Posts Tagged ‘psychology’
While many people take great steps to hide from or avoid publicizing their afflictions, everyone knows someone with an anxiety disorder. One of the more prevalent of these disorders is social anxiety disorder, which afflicts approximately 15 million Americans. This disorder, as the name 
infers, takes hold when the person “experience[s] an intense fear of being scrutinized and negatively evaluated by others in social or performance situations.” (ADAA) Oftentimes in these situations the person will have symptoms that include “blushing, profuse sweating, trembling, nausea, and difficulty talking.” While those symptoms accurately depict reactions to a phobia, I’d like to consider the symptoms of social anxiety in the light of another psychological anomaly: the bystander effect.
The bystander effect came into light after Kitty Genovese, then a 28 year old bar manager, was fatally stabbed while approximately 12 people witnessed the murder and did not come to her aid. This effect, also called the Genovese syndrome, is a psychological and sociological anomaly whereby a group of individuals (usually 10 or more) do not act in an emergency situation. There are two theories for this inaction: pluralistic ignorance, which states that individuals are simply copying the others’ inaction, so that they believe inaction is the appropriate response, and the second theory is diffusion of responsibility, which theorizes that without assigned responsibility, individuals assume someone else has the knowledge or responsibility to react to the situation.
So how are the two connected? I theorize that some who are afflicted with social anxiety are not being possessed by a phobia, but rather encounter diffusion of responsibility. By taking part in an event which exposes the social anxiety, it puts the individual in “bystander” mode, who simply shuts down and cannot speak. Large groups, in my theory, trigger the individual’s mind to believe that in such a large group that responsibility cannot be assigned, and therefore is diffused.
Treatment for overcoming the social anxiety, then, would not focus on the commonly-implemented exposure therapy, but rather cognitive therapy. Exposure therapy, which, as the name suggests, exposes the individual to the phobia, won’t work as well as cognitive since the anxiety comes not from a phobia of people, but because of a loss of responsibility and role in large groups. Cognitive therapy, meanwhile, will allow the patient to understand and assign his or her role in large groups, which, in turn, will hopefully result in the diffusion of responsibility never surfacing.
While I do not believe this is the case for everyone afflicted with social anxiety, I do believe this happens to a segment of the afflicted. By changing the procedure for dealing with these individuals, perhaps a greater number of those afflicted would become cured, and would become confident in social situations instead of avoiding them, allowing them to apply themselves in larger groups and in beneficial social situations.
When people find out that I am a synesthete, most people look very puzzled. They immediately look as if I might have some sort of disease, extra-sensory perception, or belong to a funny-sounding religion. Contrary to their beliefs, however, synesthesia is actually a neat little “disorder” whereby a stimulus gets a little mixed up by a person’s senses. For us synesthetes, that means, depending on the form of synesthesia, we can taste, smell, and touch things such as colors, shapes, sounds, and text — immaterial things to you, but not to us.
The first interesting thing about synesthesia (or synaesthesia for the European readers) is that most synesthetes don’t realize it’s odd until talking with a friend or family member about a synesthetic experience. Despite my mother reading Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet, an autistic synesthete who is also a mathematical savant and sees numbers in the forms of shapes, and discussing with me his experiences, I never realized that I too was a synesthete. It wasn’t until years later in a casual conversation about a song to which we were listening and what it looked like did someone finally say, “What are you talking about?” That song is shown below:
This form of synesthesia is called sound-color. I don’t know why there are four blue posts, a transparent platform connecting them, or multi-colored strands which run through the posts. Nothing in the song gives the impression of that image, and yet at a certain point in the song, that image always shows up, as is what happens in most songs to which I listen. Some songs may only have one image; others will have three. Very few have more than that.
A music teacher once asked me a question I hadn’t really considered before: “Do some bands’ songs look similar?” And yes, they sometimes do. Some bands tend to have bars and lines; others tend to have more blurry lines of soft colors. Some songs have dots and “auras” or “glows.” Interestingly, some songs by bands who share members (for example, of two different bands have the same lead singer) will have two completely different images.
