Daily Archives: September 29, 2016

Living Vicariously Produces No Real Winners

Growing up in typical suburbia, I played three sports: soccer, basketball, and (unfortunately) softball. While many amazing bonds were built and numerous championships were won, there were some negatives that came with my township sports teams. The biggest nuisance: overbearing sports parents.

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Everyone knows what I’m talking about, the dad standing 5 feet from his son in goal, coaching completely differently from the ACTUAL coaches. The mom scowling and muttering in her fold up chair at the softball field because her daughter was benched after three consecutive strike outs at bat. The parents at the pizzeria after the basketball game, bragging about their children’s personal stats as opposed to celebrating a TEAM win. It’s insane. When did youth sports stop focusing on the growth and development of children and start honing in on the competitive nature of parents?

This, SC200, is a psychological term known as narcissistic parenting, and I was a victim of it. Luckily, I was never remotely good enough at any of the three sports I played to be extremely affected by narcissistic parenting, but plenty of young children grow up to be insecure adults as a result of their parents’ self-absorption, and many childhood athletes give up their sport because they’re tired of performing for their parents instead of for themselves. In fact, according to Jay Atkinson of the Boston Globe, of the 45 million kids that play youth sports in America, about 80 percent have given up on their “passion” by age 15.

This fact stunned me. 36 million kids quit sports before they even hit high school, and a huge factor in their decision is their own parents’ narcissism? What could the mechanism be? Kelly Wallace of CNN has made an interesting, reasonable case. She has inferred something that I have often thought about myself, that narcissistic parents live vicariously through their children because they have felt unsuccessful in their own lives. Wallace cites Joseph Burgo, author of The Narcissist You Know: Defending Yourself Against Extreme Narcissists in an All-About-Me Age, as confirmation for her theory. Burgo believes that narcissistic parents spend their child’s formative years grooming her into the person they wish they had been. He also hypothesizes that a distressing, chaotic childhood could lead a parent to narcissism in order to mask lingering insecurities.

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Burgo’s book cover found here

Since I couldn’t find any concrete studies that delved into the extensive science behind narcissistic parenting, I’ve decided to talk about how I think a study could be conducted. A possible explanation could be the way narcissistic parents were treated when they were children. If I was in charge of the study, I would treat the supposedly “unsuccessful” lives as the independent variable and narcissism in parents as the dependent variable. This would give us the following options.

Direct causation: “unsuccessful” lives causes narcissism in parents.

Reverse causation: narcissism in parents causes ”unsuccessful” lives.

Confounding variables that could have an effect could be competition between parents, social norms, or depression affecting self-image. As always, chance is an option. An experimental study wouldn’t necessarily be possible, because the causal variable could not be easily manipulated. Instead, the study would have to be observational. One way this study could be conducted could be through the use of two random surveys. The first could be advertised through different platforms, and preliminary questions could be used to weed out non-narcissistic parents. These questions could focus on how parents treat their children in competitive situations, how they feel when their child “fails,” and their thoughts on their own needs versus their children’s. The second could be used to calculate baseline statistics on the cause of narcissistic parents, by focusing questions more on the history of the parents rather than their relationships with their children.

This study seems as if it could be difficult to conduct, especially considering parents may feel inclined to answer questions in an anti-narcissistic way. However, I do think it would be extremely interesting to have a little more science backing up this topic of parental narcissism. While we wait on that, we can avoid becoming narcissistic people ourselves by taking the advice of Burgo, who believes that a parent’s paying more attention to the well-being of his or her child instead of catering to his or her ego is the first and greatest step to eliminating narcissism.

Coughing Contagion?

As we slowly approach the fall season, Penn State has become vulnerable to a variety of illnesses: the common cold, flu, stomach flu, and cough. Coughing has almost become synonymous to breathing in large lecture classes- one person coughs, then another, and another…soon enough every few seconds that pass by accompanies an eruption of coughing from various sections of the lecture. Personally, I was a victim of the “whooping cough” at the start of the semester, which came as a terrible inconvenience. While I was sitting in class, I felt the uncontrollable urge to cough every minute, which was uncomfortable for me and the unfortunate people sitting next to me. Something I noticed in particular was that the sound of someone else coughing in the lecture hall prompted me to start coughing. While I initially believed this was just a reaction of my own body, I soon realized that coughing is almost “contagious”. One person’s cough begins a string of coughing, and it seems to spiral into eruptions of coughing from all sides of the room. So, is coughing really this contagious? Does the sound of coughing initiate a certain switch in the brain that causes an individual to start coughing? Could it be that coughing is as contagious as the “yawn effect” (one person yawning causes another person to yawn almost immediately)?

