The Social Lemmings @ablue-lion - Tumblr Blog

Using face research to predict the success of politicians and business leaders

Sport Addiction

Addiction to sport was defined as ‘overtraining syndrome’, that is a physiological condition of imbalance which derives from intense, physical effort when it is carried out too often, thus there is no time for energetic or neurobiological recovery, nor the possibility to recover from the strain by recharging physically and psychologically.

A similar view point is that that exclusively considers behavioural measures, defining, for example, running programmes carried out for 5 days a week, or a minimum of 15 hours a week, as ‘addictive corridors’, taking on a sort of ‘time trial’ diagnosis.

‘Sport mania’, which is another term used incorrectly as a synonym for ‘sport addiction’, is an excessive behavioural tendency which causes an imbalance in one’s relationship with sport and which does not always manifest itself in the symptoms common to addictions. Sport mania can evolve into prolonged abuse of sporting activities and cause over-reaching, that is, a subtle form of overtraining which can require a resting period of a few weeks for psycho-physical rest, or even bring on a more stable state of overtraining which requires months of rest as well as a daily, physical correctional programme.

#sports addiction #overtraining #obsessive compulsive disorder

The Global Bubble

I think that for years we all live on “fake resources”. On “air-bubble-money”.

I'm not sure if one should say “we are all guilty of it”, because in a way we are, and in another way, we have been misled in believing we are “just fine” by banks, financial institutions, and politicians alike. And they needed us to believe because in this way, very few made a lot of money. We let ourselves “scammed”, but we loved it as we could get houses that we could not afford, big cars, pretty clothes and wide-screen TVs. All produced from nothing and sold for bubble-money.

We had a glimpse at what was happening in 2008, a sort of “preview” of the future, but this was quickly obliterated by politicians and financial institutions alike. They applied on the bursting “global bubble” the “glue” of “what causes your poverty are the immigrants, the war on terror, the doctors that don’t do their jobs properly, the Eastern European countries, the Greeks, the Brussels Administration, paedophiles, benefits people, the University fees, the rise of the Far Right extremists, Muslims, old people, young people, poor people....”.

And we all swallowed it. The poisonous, dividing glue of the “powerful of this world”, meant to keep the global bubble from bursting.... Not yet, just not yet... Let us have another few billions in our off-shore accounts....

Meanwhile, the bubble got bigger, and bigger, alike the world population, and surely unlike this planet, with what it can give us all in terms of food, raw materials, water, air...

It reminds me of a silly joke we used to tell as children: “This guy captured by his enemies, and taken into his captor’s tent. He was told: Now you are going to be screwed anyway. But you have a choice: you can be screwed with Vaseline or without. The man pondered, and answered ‘Well, if I’ll be screwed anyway, at least make it with Vaseline, hopefully it will be less painful’. To this, his captor opened his tent and yelled ‘Oi! Vaseline! You can come inside! The guy agreed that you screw him too!’”

This is what is actually happening to us. The glue cannot hold the bubble any-more, and we start realising what is happening to us: We are all being screwed, torn to pieces: UK people, The Greeks, The Chinese, Europe, the USA...

And I'm not even sure if we still have the choice to have it done with or without Vaseline....

#global crisis #the greek crisis

themedicalstate

Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Helen Keller, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (via neuromorphogenesis)

The Therapist

#psychotherapy #psychodynamic

Reacting to Threats

(or "How to manipulate behaviours and attitudes")

Threat is commonly defined as a communicated intent to inflict harm or loss on another person or group.

Humans have a relatively limited repertoire of instinctual behaviours when responding to a threat (known as the Fight-or-Flight response):

- Fight (= attack back)

- Flight (= avoidance)

Both the flight and fight responses are mediated by adrenaline.

Occasionally, when the person subjected to threat is either disabled, or the attacker is perceived as too strong and unavoidable, a third type of response may occur, “freezing” (an attempt to trick the attacker in believing that one is dead). The “freezing” response is mediated by the parasympathetic (vagal) nervous system.

When we are confronted with a threat (for example noticing a snake nearby), we experience a flush of adrenaline (fear response) that is mediated by the Amygdala - the first area in our brain to react. The amygdala is a group of small brain structures shown to have a primary role in the processing of memory, decision-making, and (most importantly) emotional reactions. The amygdala is “primitive” (in terms of chronology of human brain development), fires much faster than the brain cortex, and therefore bypasses rational cognitive processes.

