Arquivo da tag: Psicologia

The right’s stupidity spreads, enabled by a too-polite left (Guardian)

07/02/2012Uncategorizedciência, Clima, Cognição, Cultura, Discriminação, discurso ambiental, Incerteza, Mudanças climáticas, Política, Psicologia, Racismo, Religiãorenzotaddei

Conservativism may be the refuge of the dim. But the room for rightwing ideas is made by those too timid to properly object

by George Monbiot, The Guardian

Self-deprecating, too liberal for their own good, today’s progressives stand back and watch, hands over their mouths, as the social vivisectionists of the right slice up a living society to see if its component parts can survive in isolation. Tied up in knots of reticence and self-doubt, they will not shout stop. Doing so requires an act of interruption, of presumption, for which they no longer possess a vocabulary.

Perhaps it is in the same spirit of liberal constipation that, with the exception of Charlie Brooker, we have been too polite to mention the Canadian study published last month in the journal Psychological Science, which revealed that people with conservative beliefs are likely to be of low intelligence. Paradoxically it was the Daily Mail that brought it to the attention of British readers last week. It feels crude, illiberal to point out that the other side is, on average, more stupid than our own. But this, the study suggests, is not unfounded generalisation but empirical fact.

It is by no means the first such paper. There is plenty of research showing that low general intelligence in childhood predicts greater prejudice towards people of different ethnicity or sexuality in adulthood. Open-mindedness, flexibility, trust in other people: all these require certain cognitive abilities. Understanding and accepting others – particularly “different” others – requires an enhanced capacity for abstract thinking.

But, drawing on a sample size of several thousand, correcting for both education and socioeconomic status, the new study looks embarrassingly robust. Importantly, it shows that prejudice tends not to arise directly from low intelligence but from the conservative ideologies to which people of low intelligence are drawn. Conservative ideology is the “critical pathway” from low intelligence to racism. Those with low cognitive abilities are attracted to “rightwing ideologies that promote coherence and order” and “emphasise the maintenance of the status quo”. Even for someone not yet renowned for liberal reticence, this feels hard to write.

This is not to suggest that all conservatives are stupid. There are some very clever people in government, advising politicians, running thinktanks and writing for newspapers, who have acquired power and influence by promoting rightwing ideologies.

But what we now see among their parties – however intelligent their guiding spirits may be – is the abandonment of any pretence of high-minded conservatism. On both sides of the Atlantic, conservative strategists have discovered that there is no pool so shallow that several million people won’t drown in it. Whether they are promoting the idea that Barack Obama was not born in the US, that man-made climate change is an eco-fascist-communist-anarchist conspiracy, or that the deficit results from the greed of the poor, they now appeal to the basest, stupidest impulses, and find that it does them no harm in the polls.

Don’t take my word for it. Listen to what two former Republican ideologues, David Frum and Mike Lofgren, have been saying. Frum warns that “conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics”. The result is a “shift to ever more extreme, ever more fantasy-based ideology” which has “ominous real-world consequences for American society”.

Lofgren complains that “the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital centre today”. The Republican party, with its “prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science” is appealing to what he calls the “low-information voter”, or the “misinformation voter”. While most office holders probably don’t believe the “reactionary and paranoid claptrap” they peddle, “they cynically feed the worst instincts of their fearful and angry low-information political base”.

The madness hasn’t gone as far in the UK, but the effects of the Conservative appeal to stupidity are making themselves felt. This week the Guardian reported that recipients of disability benefits, scapegoated by the government as scroungers, blamed for the deficit, now find themselves subject to a new level of hostility and threats from other people.

These are the perfect conditions for a billionaires’ feeding frenzy. Any party elected by misinformed, suggestible voters becomes a vehicle for undisclosed interests. A tax break for the 1% is dressed up as freedom for the 99%. The regulation that prevents big banks and corporations exploiting us becomes an assault on the working man and woman. Those of us who discuss man-made climate change are cast as elitists by people who happily embrace the claims of Lord Monckton, Lord Lawson or thinktanks funded by ExxonMobil or the Koch brothers: now the authentic voices of the working class.

