# Question
Title: What is the difference between Megalomania and Narcissism?
As far as I can tell, both megalomania and narcissism are found in \[delusions of\] grandiosity. Perhaps megalomania has more focus on power, rather than just being well liked?

What is the primary difference between the two?

Are all megalomaniacs narcissists? Or all narcissists megalomaniacs? Or are they completely separate?

# Answer
> 9 votes
The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) doesn't distinguish between megalomania and narcissism. The most recent edition of the DSM (DSM-5) classifies both as a form of narcissistic personality disorder.

# Answer
> 4 votes
Distinguishing between similes like this can be aided by a word's etymology. The root of Narcissist is the Greek deity Narkissos, or Narcissus.

> "Narcissus, in Greek mythology, the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. He was distinguished for his beauty. According to Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book III, Narcissus's mother was told by the blind seer Tiresias that he would have a long life, provided he never recognized himself. However, his rejection of the love of the nymph Echo or (in an earlier version) of the young man Ameinias drew upon him the vengeance of the gods. He fell in love with his own reflection in the waters of a spring and pined away (or killed himself); the flower that bears his name sprang up where he died." (Britannica.com).

While the word, today, is often used interchangeably with Megalomaniac; a Narcissist is originally speaking to a person who is obsessed with, or overvalues, their appearance. Megalo (big... REAL big - think Megalodon) and mania (obsession) refers to a person's overestimation of who they are compared to everyone else - an obsession with power, influence, or control. Megalomania is a more common combination of a root and suffix, while narcissism derives from the too-pretty-for-his-own-good Narcissus.

Adolf Hitler was more of a megalomaniac; while every artist who sings about how 'hot' they are is a Narcissist (or their lyrics suggest as much at least).

Hope this helps to some extent!

Britannica.com, Narcissus. (2020). Encyclopedia Britannica. Acquired 20 July, 2020 from: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Narcissus-Greek-mythology

# Answer
> 4 votes
The lexical approach may assist. The lexical hypothesis states that, ‘All aspects of human personality, which are or have been of importance, interest or utility, have already become recorded in the substance of language’(Cattell, 1943) and, ‘When an idea is important, people are likely to have a word for it … the more important something is, … the more words there are likely to be’(Miller, 1996). The atlas of personality, emotion and behaviour uses a lexical approach to visualise words using the axes of affiliation and dominance (Mobbs, 2020).

Synonyms are:

**narcisism**: conceit\*, egocentricity, egocentrism, egoism\*, egomania, egotism, narcism, navel-gazing, pride, self-absorption, self-centeredness, self-concern, self-interest, self-involvement, self-preoccupation, self-regard, selfishness, selfness, solipsism, vanity.

**megalomania**: conceit\*, conceitedness, egotism\*, grandioseness, grandiosity, obsessionalism, paranoia, self-importance.

The visualisation according to the atlas approach is shown below:

In answer to your question, there appears to be very little difference between megalomania and narcissism from a lexical perspective.

**References**

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

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

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

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

# Answer
> 1 votes
narcissism is introspective - i.e. an obsession of self/physical appearance. While internalized the disorder personality often seeks out admiration & external merits (eg. Social Media) to affirm the belief.

in context a megalomanic look at ones self as extrinsic from the world: Yet the delusion that they either have the power/ability to influence the rest of the world or the rest of the world is "out to get them" remains absent of influence from external elements.

# Answer
> -1 votes
Narcissism is an exaggerated sense of self love while megalomania is an exaggerated sense of self worth based on fantasies of power, attractiveness and other physical or psychological attributes and, therfore, all megalomaniacs are narcissists, but not all narcissists are megalomaniacs.

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Tags: abnormal-psychology
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# Question
Title: What is the difference between naive cynicism and naive realism?
I understand Naive realism as: I am objective and whoever disagrees with me is biased. I don't get Naive cynicism though. Does is stand for: I am objective and others are more selfish than me?

What is the difference between Naive realism and cynicism? Is one a subset or consequence of the other?

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

Unsure what is implied by naive, however, the synonyms are:

* **Cynicism**: disbelief, disenchantment, disillusion, distrust, doubt, doubtfulness, dubiety, incredulity, irony, mistrust, negative\_thinking, negativity, nihilism, pessimism, sardonicism, scepticism, scoffing, suspicion, and unbelief.
* **Realism**: accuracy, authenticity, clear-sightedness, common\_sense, faithfulness, fidelity, level-headedness, naturalism, opportunism, pragmatism, telling\_it\_like\_it\_is, truthfulness, and veracity.

The visualisation of cynicism and realism according to the atlas approach are shown below. Optimism, pessimism, altruism and sadism are also included for the purpose of comparison:

In answer to your question, cynicism is both submissive and anti-social. It is associated with the emotions of anxiety and fear. Realism is neither dominant or submissive and is more associated with the emotions of stability and harmony. Optimism is both dominant and affiliative and is associated with the emotions of confidence and courage.

**References**

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

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

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

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

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Tags: bias, behavior
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# Question
Title: Can anticholinergics like benztropine be used to treat Catatonia?
I found an old paper describing a case study where a catatonic patient was successfully treated with benztropine (Cogentin). However, I can't find any modern guidelines that calls for this treatment (first-line is usually benzodiazepams). Is there any reason not to use anticholinergics for catatonia treatment?

Sources:

1. Albucher RC, DeQuardo J, Tandon R. Treatment of catatonia with an anticholinergic agent. Biol Psychiatry. 1991;29(5):513-514. doi:10.1016/0006-3223(91)90281-p
2. Francis A. Catatonia: diagnosis, classification, and treatment. Curr Psychiatry Rep 2010; 12:180.

# Answer
> 2 votes
Anticholinergics by themselves commonly have sedative effects. The reason you read about benztropine being used is that it has dopaminergic activity as well (in addition to anticholinergic activity). Specifically, benztropine and its derivatives are also dopamine reuptake inhibitors.

So from the perspective that benztropine is a dopamine reuptake inhibitor, i.e. a stimulant in the traditional sense, it would probably be a bad idea to use as a treatment for catatonia. If I remember right, its particular binding affinity is significant at the dopamine transporter.

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Tags: psychiatry, psychopharmacology, drugs, pharmacopsychiatry
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# Question
Title: Difference Between Schema and Mental Model
What are the differences between a schema and a mental model? Do they overlap, or is the mental model a subtype of the schema?

# Answer
At a high level, schemas and mental models are of a kind in cognitive science. You can think of both as cognitive or representational structures that aid in the storage and retrieval of information. Schemas were introduces earlier (Bartlett, 1932), and were followed by concepts such as scripts and frames (Schank & Abelson, 1975; Rumelhart, 1972). All of these, in general, describe the way that information can be structured in the mind such that we can easily navigate complex yet familiar situations, as well as adapt to and learn how to navigate novel situations.

I usually attribute the introduction of mental models to Johnson-Laird (1980, 1983). A lot of this work was based on evidence of spatial representational structures in peoples' minds when they do things like read a story, and (since I'm a language guy), these ideas were further extended to situation models of text, which suggest we hold mental representations outside of the realm of space and time, and into causality and goals (e.g., Kintsch & van Dijk, 1983; Zwaan & Radvansky, 1998; and others such as Glenberg, Morrow, ...). I kind of think of this work as extending more abstract notions such as schemas into people's actual memories and experiences.
> 2 votes

# Answer
Schemata are said to account for generic concepts and the meaning of those concepts. Schemata are generally said to represent \`\`knowledge'' however, it is argued that the theory struggles to account for specific knowledge. Most theorists seem to agree schemata are meant to represent generic concepts - not specific facts or information. I would recommend "Schemata: the building blocks of cognition" by Rumelhart if you want to read more about this. Category theory might also be interesting to look into just to get an idea about the types of things schemata represent.

Mental Models are structures which are said to represent some aspect of the environment. Where schemata represent concepts, mental models represent an understanding of the specific actual environment a person is in/interacts with. I would recommend Normans "Some Observations on Mental Models" for more information.

One example I like is the following: You can have the concept of a house somewhere in memory. When you are shown a photo of any house or go into a house, even if you haven't seen it before, you still recognise it as a house. You can recognise this because you have one or more schemata which have encoded the \`\`concept'' of what a house is.

However, if you were living in a house, you might know the bathroom is two doors down the corridor to the right, or that the kitchen tap needs to be turned on in a particular way to get hot water, or that the second step creaks in cold weather. This information doesn't really relate to schemata - this is specific information about the environment you're in. This type of information is stored as a mental model of your specific house.
> 1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology
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# Question
Title: Theoretical Neuroscience: what tools are in your mathematical toolkit?
I believe that the following courses are a minimum math/engineering/(+cs) requirement for theoretical neuroscience research, specifically, Eliasmith's NEF/SPA approach. I wonder what other tools might be useful. Concretely, I am trying to workout the marginal utility of "learning more math just in case you'll need to apply it in some new context + improved mathematical maturity" versus "learning more neuroscience". Can you please list some math/engineering/(+cs) courses you found integral to your research and provide context?

**Math:** Precalculus, Calculus 1, Calculus 2, Multivariable Calculus, Ordinary Differential Equations, Linear Algebra (to Eigenvalues), Discrete Mathematics and Logic, Optimization and Numerical Methods

**Engineering:** Systems and Signals, Control Systems, Pattern Recognition, Information Theory and Applications, Machine Learning (Neural Networks in particular)

**CS:** Data Structures and Algorithms, Object-Oriented Software Development, Neuromorphic Computing

# Answer
Luckily, I think your list of requirements is already too long.

Your primary toolkit is going to be:

* Linear Algebra
* Probability and statistics
* python

If you want, you can add:

* Signal processing (filtering)
* Machine Learning (mostly just applications of linear algebra)

I am currently TAing at an online summer school called Neuromatch Academy. Check out their syllabus (3 week course) for an overview of tools useful in theoretical neuroscience. homepage: https://neuromatch.io/academy/ syllabus, tutorials: https://github.com/NeuromatchAcademy/course-content

Out of interest, why NEF? There are a wealth of frameworks out there, and NEF is relatively limited in its application.
> 2 votes

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Tags: theoretical-neuroscience
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# Question
Title: Does the Milgram experiment produce different results for people who believe the final voltage is deadly?
Link to Wikipedia article on the experiment.

