What is the term for the "knowing what you think but can't explain it" phenomenon? I think we all experience this phenomenon once in a while, and I am experiencing it right now. It's the feeling that whatever word one tries to say it seems to be wrong (for them) or confusing (for the listeners), and would require a period of time to think out the right word that they have already known. If severed, it can lead to frustration, but it's not really about feeling insecurity.

What is the word for that?

Mental block

A mental block is an uncontrollable suppression, or repression of painful or unwanted thoughts/memories. Also can be an inability to continue or complete a train of thought, as in the case of writer's block. In the case of writer's block, many find it helpful to take a break and revisit their topic.

You can also check out a list of synonyms and related words for "forgetful and forgetfulness".


Can someone move into cognitive science from a linguistic or philosophical background? Unfortunately the school I'm starting at this coming fall doesn't offer a cognitive science degree (note: I've just read that they do have a cognitive science lab in the psychology department), but seeing as cognitive science is a multidisciplinary field, I was wondering whether or not it would be unwise to focus on one particular sub-field (say, philosophy or computer science) and try to work my way into cognitive science from there.

The problem is that I have a very strong background in computer science, and I'm up in the air about whether I want to study philosophy or linguistics.  Based on my understanding, all of these fall under the umbrella of cognitive science, am I correct?

Is it unheard of for someone to move into cognitive science from a linguistic or philosophical background?  What do you suggest I do?

It is common for psychology departments to have a cognitive specialization available at the graduate level.  At the undergrad level, I would expect to be forced to choose between psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, or something else. That is, cognitive science does not include philosophy or computer science by most academic systems for demarcating scientific domains. In scientific reality, all these domains bleed into one another of course, but you can probably expect to have to choose among them for any degree program. One can often pursue interdisciplinary study to some extent too (e.g., double-major, minor, or have two graduate advisors).

It is not unheard of to approach any degree from any other degree / background as far as I'm aware. Of course it's less likely for a creative writing major to apply for an organic chemistry doctoral program as compared to a biology major, but that's not to say either option is impossible. I don't think it would be exceptionally difficult to transition into a cognitive science from a philosophy background, and I imagine it would be easier still to transition from linguistics to psychology or neuroscience, but it's probably the easiest to stick with a single degree program the whole way. Easiest is not necessarily best, of course.

Consider how competitive you can be for each program, and compare with how badly you want to pursue each and what the world needs most from you. Consider what career options are for each, and which suits you best. Travel into the future and ask your future self what choices you regret...No other method is foolproof, unfortunately. Fortunately, career change is always an option, if not always easy.


How is the signal-to-noise ratio of an event-related-potential measured? I often encounter publications where the authors try to "increase the SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals". Some define a numeric value of SNR of EEG signals, but I am confused as to the exact definition of the SNR and how it can be measured for ERPs?

Previously, I have calculated the SNR using a model of noise, for example a Gaussian model. I have also encountered SNR calculations based on a ratio between the mean and the standard deviation of a signal, but both of these approaches seem to be impractical. When I process the EEG signal, I would like to emphasize how the ERP changes in the EEG signal. All of this is strongly related with variance. If the variance approaches to zero, then theory tells me that SNR goes to infinity (a really good signal), but the signal that I will have is useless.

Is there a better way to measure the SNR then I have mentioned?

Based on your comments I interpret your question as:

"(1) What is the definition of the signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) and (2) how do I determine the SNR for event-related potential (ERP) amplitudes in an EEG signal?".

(1) Signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) is a term often encountered in electrophysiology (e.g. EEG) and signal processing and can be loosely defined as the ratio of the relevant signal divided by the noise level. The signal in this example is the ERP amplitude, while the noise is the remaining background activity in the EEG that distorts the ERP (unwanted noise). Noise includes hardware noise, movement artifacts by the subjects, random synchronized brain activity and so on. So SNR = signal/noise.

(2) In case of ERP amplitude being the signal you are after, than the noise is the amplitude of the background EEG (SNRERP_amplitude = ERPamplitude / NOISEamplitude). The ERP amplitude can be defined by determining peak amplitude (e.g. relative to baseline). A straightforward (and widely accepted method) to characterize noise amplitude is determining the standard deviation (SD) of the entire EEG epoch (e.g., 500 ms) in which the ERP was recorded (Hu et al., 2010). Then, the SNR becomes ERPamplitude / SDEEGepoch.

PS: your comment

  If the variance approaches to zero, then theory tells me that SNR goes to infinity (a really good signal), but the signal that I will have is useless.

is incorrect. The signal is always part of the EEG epoch. Assuming there is a measurable ERP on a flatline background EEG (amplitude=0), than the signal will be the only thing that adds to the noise component. This is counter intuitive, but note that when noise amplitude is defined as, e.g., the SD, than this SD will be very small as it is determined across the entire EEG epoch. Hence, the peak-amplitude of the ERP will be much larger than the SD. In this ideal ERP recording the SNR will be large, but it will never become infinitely large.

Reference
- Hu et al., NeuroImage (2010); 50(1): 99-111


Prevalence of psychological "problems" Giulio Cesare Giacobbe is an expert of psychosynthesis. In one of his books (Alla Ricerca delle Coccole Perdute) he speaks of childish, neurotic people. He says most people are childish and neurotic.

Dale Carnegie explains in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People that people are often cocky, narcissistic and so on.

Wayne Dyer writes in his book Your Erroneous Zones that the instruction system creates distortion and problems in persons.

One statistic described 3.5% of people experiencing psychological dystonic problems (anxiety, OCD, etc.). I would guess that the number or people experiencing bad thinking, cognitive distortion, and other strong, dysfunctional personality traits could be very high. Are there any statistics on that?

Not entirely sure what specific stats you'd be interested in, but Wikipedia has plenty on prevalences of specific mental disorders. For anxiety disorders, which include obsessive compulsive disorder:

  A review that pooled surveys in different countries up to 2004 found overall average prevalence estimates for any anxiety disorder of 10.6% (in the 12 months prior to assessment) and 16.6% (in lifetime prior to assessment), but that rates for individual disorders varied widely. Women had generally higher prevalence rates than men, but the magnitude of the difference varied [(Somers, Goldner, Waraich, & Hsu, 2006); emphasis added].

However, Wikipedia's section on epidemiology of anxiety disorders page gives different numbers:

  Globally as of 2010 approximately 273 million (4.5% of the population) had an anxiety disorder [(Vos et al., 2013)]. It is more common in females (5.2%) than males (2.8%). In Europe, Africa and Asia, lifetime rates of anxiety disorders are between 9 and 16%, and yearly rates are between 4 and 7% [(Simpson, Neria,  & Lewis-Fernández, 2010)]. In the United States, the lifetime prevalence of anxiety disorders is about 29% [(Kessler et al., 2005)] and between 11 and 18% of adults have the condition in a given year. [Emphasis added.]

For OCD specifically:

  OCD occurs in between 1 to 3% of children and adults [(Sarvet, 2013)]. It occurs equally in both sexes...A 2000 study by the World Health Organization found some variety in prevalence and incidence of OCD around the world, with figures in Latin America, Africa, and Europe at two to three times those in Asia and Oceania [(Ayuso-Mateos, 2000); emphasis added].

Here's a cool figure of "age-standardized disability-adjusted life year rates from OCD by country (per 100,000 inhabitants)" uploaded to Wikipedia by Lokal_Profil (darker $>$ lighter; click for the scale):

"Bad thinking, cognitive distortion, and other strong, dysfunctional personality traits" is a little too vague to work with much further, but here's Wikipedia's info on prevalence of personality disorders in general:

  Studies of the prevalence of personality disorders (PDs) have been fewer and smaller-scale, but a broader Norwegian survey found a similar overall prevalence of almost 1 in 7 (13.4%), based on meeting personality criteria over the prior five-year period. Rates for specific disorders ranged from 0.8% to 2.8%, with rates differing across countries, and by gender, educational level and other factors [(Torgersen, Kringlen, & Cramer, 2001)]. A US survey that incidentally screened for personality disorder found an overall rate of 14.79% [(Grant et al., 2004); emphasis added].

Finally, neuroticism is a continuous dimension of individual differences with an approximately normal distribution. As such it is largely defined in terms of degree relative to population norms, and it doesn't make much sense to say "most people are childish and neurotic." (That is, I imagine we'd want to define "childish" in a similar way if we wanted to make any objective statements about population levels.) I'm unaware of any ratio-scaled measures of neuroticism (and find it hard to imagine any that wouldn't be very controversial), so as an interval-scaled construct at best, there is no meaningful "zero neuroticism". Hence, depending on what it means to you, you could either say:

"Everyone's a little bit neurotic (at least)!" or,
"$\approx49.\bar{9}\%$ of the population is neurotic, and the same proportion are not."

Statement 1 would be Giacobbe's best defense, but that's not saying much – nor does the statement as I've phrased it, though it's an improvement. A better interpretation of his statement (at least, as you've phrased it) would probably be as the subjective opinion, "I find most people to be childish and neurotic [compared to myself, or compared to how I would expect them to act due to other factors, which I'm probably ignoring]."

