Is Freudian Psychology a scientifically valid contribution to the Cognitive Sciences? Freudian Psychology is based on the work of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). He is the founder of Psychoanalysis and is credited with establishing the field of verbal psychotherapy. Freud is known for his theories of the unconscious mind, dreams, infantile sexuality, libido, repression, and transference, ego, and the superego.

However, despite his acclaimed influence on psychology and psychotherapy, it seems that Freudian Psychology is criticized by many (Horgan, 2017) and is even considered to be pseudoscience.

Is Freudian Psychology considered to be a scientifically valid approach?

Sigmund Freud. source: Wikipedia

Related:
• What are the different branches of Psychoanalysis?
• Is there anything in Freudian psychoanalytic theory that is scientifically sound?
• Which schools of psychotherapy are most credible to a hard scientist?

Short answer
Freudian Psychology is considered by many to be pseudoscience, but as pointed out in another answer, there have recently been increasing numbers of comparisons between psychoanalysis and other depth psychology schools (e.g. a long-term study of CBT vs psychoanalysis for depression, where CBT is not much effective) with results which show that

psychoanalysis is just as effective as CBT for many disorders,
it is more effective for certain disorders, and
it is less effective for others.

In other words, psychoanalysis and CBT are both appropriate for certain patients and disorders and that the decision between them has to be made case by case.
Background
Freudian psychology is still applied, and Freudian psychoanalysis is still actively used today and according to the Science Council, Science is...

...the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence.

It is in the scientific evidence where the support of the Freudian approach is limited. However, Freud's ideas have never been extensively assessed scientifically. For instance, there is no unambiguous evidence that psychoanalysis works (Horgan, 1996) and supporters of Freud’s theories are believed to be influenced mainly on the confirming evidence, while they largely ignore the disconfirming cases (Shermer, 2011). Indeed, Sulloway (Dufresne, 2007) argues that...

The greatest failing of psychoanalysis is its blatant rejection of the
scientific method. Without such methods for critical thinking, a
discipline inevitably drifts from one pseudoscientific system of
belief to another.

It should be stressed, however, that the human psyche is extremely complex and largely not understood. Other theories that are generally regarded as valid science, such as the string theory in astrophysics have never been proven either, and the relativity theory of Einstein took about hundred years to be proven right.
Indeed, distinguishing between science and pseudoscience is problematic (Shermer, 2011). As covered in this answer to Does suppressing a desire make it more powerful?, Freud's work is derived from empirical evidence and backed up with high profile journal articles. Nonetheless, in the gray area between science and pseudoscience, according to eminent critics such as Karl Popper, Frank Cioffi, and Adolf Grünbaum, the theories of Freud are generally placed in the area of pseudoscience as they are seen as non-falisifiable.
Many authors assume that to be pseudoscientific, an activity or a teaching has to satisfy the following two criteria (Hansson 1996):

it is not scientific, and
its major proponents try to create the impression that it is scientific." (Hansson, 2008)

With regard to Hansson's first point, a PsychologyToday article (2016) points out that

psychology was defined by the application of scientific method(s) and psychologists conduct valuable research and have developed some key insights into animal behavior, cognition, consciousness, and the human condition.

Hansson, has since updated his definition of pseudoscience to an "improved version" (Hansson, 2013)
References

Dufresne, T. (2007) Psychoanalysis and Pseudoscience: Frank J. Sulloway Revisits Freud and His Legacy, Dufrense, T (Ed.) Against Freud: Critics Talk Back Stanford: Stanford University Press
Hansson, S. O. (1996). Defining Pseudoscience. Philosophia Naturalis, 33(1): pp. 169—176Still to find DOI/PMID reference
Hansson, S. O. (2008) Science and Pseudo-Science. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2017 Edition) [Online]
Hansson, S. O. (2013). Defining pseudoscience and science. In: Pigliucci, M. & Boudry, M. (Eds.) The philosophy of pseudoscience, Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. pp. 61-77.
Horgan, J. (1996). Why Freud isn’t dead. Scientific American, 275(6), 106-111. or here
PsychologyToday (2016) The “Is Psychology a Science?” Debate [Online]
Shermer, M. (2011). What is pseudoscience?. Scientific American, 305(3), 92-92. or here

Supporting network posts

Is there anything in Freudian psychoanalytic theory that is scientifically sound?
Why did Karl Popper criticize Freud's theories?

Note
The community is invited to improve this answer. This question-and-answer is discussed here in meta.


What is understood about interactions between personality types or traits? There are several psychological tests based on Jungian typology (e.g., MBTI, Insights & DISC) which extrapolate findings about personality into how those types interact (e.g., interaction styles). It is claimed that these tests can predict cooperation, conflict, and so on. However, there are also several three and five dimensional personality tests which are presumably more accurate.

My questions are:

Is there any research on interactions between personality traits based on the Big 5, EPQ, or 16PF?
Are interactions between Jungian types scientifically supported or is it an example of the  Forer effect?

Do the Big Five traits interact?

I have given a general overview of the Big Five model in a previous answer. The Big Five model of personality is based on a statistical analysis of a person's tendency to agree or disagree with short descriptive statements. The principal object of this analysis is to identify independent factors that can explain variation in participants' responses to these statements. In some sense, they are designed not to interact.

Because of the descriptive nature of, and the methodology employed in, the construction of the Big Five, the factors do not have notion of interaction in the sense that Jungian types might, and do not "drive" behavior in the same sense. It's theoretically meaningful to talk about interactions between Jungian types, because types are associated with not only particular behavioral patterns, but particular manifestations of behavior.

Factor analytic theories such as the Big Five or 16PF, on the other hand, are not associated with particular manifestations of behavior. It isn't meaningful to talk about how a person A who is high on neuroticism might interact with a person B who is high on Agreeableness, because we can readily imagine an almost infinite number of ways in which those traits might manifest over persons, situations and time.

There may still be statistical interaction between Big Five traits with respect to some outcome variable (e.g., high conscientiousness and extraversion may predict higher income than the sum of both in isolation), but these notions of interaction should not be confused.

Are interactions between Jungian types scientifically supported?

This question has effectively been covered a number of posts here on Cognitive Sciences. The short version is that Jungian type theories such as the MBTI are not well supported by the empirical research literature, but we don't know if it is an example of the Forer effect. You may find the following questions interesting.

Are there any personality theories that use the scientific method?
Are woman more Judging than men in the MBTI?
Is the Myer Briggs Type indicator (MBTI) a reasonable scientific theory?
Intuitive explanation of MBTI test and it's gender bias
What is the consequence for the MBTI in not having a neuroticism factor?


How to assess participant awareness of experimental deception without inducing awareness? I am designing a memory experiment with a deceptive critical trial, wherein an item is swapped without the participant's knowledge.

What is the best way to determine if the participant has noticed the swap, without actually informing them of it?

I.e., asking the participant 'did you notice the swap we just made' is rather informative about the possibility of a swap :)

Current thoughts:

a statement at the beginning asking them to mention any inconsistencies noticed
a direct question directly after the swap, and
a direct question at the end of the experiment

I think the first and second are likely to induce noticing (the latter by comparison to earlier memories that otherwise would not have been performed) and the last to potentially under-report.

Procedures like this are often called "funnel debriefing" procedures, and they basically consist of an extended version of what you already had in mind.

You begin with some very general questions about the nature of the experiment (e.g., "Do you have any initial thoughts or reactions about this experiment?"), then move on to some questions that are slightly more specific, but still not fully revealing (e.g., "Why do you think we showed you X?", "Did you notice anything unusual or inconsistent about task Y in the experiment?"), and finally terminate with direct inquiries of awareness (e.g., "Did you notice that we swapped one of the images during task Y?").

These questions may or may not be accompanied by recall or recognition tasks where awareness is gauged through participants' performance on the memory task.

Unfortunately there is typically little or no standardization (at least that I have seen) of how extensive these procedures should be, or for how to score and otherwise handle the results.


What are ways to assess employability of workers? Employability is typically defined as

  the continuous fulfilling, acquiring or
  creating of work through the optimal use of competences. (Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2006)

One's employability does not only depend on one's ability to work (both physically and mentally), but also one's motivation to work and learn and the opportunity to work (Brouwers, 2012; dutch citation).

Especially for elders, who are getting older and older, and have to work longer (i.e. until a higher age), employability is becoming incredibly relevant. They need to be able (and willing) to keep on working until their retirement, either in their current position or another less demanding job. This is a difficult job without clear insights. However, with such an incredibly broad term, it will even be difficult to gain those insights.

Are there tools available to asses the personal factors of individuals' employability?

Heijde, C. M., & Van Der Heijden, B. I. (2006). A competence‐based and multidimensional operationalization and measurement of employability. Human resource management, 45(3), 449-476.

Brouwer, S., de Lange, A., van der Mei, S., Wessels, M., Koolhaas, W., Bültmann, U., ... & van der Klink, J. (2012). Duurzame inzetbaarheid van de oudere werknemer: stand van zaken. Universitair Medisch Centrum Groningen, Groningen: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

Measures of person-job fit and/or person-organization fit. The following rather randomly assembled references are intended as links to some questionnaires.

References

Chang, H.-T., Chi, N.-W., & Chuang, A. (2010). Exploring the moderating roles of perceived person-Job fit and person-organisation fit on the relationship between training investment and knowledge workers’ turnover intentions. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 59(4), 566–593.