One important psychological finding is that response to threat can be modulated depending on what type of emotion the threat induces in the individual: We are more prone to respond with “flight” (avoidance) if the threat induces predominantly an emotion of fear, and more prone to respond with “fight” if the threat makes us angry.

In human society, we find numerous examples where leaders and politicians use these primitive reactions in people not only to control them, but also to obtain desired changes in their attitudes and behaviours.

One striking example is the recent surge of the far-right parties in many European countries, including in the UK. Party leaders such as Nigel Farage promote fear of new UK immigrants (that will result in split in society as one group will avoid interacting with the newer group of immigrants) and anger towards perceived loss of privileges in the British population (that will result in new-comers being attacked).

Another very powerful example is the British society response to threat in 2001 and then later in 2003:

After the attack on the Twin-Towers in New York in September 2001, the British population felt angry at the outcome of the terrorist attack, and therefore the UK’s armed participation to the attack on Afghanistan met a substantial support in the British population.

By contrast, the war on Iraq (March 2003) justified by the UK government through fear (weapons of mass destruction) created in the British population a massive “flight” reaction, with a majority of people wanting to avoid the conflict.

More recently, the ISIS crimes against innocent civilians in Iraq and Syria, as well as the murder of several journalists and humanitarian workers from the USA, UK and France created a strong reaction of anger in the British population that materialised in the newly found support for armed intervention (“fight” response) in the Middle East.

When we consider the above with the knowledge that social and political context of our modern time is presented in the media heavily charged with emotional content (processed by the amygdala), one could easily anticipate (and manipulate) attitudes and behaviours in the population.

#fear #anger #social psychology #fight or flight

The War that Never Ends

The the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham was declared on 29 June 2014. They have been in the media and have capture the interest of people and politicians all over the world.

In this piece of reflection, I am not interested in criticising, or approving their behaviour, or even discussing their claims, or what the medial reports that politicians think to do about what is currently happening in Iraq and to an extent in Syria.

I would only like to comment on what I think is significant from a Social Psychology point of view in respect to this conflict.

To date, the people forming this ISIS have progressively infiltrated the political power in the middle east and have done a number of abhorrent crimes including killing civilians in their countries and executing several individuals of various western countries origins: USA, UK, France, and so on.

The questions I would ask from a social psychological point of view are: “

1) “How would one make sense of their behaviour?”

and

2) “What does one may think their fundamental motivation is?”

To the first of these questions there are two main options: One can either believe that (A) the ISIS members are relatively rational humans, pursuing an end goal that would gratify themselves and their supporters, or that (B) they are a bunch of total lunatics, who lost contact with reality, acting in line with some mass delusion and led by some sort of idiotic leader(s).

Regarding the second question, one can answer that if option (A) is true in respect to the first question, then one can postulate that:

1. ISIS want to take over the world

or that

2. ISIS want to take over the resources in Iraq, Syria, and so on (mainly oil, right?) and use those to control the above mentioned countries, achieve political power, and create in the region a society ruled by the Sharia law.

But if any of these two options are correct, then how nagging at Western super-powers by decapitating western citizens helps them achieve their goal? Frankly, I am unable to answer this question, as such a behaviour can only result in ISIS being attacked back by the Western countries with an inevitable outcome of having their task rendered more difficult (if not impossible).

If however one likes to consider option (B), then one main concern is the very common social psychological phenomenon present in most conflicts which is the “Group think” (which I explained in detail in a previous post).

Moreover, even thinking that ISIS’ behaviour is above (or beyond) any social psychological rule can also be viewed as part of this very powerful group think process that has already plagued our society since the beginning of the second “Gulf War”.

The actual conclusion is that if one wants to adhere to the rational domain of Social Psychology that has ruled human kind since the Early Hominids started walking the earth some 125,000 years ago, the recent events in the middle east as presented and explained in the media as well as the political arguments surrounding them make absolutely no sense.

#isis terror #social psychology #groupthink #conflict

midoodles-blog

So remakes of Ruby and Sapphire are out soon! In tribute to them here is a little watercolour Mudkip, having a snooze. Watercolours and watercolour pencils with a tiny bit of Photoshop touch up :)

#pokemon mudkip

robertostro

Social psychologists are in a unique position to study both the social and the psychological aspects of human life. Simply it is the collective social and the individual mind that is the focus. Disinviduation as discussed in the last blog is a social psychological process of a person who lives in...