But when I survey this wreckage I wonder who the real idiots are. Confronted with mass discontent, the once-progressive major parties, as Thomas Frank laments in his latest book Pity the Billionaire, triangulate and accommodate, hesitate and prevaricate, muzzled by what he calls “terminal niceness”. They fail to produce a coherent analysis of what has gone wrong and why, or to make an uncluttered case for social justice, redistribution and regulation. The conceptual stupidities of conservatism are matched by the strategic stupidities of liberalism.

Yes, conservatism thrives on low intelligence and poor information. But the liberals in politics on both sides of the Atlantic continue to back off, yielding to the supremacy of the stupid. It’s turkeys all the way down.

Twitter: @georgemonbiot

Strange History: Mass Hysteria Through the Years (Discovery)

07/02/2012UncategorizedCognição, Medo, Psicologia, Saúde mentalrenzotaddei

Analysis by Benjamin Radford
Mon Feb 6, 2012 05:28 PM ET

The news media has been abuzz recently about a seemingly mysterious illness that has nearly two dozen students at LeRoy High School in western New York twitching and convulsing uncontrollably.

Most doctors and experts believe that the students are suffering from mass sociogenic illness, also known as mass hysteria. In these cases, psychological symptoms manifest as physical conditions.

Sociologist Robert Bartholomew, author of several books on mass hysteria including The Martians Have Landed: A History of Media-Driven Panics and Hoaxes, explained to Discovery News that “there are two main types of contagious conversion disorder. The most common in Western countries is triggered by extreme, sudden stress; usually a bad smell. Symptoms typically include dizziness, headaches, fainting and over-breathing, and resolve within about a day.”

In contrast, Bartholomew said, “The LeRoy students are experiencing the rarer, more serious type affecting muscle motor function and commonly involves twitching, shaking, facial tics, difficulty communicating and trance states. Symptoms appear slowly over weeks or months under exposure to longstanding stress, and typically take weeks or months to subside.”

Mass hysteria cases are more common than people realize and have been reported all over the world for centuries. Here’s a look at some famous — and bizarre — cases of mass hysteria in history.

The Mad Gasser of Mattoon

Many cases of mass hysteria are spawned by reports of strange or mysterious odors. One of the most famous cases occurred in 1944 when residents of Mattoon, Ill., reported that a “mad gasser” was loose in the small town.

It began with one woman named Aline Kearney, who smelled something odd outside her window. Soon she said her throat and lips were burning, and she began to panic when she felt her legs becoming paralyzed. She called police, and her symptoms soon subsided. Her husband, upon returning home later, reported glimpsing a shadowy figure lurking nearby. The “gas attack” (as it was assumed to be) on Mrs. Kearney was not only the gossip of the neighborhood but also reported in the local newspaper, and soon others in the small town reported odd odors and experiencing short-lived symptoms such as breathlessness, nausea, headache, dizziness and weakness. No “mad gasser” was ever found, and no trace of the mysterious gas was detected.

The French Meowing Nuns

Before 1900 many reports of mass hysteria occurred within the context of religious institutions. European convents in particular were often the settings for outbreaks. In one case the symptoms manifested in strange collective behavior; a source from 1844 reported that “a nun, in a very large convent in France, began to meow like a cat; shortly afterwards other nuns also meowed.

At last all the nuns meowed together every day at a certain time for several hours together.” The meowing went on until neighbors complained and soldiers were called, threatening to whip the nuns until they stopped meowing. During this era, belief in possession (such as by animals or demons, for example) was common, and cats in particular were suspected of being in league with Satan. These outbreaks of animal-like noises and behaviors usually lasted anywhere from a few days to a few months, though some came and went over the course of years.

The Pokémon Panic

A strange and seemingly inexplicable outbreak of bizarre behavior struck Japan in mid-December 1997, when thousands of Japanese schoolchildren experienced frightening seizures after watching an episode of the popular cartoon “Pokémon.” Intense flashes of light during the show triggered relatively harmless and brief seizures, nausea, and headaches. Doctors diagnosed some of the children with a rare, pre-existing condition called photosensitive epilepsy, in which bright flashing lights used in the cartoon can trigger the symptoms.