Kooij, D. T. A. M., van Woerkom, M., Wilkenloh, J., Dorenbosch, L., & Denissen, J. J. A. (2017). Job crafting towards strengths and interests: The effects of a job crafting intervention on person–job fit and the role of age. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(6), 971–981. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000194

Piasentin, K. A., & Chapman, D. S. (2007). Perceived similarity and complementarity as predictors of subjective person-organization fit. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 80(2), 341–354. https://doi.org/10.1348/096317906X115453

Saks, A. M., & Ashforth, B. E. (1997). A longitudinal investigation of the relationships between job information sources, applicant perceptions of fit, and work outcomes. Personnel Psychology, 50(2), 395–426. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1997.tb00913.x

Wheeler, A. R., Gallagher, V. C., Brouer, R. L., & Sablynski, C. J. (2007). When person-organization (mis)fit and (dis)satisfaction lead to turnover: The moderating role of perceived job mobility. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(2), 203–219. https://doi.org/10.1108/02683940710726447


Does consumption of amino acid supplements improve human executive function and self-regulation in ADHD cases? Based on my understanding, executive function primarily takes place in the frontal lobes. Inzlicht and Gutsell found that exhaustion in mental tasks shows itself in decreased activity in the anterior cingulate cortex. The main neurotransmitter in that region, and in the frontal lobes in general, seems to be glutamate.  L-Theanine inhibits reuptake of glutamate via EAAT2. However, when a person consumes a L-Theanine supplement, it might not be necessarily the case that the human body will update the neurotransmitter distribution beyond the blood-brain barrier in a tantamount fashion.

L-tyrosine, like amphetamines (prescribed for ADHD), seems to increase dopamine by reuptake inhibition. I have similar concerns to the above (i.e., it might not be necessarily the case that the human body will update the neurotransmitter distribution beyond the blood-brain barrier in a tantamount fashion).

In general, there tends to be a lot of quackery and a lot of p-hacking with small samples when it comes to uses of L-Theanine supplements and natural remedies on health. This might be especially the case in neuroscience, where a lot of treatment effects are hard to trace.

There's a recent negative study: Bergwerff et al. (2016) "No Tryptophan, Tyrosine and Phenylalanine Abnormalities in Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder":

  This study is the first to explore AAA metabolism in children with ADHD using a well-defined and relatively large sample. We found that AAA deficiencies are not related to ADHD. The results do not support treatment with AAA supplements in children with ADHD.

Also reviews prior work on defficiency:

  Thus far, five case-control studies have been published on AAA blood concentrations in individuals with ADHD [21–25]. Three studies, of which two describing the same sample [21, 22], reported lower plasma concentrations of tryptophan, tyrosine and phenylalanine in ADHD [21–23]. The other two studies, however, showed increased concentrations of free tryptophan in ADHD [24] and a trend towards increased serum concentrations of tryptophan in children with ADHD [25]. All five studies are limited by non-standardized assessments of ADHD and small sample sizes (ranging from N = 12 to N = 48), and therefore further research into the availability of AAAs in ADHD is warranted. [thus their own study.]

After their negative finding Bergwerff et al. do mention however that:

  We found a relatively high odds ratio of 2.2 for being diagnosed with ADHD when having low phenylalanine concentrations, but this result just escaped conventional levels of significance. Therefore, our study does not definitively rule out that low phenylalanine concentrations are present in (a subgroup of) children with ADHD. For instance, it might be that only children with severe deficiencies in executive functioning have decreased phenylalanine concentrations, as an altered dopamine functioning in the prefrontal cortex and the striatum is thought to impair executive functions, including sustained attention and interference control in ADHD [8, 67]

And they also reviewed treatments with supplementation:

  The hypothesis that AAA concentrations are related to ADHD symptoms is the basis for a number of depletion and supplementation studies. Depletion of dietary tryptophan was found to impair sustained attention in adults with ADHD [30], and to weaken behavioural inhibition in hostile children with ADHD [31]. Supplementation with tryptophan, on the other hand, resulted in a decrease of ADHD symptoms in children with ADHD [32]. Tyrosine supplementation decreased ADHD symptoms in adults with ADHD [33], but showed no effects on behavioural functioning in children with ADHD [32]. Phenylalanine supplementation in adults with ADHD caused a decrease of restlessness and an increase on the ability to concentrate at trend level [34], but in children no effects were reported for phenylalanine supplementation on ADHD symptoms [35]. However, also these depletion and supplementation studies are limited by non-standardized assessments of ADHD and small sample sizes (ranging from N = 10 to N = 20), as well as the lack of control groups, hampering conclusions regarding the relation between AAAs and ADHD. Therefore, there is a need of further research to support the hypothesis that AAA concentrations may contribute to the expression of ADHD symptoms.

So evidence for AAA supplementation effectiveness for treating ADHD is insofar of low quality; and there are contradictory findings (to put it mildly) on the actual AAA deficiencies in ADHD.

And regarding L-theanine, there's a study, Lyon et al. (2011) on sleep quality in ADHD. Which is probably the way they "salvaged" not observing much else in terms of improvements. The (2006) registration info for that trial had loftier goals to "examine the effects of L-theanine (an amino acid found in green tea) on the behavior, cognitive performance and sleep quality of boys with ADHD."

I tried to find a more systematic (or even meta-analytic) review of supplements in ADHD, but not much with that. It looks like most research on ADHD and diet is on restrictions (i.e. what not to eat), and even that area is full of controversy.


What can reduce the cognitive abilities in a common workplace? There are many types of work that mainly create benefit by thinking, often called desk jobs.

The output is based on the cognitive abilities of the person.
It typically happens in an environment we call office.

A working person has some amount of cognitive abilities. They are certainly multidimensional, but that has no relevance here.

There are things that can reduce these abilities. Some of them are obvious, but it would be interesting to know all that are important for a common desk job. I assume there are not so many of them that this becomes a list question. Many of them are obvious, but I assume there are others.

Obvious are for example:

Tiredness
External distraction by unrelated activities of others

Some points or classes where it is not obvious are:

Maybe some types of mental illness? Major depression seems likely?
Possibly external physical influences like freezing?

There are certainly unusual points applying only to few people, for example a person extremely distracted by harsh light. These are interesting, of course, but I mainly think of common things.

One of the most significant factors impairing cognitive abilities in a typical office environment is the noise. It is well-known that quiet environment is essential for good concentration. For instance, WHO recommends school classrooms should have noise level as low as 35 dB during classes. Yet a typical office environment can be as loud as 70 dB, which is about 30-50 times louder.

There are loads of articles describing the effects of different levels of noise on various cognitive abilities, which inevitably show that noise above 60-65 dB has a significant impact on mental activity, and noise above 75 dB has a lasting effect which can be measured 4 hours after the exposure. For reference, most public transport is louder than that, and a subway can be as loud as 95 dB.

It is well known that private offices (which reduce the noise quite a bit) can boost productivity significantly. Unfortunately, they are too pricey, or at least are seen as such, to become widespread.


What effect can depression have on memory? While a link has been shown that when a person is in a depressed episode there can be a negative effect on the individuals memory.
(Hubbard et al, 2016). This shows that when a person is experiencing the symptoms of a depressive episode they can experience problems with memory and further impaired cognitive behavior(i.e slow to acknowledge new tasks, taking longer to comprehend sentences)
Going beyond this point can depression have lasting memory effects after the symptoms have subdued and can memory be enhanced if someone is in a manic state?

Reference:

Hubbard, N. A., Hutchison, J. L., Turner, M., Montroy, J., Bowles, R. P., & Rypma, B. (2016). Depressive thoughts limit working memory capacity in dysphoria. Cognition and Emotion, 30(2), 193-209.

My initial thought when reading this question is that it would an extremely difficult thing to pin down whether or not depression would affect memory in the long term this is due to a variety of confounding factors but the one that strikes me as most prominent is that major depression rarely goes untreated for a long period of time, in a population of people suffering with depression most are likely to have sought treatment as some point. Meaning that a study into the effects of depression in the long term would be very difficult to facilitate as it would be hard to infer whether the changes in memory function would be due to depression or the effects of treatment for depression such as SSRIs, MAOIs, electroconvulsive therapy, and others. Although, SSRIs have actually been found to improve memory (Harmer et al, 2002), and effects of ECT have been found to be temporary with people recovering by 6 months (Calev et al, 1991).

A link between depression and memory impairment is supported
Burt, Zembar, & Niederehe conducted a meta analysis of 99 studies looking at depression and memory and found that:

  A significant, stable association between depression and memory
  impairment was revealed. Further analyses indicated, however, that it
  is likely that depression is linked to particular aspects of memory,
  the linkage is found in particular subsets of depressed individuals,
  and memory impairment is not unique to depression.

There is some evidence that people suffering from major depressive disorder have slightly different brain structure to neurotypical individuals. Brenner et al found that Patients with depression had a statistically significant 19% smaller left hippocampal volume than comparison subjects, without smaller volumes of comparison regions (amygdala, caudate, frontal lobe, and temporal lobe) or whole brain volume. It was not clear if this could change when the persons symptoms subdued, however to me it seemed like a permanent difference (obviously difficult to infer causality tho).

In terms of memory being enhanced in a manic state it appears that memory is much the same in a manic state as it is in a normal state (Glahn et al; Weingartner et al)

References

Bremner, J. D., Narayan, M., Anderson, E. R., Staib, L. H., Miller, H. L., & Charney, D. S. (2000). Hippocampal volume reduction in major depression. American Journal of Psychiatry, 157(1), 115-118.

Burt, D. B., Zembar, M. J., & Niederehe, G. (1995). Depression and memory impairment: a meta-analysis of the association, its pattern, and specificity. Psychological bulletin, 117(2), 285.

Calev, A., Nigal, D., Shapira, B., Tubi, N., Chazan, S., Ben-Yehuda, Y., ... & Lerer, B. (1991). Early and long-term effects of electroconvulsive therapy and depression on memory and other cognitive functions. The Journal of nervous and mental disease, 179(9), 526-533.