#social psychology #lost self

robertostro

"By definition of course, we believe the person with a stigma is not quite human. On this assumption we exercise varieties of discrimination, through which we effectively, if often unthinkingly, reduce his life chances. We construct a stigma-theory, an ideology to explain his inferiority and...

#social psychology #stigma #discrimination

culturedecanted

Gretchen Gavett, hbr.org

When do you pass the buck and when do you take the blame? New research shows most of us only cop to failures if they can’t be attributed to something – or someone – else. But when we dodge accountability, we prevent ourselves from learning.

In…

If you don’t read this it’s your fault

#social psychology #attribution #social responsibility

MORAL DEVELOPMENT

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Moral development focuses on the emergence, change, and understanding of morality from infancy through adulthood.

One of the best known theories was developed by psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg.

Kohlberg extended Piaget's theory, proposing that moral development is a continual process that occurs throughout the lifespan. He developed his theory based on a number of dilemmas that he administered to children, adolescents and adults at different life stages.

One example is "The Heinz Dilemma”: He interviewed the participants to determine the reasoning behind their judgments in the proposed scenario.

Kohlberg was not interested so much in the answer to the question of whether Heinz was wrong or right, but in the reasoning for each participant's decision. The responses were then classified into various stages of reasoning in his theory of moral development.

Level 1. Preconventional Morality

• Stage 1 - Obedience and Punishment  - The earliest stage of moral development is especially common in young children, but adults are also capable of expressing this type of reasoning. At this stage, children see rules as fixed and absolute. Obeying the rules is important because it is a means to avoid punishment.

• Stage 2 - Individualism and Exchange  - At this stage of moral development, children account for individual points of view and judge actions based on how they serve individual needs. In the Heinz dilemma, children argued that the best course of action was the choice that best-served Heinz’s needs. Reciprocity is possible at this point in moral development, but only if it serves one's own interests.

Level 2. Conventional Morality

• Stage 3 - Interpersonal Relationships  - Often referred to as the "good boy-good girl" orientation, this stage of moral development is focused on living up to social expectations and roles. There is an emphasis on conformity, being "nice," and consideration of how choices influence relationships.

• Stage 4 - Maintaining Social Order  - At this stage of moral development, people begin to consider society as a whole when making judgments. The focus is on maintaining law and order by following the rules, doing one’s duty and respecting authority.

Level 3. Postconventional Morality

• Stage 5 - Social Contract and Individual Rights  - At this stage, people begin to account for the differing values, opinions and beliefs of other people. Rules of law are important for maintaining a society, but members of the society should agree upon these standards.

• Stage 6 - Universal Principles  - Kohlberg’s final level of moral reasoning is based upon universal ethical principles and abstract reasoning. At this stage, people follow these internalised principles of justice, even if they conflict with laws and rules.

Interestingly, Kohlberg was able to determine that the moral development of the vast majority of people living in western societies is arrested at Stage 4, with only few individuals evolving to Stage 5, and even fewer achieving Stage 6 (!).

How Universal is the human Moral Development? (other theories and critics)

Shweder et al. (1987) argued for moral relativism, or the notion that different cultures defined the boundaries of morality differently.

In contrast, Turiel and Perkins (2004) argued for the universality of morality, focusing largely on evidence throughout history of resistance movements that fight for justice through the affirmation of individual self-determination rights.

In an update on the debate between moral relativism and moral universality, Miller (2006) provides a thoughtful review of the cultural variability of moral priorities, arguing that rather than variability in what individuals consider moral (fairness, justice, rights), there is cultural variability in the priority given to moral considerations.

If you would like to know more: read here!

#moral development #social psychology #kohlberg #human development

Group Polarisation

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The recent Elections in UK have resulted in a series of debates between not only opposite parties, but also between ideologically different sections of the British population.

It appeared that everyone wanted to convince some others that their own ideas about the major issues in our modern society are the "right" ones.

Unfortunately, social psychology studies have shown that in fact, group discussions tend to polarise groups so that, rather than people’s views being averaged, their initial preferences can become exaggerated and their final position is often more extreme than it was initially.

