Psychology

Psychology / Religion/philosophy — Comments Off on Analogies and metaphors
02
Mar 05

Analogies and metaphors

Life fascinates me, people fascinate me. I want to know and understand things and thereby help fix things, remove poisons, untwist knots. But, why do I want to “fix” things? I’m not sure.

Today I have been thinking about addiction and escape. Why people cling to their addictions for fear of themselves. In composing my thoughts tying extraversion to sadism, introversion to masochism, I reread some Weininger. His ideas on sadism and masochism are profound, although in his view sadism and masochism seem to be terms of expressing duality especially as relates to male/ female nature.

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Psychology / Religion/philosophy — 2 Comments
08
Feb 05

Psychology

It seems like everyone has an escape mechanism, an addiction of some sort. The desire for or relief from sensation. Something to dampen, mute, or divert. Addiction is the eroticism of feeling itself, not just bodily sensation, but also emotional sensation. Many choose to feel anything rather than nothing and push themselves up or down with sensation. When emotion drains away what do you have left? More to the point, when you strip away the emotion what is left of you? Our feelings and emotions anchor consciousness.

Questions:

  1. What do you use to escape?
  2. Where do you seek relief? In activity? In knowledge? In memory?
  3. Why do you seek escape? What from?

Many of my habits have a impulsive nature. For example, a number of my activities have to do with desires for control, predictability, and stability. Why do I read the news so often? Why do I try to know as much as I can about so many different things? The thirst for knowledge and understanding can represent a desire for control, especially control of experience. I do not deal well with unknowns. Knowledge is not power, although it provides the sensation of power and control. But, what can be known and what are the limitations of knowledge? What we try to know dispels the maddening intangibility of the unknown. It lends a false sense of definition and order to a universe of incomprehensibility.

I feel the same way about history and the past. People who fear powerlessness idealize the past and imbue it with sentiment and importance at the expense of the elusive being of the present (action-oriented responsibility?) and the yet to be of the future (forethought-oriented responsibility?). In a real sense, the past is powerless to your own perception and can be manipulated and fetishized. The past imposes few responsibilities, while the future and present dictate volition.

I’m not sure if I’m making myself clear. I’ve just been thinking out loud. Here are some semi-related psychology links I found today that are worth reading:

  1. A psychoanalysis of gambling and gambling addiction
  2. For the Worst of Us, the Diagnosis May Be ‘Evil’ Dr. Stone represents another attempt at defining the incomprehensible, in this case “Evil”:

    Researchers have found that some people who commit violent crimes are much more likely than others to kill or maim again, and one way they measure this potential is with a structured examination called the psychopathy checklist.

    As part of an extensive, in-depth interview, a trained examiner rates the offender on a 20-item personality test. The items include glibness and superficial charm, grandiose self-worth, pathological lying, proneness to boredom and emotional vacuity. The subjects earn zero points if the description is not applicable, two points if it is highly applicable, and one if it is somewhat or sometimes true.

Psychology / Religion/philosophy — Comments Off on More O.W.
18
Jan 05

More O.W.

I’m keep coming across good passages from Otto Weininger’s Sex and Character. Bear with me:

On the self and others, individualism and universalism:

It is easy to give proofs. Only brutalised criminals and insane persons take absolutely no interest in their fellow men; they live as if they were alone in the world, and the presence of strangers has no effect on them. But for him who possesses a self there is a self in his neighbour, and only the man who has lost the logical and ethical centre of his being behaves to a second man as if the latter were not a man and had no personality of his own. “I” and “thou” are complementary terms. A man soonest gains consciousness of himself when he is with other men. This is why a man is prouder in the presence of other men than when he is alone, whilst it is in his hours of solitude that his self-confidence is damped. Lastly, he who destroys himself destroys at the same time the whole universe, and he who murders another commits the greatest crime because he murders himself in his victim. Absolute selfishness is, in practice, a horror, which should rather be called nihilism; if there is no “thou,” there is certainly no “I”, and that would mean there is nothing.