Glahn, D. C., Bearden, C. E., Cakir, S., Barrett, J. A., Najt, P., Serap Monkul, E., ... & Soares, J. C. (2006). Differential working memory impairment in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia: effects of lifetime history of psychosis. Bipolar disorders, 8(2), 117-123.

Harmer, C. J., Bhagwagar, Z., Cowen, P. J., & Goodwin, G. M. (2002). Acute administration of citalopram facilitates memory consolidation in healthy volunteers. Psychopharmacology, 163(1), 106-110.

Weingartner, H., Miller, H., & Murphy, D. L. (1977). Mood-state-dependent retrieval of verbal associations. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 86(3), 276.


If we do not consciously perceive a sound at a time, can we sometimes still later consciously recall it? You all probably know the thought experiment, 'If a tree falls in the forest and no one is their to hear it, does it make a sound?'. But if we take that one step further and ask 'If we are not consciously aware of a sound do we hear it?'. This question as it stands is very broad so let me specify what I mean.

By consciously aware I mean that we are actively thinking about that sound when it occurs and by hear I mean at some later time, (perhaps with prompting) are you able to recall that there was a sound?

(Of course the question can be phrased not just concerning hearing but also things like pain, etc).

This question is related to subliminal perception, often studied in vision but sometimes also in hearing. This remains a bit controversial, and that is mostly because of arguments about how ones measures whether something has been perceived or not.

My answer to your main question would be "no", but that is speculation. You use the word "recall", which in memory research generally suggests an explicit, conscious recollection and you would normally only get this if you had consciously perceived something and encoded it the first time round. There are, however, examples of subliminal sounds which are not identified at the first presentation but which nevertheless affect later behaviour (e.g., here).


What are the DSM requirements for 'Paranoid Personality Disorder'? What are the requirements for Paranoid Personality Disorder as specified by the current revision of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual?

Your asking for a very small citation from the DSM 5. I believe it falls under fair use. I'd be glad to add this to the internet for scholarship and research with another citations about Cluster A because it makes no changes to the value of DSM-5.

Paranoid Personality Disorder
Diagnostic Criteria 301.0 (F60.0)
A. A pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others such that their nfiotives are inter preted as malevolent, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of con texts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following:

Suspects, without sufficient basis, that others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving him or her.

Is preoccupied with unjustified doubts about the loyalty or trustworthiness of friends or associates.

Is reluctant to confide in others because of unwarranted fear that the information will be used maliciously against him or her.

Reads hidden demeaning or threatening meanings into benign remarks or events.

Persistently bears grudges (i.e., is unforgiving of insults, injuries, or slights).

Perceives attacks on his or her character or reputation that are not apparent to oth ers and is quick to react angrily or to counterattack.

Has recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding fidelity of spouse or sexual partner.

B. Does not occur exclusively during the course of schizophrenia, a bipolar disorder or depressive disorder with psychotic features, or another psychotic disorder and is not attributable to the physiological effects of another medical condition.
Note: If criteria are met prior to the onset of schizophrenia, add “premorbid,” i.e., “paranoid personality disorder (premorbid).”

-DSM-5
A general explanation of DSM Cluster A is as follows:

Cluster A: Paranoid, Schizoid, and Schizotypal Personality Disorders
Cluster A is called the odd, eccentric cluster. It includes Paranoid Personality Disorder, Schizoid Personality Disorder, and Schizotypal Personality Disorders. The common features of the personality disorders in this cluster are social awkwardness and social withdrawal. These disorders are dominated by distorted thinking.
The Paranoid Personality Disorder* is characterized by a pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of other people. People with this disorder assume that others are out to harm them, take advantage of them, or humiliate them in some way. They put a lot of effort into protecting themselves and keeping their distance from others. They are known to preemptively attack others whom they feel threatened by. They tend to hold grudges, are litigious, and display pathological jealously. Distorted thinking is evident. Their perception of the environment includes reading malevolent intentions into genuinely harmless, innocuous comments or behavior, and dwelling on past slights. For these reasons, they do not confide in others and do not allow themselves to develop close relationships. Their emotional life tends to be dominated by distrust and hostility.

-DSM-5: The Ten Personality Disorders: Cluster A


The origin of the term "construct" in the cognitive sciences So, I was just wondering - who can be attributed as originating the idea of a "construct" in psychology? Does the general concept of an epistemic "construct" feed directly into the way the term is used in psychological measurement and psychometrics?

My guess is that the idea of a "construct" originated with Piaget. Is this correct?

The term "construct" means:

  In a scientific theory, particularly within psychology, a hypothetical construct is an explanatory variable which is not directly observable. For example, the concepts of intelligence and motivation are used to explain phenomena in psychology, but neither is directly observable. (Source)

The earliest reference I can find to the term "construct" is from Clark L. Hull (1943) pp. 21—22

  In some cases there may be employed in scientific theory a whole series of hypothetical unobserved entities; such a series is presented by the hierarchy of postulated physical entities: molecule, atom, and electron,the molecule supposedly, being constituted of atoms and the atom in its turn being constituted of electrons.

  A rough parallel to this chain of hypothetical entities from the physical sciences will be encountered in the present system of behavior theory. For the above reasons the subject of symbolic constructs, intervening variables, or hypothetical entities which are not directly observable requires comment.

  Despite the great value of logical constructs or intervening variables in scientific theory, their use is attended with certain difficulties and even hazards.

Reference

Hull, C. L. Principles of behavior. New York: Appleton-Century, 1943 [Free PDF]


Why is "breaking a car" considered a sort of therapy? I've heard this several times. People breaks things to feel more relaxed, less depressed or is there some other reason? What do you call this effect?

I believe you're referring to Catharsis. According to Freud, expressing anger serves to relieve it. However, a few more recent researchers have argued that expressing anger serves to reinforce aggressive behavior.

@Chuck Take a look at this study and this book excerpt.


What is the purpose of non-spiking and anaxonic neurons? What is the purpose of non-spiking neurons and anaxonic neurons in neural tissue?

The standard textbook neuron receives input at its dendritic tree, fires action potentials and has a single, long output axon to send the message off to distant locations.

However, non-spiking, anaxonic neurons are not a rarity; in various sensory systems there are bipolar cells present that lack a clearly defined axon and are non-spiking, such as the amacrine cells and the horizontal cells in the vertebrate retina (Fig. 1.) and the granule cells in the mammalian olfactory bulb (Hisada, 1989).

Generally, non-spiking neurons work as analogue integrators. Where a spiking neuron can only transmit a spike, or no spike (binary signal), a non-spiking neuron can convey an infinitesimal number of membrane voltages instead. Hence, it is well suited to integrate the input from various other neurons. Amacrine cells and horizontal cells lack clearly defined axonic elements and are thus non-spiking anaxonic neurons. Their dendrites, however, do form synapses with other neurons, generally on their dendrites too, forming dendro-dendritic connections. The function of the bipolar cells in the vertebrate retina are unclear.

There are other non-spiking anaxonic neurons identified. A notable example are the interneurons seen in the ganglia of the motor systems of various arthropods, including crayfish, locusts and cockroaches. Here, they are coupled to neurons that convey descending output to motoneurons, and they are thought to be involved in selecting the adequate information to be gated to the motoneurons (Takahata et al., 1981), or to be necessary for generating oscillations in the system (Pearson & Fourtner, 1975). But again, their exact functions are unclear. One reason why may be because they are local circuit neurons. In other words, they do not send their signals far off to distant locations because they lack clear axons. For example, the role of the retinal ganglion cells becomes readily apparent when you sever their long axons that are bundled in the optic nerve (one becomes blind in that eye).

Fig. 1. Retinal circuitry showing the non-spiking, anaxonic horizontal and bipolar cells. Source: David Hubel's Eye, Brain, and Vision

References
- Hisada, Arch Histol Cytol (1989); 52(Suppl): 139-46
- Pearson & Fourtner, J Neurophysiol (1975); 38(1): 33-52
- Takahata et al., Brain Res; 226: 309-14


How to collaborate with a university on a consumer psychology study? Is there a way to propose a consumer-psychology study (as a business) and work with the university for the benefit of all people. Or do they only do studies around current subjects or select them internally?

There are two factors at work in what is being researched: interest and money.

Researchers research what they find interesting. So if you can interest someone in your idea, then chances are that they will want to research it. But wether they will actually do that research will depend on wether it seems more interesting to them than what they are currently doing, have been investing a lot of time and effort into, and have already employed a team to research. So, your topic has to be really, really interesting to an advanced researcher to pick it up, which is unlikely. If it were so interesting to them, they would have thought of it themselves.

Researchers usually depend on third party funds. Those third parties only finance what they find relevant. There is research on how topics that are currently considered important by the media and populace are more researched. A good example is research on video game violence which was intensely researched after the Columbine shooting. Much relevant research is not done, because it is not currently politically opportune. Many researchers report how they were unable to continue research, because there was no funding. So if your topic is of current popular interest, and politicians can get voted if they care for it, chances are someone is going to research it. If not, not.

If, on the other hand, you pay for the labs and the people, you will have no problem finding researchers, and you can approach any expert in the relevant field. With money being notoriously scarce at many universities, and many young researchers working in underpaid, short-term positions, it is highly likely that someone will be happy to hear from you and make your research happen.