Another interesting question posed by a student of mine was very telling of the difference between synesthetes and non-synesthetes: she asked, “If you see listen to music while you drive, how do you see the road?” Sometimes the best questions are asked by the most innocent and curious! The answer, of course, is that I “see through” the image. The images are always there during the song, but I’m not concentrating on them, so I’m able to see through them. Some images are in my peripheral vision and I don’t even need to see through them to ignore them. For example, the image above is in my lower peripheral vision.
But that’s not the only kind of synesthesia I have. Another prominent form of synesthesia I have is called number form. This is where numbered sequences aren’t linear; that is, when you think if a number sequence, you most likely think of them in a line. For synesthetes with the number form type, we see non-linear sequences. While number form obviously infers it happens to numbers, for my synesthesia it happens to months. Below is an badly drawn approximation of how I see the calendar.
You’ll note two things: first, it doesn’t even remotely look like a calendar. When I spontaneously imagine where I am in the year, it looks very similar to this. In June, July, and August, it’s as if I’m looking down a ramp. It then turns into a 2-D clock-like image which slowly trails off.
The second thing you’ll notice about the image is that there are two months missing: March and May. Those two months are completely missing from the image which I see, and I’m often at first confused on which one comes first in the year.
Another implication of seeing this image is that it takes me a few seconds to realize just how far away other months are. For example, if I’m in November, August seems very close while February seems very far away, when in reality both are the same distance from November. Largely regardless of what month I’m actually in, April and July usually seem very far away while June seems reasonably close.
The third type of synesthesia I have is called personification. As the word infers, synesthetes with personification type see numbers, letters, and some symbols as having inherent personality types. For my synesthesia, I see numbers as having body types. Some numbers are inherently skinny while others are fat. Some are beautiful while others are ugly. When choosing my sports numbers, I always took this into consideration, trying to match my jersey number with a number which fit my body type. For example, when I started playing as a hockey goalie in hockey, I chose 39 since its body type is pretty skinny, as I once was. Then I changed to 43, which has a more “average”/athletic body type.
Unlike Daniel Tammet, who seemingly uses his synesthesia in conjunction with being a mathematical savant, I don’t have any keen insights or advantages due to synesthesia. Instead, I just have a number of neat experiences and images which I can draw, paint, or describe to others. I’ve even considered painting my synesthetic images for bands or people who would like to “see” the image of their favorite songs.
For more information about synesthesia, there are many books about the subject, including Wednesday Is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia, The Hidden Sense: Synesthesia in Art and Science, The Man Who Tasted Shapes, The Frog who Croaked Blue: Synesthesia and the Mixing of the Senses, Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens: How Synesthetes Color Their Worlds, and for the more academic-minded, Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses – Second Edition and Synesthesia: Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience. Prominent researchers and research institutions include Richard E. Cytowic, M.D., Edward M. Hubbard, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and University of Sussex. You can even test yourself online at The Synesthesia Battery to see if you have a number of types of synesthesia.
The latest report on speeding-related traffic accidents isn’t a good one for those with a lead foot: there was a “3.2 percent increase in deaths because of higher speed limits on all types of roads in the United States” between 1995 and 2005. That doesn’t sound like a whole lot until you look at the actual figure of fatalities in crashes due to excessive speeding, which is the cause of nearly 1/3 of all fatal accidents, in those years: 12,545. The important issues, really, are what goes into determining and enforcing speed limits, the underlying psychology of why people drive the way they do, and using those two factors determine a way to decrease accidents and fatalities.
There are various factors that are used to determine speed limits, but the general ones include:
- 85th percentile speed (PDF): this is defined as being the speed that 85% of motorists go on the road, separating them from the top 15%. This is a reactive system: it’s simply based on the theory that there is better compliance of speed limits if the majority of people are bound to go that particular speed. This procedure is usually found in determining speed limits on highways in the United States;
- Design speed (PDF): This determines the speed limit as per the safety of the road using factors such as curves, hills, bottlenecks, or other parts of the road. These generally aren’t changed unless the road itself changes, so this procedure is generally used for first-time highways (where the 85th percentile speed cannot yet be determined) and side/back roads;
- Crash records;
- Political or administrative judgment.