This line in the first paragraph catches my eye:

> These fake electric shocks gradually increased to levels that would have been fatal had they been real.

The maximum voltage for the shocks is given later in the article as 450V.

Does the Milgram experiment produce different results if the person *believes* that an electrical shock at 450V is fatal? Presumably some people already believe this level of voltage is fatal (e.g. via a physics or electrical engineering background). Has it been tested if people who are told, or already know that this is fatal still continue to administer the shocks?

# Answer
> 1 votes
The Milgram experiment is makes people think the voltage is dangerous, due to the labelling and acting by the confederate 'learner', who eventually goes silent signifying unconsciousness in the least, and possibly deadliness. Despite these cues over 50% of participants ('teachers') progress to the highest 'shock' level with simple promoting from an authority figure. We are, of course, see drop-offs as the perceived danger to the 'learner' (confederate) increases, and the benefit of obedience are outweighed by the signalled danger. Of course you would have to measure beliefs about how harmful each level of shock is to see how it ties with drop-off exactly. Unfortunately, it seems beliefs about harm are assumed, and have not been actively researched. As you can see from the drop-offs its clear in some participants believe the shocks increase harm, whether those who continued to press think so.

In general warning labels are enough to create a negative emotional response for people i.e. cigarette packaging, food and drink.

What the obedience experiment indicates to some researchers is that majority of people who will continue to cause, what researchers interpret as, great pain with simple prompting from authority, due to the deferred responsibility and accountability. Of course this is assumed, and not actively measured, **it could well be that the participants did not believe it to be so harmful**, or could even see through the ruse. Interestingly, some studies in the past showed that putting other 'teachers' (confederates) in the room with the participant, could impact the participants 'shock' progression, if the confederates dissented against the authority by leaving part way through or refusing to continue. However, recent studies show that this dissident social effect has not been replicated. Which leaves question marks over why.

While individuals often believe that in a similar situation to the they would perform better than average in their country, knowledge of the experiment does play a role in how far participants believe they would go.

In summary, we assume the participants believe increasing shocks cause more harm. We do not know if those who went all the way believe the shocks were as harmful as participants who dropped out.

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Tags: social-psychology, attitudes, obedience
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# Question
Title: Do psychology deals with what others could call spiritualy?
Does any branch of psychology study scientifically what traditionally, outside a scientific perspective has been called spiritually? In the same way people of ancient times considered voices in the head to be demons and we today consider that a mental issue related to schizophrenia.

Could the spirituality of other be the positive thinking, empathy, or any other aspect - empirically studied - of the mind?

# Answer
> 2 votes
Maybe what you are looking for is the field cognitive science of religion:

> Cognitive science of religion is the study of religious thought and behavior from the perspective of the cognitive and evolutionary sciences. The field employs methods and theories from a very broad range of disciplines, including: cognitive psychology, evolutionary psychology, cognitive anthropology, artificial intelligence, neurotheology, developmental psychology, and archaeology. Scholars in this field seek to explain how human minds acquire, generate, and transmit religious thoughts, practices, and schemas by means of ordinary cognitive capacities.

Follow up resources:

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Tags: spirituality
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# Question
Title: How widespread is learned-helplessness in society?
Looking at these resources:

I'm still unable to find how widespread learned helplessness is in society. Do you know where I should take a look?

# Answer
> 1 votes
The problem with measuring learned helplessness is that while we know it exists and is related to dorsal raphe nucleus 5-HT neurons in the brain, we have no official designation of it as a mental disorder and official study to measure it. However, there is a correlation between depression and learned helplessness, so we might be able to use depression statistics in order to measure the amount of learned helplessness in society. 7.6% of people 12 years and older experience depression in the United States in any two week period and 9.4% of American patients visiting the hospital in 2017 experienced depression. Globally, over 264 million people suffer from depression and thus, they are more likely to suffer from learned helplessness.

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Tags: social-psychology, abnormal-psychology, positive-psychology, learned-helplessness
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title: Term for emotional distancing?

text:
# Question
Title: Term for emotional distancing?
Is there a medical/psychological term for changing one's vantage from 1st person to 3rd person?

An example would be focusing one's eyes on an object while working out to partly distract them from the pain – changing vantage from participant to observer.

I have heard this called 'emotional distancing' but it would seem such an important skill that I ask if there is a more formal term.

# Answer
The term you are looking for is illeism: the tendency in some individuals to refer to themselves in the third person. It can be used as a literary device, but it is used to refer to when real people change vantage point and - through a mental condition or social context \- refer to themselves in the third person, possibly after referring to themselves in the first person.
> 2 votes

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Tags: terminology
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# Question
Title: Is there a neurological difference between someone experiencing a "normal" trauma response, and someone with PTSD? Or are they on the same continuum?
I've been reading Dr. Bessel van der Kolk's book *The Body Keeps the Score.* Dr. Van der Kolk describes how, in people with PTSD, the brain actually undergoes changes in response to trauma. Their perception and interpretation of their world shifts on a neurological level.

Say a person doesn't fit all the criteria for an official PTSD diagnosis, but still experiences some (perhaps less intense or long-lasting) symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Is it likely that the same neurological changes would be taking place, just to a lesser extent?

Or is it more analogous to depression, where (if I understand correctly!) research on how the brain responds to depression isn't necessarily analogous to how the brain responds to feeling "sad" (i.e. while sadness can turn into clinical depression, clinical depression itself is a specific condition that feels different from just extra severe sadness)?

*Context: I'm writing an article about the cognitive effects of trauma on students, but most of the studies I find screen participants for PTSD specifically. I'm wondering if these studies would still apply to students who don't necessarily have PTSD, but still suffer from the aftermath of a trauma.*

# Answer
> 4 votes
First, your question pertains to two possible populations:

* "less long-lasting" PTSD is diagnosed as acute stress disorder (ASD); PTSD cannot be diagnosed until at least one month after exposure to the inciting trauma, and ASD sometimes resolves without progression to PTSD.
* "less intense" PTSD is usually diagnosed as an adjustment disorder, meaning a maladaptive response to some psychosocial stressor that somehow doesn't meet the criteria for ASD/PTSD.

> *Is it likely that the same neurological changes would be taking place, just to a lesser extent?*

We need to define those changes:

> Sherin, J. E., & Nemeroff, C. B. (2011). **Post-traumatic stress disorder: the neurobiological impact of psychological trauma.** *Dialogues Clin Neurosci*, 13(3), 263-278.
>
> > **Table I.** Summary of neurobiological features with identified abnormalities and functional implications in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder. CRH, corticotropin-releasing hormone; 5HT, serotonin; GABA, γ-aminobutyric acid; NPY, neuropeptide Y; ACTH, adrenocorticotropin; NE, norepinephrine; CSF, cerebrospinal fluid

Additionally, other studies have demonstrated reduced amygdala volume in PTSD patients. It should come as no surprise that ASD features many of the same neurobiological changes (especially hypocortisolism) as PTSD, although quantitative differences may not correlate with symptom burden.

> Marshall, R. D., & Garakani, A. (2002). **Psychobiology of the acute stress response and its relationship to the psychobiology of post-traumatic stress disorder.** *Psychiatr Clin North Am*, 25(2), 385-395.
>
> > Studies of the acutely traumatized have found that those individuals who are at increased risk for chronic PTSD are relatively more likely to experience a more severe acute emotional reaction. This includes not only the intensity of emotions such as fear, anxiety, and/or despair, but also dissociative experiences and cognitive disruption. This clinical picture, in turn, is associated with increased heart rate, increased skin conductance, and relatively lower levels of blood cortisol compared to those who will not develop PTSD (discussed later in this article). However, an interesting caveat to this generalization is that the presence of acute dissociative symptoms appears to mediate the intensity of the peripheral sympathetic nervous system response. Griffin et al. found that peritraumatic dissociation was associated with both greater severity of PTSD symptoms, and relatively greater suppression of autonomic physiologic responses.

Similarly, more recent research confirms the expectation that comparable neuroanatomic changes occur in ASD as with those seen in PTSD (particularly amygdala activation). In summary: ASD and PTSD share many neurobiological characteristics.

In contrast, adjustment disorder (sometimes referred to as "situational depression") is far more nebulous. It can be acute or chronic, and it can present in a variety of ways to the extent that its existence has been contested as ‘a progression threshold from normal human adaptation under conditions of stress, change, and loss, into the dark web of “mental illness.”’ In the linked article, John Daniels argues that adjustment disorder should be treated as a collection of behavioral responses to normal emotional states that can act as a precursor to better-characterized clinical pathologies like anxiety disorder, depression, and conduct disorder. This group of behaviors, Daniels contends, should be treated with counseling instead of pharmaceutical "brief therapies" that might be better served in combating the biochemical changes seen in ASD. There is an abundance of literature regarding the lack of rigorous study of adjustment disorder (,).