Practical real world example:

A company produces a biofeedback device for a certain condition. To better sell their product, they want scientific research proving its therapeutic effectiveness. They approached my professor (who is a clinical psychologist, but does not do research in that field). Another psychologist, who had earned his doctorate with my professor and is now working in a relevant clinic, was found and conducted a study, the pracical side carried out by student interns. My professor appointed me, one of his student assistants, to do the statistical analysis of the data. The resulting article, which was written by the aforementioned psychologist, his students, and myself (I wrote the results section), has been peer reviewed for publication and the feedback is currently being worked into the paper. If all goes well (which I expect), a year from now the company will quote this paper on their website to emphasize the effectiveness of their device. All my professor did is write some emails and find some people, and now he has another publication under his belt. No money was involved.


What benefit is responsible for human preference of one food over another? I like kiwi. I don't like omelettes. I love berry pies, but I'm not a big fan of potato chips or pretzels.

Human taste preference is seemingly universal, with even young children able to identify foods that they like and dislike, and react appropriately, hungrily seeking the former and rejecting the latter.

But what evolutionary purpose does this serve? Is my dislike of potato chips and pretzels a sign that my body is somehow predisposed to excess sodium, and this distate for the food a compensation mechanism? Is my love of kiwi an indicator of some deficit, perhaps of vitamins C and K, or my more general preference for sour flavors (which tend to indicate acidity) a part of pH regulation?

At its heart, does biological need or deficiency for particular components of a food explain personal preference for that foodstuff, and if not, is there research showing what does?

Reasons why we do or do not like certain foods:

1. Taste

I may want to eat foods that taste pleasantly: chocolate, cakes, fried chicken and...sweet cabbage (?!).

2. Bowel regularity

I discover that whole-grain bread makes wonders to my bowel regularity, which makes my stomach to feel good, which overweights a bit bitter taste of such bread in my mouth, so I start to like it.

3. Health concerns

I read that fast food may not be healthy, so I stop eating it and start to feel better in general, and, with time, I will actually stop liking fast food.

4. Nutrient deficiencies

If I have a period in which I eat very few plant foods, I'll start to crave things, like green salad. I believe, I can start craving foods that contain certain minerals and vitamins I'm missing (iron, potassium, vitamin C, protein...).

Salt craving may be due to low sodium diet or habitual high sodium diet, or zinc deficiency.
Sugar craving may be due to need for immediate energy or due to addiction to sweet taste.
Potato craving can be due to potassium deficiency (potatoes are high in potassium).
The association between food cravings and consumption of specific foods in a laboratory taste test (PubMed, 2008). According to the study, you may crave for a certain food just because you regularly eat it.
Eating everything except food (PICA) can be due to iron or zinc deficiency.

5. Medical conditions

Addison's disease (adrenal insufficiency) is often associated with salt craving.
Postprandial hypoglycemia (low blood sugar after meals), diabetes mellitus type 1 and heroin withdrawal can be associated with sugar craving.

6. Beliefs

I can just hear or believe that certain food is "not good to eat" or "not good for me" and, just because of this, I might find that food disgusting.

7. Genetics and environment

Genetic and environmental factors can influence food preferences, especially in children and adolescents (PubMed, 2016).

8. Depression

Depression can be associated with craving for foods high in carbohydrates and fats, such as chocolate and chips (PubMed, 1995).

In conclusion: Nutrient deficiencies can be one of the factors for food preference.


What does cognitive science say about whether to learn mathematics top-down from research papers? There is currently a popular question on math.SE on whether it is effective to learn math top-down.

  By top-down I mean finding a paper that interests you which is
  obviously way over your head, then at a snail's pace, looking up
  definitions and learning just what you need and occasionally proving
  basic results. Eventually you'll get there but is this a bad idea? Is
  learning each required math area by textbook the better way?

I thought that cognitive science might have something to contribute to this discussion.
Specifically:

What would cognitive science have to say about the pros and cons of learning from the ground up versus taking a difficult mathematical text and following up on the details?
What decision rules would cognitive science have for deciding whether to adopt a given a approach?
Has any empirical research explicitly dealt with this question?

This is a part answer to this question, specifically if research has been done for this problem.  Also, some perspectives of a Maths and Physics teacher of over a decade experience.  Somewhat ironically, I am going to start by making a parallel to a topic that is arguably an equivalent in the Sciences: Physics - as in my experience, I have seen similarities in terms of top=down vs bottom-up learning.
According to "Learning to think like a Physicist: A review of research based instructional strategies" (Van Heuvelen, 1991), many studies then have found that conventional teaching methods (bottom-up in a lot of places), in their use of "primitive formula-centred problem solving" fail to properly develop topic and subject related reasoning and problem solving.
The point here is that enquiry based problem solving, which can be considered as 'top-down' allows the student to learn the topics and concepts within a context, in doing so, they see how various topics link together, that may not be so apparent when working with formula-centred methods.  A caveat here, it is absolutely critical that the students have some background knowledge and skills that could be used in their enquiry, these would potentially be enhanced through a top-down type of enquiry.
This is emphasised further in the chapter "Research on Teaching Mathematics: The Unsolved Problem of Teachers' Mathematical Knowledge" (Ball, 2001), who asset that the most common encounter with mathematics is a set of rules to be memorised, equivalent to the 'primitive formula-centred problem solving' model described in the previous article, resulting in the subject not only being misunderstood, but underappreciated. This is an advantage of a top-down approach, according to the article (and my own experience), where if the student starts with a query (from an article or unfamiliar question), then it turns into a mathematical challenge, rather than a pedagogical one.
Finally, a key point from the chapter "Learning to think mathematically: Problem solving, metacognition, and sense-making in Mathematics" (Schoenfeld, 1992), make several key points outlined above, and:

Present problem situations that closely resemble real situations in their
richness and complexity so that the experience that students gain in the
Learning to think mathematically, classroom will be transferable.

This includes taking an unfamiliar problem, and using skills and knowledge that they have to disassemble the problem to understand its components.  Essentially, a great skill can be developed in the top-down approach - how to break down a big unfamiliar problem into its more familiar ingredients.
Hope this helps.


What makes trippy audiovisuals trippy? There are quite a few videos on YouTube (search "trippy videos") that feel "trippy". From what I've heard, some psychedelic artists are just reproducing what they experience when they trip on drugs like LSD.

A few patterns I've noted:

Other humans/animals looking straight into the camera.
Looping motion of objects.
Brilliant colors.

Is there any research into what makes trippy videos trippy? I don't even know if trippiness is supposed to be subjective(in which case, I suppose this question must be closed). Any pointers would be really helpful.

Many of our associations for color, order and music are derived from our culture rather than from biology or some inert psychology. That is to say the bright green house with Christmas lights and tinsel on it all year long might look trippy to you but to the person who designed it it appears to match their society's norms.

When you experience the trip its because of the violation of the norm of images your brain has been trained to recognise. The culture shock eventually errodes as you watch the videos more often because your brain begins to learn the patterns and incorporates it into your culture.


Do hallucinogenics affect chronic pain? As noted in a previous question, hallucinogenics, such as psilocybin, have been used to treat depression with some success. Chronic pain is affected somewhat by a top-down process from the brain, as shown in neurofeedback treatment via EEG. Have hallucinogenics been shown to be an effective treatment for chronic pain?

According to the National Institute for Drug Abuse

  Some hallucinogens interfere with the action of the brain chemical serotonin, which regulates:

  mood
  sensory perception
  sleep
  hunger
  body temperature
  sexual behavior
  muscle control

  Other hallucinogens interfere with the action of the brain chemical glutamate, which regulates:

  pain perception
  responses to the environment
  emotion
  learning and memory

Morphine is a hallucinogenic and

Morphine is used to treat chronic pain

The NHS has also provided proof with links to articles that opiates are useful for chronic pain

Other hallucinogenics known to help with pain include Peyote (unreferenced)


Why do our brains act in such a evil way sometimes that hurts other people? I have seen some real evil acts. And I almost lost confidence in humanity.

Why do we become so evil sometimes that hurts other people?

I guess everybody knows the Renaissance novel Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. There in the story, it is depicted how a person from the lowest echelon of the society stole a loaf of bread because his sister's child was hungry and how he was punished for years in hard labor during the industrial revolution.

So evil or injustice reveals itself such sometimes that we are compelled to question why? Why do we have to be so evil when we have this beautiful world just in front of us? Is it because of how our brain chemicals perceive things sometimes?

If a person is envious or jealous or has unjust anger and an MRI could be done right at that instance, would it show why we are evil?

MVR there are many hormones within us that motivate behaviours that served a purpose in previous (phylogenetic) environments that in our modern society may appear to be evil.

Oxytocin for example (the so called love hormone) spikes before conflict, and one of the biggest dopamine hits we can ever experience is by punishing someone.

Sapolsky 2017 - Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst


Development of social cognition as an alternative to the obstetrical dilemma Human infants are strange in that they are born more helpless than the infants of other great apes. They are born with about 25-30% of their brain developed, compared to the 40-50% of other great apes. Leutenegger (1982) showed that although human infants have the largest cranial capacity of all primates, the relationship between newborn human cranial capacity and body size is not different from that of other newborn primates. The ratio increases after birth to become 3-to-5 times of other great apes. To achieve this the infant undergoes accelerated brain growth (compared to apes) called the secondary altriciality.
The leading hypothesis to explain this has been the obstetrical dilemma which suggests that there is a trade-off between keeping hips small to allow efficient upright walking, and making the brain large. A recent alternative suggests that there is no measurable handicap from having wider hips, and that the reason for the early birth is metabolic considerations (too expensive for the mother to continue feeding the fetus internally).
To me both these hypotheses seem fundamentally flawed in that they assume it is beneficial to be born with a more (or fully) developed brain. Although we know that the brain shows development, self-organization, and activity in the fetus this is not as efficient as the development possible once the organism is capable of receiving richer stimulus outside the womb. In particular, a fetus is incapable of learning in a social setting. If you subscribe to Dunbar's Social Brain Hypothesis, then this social learning is what our brain is for. Thus, it seems natural to expect that it is more adaptive for a human to be born with a smaller brain (past a certain min threshold) to allow more development and social learning outside the womb.
In a commentary on the new article, Karen Rosenberg suggests the same thing:

Maybe human newborns are adapted to soaking up all this cultural stuff and maybe being born earlier lets you do this. Maybe being born earlier is better if you’re a cultural animal.