So given the 85th percentile rule and assuming that it has determined an appropriate and effective speed limit for those roads, what psychology underlies the other 15% who are chronic speeders? I have a 3-part ordered theory called the “Three Cs Theory” that I believe determines one’s mode of driving on any given road:
- Circumstance
- Conditioning
- Comfort
The first is circumstance. In circumstances such as an emergency, weather conditions, being late for an appointment, or being agitated or influenced by other drivers, one’s driving can certainly be impacted to be different than that of the general state in which they drive. That, above all, influences one’s driving.
Take away the circumstance, though, a person will then resort to driving how they are conditioned. For example, should a driver know that speed traps are often seen near a particular overpass, he or she will likely slow down or drive more safely than otherwise. The driver has been conditioned to know to slow down or else he or she may get a ticket.
Now that the two overt factors influencing a diver’s state have been explained, the third “c” represents every driver’s underlying, unadulterated psychology while driving: comfort. A driver who is comfortable driving 50 mph on a particular road will, when uninfluenced, probably go 50 mph. Likewise, a driver who is comfortable going 80 mph in the rain on a highway will probably, when uninfluenced, go 80 mph. That is where I believe the drivers in the 15% can be found.
This theory fits in reasonably well with the 85th percentile speed method as long as there aren’t any extraneous influences which affect the driving. The question, then, becomes if our current methodology is appropriate. Some factors that may help in determining the efficacy of a speed limit is the amount and severity of crashes, adherence to the speed limit by drivers, and the level of speeding tolerance by law enforcement.
While the 85th percentile speed method then appears appropriate since that is where most people are comfortable, what can be done to counter the increase in accidents and fatalities? I believe it’s reasonable, given the aforementioned factors, to place our focus and efforts in improving road planning and engineering in an attempt at finding an equilibrium of sorts between the 85th percentile speed and design speed. If we can engineer our roads to meet the design speed specifications that complement the 85th percentile speed comfort, and increase conditioning by law enforcement-derived deterrence in areas where infractions and accidents continue, I believe we will find a sharp decrease in accidents and fatalities on those roads.
It happens when you least expect it: when you’re sitting at home or having a simple conversation with a friend, you get the feeling that you’ve been there and done that before. Deja vu, meaning “already seen” in French, is the phenomenon described previously, where you believe that what you’re experiencing right now has already taken place sometime in the past. Varying reports claim its frequency: some say 60%, others at least two-thirds, and some others even up to 97% of people have experienced this perception. But there’s no doubt that it’s common.
In addition to varying reports of its frequency, there are varying theories on how it works. Alternative or parapsychological explanations aside, there are as many as 30 current theoretical explanations into its origin. Current research into paramnesia (another word for deja vu) includes familiarity-based recognition, which is supported by academic psychologist Anne Cleary. In this theory, she asserts that deja vu is as a result of the current experience seeming familiar to us because of a past event that was similar but not exactly like the current event.
Similar to Cleary’s theory, Alan Brown, and Elizabeth Marsh, tends to concentrate on a recognition memory-based theory involving double perception. This theory takes much less time than Cleary’s: while Cleary’s involves past memories, double perception involves quick glances. Their theory explains that deja vu is simply when our first glance takes a superficial note of the experience, and we then immediately take in the experience with full awareness.
My theory on deja vu takes a similar feel to Cleary’s and Brown and Marsh’s theory, but also includes dual processing theory, which is what happens when “two cognitive processes are momentarily out of sync.” My theory is quite simple: when we experience a moment, the dual cognitive processes get registered in our brain in separate areas: first, the experience is registered in our short- or long-term memory before its ever processed in real-time. When our second cognitive process finally processes the event, the experience tends to feel familiar because it has already been “misplaced” in the memory before it could be processed.