References

- Ayuso-Mateos, J. L. (2000). Global burden of obsessive-compulsive disorder in the year 2000. World Health Organization. Global program on evidence of health policy, global burden of disease. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/healthinfo/statistics/bod_obsessivecompulsive.pdf.
- Grant, B. F., Hasin, D. S., Stinson, F. S., Dawson, D. A., Chou, S. P., Ruan, W., & Pickering, R. P. (2004). Prevalence, correlates, and disability of personality disorders in the United States: Results from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 65(7), 948–958.
- Kessler, R. C., Berglund, P., Demler, O., Jin, R., Merikangas, K. R., & Walters, E. E. (2005). Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Archives of General Psychiatry, 62(6), 593–602. Retrieved from http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/faculty/detels/PH150/Kessler_DSMIV_AGP2009.pdf.
- Sarvet, B. (2013). Childhood obsessive-compulsive disorder. Pediatrics in Review, 34(1), 19–28.
- Simpson, H. B., Neria, Y., & Lewis-Fernández, R. (Eds., 2010). Anxiety disorders: Theory, research and clinical perspectives. Cambridge University Press.
- Somers, J. M., Goldner, E. M., Waraich, P., & Hsu, L. (2006). Prevalence and incidence studies of anxiety disorders: A systematic review of the literature. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 51(2), 100–113. Retrieved from http://ww1.cpa-apc.org/Publications/Archives/CJP/2006/february/sommers-RP.asp.
- Torgersen, S., Kringlen, E., & Cramer, V. (2001). The prevalence of personality disorders in a community sample. Archives of General Psychiatry, 58(6), 590–596.
- Vos, T., Flaxman, A. D., Naghavi, M., Lozano, R., Michaud, C., Ezzati, M., ... & Brooker, S. (2013). Years lived with disability (YLDs) for 1160 sequelae of 289 diseases and injuries 1990–2010: A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. The Lancet, 380(9859), 2163–2196.


Is there any correlation between n-back level and short-term memory? I've been reading on n-back's non-transferable working memory training, but if it's just used as a method of measuring the subject's working memory is it a good measurement? Personally, I have a poor working memory, easily forgetting what I was just speaking, how the arguments arrive at certain point, what I was just thinking that is important like a few seconds ago. Currently I've been playing n-back from time to time, and I am stuck on dual 3-back forever, never really able to pass through dual 4-back. Typically I don't have a habit of remembering stuff because I can always look up from search engines, and I take digital notes.

Yes. n-back performance correlates with short-term memory capacity as measured by standard tests. However, there is no standard implementation of the n-back task, which is why the literature is fairly inconsistent. Because it is not administered in a standardized fashion, it is not a good test that is comparable between studies. However, it is often used in working memory training.

Here is a paper that is critical of the n-back task. To be fair, although there is scientific consensus that there is insufficient evidence that "brain training" is effective, this is a publication from one of the more skeptical (which is a good thing) research groups. In this regard my example is somewhat biased, but I am open to discussing other perspectives. The group has also published some quite excellent criticism of how training experiments are not always well-designed, but I digress...

In cognitive training, it is important to distinguish between tasks that are optimized for testing and tasks that are optimized for training. A test task should optimally not vary in performance. The retest reliability should be high, while a training task should optimally improve performance over time and induce neuroplasticity in a consistent manner.

It is still open what makes a training task efficient. Some suggestions have been made, but criticized to an equal degree. One such concept is adaptive tasks. This describes when a task adapts the difficulty to the user depending on the user's previous performance. In summary, different n-back tasks vary in design and thus may vary in efficiency.

The problems of far and near transfer remain. Sometimes a battery of different tasks are administered simultaneously, but in such cases it becomes more difficult to attribute improvement on performance to specific tasks.


What is the neurophysiological mechanism behind double hearing? A patient with sensorineural hearing loss can have the symptom of hearing "double" in the damaged ear. Not having a time-delayed echo, but hearing as if he (or other people) speak with "two voices" at once.

Is there a theory about the mechanism behind this? Does it happen on the level of the malfunctioning hair cells, or because the brain has trouble remapping an incomplete input of frequencies, or something else?

Short answer
Damage to the inner ear can result in an asymmetric distortion in pitch perception between the two ears. This phenomenon can result in the same tone being perceived as a different pitch by the two ears.

Background
Damage to the inner ear (the cochlea) can lead to hearing loss. Hearing loss can sometimes lead to changes in perceived pitch. For people with unilateral cochlear damage, or asymmetrical hearing losses, the same tone presented alternately to the two ears may be perceived as having different pitches in the two ears (diplacusis). Sometimes different pitches are perceived even when the hearing loss is the same in the two ears (Moore, 1996). Diplacusis is associated with a higher perceived pitch in the relatively more impaired ear (Burns & Turner, 1986).

The precise origin of these pitch shifts is unclear, but are related to hearing loss (Moore, 1996). What is known, however, is that damage to the cochlea can lead to (Moore & Carlyon, 2005):

Reduced frequency selectivity in the ear, i.e., a reduced pitch discrimination. This may alter the perception of pitch in complex tones;
Altered velocity of the travelling wave on the basilar membrane. When the outer hair cells (the acoustic amplifiers in the cochlea) are damaged, the speed in which the acoustic wave travels through the cochlea may be altered, possibly leading to an altered perceived pitch;
Dead regions in the cochlea, where the inner hair cells (the mechanoreceptors of the inner ear) are absent. In this case a tone is perceived by adjacent regions in the cochlea. Because the cochlea is a frequency-to-place converter (basically a Fourier transformer), it may result in altered pitch perception;
Reduced phase locking (Koppl, 1997) in the auditory nerve. Phase locking refers to auditory nerve fibers following the waveform of the tonal stimulus, which may provide pitch information (in humans this process is mainly confined to low frequencies, ~1 kHz and below). Reduction of this property may alter pitch perception.

References
- Burns & Turner, JASA (1986), 79(5): 1530-40
- Koppl, J Neurosci (1997), 17(9): 3312–21
- Moore, Ear Hear (1996); 17: 133-60
- Moore & Carlyon, Springer Handbook of Auditory Research (2005); 24: 234-77


How does recognizing an answer differ from creating an answer to a question? What are the scientific terms to use when researching the difference between the brain abilities demonstrated in recognizing an answer (e.g. multiple choice) versus creating an answer (e.g. fill in the blank)?

I just blew through a new Lumosity recognition game and yet struggled with a familiar fill-in game. I'm curious which cognitive abilities are involved. Naive Google searches brought me back a lot of "recognizing creativity in the workplace" type answers.

If I understand you correctly, then the terms you are looking for are "recognition" and "recall".

See: http://www.ehow.com/info_7754397_recall-vs-recognition.html

In depth:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recall_(memory)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_memory


What term is used to define long duration sexual intercourse addiction/hunger? Sexual need between partners/couples often grows time to time. Sometimes it crosses the usual duration like it takes more than an hour to satisfy and it may grow more as they continue. But that hampers usual life activities and sometimes the relationship itself.

Is there is any disorder or any behavioral term in Psychology and/or Neuroscience to define this growing sexual hunger?

It sounds like you're describing delayed orgasm. I've condensed the relevant bits of the following paper:

  Jenkins & Mulhall. Delayed orgasm and anorgasmia. Fertility and Sterility, 2015; 104(5):1082-1088.

    Delayed orgasm/anorgasmia defined as the persistent or recurrent difficulty, delay in, or absence of attaining orgasm after sufficient sexual stimulation, which causes personal distress. Delayed orgasm and anorgasmia are associated with significant sexual dissatisfaction. A focused medical history can shed light on the potential etiologies, which include medications, penile sensation loss, endocrinopathies, penile hyperstimulation, and psychological etiologies. Unfortunately, there are no excellent pharmacotherapies for delayed orgasm/anorgasmia, and treatment revolves largely around addressing potential causative factors and psychotherapy.

  Definition

    Delayed orgasm is further classified as lifelong/acquired, generalized/situational, and mild/moderate/severe. An acquired dysfunction establishes that the patient previously had normal orgasm timing. Situational dysfunction implies the man has problems in a particular scenario or scenarios, yet functioning normally in others.

    There is no set time threshold for what defines DO. Time threshold for distress is dependent on the partners involved. Some men will reach orgasm with one partner in 15 minutes and have no distress, but with another partner it may cause severe distress because the partner may complain of pain with prolonged intercourse. A population-based survey established that the median intravaginal ejaculatory latency time (IELT) was 5.4 minutes and 2 SD above was approximately 22 minutes. A provider with a patient complaining of IELT longer than 22 minutes will theoretically qualify him for the diagnosis of DO. One should differentiate between problems with of ejaculation and orgasm.

  Physiology of orgasm

    Orgasm is a complex neurobiological process that comes as a result of sexual activity (physical sensation) and/or arousal (cognitive awareness). The physiology of ejaculation is discussed elsewhere. When ejaculation occurs, the brain processes the sensation of the pressure buildup within the posterior urethra (bladder neck and external urinary sphincter are closed contemporaneously) leading up to seminal fluid emission and the contraction of the periurethral musculature. This processing leads to the triggering of an orgasm.

  Pathophysiology

    Hyperstimulation

      Some men obtain greater pleasure from masturbation than they do with sexual intercourse and may continue deep-rooted habits such as frequent masturbation or using idiosyncratic masturbation techniques. Studies have shown a correlation between DO and men with idiosyncratic masturbation practices. Also, with increasing frequency of masturbation the sensitivity of the penis can decline and lead to a vicious cycle where the man increases masturbation force to counteract the declining sensitivity, therefore leading to worsening DO. Vaginal intercourse or orogenital stimulation may not be able to replicate the stimulation achieved through idiosyncratic masturbation and this may result in reduced penile stimulation leading to difficulty achieving an orgasm.