This development of social cognition (my name; comments with historic name for this hypothesis are appreciated) approach was suggested by Adolf Portmann in the 60s, but without much evidence to support it. What is the current evidence on the development of social cognition hypothesis?

References
Leutenegger W. (1982) Encephalization and obstetrics in primates
with particular reference to human evolution. In: Armstrong E,
Falk D, eds. Primate Brain Evolution. New York: Plenum. 85–95

Doing some research on this interesting question, I can point you towards a few articles and books which can give you a start.  From my research, there are 2 possible reasons for early childbirth compared to infants of other great apes.

The maternal heat stress hypothesis (Wells et al., 2012) (mentioned in your question as metabolic considerations) put forward as a challenge to the Obstetrical Dilema is a plausible reason.  It is well established that the brain uses more energy than any other human organ, accounting for up to 20% of the body's total energy use.

Through secondary altricity, babies only have a third of the brain size relative to mature adults (Walker and Ruff, 1993), and in the article within Scientific American you linked to, it states that

  by one estimation a human fetus would have to undergo a gestation period of 18 to 21 months instead of the usual nine to be born at a neurological and cognitive development stage comparable to that of a chimpanzee newborn.

Apart from the idea of a woman giving birth to a baby the size of a 9 to 12 month old baby being hard to imagine, a larger brain mass in the newborn corresponds to more energy needed to sustain it.  It stands to reason that when pregnant, a human having 2 fully developed brains to provide energy for, will have problems.

The hypothesis, variously dubbed the ‘Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis’ or the ‘Social Brain Hypothesis’, depending on what theorists take to be its most important features (Adolphs, 1999), is also plausible.

In support of this idea, there is a correlation between mean group size among various primate species and their neocortex volume (specifically, the ratio of neocortex volume to the rest of the brain).

Clearly, the emotional and social development of humans is extraordinarily complex, involving a multi-factorial interplay between genes, parental
behaviour, and the influence of culture.

When looking at developmental issues, there are 5 models of development which theorists – and people in general – often disagree. (Miller, 2010) (Sigelman & Rider, 2012).  When we are looking at social development in the context of social environments we are looking at the nurture argument of nature vs nurture.  When looking at human development through other angles, along with goodness vs badness of human nature, there are other debates such as

Activity vs Passivity (Humans shape their environments vs environmental forces shape humans),
Continuity vs Discontinuity (Changes are gradual vs dramatically through life), or
Universality vs Context Specificity (Development is similar between people and cultures vs considerable differences between people and cultures)

Carol Sigelman and Elizabeth Rider in their book Life-Span Human Development (Sigelman & Rider, 2012) states that

  Development is characterized by lifelong plasticity. Plasticity refers to the capacity to change in response to both positive and negative experiences. Developmental scholars have long known that child development can be damaged by a deprived environment and optimized by an enriched one. It is now understood that this plasticity continues into later life—that the aging process is not fixed but rather can be altered considerably depending on the individual’s experiences. For example, elderly adults can maintain or regain some of their intellectual abilities and even enhance them with the help of physical exercise like John Tatum’s swimming, a mentally and socially active lifestyle, or training designed to improve specific cognitive skills (Hertzog et al., 2009; Willis et al., 2006).

References

Adolphs, R. (1999). Social cognition and the human brain In: Trends in Cognitive Sciences 3(12) pp 469–479. doi: 10.1016/S1364-6613(99)01399-6

Hertzog, C., Kramer, A. F., Wilson, R. S., & Lindenberger, U. (2009). Enrichment effects on adult cognitive development: Can the functional capacity of older adults be preserved and enhanced? In: Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9(1), pp 1–65. doi:10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01034.x.

Sigelman, C. K. & Rider, E. A. (2012). Life-Span Human Development. 7th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Walker, A. and Ruff, C. A. (1993). *The Reconstruction of the Pelvis** In:
The Nariokotome Homo Erectus Skeleton. Edited by A. Walker and R. Leakey, pp 221-233. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Wells, J. C. K.; Desilva, J. M.; Stock, J. T. (2012). The obstetric dilemma: An ancient game of Russian roulette, or a variable dilemma sensitive to ecology? In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 149(s55) pp 40–71. doi:10.1002/ajpa.22160. PMID: 23138755

Willis, S. L., Tennstedt, S. L., Marsiske, M., Ball, K., Elias, J., Koepke, K. M., Morris, J. N., Rebok, G. W., Unverzagt, F. W., & Stoddard, A. M. for the ACTIVE Study Group (2006). Long-term effects of cognitive training on everyday functional outcomes in older adults. In: Journal of the American Medical Association, 296(23), pp 2805–2814. doi:10.1001/jama.296.23.2805


How does look, tone and voice manipulate behavior I am socially anxious person with wooden behavior and emotions. Unlike others, I try to suspend emotions and stay stoic when I feel uncomfortable. That's my weakness because I don't let others see how I feel and that only let's them the freedom to behave as they want with me. I am not talking about cultural, polite and compassionate people, but less civilized ones who are opposite to description I just gave.

What I have noticed is that such people react differently to emotional people who do not hold anything in them and behave as they see fit. I have noticed that look, tone and voice can manipulate behavior and instill fear in non-emotional people. I have listed 3 examples below:

Look - when you are being talked to with angry look, if you don't show same angry look and react in a normal polite way, you just give person freedom to keep talking in such manner to you.

Voice - if you are being talked to with raised voice, you need to adjust to same voice of person talking to you, but stay calm and you give freedom to person talking to you to treat you that way.

Tone - we'll take customer service as an example when it comes to customers fighting for their rights and claiming what they deserve. Because in phone conversation there's only hearing involved, tone and voice play important roles that determine the outcome of conversation. Polite and cultural people are easy to deal with while it's hard to deal with opposite people who don't feel limits in how they react. Those impudent people usually get what they want by being emotionally manipulative compared to the opposite type of people.

I guess with this question I wanted to get more input from others here and to know how wooden people should deal in stressful situations being as they are, implying freedom to emotionally-unrestricted people to talk to them as they see fit. Should such susceptible people keep being socially avoidant type of people to avoid conflicts or become as their opposites through cognitive behavioral therapy or hypnosis?

I don't know if this will help you, but when I first started to see patients (somewhat similar to customers), I was taught by attending physicians that what I  felt after a few minutes was most likely what the patient felt because of clues given off by patients in their look, manner, words, posture, etc. If the patient felt hopeless, I started to feel that way as a doctor; is he felt anxious, so would I; the same with anger. Once I really trusted that, I could step back from it and use it as a tool to understand the patient's feelings.

People who do not hold anything in them and behave as they see fit are usually not well adjusted socially, and that intimidates people who are more empathetic.

You ask:

  Should such susceptible people keep being socially avoidant type of people to avoid conflicts or become as their opposites through cognitive behavioral therapy or hypnosis?

Before seeking cognitive therapy to become more assertive, there is the possibility of trying the following (which is what we were taught to do as physicians):

1) Step back in your mind and describe how you feel (angry, afraid, insignificant, anxious, what exactly?)
2) Decide what the opposite emotions are (calm, confident, capable, peaceful, etc).
3) Try responding consistently in the opposite manner until they have calmed down (it usually works). It's like taking the wind out of someone's sails instead of blowing back. (This will work if someone is normal. With mentally ill patients, it's still very helpful, but there are other behaviors to use as well.)

This way, you can defuse situations instead of escalating them while staying true to yourself.


Is it possible to condition oneself to not be bothered by distressing sounds? It is my (layman's) understanding that a domestic cat learns to meow in a specific tone (I've even read that it can resemble a human baby crying) in order to get the owner's attention.

Regardless of the factual accuracy of this specific claim (which is referenced here, here and was even challenged in Skeptics.se), the fact is that an attention-seeking cat's meowning can be really unsettling.

Again, speaking as a layman - and to give a practical example -, when I'm trying to concentrate on something and my cat meows two or three times (even at a great distance), it is more than enough to disrupt my attention completely.

(More context - can be skipped)

  My strategy to deal with this has been mixed: Sometimes I'll ignore
  him for a moment - which is incredibly hard; sometimes (if it won't
  stop) I'll yell (not too loud, but very firmly): STOP. And it works.

  As of lately I've been interested in dealing with the root cause.
  Precautions have been taken to assure that the cat is getting enough
  food, water, grooming, and indeed, enough attention.* I've been
  struggling to not scream (because a) it makes me feel bad, and b) it
  sure reinforces the cat's behavior).

  (*) While this could be debated, because one would think that
  the cat wouldn't meow if he didn't need to, I'm quite sure he's
  getting at least the most attention I can provide. From my research it
  should be more than enough. And it is enough for my _other_ cat, as a
  matter of fact.

(End "more context")

To be pragmatic, while the cat's behavior cannot be effectively resolved, it is of my utmost interest to learn if the owner can "recondition" him/herself not to be bothered by the sound of the meowning so much.

I'm wondering if a person can be made to simply "observe" the distressing sound, like a Zen Master observes the sound of the wind rustling the leaves of a tree, without her brain generating an immediate distress signal like it does.

