Drugs, Therapy, Placebo
The following column appeared in the Sunday NY Times Web edition: Placebo Nation By JOHN HORGAN Over the past decade, psychiatrists and the news media have proclaimed the wonders of Prozac and the rest of a new generation of antidepressant drugs, known collectively as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Now a report from the United States Department of Health and Human Services has confirmed what has long been an open secret among mental-illness researchers: the S.S.R.I.'s are no more effective at treating depression than older classes of drugs, like tricyclics. Buried within this report is a larger and more disturbing story. During the past century, while scientists have acquired ever more detailed information about the brain with ever more powerful technologies, there have been virtually no genuine advances in treatments for depression and other common mental disorders. From psychoanalysis to Prozac, all the therapies offered so far are roughly equivalent in their effectiveness, or lack thereof. Roughly two-thirds of patients receiving any form of treatment for depression show some improvement. On the other hand, as many as half of those who don't receive treatment improve anyhow. The most common therapy in the first half of this century was the talking cure, popularized by Freud. There are now hundreds of talking cures, from Jungian dreamwork to cognitive behavioral therapy. Although each is touted as an improvement over its predecessors, scientific tests have found that all psychotherapies are basically equal. The advent of drugs like tricyclics in the 1950's was initially seen as an enormous advance beyond psychotherapy in treating depression. In fact, various studies say that antidepressants and psychotherapy produce more or less the same outcomes. The new report, summarizing many studies, concludes that about 50 percent of severely depressed patients taking the drugs improve, versus 32 percent of those taking a placebo. Even this apparent advantage may be illusory, according to researchers like Roger Greenberg, a psychologist at the State University of New York Health Science Center at Syracuse. Clinical trials are supposedly double blind: neither the test subjects nor the researchers are told who is receiving the drug and who is receiving a placebo. But because all psychiatric drugs have side effects -- like dry mouth, constipation and sexual dysfunction -- both patients and researchers invariably see through the double blind, according to Dr. Greenberg. When patients realize they are taking the real drug, the placebo effect is especially strong, particularly if they have read books and magazine articles lauding the medication. At least one prominent psychiatrist, Walter Brown of Brown University, has proposed that placebo pills be the initial treatment for patients with mild or moderate depression. Physicians would tell patients, in effect, "These pills have no active ingredients, but studies show they help in many cases." Dr. Brown cites evidence that patients will respond to placebo pills even after being told this. A more time-tested method for achieving relief was highlighted by a recent study at Duke University. Researchers examined 87 depressed, elderly patients, about half of whom were receiving psychotherapy, antidepressants or a combination of the two. The best predictor of improvement was not these expensive remedies but the "religiosity" of the patient. The psychiatrist Jerome Frank warned in his classic book "Persuasion and Healing" that the placebo effect might be the primary factor underlying all psychiatric remedies. The latest research supports Dr. Frank's finding: psychiatrists, psychologists and other "scientific" healers are really exploiting the power of human belief, just as shamans and witch doctors do. John Horgan is the author of ``The End of Science'' and the forthcoming ``The Undiscovered Mind.'' Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Ambidexterity, Neuroscience, Science Religion
The March/April, 1999 issue of The Sciences (published by the New York Academy of Science)has a number of interesting articles, some of which touch on topics that appeared in Tips recently. There is a short piece discussing an article from the November issue of Neuropsychologia that demonstrated that people who are naturally ambidextrous had 10% lower reading scores and 15% lower math scores than those who were right handed or left handed. The participants were tested when they were 11 for math, reading and handedness. Some brain speculations are presented for an explanation but no brain data were examined, as far as I can tell. The author talks about "hemispheric indecision" as a possible cause of the problem. To quote the article "Crow now suggests that ambidexterity arises when a developing brain takes too long to decide which hemisphere to favor." The journal also has an interesting article by Richard DeGrandpre, a psychologist and author of Ritalin Nation: Rapid-Fire Culture and the Transformation of Human Consciousness. In the article he complains that "Many neuroscientists are all too quick to call a blip on a brain scan the reason for behavior." He criticizes the confusing of correlation and causality in brain scan research and the dualist assumptions of the brain scan researchers (as well as the media). Finally, there is an interesting discussion of the relationship between science and religion as part of the book reviews of 3 books written on this topic. The review is by Margaret Wertheim, who has written herself about the relation between science and religion. I recommend all of these as good reads! Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Group Differences in Intelligence
I attempted to send this once already but it apparently got lost in cyberspace. The January (vol.54, #1) issue of American Psychologist has a fascinating article by James Flynn (of Flynn effect fame) titled Searching for Justice: The Discovery of IQ Gains Over Time. He examines the growth in IQ scores over time and the implications of this growth for heritability of intelligence and group differences in IQ. He also discusses the meritocracy argument of Hernstein and Murray. The article is quite interesting and thought-provoking, although, probably because of space limitation, hard to follow (at least for me) in a few places. I highly recommend it. Jeffrey Nagelbush Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
2 Job Openings
The following two job openings will be advertised in the next Monitor and Observers: Ferris State University - Two tenure-track positions in psychology in global and multicultural undergraduate curriculum. Succesful candidates must demonstrate potential for teaching excellence, be able to contribute to development of department, and have interpersonal and communication skills sufficient to be able to work effectively with a diverse array of students and colleagues. Positions available August, 1999. Salary competitive with other state-assisted Michigan universities. (JOB CODE PM-5820) requires at least an ABD in psyc with Ph.D. by May, 2000, and expertise in the psyc of gender, race/ethnicity, religion, human sexuality, and/or educ psyc required. A Ph.D. in psyc, broad range of teaching experience, and ability to involve students in research preferred. (JOB CODE PM-5570) requires a Ph.D. in psyc with specialty in industrial/org or social/org, and expertise in the psyc of gender, race/ethnicity, religion, and/or human sexuality required, as is evidence of quality teaching. Ability to involve students in research preferred. For more information, contact John P. Thorp, Ph.D., Head, Social Sciences at (616) 592-2735. Send cover letter, vita, unofficial transcripts, and three current letters of reference to: JOB CODE__, Human Resource Development, Ferris State University, 420 Oak Street, Prakken 150, Big Rapids, MI 49307. Review of applications begins June 14, 1999 and continues until position filled or August 15, 1999, whichever date is sooner. Final candidates required to furnish official transcripts. Visit our Web page at http://www.ferris.edu. An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: Sperling (Was: Re: Sensory registers and non-foveal vision)
His web page is: http://www.socsci.uci.edu/cogsci/personnel/sperling/staff/sperling/ Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 10:58:22 -0600 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "Patrick O. Dolan" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: "Patrick O. Dolan" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Sperling (Was: Re: Sensory registers and non-foveal vision) He was at NYU until the early 90s (he was gone by the time I got there in 1993) then he and his wife Barbara Dosher went to UC Irvine. He is still quite in vision research. Pretty impressive considering the work he is best known for outside of vision was done 40 years ago. Patrick At 08:27 AM 1/22/99 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In regard to the discussion of Sperling's study, does anyone know what ever became of him? The study is such a classic in cognitive psychology, but I have never seen his name mentioned anywhere else. (Of course, this could be due to the fact that I am not a cognitive psychologist.) Th reason I ask is that, when talking about the study, I have never been able to tell students what he did in later years. Jeff Ricker Scottsdale Community College Scottsdale AZ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Patrick O. Dolan, Ph.D Voice: 314-935-8731 Department of Psychology Fax:314-935-7588 Washington University Campus Box 1125 One Brookings Drive St. Louis, MO 63130-4899 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: take away suggestion/placebo and what does that leave?
I am troubled by the suggestion that we should not "expose" ineffective treatments for fear of undermining the placebo effect. I have no trouble with the short-term implications. After all, if there really is no effective treatment for a problem, and if the ineffective treatment really does no harm and really does help some people to feel better, then there is certainly no problem I can see with using the placebo effect. Physicians have been doing for years, at least so I have been told. Yet what about the long-term implications of a policy of not publicizing that a treatment does not work. I assume the students would want the scientific community to continue testing and developing new treatments. After all, we all want treatments that work. But if the scientists find that a treatment does not work, what are the scientists to do? Keep it to themselves so that the information will not disrupt the placebo effect? Only share it with other scientists? How would that even be possible, in our modern, media-rich society? And would these scientists even be considered ethical if they kept the information to themselves? I do not think so. Another concern I have is the safety issue. How do we know that ineffective treatments are safe? Who is going to spend the resources to test a treatment for safety, once it is determined that it does not work? I believe that not uncovering ineffective treatments has very dangerous implications for all of society. Although I do not think the above is what I would have said to my class if I had received that question, before I had a chance to think about it, I believe I would say this now. Jeffrey Nagelbush Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: savant syndrome
If you are interested in the Savant Syndrome I would suggest you check out the following: Miller, L.K. (1999). The Savant Syndrome: Intellectual Impairment and Exceptional Skill. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 31-46. Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 16:21:29 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Sylvester [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Michael Sylvester [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: TIPS [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: idiot savant it is assumed that some of those individuals have brain parts that are overdevelopped (hence their mathematical ingenuity) and other parts underdevelopped. How true is this? Is there a way to explain how they do it? Btw,why are most of these reported idiots savants appear to be male? Michael Sylvester Daytona Beach,Florida __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: placebo, hypnosis, warts
I hypnosis actually helps get rid of warts, does anyone have an notion of the mechanism that is involved? Jeff Nagelbush Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
goleman Tv Alert
The program guide for one of the public tv stations I get shows a Daniel Goleman special about Eomtional Intelligence in early March (actually March 1). I do not know if this is national so if interested, I would "check my local listings." Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Writing for Health
The following interesting article appeared in today's (Wednesday's) electronic version of the NY Times. Writing About Trauma Is Seen to Ease Illness in Some By ERICA GOODE In a powerful demonstration of how intimately mind and body are linked, researchers have shown that writing about traumatic experiences measurably improves the health of some patients suffering from chronic asthma or rheumatoid arthritis. Asthma patients who wrote about "the most stressful event they had ever undergone" for 20 minutes on three consecutive days, the researchers found, showed significant improvements in lung function four months later, compared with patients who spent the same amount of time writing about neutral topics. Similarly, four months after finishing the writing exercise, rheumatoid arthritis patients showed less overall severity in their disease. The study, which appears in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, is notable both for its size and its scientific rigor. It included 107 patients with mild to moderately severe asthma or rheumatoid arthritis, and the health of the patients was monitored using objective physiological measures. Doctors who took part in the study did not know whether or not the patients they were examining had received the writing "treatment." The findings add to increasing evidence that attention to patients' psychological needs can play an important role in the treatment of many physical illnesses, a view shared by many doctors and nurses but one that has only recently begun to draw the attention of the medical establishment. In an editorial accompanying the journal report, Dr. David Spiegel, professor and associate chairman of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, wrote, "We have been closet Cartesians in modern medicine, treating the mind as though it were reactive to but otherwise disconnected from disease in the body." The patients in the "treatment" group were instructed to write down their "deepest thoughts and feelings" about the traumatic experience, while control subjects wrote about their plans for the day. Subjects in both groups were instructed to write continuously for 20 minutes. "This is not an easy task," said Dr. Joshua Smyth, an assistant professor of psychology at North Dakota State University and the lead author of the study. "The time goes very quickly and you feel there's a lot more to say." The patients who wrote about traumatic experiences became very involved in the task, Smyth said. Some cried or showed other signs of emotional distress while writing. Few chose to write about their illnesses. Instead, most wrote about the death of a loved one, problems in a close relationship or disturbing events in childhood. A few wrote of witnessing or being involved in a disastrous incident like a train wreck or an automobile accident. The researchers found that of the 70 patients who wrote about traumatic events, 47.1 percent showed significant improvement in their health at the end of four months, 48.6 percent showed no change and 4.3 percent got worse. In the control group, 24.3 percent showed improvement, 54.1 percent showed no change and 21.6 percent got worse. Smyth, who conducted the research with colleagues while at the State University of New York at Stony Brook School of Medicine, said the results were meaningful not only because significantly more patients who wrote about stressful experiences improved but also because many patients whose conditions might have been expected to worsen instead showed no change. Why writing about traumatic experiences works remains unclear, Smyth said. Nor is it known how long-lasting the improvement is, or what factors make it more likely that an individual will improve. But Smyth and others suspect that the writing task may be effective because it lets patients synthesize and make sense of their experiences. Like psychotherapy, Smyth said, the writing allows patients to alter the way they think about an event, giving it order and structure. This process, he noted, is very
Placebo vs. Antidepressents
We recently had a discussion on TIPS of the extent to which antidepressents were placebos. There is an interesting summary of the controversy in the April 9 (Vol. 284, #5412) issue of Science. The article seems to present a balanced view of the issues. Jeff Nagelbush Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
Phantom Tastes Smells
The following was in the NY Times. Enjoy. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University If Things Taste Bad, 'Phantoms' May Be at Work By ERICA GOODE Until he bit into a piece of raw cabbage on that February evening in 1997, Dr. Raymond Fowler had not thought much about the sense of taste. The cabbage, part of a pasta dish he was preparing for his family's dinner, had an odd, burning taste, but he did not pay it much attention. Then a few minutes later, his daughter handed him a glass of cola, and he took a swallow. "It was like sulphuric acid," he said. "It was like the hottest thing you could imagine boring into your mouth." Over the next few weeks, Dr. Fowler, who is the chief executive officer of the American Psychological Association in Washington, realized that something was badly askew in his gustatory world. Everything he ate tasted like "unsalted dough." Ice water was painfully sweet, "as if someone had added three packages of Equal." An unpleasant salty sensation gathered at the back of his mouth and would not go away. When eating finally became so unpleasant that he was reduced to swigging down high-nutrition supplements, Dr. Fowler sought help from a colleague, Dr. Linda Bartoshuk, a Yale University psychologist specializing in the study of taste. In Dr. Bartoshuk's lab, Dr. Fowler's cranial nerves were tested for taste and for pain, his tongue was painted with blue food coloring and videotaped in action, his ability to smell turpentine, coffee and other odors was tested, and a thorough examination was conducted of his mouth, including the fungiform pappilae, the structures that house taste buds, on his tongue. Then Dr. Bartoshuk delivered her diagnosis: the burning sensations and mysterious tastes, she told him, were sensory phantoms, his brain's response to damage to the chorda tympani, a branch of the VII cranial nerve that serves taste buds in the front of the tongue, runs through the middle ear, and carries taste messages to the brain. The damage, Dr. Bartoshuk said, was probably temporary, and might be the result of a medicine Dr. Fowler was taking, or by a viral infection. And a few months later his sense of taste did return to normal. The most familiar example of phantom sensation is phantom limb syndrome, in which a patient continues to feel pain in an arm or leg long after the limb has been amputated. But phantoms can occur in any of the senses. Tinnitus, or constant ringing in the ears, is a type of auditory phantom. People who have lost much of their vision often experience visual phantoms. Doctors historically have viewed phantoms of taste and smell as insignificant -- if annoying -- side effects of injury or illness, or dismissed them as neurotic symptoms. When the composer George Gershwin reported experiencing, among other complaints, a persistent smell of burning rubber, for example, he was told by doctors that he had a nervous affliction. Gershwin died a few years later of a brain tumor. In recent years, however, a surge of scientific interest in the mechanisms of human taste and olfaction has focused new attention on the ways in which these senses can become disordered, and as a result, phantoms of taste and smell are receiving greater scrutiny. Though there are no precise numbers, scientists estimate that such phantom sensations afflict 1 percent or more of the population. Dr. Bartoshuk, who has evaluated more than 100 cases of taste phantoms, and her colleagues will present some of their work at the annual meeting of the Association for Chemoreception Sciences in Sarasota, Fla., this week. Because taste and smell are so closely linked, it is sometimes difficult to tell which system is in trouble. Patients who suffer from anosmia, or a loss of smell, for example, often report to clinics complaining instead that they have lost their sense of taste. But taste and smell phantoms, Dr. Bartoshuk said, usually can be distinguished by their quality. Bitter, salty, sweet, or sour phantoms -- corresponding to four basic categories the tongue can distinguish -- are always related to disorders of taste. Smell phantoms, in contrast, are usually more complex in nature: patients may complain of
Re: Phantom Tastes Smells
Judith A. Roberts wrote: Jeffrey - Very interesting NY Times article! When was it published? I sometimes like to share such reading with my students, but like to make my copies directly from the source, so I can identify it with the newspaper header, etc... - Judith Roberts City College of San Francisco I got it from the New York Times Web site. It was posted on April 13, but it is still on their science/health pages as of April 17. I hope this helps. Jeff Nagelbush Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
RE: Use of red ink
I have to say, I am amazed at the amount of (symbolic) ink that has been spent on this issue. (I know, I am spending some myself.) I have made major changes in my classes over the years of my teaching and, in most cases, the impact on the students has been minimal. So I have grave doubts as to the effect of ink color on any important characteristic of student learning. I have, by the way, used colors other than red in the past because this issue has come up before. I have not found any differences based on the color I use, but as someone points out in a signature line, anecdotes are not the same as data. Yours, in whatever color you prefer, Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University ___ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
Is Psychology A Science
I post the following as relevent to our ongoing discussion of
psychology as a science. I will leave it to others to comment if they
wish. (I apologize for the formating.)