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According to the World Osteopathic Health Organization , whooping cough, a more severe case of the common cough, is one of the most contagious and highly communicable diseases within a college enviornment. Not only is whooping cough a bacterial infection, but it is also highly contagious among individuals. The symptoms of whooping cough include (but are not limited to): difficulty breathing, severe sore throat, continuous coughing, loss of vocal communication, and soreness in the ribs/chest due to severe coughing. Since it is such a highly contagious illness, bacteria is easily transmitted through the act of coughing. In college enviornments, individuals are more vulnerable to the symptoms of whooping cough, especially since students are in such close proximity of one another.

 

The “contagious” factor of coughing stems from a variety of reasons. First, the theory of psychologial mirroring, described by NBC News, is a possible reason for the contagious nature of coughing. As humans, we are prone to the social cues and behavior of other individuals. For example, one person yawning may elicit a yawn from another person. Similarly, laughing, crying, and a wide range of other emotions can be seen as having a “mirroring” effect on individuals. One theory towards the contagious nature of coughing is that humans tend to mirror actions of others. Similar to the mirroring of emotions, individuals may hear the sound of coughing, which prompts them to act on the tickle in their throat, or to simply clear it. Additionally, if you’re sick to begin with, the sound of coughing will  elicit a response from your body to remove the “toxin”, hence, the coughing.

So, what’s the bottom line? Is coughing contagious or not? Surprisingly, according to Medicine Net, the cough itself is not contagious. The real culprit that’s being transmitted is the pathogen in the cough. When individuals cough, pathogens are spread into the surrounding environment initiating the transmission of bacteria. If there were to be a clinical trial that measured the contagious nature of coughing (highly unlikely due to the lack of substantial independent/dependent variables), a hard endpoint conclusion could be the following: the act of coughing is not contagious. Pathogens, found in the airborne fluid that is emitted by coughing, are the true transmitters of the virus.

As college students, we are most vulnerable to getting sick, especially at this time of the year. Here are a few tips on how to combat sickness and stay healthy (brought to you by Rutgers Student Health Services):

-Drink lots of water: stay hydrated and allow your body to replenish

-Eat breakfast and don’t skip out on meals

-Don’t use boredom or stress as an excuse for overeating

-Be hygenic (shower daily, wash before you eat, brush your teeth)

-Exercise; go on a run, bike, take a trip to the gym, walk to classes rather than taking the bus

-Limit late night food trips and junk food

-Vitamins are your best friends

-Take a trip to the University Health Services for an annual-check up

-Maintain a consistent sleep schedule (I know-four hour naps are tempting!) and avoid pulling  all-nighters in a row

-Wash YOUR HANDS (just please, do it)

…and if you ever find yourself a victim of the whooping cough, find comfort in the fact that you’re not alone…just ask the other 50 kids in your lecture class that are struggling to contain their cough.

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Look at all those chickens! Cage vs Cage Free

Coming from a fellow chicken owner, the freshness of a chickens egg is very important to me. My family has been raising chickens in our backyard for the past five years. Mostly for my dad’s nostalgia from his childhood on the farm, but also for fresh, cage free and GMO free eggs. When we first got chickens, I was really interested in finding out if the eggs would taste, or even look different from the ones we bought at our local Wegman’s. To my surprise, they looked and tasted very different from each other. The egg from my chickens in my backyard, had a dark and thick yolk, which did not break when I cracked it in the pan. The store bought egg, or the caged chicken’s egg,  had a really light colored and runny yolk, which immediately broke when I cracked it into the pan. After I fried the eggs, I found out I much preferred the taste of my cage free chicken’s egg more than the store bought egg.

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So I thought to myself, even though both eggs are coming from the same animal, does the upbringing and treatment of the chicken impact the health and nutrient aspects of their eggs. Could the lack of nutrients in the caged chicken’s egg be a result of a difference in taste and texture?

