Psychopathy
So here we are–the end. I don’t how many posts it been in total (20 for both semesters?), but it’s finally time to call it quits (unless you don’t want to, then by all means). In this final post, I’m going to parse an interview with a psychopath and present the most interesting parts below. This post is significantly darker by virtue of the nature of the topic than my others, but reality is reality. As a disclaimer, what you are about to read may be disturbing. I’ve attached the full interview below (maybe you’ve seen it?). It’s an eleven minute long video with a man named Robert. He...
Read MorePsych. Conformity
I’m a bit tired of this kind of pop-psychology that seems to permeate some of my posts. Let’s get more methodological, more acute in our understanding of interesting experiments. In the 1950s, a psychologist by the name of Solomon Asch conducted a number of conformity studies; here’s one of them. There were two cards. One card depicted three parallel lines labeled A, B, and C. The other card was the former’s pair because it had one line that was of equal length to either A, B, or C. The participants were told that they were partaking in a visual perception test; of course, this...
Read MoreThe American Dream
I really like smoking. I’m not a smoker myself, but damn, it looks cool. Sure the health effects are, eh, not so great, but the action itself–really slick, really suave. I know there’s no intrinsic reason to become so enamoured with it, no biological urge to look up towards smokers. It’s all media driven. The classy protagonist and his tobacco addiction… So I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed by the fact that Americans are smoking less than they did 50 years ago. It comes down to the lack of cigs on prime time television. In 1961, tobacco use occurred 4.98 times an hour...
Read MoreWords And Text And More Synonyms.
The ever pervasive question of whether the social dynamics of males and females are a product of the environment or not gets another mark chalked up to team environment. In a study conducted in Northern Norway, recruits of both genders cohabited the same room, and the researchers describe the result as “degenderisation.” Of course, there were initial concerns from higher ups, but as time went on everyone seemed to benefit. Interestingly but not surprisingly, the boys kept their sides of the room a bit cleaner, and the girls felt less ostracised–there was a greater team...
Read MorePsych Post 6
If you listen to what people around you laugh at, you’ll notice that the type of comments that elicit consistent laughter aren’t particularly funny. In fact, they are often simple observations like, “I forget to set my alarm last night.” But despite the banality, it’s all for the best. Laughter is one of the best social acts that strengthens bonds. You probably knew that. But did you know that our brains are good at valuing only legitimate social cues. Apparently, we are good at discerning fake laughter from real laughter. A study led by Dr. Carolyn McGettigan of the University of London...
Read MoreSome Psych Post
I find it interesting that, according to one study, the more people believe in “pure evil,” the greater the support for harsher punishments. Now when I say pure evil, I refer to the intentional inflicting of harm on innocent others. Essentially it means, a person is inherently bad and cannot easily be changed if at all. I’m of the group that thinks such malice belongs more to children’s tales than the courtroom and not unjustifiably so. I’m assuming everyone is familiar with the famed Milgram and Zimbardo experiments. If not, I won’t explain it except to...
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