Jeff Nagelbush
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ferris State University
Cybersex Survey a travesty
Laura Schlessinger
"Now psychology as a
discipline must step up to the
table and accept responsibility for
the extent to which it has been
propagating an amoral ethos," Dr.
Jeffrey Satinover, a renowned
psychiatrist, is quoted as saying in
a recent interview.
That psychology has presented
itself as a science at all, much less
a hard science, is somewhere
between a joke and a travesty.
Personal and group biases and
agendas (Liberating sexuality for
adults and children), political
positions ("normalizing"
homosexuality), pet causes (anger
over perceived patriarchal
oppression of women, excessive
focus of self-esteem, unrestrained
narcissism as healthy), and
downright stupid or bad research
and methodology leading to
dangerous conclusions that the
media run with as truth (such as
the media blitz telling women that
they should no longer feel guilt
for farming their kids out to day
care) have seriously damaged
individuals, families and our
civilization.
A recent, seemingly benign,
example of this nonsense is a
"survey" of cybersex - another
addition to the wealth of amoral,
self-destructive psychobabble
presented by the American
Psychological Association in the
April issue of Professional
Psychology. The study was
accomplished by using the
MSNBC Web site (gee, isn't that
random sampling of the
population?). Users who had at
least one cybersex encounter
were asked to answer questions
about what kind of sex site they
visited, how long they spent in
such pursuits and what they got
out of it.
The first thing that ought to
come to mind is the
ridiculousness of self-reporting.
What ever happened to the
psychology craze about "denial"'.)
It used to be an "in" joke in the
profession (by the way I am licensed
as a marriage and family
therapist) that if a patient did not
admit to what the therapist
"knew" to be true, he or she was
in denial. Now, self-reporting is
taken as gospel. Fascinating.
What piece of hard science
determined that switch?
As evidence of this denial of
denial, "three out of four
respondents said they kept secret
from others how much time they
spent online for sexual pursuits,
although 87 percent reported that
they did not feel guilty or
ashamed about the time they
spent online.
Huh? they weren't ashamed,
but they wouldn't admit they did
it? Oh, please.
The study's author states that.
younger females who use the
cybersex sites do so because the
Internet offers "access,
affordability and anonymity
allowing young adult women to
be more comfortable
experimenting with their
sexuality online than almost
anywhere else. They can engage
in new relationships without
fear."
What is this psychologist
talking about? Granted, a woman
cannot get physically raped by a
computer screen, but what about
psychological and spiritual rape?
Can we not consider sexually
relating anonymously to
disengaged strangers a
disgusting, superficial, false and
pathetic nonrendition of healthy,
committed love? Does anyone
really think that letting go of all
inhibitions, making oneself
vacantly vulnerable, displaying
one's evolving sexuality in a
circus ting and extracting the self
from one's sexuality are healthy
things?
Evidently a large number of
psychologists think so. Their only
caution is the amount of time
spent degrading oneself. Since
"the majority (92 percent) said
they spent fewer than 11 hours a
week visiting sex sites," the rest
need their services. They note
that "about 5 percent of the
general population suffers from
sexual compulsivity." What
science backs up that arbitrary
point? None. Ten and a half hours
a week having sexual experiences
out of the context of love,
affection and bonding is perfectly
normal and healthy, according to
these shrinks. So, I guess,
successful treatment would take
the 12-hour-per-week cybersex
user down to IO hours.
The biggest chuckle in all of
this is that this survey was done
on MSNBC as a promotion - not
a scientific study. The network
used it to attract viewers, and
notes that ". . . by their very
nature, surveys posted on its Web
site are NONSCIENTIFIC."
So why is the APA publishing it
in a scientific journal?
New York Times Features
___
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Re: FYI: Ray Fowler's letter to Tom Delay (a bit long)
Jim Clark responded to the letter below: We will seek independent expert evaluation of the scientific quality of the article and will make those results known. This is unprecedented in the Associations history of scholarly publishing, but, in view of the criticism of this study by various groups and individuals, we believe that such a review is appropriate. with the following: It is unprecedented for a reason. Such actions are antithetical to the purpose and functioning of a scientific organization. What sane researcher will choose to study and publish controversial results when they will be subjected to such witch hunts? Although we all as individuals look extra closely for flaws in articles that propose conclusions with which we disagree, it is inappropriate and damaging to science for a scientific organization to pick out articles for extra-special scrutiny. It is unprecedented for APA but not for AMA. They do it quite regularly and, at least in principle, I do not object. I do believe we are, at least in part, responsible for the social implications of what we do. Articles should not be rejected based on their social implications, but articles that have controversial social implications should be examined carefully. We have no trouble with the proposition that extraordinary claims (e.g., for ESP) require extraordinary evidence. Perhaps we should consider that possibilty that extraordinary social implications might also need extraordinary evidence. We do have to realize we do not live in a vacuum. If society does not like what we do, it may well stop supporting us. We must be particularly sure that the controversial claims we make are clearly justifiable from what we currently know. I also think that commentary on (controversial) articles is a good thing. It happens regularly in some places (e.g., SRCD Monographs)and would be useful, I think, in other places as well. I am opposed to censoring articles due to their controversial nature, but I do not think we should ignore the controversies either. Jeff Nagelbush Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
Does shared environment matter; Ganzfeld studies
During this time of few messages on tips I thought I would alert Tipsters to 2 articles I found to be quiet interesting and related to things we have discussed on this forum. Both appear in the latest issue (July, 1999, vol. 125, number 4) of Psychological Bulletin. One article has to due with the evidence for psi using the ganzeld procedure. It is a review article by Milton Wiseman and they conclude that recent research has failed to replicate the psi phenomenon as reported by Bem Honorton in 1994. The second article concerns the repeated findings of behavior geneticists that shared environment (e.g., parental behavior) is a trivial influence on many important aspects of child development (personality traits, IQ, etc.). The author, Mike Stoolmiller, argues that, for adoption studies, shared environmental effects are significantly underestimated while genetic and nonshared environmental effects are overestimated due to the severely restricted range of family environments typically found in these studies. If corrections are made, shared family environment is found to be an important factor influencing child development. While the article focuses on adoption studies, a brief discussion of twin studies is included and suggests that related problems may exist in many of those as well. If Stoolmiller is correct, his findings have a significant implication for many of our "understandings" of genetic and environmental effects and, relating this to discussions we have had on tips, to Jean Harris' ideas in particular. She relies heavily on the fact that shared environment seem to matter little to support the need for an alternative explanation for environmental effects, namely peers. However, if shared environment indeed is a formidible cause of development, then the basis of her argument becomes much weaker. Interesting stuff. Jeff Nagelbush Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
Re: Does shared environment matter
Rainer Scheuchenpflug, in response to my posting of the article that discusses how the restricted range of family environments leads to misleading conclusions about the importance of shared environment wrote: I just wanted to add that Mrs. Harris would probably be very happy with Stoolmiller's findings. She mentioned in a discussion at the Psychology Place that she definitely believes that *extreme* environmental conditions like abuse and violence *have* an influence on child development (which was a common criticism against her book, mostly from persons who hadn't read it). But apart from these extremes, she maintained that "normal" styles of parenting are very similar to each other; in other words, in the majority of studies the variance between different environments is very small, and cannot explain the large variance on developmental outcomes. So I would think she would be quite contented with the newer findings. I agree with your characterization of Harris' views but I was obviously not clear enough about the article. The restricted range is not just the elimination of extremes, but the elimination of most famillies that are not poor and all the other limitations that adoption agencies put on families. In addition, the samples are limited to those adopted families who agree to participate in the research. I would include some quotes but I am home and the article is at school. In any case, I really do not believe that Harris' ideas on extremes applies to the argument made in the article. I agree, however, to the comments made concerning Kagan's response to Harris' work. Jeff Nagelbush Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
Re: Does shared environment matter
I would like to make one correction in what I wrote below: I meant to say the elimination of most families that *were* poor, rather than were not poor. I agree with your characterization of Harris' views but I was obviously not clear enough about the article. The restricted range is not just the elimination of extremes, but the elimination of most famillies that are not poor and all the other limitations that adoption agencies put on families. In addition, the samples are limited to those adopted families who agree to participate in the research. I would include some quotes but I am home and the article is at school. In any case, I really do not believe that Harris' ideas on extremes applies to the argument made in the article. I agree, however, to the comments made concerning Kagan's response to Harris' work. Jeff Nagelbush Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ___ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
Reviews of The Nurture Assumption
The latest issue of Contemporary Psychology (August 1999, vol. 44, #4) has 2 reviews of Harris' book "The Nurture Assumption." They make interesting reading and have both interesting differences and similarities in their views of the work. Jeff Nagelbush Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
RE: Judith Harris/Bill Clinton
Michael Sylvester wrote: Now that Hillary Clinton has revealed the abuse factor in Bill's childhood as a determinative factor in his mfc ( marriage fidelity challenged), I was curious if Judith Harris may want to take a swcond look at the potent role of family influences on behavior. She apparently make allowances for the such potent influences of abuse,but it seems as if Bill's peers may not have been much of an influence as it pertains to conduct behavior. We seem to know 2 major things from what Hillary Clinton said: 1. she believes that her husband was abused as a child, and 2. she believes that this abuse is a causal factor in her husbands infidelity. Not much there to challange (or support) anybody's theory of anything, in my view. Jeff Nagelbush Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
Do Children choose parental roles?
Found this article to be quite interesting. Divided roles Alison Motluk DON'T BLAME SOCIETY. It's the kids who impose stereotyped roles on the people who care for them,according to a pioneering study of lesbian adoptive couples. Claudia Ciano-Boyce and Lynn Shelley-Sireci of Westfield State College in Massachusetts wanted to know if the experience of adopting a child differed between homosexual and heterosexual couples. Massachusetts is one of the few states where same-sex couples can adopt. The researchers asked 10 lesbian and 26 heterosexual couples who had adopted a child to fill out an extensive 20-page questionnaire. On most topics, heterosexual and homosexual couples responded similarly. But lesbian parents reported significantly more dissatisfaction with the division of childcare. Despite their best efforts to be totally egalitarian, they said that the child always seemed to insist on one parent for "primary" needs--such as comfort, food and tucking in at bedtime. Meanwhile the child treated the other parent almost exclusively as a playmate. While heterosexual parents reported a similar division of roles, with the mother usually performing primary tasks, they didn't consider it a problem. "The child chooses one parent over the other," says Ciano-Boyce, and the two roles appear to be mutually exclusive. Since both parents in the lesbian families were interested in being primary caregivers, and neither was the biological mother, it's not clear what criteria the child uses to pick its caregiver, Ciano-Boyce says. From New Scientist, 4 September 1999 Jeff Nagelbush Social Science Department Ferris State Umiversity [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: Do Children choose parental roles?