First, I compared the chickens two different living situations. My ten chickens at home have a 4×8 coop, containing four large nesting boxes and a 20×10 gated area outside around the coop. As well as a whole acre of grassy backyard to run around in when we let the chickens free range. I looked up how large the industrial chicken cage sizes and found it here. Basically, they have 67 to 76 square inches to live in on average, where almost all of their entire life is spent. These absurdly small cages prevent the chickens from spreading their wings and can lead to their muscles not fully developing and becoming paralyzed.  These tiny cages the chickens live in are called battery cages, where they are mentally and physically abused. Here is a very graphic video of how commercial caged chickens are treated.

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So, what does this have to do with the health and nutrients you are receiving from the eggs you eat? I searched the internet and found some answers here. Basically, it is proven that cage free chickens produce eggs that are much healthier and contain more nutritious benefits then caged chicken’s eggs. Some nutrients the cage free chicken eggs contain that the caged chicken eggs do not, is that they contain twice the amount of omega-3 fatty acids, three times more vitamin E and seven times more pro-vitamin A beta-carotene. Also, these eggs contain a quarter less saturated fat and a third less cholesterol, which is a lot better for your heart health. The falling short of nutrients in the egg of the caged chicken is directly linked to the raising and treatment of these animals. For example, this is just like fetal alcohol syndrome. This is where the fetus’ lack nutrients because of the poor raising of the child, which is drinking alcohol when pregnant. Here are some test and experiment run which prove that cage free chicken eggs are better for you then caged chickens eggs.

 

Is Hypnosis Real?

Today, as I was scrolling through my Twitter timeline, I decided to stop and watch a video of individuals becoming hypnotized. They were on stage acting out crazy demands, such as shouting song lyrics or pretending like they were animals. It was certainly entertaining, to say the least. But I wondered, was this all part of an act, or was it actually real? Could people really be embarrassing themselves on television without being aware?

I decided to do some research to find out.

First, I decided to find out what exactly hypnosis was. According to How Stuff Works, hypnosis can be described as a way to enter the subconscious mind through a dreaming state, where the feelings of relaxation and imagination are heightened. So, in other words, hypnosis can be compared to daydreaming, reading, or watching television. In these stages, we are still conscious, we are just paying more attention to the activity that we are doing instead of what is around us. That’s basically what we experience during hypnosis, except we are more focused on the hypnotist rather than our surroundings.

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I also found in the previous article that hypnosis occurs in the subconscious mind. Our subconscious mind, according to Brain Tracy, recalls all of our memories in complete clarity. In my psychology class, we learned that the function our subconscious mind is to save and gather information. Furthermore, the Brain Tracy website states that it is emotionally connected to us, so it behaves according to the way we are feeling in any given moment.

So, since hypnosis involves channeling the subconscious mind while we are in a calm, relaxed state, we are more prone to do what a hypnotist tells us to do. However, it is important to note that all the sources I’ve cited thus far agree that hypnotists cannot actually make a person do something he or she fully does not want to do.

clocksTherefore, since there is an obvious correlation between responding to demands and being under the state of hypnosis, it can be assumed that it is certainly plausible that there is some truth behind the practice. On the other hand, since we learned in class that all correlations do not equal causation, we can’t roll out the fact that there could be confounding variables in these observational studies. These confounding variables (such as the fact that individuals could be acting during the state of hypothesis for attention) could influence the results in order to show that individuals responded to the stimulus in a certain way, when they did not.

Furthermore, I think it’s important to not that the experimenter (or in this case, the hypnotizer) is most likely bias. Think about it – if you were hired to perform an act in front of large audiences, wouldn’t you want to make it seem like the results of hypnosis were actually working?

In class, we discussed how detrimental biasses can be when conducting a study. Since it would be hard conduct this type trial that is double-blind and randomly controlled, we can’t look at any of these results as completely accurate. However, it could be beneficial to simply know that there is a correlation between hypnosis and responding to demands (so, if it’s more entertaining for you to believe that the people on stage are actually under a state of hypnosis – it’s not entirely implausible!).

Although hypnosis performances are not entirely proven (I could not find much evidence that actually proves hypnosis works on people), nonetheless, there are some known benefits, according to WebMD, Hypnosis can be known to assist those who are suffering, especially mental health patients.

Through Psychotherapy, negative feelings associated with pain (including PTSD), sleeping disorders, anxiety, depression, stress, phobias, and any addictions can be reduced.

I found, through WebMd, that there are typically two different types of hypnosis therapy that patients can experience to help with their problems: suggestion therapy and analysis.
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Through suggestion therapy, patients are more likely to stop addictions. When they are in the more relaxed hypnotical state, they are more apt to respond to suggestions.