> *Or is it more analogous to depression, where (if I understand correctly!) research on how the brain responds to depression isn't necessarily analogous to how the brain responds to feeling "sad"...*

Ultimately, your analogy here is good for differentiating between the two possibilities you identified in being "sub"-PTSD (duration \[ASD\] vs. intensity \[adjustment disorder\]). Generally speaking, ASD has a similar neurobiological profile to PTSD with respect to chemical, physiological, and anatomic changes. To use your words, adjustment disorder "isn't necessarily analogous" to PTSD and rather encompasses a broad spectrum of (possibly normal) emotional responses to both acute and chronic stressors. This tracks with our understanding of other diseases: matching symptoms of variable duration are more likely to have the same underlying etiology (*e.g.* a mild runny nose lasting one week might be correctly ascribed to a host of different viral causes) as compared to symptoms of varying intensity that bear a passing resemblance to each other (*e.g.* rhinorrhea caused by a cluster headache doesn't implicate a virus).

You may find additional pertinent information on (and in the citations of) the Wikipedia pages for PTSD, ASD, and adjustment disorder.

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Tags: brain, neurology, ptsd, trauma
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# Question
Title: Length of questionnaire for long-string analysis
I have a dataset that I am trying to screen for careless responding. I am having a little trouble finding research on what is the minimum length that a questionnaire needs to be in order to do long string analysis. Huang et al. (2012) suggest using a cut-off of people who answer the same on equal or greater than half the length of the scale. This seems problematic for shorter scales, for example, if someone answers 3 answer the same on a 6 item scale, they would be flagged. Particularly if there are no reversed items in the scale. Curran (2016) mentions that a 20 item scale might be problematic because it is too short, but the paper they cite doesn't explain this or what would determine a scale that is too short.

I was wondering if someone might have some insight on this or some papers I should refer to. Thank you for reading!

# Answer
> 1 votes
Here are a few general principles that I would apply:

Does the scale have a mix of positively and negatively worded items? If so, you'd need fewer items to identify strange cases. If it is all positively worded, then it's possible that someone could for example agree to a fairly large number of items.

Does it measure multiple constructs or does it measure a single dimension? If it measures more than one dimension (e.g., like a five factor personality test), then you'd expect to see more diversity in responses.

From first principles, it can be helpful to consider whether there is any conceivable reason to provide such a sequence of responses that would reflect conscientious survey completion.

You may also want to think about your survey design and the incentive structure to consider what incentives there are to respond in given way. Some survey designs make that mode of responding more efficient.

Another general strategy is to calculate an index and plot the distribution of cases on that index. If you see a break in the histogram, this can suggest that a discrete process (i.e., non-conscientious responding) has caused the data on the other side of the break. This can be helpful when looking at things like survey completion times. In the case of providing only one response option to a set of items, you can obtain a count of the number of response options and tabulate and look to see whether the vast majority provide all the responses. Alternatively, if it looks like a common response type, then you'd be less likely to conclude that it is problematic.

Here is one way to get this in R assuming `data` is your dataset and `items` is a vector item names.

```
data$unique_responses <- apply(data[,items], 1, function(X) length(unique(X))
table(data$unique_responses)

```

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Tags: data, survey
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# Question
Title: Applying the "easy to difficult" approach in car driving lessons
I've been wondering, why isn't the "easy to difficult" approach the norm in car driving lessons. For example, first learning all that can be learnt on a car simulator, then driving a simplified, low speed electric vehicle (like a kid electric vehicle) and only last riding a normal training car.

Isn't this done because no one has cared to set it up this way or rather because it would be inefficient as a learning approach?

# Answer
Probably because it would be inefficient.

Given the right conditions, learning to drive can be a risk-minimal activity. If you start in a quiet neighbourhood or stretch of road with no traffic, and let the learner experiment with the pedals, gears etc. on their own time, then they're learning directly the same skills they'll need to know when driving for real. If you learn on a simulator, however, you won't be learning real driving - you won't know how people will react in reality until you get on the road.
> 0 votes

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Tags: learning
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# Question
Title: Starting academic textbook/survey article for the field of persuasive communication?
I am quite interested in this topic and trying to find rigorous academic sources. The Wikipedia link of persuasive speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persuasive\_speech is not relevant to this academic field.

I am not sure if the Wikipedia page of "persuasion" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persuasion is about the field of "persuasive communication". What text/article can I start to read in order to get a big picture of the organization of this field and some recent advances?

# Answer
> 2 votes
I would like to suggest the classic and pioneer book in the field of communication and pursuasion by Daniel H. Pink.

**To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others**

The book not only contains the basics of pursuasions but also explains in detail, why and how things work. Its a master piece! Hope you would enjoy it.

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Tags: social-psychology, reference-request, communication, persuasion
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# Question
Title: How do you interpret the MSe and partial eta squared reported with an F-statistic?
In my area of psychology we report the results of a repeated measures ANOVA with 1 within subjects independent variable as follows:

F(2,60) = 120.29, MSe = 173.09, p\<0.05, ηp2 = 0.78

I understand this results means that the main effect of the independent variable was significant, but what do the MSe and ηp2 each tell us? What would be considered "good" values for these terms?

Thanks!

# Answer
The outputs of statistical analyses are not "good" or "bad", except that they are definitely bad no matter what numbers you get if you've done your analyses incorrectly, and good if you've chosen an appropriate model, gathered enough data, and avoided statistical pitfalls like p-hacking.

1. Always report actual p-values, rather than "p\<0.05". The only exception is for very small p-values (e.g., p\<0.0001).
2. MSE, the mean squared error, is not easy to interpret by itself. Its range of values completely depends on your measurement scale. For models fit to the same data, a smaller MSE is "better", but it's more complicated than that and there are better methods for model selection (but also problems with model selection generally).
3. Effect sizes like the partial eta squared depend entirely on the field and type of data being analyzed. Effect sizes that are large in one context may be considered small in another. Partial eta squared measures how much variance is explained by your predictor divided by how much variance is unexplained (plus the numerator), so values closer to 1 mean a bigger effect. 0.78 is usually quite a large effect in psychology, since many measures in psychology depend on individual factors that are hard to capture. Again, however, that isn't necessarily true in every single case.
> 1 votes

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Tags: statistics
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# Question
Title: Asking "What's wrong in you life?" → Person sees more problems
I think if you ask a person "What's wrong in your life?" several times (for example monthly) the person starts to focus on negative things.

Maybe questions like this can have a negative outcome. The person will focus on (maybe even search) things which are negative. These questions might influence his attention. And finally the person might get depressed or the relationship gets worse.

I am new to psychology. Is there a term for this? Or are there researches on this topic?

Similar questions:

* What is causing you stress?
* What do you dislike at your workplace?
* What annoys you most about your spouse?

# Answer
> 1 votes
This is priming effect. There are some experiments closely related to your observation:

*Strack, F., Martin, L.L. and Schwarz, N. (1988), Priming and communication: Social determinants of information use in judgments of life satisfaction. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol., 18: 429-442. doi:10.1002/ejsp.2420180505*

In this paper, the significant change in correlation between happiness and subject of previously asked question was observed, as against to the same question asked after the question about happiness.

Also framing effect can be related to your question: the way which question about person's life is asked can change the expected answer to the question (along with temporal opinion about given subject). When the process is repetitive, it can factor into more permanent change.

*Tversky, Amos; Kahneman, Daniel (1981). "The Framing of decisions and the psychology of choice". Science. 211 (4481): 453–58. doi:10.1126/science.7455683*

Related to this is also confrmation bias - in case of a question about some negative aspects of some subject (in this case life), more negative memories about it is primed, what substancially changes the way we process the subject

*Nickerson, Raymond S. (June 1998), "Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises", Review of General Psychology, 2 (2): 175–220, doi:10.1037/1089-2680.2.2.175*

# Answer
> 2 votes
Q: Would sparsely repeated negative prompts have negative long-term outcomes?

A: Probably not, but more research would be needed to provide a definitive answer.

Norem & Chang (2002) argue that how negative (or positive) cognitions affect individuals depends on their predisposition. For example, a negative prompt given to someone with unrealistic optimism might call their attention to potential areas of improvement in their life otherwise overlooked, and lead to improved outcomes. Another perspective is self-affirmation theory, which suggests that healthy individuals would simply counterbalance negative prompts with positive thoughts - such as "there is much more going well in my life" or "others are doing even worse" - see also self-enhancement for a similar effect.

Another interesting suggestion comes from a classic experiment (Wilson et al, 1984), in which subjects were asked about their romantic relationships, and the mere act of making explicit their previously implicit attitudes changed those attitudes. This effect happens irrespective of valence - that is, asking to "Describe your spouse" potentially has the same effect as asking "What annoys you about your spouse?" - and is not affected by repetition - attitudes did not change significantly from being asked the same questions again in multiple sessions. Crucially however, changes in attitude did not result in outcome changes: There was no difference in breakup rate at followup. On the other hand, other studies (eg, Rubin & Mitchell, 1976; Veroff, Hatchett, & Douvan, 1992) found that such questions can affect marital satisfaction, and may accelerate its progression (strengthening or weakening it faster, again irrespective of valence).

**Notes about domain specificity:**

I am not aware of an experimental paradigm that could be used to test this specific question - ie, I don't know why any researcher would want to test if they can cause depression or other life problems in subjects, or what ethics review board would approve it. There are studies that look at long-term outcomes of positive prompts (eg, "What's going well in your life?"), but research in general suggests that positive and negative cognitions are independent (eg, Macleod & Moore, 2000), so we could not assume that negative prompts produce opposite reactions.

Furthermore, cognitions (both positive and negative) come in many flavours - referring to the past (eg, "What has gone wrong in your life?"), counterfactuals (eg, "What could have gone better in your life?"), future directed thinking (eg, "What will go wrong in your life?") also known as optimism/pessimism, and others. Unfortunately again, these often appear as different constructs with independent outcomes, so studies looking at any of these would not necessarily inform us about the type of questions you have in mind.