Paul Brandon wrote, about the article on children influencing their parents behavior that I posted: The researchers asked 10 lesbian and 26 heterosexual couples who had adopted a child to fill out an extensive 20-page questionnaire. This is a small sample. How was it selected? This is, of course, an excellent question which I wondered about as well. Unfortunately, I posted all the information I had on the subject. I would assume that more will be found in the New Scientist, 4 September 1999, where the article was published. Jeff Nagelbush Social Sciences Department Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: StudentU.com
If your work is subject to copywrite just because itis yours, I wonder who holds the copywrite for faculty, the faculty member or the institution who hires you to do the work? My understanding was that the notes might actually belong to the college or university. Jeff Nagelbush Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Teratogens
Does anyone have any information about birth defects caused by the pesticides used on grape vines. A student in class brought this up during our discussion of teratogens and I had never heard of it. Presumably, the effects were on migrant workers, primarily. Any information would be appreciated. And a Happy New Year to all our Jewish Tipsters and their families. Jeff Nagelbush Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: WebCT
Our school uses WebCT but I have not yet taken the plunge. One of our physics professors who is expert on WebCT has developed a series of templates to make it easier for those of us who do not want to take the time to get up to speed in the program. In fact, our department is having a presentation by him next month. Maybe those of you who are interested but having trouble could ask your campus experts to make similar templates. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Tenure-track positions
The following copy will be posted in the various places we advertise for psychology positions. Your and/or your students are encouraged to apply. Jeff Nagelbush Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University - Two tenure-track positions in psychology in global and multicultural undergraduate curriculum. Succesful candidates must demonstrate potential for teaching excellence, be able to contribute to development of department, and have interpersonal and communication skills sufficient to be able to work effectively with a diverse array of students and colleagues. Expertise in the psychology of gender, race/ethnicity, religion, and/or human sexuality also required, as is evidence of quality teaching. Ability to involve students in research preferred. Positions available August, 2000. Salary competitive with other state-assisted Michigan universities. (JOB CODE C-005820) requires a Ph.D. in psyc, specialization in educational psyc and expertise in methodolody (JOB CODE C-005570) requires a Ph.D. in psychology with specialty in industrial/org or social/org. For more information, contact John P. Thorp, Ph.D., Head, Social Sciences at (231) 591-2735. Send cover letter, vita, unofficial transcripts, and three current letters of reference to: JOB CODE__, Human Resource Development, Ferris State University, 420 Oak Street, Prakken 150, Big Rapids, MI 49307. Review of applications begins November 15, 1999 and continues until position filled. Final candidates required to furnish official transcripts. Visit our Web page at http://www.ferris.edu. -an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer- __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Amygdala Memory
A colleague of mine ran across an article in a book of readings from Scientific American (The Anatomy of Memory, by Mishkin and Appenzeller, June, 1987). The articles states that the amygdala has as much to do with memory and the hippocampus and, in fact, works with the hippocampus. The research was done on monkeys. I have never heard of this and worder if this is a well known "new" idea? Any comments? Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: Informed consent
This discussion of "passive" informed consent reminds me of experiences I had with our local public school district. A number of times graduate students (I believe in education)from a non-local university were given permission by the school district to give middle and/or high school students questionnaires on various topics. Typically, information was sent home to parents, through the children. Parents could then respond if they wished their children not to participate. I raised objections to this procedure with both a Board of Education member and a school principle. They both promised to check with the major professor of the student about the ethics of this procedure. I never heard back from either one and the procedure has happened repeatedly. I did not persue the issue for various reasons I would rather not go into but I was very uncomfortable with the procedure, nontheless. I wonder if education professional groups have different standards than psychology groups. Jeff Nagelbush Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: help with terminology
I use the term fraternal and point out its sexist nature. You could also use the more technical term, dizygotic. Jeff Nagelbush Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Michael Sylvester [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Michael Sylvester [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: TIPS [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: help with terminology Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 10:05:20 -0400 (EDT) I am trying to find a politically correct and gender unbias term for "fraternal "twins. After all,why refer to an all female twin set or a set that consists of one male and one female as fraternal. Michael Sylvester Daytona Beach,Florida __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Science and Religion
In the "spirit" of our earlier discussions of the relationship between science and religion, I offer the following web address that contains an interesting article by the physicist Stephen Weinberg dealing with this issue. http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWfeatdisplay.cgi?19991021046F It is from the New York Review of Books Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: help with terminology
I apologize for this appearing now, assuming you all received it. It was written and sent on September 27. Talk about problems with the mail service. If you did not just receive this, could you please tell me so I will know if it is my system that messed up. Thanks Jeff Nagelbush From: "Jeffrey Nagelbush" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: "Jeffrey Nagelbush" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: help with terminology Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 08:00:37 PDT I use the term fraternal and point out its sexist nature. You could also use the more technical term, dizygotic. Jeff Nagelbush Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Michael Sylvester [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Michael Sylvester [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: TIPS [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: help with terminology Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 10:05:20 -0400 (EDT) I am trying to find a politically correct and gender unbias term for "fraternal "twins. After all,why refer to an all female twin set or a set that consists of one male and one female as fraternal. Michael Sylvester Daytona Beach,Florida __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: Scientific reasoning: Not a product to be bought by students
Jeff Ricker wrote: I have been thinking more about the post I sent to TIPS, yesterday. In that post, I was wrestling with an issue that often bothers me: I frequently sense a passive resistance among my students with regard to learning about scientific reasoning and its importance in their everyday lives. But I believe that the problem runs much deeper than this: many of them seem to expect that scientists should provide them with certain answers to their questions. When we do not do this in our courses, our students seem to feel as if we have failed in some way; and they may even begin to suspect that psychology is not really a science, after all. The problem, I am beginning to think, lies in the consumer orientation endemic in American culture (and perhaps, to some degree, in the rest of Western culture). While all of this (and the rest of your post) may be true, there is a simpler alternative. Students have learned that science gives certain answers in all of their science courses. I certainly do not remember learning scientific reasoning in my high school and college chemistry and physics courses. We learned the results, what the world is like. I learned a little of the scientific method in my college biology course but it was the psychology courses that really stressed the scientific method/critical thinking aspects. Now this was quite a few years ago but I am not convinced that the situation has changed much. I hesitate to bring this up as I do not have a reference, but I recall a study a number of years ago that concluded that psychology courses did the best job of teaching the scientific method, better than the more accepted sciences. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
NonEurocentric Spanking- An Anecdote
I have a colleague (not in psychology) who is not from North America or Europe. I asked him about spanking when he was a child and we had quite an interesting discussion. This post is purely anecdote, but I believe it has some interesting ideas anyway. First, he did say that he was spanked quite a lot as a youngster. It was a common form of childrearing that reinforced the father (who did almost all of the spanking) as absolute ruler of the family. When I asked him if he thought that the spanking was a reasonable practice he at first, said yes. But I then asked him if he was raising his own children that way. Again, at first he said yes, but then he backed away a little. He said he would only spank his children as a last resort, when all else fails. In fact, he said he would spank in such a way that "it would hurt him more than it hurt the child." He even reported that one of his children did not even remember being spanked. He next said that his father did not spank that way. He spanked hard and often, although not in an abusive (physically) way. I asked him why he did not use spanking the same way his father did. He said that being in the United States made him revise some of his disciplinary practices. Not much social support for some of them. He also did not think all of the spanking he received was justified. Second, I asked if he saw his children suffering in some way because of his only minimal use of corporal punishment. He said no and we discussed the difference between students in his homeland and here in the U.S. He suggested that the autocratic family structure that the spanking he received was a part of, reflected, and probably even supported the structure of the society at large. The family, the schools, and the government were all autocratic structures, they all supported each other. Students in school where he lived often studied hard and learned what was expected but asked few questions and were not trained nor expected to think critically. Interetingly, given our struggles to teach critical thinking, he finds that American students are much better at questioning ideas than those from his home country. So when Michael says that spanking works in nonEurocentric countries, maybe he is correct. Maybe it works to produce well behaved youngsters who fit into an authoritarian form of government. And perhaps a more democratic form of discipline is more appropriate for countries that have more democratic forms of government. Some interesting empirical hypotheses in this discussion, I think. Thanks for your indulgence. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Harry Potter
I have read 2 of the books and will soon read the third. I was interested in them primarily because they were amazingly popular. I have no scientific evidence to present, however I will present my reaction to the books and the flaps about the books. Even as a middle-aged man, I enjoyed reading the books, good light reading. There are plenty of examples of critical thinking used by the main characters in the books and the use of magic does not undermine the critical thinking. It is clearly a fantasy and I doubt that many children will become believers in the occult just based on these books. Besides, the books suggest that being a wizard or witch is a genetic thing, and no training can give you the powers. So, unless a child really has some problems, I would be surprised if the child would start becomming a believer of such things, based on these stories. They are, primarily, good, interesting, exciting yarns. If we are to eliminate the supernatural, we should eliminate fairy tales, much science fiction/fantasy, etc. I bet many of us read science fiction as youngsters that included things like mind reading and other types of "magic." Yet here we are able to thing critically about the world as we know it. I also wonder why we are so afraid of children's minds. They are not the putty in our hands, or the authors' hands we seem to imply with our concerns. Children can be exposed to a large amount of information and texts and develop fine. I am more worried about children that are kept from books, than about those exposed to the "wrong ones." I also do not believe that our media is any more supportive of the paranormal than it used to be. I think it always was supportive, at least in terms of the early sci fi magazines and shows like Science Fiction Theater (I am dating myself here) and later ones like Twilight Zone and even Star Trek. In addition, there were many "psychics" on variety shows and talk shows who were not debunked. The cultures support for the "occult" is not new and is, perhaps, not good, but I do not see that as an agument against the book Harry Potter. Finally, if the reports of its effect on the reading behavior of youngsters is accurate, then the book is a positive boon to society. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Majors and Nonmajors
I was wondering if any of you who have classes with a substantial number of both majors and nonmajors in them ever give different assignments or have different requirements for the two groups? Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Internet Publishing of Notes
There is a fascinating article about the web sites containing student notes of classes at the Chronicle of Higher ed site: http://chronicle.com/free/99/11/99111901t.htm This article also can send to to an even more fascinating article about the legal aspects of the issue by a Purdue U. sociology professor. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Psychology Books
The wife of a colleague who died last year would like to get rid of his professonal books. She would like to put them to good use so if any of you have any suggestions for her, I would appreciate the help. She is even willing to pay some (reasonable amout) for postage, shipping or whatever. Thanks. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
How long should I live?
A student in my lifespan class asked if there was any research that questioned the elderly as to how much longer they wanted to live. I have not been able to find any such research but I would think it must have been done. Any help out there? Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: J. Philippe Rushton
I have heard from colleagues in other disciplines, particularly anthroplogy and sociology, that psychologists were not the only ones to receive this "gift." As a member of APA who has not received the book, I am feeling really cheated and left out! Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University At 01:36 PM 12/7/99 EST, Karl L. Wuensch wrote: Yesterday I found in my mailbox a plain white envelope with no return address. Looked like junk mail, but what junk mail. I opened it, started to throw it in the garbage can, then saw that it was a little booklet. The author's name caught my eye -- J. Philippe Rushton. Oh my, I thought, who is sending me this, on what ultra conservative mailing list have I gotten? But there was nothing inside but the booklet, no explanation of who sent it or why. I looked back at the envelope and thought the address label looked very familiar. Thinking it might be my American Psychological Association mailing label, I pulled a copy of the APA Monitor out of my mailbox, and yes, that is what it was. The number on both labels was my APA membership number. The APA has sold membership labels to some organization which has mailed out Rushton's work. I thought the mailing might have only gone to those with a divisional membership in comparative/evolutionary (the title of the book is "Race, Evolution, Behavior"), but a nearby colleague who is a social psychologist got it too. I am curious, did all APA members get this mailing? In case you don't recall who Rushton is, let me give you a retrieval cue: One of his arguments is that racial differences can be explained by the "r-selection vs K-selection" hypothesis (proposed by R. H. MacArthur and E. O. Wilson, and referring to the parameters r and K in the Lotka-Volterra equations for competition between species), which I learned in population ecology many years ago. R-selected organisms are those which rarely approach asymptotic density, so for them, the rate of population increase is the more important parameter. These species tend to live in unpredictable environments, where mortality is often catastrophic and density-independent. There is little the individual can do to delay death, so intelligent individuals would be as likely to die young as not so intelligent individuals. Evolution favors small body sizes, rapid reproduction, no parental care. Think of mosquitos and flies -- lack of parental care and brains hasn't led them to extinction. These critters don't need much brains, just lot of gametes.. Other organisms exist in habitats which are less variable, more predictable, and where populations are near asymptotic density. Smarter individuals can postpone death here. Selection favors delayed reproduction, larger body size, slower development (longer life), and parental investment. These critters need more brains than gametes. Well, Rushton applies this logic to the differences between human races. He argues that as humans moved out of Africa, they evolved away from r-type organisms to K-type organisms. Get the drift? Have you all also received this junk mail? Any ideas who is sending it out? + Karl L. Wuensch, Department of Psychology, East Carolina University, Greenville NC 27858-4353 Voice: 252-328-4102 Fax: 252-328-6283 [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://core.ecu.edu/psyc/wuenschk/klw.htm __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
The Nurture Assumption
I do not recall seeing this on tips before: For those who are interested in the ideas of Judith Harris presented in "The Nurture Assumption," there is a wonderful site that lists just about everything written or spoken about her ideas. It includes links for those entries that have internet access. The address is http://home.att.net/~xchar/tna/ I highly recommend it for those interested in reactions to Harris' work. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: scientific contributions of psych?