The other approach, analysis, also uses the relaxed state of mind to dig through a patient’s past. This way, the therapist is able to find what caused a certain traumatic event. Once the event is targeted, the patient and therapist can work together to overcome the problem.

Although hypnotist therapy can be very beneficial in mental health patients, there are several downsides to this practice, according to WebMD. Hypnosis can cause hallucinations, and can cause people to create false scenarios when trying to recall a certain event.

So, overall, maybe everything we see on Twitter isn’t real. But it is interesting to see how and why hypnosis affects us, and the positives and negatives hypnotic therapy can bring.

 

Photo 1, 2, and 3 can be found here.

 

A Joint a Day Keeps the Doctor Away?

From my experience living in East last year, I can tell you that freshmen are not strangers to the smell of marijuana wafting through the halls. Whether it’s coming from outside, your next-door neighbor, or even from your own room, one is bound to smell the infamous “skunk scent” somewhere. Recent news has brought to light many cannabis-linked health benefits. Despite this, medicinal marijuana is only legal in half of the United States.

Doctors and healers have been utilizing marijuana since ancient times. Uses for cannabis include anesthetics, pain relievers, and treatments for epilepsy. Even today many doctors still believe in its healing abilities. So I wonder, are there legitimate health benefits to utilizing marijuana in medical treatments?

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Marijuana and Pain

A 2007 placebo-controlled study was one of two studies concerning medical marijuana conducted by University of California integrative medicine specialist, Donald Abrams. The 2007 study showed that marijuana was more effective than morphine for treating pain caused by nerve damage in HIV patients.

It is thought that this is due to cannabinoids, active ingredients in cannabis. The primary cannabinoid known as THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) directly interacts with the brain’s CB1 receptor, signaling the body to suppress pain response. This would be considered to be the mechanism behind the reduced pain.

As discussed in class, correlation does not always mean causation, however due to the controlled study and identification of a mechanism, one can reject the null hypothesis that marijuana had no effect in reducing patient’s pain. 

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Marijuana and Cancer

I have even seen the benefits of medicinal marijuana in my own life.

In 2011, my grandmother, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her chemo treatments caused her to loose her appetite. She was becoming weaker everyday, and malnutrition was impeding her progress. After evaluating the situation, her doctor prescribed her a medicinal marijuana pill, in hopes that would encourage her to eat more regularly.

Clinical evidence has led many doctors to prescribe marijuana to cancer patients in order to relive nausea, increase appetites, and reduce pain and anxiety. However other studies show that cannabis-related drugs are not as effective as other treatments to treat symptoms in patients. However, marijuana’s ability to treat several side effects simultaneously makes it a formidable option for sick patients.

In my grandmother’s case the marijuana proved to be effective. Though her appetite was still quite low, when taking the marijuana pill she asked for food more often. It also reduced the nausea she was feeling due to her chemo treatments. Though she only took the pills on her “worst days”, she found comfort in the fact that she had options.

Why is Mary Jane still taboo?

Still despite our modern research and studies the majority of Americans are denied the right to utilize medical marijuana. An agent for this could be a serious lacking of studies. As we talked about in class some subject material is just difficult to test, marijuana falls into this category.

Since marijuana is an illegal drug, in order to perform any studies with it, researchers must be granted special permission by the DEA. This is not only expensive, but also very complicated and time consuming.

In addition, it is hard to obtain good placebo trials. Since many of the symptoms being examined are qualitative, it is difficult to get hard evidence to successfully prove or reject any hypothesis.

 

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Medical marijuana has a place in modern medicine. However limited studies, leave many to question the validity of its benefits. I think that more research has to be invested in the subject, so that we can get patients the help that they need. So next time you smell skunk in East, just think about the amount of sick people that one joint could help.

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Count sheep fall asleep?

We all heard it growing up, if you want to fall asleep quickly, count sheep. Usually, people picture sheep jumping over a fence, one by one, and this counting it supposed to soothe a person into a deep slumber. But does it actually work?

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Well, the short answer is no. It doesn’t.