Priming is yet another related construct that does not usually look at long-term outcomes. In a typical affective priming paradigm for example, subjects may be primed with brief exposure to the words "failure" or "success", and then asked "How are things going in your life?" to see if they describe positive or negative aspects of their life more often. Priming effects are not believed to last very long - on the order of seconds (eg, Hermans, De Houwer & Eelen, 2001).

# Answer
> 1 votes
Perhaps psychological priming. Three links below.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming\_(psychology)
2. Loizou, G., & Karageorghis, C. I. (2015). Effects of psychological priming, video, and music on anaerobic exercise performance. Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports, 25(6), 909-920. https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.12391
3. Loersch, C., & Payne, B. K. (2016). Demystifying priming. Current Opinion in Psychology, 12, 32-36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.04.020

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Tags: depression, attention
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# Question
Title: Are we biased against other people's suggestions?
Recently, I have realized that whenever my friends suggest me a movie or a tv show to watch, there is an instinctive response inside me that always tells me to not try the suggestion. I then realized that this is also true when it comes to books and music. I later told my friend this and he told me that he always has the same reaction whenever I suggest something to him. I do not think lowly of his opinions in any way and our taste has many things in common. The same thing goes for him. Interestingly, even after we have acknowledged this reaction, it is still present whenever a suggestion is raised by either one of us.

My only guess is a sense of pride over what I like but I am not too sure. I was just wondering whether it is a common phenomenon where we are instinctively biased against others' suggestions in clearly subjected matters such as movies, books, or music genres or not. If yes, then what are the ways to minimize this reaction?

# Answer
It can be caused by reactance - automatic opposite response preventing actions that threatens behavioral freedom. You can find more about reactance in:

*Baron, Robert A.; et al. (2006). Social Psychology. Pearson. ISBN 9780205444120.*

*Roeckelein, J. E., ed. (2006). "Reactance theory". Elsevier's Dictionary of Psychological Theories. Elsevier. pp. 507–508. ISBN 9780080460642.*
> 0 votes

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Tags: bias, behavior
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# Question
Title: What's the psychological concept behind mobile game design and marketing?
I see a very common trend in how every mobile game is being designed and advertised on the market.

The common features are (not limited to):

1. Very cartoony graphics (big heads small bodies)
2. Characters standing on the side of every presentation screenshot
3. Overblown attitude of characters, characters show very exaggerated facial expressions whether it be angry or classy.
4. Very simplistic captions and feature descriptions like "choose your weapon", "kill your enemy", "build your empire"
5. Flashy graphics with colourful and glowing stuff, often exaggerated to the levels that its visually overwhelming

I am currently clueless how such marketing and design appeal to anyone? Is it aimed at children (by eventually making their parents pay for in game purchases)? Personally for me its quite repulsive, but since every other game is following it they must be doing something right?

# Answer
> -1 votes
Old question, but still relevant. I think that the success of these kind of simple (and stupid?) games have several explanations but the game makers are less interested in why simple and stupid games are very financially successful and instead they just follow the trend.

It is not only games but also many other products and marketing which are created in this way: Simple and often stupid. Simplicity has advantages because the customer and consumer has limited time and limited energy to learn the new thing, and if it were a complicated advanced computer game where you have to fly around in deep space for a week before anything ever happens, then your brain would not receive a reward and you would get bored (like I got). On the contrary if the game quickly rewards you and is simple to learn then it becomes more addictive.

The cuteness of game characters has been around for long and in Japan many products are created and marketed with cuteness which has been successful now also in the Western world.

There was a major hit game called Candy Crush saga which is very simple, tries to look cute and it rewards the player almost directly just when you get three in a row...That way it will be tempting for the consumer to continue because you got rewarded. Compared to more complicated games which are more difficult to learn.

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Tags: social-psychology, conditioning, neuromarketing
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# Question
Title: Is there a scientific explanation for dramatic body shaking and trembling in religious settings? (see videos for illustrative examples)
Basically the title. I would like to know if there are scientific studies on the phenomenon of experiencing sudden body shaking and trembling in religious settings, usually in response to the command of a person who represents a religious authority. Please take a look at the following examples for illustrative purposes: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Many people claim they are the result of a supernatural influence acting upon these individuals. Here are some quotes from first-hand experiencers of the phenomenon:

* Testimony 1: this is by far the best testimony I know of. The context is the Brownsville Revival. In the video a lady testifies about her experience of body shaking and trembling allegedly as a manifestation of the Holy Spirit acting upon her. In fact she begins to shake and tremble on camera as she is narrating her testimony. At 6:46 the lady and the preacher begin to talk specifically about the causes of her tremors. At 7:12 she says "\[...\]like right now, **I think the Glory of God is so strong up here, my body can't really take it and that's why I'm doing this** \[...\]"
* Testimony 2: The testimony as a whole is powerful, but regarding body shaking and trembling at 4:54 the guy describes his experience. Here a quote: "\[...\] my body started doing things that defied metaphysics, **my body started doing things that I couldn't explain**. **I started levitating and bouncing off of the chair I was sitting in like a jack hammer** \[...\]"
* Testimony 3: "\[...\]I felt an electricity, a fire\[...\]" followed by the girl trembling and fainting in reaction to the command of the preacher. Then the preacher says "The power of God is the kingdom of God manifesting in our midst\[...\]".
* Testimony 4: "\[...\]I felt an electricity all through my body, in all of my joints\[...\]", followed by the woman trembling and fainting in reaction to the command of the preacher (just like in the previous testimony).
* Testimony 5: "\[...\]I felt a heat, and I felt a peace\[...\]", followed by the woman trembling and fainting in reaction to the command of the preacher (again).
* Testimony 6: "\[...\]I felt a vibrating that I'm feeling right now\[...\]", followed by the guy fainting and feeling a sort of ecstasy based on his facial expression, in response to the preacher's command.
* Testimony 7: "\[...\]I was burning all over, and I felt so free, He just embraces you and makes you feel so loved\[...\]", followed by the guy losing the equilibrium and fainting, in response to the preacher's command.

Many of these videos pertain to Andres Bisonni's ministry, who has run dozens of "miracle crusades" around the world. In this video he claims that his ministry is about "signs, wonders and miracles" and in this video he claims that his ministry started with a supernatural encounter with the Holy Spirit that changed his life. Andres Bissoni has a YouTube Channel with more than 375K subscribers, from which I borrowed most of the example videos above. Most of these videos are highlight video clips from "miracle crusades" and "Holy Spirit revival meetings" and are intended to showcase "the power of God". In particular, most of those highlight clips show instances of dramatic body shaking and trembling, so the claim that they are supernatural is obvious.

Likewise, Example C took place in an evangelistic campaign in Mexico led by the Hispanic pastor and evangelist Juan Carlos Harrigan, who also has a YouTube Channel with over 1 million subscribers. In the video the preacher says in Spanish "\[...\] está muy fuerte la unción sobre ella, agárrenla, está muy fuerte \[...\]" which in English translates to "\[...\] the anointing over her is very strong, hold her, it's very strong \[...\]", meaning that the dramatic body shaking and trembling the girl experienced is allegedly the result of God's anointing being poured over her.

So we have live recordings of people dramatically shaking and trembling, multiple first-hand testimonies and at least two very influential preachers claiming these manifestations are supernaturally caused.

So, are these manifestations necessarily of supernatural origin? Is the supernatural the only "reasonable" explanation? Are there scientific explanations? Are there scientific studies explaining the mechanics behind this phenomenon, rendering the "supernatural explanation" unnecessary?

Extra points to be given

1. @PaulJohnson in Skeptics.SE objects that the question for necessity is trivially answerable with no since in principle everyone could be a paid actor, which would explain away everything. Although I agree with him in principle, in all honesty I really doubt this is the case. If these preachers have been hiring actors to fake these manifestations for so many years, by now there would be whistleblowers exposing them (e.g. someone saying "this preacher is a scammer, he hired me to perform in front of the audience"), but so far I haven't come across a single case (I'm talking about Andres Bisonni and Juan Carlos Harrigan specifically, I know there are scammer preachers out there).

Moreover, even children are experiencing this (like here, here, here, here), very old people (like here, here) and even prison inmates, and I really doubt they are all paid actors. So there are clearly sincere people experiencing this stuff, and I don't find it reasonable to gratuitously disregard the phenomenon claiming they are all faking it.
2. @PaulJohnson in Skeptics.SE also mentioned mass psychogenic illness, which is very interesting, and I thank him for sharing that, but I would really love it if he could elaborate more on that in a formal answer to the question (I wish it was reopened) instead of lightly mentioning it in the comment section. However, looking at the symptoms table in the article, none of the symptoms in the table corresponds to dramatic body shaking or trembling, the closest one is "nervousness" but equating that to *"feeling a fire and electricity through your body that makes you shake and tremble, accompanied by feelings of love and peace"* is a little bit of a stretch.
3. @TonyMobbs presents two candidate hypotheses: H4) Conformance to social norms and H8) Attention seeking (since the other hypotheses were dismissed). These hypotheses in essence assert that people are actors intentionally faking it all (in H4 out of peer pressure, in H8 out of love for attention). In other words, H4 and H8 are equivalent to the "Paid Actors" hypothesis, except that without the "Paid" part (since the incentive is other than money). Although in principle this could explain the outer behavior (shaking, trembling, etc.), it fails to explain the multiple reports of very strong sensations and emotions that seem to co-occur with these experiences. In particular, there is a pattern of people reporting strong sensations that they describe with expressions such as **"waves of electricity", "fire", "heat", "burning all over"**, sometimes in combination with "joy", "love", "peace", etc. This is confirmed by a **peer-reviewed paper** acknowledging that people report these overwhelming feelings and emotions. Also, here is an example testimonial in written form, and here are some example video clips of this: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

There being so many reports of overwhelming emotions and sensations co-occurring with shaking/trembling, how do H4 and H8 account for them?