There is in the psychological disposition of the man of genius that which makes it impossible to use other men as a means to an end. And this is it: he who feels his own personality, feels it also in others. For him the Tat-tvam-asi is no beautiful hypothesis, but a reality. The highest individualism is the highest universalism.

Psychology / Society — 1 Comment
17
Jan 05

Otto Weininger… in english

Martin Dudaniec and Kevin Solway’s translation of Otto Weininger: Collected Aphorisms, Notebook and Letters to a Friend is now available for free from their website. A while back I had to pay five dollars or so to download it, so I’m glad to see the authors have now switched to accepting donations. If you feel particularly appreciative you can donate here. They are also now offering a translation of Weininger’s Sex and Character as a PDF. The writing is lively and provocative and you will have much to agree or disagree with. For example, here are a few selections:

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Psychology — 2 Comments
12
Jan 05

Self-control comes in limited quantities

I’ve been collecting information today. One thing I discovered today is that deleting dead people from your AIM buddy list feels creepy. Here is an interesting yet unrelated article, Self-control comes in limited quantities, must be replenished:

Self-control, whether used to pass up the office cookie plate or to struggle against temptations like alcohol and tobacco, operates like a renewable energy source rather than a learned skill or an analytical thought process, according to new research.

Individuals had less physical stamina and impulse control and increased difficulty with problem-solving activities after completing a variety of tasks that required some measure of self-control, according to Roy F. Baumeister, Ph.D., of Florida State University.

The finding may be helpful in treating a number of behavioral health problems, from gambling disorders to alcoholism.

“Learning more about how to maintain, increase and replenish this resource may hold one promising key to helping people avoid addiction,” says Baumeister.

The study appears in the February 2003 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Psychology — Comments Off on Secret Lives
11
Jan 05

Secret Lives

Compelling article at the NYTimes, The Secret Lives of Just About Everybody:

But in a series of experiments over the past decade, psychologists have identified a larger group they call repressors, an estimated 10 to 15 percent of the population, who are adept at ignoring or suppressing information that is embarrassing to them and thus well equipped to keep secrets, some psychologists say.

Repressors score low on questionnaires that measure anxiety and defensiveness – reporting, for example, that they are rarely resentful, worried about money, or troubled by nightmares and headaches. They think well of themselves and don’t sweat the small stuff.

Although little is known about the mental development of such people, some psychologists believe they have learned to block distressing thoughts by distracting themselves with good memories. Over time – with practice, in effect – this may become habitual, blunting their access to potentially humiliating or threatening memories and secrets.

“This talent is likely to serve them well in the daily struggle to avoid unwanted thoughts of all kinds, including unwanted thoughts that arise from attempts to suppress secrets in the presence of others,” Dr. Wegner, of Harvard, said in an e-mail message.

Psychology / Society — 10 Comments
16
Oct 04

Now for something a little out of the ordinary

I was reading the Austin Chronicle this afternoon while having lunch at Burger Tex and there was an item in News of the Weird about a German device which admonishes men who urinate standing up.

The WC ghost, a £6 voice-alarm, reprimands men for standing at the lavatory pan. It is triggered when the seat is lifted. The battery-operated devices are attached to the seats and deliver stern warnings to those who attempt to stand and urinate (known as “Stehpinkeln”).

It goes on to say that “that a slang word for “wimp” (sitzpinkler) is, literally, a man who sits to urinate.” This idea has come up in conversation a few times throughout my life and it is surprising to discover that a number of men urinate while sitting. The numbers seem to be around one in seven to one in four. We seem to take it for granted that men just do it standing up. I assumed this was one of the conveniences of being born a male. In other words, unless you’re there for other business why sit when you can stand? As a boy, free-standing urination becomes one of your earliest amusements. I could provide many anecdotal experiences but you’ll have to trust me on this one. There are many questions on the subject and in doing a little research there seems to be a fair amount of discussion on the issue. The most interesting thing I discovered is that many muslim men are taught to urinate while sitting. Here are a couple of things I’d like to know from men who urinate while sitting:

  1. Does your father or do other men in your family sit to urinate?
  2. Were you potty trained to urinate while sitting?
  3. If you decided to sit later in life, what were your reasons?