Or, maybe, some tones are just "hardwired" to always trigger such reaction, no matter how much cognitive effort a person puts in?

Short answer
Meditation may be key to block out distracting noise.

Background
One study has shown that during meditation, expert meditators with over 19,000 h of meditation experience show less brain activations in regions associated with discursive thoughts and emotions (prefrontal regions, basal ganglia, and subthalamic nuclei), and more activation in regions related to response inhibition and attention (ventral prefrontal cortex and intraparietal lobule).

The authors used neutral (restaurant background noise), positive (cooing baby) and negative sounds (a screaming lady).

However, meditation is probably not the conditioning training you are after for use in everyday life, but since the question has been silent I thought to start off with this lead.

Reference
- Brefczynski-Lewis et al., PNAS (2007); 104(27): 11483-8


Is there any update on the hypothesis on primary emotions corresponding on "love"? Fisher (2000) hypothesized that sex drive, attraction and attachment are the three primary emotions correspond to mating, reproduction and parenting behaviors; those are three discrete constellations of brain circuits, and triggered (and therefore measured and experimented) by a vast of hormones. However, the paper was published 17 years ago, contains a number of hypotheses and self-citations, and its methods mostly come from demography, not cognitive science or evolutionary.

Do you know any update on this hypothesis?

Source: Helen Fisher (2000), Lust, Attraction, Attachment: Biology and Evolution of the Three Primary Emotion Systems for Mating, Reproduction, and Parenting, Journal of Sex Education and Therapy, 25:1, 96-104

This hypothesis relies on a number of ideas that are difficult to defend in light of the past decade of emotion research.

Most notably, there is almost no evidence of modular "emotion systems" in the brain that coordinate some sort of stereotyped emotional response (1 2 3 4).

Moreover, rigidity in responding is often related to reduced evolutionary fitness.  High fitness species have behavioral and genetic flexibility (see the evo-bio literature on degeneracy and variability).

Moreover, there's strong evidence that the brain is predictive, not reactive (for a starting point on this idea, see 5), which rejects the traditional stimulus-response paradigm (e.g., "triggering" a circuit).

The theory also relies on an outdated understanding of neurotransmitter functions (e.g., 6 7).

Overall, this theory needs to be heavily revised in order to account for contemporary findings.


Does being sporty affect a person's reaction to emergency situations? I have always been quite sporty, and I tend to remain relatively calm and composed in emergency or high stress situations. From my personal experience, people who are quite sporty and have been in their youth tend to be more as well, and panic or freeze less fast than less sporty people.
I could imagine that doing a lot of exercise, and perhaps competitive sports, could make your body more used to adrenaline or cortisol and thus teach your body and mind to be calmer in such situations.
Or course, personal experience means very little (and admittedly, I have not even been in all that many "emergency" situations), and I may be somewhat biased. So is there any research that shows (or refutes) a relation between regular exercise (and/or having done a lot of exercise in your youth, or competitive sports) and a person's reaction to emergency or high stress situations?

Check this out. Chapter 15 is what you are looking for. It is a study made in collaboration with the international federation of sport and medicine and talks about sport and fight or flight response (panic response). Click here
Kraemer, W. J., & Rogol, A. D. (Eds.). (2005). The endocrine system in sports and exercise. Blackwell Pub..


Why do some memories have a closer 'feeling' in time than others? There are some memories in my head which seems to have occured much more far away than it actually has happend, that is there is a feeling of disconnect between the actual timeline of events which has happend in my life vs my memories. Supposing that this happens to 'other' people too, why does this happen?
By the way , I have seen this thread but it's more about the intensity of the memory rather than how the memories fit into the timeline of our mind vs the timeline of the realworld.

I've looked a bit into false memories/hearing, so my best answer to this would be that it has to do with emotional arousal and recency since the memory was last recalled. I don't think I've seen this exact question answered using neurological studies, but I have not really looked for a study addressing that specifically. So I'd say this could be a really interesting research project! I think the consensus is that emotional arousal leads to higher susceptibility to false memory because it would be more frequently recalled and therefore subject to alteration. Studying reported recall of dates and times would be really cool though.


Seeing others with anorexia nervosa vs. "thinspiration" I am just curious about this one:

As far as I know, anorexia nervosa does not affect seeing others, so they don't see others as fat. They are reportedly seeing others in a realistic way. While I don't have experience with AN, it sounds understandable for me.

However, I have heard of "thinspiration", i.e. people showing others their thinness and inspiring others to get thin, too. This reportedly encourages people to continue with losing weight.

Each of those phenomena sound understandable alone. However, I don't understand those two together, maybe I misunderstand something: If they judge other people accurately and only misjudge themself, how can seeing someone utterly this make them wanting to be thinner?

I understand that feelings and rational thinking might be in conflict with each other*, but this is not enough for me to understand those two phenomena together.

*) I have some experience with conflicts between rational thinking and feelings due to emetophobia, so I can think out of bounds of pure rationality.

From my reading, I believe that anorexics can see others in the same way as us or they can also see other anorexics as normal.  It seems that anorexics don't necessarily hallucinate rolls of fat or other shape differences between healthy and overweight or obese people.

Thomas et al. (2012) describes the case of ‘Ms A’, who described herself as having ‘3% of full vision’: she could detect only high contrast, some colour, and large shapes under optimal conditions, but otherwise nothing at all. Her anorexia began at age nine, with obsessive-compulsive disorder predating its onset, and anorexia and depression being formally diagnosed at age 14. When she was first admitted to a residential treatment programme, aged 19, Ms A denied the seriousness of her low body-weight (BMI 15.9) and didn’t manifest the psychological criterion for anorexia,

  intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, even though underweight.

Instead, she said that she refused food in order to provide a sense of ‘containment, safety, and control’ through the practice of self-restriction.

Talking about her disturbed body image, Ms A described typical features of anorexia in the sighted, including checking behaviours, body avoidance (e.g. avoiding tight clothing), and comparisons with others. As she put it, ‘I do all of the checking, but without the eyes’. She, like other blind sufferers from anorexia, used tactile body checking – feeling for bony protrusions in face, ribcage, spine, and hips, and assessing how tight her clothes felt.

This might mean that in anorexia, vision and touch lend themselves equally readily to involvement in the kinds of distortions that are characteristic of anorexia: over-generalisation (this part of my thigh looks/feels big, therefore I’m fat), and all-or-nothing thinking (either I can see/feel every rib clearly or I’m fat) (Troscianko, 2012)

With this borne in mind, thinspiration could exacerbate the problem if they compare their bone protrusions with the photos shown.

References

National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (UK). Eating Disorders: Core Interventions in the Treatment and Management of Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders. Leicester (UK): British Psychological Society (UK); 2004. (NICE Clinical Guidelines, No. 9.) Appendix 17, Diagnostic criteria for eating disorders. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK49317

Thomas, J. J., Weigel, T. J., Lawton, R. K., Levendusky, P. G., & Becker, A. E. (2012). Cognitive-behavioral treatment of body image disturbance in a congenitally blind patient with anorexia nervosa. American Journal of Psychiatry, 169(1), 16—20.
DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2010.10040555 PMID: 22223010

Troscianko, E. T. (2012). Seeing and (Not) Believing in Anorexia - PsychologyToday
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hunger-artist/201212/seeing-and-not-believing-in-anorexia


Word for naming your negative self-talk to overcome it I'm trying to find some research - or at least a professional analysis - on the concept of naming your negative self-talk so that you can "take away its power" - that is, separate it from yourself and dismiss it.  I've also heard this referred to as "naming your fear."

For example, an actor might name his negative self-talk "the critic" so that he can dismiss those thoughts as being "just the critic running his mouth."

Another example (and the one that I'm specifically curious about) is in software engineering, where there's a lot of talk about "imposture syndrome," which in this context is just a fancy way of describing the common experience of feeling like you're underqualified for the job you're doing.  Giving it such a formal name has the added benefit of being "proof" that it's an irrational fear - that is, "Even qualified people are afraid that they're underqualified, so me thinking that I'm  underqualified doesn't mean that it's true."

The specific questions that I'm trying to answer are:

Is there a name for this kind of technique?
Have there been any studies done on this technique?
Specifically relating to the "imposture syndrome" example, how is this different from hypochondria?  And,
Are there any related concepts that I might want to take a look at?

What you are talking about is the powerful technique of Compartmentalisation.  As highlighted in the Wikipedia link I provided here, normally speaking (emphasis mine)

  Compartmentalization is a subconscious psychological defense mechanism used to avoid cognitive dissonance, or the mental discomfort and anxiety caused by a person's having conflicting values, cognitions, emotions, beliefs, etc. within themselves.

  Compartmentalization allows these conflicting ideas to co-exist by inhibiting direct or explicit acknowledgement and interaction between separate compartmentalized self states (Leary & Tangney, 2011).

Carolin Showers (1992) described compartmentalisation as

  the tendency to organize positive and negative knowledge about the self into separate, uniformly valenced categories (self-aspects). As long as positive self-aspects are activated, access to negative information should be minimized.

however, you can consciously compartmentalise negative thoughts, feelings etc.

With regard to hypochondria in your question, compartmentalisation can be extremely difficult for hypochondriacs, as can they have trouble separating personal health facts from false perceptions of their personal health (see Illness Anxiety Disorder in DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) or Merck Manual, or ICD-10 code F45.21).

There are a lot of concepts directly and indirectly related to compartmentalisation, so that part of your question is too broad to answer fully here.  However as a start, you could look at secondary trauma (also called vicarious trauma).