# Answer
The exhibited behaviours are episodic glossolalia, collapsing, fainting, trembling, jerking, convulsing, contorting, and shaking. The individuals performing these episodic behaviours report experiencing overwhelming emotions of love, peace, ecstasy and euphoria. The exhibited behaviours are inconsistent with the claimed emotions, so perhaps another way to understand the question is to explain why individuals behave in a manner that is inconsistent with their emotions. Examples of behaviour associated with euphoria do not generally include glossolalia, collapsing, fainting, trembling, jerking and shaking. The exhibited behaviours are more congruent with the emotions of stress, anxiety, fear, and confusion.

The exhibited behaviours and reported emotional experiences are observed in both religious and nonreligious settings including:

The adoption by some Christian sects of the exhibited behaviours, and other behaviours such as laughing and drunkenness, appears to be relatively recent with the "Toronto Blessing" in the 1990s appearing to be significant. In all cases exhibited, the behaviours and emotions appear to occur in the presence of, and behest of, a charismatic and captivating authority figure.

In the absence of peer reviewed literature on the topic, eight strawman hypotheses are proposed. In accordance with the principle of parsimony, the hypothesis without discrediting evidence and the least number of assumptions will be tentatively selected.

**The strawman hypotheses identified are:**

The behaviours and emotions may result from:

1. an unidentified invisible force (e.g. a spirit or god) causing electro neurological impulses that result in such behaviour,
2. a hysterical state induced by the leader or other Mass psychogenic illness,
3. a hysterical state self-induced by the individual,
4. the individuals are conforming to the directions of an authority figure and/or subject to peer pressure and conforming to the social norms of the group,
5. the individuals suffering from a Functional Neurological Disorder (FND),
6. the individuals being paid actors,
7. the individuals being in a state of hypnosis,
8. the individuals are attention seeking, or
9. a Dissociative disorder.

Each of these strawman hypotheses will be examined in turn:

1. **Unidentified invisible force/Divine Intervention**. No confirmatory evidence has yet been tendered supporting the existence of invisible forces, other than the four fundamental forces of gravity, electromagnetism and strong and weak nuclear forces. As the exhibited behaviours are widespread across non-intersecting religious and cultural groups, a further unanswered question is which of the unidentified invisible forces is capable of inducing the emotions and behaviours or whether all unidentified invisible forces are equally capable of inducing such emotions and behaviours. The Christian sects shown in the exhibited videos subscribe to their religion by way of faith, which is ordinarily defined as a belief in the absence of supporting evidence. There being no scientific evidence of the involvement of unidentified invisible force(s), this hypothesis is dismissed. For further discussions on divine intervention, see https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700802396106 , https://doi.org/10.5840/faithphil199714215 , https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2019.26106 , and https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501735295-074 .
2. **Hysterical state induced by the leader**: The presence of a charismatic and captivating leader in all the videos provided suggests credence for this option. The causes of Mass Psychological Illness remain speculative. The psychological mechanism capable of inducing a hysterical state are not yet understood and the mechanisms used by the charismatic leader are not uniform between the ghost dance ceremonies, Hindu Kundalini Awakening ceremonies, particular martial arts and Christian sects. There being no identified scientifically established mechanism capable of inducing hysterical states, this hypothesis is dismissed.
3. **Hysterical state induced by the individual**: No established mechanism by which an individual may self-induce a hysterical state was identified, therefore, this hypothesis is dismissed.
4. **Conformance to the social norms**: There is strong evidence that individuals seek to conform with the directions of authority figures and social norms. Conformance is due to the desire to avoid behaviours that would exclude them from the group(Burger, 2019; Milgram & Gudehus, 1978; Philippe & Durand, 2011; Schmidt et al., 2019). YouTube records examples of individuals participating in such behaviours but later ceasing the behaviours. These individuals report conforming to the behaviours due to social and situational pressure. It seems inconceivable that individuals who can participate in activities (in some cases for many years) that reliably induce feelings of love, peace, ecstasy and euphoria would ever seek to depart from such behaviours, yet the internet abounds with stories of individuals ceasing to perform such behaviours. The prevalence of individuals reporting conformance to social and situational pressure and the abundance of established peer reviewed literature identifying the basis of socially conforming behaviour suggests that this hypothesis is not immediately dismissable and worthy of more rigorous scientific analysis. References to individuals departing from these behaviours can be found here, here, here, here and here.
5. **Functional Neurological Disorder (FND)**: Individuals suffering FND exhibit behaviours for many years and do not describe the concurrent emotions as love, peace, ecstasy and euphoria. There being no similarity between FND and the relevant behaviours and emotions, this hypothesis is dismissed.
6. **Paid actors**: Given the number of observed occurrences of the exhibited behaviours, it seems inconceivable that at least one paid actor would not have published their experiences in either paid media or a blog. The absence of individuals claiming to be paid actors discredits this hypothesis and it is therefore dismissed.
7. **Hypnosis**: Hypnosis is defined as a human condition involving focused attention, reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion. It is unclear from the exhibited behaviours that the process of hypnosis matches the behavioural expectations of hypnosis (Williamson, 2019; Mayo Clinic) and nor does the hypnotic induction process appear to match those in the exhibited videos. For these reasons, this hypothesis is therefore dismissed.
8. **Attention seeking**: Attention seeking seems very likely given the nature of the YouTube based individual testimonies. Attention seeking and Conformance to the social norms appear to be related when the individual seeks to draw attention to their conformance to the social norm (see DOI:10.1111/bjso.12196, DOI:10.1353/jip.2021.0002).
9. **Dissociative disorder**: It seems less likely that anyone with a dissociative disorder would post (or would be able to) post on YouTube.

Of the nine strawman hypotheses, only **Conformance to the social norms** and **Attention seeking** avoided immediate dismissal. Both hypotheses that avoided dismissal undoubtedly requires more formal scientific assessment, presumably by way of surveying a substantial number of individuals who have previously participated in such behaviours.

**Note:** No peer reviewed research was identified in the preparation of this response. All research was therefore restricted to Wikipedia and YouTube (except where specifically identified).

**A sample of resources accessed:**

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossolalia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slain\_in\_the\_Spirit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundalini

https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org

https://www.restorationcounselingseattle.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention\_seeking

https://youtu.be/SwjCuyuKf3s

https://youtu.be/F6c4BxktCdU

https://youtu.be/bZIrU7m0gx0

https://youtu.be/1YTZkHKN6l4

https://youtu.be/kD3g5rg0CqE

https://youtu.be/WaT06FX85G4

https://youtu.be/FEYW2vqqNDQ

https://youtu.be/TUvNW0ZZoDw

https://youtu.be/8L1Fslf3g2M

https://youtu.be/Q5LpMxYfHn4

https://youtu.be/G22hZ81Vku0

https://youtu.be/LDRPOxqVw90

https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/hypnosis/about/pac-20394405

**References**
> 8 votes

# Answer
As the OP notes, this has been a difficult topic for Skeptics.SE. I'm going to try to answer here, but over on Skeptics this would probably be labelled as "Original Research".

The problem for Skeptics.SE is that the claim being challenged is that these shaking movements have a supernatural cause. All we can say for certain is that we can't rule out a psychological cause, but psychological or neurophysiological explanations backed by evidence don't seem to be available.

In the absence of a proper evidence-based theory of what is going on here we can only fall back on "mass hysteria", or as its more politely known these days, "mass psychogenic illness" (MPI). However this is really only a label for a bunch of phenomena that we guess are related. There is also the problem that MPI is the diagnosis used when nothing else can be found.

Having said that, Wikipedia quotes the following list of attributes of MPI outbreaks, so we can at least compare this phenomenon with it:

* *symptoms that have no plausible organic basis;* Yes.
* *symptoms that are transient and benign;* Yes.
* *symptoms with rapid onset and recovery;* Yes.
* *occurrence in a segregated group;* I think this may mean a group segregated for weeks rather than hours. On the other hand some preachers call on their congregations to separate themselves from the sinful world; it would be interesting to score these events against that criterion.
* *the presence of extraordinary anxiety;* No. However other strong emotions are certainly present, and this might well have the same effect.
* *symptoms that are spread via sight, sound or oral communication;* All three are present in these services, but that doesn't prove it is how this is spread.
* *a spread that moves down the age scale, beginning with older or higher-status people;* Unknown, but a review of videos of these events might provide data.
* *a preponderance of female participants.* Again, the videos might provide data.

The Wikipedia article also lists medical symptoms that occur in MPI. As the OP notes, shaking and fainting is not in the list. However these events are not socially constructed as "illness", so if this is MPI it is not surprising that harmful medical symptoms are not present (although the shaking and falling does bear a resemblance to Parkinson's Disease).

In conclusion, MPI or something like it appears to be the most plausible explanation for this phenomena, and a review of videos of these events might shed further light on this.
> 4 votes

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Tags: emotion, abnormal-psychology, behavior, religion, epilepsy
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title: Excitement level in OCEAN model

text:
# Question
Title: Excitement level in OCEAN model
So, I would like to know what facet regulates these behaviours / cahracteristics of a person:

* How loud and fast-talking they are (on average).
* Their excitement level (on average).

Excitement seeking (1) (2) (3) (4) is defined as facet that tells how much a person seeks excitement, but does it tells how much a person is excited on average? And if not then what facet tells that?

# Answer
> 1 votes
It sounds like an aspect of extraversion. I.e., loud and fast talking sounds like gregariousness and assertiveness. In general, extraverts are also more active and expressive.

For example, the NEO-PI-R has facets of extraversion as follows: (E1) Warmth (E2) Gregariousness (E3) Assertiveness (E4) Activity (E5) Excitement-Seeking (E6) Positive Emotions

Fast talking might also be linked to intelligence.