From what I have gathered from researching, the sitting argument seems to go as follows:

  • It is more sanitary since you do not have as much splashing. Many women who support the sit-down seem annoyed with the cleanup.
  • It makes less noise than standing.
  • It is more comfortable than standing.
  • You can always leave the seat down, especially good for the female members of the household.

On face value, these are good arguments although a tad neurotic. My notion is that you should use whichever mode you like the most and are the most comfortable with. Here is a rebuttal of these arguments, also a result of some small amount of research:

  • Urine is not that unsanitary. “In the first fifteen minutes after leaving the body, urine is absolutely sterile for the producer’s own body. Only after this period do the germs begin their work.” Most bacteria and viruses are filtered out by the body. While potentially containing toxins leeched from the body like undigested alcohol or even arsenic, it is relatively safe to drink. As for being easier to clean up, there are two points. Either practice a better aim, or women need to be less concerned with their men sitting and more concerned with their men pitching in to do their share of the chores.
  • On the subject of sitting being more quiet than standing, well, I think that’s plainly neurotic. Urination is necessary to every one of the six billion people on earth. Where’s the shame? If you’re pee-shy you could always toss a wad of TP in the bowl before wind up.
  • “Sitting is more comfortable than standing.” I can accept this argument. Fair enough. However, it seems easier to undo your fly than to drop trou. That’s just my opinion.
  • Leaving the seat down. Again, men AND women can handle the toilet seat. I’ve never understood why this has become the primary responsibility of men, not that I mind. It doesn’t take the strength of Hercules to put it in either position. I’m more than willing to put the seat back down, as a courtesy, however this is a simple task for either party in question. Do women really back into the toilet without looking? What if there were a snake in the toilet or something crazy?

I’d like to hear what people think. Little discussions like this are so interesting.

References and related:

  1. FemaleFirst: Forum. Some women argue on the subject.
  2. A wee problem on Big Brother
  3. Telegraph: German men told they can no longer stand and deliver
  4. Manichi Daily News: More Japanese men prefer sitting whizzes
  5. The Bathroom Habits Study
Psychology — 4 Comments
21
Jul 04

Only children

Jody sent me this link about a “study” on only children done by Dr. Toni Falbo, an ed-psych professor at UT, Your One and Only:
Educational psychologist dispels myths surrounding only children.

I’m not impressed with any of her conclusions here, although I have not had the opportunity to read the actual study itself. There’s just nothing compelling about them, at least as described by this article. There are also a number of weaknesses in Falbo’s approach. For one thing, Dr. Falbo makes it sound as if the entire field of psychology was against only children and families who have only children. As an only child herself and as the mother of an only child I get the sense that she has too much at stake personally to achieve anything of real value here. It’s almost as if she went into her project looking to overturn certain assumptions she found personally negative. She mentions the work of G. Stanley Hall and Freud and puts the blame on their heads for spreading negative assumptions of only children into the easily influenced mass of society:

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Music / Psychology / Software / Internet — Comments Off on Two cultures of Piracy
19
Jul 04

Two cultures of Piracy

Japan and America, Two “Cultures of Piracy”:

    Following the logic of the Japanese companies, Condry asks his students whether there are some forms of music they would always pay for and finds that many of them cite music which struggles to survive in the marketplace or where they have a strong identification with the artists. He suggests that like the Japanese fans, American college students are swayed by loyalty and recipricality rather than legality. The solution to the music industry crisis, he argues, is cultural not legal or economic and it involves changing the relations between music producers and consumers to emphasize shared interests rather than economic exploitation. Imagine that!
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