I am sure I will get criticized for this but I think the IQ test qualifies as a major contribution. Whatever it measures, it correlates with more other things than most any other measure we have and it also has a substantial genetic component. Even if one hates it, I believe that it qualifies as a major scientific contribution. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Problems with TIPS
To those of you who are receiving TIPS I would like to point out that there are many of us who, because of problems that are fearless leader is working on, are not now currently receiving any of the messages. If you are wondering about the reduced traffic on TIPS, that is probably the reason. Jeff Nagelbush __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Cognitive Therapy
The New York Times had an interesting article on Beck and his therap, at least it was interesting to a non-clinical type like me. It is located at http://nytimes.com/library/national/science/health/011100hth-behavior-beck.html Or just go to the Times Web site and check the Science/Health section. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Psychology and Racism
The following discussion appeared in the recent issue of Slate, the on-line magazine. I hope its relevance is obvious. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University Can Psychology Cure Racism? From: Walter Reich To: Peter D. Kramer Posted: Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2000, at 8:13 a.m. PT Peter D. Kramer practices psychiatry in Providence, R.I., where he is clinical professor of psychiatry at Brown University. He is the author of Listening to Prozac (click here to buy the book). Walter Reich, a psychiatrist, is the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Professor of International Affairs, Ethics and Human Behavior at George Washington University and a former director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Dear Peter, I'm troubled by the news that Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig ordered Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker to undergo psychological testing after Rocker expressed prejudiced views.Selig's assumption seems to be that, if the tests are said to reveal some kind of pathology, that will justify a lessening of the disciplinary action he or the Braves will take against Rocker. The idea, it seems, is that the tests might demonstrate that Rocker is, for psychological reasons, prone to holding certain views, or to expressing them, and that he therefore shouldn't be punished for them in the way that he'd be punished were he psychologically well. Instead of being dismissed from his team, for example, he might be given a lesser punishment, or none at all, and ordered to obtain psychological counseling.Neither of us knows anything about Rocker's psychological health--and, if we did, we, as psychiatrists, wouldn't be permitted, by the rules of medical ethics, to comment on it publicly. Nor should we speculate on the psychological health of people we don't know; lots of psychiatrists made fools of themselves, and abused their profession, when they issued psychiatric opinions about Barry Goldwater during the '60s. So what I want to discuss with you is not Rocker but a practice that I'm reminded of by the Rocker story and that's all too common in America, the transformation of bad into mad. One form of that transformation is the inclination to see bad behavior in pathological rather than moral terms and to respond to such behavior with prescriptions for psychological therapy. This inclination does a disservice to morality, to the concept of psychiatric illness, and to the enterprise of psychotherapy. And it allows us, in many cases, to avoid the unpleasant reality that people do bad things not because they're mad but because they're bad, that they should bear the responsibility for their actions, and that they should be punished if those actions cause harm. Wanting to see bad as mad has a long history. A number of writers have speculated, for example, that Hitler was traumatized sexually as a child and never got over it, or that he began to hate Jews because of early family experiences, with the implication that one of these reasons, or some other, twisted Hitler psychologically and accounted, at least in part, for the Holocaust. Somehow it's satisfying to explain great evil, and even simple racism, using psychological formulations. But in Hitler's case, and in the cases of ordinary racists, racist feelings and expression are far more fundamentally rooted in social, cultural, and moral factors than they are in psychological ones. We're too inclined to look for the psychological factors--to assume, whenever we can, that if a person is racist or morally deficient in some way, he may not be normal--than to accept the idea that someone we know is, quite simply, morally flawed. And we're too inclined to assume that the solution for the problem is "counseling." Such an approach is satisfying not only because it explains unacceptable behavior but also because it offers the possibility of doing something about it. Which brings up the issue of the effectiveness--and appropriateness--of attempting psychotherapy, or any other kind of psychiatric intervention, for what are really moral and social problems. I don't see it, Peter. You've written subtly and wonderfully about both psychotherapy and medication. Are you comfortable with the practice of sending a healthy miscreant for treatment rather than punishment? Until now, I've been talking about the inclination we often have to really believe, because we want to believe, that mental illness is the cause of morally unacceptable behavior. But there are, of course, cases in which all persons involved in the situation--the misbehaving individual and the organization of which he's a part--don't believe that, but decide that a diagnosis of mental illness will, quite simply, get that individual off the hook. Such cynical use of psychiatric diagnosis is, I think, even worse than its naive, if equally incorrect, use. And sending such a person for counseling is truly absurd. The desire to apply a psychiatric diagnosis to someone
Prenatal lungs
A student in my child psychology class said something that really has me puzzled. She said that when she was pregnant, her fetus was diagnosed with a heart problem. She went on that the doctor said that, in order to see if the heart was getting enough oxygen to the brain, he would somehow see if the lungs were working. This is prenatal development. How can the lungs be working in a liquid environment? Is there some "movement" that someone can be seen prenatally? I have not been able to find any answer to this. Did she misremember what her physician said? Any help will be appreciated. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Student Responsibility
We have recently had discussion concerning student behavor and the students' role in learning. We have also had discussions concerning ways to encourage students to read the material. Well, in the latest Teaching of Psychology there is a most depressing article called Compliance with required reading assignments, by Burchfield and Sappington. They measured reading compliance by performance on the first surprize quiz of the term. They tested students from 100-level classes to graduate classes, and from 1981 to 1997. Now, as you would expect, the higher the class level, the greater percentage of students who read the material (although it only reached 62% at the graduate level). More interesting (and depressing), the overall average went from above 80% compliance in 1981 to under 20% in 1997. If their results can be generalized, and I have no reason to believe they can not, they paint a very bleak picture of the modern college student. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: Black Psychohistory Month
Michael, I would love to discuss these issues in my classes. If you have any references I could read to learn about these contributions, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University Michael Sylvester wrote: -The art and science of Psychology originated in Ancient Egypt and long before Freud,Skinner and the Gestalt dudes,the Africans were already advanced in the Psychoanalytic interpretations of dreams,that they knew about the Law of Effect before Thorndike and perceptual laws of figure ground were already familiar with the African hunters - Most of Sternberg and Howard Gardner's ideas of multiple intelligences deal more with Afrocentricity than Eurocentricity. Next week : The Substantia Nigra,the melanin hypothesis and the roots of soul. Michael Sylvester,Ph.D Daytona Beach,Florida __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Mini Media Alert
Today (Thursday, Feb. 17), All Things Considered, on NPR will be doing a segment on cheating among college students. The segment apparently will report the results of a survey of college students. I am not sure that I am up to listening, butI thought some on the list might be interested. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
EMDR Therapy
According to the article below, APA has approved EMDR Therapy. I was wondering how strong the evidence for its effectiveness really is. Any info? Thanks, Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University Finger-flash therapy catches on February 21, 2000 Web posted at: 1:40 PM EST (1840 GMT) By Robert Evans (WebMD/Healtheon) -- Every night, insomnia and nightmares; every day, panic, anxiety, depression. These were the ruins of childhood and adolescence for Donna Bowers of Placentia, California, who was abused for 19 years by a close relative. Ten years of psychotherapy did little to ease her symptoms, the classic signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). "My therapist admitted we had hit a wall and couldn't move past it," says Bowers, 44. "He referred me to a doctor who had just started using a new therapy called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). Within the first six sessions of EMDR, all of my symptoms left and haven't returned in eight years." Though skeptics still criticize this unusual treatment, in which therapists wave their fingers in front of their patients' eyes, EMDR is gaining acceptance in the psychotherapy community. The approach was first developed by psychologist Francine Shapiro, Ph.D., of the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, California. While walking in a park in 1987, Shapiro noticed that when her eyes moved in a "rapid, ballistic, flicking" motion, unhappy thoughts became less disturbing to her. She soon began experimenting with ways of producing the same effect in trauma victims. PTSD occurs after frightening experiences such as combat, rape, physical assault, natural disasters or automobile accidents. The principal method of treatment until now has been cognitive behavior therapy, which involves gradual exposure to circumstances reminiscent of the trauma, slowly reducing the fears in the patient. This approach usually takes months or even years to relieve symptoms. Psychotherapy is not the only treatment for PTSD. In December, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave its first approval to a medication for the disorder. But this antidepressant, Zoloft (sertraline hydrochloride), works only as long as patients take it, and it suppresses only the symptoms of the illness rather than addressing their cause. Eye movements Treatment with EMDR involves elements of several therapeutic methods, including behavioral, cognitive, and even Freudian ideas, but in addition, the EMDR therapist induces rapid eye movements in the patient by asking him to follow the movements of a finger waved in front of his face. At the same time, the patient is encouraged to think and talk about the original stressful event. According to Shapiro, after three 90-minute sessions, at least 84 percent of trauma victims improve so much that their symptoms no longer fit the definition of PTSD. The effect of EMDR is so rapid and dramatic that when he first read about it in a professional journal 10 years ago, Steven Silver, Ph.D., a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs PTSD specialist, was skeptical. "I remember calling up the editor," he says, "and telling him that we were the victim of some kind of hoax." Silver now uses EMDR in his practice. It's unclear how the treatment might work. Some experts have speculated that the eye movements restore activity in a part of the brain that was shut down as a result of the trauma. Others believe that EMDR is simply behavior therapy dressed up as something novel. They point out that similar results have been produced by using finger and hand taps, or repeated auditory tones, instead of finger movements. "What is new is not effective," says James Herbert, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at M.C.P. Hahnemann University in Philadelphia, "and what is effective is not new." But recent research has begun to convince such mainstream organizations as the
Privace Issue
I have a number of high school students in my Introduction to Psychology class. The mother of one who is not doing as well as she would like has sent me an email about her daughter. I am reluctant to discuss her daughter's progress due to the legal issues. However, her mom argued that, since her daughter is a high school student and not a regular college student, the legal restrictions do not apply. Anyone out there know about this? Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: Alternative ways of knowing (AWK)
I guess I would like to add my perspective to this discussion. I believe that science, whatever else it is, is a way (or ways) to understand the natural world. If humananity is "simply" a part of the natural world then science is all we need to understand ourselves and "alternate ways of knowing" will not be necessary. However, if we truely need the supernatural to fully understand human beings, then science is not enough. In other words, if there are parts of us that are spirit or some other supernatural stuff, then there are parts of us that are not subject, even in principle, to a scientific understanding. (This does not mean we cannot study beliefs about the supernatural or actions people take because of these beliefs or why these beliefs are so common or many other similar questions, scientifically.) My problem with these alternative approaches are not that they are right or wrong. I have my own beliefs, but I am not so sure about them to claim certainty. My problem with these alternative approaches is their claim to an alternate way of SCIENCE. I believe the claim to science is simply a way to gain legitimacy without doing the hard work needed to actually convince critical thinkers that the aproaches deserve legitimacy. Their ways may be useful and even important, but they are not science. I would take them more seriously if this was admitted and then arguments for their importance were addressed. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Plagiarism
Below is an English Professor's take on plagiarism. It is from the Chronical of High Ed. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University A glance at the March issue of "College English": Why plagiarism is a sexist term English professors are of two minds about plagiarism. They create regulations that punish students for borrowing language from another text, yet agree that no writing is fully original. Rebecca Moore Howard, an associate professor of writing and rhetoric at Syracuse University, discusses the implications of this conceptual blurring in two forthcoming scholarly books. In a new piece, she suggests that scholars discard the term plagiarism altogether, in large part because efforts to regulate against it run counter to the political aims of their teaching. "To adjudicate plagiarism in these circumstances is to work against the liberatory, democratic, civic, and critical pedagogies that prevail in English studies," she writes. At heart, Ms. Howard's problem is that plagiarism depends on "gendered metaphors of authorship" that equate originality with masculinity and diminish the benefits of collaboration, a strategy often employed by women writers. These metaphors, which Ms. Howard locates in writing guides new and old, describe plagiarism as a kind of sexual disease that threatens the male writer and his work. Or they go further, and turn the stealing of language into a kind of rape, in which the author of the original text, and his readers, are violated. In all of these cases, "plagiarism represents authorship run amok ... and thus incites gender hysteria in the community in which it occurs," she writes. As an antidote, Ms. Howard suggests replacing the term plagiarism with "more specific, less culturally burdened terms" like "fraud," "excessive repetition," or "insufficient citation." Students can and should find their grades lowered, or even be flunked, for these offenses. But Ms. Howard calls on fellow scholars to embark on the "revisionary/revolutionary" task of making room for less novelty. "Let's get out of the business of valorizing an elusive originality, criminalizing imitation, and reinforcing prejudices of gender and sexual preference," she concludes. "Let's leave sexual work out of textual work." The article is not available online, but information about the journal may be found at http://www.ncte.org/ce/ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Nervous Laughter
A colleague in another department asked me a question about nervous laughter. I gave her some answer but I was only speculating. Do we know why some people react with laughter to pictures of, for example, horrible injuries? Any help will be apprediated. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Psychology and the Unabomber
I found the following interesting and worth sharing: A glance at the June issue of "The Atlantic Monthly:" Did Harvard create the Unabomber? Alton Chase, who is working on a biography of the Theodore Kaczynski, widely known as the Unabomber, examines whether Mr. Kaczynski first came to question science while he was an undergraduate at Harvard University. In 1958, Mr. Chase writes, when Mr. Kaczynski entered Harvard, he found a faculty split "between those who, chastened by their experience in World War II and especially by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, saw science and technology as a threat to Western values and even human survival and those -- a majority -- who saw science as a liberator from superstition and an avenue to progress." But the determining influence on Mr. Kaczynski may have been "purposely brutalizing" psychological experiments in which he participated -- experiments that were considered ethical at the time, but that would be banned today, Mr. Chase writes, because the students did not get any information about their nature. The experiments -- run by the late Henry A. Murray -- involved students' trying to defend their life philosophy and values to other students. Students like Mr. Kaczynski did not know that the other students were not fellow participants, but people whose job was to attack the philosophy and values of the participants in as brutal a way as possible. These experiments -- which haunt participants to this day -- may explain where Mr. Kaczynski developed his logic, Mr. Chase writes. The experiments, he adds "formed Kaczynski's first encounter with a reckless scientific value system that elevated the pursuit of scientific truth above human rights." The article is not yet available online, but information about the magazine may be found at http://www.theatlantic.com _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: Research on happiness
David Epstein wrote: I'm fascinated and encouraged by research on the wealth/happiness question (though my acquaintance with it is chiefly distilled through mass-media blurbs). But I wish we could do it as a real experiment with random assignment and repeated measures. I volunteer to be "randomly assigned" (repeatedly) to the wealthy group! (Sorry, but I couldn't resist.) Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: Change of topic and some ?'s
I can only offer information on one of your questions. Another student asked if there was any correlation between early childhood inclinations toward fantasy and the likelihood of establishing imaginary companions to later mental disorders in adulthood. Anyone have any ideas or references for this one? On the contrary, evidence cited by Laura Berk in her child development text suggests that having an imaginary companion is a positive sign. To quote Berk "Preschoolers who have them display more complex play, are advanced in mental representation, and are actually more (not less) sociable than peers (Taylor, Cartright, Carlson, 1993)." Taylor, M., Cartwright, B.S., Carlson, S.M. (1993). A developmental investigation of children's imaginary companions. Developmental Psychology, 29, 276-285. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University Big Rapids, MI 49307 Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
Re: Developmental
Sharon asks Is there a separate listserv of people teaching in Developmental Psych or related courses? The answer is yes, but it has virtually no traffic. It is, I believe, a failed experiment. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
Entertainment Imitates Psychology