The phrase originated from a 12th century book of fables, Disciplina Clericalis. The book contains a chapter in which to get the king to fall asleep, a storyteller talks about sheep and the second he does, the storyteller himself falls asleep. In ancient times, Shepherds had to keep track of their flock by counting sheep constantly and it was thought to be such a boring task that it would put a person to sleep. Since then, the times have changed as well as the validity of this tactic. Scientists at Oxford University did a study in which 41 insomniacs were split into groups. Some were told to count sheep to fall asleep, some weren’t told to think of anything specifically and the others were told to picture a relaxing scene, such as a beach. They found that the people who pictured nothing or had to count sheep didn’t have any improvement in falling asleep, but the people told to picture a relaxing environment fell asleep much quicker than the others. There are a few flaws to this study, one being that you can’t actually make anyone picture or think about what you tell them to. You can give a person instructions but in this case, the scientists can’t be sure that the subject followed them. But the more I searched, the more I realized there was no evidence to counting sheep helping sleep and lots of evidence to imagery helping sleep. So this is odd, why is such a widely believed wives’ tale appear to be false? Perhaps it’s because counting sheep is such a mundane task that people can’t do it for very long and the impulse to have to revert back to it keeps the mind occupied and therefore, unable to fall asleep. Michael Decker, Ph.D., thinks counting sheep may not work because keeping track of them is work. This work may stimulate the mind and in turn, make a person unable to fall asleep. Keeping the brain active while trying to fall asleep has proven more harmful than helpful.

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So if counting sheep isn’t the way to do it then the question has to be asked, what does make a person fall asleep? Well, many suggest that imagining a calm scene helps a lot. But what else? Something most people do right before bed that can be a huge inhibitor of sleep is looking at a screen. Even more than counting sheep, a screen stimulates the brain and keeps it active, telling itself “there’s light, so it’s time to be up and awake!” Giving the body time before sleep with no screens or distractions is very helpful. Clinical psychologist, Janet Kennedy suggests taking a full hour before bed time to settle down the mind and body. This time is supposed to help the body transition from day to night.

It seems winding down the body and mind (picturing calming scenery, not looking at bright light) is the best way to ensure falling asleep but many people don’t have the luxury of time to wind down. Going from day to night quickly, light to no light, can be shocking to the body. Most modern humans have artificial light in their lives (their homes, offices, stores, etc.) and it triggers the mind to stay awake during biologically unnatural hours (humans are supposed to be asleep at night). Turning lights off abruptly and ordering the body to rest may be a harsh way to get introduced into a night’s sleep. How does one fix this? Evidence suggests that practicing imagery and calming breathing exercises throughout the day actually helps one fall asleep at night. If a person can remain tranquil during the day, with light constantly surrounding them, the transition into the night and darkness is much easier. Our bodies are not as easily manipulated as we may think and sometimes we need to train ourselves into certain behaviors. Falling asleep is definitely one of these behaviors that many people need help with.

I may have gotten a little off topic there and of course, these tactics aren’t a way to always ensure a good night’s sleep. There are many confounding variables that can determine how well a person can fall asleep (ex. uncontrollable noise or light in the room one is trying to sleep in, physical pain at the time of sleep) but the integral concept remains. Keeping the mind active at night, even just the simple act of counting sheep, can really hinder sleep. The best way to prevent this is to give yourself time before falling asleep to relax and even stay relaxed throughout the day. Remember this when you just can’t seem to get to sleep!

 

Pictures:

https://baptiststoday.org/forget-counting-sheep-do-this-instead/

http://www.someecards.com/usercards/viewcard/MjAxMi04NTc3YjU0YjJiNTBlODMz

 

 

 

Cell Phones In Class

We live in a world where pretty much at any place, any time, you can be reached. You can be found, you can be tracked, you can be talked to. Almost everyone’s eyes are following their phones more than they are following the paths in front of them. It is actually kind of scary.

Every so often in SC-200, we text SIOW to the number written on the board to participate in surveys and polls. One of the most recent times that this occurred, Dr. Andrew Read mentioned that cell phone use in class often times leads to lower grades. Glancing around the room from row to row I almost always see someone staring down and scrolling in their lap. I personally feel that the allowed cell phone usage that occurs in our class (voting in polls) is useful and encourages us to be engaged and participate. However, most of the time, when people pick up their phones to vote, I wonder: do they scan their notifications and read their texts or check Instagram and Snapchat and Twitter and Facebook and their e-mails and all of the other possible things they could check? How distracting are cell phones really, and how much damage do they do to our grades?

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My hypothesis is that cell phone use during class lowers grades; that there is a causal relationship between the two.