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Tags: personality, psychology
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# Question
Title: relationship between mood and working memory
What is the relationship between working memory and positive or negative mood as higher order affective states which can change vary slowly compared to moment-to-moment affective responses (both valence and arousal)? Are there any literature related to this?

# Answer
> 2 votes
Welcome to the community Dalek! Emotional states can guide the actions and decisions we make in our everyday life through their influence on cognitive processes such as working memory. I would like to share with you couple of sources (Figueira et al., 2017 and Baddeley, 2012) which can be quite helpful for you.

People over here tried to figure out emperically how our moods are affecting cognition processes.

## References

Baddeley, A. (2012). Working memory: theories, models, and controversies. *Annual review of psychology, 63*, 1-29. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100422

Figueira, J. S., Oliveira, L., Pereira, M. G., Pacheco, L. B., Lobo, I., Motta-Ribeiro, G. C., & David, I. A. (2017). An unpleasant emotional state reduces working memory capacity: electrophysiological evidence. *Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12*(6), 984-992. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsx030

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Tags: emotion, working-memory, metacognition, mood, arousal
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# Question
Title: Is there a formal name for the effect/cognitive bias of seeing something new
I'm wondering if there is a formal neuroscience or psychology term for the following: We see something new, fresh, and different and as a result pause just a little bit longer to look it over.

Imagine a hiring manager going through a pile of resumes. They all look the same. Suddenly they come across one that has a fresh, new template and spend some more time looking it at. As a result they might just short-list this candidate.

Would this be an effect or a cognitive bias? Does it have a name?

PS: Not a psychologist or neuroscientist, just curious.

# Answer
> 2 votes
**Salience** comes to mind, which in Psychology can be defined as...

> ... anything (person, behavior, trait, etc.) that is prominent, conspicuous, or otherwise noticeable compared with its surroundings. Salience is usually produced by novelty or unexpectedness, but can also be brought about by shifting one’s attention to that feature. Salience usually depends on context. A child would not be particularly salient at his or her school, but would be at a nursing home. The act of crying would not be salient at a funeral, but would be at a job interview. A salient feature can be thought of as the “figure” that stands out against the “ground” of all other nonsalient features.

<sub>**Source**
IResearch.net: Psychology Research & Reference</sub>

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, cognitive-neuroscience, bias, terms
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# Question
Title: Are there synapses on other neuron terminals in human brain like in Aplysia
I am referring to Eric Kandel and his experiment on *Aplysia* where he shows that synapses between a pair of neurons can be modulated by means of a third neuron that synapses onto the terminals of the two other neurons. The third neuron doesn't cause post-synaptic firing, but it modulates the activity and strength of the synapse.

This is known as modulatory input-dependent plasticity as depicted in the following pictures. For more information you can refer to this

My question is whether such synapses exist in the human brain too? If yes, are they abundant, or they are rare in the human brain, and what is their duty in brain?

# Answer
A bunch of papers I was able to dig up after a cursory search on Google Scholar strongly indicates that heterosynaptic modulation does exist in man, at least in the motor cortex. In these papers the conclusion was reached by using indirect measures, namely by making use of specific stimulation strategies in intact brains in living humans. This as opposed to methods that more directly approach the question, like histology, or single-cell recordings.

<sub>**References**
**-** Hartwig *et al*., *J Neurosci* (2004); **24**(13): 3379–85
**-** Jung & Ziemann, *J Neurosci* (2009); **29**(17): 5597–604
**-** Nitsche *et al*., *J Neurosci* (2007); **27**(14): 3807–12
**-** Zhen *et al*, *J Neurosci* (2014); **34**(21): 7314–21</sub>
> 0 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, neurophysiology, plasticity
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# Question
Title: What's the behaviour of downplaying the importance of something you wanted but didn't get called?
I've seen this phenomenon in various pieces of media, but recently observed it in real life and I'm wondering what it's called.

Basically, when you want something but don't get it, you downplay the importance of that thing.

I've mostly seen it depicted as "moody teens" using responses like "I didn't want to go to that party anyway", or "you can keep your stupid X, I didn't want it anyway".

# Answer
> 5 votes
In general, rationalization is:

> ... a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable—or even admirable and superior—by plausible means.

The specific case mentioned in the question is one of Sour Grapes, from Aesop's fables:

> The story concerns a fox that tries to eat grapes from a vine but cannot reach them. Rather than admit defeat, he states they are undesirable.

"Defense mechanism" however, is a psychoanalytic (Freudian) construct, which is generally considered pseudoscience or outdated. The more modern theory of cognitive dissonance now subsumes what was previously thought of as rationalization:

> In practice, people reduce the magnitude of their cognitive dissonance ... by changing the conflicting cognition \[or\] Ignore or deny information that conflicts with existing beliefs.

# Answer
> 3 votes
Being the mother of 2 teenage daughters, I'm going with... Self-deception https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-deception

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Tags: emotion, behavior, self-control
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# Question
Title: Metacognitive strategy in terms of cognitive science
Everything I can find about term 'metacognitive strategy' or 'metacognition' is related to teaching or learning strategies, but I wonder what does it actually mean in terms of cognitive science.

# Answer
I don't think there's a single meaning for this term, mainly because "cognitive science" is pretty broad and inclusive. So people working in different sub-fields of cognition use it to refer to different things, depending on what they're working on. A couple examples outside of learning and teaching might be confidence judgements (how likely is it that your last response was correct? etc) in memory or categorization studies, or things like 'planning to plan' in resource-rational accounts of behavior, where you might want to work out how much time you can afford to spend making a decision. These are pretty different areas, but they are all legit ways to use the word 'metacognition', as are the learning and teaching examples you mention. They're all 'thinking about thinking' in some sense.

Actually if it comes to that I don't think there's a single clean and universally accepted definition for 'cognition' either. You recognize it when you see it, it's just a vibe sort of thing. Or, to put it more scientifically, 'cognitive' is a fuzzy category ala Rosch.

Confidence/error tracking example: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rstb.2011.0416

resource-rational example: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1801.09848.pdf
> 1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, cognitive-neuroscience, metacognition
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# Question
Title: What intelligence theory is being taught?
What's the current scientific and schooled (university or alike) consens as far as Intelligence theories are concerned? Which theory / model is currently (broadly) being taught? Please be specific and link corresponding sources.

I wasn't able to find anything besides a quote from Gottfredson, 1997 and Sternberg, 2003: "Virtually all psychologists now believe that there is a generalized intelligence factor, g" ... so is Spearman's two factor theory the current basis? Or in general that a general factor exists, which rules out a few theories like Thurstones or Gardners, but doesn't specify which to "follow".

# Answer
My impression is that the Cattell-Horn-Carroll model is the most established and well respected framework. I.e., the closest thing that we have to something like the "Big Five" in personality.

It incorporates the importance of g, which is arguably one of the most fundamental ideas in intelligence research.

But it also focuses quite a bit on the distinction between fluid and crystalised intelligence. It is a very developed taxonomy based on a lot of theoretical and empirical work.

Sternberg's model of practical intelligence and Gardner's model of multiple intelligences often seem to get mentioned in entry-level textbooks but I don't think they enjoy mainstream support in the intelligence community.
> 2 votes

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Tags: intelligence
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# Question
Title: Is there any justification for viewing neurons as self-interested agents?
There are aspects of cognition that are vaguely reminiscent of markets within an economy. For example, there is specialization as well as integration within both brains and economies. One of the problems posed by specialization is how the output of the specialized module or function can be integrated seamlessly with the whole, and this is one place where economics has an answer: through the price system. (An analogue in the brain could be the amount of secretion of a neurotransmitter or growth factor.) However, economies are made up of agents with self-interest.

Is it too far a stretch to think that neurons may be self-interested in a similar way? To justify the reasoning a little bit in biological terms, neurons are eukaryotic cells. There are a host of single-celled eukaryotic animals in the wild. These animals need to function in a self-interested manner, or else they wouldn't survive. Could neurons, therefore, have co-opted the self-interested "outlook" of such animals? After all, the basic DNA may still be there, right?

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EDIT:

If anybody is interested, this video was the inspiration behind my question.

# Answer
The answer to "is there any justification" is pretty much always "yes", but that can be a quite uninteresting "yes" if those justifications are poor. People justify bad or unsupported ideas all the time.

A big difference between single cells of a whole organism and single-celled organisms is that only the single-celled organisms reproduce on their own. Natural selection helps optimize that process to preserve the cells (and organisms) which are best able to make new copies of themselves. In that sense, even multicellular organisms aren't really self-interested, they are "my next generation interested", which explains a lot of animal behavior that cannot be explained by self interest.

There are models of brain function that involve competition between neurons (like winner-take-all decision making, used both in artificial neural networks and to understand biological brains), but these algorithms aren't really "self-interest", they're just the way that a whole brain arrives at a conclusion. There is also competition in development of neurons and synapses (and in other cell types as well), but it's not really right to think of this as "self-interest", in particular because the "losers" undergo apoptosis \- that's the opposite of self-interest, it's explicitly a behavior selected in cells that kills the cell for the benefit of the organism.

Could one still use a model of self-interest to understand these behaviors of cell survival and neural computation? Yes, probably, but it would be important to think of it as an *analogy*. The neurons in such a model might behave *like* a self-interested agent, but that doesn't mean they are one.