My theory is different from Cleary’s theory because it only invokes familiarity with the event which is happening now only through the process of dual processing as opposed to an experience from the true past (say, an hour/day/week/month/year ago). It’s also different from Brown and Marsh’s theory in that I only include one perception of the experience instead of their two (the superficial and then full-awareness). My theory ties these two together by invoking dual processing, simply registering the experience as a memory before it can be processed in real-time by the cerebral cortex.
One way to validate my theory would be to copy the experiments of Cleary and Brown and Marsh’s, and take images of the participants’ memory creation processes during the experiments. If the memory is created before evidence of the processing of the experience and the participant recognizes a perception of deja vu, then it would be easy to see how dual processing is the culprit. This research could have a great effect on neuroscience, including rehabilitation of those in traumatic brain injuries, pedagogical processes, and understanding experience processing and memory retention.
What if the free will we experience every moment of our lives was mere illusion? Being a causal determinist, I argue that all of life and its choices are actually simply culminations of progressions of physical and chemical reactions. While it at first seems absurd to question a part of life we encounter so frequently and so consciously, but, as René Descartes wisely began his First Meditation,
Some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them. I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last.
Therefore, it would be prudent of us to, when attempting to understand human thought and reason, also question at a very basic level what makes us act the way we do. It is through this exploration at a very basic level that led me to this conclusion: since our bodies are composed entirely of chemicals, and we know that chemicals go through processes and reactions, we can then associate our actions with those chemical processes. This is where my argument for causal determinism is based.
According to Robert C. Solomon, determinism is “the position that every event has a cause (including thoughts and decisions) and is fully governed by the laws of nature.” According to the view, since everything in the universe, including humans, is material of some sort, and materials have physical reactions, we too are wholly based in and guided by those reactions. Freedom and free will are simply illusions.
Before giving evidence of this position’s validity, I’ll first go through three other similar perspectives to rule out any confusion:
- Fatalism: in fatalism, actions happen because they are meant to happen, for some reason such as karma. Fatalism is different than determinism in that deterministic actions must happen due to their static physical qualities, while fatalistic actions happen because they are meant to happen by some other force.
- Predestination: predestination is the view that the world is predetermined by some being, and our lives are simply playing out the stories which will necessarily lead into the predetermined conclusion. While it would be fair to say that a deterministic view will lead to a conclusion that could have been determined, predestination invokes a deity or being that oversees the storyline.
- Soft determinism: another view is soft determinism, also called compatibilism, which holds that freedom still exists due to the fact that we can never know all of the causes which have brought about the current action. This view concludes that we are free due to certain “free actions,” such as by rationality, without “external compulsion,” or by some other non-induced action.
Even though soft determinism fits well with our consciousness and the seemingly ever-present ability we have to make decisions through our own rationales, it’s my position that causal determinism is the reality of our nature and everything else in the universe.
For evidence of causal determinism’s validity we needn’t look any further than psychoactive drugs. While many would argue that the human mind isn’t material, psychoactive drugs have great effects on the mind, our perceptions, and our thoughts. For example:
- Major depressive disorder is thought to be based on a lack or imbalance of one or more of the monoamines (serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine). Antidepressant drugs work by increasing the levels of such monoamines. Therefore, depression in this instance and its psychological implications are chemically-based.
- Lysergic acid diethylamide, otherwise known as LSD, has visual effects, as well as distortions of the perception of time. LSD works by affecting G protein coupled receptors, including dopamine and adrenoreceptor subtypes.
In each of these cases, and many more that are similar to these cases, it is a chemical which is having an effect on the chemicals in our brain. The reactions between those chemicals in our brain change the way our mind works, perceives, and, in turn, affects the way we interact with the outside world. My evidence for the validity of causal determinism is, simply, because chemicals interact and influence our mind, our mind is therefore made of chemicals. It follows, then, that because our mind is simply a culmination of physical and chemical processes, we are no different than anything else in the universe: humans, animals, rocks, lightning, plasma, ice, and photons, all just physical and chemical processes acting in the strict governance of the laws of nature.
It’s not the nicest view, but it is one for which I find clear and unequivocal evidence. In future posts I’ll explore a casual deterministic perspective of law and punishment, learning, and other implications.