But experts were unable to explain what had happened to the remaining thousands of other children who reported symptoms; the vast majority of them did not have photosensitive epilepsy. Finally, the mystery was solved in 2001, when it was discovered that the symptoms found in most children were caused by mass hysteria, triggered by the initial wave of epileptic seizures.

The McMinnville School Poison Gas Episode

Nearly 200 students and teachers were hospitalized during a mysterious outbreak of illness at Warren County High School in McMinnville, Tenn., in November 1998. A local newspaper, the Southern Standard, ran the headline “Students Poisoned: Mysterious Fumes Sicken Almost 100 at High School.” It began when a teacher reported smelling a gasoline-like odor in her classroom that made her sick. A few of her students then also became sick, and the school was closed for testing.

No contamination was found, nor any medical or environmental cause for the symptoms, which included headache, dizziness, nausea and drowsiness. Following a clean bill of health, the school reopened, and soon a second cluster of students fell ill and closed down the school a second time. All recovered from the attack.

As these cases show, the LeRoy high school incident is only one of many strange episodes of mass sociogenic illness — and there will be more.

Into the mind of a Neanderthal (New Scientist)

19/01/2012UncategorizedAntropologia, Cognição, Evolução, Linguística, Psicologiarenzotaddei

18 January 2012
Magazine issue 2847

Neanderthals shared about 99.84 per cent of their DNA with us (Image: Action Press/Rex Features)

What would have made them laugh? Or cry? Did they love home more than we do? Meet the real Neanderthals

A NEANDERTHAL walks into a bar and says… well, not a lot, probably. Certainly he or she could never have delivered a full-blown joke of the type modern humans would recognise because a joke hinges on surprise juxtapositions of unexpected or impossible events. Cognitively, it requires quite an advanced theory of mind to put oneself in the position of one or more of the actors in that joke – and enough working memory (the ability to actively hold information in your mind and use it in various ways).

So does that mean our Neanderthal had no sense of humour? No: humans also recognise the physical humour used to mitigate painful episodes – tripping, hitting our heads and so on – which does not depend on language or symbols. So while we could have sat down with Neanderthals and enjoyed the slapstick of The Three Stooges or Lee Evans, the verbal complexities of Twelfth Night would have been lost on them.

Humour is just one aspect of Neanderthal life we have been plotting for some years in our mission to make sense of their cognitive life. So what was it like to be a Neanderthal? Did they feel the same way we do? Did they fall in love? Have a bad day? Palaeoanthropologists now know a great deal about these ice-age Europeans who flourished between 200,000 and 30,000 years ago. We know, for example, that Neanderthals shared about 99.84 per cent of their DNA with us, and that we and they evolved separately for several hundred thousand years. We also know Neanderthal brains were a bit larger than ours and were shaped a bit differently. And we know where they lived, what they ate and how they got it.

Skeletal evidence shows that Neanderthal men, women and children led very strenuous lives, preoccupied with hunting large mammals. They often made tactical use of terrain features to gain as much advantage as possible, but administered the coup de grace with thrusting spears. Based on their choice of stone for tools, we know they almost never travelled outside small home territories that were rarely over 1000 square kilometres.

The Neanderthal style of hunting often resulted in injuries, and the victims were often nursed back to health by others. But few would have survived serious lower body injuries, since individuals who could not walk might well have been abandoned. It looks as if Neanderthals had well-developed way-finding and tactical abilities, and empathy for group members, but also that they made pragmatic decisions when necessary.

Looking closely at the choices Neanderthals made when they manufactured and used tools shows that they organised their technical activities much as artisans, such as blacksmiths, organise their production. Like blacksmiths, they relied on “expert” cognition, a form of observational learning and practice acquired through apprenticeship that relies heavily on long-term procedural memory.

The only obvious difference between Neanderthal technical thinking and ours lay in innovation. Although Neanderthals invented the practice of hafting stone points onto spears, this was one of very few innovations over several hundred thousand years. Active invention relies on thinking by analogy and a good amount of working memory, implying they may have had a reduced capacity in these respects. Neanderthals may have relied more heavily than we do on well-learned procedures of expert cognition.