    Penile Sensation Loss

      Penile sensation loss has been shown to increase with age. In a literature review by Rowland, he plotted penile sensory thresholds as a function of age as well as sexual functional status. He found that penile sensation loss was more commonly present in those men with increased age and those with sexual dysfunctions.

    Psychosexual Causes

      Delayed orgasm based on situational aspects (i.e., difficulties with a specific partner and not with another) is more likely to be due to a psychological etiology. One study looked at stress and anxiety related to timed intercourse demands for fertility treatments and found DO developed in 6% of patients related to elevated anxiety levels. A novel study by Kirby et al. used a rat model to show how stress can suppress the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, which is important in healthy normal sexual function. They showed that acute and chronic immobilization stress led to an increase in adrenal glucocorticoids causing an increase in gonadotropin inhibitory hormone, which suppresses the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis by inhibition of GnRH.

  Management strategies

    It is true that some men with DO/AO never have an etiology diagnosed that reflects our limited understanding of the physiology of orgasm and the pathophysiology of these conditions. Therapy is focused on defining and treating any overt underlying causes often in conjunction with psychotherapy. Various lifestyle changes include steps to improve intimacy, reduce masturbation frequency, change of masturbation style, and decreasing alcohol consumption.

Other possibilities, if I'm misinterpreting your question:

Hypersexual disorder (HD; "a pattern of behavior involving intense preoccupation with sexual fantasies, urges and activities, leading to adverse consequences and clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important functions") was considered for inclusion in the DSM-5, but was eventually rejected by the American Psychiatric Association:

  Reid & Kafka. Controversies About Hypersexual Disorder and the DSM-5. Current Sexual Health Reports, 2014; 6(4):259-264.

    The concept of mental disorders has also been condemned by some who suggest it is a value-laden socially constructed phenomena used to impose conformity to cultural norms. Not surprisingly, similar arguments have been launched against the HD proposal with allegations that HD pathologizes normal variants of healthy sexual behavior, and hence, it does not meet the requirements for “deviance.” Another frequent criticism is that HD could be an extension or manifestation of an existing mental disorder. This latter critique should not be quickly dismissed given high comorbidity rates of other mental illness commonly reported among treatment-seeking samples of hypersexual patients. Further, it is widely believed among clinicians working with hypersexual patients that sex is used to “cope” with challenging situations or as a way of “coping” in the wake of emotional distress. Such assertions might imply that hypersexuality is an attempt to compensate for maladaptive systems designed to regulate emotion. Subsequently, wouldn’t the more parsimonious conceptualization of hypersexuality be some type of an emotional dysfunction disorder or an adjustment disorder rather than an independent pathology?

    If one argues for HD as an independent disorder, they must also identify which internal functions are failing to operate and advance some theory implicating what mechanisms of action are purported to cause the dysfunction. Sadly, sex researchers investigating hypersexuality have often failed in this endeavor with a few notable exceptions. For example, neurobiological mechanisms linked to sexual excitation and sexual inhibition has been advanced as a plausible explanation for hypersexuality. A broader hypothesis about executive deficits in frontal lobe functioning reported mixed findings where hypersexual patients self-reported executive deficits but did not exhibit executive dysfunctions when tested. Many have suggested addiction, impulsivity, and compulsivity models, although it’s questionable whether these conceptualizations really constitute theoretical models given their lack of specificity, falsifiable testability, or explanatory power for the construct of hypersexuality. Moreover, proponents of these approaches have yet to clearly operationalize and delineate the respective distinct contributions of addiction, impulsivity, or compulsivity as they relate to hypersexual behavior.

While HD wasn't accepted as an established diagnosis, compulsive sexual behavior is a common disorder with similar criteria:

  Derbyshire & Grant. Compulsive Sexual Behavior: A Review of the Literature. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 2015; 4(2):37-43.

    Compulsive sexual behavior can generally be divided into two categories: Paraphilic and nonparaphilic. Paraphilias are typically considered to be behaviors that have been deemed socially unacceptable that involve non-human objects, suffering of one’s self or a partner, children or a non-consenting person (for example, fetishism, exhibitionism, and pedophilia). Nonparaphilic CSB, which is characterized by more typical sexual desires, include compulsive sexual acts with multiple partners, constant fixation on a partner that may be considered unobtainable, compulsive masturbation, compulsive use of pornography, and compulsive sex and sexual acts within a consensual relationship.


Does expecting to be in a safe situation elicit unsafe behavior? When the traffic light is red you are aware that a car might comes rushing in. So you are extra careful and always check the street before you actual cross the street. But one the other hand if you have green light and think you are good to go, it seems to be very likely that you just walk over the street without even taking a glance. There is still the danger of a car/cyclist, however, that may run a red light. Not looking could thus seriously be harmful.

So to put it in a more general context. Does expecting to be in a safe situation elicit or allow unsafe behavior?

The psychology of the Jay walker or those who violate small laws (virtually unimportant to society expect when assigning blame and compensation for damages) is indeed a tricky thing. The motivational force behind the jay walking and the present awareness of the dangers of the situation often prove key to determining if the person will experience hardship as a result of their choices. That is to say the drunk or otherwise impaired will be at a higher risk of improperly crossing the street and being harmed. Then those experiencing emotional extremes are thus also likely to be biased to ignore danger. Likewise those who are otherwise sick or mentally afflicted. However the level headed person who is fully aware of the situation would have an increased probability of assuming his action is dangerous and may take more precautions. Those who fail to understand the danger of the situation though fully aware may not be as vigilant and may experience additional harm. Likewise also some drunks drive excessively slow knowing that what they are doing is wrong and dangerous but because of their impairment the amount of damage they do can still be catastrophic.


Is there a name for having an obsessive interest in new topics for short periods of time? I have the tendency to get obsessively interested in a subject for 2 weeks, get bored, and then move on to something else.  For instance I have just started learning about chess and find myself extremely interested in it at the moment but know it will most likely pass soon.  In the last year I have looked at window farms, cooking, entrepreneurship (I started a muse business), tea, classic books (such as huckleberry Finn and Waldon), graphic novels... you get the idea!

The point is that most the time I do not find myself repeating the same topics again or express much interest towards them.  It might be more that I enjoy learning the topics but not going in depth.

I was wondering, is there a name for this tendency?  Is this a trait found more often in men than women?  I don't really find it a problem, if anything it is beneficial because it pushes me to learn new things.  But nonetheless I am curious if there is a name for this behaviour.

That's great that you have this ability -- it's your "special power".

I don't believe there is a special term for "intense preoccupations with narrow subjects", but such behavior is a common, but not necessary, feature of Asperger Syndrome or AD.

AD does occur more often in men than women. According to this paper, prevalence in men is between 2-4X greater than in women.


Relationship between intelligence (IQ) and Big 5 Personality Is there any relationship  between intelligence and big five personality traits?

I suppose this needs a more in-depth answer, but a quick search found one twin study (Bartels et al. 2012), which not only correlated IQ with Big5, but also tried to determine how much of that has a shared genetic basis:

Significant positive phenotypic correlations with IQ were seen for agreeableness (r = 0.21) and openness to experience (r = 0.32). A negative correlation emerged for neuroticism and IQ (r = 0.10). Genetic
factors explained (nearly) all of the covariance between personality traits and IQ. Genetic correlations
were 0.3–0.4 between IQ and agreeableness and openness. The genetic correlation between IQ and
neuroticism was around 0.18. Thus, personality and IQ did not appear to be independent dimensions,
and low neuroticism, high agreeableness and high scores on openness all contributed to higher IQ scores.

That paper also serves as mini-review of prior works:

Openness to experience tends to correlate highest with intelligence (Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997; Aitken Harris, 2004; Chamorro-Premuzic, Moutafi, & Furnham, 2005; Moutafi, Furnham, &
Crump, 2006) [...] Results for other personality
traits are less clear. Some studies reported negative associations
between IQ and neuroticism (Austin, Hofer, Deary, & Eber, 2000;
Kyllonen, 1997). Occasionally, extraversion has been reported to
correlate (positively and negatively) with intelligence (Wolf & Ackerman, 2005), and this relation has been moderated by the nature
of the test and the context (Bates & Rock, 2004; Matthews, 1997;
Rawlings & Carnie, 1989; Robinson, 1985). Correlations of intelligence with conscientiousness have been small and negative
(Furnham et al., 2005). Moutafi et al. (2006) hypothesized that conscientiousness is a trait that less intelligent individuals can possess
to compensate in a competitive environment. Conscientiousness,
in contrast, has been positively associated with academic performance (Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2003; Lievens et al.,
2002). Agreeable people tend to be pleasant and accommodating
in social situations and this trait is rarely associated with intelligence. However, one study found a small positive relation
with scholastic achievement in adolescent males (Peterson, Pihl,
Higgins, Seguin, & Tremblay, 2003). Altruistic behavior, which is
a small aspect of the construct of agreeableness, was associated
with higher IQ scores in younger children (Kohlberg, 1964; Krebs
& Sturrup, 1982)

Regarding the compensation hypothesis between conscientiousness and IQ, a more recent review-ish paper, Murray et al. is critical of it, considering it an artefact of twin studies. Nevertheless, there's a more recent study Rammstedt et al., which (using OECD's PIAAC - "PISA for adults" as substitute for IQ) again found in favor of that compensation hypothesis; it also confirmed the positive correlation between Openness and cognitive ability and found a negative correlation with Neuroticism. It also found some moderators for these:

The cognitive ability-Openness relationship is moderated by educational attainment.

