ScienceCodex News
Originally published March 9, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
To determine whether the early automatic or later controlled neural activity predicted actual moral behavior, the researchers then assessed the children's generosity based on how many stickers they were willing to share with an anonymous child. They then correlated the children's generosity with individual differences in brain activity generated during helping versus harming scenes. Only differences in brain signals associated with deliberate neural processing predicted the children's sharing behavior, suggesting that moral behavior in children depends more on controlled reflection than on an immediate emotional response.
The article is here.
Friday, March 25, 2016
Everything Is Crumbling
By Daniel Engber
Slate.com
Originally published March 16, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
The authors called this effect “ego depletion” and said it revealed a fundamental fact about the human mind: We all have a limited supply of willpower, and it decreases with overuse. Eating a radish when you’re surrounded by fresh-baked cookies represents an epic feat of self-denial, and one that really wears you out. Willpower, argued Baumeister and Tice, draws down mental energy—it’s a muscle that can be exercised to exhaustion.
That simple idea—perhaps intuitive for nonscientists, but revolutionary in the field—turned into a research juggernaut. In the years that followed, Baumeister and Tice’s lab, as well as dozens of others, published scores of studies using similar procedures. First, the scientists would deplete subjects’ willpower with a task that requires self-control: don’t eat chocolate chip cookies, watch this sad movie but don’t react at all. Then, a few minutes later, they’d test them with a puzzle, a game, or something else that requires mental effort.
The article is here.
Slate.com
Originally published March 16, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
The authors called this effect “ego depletion” and said it revealed a fundamental fact about the human mind: We all have a limited supply of willpower, and it decreases with overuse. Eating a radish when you’re surrounded by fresh-baked cookies represents an epic feat of self-denial, and one that really wears you out. Willpower, argued Baumeister and Tice, draws down mental energy—it’s a muscle that can be exercised to exhaustion.
That simple idea—perhaps intuitive for nonscientists, but revolutionary in the field—turned into a research juggernaut. In the years that followed, Baumeister and Tice’s lab, as well as dozens of others, published scores of studies using similar procedures. First, the scientists would deplete subjects’ willpower with a task that requires self-control: don’t eat chocolate chip cookies, watch this sad movie but don’t react at all. Then, a few minutes later, they’d test them with a puzzle, a game, or something else that requires mental effort.
The article is here.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Should Therapists Analyze Presidential Candidates?
by Robert Klitzman
The New York Times
Originally published March 6, 2016
Many psychologists have been quick to offer diagnoses, calling him and other presidential candidates "narcissists," and even providing thoughts about possible treatments.
I wondered what, if anything, to say. I've watched Mr. Trump on TV like everyone else, but never met him. So, I hesitated -- for ethical reasons. The American Psychiatric Association (A.P.A.) prohibits its members from giving professional opinions about public figures we have not interviewed.
This ban stems from a bad incident in my field. In 1964, Fact magazine published an article, announced on its cover as "1,189 Psychiatrists say Goldwater is Psychologically Unfit to be President". The magazine surveyed these professionals, and 49 percent of respondents said Barry M. Goldwater was unfit for the job, describing him as "unbalanced," "immature," "paranoid," "psychotic" and "schizophrenic," and questioning his "manliness." Leading psychiatrists were among those quoted. A famous Johns Hopkins professor said Mr. Goldwater's utterances should "disqualify him from the presidency."
The New York Times
Originally published March 6, 2016
Many psychologists have been quick to offer diagnoses, calling him and other presidential candidates "narcissists," and even providing thoughts about possible treatments.
I wondered what, if anything, to say. I've watched Mr. Trump on TV like everyone else, but never met him. So, I hesitated -- for ethical reasons. The American Psychiatric Association (A.P.A.) prohibits its members from giving professional opinions about public figures we have not interviewed.
This ban stems from a bad incident in my field. In 1964, Fact magazine published an article, announced on its cover as "1,189 Psychiatrists say Goldwater is Psychologically Unfit to be President". The magazine surveyed these professionals, and 49 percent of respondents said Barry M. Goldwater was unfit for the job, describing him as "unbalanced," "immature," "paranoid," "psychotic" and "schizophrenic," and questioning his "manliness." Leading psychiatrists were among those quoted. A famous Johns Hopkins professor said Mr. Goldwater's utterances should "disqualify him from the presidency."
When Doctors Should Say 'I Don't Know'
By Julie Beck
The Atlantic
Originally published February 29, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
Doctors’ tools, knowledge, and treatments have improved since the bloodletting days, and we now have the ability to scan and analyze the body down to the cellular level. But “precision is not the same thing as certainty,” Hatch writes, and often, doctors are just making guesses based on the best evidence they have—a measuring of risks and benefits and probabilities that can be easily influenced by their preconceptions.
Medicine is a high-stakes game of uncertainty, complicated by the fact that people are naturally predisposed to seek certainty whenever possible. If you don’t know what something is, it could be a threat, out there on the ancient savannah of evolutionary psychology logic. That goes for patients and doctors alike, and if both parties are in agreement that certainty is best, it’s possible that they’ll just blow past the risks of a treatment, or the dubiousness of a diagnosis, for the sake of having an answer.