Compartmentalisation is often employed, for example, by people within the emergency services (fire officers, paramedics, police officers, coastguard etc.) in order for them to concentrate on the immediate task whilst temporarily isolating themselves from their emotions. Problems can come later for these people if they do not deal with their compartmentalised emotions afterwards during debriefing or clinical supervision sessions.

When studying primary and secondary trauma in medical emergency personnel, Jane Shakespeare-Finch (2011) described this as

  adaptive compartmentalizing of emotion during a scenario in which focus on the patient is paramount.

References

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. (5th Edition). Washington, DC.

Leary, M. R., & Tangney, J. P. (Eds.). (2011). Handbook of self and identity. Guilford Press.

Shakespeare-Finch, J. (2011). Primary and secondary trauma in emergency personnel. Traumatology, 17(4), 1-2.DOI: 10.1177/1534765611431834

Showers, C. (1992). Compartmentalization of positive and negative self-knowledge: Keeping bad apples out of the bunch. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62(6), 1036-1049.DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.62.6.1036


Why do we feel regret? When I make a bad decisions,  I feel regret. But why do I feel regret? What benefit do I, or does anybody, get when they feel regret? What is the benefit of regret for those regretting?

Gilovich and Medvec's (1995) article in Psychological Review is a good place to start reading about psychological theories of regret.

They discuss economic approaches which interpret anticipated regret as influencing current actions.  Thus, on a functional level, the desire to avoid regret could motivate us to make better decisions in the here and now.

More generally, many decisions do repeat in some form. Thus, the theory would be that we learn from our mistakes and by ruminating on our mistakes, we think about how we could do things differently in the future. Of course, this is a fairly adaptive response, and not all regret is this adaptive.

More generally, Gilovich and Medvec (1995) provide a good general summary of forces that reduce or increase the pain associated with regrettable actions both in relation to life long regrets and more short term regrets.

References

Gilovich, T., & Medvec, V. H. (1995). The experience of regret: what, when, and why. Psychological review, 102(2), 379. PDF


Correlation between BIS and BAS responses As a part of my lab experiment, participants had to answer questions for BIS and BAS (BAS reward, drive and fun) scales. The correlation matrix shows that BIS is significantly positively correlated with BAS reward, BAS fun and BAS drive. Has anyone experienced similar issues? Is this an issue? If yes, is it possible (and how) to correct for that?
BIS (Behavioral Inhibition System) and BAS (Behavioral Activation System) - I administered the scale developed by Carver and White (1994), as presented on pg. 323 in their work "Behavioral inhibition, behavioral activation, and affective responses to impending reward and punishment: The BIS/BAS scales" (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 319-333). I would assume that BIS should not be positively correlated with any of the BAS scales as BIS is related to avoidance motivation and BAS is related to approach motivation.I.e. a person scoring high on BIS should not be scoring high on BAS measures and vice versa.
The variables are intended as predictors. I want to examine if BAS (approach motivation) sensitivity predicts a rightward bias in product choice, and if BIS (avoidance motivation) sensitivity predicts a leftward bias.

I haven't used BIS and BAS scales in my research, so I will only point out some general considerations.

Correctness of your correlation analyses.: Double-check your data analysis. Maybe you missed a sign somewhere or you didn't encode some scale correctly.

Interpretation of your correlation analyses. Significant correlation isn't that interesting. You should consider its magnitude. Note that the correlation between two measures is bound by the reliability of those measures. You should compare your correlation estimate with the upper bound and ask how much of the potentially available correlation it explains. In theory, the correlation can't exceed $\sqrt{r_a r_b}$, where $r_i$ is the reliability of measure $i$. (Carver and White provide the reliability estimates on page 323.) In practice this can happen due to measurement error and you should consider the confidence interval of your correlation estimate.

Measurement error or Systematic bias? On page 323 Carver and White (1994) write:

  In theory, the sensitivity of the BIS and BAS physiological systems
  should be independent. Consistent with this assumption, the BIS scale
  was relatively independent of the BAS subscales in this sample,
  although the degree of independence varied across subscales. The BIS
  scale correlated -.12 with Drive, .28 with Reward Responsiveness, and
  -.08 with Fun Seeking.

You should compare these values with your correlation estimates and ask whether your estimates are consistent with those of Carver and White. Again, confidence intervals may be helpful.

Regression with correlated predictors. Wikipedia explains why linear regression requires independent predictors and has (under Lack of multicolinearity) some suggestions for situations when independence can't be assumed. In addation you may want to look at this question on cross validated SE.


Which are the most accredited tests for measuring personality traits? I'm lacking of an academic background. I thought there were only 4 or 16 personality traits. But a fast search on google is showing a huge number: according to this link they should be 638.

Is this information correct?

Which are the most accredited tests for measuring personality traits?

How many personality factors are there?
The history of personality testing can be summarised in terms of an initial period where there was a vast number of personality traits. In response to this, there have been various attempts to synthesise these traits into a smaller number of underlying factors. There is a huge literature on this process (e.g., Digman, 1990; McCrae & John, 1992).

There are a lot of researchers who have proposed variations on the five factor model (commonly labeled OCEAN: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion agreeableness, and neuroticism). That said, you will find a range of other factorial models (e.g., Eysenk's three factor model; the HEXACO six factor model).

There has also been subsequent challenges to the resulting dominance of factorial models.
For example, see the research of Sampo Paunonen (e.g., Paunonen & Ashton, 2001) which suggests that we may have gone too far in embracing the factorial models of personality.

Related to this debate, there are a range of hiearchical theories of personality where facets are nested within factors. So you can either get a very general representation of personality with say 5 factors, and a more detailed representation with say 30 facets.

What are valid measures of these factors?
There are a large number of well validated personality tests.
Tests are typically built around particular representations of personality.
There are a range of free measures of the Big 5 listed here with some discussion around validity.

The NEO is one of the most well-known and used commercial measures of the Big 5. That said, there are a wide range of well validated commercial personality tests available.

References

Digman, J. M. (1990). Personality structure: Emergence of the five-factor model. Annual review of psychology, 41(1), 417-440.
McCrae, R. R., & John, O. P. (1992). An introduction to the five‐factor model and its applications. Journal of personality, 60(2), 175-215.
Paunonen, S. V., & Ashton, M. C. (2001). Big five factors and facets and the prediction of behavior. Journal of personality and social psychology, 81(3), 524.


Equalize/balance brightness and saturation of different colors using RGB (across various monitors) We want to present different colors to participants in an online experiment (in an HTML/CSS-based application, hence we'll use RGB values). More in specific, we want to show red and green colors on grey background.

Crucially, we want to do our best to balance all possible factors apart from hue, especially those that might influence emotional (positive/negative) evaluation, so in particular brightness and saturation.

However, different models give different results, and the resulting colors can seem (to us subjectively) very unnatural, i.e. not what we would call a typical green or typical red. For example, selecting a red and green similar in lightness and saturation (hsl(h*, 100%, 25.1%)) would mean red RGB(128,0,0)(#800000) and green RGB(0,128,0)(#008000), but these seem (on grey background, e.g., #909090) neither naturally red and green, nor equal in visibility, see e.g. red here and green here.

Another option is following the CIELCh model, where saturation is calculated as C*/L* (Wilms & Oberfeld, 2018), a balanced pair could be: red CIE-LCh°(ab) (D65/2°) = 34, 100, 57, rgb(164, 14, 0) (#A40E00, hsl(5.1, 100%, 32.2%)) and  green CIE-LCh°(ab) (D65/2°) = 34, 100, 150, rgb(0, 103, 0) (#006700, hsl(120, 100%, 20.2%)). But then the lightness from the HSL model is not equal.

Of course there is also the problem that we cannot know the participants' monitor properties (let alone lighting conditions, etc.), which definitely rules out great precision in this matter, but still that seems the lesser problem: in general the same RGB color setting looks fairly similar on all monitors (again, in our subjective experience).

I realize that this can never be perfect, but I'm looking for suggestions for a least problematic solution, something that ensures the least possible influence on emotional impact of the color.

A definitive answer would include the possibly most optimal "red" and "green" colors with RGB values, along with a clear and convincing explanation (and references) about how it was derived (including software or formula if needed). An additional blue value could also be helpful to generalize the concept (and to further test the necessary color code transformations, if any).

First I should tell you that controlling for color in an online experiment is hopeless. Monitors display quite different colors, people run experiments in environments that have very different illuminations etc. There is no chance you could display equiluminant colors, which is already hard to do in the best of conditions, in an online experiment. However you can still try to minimize as much as possible variations in luminance.

You seem to assume that the RGB value of a pixel is equivalent to luminance. It is not, it is the 8-bits encoding relative to the maximum physical capabilities of the display. The RGB color channels do not have the same luminance. The ratio is roughly respectively 0.3, 0.6 and 0.1. In other words a green value that roughly matches the most luminant red a monitor can display is only half of that value ([255,0,0] has roughly the same luminance as [0,128,0]). As I said without carefully calibrating your monitor with a photometer there is no way you can display perfectly equiluminant colors online. What you can do is take a RGB space, like the sRGB space, pick 2 colors  that have equiluminance in that space, and assume that it is not too far off on people displays.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRGB

Saturation is even trickier because it is not a physical quantity you can measure (technically luminance is also based on a standard observer but at least you can relate it to radiant energy). Saturation will depend on which color space you pick. CIELuv, or its polar equivalent CIELch is indeed a reasonable choice. Note that CIELuv requires defining a "white point" (in the values you give it seems to be D65), yet another reason why online color experiments are hopeless. Here I think you are making the opposite mistake as for RGB colorspaces, the L coordinate of the Luv/Lch colorspaces is luminance. So 2 colors that have the same L value do have the same luminance (and the uv/ch coordinates indicate chrominance on an equiliminant plane). However you cannot easily transform CIELuv coordinates to RGB values. You'll need to transform colors back to the CIEXYZ colorspace first, and then to RGB.