From the NY Times: Hey, What if Contestants Give Each Other Shocks? By ERICA GOODE LONG before anyone ever heard of reality television, or its most recent efflorescence, "Survivor," a group of scientists began putting ordinary people into unusual situations and observing how they behaved. They were social psychologists, experts in the systematic study of behavior. And they had noble aspirations. Stirred by the events of their time -- the Holocaust, prison riots, the indifference of bystanders as a young woman was stabbed to death on a New York street -- they sought to understand the darkest human deeds in the hope of finding ways to prevent them. In particular, the psychologists, who carried out a variety of experiments at prestigious universities from the 1950's and into the 1970's, were fascinated by the power of situations to influence people's behavior, sometimes even overriding individual personality traits and the dictates of personal conscience. The experiments were compelling, and still enthrall undergraduates when they are taught in introductory psychology courses. In perhaps the most famous, Dr. Stanley Milgram's study of obedience to authority, the subjects meekly delivered what they believed were potentially fatal electric shocks to another person when ordered to do so by an experimenter in a white coat. In another, student volunteers at Stanford University who were randomly assigned to play prisoners or guards for a two-week stay in a simulated prison became so caught up in their roles that the study had to be halted after a week. But the research also stimulated heated ethical debate. Subjects were sometimes deceived about the true purpose of the experiments, which critics felt was a breach of trust. And some worried about the long-term effects on the subjects, who often acted, under the pressures of the experimental paradigm, in ways they later found abhorrent. In a famous 1964 critique, Dr. Diana Baumrind, a psychology professor at the University of California at Berkeley, wrote: "I would not like to see experiments such as Milgram's proceed unless the subjects were fully informed of the dangers of serious aftereffects and his correctives were clearly shown to be effective in restoring their state of well-being." By the late 1970's, ethical guidelines discouraged the use of most deception in psychological research, and required thorough debriefing of subjects. As a result, neither the Milgram study nor the Stanford prison experiment could be carried out today. That is, in the world of science. The producers of reality television shows, however, are unfettered by such constraints. Their subjects are "Survivor" wannabes, who stand to win fame and fortune. The purpose is simply to entertain, titillate -- and, oh yes, to make money. And the situations eager contestants are plopped into are limited only by developers' imaginations. They can put people on islands and make them eat bugs, walk on hot coals and choose between their comrades (as in "Survivor"). They can chain four women to a man for a week (as in "Chains of Love," recently bought by NBC). They can, much like the experimenters in the Stanford study, lock people up in prison (as in "Jailbreak," recently acquired by ABC, in which the inmates will try to escape). And in a twist that oddly merges the science of the past and the entertainment of the present, one production company, Film Garden Entertainment in Los Angeles, is even planning to re-enact the Milgram study and other social psychology classics in a 13-part series called "The Human Experiment." "We were very intrigued, long before 'Survivor,' in producing a show that would reveal certain things about human behavior in a context that was entertaining and at the same time educational and legitimate," said Nancy Jacobs Miller, Film Garden's president. She said her company, like other producers, is hoping that a cache of reality offerings might see them through an anticipated strike by actors and writers next year. Film Garden is also trying to enlist as a consultant Dr. Philip Zimbardo, the Stanford psychology professor who, with two graduate students, directed
Fwd: [evol-psych] Evidence of brain chemistry abnormalities in bipolar disorder
I received this from another list I am on and thought Tipsters might find it interesting. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University From: "Jeffrey Nagelbush" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Fwd: [evol-psych] Evidence of brain chemistry abnormalities in bipolar disorder Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 16:06:34 EDT From: "Ian Pitchford" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: "Ian Pitchford" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [evol-psych] Evidence of brain chemistry abnormalities in bipolar disorder Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 09:47:50 +0100 FOR RELEASE: 2 OCTOBER 2000 AT 00:01 ET US University of Michigan Health System http://www.med.umich.edu/1toolbar/whatsnew.htm U-M team finds evidence of brain chemistry abnormalities in bipolar disorder 30% higher concentration of certain signaling cells may help explain, treat "manic depression" ANN ARBOR, MI - People with bipolar disorder have an average of thirty percent more of an important class of signal-sending brain cells, according to new evidence being published by University of Michigan researchers. The finding, in the American Journal of Psychiatry, solidifies the idea that the disorder has unavoidable biological and genetic roots, and may explain why it runs in families. The discovery is the first neurochemical difference to be found between asymptomatic bipolar and non-bipolar people. It could help the understanding and treatment of a disease that affects as much as 1.5 percent of the population. Bipolar disorder has in the past been known as manic depression. "To put it simply, these patients' brains are wired differently, in a way that we might expect to predispose them to bouts of mania and depression," says Jon-Kar Zubieta, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and radiology at the U-M Health System. "Now, we must expand and apply this knowledge to give them a treatment strategy based on solid science, not on the current method of trial and error. We should also work to find an exact genetic origin, and to relate those genetic origins to what is happening in the brain." Bipolar disorder is marked by wild, cyclical mood swings, which typically begin in a person's late teens or twenties and strike men and women with equal frequency. Its milder, type II form causes depression alternating with hyperactivity, while the more severe type I disorder produces frenzied, even psychotic episodes that may send the patient to the hospital, followed by deep, crippling depressions. Current treatment uses a mix of mood-stabilizing, anti-psychotic and antidepressant drugs, but patients and physicians often struggle to strike the right combination. Zubieta and his colleagues made the discovery in 16 patients with type I bipolar disorder using a brain imaging technique called positron emission tomography, or PET. The scans let them see the density of cells that release the brain chemicals dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine. These monoamines, as the chemicals are called, send signals between brain cells, or neurons. They're involved in mood regulation, stress responses, pleasure, reward, and cognitive functions like concentration, attention, and executive functions. Scientists have hypothesized their role in bipolar disorder for decades, but have never proven it. The new U-M result points to a clear difference in the density of monoamine-releasing cells in the brains of bipolar people even when they are not having symptoms. Zeroing the PET scanner in on areas of the brain where monoamine-releasing cells are concentrated, the team looked for the faint signal of a weakly radioactive tracer, DTBZ, which they had injected into the bloodstream of the 16 participants and 16 people without bipolar disorder. DTBZ binds only to a protein called VMAT2 inside monoamine-releasing cells, making it a good tracking device for the density of those cells. It is also often used in PET scanning to study Parkinson's disease, which is characterized by a severe shortage of cells that produce dopamine. On PET scans, DTBZ density - and therefore monoamine cell density - can be quantified by the amount of radioactive signal present in different areas. By looking at the intensity of the DTBZ signal in all the subjects' brains, the U-M team found that bipolar patients averaged 31 percent more binding sites in the region known as the thalamus, and 28 percent more in the ventral brain stem. In the thalamus, bipolar women actually had levels nearing those of healthy comparison subjects, but bipolar men had a 42 percent higher binding rate, suggesting that there may be specific biological causes for the clinical differences in the course of the illness in men and women. Adding in the results of functional tests, they found that the more monoamine cells patients had, the lower their scores on tests of executive function and verbal learning. This finding conf
Roommate test
Does anyone know of an instrument that is used to measure the compatibility of roommates. A masters student is looking for such a measure and I have been able to find nothing. Thanks in advance for the help. Jeff Nagelbush Ferris State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
Elementary School Question
I do not know if this question is appropriate for this list but I have no where else to turn, at the moment, and the list members know so much! Is there any research comparing the different possible configurations of elementary school? In particular, I am interested in any differences (or lack of such) between a system that uses K-2 and 3-5 schools compared to one that simply uses K-5 schools. I have been unable to find any research on this at all. Our ed psych teachers do not know of any research either. Maybe nothing exists. What do you think... or know? Thanks in advance. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
Fwd: Religion and Health
We have discussed similar issues on Tips in the past. (While correlation does not mean causation, the researchers do try to deal with this issue somewhat.) From: "Jeffrey Nagelbush" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Fwd: Re: [evol-psych] Re: A religious instinct? Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 18:40:43 EDT ===8==Original message text=== FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 14 MAY 1999 Contact: Rick Rogers [EMAIL PROTECTED] 303-492-2147 University of Colorado at Boulder Research Shows Religion Plays A Major Role In Health, Longevity Being good has its rewards in this life, as well as in the next. Research conducted partly at the University of Colorado at Boulder has found that regular churchgoers live longer than people who seldom or never attend worship services. For the first time, that extra lifespan has been quantified. While there are differences between genders and races, in general those who go to church once or more each week can look forward to about seven more years than those who never attend. Life expectancy beyond age 20 averages another 55.3 years, to age 75, for those who never attend church compared to another 62.9 years, age 83, for those who go more than once a week. The research showed that people who never attended services had an 87 percent higher risk of dying during the follow-up period than those who attended more than once a week. The research also revealed that women and blacks can enjoy especially longer lives if they are religiously active. The findings are contained in a study conducted jointly by Rick Rogers, of CU-Boulder, Robert Hummer and Christopher Ellison, of the University of Texas at Austin, and Charles Nam, from Florida State University. Rogers is a professor of sociology and a professional research associate with the population program at the university's Institute of Behavioral Science. The study drew on a 1987 National Health Interview Survey of more than 28,000 people and focused on more than 2,000 who died between 1987 and 1995. Rogers said previous studies had examined and established links between religion, health outcomes and lower risks of mortality but this research broke new ground by testing those relationships against a number of variables. The research team factored in such elements as education and income, social ties (including marital status and having friends and relatives to count on), and health status and behavior, including such things as smoking and alcohol use. For example, educated and better off people, who have lower mortality, were more likely to attend church, while churchgoers generally were less likely to engage in such high risk health behaviors as smoking and excessive drinking. Frequent churchgoers were also more likely to take part in social activities and enjoy a good supporting network of family and friends, which could help them avoid, or at least cope better with, times of stress or personal difficulty. However, even after taking into account all these external factors and controlling the independent variables, the researchers found a "strong association " still persisted between infrequent or no religious attendance and higher mortality risk. Researchers also found distinct and related patterns when looking at causes of death. For example, those who never attend services are about twice as likely to die from respiratory disease, diabetes or infectious diseases. Rogers said this research established the importance of religious involvement as a fundamental cause of mortality. It also opened the door to further research perhaps examining religious attendance by denomination and looking at the less tangible spiritual issues. The research findings were published this month in the latest edition of the prestigious national journal Demography and will be included in a book, "Living and Dying in the USA," due out in August. ===8===End of original message text=== To subscribe/unsubscribe/select DIGEST go to: http://www.egroups.com/group/evolutionary-psychology Sex Differences by Linda R. Mealey http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0124874606/darwinanddarwini/ Evolutionary Psychology Archive: 7500+ Items http://www.egroups.com/messages/evolutionary-psychology Join the Human Behaviour and Evolution Society http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/hbesrenew/ _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
Re: The madness continues: the guess mess
Although I have no trouble with the logic that says that guessing can't hurt, the assumption is that, if you do not know the answer, guessing will be random with respect to the correct answers. However, it has been my experience that it is not that difficult to create questions for which one incorrect answer is much more likely to be chosen by those who do not "know" the correct answer. Many standardized tests I have seen make use of comon errors in their distractor items. If the Psych test does this, then guessing would not necessarily be the best option, since I assume most guessers will make what appears to them a "best" guess, rather than a random choice. I really do not know if this applies to the test in question, does anyone else? Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
How I used the election for teaching
G. Marc Turner wrote: Okay, I've kept quiet but I feel compelled to mention a few things. First, the US national election of our president has little to do with the teaching of psychology as I see it. I would ask that those who continue to feel compelled to debate this issue, please let us know how we can integrate this debate in with our courses. (I commend those individuals who have already attempted to relate the issues to psychology, but the vast majority of posts do not seem to do that...including this one strangely enough) I always find it useful to try to integrate current events into my classes. So how did do this for the election? Well, in my lifespan class, I discussed the fact (if what I heard is correct) that the ballot in question was changed to make the print easier to read for the elderly ( a bit or irony here, perhaps). Since the size of the ballot did not change, this necessitated the use of the right hand column. This, of course relates to the sensory changes in the elderly. I also related it to the research showing that the elderly are more disrupted by time pressure than are younger folks. Finally, I did discuss the design implications that I/O psychologists talk about, including the problem we all seem to have with using the knobs to turn on the correct burners on our stoves. In my child psychology class, we were discussing the development of the understanding of intention. As an example of how important understanding intention is I suggested that if we could show that the ballots in Palm Beach were intentionally confusing, then we might have a case for overturning that part of the election. However, without intention, then the confusion is likely to be seen as just tough luck and something to repair next time. Students seemed to really like the reference to these events. Jeff Nagelbush nagelbuj@ hotmail.com Ferris State University _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
The Nurture Assumption
We had quite a discussion about Harris' Nurture Assumption ideas some time back. Therefore, I thought that some of you might be interested that the latest issue of the journal Developmental Psychology (volume 36, number 6, November)has an invited exchange of views on her theory between Deborah Vandell of Wisconsin-Madison and Harris. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
tetrachromatic vision
Red Herring Magazine Looking for Madam Tetrachromat - Do mutant females walk among us? By Glenn Zorpette From the December 04, 2000 issue "Oh, everyone knows my color vision is different," chuckles Mrs. M, a 57-year-old English social worker. "People will think things match, but I can see they don't." What you wouldn't give to see the world through her deep blue-gray eyes, if only for five minutes. Preliminary evidence gathered at Cambridge University in 1993 suggests that this woman is a tetrachromat, perhaps the most remarkable human mutant ever identified. Most of us have color vision based on three channels; a tetrachromat has four. The theoretical possibility of this secret sorority -- genetics dictates that tetrachromats would all be female -- has intrigued scientists since it was broached in 1948. Now two scientists, working separately, plan to search systematically for tetrachromats to determine once and for all whether they exist and whether they see more colors than the rest of us do. The scientists are building on a raft of recent findings about the biology of color vision. The breakthroughs come just in time. "Computers, color monitors, and the World Wide Web have made having color blindness a much bigger deal than it ever was before," says Jay Neitz, a molecular biologist who studies color vision at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Color-blind individuals, he explains, often lose their way while navigating the Web's thicket of color cues and codes. "Color-blind people complain miserably about the Web because they can't get the color code," Dr. Neitz says. (Just try surfing on a monochrome monitor.) Most people are trichromats, with retinas having three kinds of color sensors, called cone photopigments -- those for red, green, and blue. The 8 percent of men who are color-blind typically have the cone photopigment for blue but are either missing one of the other colors, or the men have them, in effect, for two very slightly different reds or greens. A tetrachromat would have a fourth cone photopigment, for a color between red and green. Besides the philosophical interest in learning something new about perception, the brain, and the evolution of our species, finding a tetrachromat would also offer a practical reward. It would prove that the human nervous system can adapt to new capabilities. Flexibility matters greatly in a number of scenarios envisaged for gene therapy. For example, if someone with four kinds of color photopigments cannot see more colors than others, it would imply that the human nervous system cannot easily take advantage of genetic interventions. Full text:http://www.redherring.com/mag/issue86/mag-mutant-86.html Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
Fwd: Skeptic Newsletter-Aborigine Brains