The association with Conscientiousness is moderated by labor force participation.


How to obtain well-written demographic items? I've noticed over the years supervising student projects that it is actually surprisingly difficult to write good demographic items. Specifically, I'm thinking about questions related to gender, age, relationship status, employment status, educational attainment, country of birth/citizenship/residence, area of employment, English language experience, language spoken, and so on.

Are there any good sources that provide a wide range of well-written demographic items?

So I revisit this question every once in a while, constantly starting an answer with some resources, and then deleting it. Long story short: I think that there are several places where such items could be found, though I think "good" can be hard to define (as it is so situational)!

First off, here is a link that provides a few options for most of the contexts you described. I like this particular list as it describes multiple options (though sometimes there is little to distinguish) for each class of question. Perhaps this is a resource that could be used.

Let me emphasize that, in my experience, demographic questions are very context specific. For example: why are you using the questions? Is it for sampling weighting purposes, where you wish the sample to match population values? If so, then the "correct" demographics to use would be those that best match the provided population information. Is it to be included in analysis of some kind? If so, what are your research questions? A question asking the relationship between age and weight would ask for very different information than a question focused on the differential functioning of a psych evaluation between those college aged (18-22) and elderly (65+). In the first, a demographic question with a write in answer would likely be most appropriate (albeit perhaps biased), while in the second categories would serve best (with the categories being dependent on the question: so 18-22 and 65+ should be two of the categories).

As I believe that these are so connected to the situation, I'll also recommend ICPSR as a place where questions from multiple surveys can be looked at side by side. I've used this to compare many different versions of demographic questions to see which one fits the situation best (though again, I wouldn't say any are "good" out of context). This type of feature, that which compares multiple versions of the same class of question, may the best recommendation that I could give. It gives multiple options, while leaving room for professional judgement in the context of the use of the measurement instrument.

A final thought. If there is not a particular purpose for the use of demographic information, then strongly consider not including such questions in your measurement. Often researchers wish to all sorts of information (as "what if I need it later?"), but this can have some adverse effects: it increases fatigue, increases the time it takes for participants, and can increase the ability to identify individuals based off of the information (potentially changing it from anonymous to confidential, or even open!). It is not hard to imagine a researcher studying teachers who wishes to know a whole series of demographics, in addition to the grade, school, and subject an individual teaches. The degree of specificity from these demographics can make participants easily identifiable. All this to say: if you don't need them, don't use them!

In closing, I recommend only using demographic questions that are necessary for your research (this includes exploratory research). If used for a specific purpose, I would challenge that the purpose often dictates the structure of the demographic question to be used (as can the population). As the purpose and population can be so different from situation to situation, I suggest the comparisons of multiple versions of the class(es) of demographic item(s) that you need, and selecting from them the one that best fulfills your purpose. For this goal, I suggest ICPSR as a great place to look at surveys who speak to a wide audience (and are well designed).


Food sharing and mutual aid among the homeless Since the time of Peter Kropotkin, it's been observed and theorized that cooperation and mutual aid are more common in austere environments. A classic biological example would be slime mold spore-making (Starssman & Queller, 2011), and anecdotal example would be people coming together to face a natural disaster. I am interested in more systematic studies of this in modern human society under more extended time-frames than reactions to disaster.
In monkeys, apes, and primitive human societies, a typical measure of cooperation and mutual aid is food sharing (Jaeggi & Gurven, 2013). I am interested in seeing studies like this that use naturalistic measures like this, instead of artificial games like dictator or ultimatum (even though these do provide interesting economic and anthropological results at times; Henrich et al., 2001).
One of the few truly austere environments remaining in Western society is the plight of the homeless. For example, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (1999) has found that 28% of homeless people nationwide sometimes or often do not get enough to eat (compared with 12% for the poor), 20% eat one meal a day or less, and 40% reported that they went one or more days in the last 30 days without anything to eat (compared to 3% for the poor).
Yet, consistent with the Kropotkin's views, anecdotal evidence (i.e. what I hear from friends that have been run aways, and from the occasional homeless that I have a chance to talk to) suggests that food sharing is common among the homeless. As a highlight, here is an anecdote I encountered recently of reddit (empasis added by me):

This is why I, as a homeless person, gets offered more food from other homeless people than from wealthier people I come in contact with. This holds even though there is no pity parties among the homeless, and many food sharers will stab your back in a heartbeat if they perceive longer term gains. Or, in some cases, when more primal needs are at stake.

This brings me to my questions:

How common is food sharing among the homeless?
Is it primarily driven by empathy/egalitarianism, reciprocity, tolerated theft, or other mechanisms?
How does it compare to rates of food sharing in modern hunter-gatherer societies?

I am more interested in anthropological studies done in western populations and developed countries, especially big urban centers, but comparisons to homeless populations in developing countries is of interest as well. I also prefer academic studies instead of governmental/activist ones, since the latter tend to have a policy bias; but I'll take what I can get!
References
Jaeggi, A. V., & Gurven, M. (2013). Reciprocity explains food sharing in humans and other primates independent of kin selection and tolerated scrounging: a phylogenetic meta-analysis. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 280(1768).
Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E., Gintis, H., & McElreath, R. (2001). In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies. American Economic Review, 91 (2), 73-78
Strassmann, J., & Queller, D. (2011). Evolution of cooperation and control of cheating in a social microbe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(2).
U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (1999). Homelessness: Programs and the People They Serve – Findings of the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients.

I spent over 5 weeks hanging out with homeless people in Kalamazoo, MI by a nearby homeless shelter. I engaged with them nearly every minute of free time I had after work and on weekends. What I observed regarding food was actually an abundance. When someone releases a study indicating that someone doesn't get "enough" to eat, that is extremely subjective. I used to eat once a day myself out of pure choice and habit. The homeless may eat only once or twice a day, but they likely have many options throughout the day if they are in the right location such as in Kalamazoo. No one went hungry near the shelter, yet many chose not to eat. They also chose where to eat since there were often many locations offering food. In fact, some of them declined when I offered to take them out to eat.

They do not hoard food for lack of anywhere to put it. Thus, they are often willing to share this food but usually do not even need to share since they can grab their own. From my experiences, I do not recall anyone giving out of their own loss given their full knowledge that more food would come tomorrow. I've seen more sharing with cigarettes and dimes, but this is clearly not a need and is, in general, a means of befriending people. Theft was very common as I was regularly told stories of how their clothes or shoes were stolen. Thus, befriending people was a rather good idea and made it less likely to have your things stolen or to get into fights. Perhaps other homeless communities are not as well-off as the one in Kalamazoo, but my own experience leads me to believe that it's not the same as watching people band together in a mutual experience of hardship. Most of the people I saw seemed deficient in the mental arena. They seemed to be stuck in high school relationship mentality with elementary school cognitive prowess. Only a handful of people seemed more capable and simply mooched the system. Perhaps you need someone's input who has been with competent yet unfortunate homeless people, but I thought I'd share my own experience.


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

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

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

Preamble

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

TL;DR

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

Psychological Defence Mechanisms

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

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

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

Acting Out [F01.393.047]
Denial (Psychology) [F01.393.200]
Displacement (Psychology) [F01.393.246]

Cathexis [F01.393.246.250]
Scapegoating [F01.393.246.500]

Fantasy [F01.393.351]
Learned Helplessness  [F01.393.398]
Identification (Psychology) [F01.393.446]

Gender Identity [F01.393.446.250]

Femininity [F01.393.446.250.500]
Masculinity [F01.393.446.250.750]

Perceptual Defence [F01.393.628]
Procrastination [F01.393.661]
Projection [F01.393.693]

Scapegoating [F01.393.246.500]

Rationalization [F01.393.746]
Regression (Psychology) [F01.393.784]
Repression, Psychology [F01.393.821]

Repression-Sensitization [F01.393.821.645]

Sublimation, Psychological [F01.393.898]

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

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

In her blog, Evolution explained...

  Gnomes, or rather dwarf caps, are such psycho-protection that people use to explain themselves the indifference of a partner.

  Stupid, Stesnyasha and Bednyasha, remember?

  Not only women, but also men like to put such a cap on the figure of an interesting person.

  Why is this done?

  Around then, why do people wear crowns.

  When one wants to get something from a person, but he does not give (usually love, recognition, approval, respect, in general food for self-esteem), it is necessary to extract something from it, for which the crowns and caps are used.

  You need to wear a crown (imagine yourself powerful and significant) on your figure, and put a stupid cap on the figure of a person (imagine him stupid and dependent) and then from the height of his greatness, considering the defectiveness of the second, to help him give you what you want to take.

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

References

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

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

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


What is the biological reason behind disorganized thinking and disorganized behavior in thought disorders? Having disorganized thinking is different for everyone. But, it is sometimes described as not being able to connect thoughts together. I am asking about disorganized thinking other than communication problems. To be more specific, disorganized thinking, relating to the thoughts one forms, that causes disorganized behavior.

Is there a biological reason behind this, something relating to dopamine activity in the brain?

There is some evidence that thought disorder (also called loose association) arises, at least partially, from increased spreading activation; schizophrenics, for example, often show a greater increase in activation to indirectly related words compared to unrelated words, than do non-thought disordered controls.  This is primarily a cognitive mechanism, not a biological one, of course, and I have found very little biologically-based explanation of spreading activation itself; it comes from the computational cognitive science end of things, and is often discussed as part of a neural network model of cognition.