An article I found on Longwood University, written by Dr. Chris Bjornsen, discusses a study that explores this question. The study examined the in-class cell phone use of 218 students who filled out surveys after each class, indicating if and how they used their phones. Most people used them to check social media, while the least amount of people used them to play games (which is actually what I expected–I would never even think to play a game on my phone during class). Higher GPA correlated with less frequency of phone usage: 3.0 or higher GPA was averaged at 2.9 time-use per class while students with GPAs lower than 2.0 used their phones 3.8 times per class.

This study found on Sage Journals accounted for multiple potential confounding variables that might affect GPA such as gender, academic year (freshman, sophomore, junior or senior), and smoker or non smoker were all accounted for.  On top of that, after examining all of those results, they incorporated cell phone usage into the statistics. Before looking at phone usage, females generally had higher GPAs than males, freshman and juniors had higher GPAs than sophomores and seniors, and smokers had lower GPAs than non smokers, according to the study. However, people who used their cell phones more frequently in all of the categories ended up with lower GPAs than people who used them less frequently. The students who fit in all of the same categories (smoker, gender, grade) were compared with each other, and it was found that cell phone usage brought GPA down, all else equal.

This article by Brian Heaton discusses a survey conducted by Kent State University, where increased cell phone usage lowered GPA. The difference in GPA between more frequent versus less frequent cell phone users was 0.31 points. That is a pretty significant difference, if you ask me.

I can honestly say that I do not tend to check my phone in class at all. I figure, since it’s only 50 minutes to an hour and twenty minutes, I might as well pay attention. Sure, sometimes I daydream or doodle or have to pinch myself to stay awake, but I really try to resist the urge (that I admit I often have) to check my phone. Mostly because I think it is rude and disrespectful to have my eyes glued to my lap while someone is attempting to teach me something. But also, it’s because my parents pay good money for me to be sitting in each of my lectures. I don’t want to waste their money by scrolling through Instagram. If that’s what I came to college for, I might as well have not come at all.

Yawning and Psychopaths

What do you think of when you think about yawning? Normally when you think the reason why this person is yawning is because they are tired. However being thinking about yawning an being next to a person when they yawn are completely different things. Contagious yawning is when we see yawn and we immediately yawn as well. I think that most can agree that contagious yawning is the most annoying traits that humans have because it makes us look and appear tired when we are not, and it is considered rude.

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A study was conducted by Brian Rundle, who used one hundred and thirty five people to see if seeing the people yawn, would make them yawn as well. They were able to conclude that not only if you were rated high on the test that you were less likely to yawn when watching other yawn, but also that just because you do not yawn means that you are a psychopath. From the article Rundle also says that because there has only been one study on this that it is hard to say that someone who yawns and does not yawn is actually crazy. I agree with him because you can never know if someone is crazy until they allow you to see that side of themselves.

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However through a new study, scientists have determined where contagious yawning comes from. From the article Brian Rundle, said that the reason why we yawn is related to how much empathy we feel at that moment. But in this article, it does not go into detail about yawning and how it is connected to other human traits, but from this article we learn that yawning is something that is almost a privilege. It was determined from a recent that psychopath’s do not react to contagious yawning. The reason being is that they do not feel empathy. This makes sense because when we think of psychopath’s we do not think of them as being very emotional.

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However it does not have to be just psychopath’s, anyone who is cold-hearted or lacks compassion are less likely to yawn after watching someone else yawn. Not to say that everyone who does not yawn is a psychopath or cold-hearted, but this article talks about how people with psychopathic emotional traits or people with autism are more likely to not yawn. Most of the time it is because they do not understand that is going on so when they act how they feel, they think they are doing the right thing when in reality they are not. Even babies do not learn how to yawn until they are around four or five years old because that is when they gain empathy. It is hard to say for sure that because you do not yawn at most of the things that other people do, that you are a psychopath. In reality that person could be completely normal, it is just that they are not as empathetic as others.

There could also be a third variable that are in play when it comes to people who do not yawn or to psychopath’s. For yawning they could not just not be focusing on the person yawning or they are good at not yawning in public. When it comes to psychopath’s, anything could cause the person to not feel empathy. An example could be a traumatic childhood experience. It is good to keep in mind that not everything is what it appears to be and sometimes judging people by yawning is not the best way to decide if they are crazy or not.

Sources:

The Snoopy picture is found here.

The “Can you yawn for me?” picture is found here.

The dinosaur picture is found here.