. REVERSE- PARA- META- PSEUDO-RACIST BRAIN THEORY Copyright 2000 The Telegraph Group Limited SUNDAY TELEGRAPH(LONDON) November 19, 2000, Sunday THE DIFFERENCE, a three-part series on genetics, begins on Channel 4 tonight at 8pm. He's got a better memory than us. New research suggests that one part of an aborigine's brain is 25 per cent bigger than a European's - but the academic community refuses to take it seriously, for fear of being branded 'racist'. ALASDAIR PALMER reports. Sherilee is an eight year old who lives in Australia. She seems just like any other ordinary schoolgirl of her age, but she could help to resolve one of the most controversial topics in science: the relationship between genes and intelligence. The question of how much of our brain power is fixed by what we inherit from our parents, and how much is a product of upbringing and education, is one that appears to fascinate and frighten everyone - scientists included. It is not just the American Constitution that is framed around the conviction that we are all created equal. Practically the whole of contemporary politics is based on the idea that the differences between individuals are not fixed at birth. The suggestion that there are inherent differences, not just between individuals, but between races, is even less acceptable. There is now evidence, however, that one group of people may indeed have a superior mental capacity, in at least one respect, to everyone else - and some of it comes from the eight-year-old Sherilee. Sherilee has an astonishingly accurate visual memory. She scores 100 per cent on tests designed to measure how much individuals can remember of what they see. The only clue to the cause of her remarkable ability is her race: she is an aborigine, and aborigines have a proven ability to remember the exact location of objects that far exceeds that of other ethnic groups. They can find their way across deserts, locate water holes and identify animal lairs with an uncanny accuracy. They also perform about 50 per cent better on visual memory tests than, for instance, Caucasians. What is the aborigines' secret? To some evolutionary psychologists, the answer is relatively straightforward. The aborigines were, for about 4,000 generations, or 80,000 years, hunter-gatherers in the deserts of Australia. That is enough time for natural selection to have worked on increasing the accuracy of aborigines' memory, because if you could not find your way through the desert, or to the waterhole, you would starve, and so would your children. In the competition to stay alive, an accurate memory would - to put it mildly - have been an advantage. Are today's aborigine children the inheritors of that process? It has certainly been speculated that their extraordinary visual memories are the result of genes selected over thousands of years by evolution. But Clive Harper, a professor of pathology in Sydney, may have discovered evidence that it is more than just a theoretical possibility. He found that the visual cortex - the part of the brain used in processing and interpreting visual information - was about 25 per cent larger in aborigines than in Caucasians. He also found that they had many more nerve cells. That pronounced physical difference was almost certainly the result of different evolutionary pressures. It is, as Prof Harper says, "difficult to prove that the greater number of nerve cells in the visual cortex is the secret of the aboriginals' phenomenal memories, especially when we know almost nothing about how the mechanism of memory works - other than that it involves the activation of nerve cells. Still, it is suggestive". It is "suggestive" enough to mean that Prof Harper could not get his findings published in any academic journal. His work, which he completed five years ago, was turned down because it was thought to be "racist". Science journal editors "were anxious", Prof Harper explains, "that this was going to be seen as some form of discrimination - which I was very disappointed about". Prof Harper was even refused permission to outline his findings at a conference in the United States. Even the original research that demonstrated the aborigine's superior memory skills has been buried. The cause of the anxiety was - and is - simple: the fear that the detection of any physical difference in the brains of different racial groups leads straight to Auschwitz. The idea that there are inherent, genetic differences between the different racial groups' mental abilities has about as bad a pedigree as it is possible to imagine. Hitler and the Nazis were obsessed by the idea, leading them to exterminate millions of Jews, gipsies and Russians on the grounds that they were "racially inferior". That fear is understandable in the light of the history of the 20th century, but it is chronically
Taking the Long View of Depression
For you information: EPIDEMIOLOGY Taking the Long View of Depression Fifty-year Study Reveals Rise in the Illness Among Younger Women You would not find Stirling County on a map of Atlantic Canada, but it is a real place. It was given this protective pseudonym by Alexander Leighton, HSPH professor emeritus of social psychiatry, back in 1948 when he first picked the location for an unprecedented longitudinal study of mental illness. Since the first interviewers took the field in 1952, Stirling County has mirrored nearly all the social changes that have transformed daily life in metropolitan centers across North America. Stirling County has become more suburban and less rural, the local economy less industrial and, for that matter, less local. It has seen living standards rise, educational opportunities widen, and health care delivery expand. It has also seen more crime, more drug abuse, more media saturation, frailer families, and weaker religious values. What Stirling County has not seen is a general increase of depression. Full text: http://www.med.harvard.edu/publications/Focus/Dec1_2000/epidemiology.html Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University _ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
Fwd: Theories fail to recognize background neuronal firing
I thought many of you would find this interesting. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 3 JANUARY 2001 Yale University http://www.yale.edu/ Interpretations of brain activity based on cognitive theories fail to recognize background neuronal firing New Haven, Conn. When the brain is stimulated, functional imaging results are misinterpreted by neglecting the resting brain neurotransmitter activity, a study by a Yale researcher concludes. "There is an assumption made in the use of PET scans and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that the brain works only when you give it a task to do," said Robert Shulman, Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. "What I show here is that the brain works all the time. The brain at rest is doing the same sort of neuronal firing as it does when stimulated by a task. Brain activity slightly increases when a task is performed and those increases are generally assumed to measure activity." Shulman, in a study published in the January issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry, said what this means can be seen by considering that the brains signal at rest is, for example, 100. Once it undertakes a task, the brains activity level rises by a small amount, say, from 100 to 101. "When we look at it pixel by pixel and subtract the activity of the brain at rest from that during a task as is presently done, you would get this increment of one in certain areas of the brain," he said. "The localized nature of imaging increments is accommodated readily by a conception of the brain, based on cognitive psychology or cognitive neuroscience, in which individual regions respond, like computer modules, to components of tasks selectively stimulated," Shulman said. "In this way, images are interpreted and experiments are planned in terms of a theory of mind, and are designed to extend the theory rather than to test it." In his article, Shulman reviewed recent research done with colleagues at Yale which enabled imaging results to be interpreted in terms of a specific neuronal activity, the release of the neurotransmitted glutamate. The glutamate fluxes showed that the resting brain, in the absence of explicit external activity, was actively transmitting information. Shulman said that his study offers hope of bridging two major divisions in psychiatry -- those scientists who have a psychiatric view of the mind and those with a neuroscientific view. "The ability to quantitate neurotransmitter activity both in the presence and absence of stimulation highlights and provides a criticism of the psychological assumptions behind the standard interpretation of images," he said. "Instead of allowing resting activity to be disregarded, as it is when the brain is considered as a set of localized computers, it shows that resting activity is required for function and suggests ways in which more holistic theories of mind are supported by the imaging experiments." _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
RE: course evaluations
"Gary Klatsky" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm not sure that the portfolios are meant to be a means of comparing your class to another. I also don't believe that student evaluations provide information about the quality of your courses. Unless you include a measure of student outcomes, you can never tell how your course compares to another section of the same course. I have two thoughts on this thread and Gary's message in particular. First, as Gary implies, we need to be careful to distinguish the 2 purposes for evaluation, improvement and tenure/promotion/merit/... The portfolio seems like it might be a reasonable source of information for improvement, but not necessarily a good (or valid) source of information for the more "evaluative" sorts of evaluation. Second, since folks are discussing Nitop, I would like to point out that Robert Bjork gave an interesting talk in which he suggested that those teaching or training procdures that produce the best short-term effects are often not the same teaching or training procedures that produce the best long-term retention and transfer. These suggestions make me wonder. If we are going to include student outcome measures in our evaluations, when should we measure the outcomes? At the end of the course? Or perhaps a month, or a year, later? Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Two topics: Childbirth Split brain
Over the past couple weeks I have had two issues/questions arise in class with which I would like some help. 1. In my child psychology class, while discussing childbirth, a student in our school's child development program said that her text in one of her courses said there were 4, rather than the typical 3, stages of childbirth/labor. The 4th stage had to to with rest and recovery and the shrinking of the cervix. I was wondering if this additional stage is becomming more commonly accepted or might be idiosyncratic to certain texts or fields? 2. While discussing split-brain research a student asked if split-brain people could drive. I know that people with uncontrolled seizures are not supposed to drive. However, if the cutting of the corpus callosum succeeds in eliminating the seizures, does it also allow the people to drive. I told my students that I thought that people with this surgery probably could drive, but as I though about it, I did come up with some rare situations where not having a corpus callosum might slightly slow down reactions to an emergency. Does anyone know of any data or anything else related to this issue? Thanks in advance. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Re: Harris debate
jim clark [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Would the 0 influence claim have problems with other evidence that _appears_ to suggest family effects? I would expect that religiosity, social attitudes, and like constructs would, for example, vary in consistent ways across families. That is, some families would tend to be religious and others not. Some violent and others not. Is it a necessary corollary of the 0-family-influence model that all such effects are really genetic or some other shared non-family-influence effects? Has it been determined which? First, there really isn't a 0 influence model, as I understand Harris. She is arguing that environmental influences are very contexutal. Thus parents DO have influence. They influence how children behave with their parents. But when children leave home, the outside environment becomes a more important influence in how children behave OUTSIDE the home. Since, in our culture, we spend most of our (adult)lives outside the homes of our upbringing, these outside infuences (mostly peers in Harris' model, but not limited to peers) are the most important environmental factors influencing our adult characteristics. Certainly at the most molecular level, there are extremely striking effects of family. For example, whether one is Episcopelian or Jewish or Anglican or [name your favorite sect] is pretty much determined, I would guess, by the family into which one is born. But now you are saying that if we throw Atheists and Agnostics into the mix, the effect disappears. That is, whether one falls into the superset of religious sects (i.e., the many religious affiliations) or the superset of non-religious sects (i.e., Atheists, Agnostics, ...) is not determined by family. It just seems that something is fishy here. And if it is fishy for religion, then what does that say about the other constructs for which 0-family influence is claimed? I do not know what fishy means here. And what does one do with beneficial effects of parent training studies? That is, training parents in effective parenting techniques has been demonstrated to have beneficial effects on child behaviour (e.g., less disruption in the home or the classroom). Must we assume that experimental manipulations of such factors have demonstrated effects, while naturally occurring variation in parenting practices have no discernible effects other than those better accounted for by genetic influences? That just does not seem very plausible at first blush. I believe that Harris argues that when parent training works, it works at changing how children interact with parents in the home but not necessarily at school, which is consistent with her ideas. In oder to get change in both the home and the classroom, I believe she suggests you need to change the environment in both places (parent training and teacher training?). Again, she is arguing (and presenting evidence) for contextual learning. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Re: Harris debate
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Harris debate Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2001 17:37:07 EST Hello again - It was written: "First, there really isn't a 0 influence model, as I understand Harris. She is arguing that environmental influences are very contexutal. Thus parents DO have influence. They influence how children behave with their parents. But when children leave home, the outside environment becomes a more important influence in how children behave OUTSIDE the home. Since, in our culture, we spend most of our (adult)lives outside the homes of our upbringing, these outside infuences (mostly peers in Harris' model, but not limited to peers) are the most important environmental factors influencing our adult characteristics." Wouldn't this kind of thing generalize though to how we behave with authority figures (bosses and higher status non-peer types?) Not all of our interactions outside the home are with peers - even when we grow up (or are supposed to grow up.) Or am I missing something? Nancy Melucci ELAC Well, it will generalize if it works, but not if it does't. After all, children do not always act the same way with mom as they do with dad even when they all live together. Jeff Nagelbush _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Re: Harris debate
From: jim clark [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: TIPS Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Harris debate Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 09:49:55 -0600 (CST) Hi On Fri, 2 Feb 2001, Jeffrey Nagelbush wrote: jim clark [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Certainly at the most molecular level, there are extremely striking effects of family. For example, whether one is Episcopelian or Jewish or Anglican or [name your favorite sect] is pretty much determined, I would guess, by the family into which one is born. But now you are saying that if we throw Atheists and Agnostics into the mix, the effect disappears. That is, whether one falls into the superset of religious sects (i.e., the many religious affiliations) or the superset of non-religious sects (i.e., Atheists, Agnostics, ...) is not determined by family. It just seems that something is fishy here. And if it is fishy for religion, then what does that say about the other constructs for which 0-family influence is claimed? I do not know what fishy means here. Inconsistent or contradictory? We were told that the rs for religiosity suggest no general family influence. But whether one belongs to a particular religious (or irreligious?) group seems clearly dependent on family. How is it possible for families to determine whether one is Jewish, Lutheran, Agnostic, ... without producing a family effect on religiosity? One possibility is again the problem with twin and adoption studies restricting the range of the family variables. Would, for example, adoption agencies consider religion in placing children? I do not whether or not adoption agencies include religion. However, I do not think religiosity refers to any particular religion, but rather to a general orientation to religion and religious beliefs. And it is these more general beliefs or orientation that show no family effect. Jeff Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Re: Harris debate
jim clark [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm probably not being very clear about my point. Here goes one more try. Religiousness (i.e., L vs. H religiosity) shows no family effect. But more specific religious affiliations, including presumably such irreligious classifications as agnostic and atheist, do appear to show family effects. These two observations strike me as inconsistent because the H religious groups would include the religious affiliations (i.e., Baptist, Roman Catholic,...), whereas the L religious groups would include the irreligious affiliations (i.e., agnostic, atheist, ...). So we have something like the following two columns: Col 1 Col 2 Low Relig atheist, agnostic, ... High Relig baptist, catholic, protestant, ... Col 1 shows no family effect, whereas Col 2 does (an assumption on my part). In other words, is it possible for families to determine specific religious affiliations (including the non-religious categories) without having any relationship with overall religiousness? The lack of relationship in Col 1 would seem to require that it is irrelevant to your religiousness whether your parents were baptists or atheists. Of course we do not know if there is a family effect for specific religious affiliations, but I am willing to posit that for the sake of argument. Even within the same religion, however, people can differ in religiosity. My grandparents and my parents profess(ed) the same religion. But, while my grandparents were quite orthodox and strict in their observance, my parents were much less so, my sister still less so and me even less. Thus, while we might all say we belong to the religion of our parents, we do not share the same religiousness. I assume that this same situation is possible for other religions. Your specific religion may be identified, most often, as the religion of you parents (although I do know lots of people for whom this is not true). but you level of religious belief and experience might be more influenced by others in your environment, assuming you do not live with your parents. Whether or not it works the same for atheists I do not know but there are so few avowed atheists and agnostics, at least in the US, that I do not think they would influence any analysis. If my conjectures are true, then it seems possible to have to have a family effect for denomination but not one for religiousness. JeffNagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Postformal operations stages
I received the following from another list that I am on: "My colleagues and I find stage of development hugely predictive of position in the world of work. Most bureaucrats perform at the formal operational stage, most professionals at the systematic operation stage (one stage after formal). Most creative scientists perform at the metasystematic stage (one stage after systematic)." Commons, M.L. Bresette, L. M. (2000). Major creative innovators as viewed through the lens of the general model of hierarchical complexity and evolution. In M. E. Miller S Cook-Greuter (Eds.) Stamford. CT: Ablex Publishing Corporation. (Title of book was omitted in the original.) Does anyone know of this model and/or these postformal operations stages? Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Automatic Professor Machine (A.P.M.)
DISTANCE EDUCATION * A PROFESSOR at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has created a prototype of a satirical knowledge-dispensing terminal called the Automatic Professor Machine. The A.P.M., he says, will be available soon from the same company that markets wearable universities. -- SEE http://chronicle.com/free/2001/02/2001022201u.htm Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Error in Science?
The following quote is from the Feb. 23 issue of Science: "Anatomical and physiological studies have shown that three structures of the limbic system-the prefrontal cortex, the amygdala, and the nucleus acumbens-are connected and speak to one another." My question is, when did the prefrontal cortex become part of the limbic system? Is this common usage today? Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] (a hotmail user who does not want to be ignored) Ferris State University _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Error in Science?