To address Alex Stone's comment above, I believe what he is talking about is either Broca's area (the language-dominant hemisphere's inferior frontal gyrus), generally understood to be important for producing language as well as comprehending complex sentences, or Wernicke's area (the language-dominant hemisphere's posterior superior temporal gyrus), which is generally thought to be important for processing the dominant meaning of words as well as understanding nonliteral language such as jokes, sarcasm, etc.  There is some evidence for a correlation between volume reduction in both Broca's and Wernicke's areas, and thought disorder symptoms.  Again, however, no mechanism has been suggested; and as with much imaging research, it is at this stage impossible to tell whether the neural abnormalities are the cause of the symptom or themselves a symptom of another cause.

Schizophr Res. 2013 May;146(1-3):308-13. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2013.02.032.
Schizophr Bull (2008) 34 (3): 473-482. doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbm108
Neural Basis of Semantic Memory, ed. Kraut & Hart (2007).  Cambridge University Press.


Is it normal for men in long term relationships to want to have sexual relationships with other women? If a man who is married or in a long term relationship wants to have sexual relationships with other women, is this pathological, deviant, maybe even a disorder? Or is it part of normal and healthy male sexuality?

The issue here is 'normality' - normal is a shifting social construct, meaning that any answer concerning normal will be based on culture, and thus could change depending on the culture in context.  A better question would be, is it adaptive or maladaptive for the person in question.

But I don't think that's what you're asking - (I could be wrong) it seems you're asking more about satisfaction of desire and whether a single partner can accomplish that.

Let me flip the question around:

  If a woman who is married or in a long term relationship wants to have sexual relationships with other men, is this pathological, deviant, maybe even a disorder? Or is it part of normal and healthy female sexuality?

We can flip the gender pronouns - but in doing so, we notice an underlying assumption of male promiscuity in the original question (likely related to the idea of 'spreading seed' or a belief in a biological imperative to have as many children as possible (if this is actually true, why aren't all people constantly having children?  I'm not saying it's not true; I'm saying it's much more complicated than that)).

Getting closer to an answer, let me pose more questions:

Does a happy/successful/[insert judgment function here] relationship require that both partners be satisfied in all of their desires?

-- or --
Does a happy/successful/[insert judgment function here] relationship require that both partners learn how to control their own desires instead of being directed by them?

But that's a false dichotomy; the answer will never just be one or the other.  A successful relationship will, first and foremost, involve communication.  If you can communicate your desires with each other, you can both, jointly/together, pursue a sense of satisfaction (or a sense of control over that desire).

But not being able to communicate dissatisfaction is itself a sign of underlying problems in a relationship.


When does Just World Theory apply? Can someone explain how Just World Theory applies in real life? I have learned about it from textbooks but have trouble believing parts of it. Does it always apply? For example does it apply to individual situations like if you see someone get hit by a car you don’t normally think “that person must have deserved it” but is it more for an overall lifestyle for example if someone works a minimum wage job it would be “this person has a lazy personality”. I’m basically asking does Just World Theory have any qualifications for when it applies?

I guess psychology isn't like this, but does the Just World Theory apply to everyone in every situation all the time, or what?

The Just-World Theory/Belief/Hypotheses is an assumption that people eventually get what they deserves. Good people will eventually receive good things and bad people will eventually be punished, hence the world is "just/fair".

  One form of defensive attribution is to believe that bad things happen
  only to bad people or at least, only to people who make stupid
  mistakes or poor choices. Therefore, bad things won t happen to us
  because we won t be that stupid or careless. Melvin Lerner (1980,
  1998) has called this the belief in a just world the assumption that
  people get what they deserve and deserve what they get (Hafer, 2000;
  Hafer & Begue, 2005; Lipkus, Dalbert, & Siegler, 1996).

Fundamentally, this belief is motivated by our need to feel secure, to decrease anxiety from our vulnerabilities. After all, if bad things can happen to anyone, they can also happen to me regardless of what I do/don't do. Consequently, there are no guarantee that I'll receive "reward" for doing good.

  By using this attributional bias [belief in just world], the perceiver does not have to
  acknowledge that there is a certain randomness in life, that an
  accident or criminal may be waiting just around the corner for an
  innocent person like oneself. The belief in a just world keeps
  anxiety-provoking thoughts about one s own safety at bay.

You can imagine that this "randomness" can be overwhelming at times, especially when a tragedy strikes; for example when someone from work/school was raped.

Ironically, those who strongly believe in a just-world tend to unfairly judge that it must have happened because the victim did something wrong, e.g dressed inappropriately, flirting, etc. That way, the person can still believe that this world is fair, and if he/she doesn't do bad things, it will never happen to him/her.

  Research by Elaine Walster (1966) and others has focused on such
  attributions, which these investigators call blaming the victim (e.g.,
  Burger, 1981; Lerner & Miller, 1978; Stormo, Lang, & Stritzke, 1997).
  In several experiments, they have found that the victims of crimes or
  accidents are often seen as causing their fate. For example, not only
  do people tend to believe that rape victims are to blame for the rape
  (Abrams, Viki, Masser, & Bohner, 2003; Bell, Kuriloff, & Lottes,
  1994), but also battered wives are often seen as responsible for their
  abusive husbands behavior (Summers & Feldman, 1984).

  ...

  When something bad happens to another
  person (as when someone is mugged or raped), we will undoubtedly feel
  sorry for the person but at the same time will feel relieved that this
  horrible thing didn t happen to us. We will also feel scared that such
  a thing might happen to us in the future. How can we cope with these
  fears and worries? We can protect ourselves from the fear we feel by
  convincing ourselves that the person must have done something to cause
  the tragedy. We feel safe, then, because we would have behaved more
  cautiously (Jones & Aronson, 1973).

Does it always apply? No, not for everyone and not in every situation.

It explains one possible way people deal with anxiety of feeling insecure, but not as the only way. I couldn't find any scientific sources, but I imagine that people can see tragedy without feeling any insecurities, or can perceive the world as fair but have an entirely different reaction, or even doesn't see the world as just/fair in the first place.

References:

Elliot Aronson, Timothy D. Wilson, Robin M. Akert. (2010). Social Psychology Seventh Edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.


Models of barriers to "Flow" (being in "the zone") This Wikipedia article is an excellent overview to the concept of Flow.
The problem is, from personal experience, in one specific area, I think it's incomplete. To quote:

Schaffer (2013) proposed 7 flow conditions:

Knowing what to do

Knowing how to do it

Knowing how well you are doing

Knowing where to go (if navigation is involved)

High perceived challenges

High perceived skills

Freedom from distractions[22]

And there are times when I can check the above off but still be feeling unable to get in the zone. My best guess is the weak point is either:

distractions - it's a broad term, and feeling under pressure, even if completely self imposed, comes under that category.
Knowing how to do it. If there are several options, and you know how you might do each, but can't decide which might be best, it becomes an issue, even if there is no obvious difference.

Are there any alternative models which explore possible barriers in more detail? Or any concepts such supplement flow theory to give further preconditions for flow? Stating the obvious perhaps, nearly any aspect of a person's general state of mind can be a barrier. Stress, even on unrelated tasks, is an obvious one. Is that already coversed in the above model? It would hamper decision making (knowing how you're going to do it), even though you do know how to do it. Perhaps it also counts as a distraction?
One last thought: perhaps, checking off the above, but feeling unable to achieve flow is itself a sign of incorrect cognition, since one or more points have been incorrectly assessed. (Assuming the model is correct and complete).

The model is mindfulness.

There are three options:

You can focus on the negative
You can focus on the positive
You can focus


Does an exceptional working memory inhibit intelligence? According to the Fox News article "Chimps Smarter Than Humans in Memory Test" chimps were able to significantly outperform humans in a simple working memory task.  I quote one part of the article in particular:

  Matsuzawa speculated
  there was an evolutionary tradeoff between this kind of sharp memory
  and the higher mental functions seen in humans, such as our advanced
  capability for language.

Could this "trade-off" mean that training to improve working memory could cause your brain to adapt to such training at the expense of language and problem solving abilities?

Matsuzawa's 2012 article in Current Biology

The conclusions drawn in Inoue & Matsuzawa's (2007) study, which seems to be available here, are suspect. First off, the sample sizes (6 chimp, 9 human subjects) are simply too small to draw good inferences about working memory, at least about human working memory, but as I imagine chimps are somewhat expensive subjects, c'est la vie.

Secondly, and more worryingly, the study design itself seems to have a real problem: Matsuzawa does not reveal how many hours of practice either group of subjects have had, but presumably, the humans have not had any practice, while it is explicitly noted that the chimps have had some. The mother-offspring pairs practiced the numerals task from offspring age 4, and then the block task from offspring age 5. Even if we ignore the sample size problems and take the reported results at face value, we are still left with a situation where the mother chimp Ai underperformed the humans, who in turn underperformed the offspring chimp Ayumu--also suggestive of a training effect.

This strikes me as a problem for Matsuzawa's claim, because we know that the ultimate limit of task-specific human memory span is very high compared to a task-general baseline. For instance, Ericsson, Chase and Faloon (1980) reported a case study of a subject who increased their memory span from 7 to 79 in 230 hours of practice, and one need look no further than the world memory records to see that the lack of control for practice seriously undermines Matsuzawa's claim about this unexpected "relationship" between chimp and human WMC.