As for the neighbourhood, the size and distribution of archaeological sites shows that Neanderthals spent their lives mostly in small groups of five to 10 individuals. Several such groups would come together briefly after especially successful hunts, suggesting that Neanderthals also belonged to larger communities but that they seldom made contact with people outside those groupings.

Many Neanderthal sites have rare pieces of high-quality stone from more distant sources (more than 100 kilometres), but not enough to indicate trade or even regular contact with other communities. A more likely scenario is that an adolescent boy or girl carried the material with them when they attached themselves to a new community. The small size of Neanderthal territories would have made some form of “marrying out” essential.

We can also assume that Neanderthals had some form of marriage because pair-bonding between men and women, and joint provisioning for their offspring, had been a feature of hominin social life for over a million years. They also protected corpses by covering them with rocks or placing them in shallow pits, suggesting the kinds of intimate, embodied social and cognitive interaction typical of our own family life.

But the Neanderthals’ short lifespan – few lived past 35 – meant that other features of our more recent social past were absent: elders, for example, were rare. And they almost certainly lacked the cognitive abilities for dealing with strangers that evolved in modern humans, who lived in larger groups numbering in the scores and belonged to larger communities in the hundreds or more. They also established and maintained contacts with distant groups.

One cognitive ability that evolved in modern humans as a result was the “cheater detection” ability described by evolutionary psychologist Leda Cosmides, at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Another was an ability to judge the value of one commodity in terms of another, what anthropologist Alan Page Fiske at the University of California, Los Angeles, calls the “market pricing” ability. Both are key reasoning skills that evolved to allow interaction with acquaintances and strangers, neither of which was a regular feature of Neanderthal home life.

There are good circumstantial reasons for thinking that Neanderthals had language, with words and some kind of syntax; some of their technology and hunting tactics would have been difficult to learn and execute without it. Moreover, Neanderthal brains had a well-developed Broca’s area, and their DNA includes the FOXP2 gene carried by modern humans, which is involved in speech production. Unfortunately, none of this reveals anything specific about Neanderthal language. It could have been very or only slightly different, we just don’t know.

Having any sort of language could also have exposed Neanderthals to problems modern humans face, such as schizophrenia, says one theory which puts the disease down to coordination problems between the brain’s left and right hemispheres.

But while Neanderthals would have had a variety of personality types, just as we do, their way of life would have selected for an average profile quite different from ours. Jo or Joe Neanderthal would have been pragmatic, capable of leaving group members behind if necessary, and stoical, to deal with frequent injuries and lengthy convalescence. He or she had to be risk tolerant for hunting large beasts close up; they needed sympathy and empathy in their care of the injured and dead; and yet were neophobic, dogmatic and xenophobic.

So we could have recognised and interacted with Neanderthals, but we would have noticed these significant cognitive differences. They would have been better at well-learned, expert cognition than modern humans, but not as good at the development of novel solutions. They were adept at intimate, small-scale social cognition, but lacked the cognitive tools to interact with acquaintances and strangers, including the extensive use of symbols.

In the final count, when Neanderthals and modern humans found themselves competing across the European landscape 30,000 years ago, those cognitive differences may well have been decisive in seeing off the Neanderthals.

Profile
Thomas Wynn is a professor of anthropology and Frederick L. Coolidge is a professor of psychology at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. For the past decade they have worked on the evolution of cognition. Their new book is How to Think Like a Neandertal (Oxford University Press, 2012)

Profetas da chuva do sertão, por Raquel de Queiroz

04/01/2012UncategorizedClima, Cultura, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Previsão, Profetas da chuva, Psicologiarenzotaddei

“Vá, por exemplo, ao sertão nordestino, nos meses de novembro e dezembro. O povo, lá não tira os olhos do céu, em procura dos prenúncios. Pequenas nuvens ao poente… pequenas, claro, ainda não é tempo das grandes, mas, se elas se juntam para o sul, quer dizer uma coisa; se aparecem ao poente, a coisa muda. Só o que elas não dizem é que a coisa será essa: como todos os adivinhos do mundo, gostam de se envolver em mistério. E aquelas nuvens inocentes são branquinhas como se fossem feitas só de gelo e neve, não, têm nada a ver com chuva, são só enfeites do céu…” (p. 13)

QUEIROZ, Rachel. Existe outra saída, sim. Fortaleza: Fundação Demócrito Rocha, 2003.