I want to publically thank all who have written in response to my question about the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system. After reading all of your responses, however, I feel a little like Alice talking to the Chesire cat. Oh well, your responses really were a help. Thanks again. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Job Annoucement
The following position will soon be advertised in the usual places. If you know anyone you know might be interested, please share this information with them. Thanks. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University Psychology (Assistant Professor) to teach psychology, contribute to the development of new psychology major. Required: Ph.D. in psychology or school psychology; ability to teach courses in educational psychology, assessment, statistics, child exceptionality, behavior modification; interest/ability to coordinate undergraduate internships; commitment to undergraduate teaching; and evidence of quality teaching. Must demonstrate the potential for teaching excellence; ability to contribute to the on-going development of the department; and have interpersonal and communication skills sufficient to act as liaison with the broader community and work effectively with a diverse array of students and colleagues. Preferred: interest/ability to involve students in research and ability/willingness to run animal laboratory for behavior modification course. Review of applications begins 5/1/01 and continues until position is filled. Submit a cover letter, vita, unofficial graduate transcripts, and three current letters of reference to: JOB CODE C-5830, John Thorp, Department Head, Ferris State University, 420 Oak St., PRK-150, Big Rapids, MI 49307. Final candidates will be required to furnish official college transcripts. For more information about Ferris, visit our web site at http://www.ferris.edu. -an EEO/AA employer- _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Religion Psychology
Since religion has played such a large part in recent TIPS postings I thought I would NOT add to the current discussion but, instead, just point out what looks to me to be an interesting article in the most recently released (although not current in date) December 2000 American Psychologist: Reinterpreting Individualism and Collectivism. Their Religious Roots and Monologic Versus Dialogic Person-Other Relationship, by Edward E. Sampson. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Evidence for Repressed Memories?
New Scientist Online News I received this from another list and thought I would pass it on. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University Dark thoughts Freud may have been right: people can suppress memories Michael Anderson and Collin Green of the University of Oregon in Eugene asked 32 people to memorise a list of 50 or so simple pairs of words, such as "ordeal" and "roach". The volunteers were then presented with the first word and asked either to recall the second or banish it from their minds for four seconds. Volunteers were asked to suppress the second word between zero and 16 times. The researchers found that volunteers were much less able to recall words that had been repressed many times - even when they were offered money to remember. "I'm not making the claim that you're forgetting the memory," says Anderson. "It's inhibited, not erased." Full text: http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns519 _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Re: Mind reading and exam performance
I have all this discussion on test item analysis interesting because I gave up using these anayses years ago. The reason was that in my experience, as I taught multiple sections of the same course, I found vastly different item-analysis results in each section. I would have questions that discriminated well in one class and was negatively correlated with overall score in another section. I could find no consistent pattern. Maybe it was just me. Has anyone else had this experience? Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Reading and Crawling
Recent research seems to show that, probably as a result of the SIDS-prevention advice to keep infants on their backs, many infants do not learn to crawl at all or at the normal time. The research also indicates that other physical milestones, e.g., walking, sitting up, are not influenced by this change in development. I was discussing this with a friend whose grandchild shows this pattern. She was most upset because, as a certified teacher, she was taught that crawling was necessary for normal reading development. She said that she was taught that children who do not crawl have a hard time looking at both pages of a text and show other midline-crossing problems. I have never heard of this and expressed some skepticism. I know of the failed perceptual retraining programs for dislexia, but aside from that I know of no relationship between general motor development, and crawling specifically, and reading. I have been looking (and continue look) for information but I have not found anything yet. If anyone knows any relevant information I would appreciate letting me know. Thanks, Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Fw: deeply disturbing developments at the American Psychologist (long)
From: Jeffrey Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Fwd: [evol-psych] Fw: deeply disturbing developments at the American Psychologist (long) Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 14:16:21 -0400 Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 21:06:30 -0400 From: Scott Lilienfeld [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Accept-Language: en To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: deeply disturbing developments at the American Psychologist (long) Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Status: RO Dear Fellow SSCPNETers (and a few selected others): I am writing this message to inform you of what I believe to be some deeply disturbing developments at the American Psychologist, as well as to solicit your assistance. I am normally loathe to discuss my own peer review experiences with my academic colleagues (after all, we have all had our peer review nightmares), but I believe the present situation to be sufficiently disturbing that I ultimately (and reluctantly) have decided to bring it your attention. What follows below is very lengthy and may not be of interest to all of you. For those who are not interested in reading a lengthy message, you will want to delete this message now. Nevertheless, a number of you (particularly those of who have expressed concerns about the currently functioning of the American Psychological Association, of which, after all, SSCP is a section) will most certainly want to read on. Here is my story. Approximately 10 months ago, I submitted a manuscript to American Psychologist concerning the Rind et al. child sexual abuse-psychopathology meta-analysis (which, as many of you know, was published in Psychological Bulletin) and the sociopolitical implications of the reactions to this article (my manuscript was a substantially expanded and modified version of a talk I had presented at the MPA conference in Chicago approximately two years ago). The manuscript was not focused on the substantive accuracy or inaccuracy of Rind et al.'s conclusions. Instead, the manuscript used the Rind et al. meta-analysis as a example of what occurs when social science and politics collide [(indeed, the manuscript is entitled When worlds collide: Social science, politics, and the Rind et al. (1998) meta-analysis)]. In the manuscript I discussed at length the chronology of the Rind et al. affair and the reactions to it (including the actions of Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the U.S. Congress, prominent media personalities, and others), my analysis of what went wrong, and some suggested remedies for averting similar problems in the future. In the manuscript, I was quite critical of the American Psychological Association for its capitulation to members of the U.S. Congress, as well as of the decision by the APA (under intense pressure from members of the U.S. Congress) to commission an independent panel from AAAS to review Rind et al.'s findings (the first time in APA's history that it had done so). The manuscript was assigned to Dr. Nora Newcombe of Temple University as a guest editor, and was under review for approximately 5 months. In January of this year, I was delighted to receive a letter from Dr. Newcombe informing me that my manuscript was accepted for publication at American Psychologist pending revisions. Three of the reviewers liked the manuscript very much and recommended acceptance pending revisions (including a softening of the tone). One of the reviewers disagreed with the bulk of the manuscript and recommended rejection. In the spirit of fostering open interchange, Dr. Newcombe asked this fourth reviewer to author a critical commentary on my article that would be included in the same issue of American Psychologist. This reviewer agreed to do so and even submitted a draft of a commentary, but subsequently withdrew this commentary after seeing the revised version of my manuscript. The reviewer stated that because the revised version had satisfactorily addressed most of his concerns and that the revised manuscript was substantially stronger, he had decided that his commentary was no longer necessary. After another (second) round of minor revisions, the manuscript was formally accepted by Dr. Newcombe, who informed me that the revised manuscript had addressed all of her concerns. Dr. Newcombe communicated this acceptance to me (via e-mail) as well as to Dr. Richard McCarty at APA, who congratulated me on the acceptance and told me that the manuscript would be placed into the pipeline for the June or July issue of the American Psychologist. Dr. McCarty also informed me that the manuscript would be subjected to fact checking and that he would do his best to include it in an upcoming issue given its timelineness and relevance to ongoing debates. Interestingly
Fwd: [evol-psych] Journal Backs Away From Article Critical of Congress and Psychology Association
From: Jeffrey Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Fwd: [evol-psych] Journal Backs Away From Article Critical of Congress and Psychology Association Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 10:06:05 -0400 This article from The Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com) was forwarded to you from: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wednesday, May 23, 2001 Journal Backs Away From Article Critical of Congress and Psychology Association By JENNIFER K. RUARK The editor of American Psychologist, a leading psychology journal, has reneged on an agreement to publish an article critical of the journal's sponsor and of several members of Congress. The author, Scott O. Lilienfeld, an associate professor of psychology at Emory University, describes his article -- originally titled The Bonfire of the Vilifiers -- as an analysis of what happens when social science and politics collide. In it, he charges the American Psychological Association with caving in to Congressional pressure when it apologized for an article about childhood sexual abuse written by Temple University's Bruce Rind and others. The article appeared in the association's journal Psychological Bulletin. Mr. Lilienfeld's article was scheduled to appear in the group's other journal, American Psychologist, in June. But on May 10 the journal's editor, Richard McCarty, wrote a letter to Mr. Lilienfeld overruling the guest editor who had accepted the manuscript based on three favorable reviews, and with Mr. McCarty's initial blessing. It may not be censorship but it raises the specter of censorship, and raises concerns about the suppression of writings that are critical of the A.P.A. or that are critical of members of Congress, said Mr. Lilienfeld. Mr. McCarty wrote in his letter that he was concerned about the manuscript's narrow focus and tone and that he had solicited five additional reviews unbeknownst to Mr. Lilienfeld. Noting that the American Psychologist is a vehicle for organizational policy, he suggested that Mr. Lilienfeld either submit the manuscript to another journal or delete the first part of the manuscript that deals with the Rind et al. article and use other examples to illustrate the tensions between scientists and policy makers. Mr. McCarty refused to comment to The Chronicle, citing ethical obligations not to discuss an article under review. The article is not under review, said Mr. Lilienfeld. One can always claim that he is merely asking for revisions, but what he is asking would entirely eviscerate the article of its content, and I will not be revising it. He is appealing the decision to the association's board of publications. The association's chief executive officer, Raymond D. Fowler, did comment in a memorandum posted on a psychology e-mail list where Mr. Lilienfeld had aired his case. Although he is editor in chief of American Psychologist, Mr. Fowler said he would recuse himself from any decision making on the Lilienfeld article because he had been directly involved in the original controversy over the article about sexual abuse. In response to accusations that Mr. McCarty's decision had been politically motivated, Mr. Fowler wrote, I don't think anyone who knows Richard thinks of him as a political animal or particularly politically motivated. Mr. Lilienfeld suggested that Mr. McCarty should not have been involved in the publication decision either, because he is the psychology association's executive director for science and thus implicitly criticized in Mr. Lilienfeld's article. But Mr. McCarty initially supported the decision of the guest editor, Nora Newcombe (who is also at Temple) to publish the article. In a January 23 e-mail message to Mr. Lilienfeld, he wrote: Nora let me know that your paper was accepted for publication in A.P. Congratulations! I understand you are revising it now. I hope you will agree with Nora's suggestions to modify the tone and the title. I think it will be longer lived if you do. Once you and she are satisfied with it, we will get it into the pipeline as quickly as possible. In a subsequent message, he advised Mr. Lilienfeld to do the best you can with the 'tone' issue without stripping the manuscript of its essence. Ms. Newcombe did not return a telephone call seeking comment, but the e-mail messages indicate that Mr. McCarty was referring to advice from three peer reviewers who had recommended acceptance pending a softening of the tone. A fourth reviewer had recommended rejection but agreed instead to contribute a critical commentary to the same issue of the journal. But that reviewer withdrew his commentary after reading Mr. Lilienfeld's revision (retitled When Worlds Collide), saying that the new version was quite a bit more compelling
Fwd: Diener's letter re: APA controversy (fwd)
-Original Message- I am considering resigning from APA, which would also necessitate resigning as Editor of JPSP:PPID, as well as from the Presidency of Division 8 of APA. A number of events make me question the full commitment of APA to the open discussion of scholarly questions, and to the scientific integrity of journal publishing: A. APA's initial reaction to political pressure exerted over the Rind et al. article. APA asked that the Rind article be reviewed by outside sources, and in its reply to Congressman DeLay did not advance a single argument in favor of the scientific peer review process or of open dialogue on intellectual issues. B. When the editor of Psychological Bulletin, Nancy Eisenberg, in concert with several other editors, proposed to write an article for the American Psychologist about tensions between science and politics, it was evident that such an article would not be warmly welcomed by APA. It seemed to me that an Eisenberg article written for the American Psychologist would not be published by APA because the leaders of the organization were afraid of the possible political repercussions of such a paper. C. In the most recent turn of events, an article explaining the history of the Rind article controversy was accepted by a guest editor of the American Psychologist (by Nora Newcombe, herself a highly respected editor of an APA journal). Although Dr. Newcombe accepted the article for publication and it was to appear in the American Psychologist this summer, the editor of AP, Richard McCarty, sent the article out for further review and basically rejected the article after it had already been accepted. He apparently did this without telling either the author or Dr. Newcombe that he was proceeding as if the article had not been accepted. Neither Professor Newcombe nor the author were told that the article was receiving further review until they inquired about when the article would appear in print. Because Richard McCarty is an integral part of the upper level administration at APA, his actions are not those of an editor acting independently of the APA administration. People will argue about whether Dr. McCarty acted within the rules, and will discuss other details of these controversies. For example, Dr. McCarty technically did not reject the recent paper, but asked the author to make such extensive revisions that it would have been a totally different paper. However, what perhaps worries me even more than the events described above is the fact that APA has not come forward to clearly and strongly defend scholarly debate on controversial topics and the integrity of the editorial decision process. The administration of APA has never during this debate come out forcefully to defend and encourage scholarly debate on controversial issues, to defend without reservation ongoing scientific work on these topics, and then proceed accordingly. This is not an issue of liberal versus conservative; I am concerned with individuals on either side who know the answer to most questions in the absence of empirical work and scholarly debate. In the absence of individuals who are willing to stand up for open scientific debate, it seems clear to me that APA will continue to capitulate to political forces that do not value the integrity of scientific discourse. This is also not an issue of whether the Rind article provides definitive evidence on the issues it addressed - scientific discourse is an ongoing enterprise. Rather, this is an issue of whether APA is willing to stand up and defend scholarly dialogue and empirical work on delicate issues even when this might bring heated criticism and controversy. I believe that the recent events repeatedly show that APA does not have sufficient commitment to the scientific process to stand up for it when pressure is brought to bear on APA by forces that do not place high value on scientific dialogue. As an APA journal editor, I am very nervous about APA's lack of strong support for scholarly work on controversial topics. I would like to be convinced that APA will defend controversial scholarship, academic freedom, and the integrity of scientific publication. Recent events are not reassuring. Unless APA takes expeditious actions in this regard, I will feel obligated to resign from my editorship and divisional presidency. __ Ed Diener, Ph.D. Alumni Professor of Psychology Editor, JPSP: PPID and Journal of Happiness Studies University of Illinois 603 E. Daniel St. Champaign, IL 61820 U.S.A. (217) 333-4804 Fax: (217) 244-5876JPSP: (217) 244-0671 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.psych.uiuc.edu/~ediener _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at