A more restrained interpretation of the evidence presented in the article would suggest that sufficiently well-trained chimps can outperform untrained humans on the particular task. Any conjecturing about "evolutionary trade-offs" on the basis of these findings seem unwarranted to me, but that would have been the case even if these results had been ironclad.

References

Ericsson, K. A., Chase, W. G., & Faloon, S. (1980). Acquisition of a memory skill. Science, 208(4448), 1181–1182. doi:10.1126/science.7375930
Inoue, S., & Matsuzawa, T. (2007). Working memory of numerals in chimpanzees. Current Biology, 17(23), R1004-R1005.


Color and shape arriving together in visual system I know that in the visual cortex there are separate visual pathways for both color and shape. Do these separate pathways imply that human beings become consciously aware of these features separately or are they bound unconsciously?

It is something of an oversimplification to say that

  there are separate visual pathways for both color and shape.

There are many cells, even in V1, which are selective for both colour and shape (or at least orientation). While there are regions more sensitive to some features than others, there are plenty of neurons which combine features. It is also not clear what you mean by becoming conscious of these features separately. Clearly, we can know both that there is something red in front of us and that it is a square. You may have also experienced a flash of a colour without knowing the form, so in that sense, they are separable in consciousness.

The combination of these things is indeed a difficult problem akin to the binding problem. Bruce's answer gives some good background and here is a paper about binding in vision. More generally, binding in feature integration theory requires features to be linked to locations (plausible given topographical organisation in cortex).


Is the logic of "Herrnstein's syllogism" sound, and are its premises true? Herrnstein (1973) wrote

  My theory hinges on an argument in the form of a syllogism:

  1) If differences in mental abilities are inherited, and
  2) If success requires those abilities, and
  3) If earnings and prestige depend on success,
  4) Then social standing (which reflects earnings and prestige) will be based
  to some extent on inherited differences among people.

Herrnstein, R. J., Deutsch, K. W., & Edsall, T. B. (1973). Controversy. Society, 10(4), 5-6.

Herrnstein's Syllogism, as shown above, comes from the 1971 article written for The Atlantic by psychologist Richard Herrnstein (Herrnstein, 1971). It argued that while socioeconomic status of individuals may be caused by various factors, one of those factors must be differences in inherited genetics. The article ignited a big controversy.

As a personal note, I must admit that I don't quite understand the controversy (Well, at a scientific level). It was already accepted by most psychologists in the 1970s that general intelligence was a heritable trait. Further, it was accepted that general intelligence statistically predicted success in education as well as in professional life. Therefore, it should not be surprising if genetic differences acting on intelligence would not be distributed evenly across the social environment.

I will first deal with the premises. Is general intelligence heritable? Then I will merge the two next premises. Does intelligence predict mobility in success and social standing? I will also look directly at the conclusion of the syllogism. Do differences in genetics that influence differences in intelligence vary as a function of socioeconomic status?

Was Herrnstein's conclusion scientifically justified back then? That could be argued, but ultimately it doesn't matter. Today we have much more evidence available. We can now directly look at molecular genetics that is known to influence intelligence. As I will show, the best current evidence absolutely supports Herrnstein's conclusion. This does not mean that intelligence is everything, or that genetics is everything, but that it is a part of the story.

Heritability of Intelligence

Is intelligence, educational success and similar variables partly heritable traits? In fact, this is not even questioned by the relevant experts anymore. From a landmark Nature editorial (2017), I quote:

  it’s well established and uncontroversial among geneticists that together, differences in genetics underwrite significant variation in intelligence between people.

In an expert review on five findings regarding genetics and intelligence, the first noted finding is the heritability of intelligence (Plomin & Deary, 2015).

The question remains: how do we know that intelligence is partly heritable? Quantitative genetics is a field which attempts to address such questions. In particular, methods have been developed that attempt to estimate aggregate genetic influence without finding the influence of particular genetic variants.

The most highly used method for humans is the twin study. Identical twins are more genetically similar than fraternal twins. Identical twins also tend to be more similar than fraternal twins on various variables such as facial similarity, height, and even on psychological variables. From this increase in genetic similarity coupled with the increase in phenotypic similarity, an estimate of heritability can be calculated. This method can be extended to compare not just similarities between twins, but in general siblings of all kinds, cousins and more in pedigree studies. For example, based on a massive Dutch birth cohort a team of researchers estimated a heritability of educational achievement of 85% (Schwabe et al, 2017).

Another method is the adoption study. This method compares the correlations of children with their adoptive parents and with their biological parents. Based on this an estimate of heritability is calculated. Adoption studies show substantial genetic influence on intelligence (McGue et al, 2007). One of the most powerful variants of the adoption study is a study that compares the similarity of identical twins separated at birth and reared apart. For example, the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart found a very high heritability estimate (Bouchard et al, 1990). Identical twins are highly similar in intelligence regardless of whether they are reared together or not.

These are classical methods of estimating heritability, yet more and newer methods have been developed. Genome-wide Complex Trait Analysis (GCTA) estimates narrow-sense heritability by directly quantifying the chance genetic similarity of unrelated strangers and comparing it to their measured similarity on a trait. A study of approximately 20,000 individuals found a substantial heritability of general intelligence with this method (Hill et al, 2018). In general, based on this finding and all the other findings together, one can conclude that genetic similarity is a better predictor of similarity in intelligence than environmental similarity is. For example, identical twins reared apart are much more similar than adoptees raised together.

There are far more studies one could cite, and other lines of evidence. For example, inbreeding has been shown to lower intelligence, and this effect is larger the higher degree the inbreeding is (Fareed & Afzal, 2014). This should only be viewed as a snippet of the evidence from which researchers conclude that it is "uncontroversial" that genetics influence intelligence.

One thing is to estimate the aggregate genetic effect; another thing entirely is to find the actual genetic variants at play. This is done using genome-wide association studies (GWAS). It has been found that intelligence is a highly polygenic trait, meaning that it is influenced of many genes each of very small individual effect. This means that huge sample sizes are required to unlock the individual variants that affect the trait. However, in the last few years, GWA studies have found many variants affecting intelligence, see e.g. (Savage et al, 2018). By aggregating the effects of many of the variants thought to affect the trait one gets a polygenic score, such that a higher polygenic score is associated with higher average intelligence. Of course, most of the genetic variants have yet to be found, and hence only a moderate portion of the variance in intelligence can be captured directly by molecular genetics currently.

Practical Implications of Intelligence Differences

It can be difficult to establish causal effects in the life sciences. Does a correlation between higher pay and higher intelligence mean that higher pay causes higher intelligence? Or how about vice versa? Or is a third variable at play? One of the best ways of providing causal evidence is through longitudinal studies. For example, measure the intelligence of a sample at age 11 and see if that predicts later success.

Higher intelligence longitudinally predicts higher grades. For example, a meta-analysis of 240 independent samples with 105,185 participants finds that intelligence is a very strong predictor of school grades (Roth et al, 2015). In a massive longitudinal study of 70,000+ English children the association between intelligence measured at age 11 and educational achievement later was tested. Educational achievement was calculated as a general factor of GCSE results and they found a strong correlation of 0.81 between measured intelligence and educational achievement (Deary et al, 2007). Studies that attempt to break down whether teachers, schools, or individual student factors matter most for student educational success find that individual factors account for the vast majority of the variance (Detterman, 2016).

General intelligence has been found to be a big predictor of job success, especially in jobs of higher complexity (Gottfredson, 1997; Schmidt, Oh & Shaffer, 2016).

General intelligence longitudinally predicts financial well-being (Furnham & Cheng, 2017). A large-scale longitudinal analysis showed that intelligence affected salary growth whereas socioeconomic background primarily affected starting salary (Ganzach, 2011). Intelligence predicts upward socioeconomic mobility (PEW Upward Intergenerational Economic Mobility in the United States).

Individuals tested and assessed to be gifted at young age longitudinally predicts profound achievements academically and professionally (Makel et al, 2016).

Highly intelligent individuals are much more likely to become inventors (Aghion et al, 2017). This study found that intelligence "matters more than all family background variables combined".

We already know that intelligence is highly heritable, and hence these effects are expected to be partly due to genetic differences. Yet, some posit that these effects may be due to some socioeconomic variables that are not controlled for.

Testing this hypothesis is possible with within family sibling analysis. By restricting studies to only look at the outcomes of intelligence differences between siblings who are raised together, one can establish that these effects are not due to different rearing environments. In fact, restricting analyses to siblings only slightly changes the associations (Murray, 2002). The study on the origins of inventors mentioned above similarly does a brother-only comparison, and they conclude "This suggests that these coefficients capture an effect of IQ on the probability of inventing which is largely independent of unobserved family background".

Herrnstein's Conclusion: Societal Stratification of Genetics

Taking the two previous sections together, I don't see a plausible way in which it would not be the case that genetic variants influencing intelligence would distribute unevenly across socioeconomic lines. However, today we have far more direct evidence in the form of molecular genetics. As I already alluded to in the section on genetic influence on intelligence, we now know many variants influencing intelligence. From the DNA of an individual person one can then sum up the effects of the variants into a polygenic score associated with that individual. Indeed, as I will show, these polygenic scores have been show to predict various outcomes and have been shown to not be distributed evenly (which is exactly Herrnstein's conclusion in other words).

One cause of increased genetic stratification is assortative mating. Assortative mating is when couples are more similar than random strangers. In fact, intelligence is the psychological variable that has the highest degree of assortative mating (Plomin & Deary, 2015). This has not just been found at the phenotypic level, but also at a genetic level. In a study of 24,662 spousal pairs a team of researchers found a genetic correlation of educational attainment between spousal pairs of 0.654 (Robinson, ..., Visscher, 2017). Since intelligence is heritable, assortative mating of intelligence/educational attainment makes it even more likely that intelligent parents pass on genes that are associated with increased intelligence.