For example, after a group discussion, people already supportive of a war become more supportive, people with an initial tendency towards racism become more racist and a group with a slight preference for one job candidate will come out with a much stronger preference.

Group polarisation has been widely discussed in terms of political behaviour. For example, suppose a group of labours sit down to discuss a health care reform and a new policy proposed by a conservative politician. In the beginning of the discussion, the group as a whole may be somewhat against the healthcare reform policy (thus having an initial group attitude). After deliberating the policy, the group will demonstrate that they are now more opposed to the policy than ever. In this situation, the initial attitude was reinforced and the group became more polarised against the policy. This type of situation occurs in everyday life as politicians and other people are constantly debating issues surrounding labours versus conservative, pro-Europe versus anti-Europe attitudes, pro-gay marriage versus anti-gay marriage, etc. In each of these scenarios, there are prominent vocal leaders on each extreme who escalate issues and cause further polarisation, throwing the debate in increasing depths of extremism.

A clear example of this polarisation has been shown to occur in UKIP party supporters, who's attitudes against immigration gradually shifted from supporting a more strict control of the immigration, to more extreme opinions (such as ALL immigrants should be kicked out of Britain), to eventually culminate with a call from a UKIP candidate for the opposition candidates, as well as people voting for them to be publicly executed for treason. This in turn, was reflected in the greater shift towards extremism and violent fascist-like attitudes in a large proportion of their party supporters.

#group polarization #extremeist #political debate #ukip #social psychology

Can Torture Ever be Justified?

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I was stunned and deeply concerned about the recent debates in the British media

On the 13th of May 2014, in her LBC 97.3 - "Leading (!) Britain's Conversation" - program, the presenter Julia Hartley Brewer very seriously made the incredible statement that in "exceptional" cases, torture should be permitted.

She argued, that for "the greater good", some individuals should actually be openly tortured. Sadly, many of her listeners appeared to agree.

I will not go into a debate on how a significant proportion (1/3 if one believes the latest statistics of Amnesty International) of the population of a Western "civilised" country - the UK - got to the conclusion that it's reasonable and justified to inflict physical and/or psychological pain on another human being.

My question would rather refer to what is "exceptional"?

Who and how would one start to define when it becomes socially acceptable for one to torture another. How would such an anomaly of the social and moral evolution be regulated?

This commentator argued that this is the case when the country's safety is endangered. Particularly, when an individual has information that if disclosed could save many.

What if a 12 years old knows about where his father, or mother, or brother set up a bomb, and is unwilling to "tell on them"? By the definitions suggested above, it would be then reasonable to start torturing that child (!).

And to what extend would it be "reasonable" to torture another human being? Would it be reasonable to inflict irreversible physical or psychological damage? Or maybe, it would be reasonable to torture them to death...

And again... I thought about this great country who's population is apparently prepared to vote with a majority a far right nationalistic party (UKIP) . The latest poll on the same "Leading Britain's Conversation" shows that listeners have an intention to vote UKIP at > 73% (!!!)

I thought about how publicly condoning xenophobic attitudes and beliefs (against for example people from the Eastern European Countries) subtly lead to the message: "That's fine to discriminate" "It's fine to be xenophobe", "It's fine to have fascist attitudes". You'll be better off!

To me, progressing from condoning xenophobia to developing a fascist moral system of values, and finally to find that torture is really ok (at least at times), is a logical social evolution. Frightening, but naturally following the unavoidable, mathematical laws of social psychology.

We have seen it before, preceding and during the Second World War in Fascist Germany! Remember?

#torture #xenophobia #moral development #LBC 97.3 #fascism #social psychology

Hubris syndrome: An acquired personality disorder?

—-

The Hubris Syndrome has been described by Lord David Owen (past leader of the Social Democratic Party and eminent psychiatrist) as a group of symptoms that are precipitated by the individual reaching a position of power.

In this respect, the syndrome is “acquired” in specific circumstances (becoming a political leader, for example).

The syndrome can also be termed as “acquired psychopathy”, with the main traits being very similar to the (more genetically determined) sociopathy, or psychopathy, recently termed for the political correctness sake: Dangerous Severe Personality Disorder, or DSPD.