Sometimes cells in a multicellular organism *do* develop tendencies towards self-interest, when the genes that limit and control the cells' growth are not behaving properly. These cells start to do a great job of replicating *themselves* rather than functioning for the survival of the whole organism. We call this cancer, and it ultimately becomes self-defeating since once the whole organism dies, the tumor does as well.
> 5 votes

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Tags: theoretical-neuroscience, neurophysiology
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# Question
Title: What is the scientific evaluation of Rapid Transformational Therapy?
I came across Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT), a type of therapy created by the British psychologist and best-selling author Marisa Peer, which claims to be able to cure almost every personal "problem". Hypnosis is a key element of the therapy, with the idea that the deep cause of many issues, from acne to phobias to depression to allergies, is something in the subconscious, and the solution being its acknowledgment and liberation.

All I can find online about this (very expensive) therapy is praise after praise, mostly from self help and other light sites. I have found no scientific assessment of it. There are a few peer psychologists complaining about it, but how much this is just envy is hard to tell.

I am interested in a scientific appraisal of RTT. Is it as effective as the online presence of her seem to indicate? Is there evidence about it, perhaps comparing it to other therapies?

# Answer
RTT's online forum was used to enquire as to whether there was any peer reviewed literature supporting RTT. RTT's company lawyer replied with:

> There are no current published papers on RTT that we can provide. However, we have two feasibility studies starting in September. From what we have collected so far, we have statistically significant results in multiple therapeutic areas, however we can not yet share this information as we are still working on the data collection.

A second line of inquiry was to note that RTT is endorsed by the International Institute of Complementary Therapies(IICT). The IICT also endorses techniques such as *Quantum Photo-Somatics*, *Suspended Yoga*, and *Tibetan Pulsing*. The peer reviewed literature seems to have overlooked RTT and these other 'vital' therapies. It is noteworthy that endorsement by the IICT can be obtained by a simple registration process and the payment of $179 per annum.

Given that the data collection is starting next month, it doesn't seem that any scientific appraisal will be available for a few years (assuming that the claimed statistical significance still exists when the data is collected). RTT self-identifies as a complementary therapy. Complementary medicine can generally be equated with being non-scientific.

Further to the prior comments, a very expensive placebo.
> 5 votes

# Answer
There are no research papers on RTT present on Google Scholar.

Therefore, I think it is straightforward to presume that it has not been scientifically evaluated, which makes any claim whatsoever about its efficacy quite dubious. It's up to the people promoting an approach to demonstrate scientifically that it is effective, rather than for others to demonstrate it is ineffective.
> 4 votes

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Tags: therapy, hypnosis, person-centered-therapy
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# Question
Title: Emotional Calculator; How can I mathematically show a decrease in anxiety using an emotional equation?
Disclaimer- I had asked this question in the Math stack exchange, but was encouraged to ask it here.

I'm working on creating an emotional calculator of sorts, for personal use, wherein, whenever I am stressed, I can pretty much figure out what to do to feel better.

I'll be using the Emotional Equations book by Chip Conley (summary here: https://blas.com/emotional-equations/) as a point of reference.

here's my question:

Let's take the following equation as an example:

**Let's say I interviewed for a job and now am anxious about whether or not I will get it.**

*Anxiety = Uncertainty $\times$ Powerlessness*

To make myself feel better, if I focus on the Powerlessness variable, then I can do many things to make myself feel better. For example: I could apply for more jobs, go take a walk, go for a run, etc.

However, each of those things will not help me in the same way. They will each have different "proportions of powerlessness" to offer, so to speak. So, if I go get ice cream, sure I'll feel a little better, but I'm sure I'll be anxious an hour after eating that ice cream. So, on a scale of 1-10, it will probably reduce powerlessness by 0.5 or 1, whereas if I apply for more jobs, for example, it will reduce powerlessness by 7-8.

**What math principle/logic/practice can I use to calculate how much something (eating ice cream) can affect powerlessness?**

Thank you! Apologies for the long question.

# Answer
> 3 votes
Attempting to reduce emotional responses to mathematics is likely in the realm of chaos theory.

Here is a great Robert Sapolsky Stanford lecture on Chaos versus Reductionism.

https://youtu.be/\_njf8jwEGRo

# Answer
> 2 votes
Chip Conley's ideas as to emotional equations represent an interesting concept; however, the equations do not appear to be founded in science at this stage. To represent the equations mathematically would first require to ability to measure each of component of the equations. Measuring psychological concepts is fraught with issues at this stage and a great deal theoretical research is ongoing (see references below).

Notwithstanding the methodological issues, the equations are certainly thought provoking:

* Emotions = Life
* Emotion = Energy + Motion
* Event + Reaction = Outcome
* Despair = Suffering – Meaning
* Disappointment = Expectations – Reality
* Regret = Disappointment + Responsibility
* Jealousy = Mistrust / Self-Esteem
* Joy = Love – Fear
* etc.

**References**

Adroher, N. D., Prodinger, B., Fellinghauer, C. S., & Tennant, A. (2018). All metrics are equal, but some metrics are more equal than others: A systematic search and review on the use of the term “metric.” PloS One, 13(3), e0193861. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193861

Boag, S. (2015). Personality assessment, “construct validity”, and the significance of theory. Personality and Individual Differences, 84, 36–44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.12.039

Borsboom, D., Mellenbergh, G. J., & van Heerden, J. (2003). The theoretical status of latent variables. Psychological Review, 110(2), 203–219. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.110.2.203

Nowland, T., Beath, A., & Boag, S. (2019). Objectivity, realism, and psychometrics. Measurement, 145, 292–299. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2019.05.038

Conley, C. (2012). Emotional equations: Simple truths for creating happiness+ success. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 1451607261

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Tags: emotion, measurement, stress, anxiety
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# Question
Title: Is self-infallibility a mental disorder?
I realize all people have various and complex biases, and that we all get into arguments from time to time. However, I've known one or two people who seemed abnormally resistant to suggestions that they might be mistaken. Their tendancy to distrust and argue seemed to impair them socially, to the point where they struggled to maintain relationships. This makes me wonder if "self-infallability" is ever actually a mental disorder.

Is there a mental disorder associated with being severely argumentative or otherwise "self-infallible"? Especially if it impairs one's social or academic skills?

# Answer
> 1 votes
I've not seen self-infallibility listed anywhere; however, there are a few psychological constructs that may be useful:

1. Dark Triad
2. DSM5 - Conduct Disorder
3. DSM5 - Narcissistic Personality Disorder
4. DSM5 - Antisocial Personality Disorder

Overconfidence may be a synonym for self-infallibility in the context you are thinking. Overconfidence would normally be thought of as a component of narcissism.

More information would probably be required to distinguish between the four identified psychological constructs but hopefully these four links are a starting point for further research.

**References**

Jones, D. N., & Paulhus, D. L. (2014). Introducing the Short Dark Triad (SD3): A Brief Measure of Dark Personality Traits. Assessment, 21(1), 28–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191113514105

# Answer
> 0 votes
"Hardening of the Smarteries".

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Tags: social-psychology, personality
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# Question
Title: How to run a multiple hierarchical regression with both categorical and scale predictors in SPSS?
I'm currently carrying out research for my masters dissertation and i've run into a critical issue while trying to analyse my data. I'm a psychology student looking into predictors of male rape myth acceptance. My predictors are Sex, Age, Ethnicity, Estimated monthly income and Homophobia. My criterion variable and Homophobia predictor are both scale data, while Sex, Age, Ethnicity and Estimater monthly income are all categorical data.

I have successfully recoded Sex into a 0= female and 1= male binary variable and also dummy coded all of my other categorical variables. I've now come to do the analysis and I'm completely clueless on how I should enter the variables into the hierarchical model and then how to interpret the results after. I've only ever conducted a multiple regression using scale predictors before. I am also only familiar with dummy variables when they are entered into a model alone without any other variables as this is as far as our teaching went regarding them. If anyone can give me any help I'd appreciate it!

# Answer
> 1 votes
Basically, you've got three kinds of predictors:

* Binary (e.g., gender sex coded female = 0, male = 1): The coefficient is the degree to which males are higher than females on the outcome variable, holding all other variables constant.
* Numeric (e.g., age in years): The coefficient is the effect of being one year older on the outcome variable holding all other variables equal
* Nominal (3 or more categories; e.g., ethnicity). Here you create k - 1 dummy variables (where k is the number of categories). Each dummy category is the effect of being in that category relative to the reference category holding all other variables constant.

Once you understand how to interpret the coefficients, hierarchical regression really doesn't change anything. Hierarchical regression is really the same as running a set of regression models with different predictors (they just happen to involve incrementally adding predictors).

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Tags: experimental-psychology, statistics, software
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# Question
Title: Analysis of psychology/sociology of fashion?
I'm looking for some good place to start read about sociology of fashion. I guess there are some researches about why people "invented" fashion and is it some natural for human as a biological species or it is accidentally happened social phenomenon.

Is there some social functions of fashion? I suppose that from the anti-capitalism point of view fashion cult is a just a consequence of consumer society, but maybe there some scientific studies of psychology and sociology of fashion and it's social functions?

# Answer
> -1 votes
Mair, C. (2019). Speaking of Psychology: Psychology of Fashion. Retrieved August 25, 2020, from https://www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/fashion

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Tags: social-psychology, reference-request, sociology
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# Question
Title: Difference between conditioned freezing, shock sensitization to startle and conditioned fear potentiation to startle?
I am reading paper-listed below-that talks about three terms, Conditioned freezing; Shock sensitization to startle; Conditioned fear potentiation to startle.

I understand that conditioned freezing takes place when the subject (rat) learns to associate a neutral stimulus (CS) with an aversive stimulus (US), such that when the CS is presented alone, the subject will freeze in the form of defensive behavior. However, I do not understand its relation to the other two terms listed above.

The paper citation is below,

Richardson, R., & Vishney, A. (2000). Shock sensitization of startle in the developing rat. Developmental Psychobiology: The Journal of the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology, 36(4), 282-291.