In a large sample, a team of researchers showed that spousal pairs where both were university educated had children with higher polygenic scores than pairs where only one or none were university educated. Furthermore, polygenic scores predicted educational mobility. Children of educated parents who went on to become highly educated themselves had higher polygenic scores than children who did not become educated like their parents. On the other hand, children of non-educated parents who went on to become educated, unlike their parents, had higher polygenic scores than children who, like their parents, did not become educated (Ayorech et al, 2017).

It is well known that students of some schools do better on average than students of other schools. But the question remains: is it because of the schools? Studies already referenced earlier showed strong evidence that individual factors account for the largest amount of variance. In a large sample of students from different types of schools, a team of researchers found that indeed students do better in more expensive private schools. However, once they controlled for various pre-selection factors there remained no statistical difference. In other words, they did not find evidence that it was because of the schools that the students did well, but rather the schools had selected students who already were good. But furthermore, they found that differences in exam performance between the schools mirrored the genetic differences between them. That is, they found that pupils attending expensive selective schools had higher polygenic scores on average (Smith-Woolley et al, 2018).

Intelligence has been shown to predict later wealth as shown in the previous section. However, whether this is partly due to genetics can be tested directly be examining whether polygenic scores predict later wealth. A large sample study examined exactly this and they concluded that "genetic endowments linked to educational attainment strongly and robustly predict wealth at retirement" (Barth et al, 2018).

Lastly, do longitudinal studies show that polygenic scores predict upward social mobility? A major study on this was recently published. They took data from five samples of more than 20,000 individuals and showed that polygenic scores predicted longitudinal socioeconomic mobility. In sibling-analyses the sibling with higher polygenic score was more likely to be upwardly mobile. Not only that, individuals of lower socioeconomic status had lower average polygenic scores (Belsky et al, 2018).  That is a validation of Herrnstein's conclusion in modern words: namely that differences in social standing is partly due to genetic differences.

Conclusion

As I have shown, there is more than a little evidence that Herrnstein's premises and conclusion were correct. However, this does not mean that intelligence or genetics is all that matters. Many of the studies above, and others like them, also show effects of non-genetic origin. However, to suggest that genetics is part of the explanation is scientifically justified.


Why do we wake up from sleep (from a dream) as soon as we figure out reality? In a dream why do we wake up when we figure out that its not real. I mean even in a lucid dream we are lost to some extent and as soon as we stop accepting the situation we tend to awaken?

When you are dreaming, and you realize that it is a dream, the initial surprise can wake you up. However, you can build a skill for staying in the dream by anchoring yourself to simple actions in the dream. For example, as soon as you realize that you are dreaming, look at your hands and start shaking them in the dream. Generally, you will start to wake up, but then will feel yourself moving back into the dream. Once in this state of being fully aware of the dream and fully in the dream, you can start taking control of the dream.

There are several other techniques to help spot your dreams and help you remain in them to facilitate lucid dreaming. Here is a pretty decent article.


Why do people look in the face or eyes while communicating? While communicating, people tend to direct their gazes to the face (particularly eyes) of people. Why don't rather we look at their neck or just their chest or even their hair while communicating with people? What are we looking for?

A sign, a hint about that person's thoughts. Obviously that is the case ,but on the other hand, I think there is something more about that. Take those movie scenes in which people's head cut off their shoulder and they are still alive. I think the whole body doesn't seem human to me, whereas the head seems definitely so. Is it just a stable reference point that we've picked after centuries, or is it a native property specialized for a certain purpose of human kind?

Eye contact is one of the principal cues humans use to evaluate where other people direct their attention. A special issue on the use of eye tracking in the Infancy journal and other studies reported that infants' eyes are useful measures of attention over a range of task domains including object perception (Johnson, Slemmer, & Amso, 2004), faces (Hunnis & Geuze, 2004), and categorization (McMurray & Aslin, 2004).

This relationship between eyes and attention begins developing as early as within the first couple of neonatal weeks (Lohaus, Keller and Voelker, 2001). For the same reason, eye- and gaze tracking are central measures in many areas of the cognitive sciences, including developmental (neuro)psychology, perception and working memory.

Because gaze is such a good general indicator of attention, mutual eye contact between myself and someone indicates that we are both attending to one another, if not always, then at least often enough to depend on.

References

Lohaus, A., Keller, H., & Voelker, S. (2001). Relationships between eye contact, maternal sensitivity, and infant crying. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 25(6), 542-548.
Hunnis , S. and Geuze , R. H. 2004. Developmental changes in visual scanning of dynamic faces and abstract stimuli in infants: A longitudinal study. Infancy, 6(2): 231–255.
Johnson, S. P., Slemmer, J. A., & Amso, D. (2004). Where Infants Look Determines How They See: Eye Movements and Object Perception Performance in 3‐Month‐Olds. Infancy, 6(2), 185-201.
McMurray , B. and Aslin , R. N. 2004. Anticipatory eye movements reveal infants' auditory and visual categories. Infancy, 6(2): 203–229.


are serotonin levels higher or lower in dominant vs. non-dominant primates and humans? On page 242 of The Moral Animal, Robert Wright states that

  In vervet monkey societies, dominant males have more of the neurotransmitter serotonin than do their subordinates. And one study found that in college fraternities, officers, on average, have more serotonin than do their less powerful fraternity brothers.

However, on page 82 of a different book, Scattered: How ADD Originates and What You Can Do About It, Gabor Maté states that

  In troops of monkeys, the dominant, most successfully aggressive males have been found to have less serotonin than others. This would seem to prove that low serotonin levels cause aggression. However, the serotonin levels drop only after these males achieve dominant status. So while the relative lack of serotonin may help to maintain the dominant male's aggressive capacities, it could not have caused them.

It seems that Wright (a journalist) is making the complete opposite interpretation of the primate research that Maté (a physician) is, and there doesn't seem to be any subtlety in the context that alleviates the seemingly glaring contradiction, so I'm assuming that one of these two simply misunderstood the research. Who is correct?

(to be clear, both of these people are citing research that others have done, not making claims based on their own research)

It seems Maté simply misread the research that he cited. The study on this, from 1984, says that

  Dominant male adult vervet monkeys have whole-blood serotonin concentrations approximately twice those of subordinate adult males.


Is Allen Carr's "easy way to stop smoking" a form of cognitive therapy? David Burns is a cognitive therapist, who in his Feeling Good describes how to overcome depression. He states that depression is a logical result of irrational negative thoughts, which can be generalized to a finite set of thought patterns called cognitive distortions. For example, one such cognitive distortion is over-generalization, an example of a negative irrational thought matching this pattern is "this girl rejected my advances outright, i'll probably never have success with  a girl". In general, cognitive therapy states that our thoughts determine emotions, feelings, moods, habits and behaviors. Thoughts here not only mean thought-phrases, but also perceptions, interpretations, attitudes and beliefs.

Allen Carr was a smoking cessation expert, who wrote Easy Way to Stop Smoking. In short, his method revolves around changing your perception of smoking and quitting, and if you succeed, you will quit easily, painlessly and instantly, as if you were never a smoker. First, Carr deconstructs every single argument for smoking, such as concentration, relaxation, stress coping aid, taste, hobby and so on, showing that they are just incorrect rationalizations of an addicted mind. Then he explains the mechanism of addiction — you smoke to relieve the unpleasant withdrawal symptoms, your mind associates sense of relief with the cigarette, therefore cigarette deprivation is so painful, even though it itself doesn't bring pleasure, only returns you to the state, in which non-smokers always are. Finally, he goes through the fears of quitting and deconstructs them by showing that physical withdrawal symptoms are mild, and the cravings are creatures of the deluded mind, that quitting is not a sacrifice and a chore, and the only obstacle was fear.

Carr meticulously describes every facet of smoking, therefore his book doesn't propose written exercises and ideally takes only one reading through to quit smoking. Burns's approach, in contrast, is generic and gradual, he gives you some tools, namely, list of cognitive distortions and a vast amount of written exercises, and asks you to manually apply them in everyday situations. His therapy course lasts for several weeks.

My question is, can Carr's method viewed as a kind of cognitive therapy? What is its relation to a vast ontology of cognitive-behavioral therapy variants, what is the same and what is different? Do mainstream cognitive therapy academics acknowledge Carr's method and his similarities with their approach?

Cognitive therapy
The driving principle behind cognitive therapy is that mental problems are caused not by any 'objective' qualities of the events that we experience, but our perception and interpretation of those events. By changing these perceptions and interpretations, we can alleviate or solve those problems (Beck, 1970).
In this sense, Carr's method can be seen as consistent with cognitive therapy, but I would not go so far as to call it a form of cognitive therapy without peer review and validation that does not seem to exist.
Cognitive behavioral therapy
The difference between Burns' and Carr's methods can be explained by the fact that Burns is a cognitive behavioral therapist (CBT). This is a form of therapy which incorporates and expands on the principles of cognitive therapy, by acknowledging that not all of our perceptions and interpretations are under rational or conscious control. It therefore incorporates both cognitive and behavioral elements. An introduction to and meta-review of CBT's efficacy compared to therapy forms like cognitive therapy can be found in Butler et al. (2006).
Validity of Carr's method
Carr's work does not appear to have been directly referenced, at least not in any readily discoverable form, in the psychological literature. This may be because his method is actually not new, but seems to have been loosely based on a mix of Beck's ideas and Albert Ellis' stoicism-inspired rational therapy, so it should not necessarily be taken to mean that the method is nonsense; Carr may simply be popularizing established methods.
References

Beck, A. T. (1970). Cognitive therapy: Nature and relation to behavior therapy. Behavior therapy, 1(2), 184-200.
Butler, A. C., Chapman, J. E., Forman, E. M., & Beck, A. T. (2006). The empirical status of cognitive-behavioral therapy: a review of meta-analyses. Clinical psychology review, 26(1), 17-31.