Lord Owen stated that “Charisma, charm, the ability to inspire, persuasiveness, breadth of vision, willingness to take risks, grandiose aspirations and bold self-confidence—these qualities are often associated with successful leadership. Yet there is another side to this profile, for these very same qualities can be marked by impetuosity, a refusal to listen to or take advice and a particular form of incompetence when impulsivity, recklessness and frequent inattention to detail predominate. This can result in disastrous leadership and cause damage on a large scale.” (David Owen and Jonathan Davidson, 2009).

The individual gradually develops some form of self-exultation, overwhelming belief about their own mission and importance, and the conviction that he is only accountable before God.

Initially 14 symptoms constituting the hubristic syndrome were proposed (Owen, 2006). Later, the authors shortened and tabulated these descriptions and mapped their broad affinities with the DSM IV criteria for narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder.

Hubris syndrome was formulated as a pattern of behaviour in a person who:

sees the world as a place for self-glorification through the use of power;

has a tendency to take action primarily to enhance personal image;

shows disproportionate concern for image and presentation;

exhibits messianic zeal and exaltation in speech;

conflates self with nation or organisation;

uses the royal ‘we’ in conversation;

shows excessive self-confidence;

manifestly has contempt for others;

shows accountability only to a higher court (history or God);

displays unshakeable belief that they will be vindicated in that court;

loses contact with reality;

resorts to restlessness, recklessness and impulsive actions;

allows moral rectitude to obviate consideration of practicality, cost or outcome; and

displays incompetence with disregard for nuts and bolts of policy making.

Typical examples cited by Lord Owen in his book The Hubris Syndrome: Bush, Blair & the Intoxication of Power are: Tony Blaire, George Bush Jr., Hitler, Stalin, and several other very well known political figures.

#hubris #syndrome #lord david owen #dspd #psychopath

The Political Economy of Fear

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Recently, number of "natural threats" have been discussed by the media. We are under constant attack from "Killer Bees", "Poisonous foods", and many other unexpected, unavoidable sources of threat.

All animals experience fear—human beings, perhaps, most of all. To disregard fear is to place ourselves in possibly mortal jeopardy. Our evolved physiological makeup disposes us to fear all sorts of actual and potential threats, even those that exist only in our imagination.

The people who form our government, understand this basic fact of human nature. They exploit it, and they cultivate it. Whether they compose a warfare state or a welfare state, they depend on it to secure popular submission, compliance with official dictates, and, on some occasions, affirmative cooperation with the state's enterprises and adventures. Without popular fear, no government could endure more than twenty-four hours.

If the population is scared, then the individuals will seek protection in more cohesion, group think, conformity to the group and increased submission to the ruling power (which is even more so perceived as “protective”).

But fear is a depreciating asset. Governments must make up for the depreciation by investing in the maintenance, modernisation, and replacement of its stock of fear capital.

(For example, during the Cold War, the general sense of fear of the Soviets tended to dissipate unless restored by periodic crises, many of which took the form of officially announced or leaked “gaps” between U.S. and Soviet military capabilities: troop-strength gap, bomber gap, missile gap, antimissile gap, first-strike-missile gap, defense-spending gap, thermonuclear-throw-weight gap, and so forth (Higgs 1994, 301-02)

This same factor helps to explain the drumbeat of fears pounded out by the mass media: besides serving their own interests in capturing an audience, they buy insurance against government punishment by playing along with whatever program of fear-mongering the government is conducting currently.

By keeping the population in a state of artificially heightened apprehension, the government-cum-media prepares the ground for planting specific measures of taxation, regulation, surveillance, reporting, and other invasions of the people’s wealth, privacy, and freedoms.

Large parts of the government and the “private” sector participate in the production and distribution of fear. At every point, opportunists latch onto existing fears and strive to invent new ones to feather their own nests. Thus, public-school teachers and administrators agree that the nation faces an “education crisis.” Police departments and temperance crusaders insist that the nation faces a generalised "crime increase crisis", “drug crisis” or at times a specific drug crisis or specific crime increase, such as “an epidemic of crack cocaine use", or "exposion of knife crime rates". Public-health interests foster fears of “epidemics” that in reality consist not of the spread of contagious pathogens but of the lack of personal control and self-responsibility, such as the “epidemic of obesity” or the “epidemic of juvenile homicides” etc.

#social psychology #fear #population control #government #media #fear mongering

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