# Answer
> 3 votes
The first sentence of the abstract is:

> Rats given a series of shocks exhibit a potentiated startle response to a loud acoustic stimulus compared to nonshocked animals

Shock sensitization to startle refers to how giving a series of shocks results in a stronger startle in response to a startling acoustic stimulus.

The first sentence of the introduction is:

> Presentation of a stimulus (e.g., a tone or a light) that had been previously paired with an aversive stimulus (e.g., shock) markedly enhances the unconditioned startle response to a loud, unexpected noise. This effect is referred to as fear potentiation of startle

Fear potentiation of startle is a more general case of "shock sensitization to startle" - animals who are made fearful respond more strongly to a startling cue. This is probably something you are familiar with as a human, too: think about jump scares in a haunted house, being startled by something while watching a scary movie, a sudden noise when walking in the dark, etc.

When reading a paper you might start at the beginning and find the first places that terms you are interested in are mentioned - that's usually where they will be defined.

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Tags: neuroscience, behavior, behavioural-neuroscience
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title: IQ Heritability: from father vs mother?

text:
# Question
Title: IQ Heritability: from father vs mother?
I think on Wiki here it is suggested that IQ is inherited to some degree. But I can't find scientific information on whether it is more inherited from mother or father?

**e.g. if both mother and father have high IQ does it mean child is more likely to have high IQ then if for example only father has high IQ?**

# Answer
> 1 votes
It seems that specifics on the heredity of IQ are largely unknown today. That same wiki page says,

> Intelligence in the normal range is a polygenic trait, meaning that it is influenced by more than one gene, and in the case of intelligence at least 500 genes.

The frequency and disconnection of studies like this and this shows just how uncertain this field of science is today.

Since the genes that are passed on at random, they would be equally likely to be passed on from the mother as from the father - and the sheer amount of them would probably statistically lower any discrepancies.

However, there is one little thing that might dictate that one parent is more likely to pass on IQ than the other: IQ is partially determined by environmental factors, and these environmental factors can sometimes be manipulated by the parents - and this manipulation may depend on the parents' intelligence. For example, according to this article, infant massages can improve intelligence. It is quite possibly true that a more intelligent parent is more likely to find and notice this information. But perhaps it is also true that a father is generally more likely to accept and use this information than a mother, or vice versa. This would mean that one parent finding out this method to improve the baby's IQ would have more of an effect than the other one finding out.

Of course, this is only speculation, and this is clearly not strictly genetic, but it points to the possibility of one gender's IQ mattering more to the baby's development than the other's.

But with your example question, yes, that would probably be more likely, since that means there are more likely to be more IQ-related genes passed on.

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Tags: measurement, intelligence, iq
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title: Basic Question on Jungian Archetypes

text:
# Question
Title: Basic Question on Jungian Archetypes
I am reading "Psychology by Sandra E. Hockenbury, 7th ed.". The question asked What form might Jungian archetypes take in the brain? takes a deeper look at jungian archetypes but I am not able to understand the definition of the archetypes. The book defines the term as follow:

> Contained in the collective unconscious are the archetypes, the mental images of universal human instincts, themes, and preoccupations.

I understood the term collective unconscious as the deepest part of psyche shared by all humans which contain our collective evolutionary history. The book goes on and give examples as:

> Common archetypal themes that are expressed in virtually every culture are the hero, the powerful father, the nurturing mother, the witch, the wise old man, the innocent child, and death and rebirth. Two important archetypes that Jung (1951) described are the anima and the animus—the representations of feminine and masculine qualities.

Let's take one example "powerful father" it says that it is the mental image of human instinct. But at the same time he mentions "collective unconscious" but not everyone share the same image of father. I know that he proposed this example around 80 years before but still not all the humans have the same instinct or do we? What I am missing?

# Answer
> 1 votes
All this verbage, without a single answer. The archetypes are the forms with which we populate our psyches. They are only outlines. The context is filled in individually, and therefore differs individually. To use your example of "father." We can all agree upon the existence of "fatherness," the condition of being a father. Thus, the archetype "Father" arises. Yet, since we've all had different experiences of who and what that father is, and what he (to speak genetically) looks like, and how he acts, including those who have had an absent father, we fill in the archetype with that personal data. In brief, archetype equals form and is universal, context is personal and is unique.

That's as concise as I can make it. I hope this solves your dilemma. For depth, go to Jung's Collected Works, etc.

PS, to Community: I am not interested in debating this definition, and even less interested in debating whether it should exist. Oh, come now!

# Answer
> -1 votes
The editors of Jung's Collected Works point us in the direction of Jolande Jacobi's book *Complex/Symbol/Archetype* for a Jung's definitions of this term. (See the footnote in the "Definitions" chapter of of *Psychological Types*.) There is a good summary of Jocobi's discussion in the AppliedJung.com website.

To answer the question: Archetypes are essentially, Freudian instincts. Jung's position is that *something,* some energy directed in some pattern "ran" the human being before the development of a sharpened consciousness. E.g. something told him how to get food, how to reproduce, run from tigers, etc.

Jung's spin on instincts is that they do have specific forms. Some of this view he did adopt from Freud, who also wrote about the "Father complex and mother complex. Cassandra complex." But for Jung, a) instincts did not come from an unorganized "Id." But rather a highly structured unconscious matrix. b) There are many more archetypes than Freud identified, because Jung looked back into the history of mythology and religion and found them. He also found them in his active patients.

Archetypes are like the crystals that form when for instance, you make rock candy from sugar (or any type of natural crystal such as a diamond):How does the liquid sugar "know" that it's going to form into the same specific pattern every time? The liquid sugar somehow fills out a pre-existing "form".

So it is with psychic energy of all kinds: it "flows" into specific patterns, patterns which are conditioned somehow by mankind's million year history.

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Tags: psychoanalysis, jung
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# Question
Title: Why does Jung suggest that we need to defend our psyche from original religious experience?
I am reading "Psychology and Religion" which is a transcribed lecture by Carl Jung. In this lecture he mentions several times how the psyche uses dogma and ritual to defend again original religious experience or as a substitute. I understand why we might want to substitute for original religious experience, but I don't see where he talks about why we would defend against it. What is Jung's opinion on why we need to defend against original religious experience?

# Answer
> 2 votes
For a really quick and clear understanding of why sometimes it is better to stay in the container of dogma read Edward Edinger's *Moby Dick*.

Jung's position is that religious energy must only *sometimes* be defended against. The entire process of Jungian Analysis does, in fact, consist of a process of contacting one's own religious experience in a first-hand, non-dogmatic (responsible, discriminated) way. This process is what Jung developed and described in the Red Book and consists of analyzing one's dreams (which are essentially products of religious experience) active imagination, and discovering the religious energies in one's own, individual psyche. However, Jung said in many places that Analysis was not for everybody, and if you can stay in the "container" of dogma contentedly, do so. He advocated Analysis only when your religious container was broken and neurotic symptoms where beginning to appear. I.e., those for whom the old dogmas would no longer work.

To understand the power of the psyche's religious function, consider St. Paul's experience on the road to Damascus. He was knocked off his horse and went temporarily blind from having a religious experience (i.e., moving from persecuting Christians, to suddenly being converted to a Christian.) Similarly, think of Islamic religious fundamentalism; here is an example of religious energy coming up in raw form. It's not that that energy is "bad;" it is that it has not been reflected upon by the ego, the conscious mind, in a modern way, and the energy coming from the religious function is not "channeled," or "well-contained."

Consider also the numerous cults gone awry: Jamestown, Nazism, etc. The appendix in Edinger's book *The New God Image* is worth studying here. If that's the best you can do with your religious energy, better to stay in dogma. . . .

Jung frequently establishes his point of view by reviewing what others have thought and done in history. He does this to show that there is a psychological necessity and historical precedent for what he is saying. The repression or suppression of the individual religious experience has been the historical position of much organized religion, particularly Christianity, for millennia. The Catholic position has been that all believing Catholics need to "adopt the official dogma" (only Jesus and a few saints get to have a first-hand, non-dogmatic experience.) So Jung is just saying that throughout history, the need to contain religious energy in something has been found to be a necessity. (Esther Harding's *Psychic Energy: It's Source and Transformation* is particularly clear on this.)

See also Edward Edinger's many other books on this topic, for instance

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Tags: psychology, jung, religion, cognitive-science-of-religion
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title: Psychology of Friendship

text:
# Question
Title: Psychology of Friendship
What psychological constructs best model friendships, and what are some common classic and contemporary academic literature on the subject?

# Answer
> 2 votes
A few learned works on friendship:

Berndt (2002) observed that friendships can be classified as prized or troubled. The characteristics of which are:

* **Prized friendships**: intimacy, loyalty, supporting, helping, sharing, praising, encouraging. and bolstering.
* **Troubled friendships**: conflicts, dominating, and rivalry.

Berndt's analysis can be summarised visually according to the atlas of personality, emotion and behaviour (Mobbs, 2020):

Interestingly (but perhaps not surprisingly), friendship appears to closely align to the Agreeableness dimension of the Five Factor Model.

**References**

# Answer
> 1 votes
Here are some related resources:

Classic: Carnegie, D. (1964). How to win friends and influence people. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Modern Educational: infed.org. (2013, May 9). Friendship theory: some philosophical and sociological themes – infed.org: Education, Community-Building and Change. https://infed.org/mobi/friendship-some-philosophical-and-sociological-themes/

Modern with Minimal Academic Credibility: Wikipedia contributors. (2020, August 8). Friendship. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship

Modern Casual: Friends. 2020. Psychology Today. Retrieved Aug 25, 2020, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/friends

Concise: friend. 2020. In Merriam-Webster.com. Retrieved Aug 25, 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/friend

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Tags: reference-request
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