The article is here.
The Atlantic
Originally published February 29, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
Doctors’ tools, knowledge, and treatments have improved since the bloodletting days, and we now have the ability to scan and analyze the body down to the cellular level. But “precision is not the same thing as certainty,” Hatch writes, and often, doctors are just making guesses based on the best evidence they have—a measuring of risks and benefits and probabilities that can be easily influenced by their preconceptions.
Medicine is a high-stakes game of uncertainty, complicated by the fact that people are naturally predisposed to seek certainty whenever possible. If you don’t know what something is, it could be a threat, out there on the ancient savannah of evolutionary psychology logic. That goes for patients and doctors alike, and if both parties are in agreement that certainty is best, it’s possible that they’ll just blow past the risks of a treatment, or the dubiousness of a diagnosis, for the sake of having an answer.
The article is here.
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Colorado Looks to Broaden Therapists' Power to Prevent School Shootings
by Dan Frosch
The Wall Street Journal
Originally published March 6, 2016
In a state that has been battered by mass shootings, Colorado lawmakers are trying a new, focused approach to stopping bloodshed in schools.
A proposed bill would broaden the circumstances under which mental-health professionals can report a student that they believe poses a threat, an issue that has drawn increasing attention around the country
Colorado law requires mental-health workers to alert authorities if a patient expresses a specific, imminent threat, and mandates that they warn those being threatened.
The proposal would permit therapists to alert school administrators about a potentially dangerous student even if that danger isn't immediate. It would apply to all public and private schools, as well as institutes of postsecondary education. Counselors who are school district employees are already permitted such latitude under federal law, but many schools contract with outside mental health workers to treat students, and some students are in private therapy as well, experts said.
The bill, which has bipartisan support, sailed through Colorado's House of Representatives last month by a vote of 51-12. It now heads to the Senate, where it is expected to have the backing of members of both parties.
The article is here.
The Wall Street Journal
Originally published March 6, 2016
In a state that has been battered by mass shootings, Colorado lawmakers are trying a new, focused approach to stopping bloodshed in schools.
A proposed bill would broaden the circumstances under which mental-health professionals can report a student that they believe poses a threat, an issue that has drawn increasing attention around the country
Colorado law requires mental-health workers to alert authorities if a patient expresses a specific, imminent threat, and mandates that they warn those being threatened.
The proposal would permit therapists to alert school administrators about a potentially dangerous student even if that danger isn't immediate. It would apply to all public and private schools, as well as institutes of postsecondary education. Counselors who are school district employees are already permitted such latitude under federal law, but many schools contract with outside mental health workers to treat students, and some students are in private therapy as well, experts said.
The bill, which has bipartisan support, sailed through Colorado's House of Representatives last month by a vote of 51-12. It now heads to the Senate, where it is expected to have the backing of members of both parties.
Physician Burnout Is a Public Health Crisis
Arthur L. Caplan
MedScape
Originally published on March 4, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
We've got a problem in this country with doctors. It's kind of an epidemic, but no one is talking about it. It is burnout. A recent study from the Mayo Clinic showed that in 2011, 45.5% of doctors reported that they felt burned out, and that number has now risen to 54.4% in 2014. More than half of all doctors in this country are saying, "I really feel that some aspect of my work as a doctor is making me feel burned out."
This is really trouble. It's trouble because a doctor who feels this way can commit more errors. They suffer from compassion fatigue, or just not being able to empathize with others because they have their own emotional issues. They may retire early, thereby reducing the workforce. They may have problems managing their own lives; 400 doctors committed suicide last year, which is double the rate of the population average. There's trouble for patients in having a workforce that's burned out. There's trouble for doctors in terms of their own health and well-being. We don't talk about it much. We like to think that doctors can handle everything, but it's clearly not true. It's a problem and there ought to be some solutions.
The article is here.
MedScape
Originally published on March 4, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
We've got a problem in this country with doctors. It's kind of an epidemic, but no one is talking about it. It is burnout. A recent study from the Mayo Clinic showed that in 2011, 45.5% of doctors reported that they felt burned out, and that number has now risen to 54.4% in 2014. More than half of all doctors in this country are saying, "I really feel that some aspect of my work as a doctor is making me feel burned out."
This is really trouble. It's trouble because a doctor who feels this way can commit more errors. They suffer from compassion fatigue, or just not being able to empathize with others because they have their own emotional issues. They may retire early, thereby reducing the workforce. They may have problems managing their own lives; 400 doctors committed suicide last year, which is double the rate of the population average. There's trouble for patients in having a workforce that's burned out. There's trouble for doctors in terms of their own health and well-being. We don't talk about it much. We like to think that doctors can handle everything, but it's clearly not true. It's a problem and there ought to be some solutions.
The article is here.