Finally as the specific hue does not seem to be an issue for you, you can always measure equiluminance experimentally. For example using a alternating red and green drifting bars. Pick a red value, start with a very dark or bright green and increase/decrease that value. When colors are equiluminant you should perceive a clear drop in the speed of the drifting bars (the motion pathway is luminance-based).

All that to say, it is good to try to control for possible confounds, but be aware that you will never be able to perfectly control for it. I would personally not worry about it too much. If it is a critical aspect of your experiment try designing a good control condition instead (switch colors for half the observers, or run a subset of observers with colors that are clearly not equiluminant or something like that).

A very good reference on the topic:
http://www.visionlab.harvard.edu/Members/Patrick/PDF.files/2002%20pdfs/equi.pdf

I used this website to convert CIELuv to RGB values. Results are in the figure below. To get equiluminant colors the L value should remain constant (here I used 34 as the paper you cited). To have equisaturation (assuming the colorspace is correct), the uv coordinate should have the same euclidian distance (sqrt(u^2+v^2)=Cst, here I used 100). I absolutely do not guarantee this is correct. I just googled "CIE-Luv converter" and found this website. Checking if it is correct would be quite time consuming.

http://colormine.org/convert/rgb-to-luv


Why infant experiences shame as shyness when some unknown face looks at him/her? In the book "Healing the shame that binds you" by John Bradshaw (link to Google Books sample pages - scroll to page 10), there is a section about healthy shame and it's described how healthy shame looks like for different age groups/how it progresses or advances with age.

Shame as shyness
Once basic trust has been established, the child's feeling of shame emerges.  The first appearance of the feeling of shame usually occurs at about six months. At that age, a child has become familiar with his or her mother's face. When a strange face (maybe a relative seeing the baby for the first time) appears, the infant experiences shame as shyness in looking at the strange face.
Some children are temperamentally shy and withdrawn. But all of us experience some shyness in the presence of what is unfamiliar.

It's written that in age of like 6 months, infant is accustomed to primary caregiver's face and experiences shame as shyness when somebody unknown looks at infant and he/she sees this.
Why does infant experiences shame when some unknown face looks at him/her?
And why shyness is shame?
References
Bradshaw, J. (2005). Healing the Shame That Binds You (Expanded and Updated Edition): Recovery Classics Edition. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7573-0323-4

When looking at the whole idea you pointed out, it sounded preposterous.  How would a 6 month old infant have any concept of shame? As @BryanKrause pointed out in the comments, there are a lot of self-help books out there which are not based in the sciences of Psychology, but there are some good ones out there, such as Laura Davis' The Courage to Heal Workbook and John Bradshaw pioneered the concept of the "Inner Child" and brought the term "dysfunctional family" into the mainstream (Bradshaw, 1990) so I thought I would look into this.
John Bradshaw is a New York Times Bestselling Author and founding father of the self-help movement (John Bradshaw Media Group, n.d.).  Looking for his qualifications in Psychology, Wikipedia points out that:

He earned a B.A. degree in Sacred Theology and an M.A. degree in philosophy from the University of Toronto in Canada. Six years after his 1963 graduation, Bradshaw returned to academia at Rice University in Houston, Texas, doing three years of graduate work in psychology and religion.

Looking at the sample pages linked, the idea pointed out is in the first section of the book, which is titled The Healthy Faces of Shame (HDL Shame) with HDL liking the shame to the HDL (high-density lipoprotein) variety of cholesterol—the "Good" cholesterol.
As the quote pointed out is referring to a 6 month old infant, this is in the Interpersonal Bridge: Established Codependence stage of Bradshaw's Developmental Stages of Healthy (HDL) Shame (Page 9 of the book you linked).
Bradshaw's Development Stages of Healthy (HDL) Shame

Stage
Description

Interpersonal BridgeEstablished Codependence
6 MonthsOnce securely attached—shame as SHYNESS appears as a response to being exposed to strange faces

When you look at the various models of development stages or life stages, they can be a matter of opinion and there are 5 spectrum models of development which theorists – and people in general – often disagree.
Crozier (2010) points out that:
page 43

Research on shyness in the early years tends to draw upon observations of children's behaviour (e.g., Kagan, 2001), whereas studies in later childhood also draw upon self-report questionnaire and interview methods (e.g., Crozier & Burnham, 1990; Crozier, 1995).

page 47

[T]he relations among shyness, shame, and embarrassment are little understood, and there is disagreement as to whether they are versions of the same underlying affect or emotion (Izard, 1977; Tomkins, 1963), or whether they constitute distinct emotional states (Keltner & Buswell, 1997).

Reading this book, and maybe reading the cited texts within, highlights the reason there is so much disagreement and gives a more balanced view on the research behind shame and shyness.
Looking at 2 different theories of development of shyness pointed out in Crozier (2010), one of which is

Buss A.H. (1986) A Theory of Shyness. In: Jones W.H., Cheek J.M., Briggs S.R. (eds) Shyness. Emotions, Personality, and Psychotherapy. Boston, MA: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0525-3_4

for the idea that a 6 month old hides in shame when they are shy, I don't have children myself, but when observing my step-grandchildren when they were infants, to me it is still preposterous. As Buss (1986) points out, the shyness at this age is fearful shyness as they are fearful of someone who essentially is a stranger.

Fearful shyness starts during the first year of life, usually during the latter half of the year. Sometimes called stranger anxiety, the reaction occurs mainly when unfamiliar people, usually adults, confront the infant. The typical response is wariness, retreat, and the seeking of comfort in the security of mother's arms; more intense reactions include a cry-face or the crying and shrinking back that characterize fear.

The sense of shame isn't developed until they are (depending on advancement etc.) around 18 months old to 3 years old.
With the concept of "lockdown babies" (The Children's Commissioner, 2020), even though some parents may be introducing other members of family to their infants via Zoom, Skype etc. I would imagine that, along with other social issues, there will be more issues with fearful shyness with opening up outdoor spaces to everyone as the Covid crisis lessens.  Not just with strangers approaching, but also through exposure to so many people at once.
References
Bradshaw, J. (1990). Home Coming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child New York, NY: Bantam Books ISBN: 978-0-5530-5793-5
Bradshaw, J. (2005). Healing the Shame That Binds You (Expanded and Updated Edition): Recovery Classics Edition. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7573-0323-4
Buss A.H. (1986) A Theory of Shyness. In: Jones W.H., Cheek J.M., Briggs S.R. (eds) Shyness. Emotions, Personality, and Psychotherapy. Boston, MA: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0525-3_4
Crozier, W. R. (2010). Shyness and the development of embarrassment and the self-conscious emotions. In K. H. Rubin & R. J. Coplan (Eds.), The development of shyness and social withdrawal (p. 42–63). New York, NY: The Guilford Press. 978-1-6062-3523-2
John Bradshaw Media Group. (n.d.). John Bradshaw https://www.johnbradshaw.com/
The Children's Commissioner (2020). Lockdown babies: Children born during the coronavirus crisis https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/report/lockdown-babies/


Can individuals with schizophrenia be talked out of their delusions? Are there any conversion tricks or strategies to talk an individual with schizophrenia out of their delusions?

Suppose one has a friend who is delusional, and the friend believes there is a conspiracy going on against him. Although the extent e.g. people and time required to orchestrate such a conspiracy would be impossible, this person does not think of it as such. Complicating matters is the fact that this person declines to take antipsychotics, precisely because he believes this is what his enemies would like him to do.

How might one talk this person out of their delusions?

You need to understand that their experience is highly emotionally significant for them. Not necessarily in a good way, but it is. For affected people it feels true - it "is true". What medications tend to do - they dampen the affective significance, among other things, and people in time become more able to be in touch with ordinary reality. By definition delusions are "unshakeable beliefs".

Having said that - it is known that there are possibilities of treatment without medications, or at least minimising their use. They tend to involve group and community based psychological interventions over long time. Scandinavian countries (e.g.  Norway) do a lot of work in that regard. From my colleagues I have also heard that medication use is less in India - but the family ties and family member availability seem greater hence it becomes more of a group intervention. The model is that many family members in a loving way provide information that conflicts with the delusional content.

Then there is http://www.isps.org/ - a reputable organisation for psychological and social approaches to psychosis.

I hope this shows you to not expect a solution that you might be able to effect on your own. The psychotic experience can be very disturbing and you may be in for something that you do not expect when trying "to talk this person out of their delusions". Often you can become a part of the delusion - which then lessens credibility of what you say in the person's eyes.

Good luck

P.S. Of course - we can have a different picture in illicit drug induced psychosis - by definition psychosis should abate soon after drugs are out of the system. It happens however that with recurrent drug use people develop psychosis that does not abate.


Chunking and learning vocabulary Learning vocabulary seems to be efficient if the words are learned in a fixed sequence, but it seems to be harder to recall these words in a different sequence then the learning sequence.

I wonder which theory can explain this effect, is it "chunking"?

Some definitions define chunking as a process where facts are organized in groups "chunks" that can be better memorized then the single facts.

In other definitions, it is described as an effect, where the elements of a chunk can be better predicted, because the probability of the occurrence of an element following another element is higher. Or in other words, we learn, that in the context of a special chunk an 'a' is mostly followed by an 'b' and so we can memorize the chunk 'ab' better.

I think you've got a reasonable handle on why learning vocabulary in a single, fixed order is probably not a great idea. You may also be interested in what is called context-dependent memory, where you recall things best in a context similar to that which you learned those things in (shitty sentence, but you know what I mean).