-therapy
> 1 votes

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Tags: terminology, inner-child
---


# Question
Title: Do people who experience a psychotic episode ever go back to normal?
Do people who experience a fully blown psychotic episode ever go back to their pre-psychosis self?

# Answer
## Short answer

Because some neuroses can involve psychotic episodes, it depends on the cause of the psychotic behaviour.

## Longer Answer

When looking at the difference between neuroses and psychoses, although BPD, Bipolar Disorder and PTSD are generally neuroses, they can involve psychotic episodes in some cases.

For example, with Bipolar Disorder (Mind, 2018):

> Psychotic symptoms can include:
>
> * delusions, such as paranoia
> * hallucinations, such as hearing voices
>
> Not everyone with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder experiences psychosis, but some people do. It's more common during manic episodes, but can happen during depressive episodes too. These kinds of experiences can feel very real to you at the time, which may make it hard to understand other people's concerns about you.

Psychotic episodes in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can involve flashbacks (the sense of being back at the traumatic event) through hallucinations affecting touch, taste, smell, sound and sight either affecting one of the senses or a combination of them.

Once the PTSD or Bipolar Disorder has been resolved through the relevant treatment required, the psychotic effects will not return as the underlying cause has been sorted, and the person will "go back to their pre-psychosis self".

If the psychosis is a "pure" psychosis such as Schizophrenia, the problem cannot be cured, but the psychosis can be managed with medication and psychiatric help (Schizophrenia Society of Canada, n.d.). Schizophrenia requires lifelong treatment, even when symptoms have subsided (Mayo Clinic, 2018).

Minimizing the impact of the illness depends mainly on early diagnosis and, appropriate psychosocial treatment and medication. One problem with this is that people with schizophrenia sometimes lack insight into their illness, and therefore do not see the need for medication or other mental health help. Also, medication sometimes has unpleasant side effects and this may discourage individuals from continuing to follow their prescription.

## References

Mayo Clinic (2018). Schizophrenia Diagnosis & Treatment\[Online\]
Retrieved from: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizophrenia/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20354449

Mind (2018). Bipolar Mood Symptoms \[Online\]
Retrieved from: https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/bipolar-disorder/bipolar-moods-symptoms

Schizophrenia Society of Canada (n.d.). Frequently Asked Questions \[Online\]
Retrieved from: http://www.schizophrenia.ca/faq.php
> 3 votes

# Answer
A little response from my current courses in psychopathology (please don't hit me, I study in France and our courses are not as good as in anglo-saxon countries) :

Schizophrenic patients tend to have some cognitives consequences, consecutive of a previous psychotic episode, even between two psychotics crisis.

There is some case of isolated psychotics episodes when the subject doesn't suffer from any consequences after that.

In Bipolar disorder, in type I where the subject can experiment delusion and sometime hallucination during both maniac and depressive period, he can recover completly (?!) during the period called euthymia.

I omitted the fact that having a first psychotic experience improve the "chance" of having another one, which is a kind of consequence.

If someone has some cognitive test references in order to improve my poor intervention it would be welcome !
> -1 votes

# Answer
A lengthy and thorough definition of "psychotic episode" would be needed here, but by definition, if it isn't what is termed chronic or life-long, it is this, From WebMD:

> \[...\] brief psychotic disorder is a short-term illness with psychotic symptoms. The symptoms often come on suddenly, but last for less than one month, after which the person usually recovers completely. There are three basic forms of brief psychotic disorder:
>
> * Brief psychotic disorder with obvious stressor (also called brief \> reactive psychosis): This type occurs shortly after and often in
> response to a trauma or major stress, such as the death of a loved
> one, an accident, assault, or a natural disaster. Most cases of brief psychotic disorder occur as a reaction to a very disturbing event.
> * Brief psychotic disorder without obvious stressor: With this type, there is no apparent trauma or stress that triggers the illness.
> * Brief psychotic disorder with postpartum onset: This type occurs in women, usually within 4 weeks of having a baby.
> -3 votes

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Tags: abnormal-psychology, clinical-psychology, psychosis
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