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
We're Already Violating Virtual Reality's First Code of Ethics
By Daniel Oberhaus
Motherboard.com
Originally published March 6, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
Indeed, it was in light of this potential for lasting psychological impact during and after a virtual reality experience that Madary and Metzinger drafted a list of six main recommendations for the ethical future of commercial and research virtual reality applications. Broadly summarized, their recommendations are:
1) In keeping with the American Psychological Association’s principle of non-maleficence, experiments using virtual reality should ensure that they do not cause lasting or serious harm to the subject.
2) Subjects participating in experiments using virtual reality should be informed about the lasting and serious behavioral effects resulting from virtual reality experiences, and that the extent of this behavioral influence might not be known.
3) Researchers and media outlets should avoid over-hyping the benefits of virtual reality, especially when virtual reality is being discussed as a medical treatment.
4) Awareness of the problem of dual use, or using a technology for something other than its original intention, in the context of virtual reality. The author’s particularly are wary of military applications for virtual reality (which are already being put to a lot of use), whether this means its use as a novel torture device or a means of decreasing a soldier’s empathy for the enemy.
The article is here.
Motherboard.com
Originally published March 6, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
Indeed, it was in light of this potential for lasting psychological impact during and after a virtual reality experience that Madary and Metzinger drafted a list of six main recommendations for the ethical future of commercial and research virtual reality applications. Broadly summarized, their recommendations are:
1) In keeping with the American Psychological Association’s principle of non-maleficence, experiments using virtual reality should ensure that they do not cause lasting or serious harm to the subject.
2) Subjects participating in experiments using virtual reality should be informed about the lasting and serious behavioral effects resulting from virtual reality experiences, and that the extent of this behavioral influence might not be known.
3) Researchers and media outlets should avoid over-hyping the benefits of virtual reality, especially when virtual reality is being discussed as a medical treatment.
4) Awareness of the problem of dual use, or using a technology for something other than its original intention, in the context of virtual reality. The author’s particularly are wary of military applications for virtual reality (which are already being put to a lot of use), whether this means its use as a novel torture device or a means of decreasing a soldier’s empathy for the enemy.
The article is here.
Psychologists Call Out the Study That Called Out the Field of Psychology
By Rachel E. Gross
Slate.com
Originally published March 3, 2016
Remember that study that found that most psychology studies were wrong? Yeah, that study was wrong. That’s the conclusion of four researchers who recently interrogated the methods of that study, which itself interrogated the methods of 100 psychology studies to find that very few could be replicated. (Whoa.) Their damning commentary will be published Friday in the journal Science. (The scientific body that publishes the journal sent Slate an early copy.)
In case you missed the hullabaloo: A key feature of the scientific method is that scientific results should be reproducible—that is, if you run an experiment again, you should get the same results. If you don’t, you’ve got a problem. And a problem is exactly what 270 scientists found last August, when they decided to try to reproduce 100 peer-reviewed journal studies in the field of social psychology. Only around 39 percent of the reproduced studies, they found, came up with similar results to the originals.
The article is here.
Slate.com
Originally published March 3, 2016
Remember that study that found that most psychology studies were wrong? Yeah, that study was wrong. That’s the conclusion of four researchers who recently interrogated the methods of that study, which itself interrogated the methods of 100 psychology studies to find that very few could be replicated. (Whoa.) Their damning commentary will be published Friday in the journal Science. (The scientific body that publishes the journal sent Slate an early copy.)
In case you missed the hullabaloo: A key feature of the scientific method is that scientific results should be reproducible—that is, if you run an experiment again, you should get the same results. If you don’t, you’ve got a problem. And a problem is exactly what 270 scientists found last August, when they decided to try to reproduce 100 peer-reviewed journal studies in the field of social psychology. Only around 39 percent of the reproduced studies, they found, came up with similar results to the originals.
The article is here.
Monday, March 21, 2016
Does your morality change over time?
Maria Isabel Garcia
Rappler.com
Originally published March 4, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
If the morality of young and older adults generally do not change, how can we count on change in general if that is what it would take to have a better future?
We look to children. That is where mothers, yours and mine, know instinctively. I think these data suggest once again how crucial pre-adolescent stage is in shaping our individual moral compasses. Most societies do not hold children responsible for their moral behavior because we presume that these are not yet forged by fire in the core of our beings. If these joint studies would further be supported by more studies, we really have a relatively short window in time to get those childhood moral compasses pointing to the general direction that would favor their well-being and societies’ in general.
The article is here.
Rappler.com
Originally published March 4, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
If the morality of young and older adults generally do not change, how can we count on change in general if that is what it would take to have a better future?
We look to children. That is where mothers, yours and mine, know instinctively. I think these data suggest once again how crucial pre-adolescent stage is in shaping our individual moral compasses. Most societies do not hold children responsible for their moral behavior because we presume that these are not yet forged by fire in the core of our beings. If these joint studies would further be supported by more studies, we really have a relatively short window in time to get those childhood moral compasses pointing to the general direction that would favor their well-being and societies’ in general.
The article is here.
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