Efficient learning strategies? When learning a new subject or a skill, is it more effective to break practice into small sub-skills and focus on them for months until they have been fully mastered, or to practice each small sub-skill together?

For example, if someone wants to learn a new programming language, should they take one basic topic and practice it over and over before diving into other topic? How did leading experts acquire their expertise?

Are there effective general strategies for learning and acquiring expertise?

There has been a lot of research into this topic in the recent years. My understanding is influenced by the following :   1. The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. 2. Mastery by Robert Greene. 3. The Mundanity of Excellence.4. Why Skills trump Passion by Cal Newport.
The best thing for you to do would be to read these for yourself.
CHOOSE THE CHALLENGE : This is something really important. You need to choose a challenging problem you want solve or a skill you want to master, which lies just outside your comfort zone. If it is easy, you'll feel bored. If it is too difficult, you'll feel overwhelmed. Choose something which lies just outside your comfort zone. This leads to what is usually called as the flow experience.
 THE PROCESS : To simply put it, mastering a skill is a process with approximately the following steps.
1. Watch someone perform it and visualize yourself doing it.
2. Break the skill into its fundamental building blocks(fbb).
3. Choose one of the small fbb's and try to perform it.
4. At this point, you will not be able to get it right. So, slow down the performance drastically . Go step by step, making each step perfect.
5. Then, make it faster again. Play around with the pace of performance till you are fluent.
6. Repeat the performance everyday.
THE MOTIVATION : As you can see, the process is painful. You need to understand how to replenish the motivation fuel. Talent Code gives a good approach. But I prefer the one given in "The Mundanity of Excellence". Basically, motivation comes from three things : Fun, Reward and Challenge. Everyday you must try to experience these things to remain motivated.  Have fun at the workplace. Attack a small challenge which lies just outside your comfort zone everyday. Achieve small targets everyday and reward yourself for doing so.
THE ATTITUDE : You need to get the attitude of a craftsman. The goal is to achieve mastery over your craft. So, when choosing jobs, prefer areas where you can achieve mastery instead of fame or money. Cal Newport explains this really well.
THE TOOLKIT - BECOMING A CRAFTSMAN : This is something out of my experience. So, how exactly can you be a good craftsman ? It's all about your tools. Imagine an empty toolkit in your hand. Now, all you got to do is fill it up with all sorts of tricks of the trade. If you can master tools that are valuable and rare, you will stand out from your peers. Enjoy collecting different tools and mastring how to use them. While learning programming, just imagine this toolkit. Everyday learn some new trick or technique and put it into your toolkit.After a few years , you will have a big toolkit and you will have the capacity to solve the big problems in your field of expertise.


Scientifically credible texts on how to perform Hypnosis What are some scientifically credible texts (preferably free and online) that I could read to learn more about Hypnosis.

While hypnosis is a real phenomenon, there seems to be a lot pseudoscience practitioners in the area as well.

Note: I'm looking more for a text book type work explaining how hypnosis works then studies providing evidence for it. It should of course be supported by studies, but its main purpose should be instruction.

For scientifically supported texts, I would recommend the textbooks produced by the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (linked here) as a good place to start. None of these are free (legally), though.

They also produce a bibliography of articles and books (currently some 9 pages) that provide some additional handy references.


Psychometric scale with items in sets where responses imply a rank order of items My question is related to psychometry. One survey is measured in this way:

Question 1
Claim 1     0 1 2 3 4 5 M
Claim 2     0 1 2 3 4 5 M
Claim 3     0 1 2 3 4 5 M
Claim 4     0 1 2 3 4 5 M

There are 25 questions of this kind. Participants should choose one '0' and one 'M' and one number for every of the claims, but numbers shouldn't be the same.
Results are 2 independent factors, which  combined produce 4 types in profile. The theory is that those factors are independent.

My questions are:

Is there any literature which will explain this type of measurement?
How to measure alphas for this questionnaire or conduct factor analysis
Is there a way to see/count Pearson coefficients (or any other type of correlation)  for this survey and some other which are measured in traditional way with Likert scale?

Edit: ie.

Question1:
I am calm and organized      0 1 2 3 4 5 M (My options are all of them, i choose 0)
I like to go to Gardaland    X 1 2 3 4 5 M (My options are all except 0, i choose 5)
Everyone is paranoic         X 1 2 3 4 X M (My options are 1, 2 3 4 and M, i choose 3)
My mother was a good person  X 1 2 X 4 X M (My option is M because 0 and M are mandatory)

after that there is question 2 to question 25 which follow the same format.

Okay. I think I finally get what you are saying. You have constructed a form of partially ipsative or forced choice scale.

In my words, I would say that you have 100 items in total. The 100 items are grouped into sets of 4 items, and you have 25 sets. Each item is rated on a 0 to 6 scale, and within each set participants need to give different responses for each item in the set. They must give a 0 and a 6.

This is a variant on the idea of rank ordering the items in a set. However, you would also get a little bit of additional individual difference information because participants are not just ranking items.

For further discussion, definitions, and a critique of ipsative tests see Johnson, Wood, and Blinkhorn (1988).

References

Johnson, C. E., Wood, R., & Blinkhorn, S. F. (1988). Spuriouser and spuriouser: The use of ipsative personality tests. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 61(2), 153-162.


Why do those with viral infections feel better after wrongly taking antibiotics? Though I'm unversed in science, I accept and understand that bacteria differ from viruses; so antibiotics don't help in viral infections. Regardless, because older family members still allege that antibiotics have mitigated their colds, can psychology explain their misbelief?

They claim that within a day of taking antibiotics, their ability to speak returns and  their sore throats are soothed. I can attest to this improvement; they do feel better. I'm also unversed in psychology, but can some placebo effect (again, NOT the antibiotics themselves) truly contrive such genuine relief?

Placebo effect is not the only explanation, although it can be a large component.

To be clear: Neither of the explanations below are reasons to use antibiotics for infections not due to bacteria. They do illustrate anchoring. Just because we call a drug an antibiotic and first note its effects to be killing bacteria does not forbid that drug from having other effects.

Antibiotics are anti-inflammatory

Bacterial and viral infections both induce an innate immune response, which includes the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Antibiotics can provide symptomatic relief by inhibiting the release of those cytokines, decreasing inflammation.

Bacterial super infections

The risk of a bacterial infection jumps during and shorty after a viral infection. Children, for example, are more likely to get strep throat after the flu. If the patient is unaware of two infections, taking an antibiotic will appear to treat the viral infection. It is, in reality, treating the bacterial rider.


Why are people insecure? Many people, especially teenagers, are insecure about some aspects. They may be insecure about their looks, their (odd) behavior, or may question whether they belong to a group (of friends, colleagues and what not). I quickly looked at some social psychological literature but I could only find that in some cultures people are more self-oriented and in others they are more group-oriented (see the abstract of this book, I was not able to read more).

I was wondering thus: why people are insecure?

If I would consider an evolutionary perspective, insecurity (1) should have some beneficial effects, (2) should disappear if harmful for people, or (3) is not harmful enough to disappear. It is not likely to be the second for it then should not exist, so hypothesis (1) and (3) remain. Is there some benefit to being insecure, or is their some other explanation for why it exists?

Short answer
Hypothesis (1)

Background
The question is quite broad, as exemplified by the statement: They may be insecure about their looks, their (odd) behavior, or may question whether they belong to a group (of friends, colleagues and what not).

Personally and anecdotally, I think that a healthy self-doubt forms the core of self-reflection and allows a social animal like Homo sapiens to improve its behavior and mold itself according to the social structure with all its rights and obligations.

To approach this question with a less opinion-based perspective, I think that the root of a possible answer is the question what happens when people lack any self-doubt. I'm not a psychologist, but narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) comes to mind. The characteristic features of this condition are dominance, arrogance, superiority, power seeking, and disregard of others. All these traits seem to fit a total lack of self doubt (Ronningstam, 2011). However, some phenotypes of this condition may include insecure people, but it is just for the purpose of showing what people may turn into that lack self-doubt (and admittedly oversimplifying NPD). The typical NPD sufferer therefore won't fit in well in a social structure, and humankind, obviously, has built highly complex social societies.

In terms of evolution, Joseph Henrich explains that long before the origins of agriculture, when humans expanded across the globe from the arid deserts of Australia to the frozen tundra of the Canadian Arctic, survival in the immense diversity of habitats depended not on specific genetic adaptations, but on large bodies of culturally transmitted know-how, abilities, and skills that no single individual could figure out in his or her lifetime. Even among foraging societies, humans show an immense variety of social organizations, group sizes, kinship structures, and mating patterns. He explains that this diversity is at least partially rooted in culturally-acquired and widely shared social rules.

Reference
- Ronningstam, J Psychiatric Practice (2011); 17(2): 89–99