Fwd: [evol-psych] APA controversy
From: Jeffrey Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Fwd: [evol-psych] APA controversy Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2001 22:46:22 -0400 Norine Johnson, Ph.D., President APA and Phil Zimbardo, Ph.D., President-Elect, APA have asked Council Reps to distribute the following letter they wrote regarding the controversy. Dear Colleagues: We urge you to not take a position, one way or the other, on the merits of the issues involved in the AP editorial decisions regarding the Lilienfeld article. None of us know the full facts around this case, for a variety of understandable reasons. We will not know, at least for a few weeks more, some of the most relevant detail. However, we have requested all parties involved in the established editorial review appeal to move forward with all due speed in this complex case. At this time, we are working to expedite a comprehensive and fair inquiry, utilizing the standard APA editorial appeal process. We believe that supporting and defending both the editorial appeal process and the basic editorial peer review process underlying it is critical to our academic freedom and the integrity of scientific publishing. The timing of the process of such an editorial appeal process is, fortunately, very much in favor of a timely analysis. We expect that the Board of Directors will receive information on the outcome of the editorial appeal process at its June 8-10 meeting. The first step in an editorial appeal is to the journal editor (or editor-in-chief) of the journal. In this case that is Ray Fowler, who has voluntarily stepped out of the appeal because some might view him as in a conflicted role. The second step is handled by the APA Chief Editorial Advisor (CEA), who is a non-APA staff member who is an experienced editor. The currently CEA is Lenore Harmon, PhD, of the University of Illinois (who is also the former editor of the APA-published journal, Journal of Counseling Psychology). She has agreed to present her initial review and analysis of the overall editorial processing to the PC Board's Journals Advisory Committee on Friday, June 1 (and to the full PC Board on Saturday, June 2). The third step is the PC Board. It will discuss the matter on June 2-3, and it will be prepared to report its findings, recommendations, and planned actions to the APA Board of Directors at its June 8-10 meeting. The elected PC Board consists of nine individuals with strong academic and scientific backgrounds. The current members of the PC Board are: Sara Kiesler, PhD (chair), Human Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University; Janet Shibley Hyde, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin; Lucia Albino Gilbert, PhD, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Texas at Austin; Lauren B. Resnick, EdD, Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh; Susan H. McDaniel, PhD, Psychiatry Department, University of Rochester School of Medicine; Randi C. Martin, PhD, Psychology Department, Rice University; Joseph J. Campos, PhD, Psychology Department, University of California, Berkeley; Linda P. Spear, PhD, Psychology Department, SUNY Binghampton; and Mark Appelbaum, PhD, Psychology Department, University of California, San Diego. The PC Board also includes two ex-officio members, Ray Fowler, PhD, in his role as the CEO and Gerry Koocher, PhD, in his role as the APA Treasurer. Ray, as noted earlier, has voluntarily stepped out of the appeal process. While we do not have an actual count, it is estimated that, collectively, the members of the PC Board have served as editor or associate editor of over 10+ journals, authored or edited over 25+ books, and authored over 500+ scientific articles. Whether further action is needed above and beyond the PC Board report is unknown at this time, but the matter will receive a full and open discussion by the Board of Directors during it's June 8-10 meeting. We anticipate this timely appeal process, done through established APA procedures (and involving the most appropriate APA governance group) will help resolve the issues under contention in this case -- as well as help to prevent any similar problems in the future. There are very serious and important issues involved, that we, like you, know must be addressed in a fair and equitable process. Please be assured that they will be treated in a timely, balanced, and just manner. Feel free to share this information with others who have questions about this matter. Norine Johnson, Ph.D. Phil Zimbardo, Ph.D., President APA President-Elect, APA _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Fwd: APA controversy
Norine Johnson, Ph.D., President APA and Phil Zimbardo, Ph.D., President-Elect, APA have asked Council Reps to distribute the following letter they wrote regarding the controversy. Dear Colleagues: We urge you to not take a position, one way or the other, on the merits of the issues involved in the AP editorial decisions regarding the Lilienfeld article. None of us know the full facts around this case, for a variety of understandable reasons. We will not know, at least for a few weeks more, some of the most relevant detail. However, we have requested all parties involved in the established editorial review appeal to move forward with all due speed in this complex case. At this time, we are working to expedite a comprehensive and fair inquiry, utilizing the standard APA editorial appeal process. We believe that supporting and defending both the editorial appeal process and the basic editorial peer review process underlying it is critical to our academic freedom and the integrity of scientific publishing. The timing of the process of such an editorial appeal process is, fortunately, very much in favor of a timely analysis. We expect that the Board of Directors will receive information on the outcome of the editorial appeal process at its June 8-10 meeting. The first step in an editorial appeal is to the journal editor (or editor-in-chief) of the journal. In this case that is Ray Fowler, who has voluntarily stepped out of the appeal because some might view him as in a conflicted role. The second step is handled by the APA Chief Editorial Advisor (CEA), who is a non-APA staff member who is an experienced editor. The currently CEA is Lenore Harmon, PhD, of the University of Illinois (who is also the former editor of the APA-published journal, Journal of Counseling Psychology). She has agreed to present her initial review and analysis of the overall editorial processing to the PC Board's Journals Advisory Committee on Friday, June 1 (and to the full PC Board on Saturday, June 2). The third step is the PC Board. It will discuss the matter on June 2-3, and it will be prepared to report its findings, recommendations, and planned actions to the APA Board of Directors at its June 8-10 meeting. The elected PC Board consists of nine individuals with strong academic and scientific backgrounds. The current members of the PC Board are: Sara Kiesler, PhD (chair), Human Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University; Janet Shibley Hyde, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin; Lucia Albino Gilbert, PhD, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Texas at Austin; Lauren B. Resnick, EdD, Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh; Susan H. McDaniel, PhD, Psychiatry Department, University of Rochester School of Medicine; Randi C. Martin, PhD, Psychology Department, Rice University; Joseph J. Campos, PhD, Psychology Department, University of California, Berkeley; Linda P. Spear, PhD, Psychology Department, SUNY Binghampton; and Mark Appelbaum, PhD, Psychology Department, University of California, San Diego. The PC Board also includes two ex-officio members, Ray Fowler, PhD, in his role as the CEO and Gerry Koocher, PhD, in his role as the APA Treasurer. Ray, as noted earlier, has voluntarily stepped out of the appeal process. While we do not have an actual count, it is estimated that, collectively, the members of the PC Board have served as editor or associate editor of over 10+ journals, authored or edited over 25+ books, and authored over 500+ scientific articles. Whether further action is needed above and beyond the PC Board report is unknown at this time, but the matter will receive a full and open discussion by the Board of Directors during it's June 8-10 meeting. We anticipate this timely appeal process, done through established APA procedures (and involving the most appropriate APA governance group) will help resolve the issues under contention in this case -- as well as help to prevent any similar problems in the future. There are very serious and important issues involved, that we, like you, know must be addressed in a fair and equitable process. Please be assured that they will be treated in a timely, balanced, and just manner. Feel free to share this information with others who have questions about this matter. Norine Johnson, Ph.D. Phil Zimbardo, Ph.D., President APA President-Elect, APA _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Fwd: [evol-psych] Online psychological research projects
This might be of interest to Tipsters. Jeff Nagelbush From: Jeffrey Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Fwd: [evol-psych] Online psychological research projects Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2001 10:33:43 -0400 From: Ken Pope [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Ian Pitchford [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [evol-psych] Online psychological research projects Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 22:15:16 +0100 The American Psychological Society (APS) provides a site, maintained by John Krantz, Ph.D., with links to current online research projects related to psychology. Those of you conducting research online might consider having your study linked to this site. The studies are organized under the following topic areas: Clinical Psychology Cognition Developmental Psychology Emotions Forensic Psychology General Issues Health Psychology Industrial/Organizational Personality Psychology and Religion Sensation and Perception Social Psychology The site also provides links to resources for conducting online research (e.g., How to Put Questionnaires on the Internet by Paul Kenyon, Plymouth University). The site is at: http://psych.hanover.edu/APS/exponnet.html Ken - Ken Pope mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] reprints, research, and resources at: http://kspope.com Look at all the sentences that seem true and question them. --David Riesman To view archive/subscribe/unsubscribe/select DIGEST go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evolutionary-psychology Read The Human Nature Daily Review every day http://human-nature.com/nibbs Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Media Alert- Depression
On public radio, the show Fresh Air scheduled for today, Monday, June 11 is dedicated to a discussion of depression. The show is on at various times on different public radio stations. It is on at 4:00 pm on my local station. Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Finger lengths and psychology
July 8, 2001 SCIENCE Is Our Fate Written in the Lengths of Our Fingers? DEBORAH BLUM, Deborah Blum is a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer and author of Sex on the Brain: The Biological Differences Between Men and Women. MADISON, Wis. -- From my childhood, I remember one particularly goofy joke. It started like this: What's the first sign of insanity? Hair growing on your knuckles. Then, just as the victim checked his or her own knuckles, came the punchline: What's the second sign? Looking for it. The teller and any lurking observers would crack up, and we'd all troop off to try the joke on our siblings. When the first reports linking finger length to behavior appeared, I had a sudden flashback to those days of checking for hairy knuckles. Scientists have now measured hundreds of people's hands and linked their finger structure to an extraordinary array of behaviors--musical talent, athletic ability, spatial skills, dyslexia, stuttering, sexual orientation. In March, British researchers added autism to the list. It sounds like a gotcha joke--but one with potentially troublesome consequences. I can envision the scenarios: couples peering at each other's hands on the first date; parents checking their children's hands for signs of trouble; gloves becoming popular again as those of us with the wrong fingers (mine are, of course, normal) seek to hide them, Except, of course, that it's hard to keep a joke going in the face of reasonable science. When you really start exploring the connections between finger length and behavior, they turn out to be less hilarious than we joke lovers might hope. What they provide is a window on the ways scientists try to figure out who we are--and the ways that human biology, beautifully complex, gorgeously convoluted, makes that so hard. All of this is really about the length difference between two fingers, the index finger (second) and the ring finger (fourth, counting from the thumb). Biologists call this the 2D:4D ratio. It appears that in the first trimester of pregnancy, as hormones are pitching in to help build the body, exposure to testosterone can result in a difference in lengths of these two fingers. Why? Unclear, although biologists have known for a long time that testosterone helps shape some bone growth--high, chiseled cheekbones, for instance. Now it appears that those of us exposed to a little more prenatal androgen tend to have a ring finger that's longer than the index finger. It means, not surprisingly, that men--the testosterone heavies in our species--usually have longer ring fingers than index fingers. British researcher John Manning, at the University of Liverpool, sees testosterone as a potent force here. He did the recent autism work and is considering the role of hormones in that disorder. He's also done studies suggesting that exceptional athletes and math whizzes may have gotten an early high dose of testosterone. Manning has found, for instance, that some of Britain's best soccer players tend to have extra-long ring fingers compared to the index. I'm wary of any finding that fully associates the size of a body part with a laundry list of behaviors and abilities. Those mistakes have been made in science before, to our cost, as with the 19th-century belief that because women have slightly smaller skulls than men they are dumber. And, even if there is a statistical correlation between the 2D:4D ratio and male athletes, that still doesn't make testosterone the sole source of athletic prowess. And it doesn't say much about female athletes at all. In women, overall, the finger ratio is different. Index and ring tend to be closer to the same length, the index maybe a little longer. The exception to that, for women, seems to be regarding sexual orientation, which then begs a couple of questions. Is orientation set before birth? If testosterone
Pathologizing of Society?
I found this interesting. I hope you will as well. Not new arguments, but still worth pondering (even with the oversimplifications). Jeff Nagelbush [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ferris State University Tuesday, August 21, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT I have a confession to make: I have a mental illness, and it is called Psychobabble Defiance Disorder. Since at this moment I am also afflicted with Ranter's Syndrome, I intend to have my say on a topic that troubles me. No, let me put that more strongly, a topic that makes me flood the room with rage. My boy, who turned two last month, will start to go to the local church school in the middle of September. His class, which will convene twice a week for two hours each time--short and sweet, which is how it should be for one so young--is called Early Twos. I send him with mixed feelings, of course: How could I not? On the one hand, there is pride in his having grown up enough to go out in the world, even if it is only to the assiduously controlled cocoon of an Episcopal school, three-and-a-half minutes by foot from our home. On the other hand, once out in the world, the little mite will be exposed to the vagaries of the benighted educational-medical complex, which regards it as its business to label all our children as being sufferers of some disorder or other. This won't happen at his church school, for sure--it's much too sensible and old-fashioned for that--but my boy will move on, by the time he's five, to another school, where the teachers, like most teachers of young children in this country, will be on ADD watch. Oops, sorry, forgive me. I should have said ADHD watch. The American psychiatric establishment now refers to Attention Deficit Disorder as Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Why the change? Beats me, but it's just as much nonsense-on-stilts as ADHD as it was pure poppycock as ADD. And I'd bawl out any teacher who said to me, Mr. Varadarajan, I think your boy has an attention disorder, and then suggested Ritalin, or Adderall, or Metadate CD. Sunday's New York Times carried a front-page story on ADHD, and on how lawmakers in some states--Arizona, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Utah and Wisconsin--have introduced bills that would prohibit schoolteachers from playing shrink in their classrooms by telling parents that they must put their children on drugs to combat attention deficit. Such instruction, the bills declare, must only come from doctors. This is good news, and to be vigorously lauded. Teachers must be stopped from playing God. Above all, they must be stopped from shirking their disciplinary duties and seeking to fix every boisterous child with a dose of drugs. What stops this legislative pattern from being excellent news, however, is that the doctors can't be trusted. After all, it was they who invented ADD and foisted it on a generation of American children. Twelve percent of all American boys between six and 14 have been diagnosed with attention deficit problems. (I get these figures from the International Narcotics Control Board, a United Nations agency.) These children all take medication--Schedule II drugs, which share the pharmacological effects of amphetamine, methamphetamine and cocaine--to sharpen their short-term attention span. Four million American children take such medication. Toddlers, and children under five, are being prescribed such medication. Ninety percent of all Ritalin popped in the world is popped in America. What is ADD/ADHD? According to the fourth (and latest) edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders--DSM for short, the bible of the American Psychiatric Association--it is a disorder with nine diagnostic criteria. If your child shows six or more of the following behavior patterns, he's liable to be labeled: a.Often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, work, or other activities b.Often has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities c.Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly d.Often does not follow through on instructions and fails to finish school work, chores, or duties in the workplace (not due to oppositional behavior or failure to understand instructions) e.Often has difficulty organizing tasks and activities f.Often avoids, dislikes, or is reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort (such as schoolwork or homework) g.Often loses things necessary for tasks or activities (e.g., toys, school assignments, pencils, books, or tools) h.Is often