O papel da confiança na decisão social (FAPESP)

11/12/2011Uncategorizedciência, Cognição, Economia, Incerteza, Justiça, Memória, Previsão, Psicologiarenzotaddei

08/12/2011

Por Mônica Pileggi

Estudo realizado no Mackenzie e publicado no The Journal of Neuroscience indica que cérebro não percebe injustiça de amigos em situações de decisão econômica (Wikimedia)

Agência FAPESP – Durante situações de decisão econômica, a amizade é uma das variáveis que modulam nosso cérebro, tornando o ser humano incapaz de se sentir injustiçado. Essa é uma das conclusões de uma pesquisa desenvolvida no Laboratório de Neurociência Cognitiva e Social da Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie (UPM) e publicada no The Journal of Neuroscience.

O trabalho, liderado pelo professor Paulo Sérgio Boggio, coordenador de pesquisa do Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde da UPM, foi realizado durante o mestrado “Estudo preliminar sobre potenciais cognitivos em tarefa de tomada de decisão social”, da psicóloga Camila Campanhã, que atualmente faz o doutorado na UPM, ambos com bolsas da FAPESP.

Segundo Campanhã, o estudo teve como objetivo estudar o papel da confiança na tomada de decisão social e suas bases neurobiológicas. Para isso, ela se baseou na teoria dos jogos, ramo da matemática aplicada que estuda situações estratégicas nas quais jogadores escolhem diferentes ações na tentativa de melhorar seu retorno.

Inicialmente desenvolvida como ferramenta para compreender comportamento econômico e depois usada até mesmo para definir estratégias nucleares, a teoria dos jogos é hoje aplicada em diversos campos acadêmicos. Tornou-se um ramo proeminente da matemática especialmente após a publicação, em 1944, de The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior de John von Neumann e Oskar Morgenstern.

Campanhã – cujo estudo foi realizado em colaboração com os pesquisadores Ludovico Minati, do Istituto Neurologico “Carlo Besta” (Itália), e Felipe Fregni, da Universidade Harvard (Estados Unidos) – conta que para a realização do experimento foi utilizado o Ultimatum Game, jogo utilizado na neuroeconomia e por estudiosos do comportamento social.

Composto por participantes da faixa etária de 18 a 25 anos, o jogo foi dividido em dois blocos. No primeiro, o computador enviou propostas econômicas justas e injustas de amigos (que se encontravam em ambientes diferentes). No segundo, as propostas foram feitas por integrantes do laboratório, desconhecidos dos participantes.

Os valores das propostas foram classificadas como justas (50:50), mais ou menos justas (70:30) e muito injustas (80:20 e 90:10). “Os participantes receberam a mesma quantidade de propostas justas e injustas, tanto do amigo como do desconhecido, enviadas pelo computador. Registramos toda a atividade eletroencefalográfica desses participantes durante o experimento”, disse Campanhã à Agência FAPESP.

Nesse tipo de experimento, caso a pessoa aceite a proposta, ambos recebem o valor combinado. Se ela recusar, os dois não recebem nada. “Do ponto de vista comportamental, observamos que as pessoas rejeitaram muito mais as propostas injustas do desconhecido do que as oferecidas pelo amigo – nas quais o amigo sairia ganhando mais. Além disso, essas pessoas pontuaram os amigos como mais justos do que os desconhecidos”, destacou.

O estudo apontou uma inversão positiva na atividade neuroelétrica para as propostas de amigos. “A expectativa era que os dados seriam negativos conforme se recebessem propostas injustas do amigo. No entanto, os participantes não perceberam essa injustiça”, disse Campanhã.

Segundo ela, a inversão de polaridade positiva está relacionada à satisfação de receber algo bom e justo, cuja recompensa está acima do esperado. Nesse caso, a dopamina é liberada. No sinal negativo há quebra de expectativa e a substância é inibida, gerando raiva.

“Ao realizarmos a análise para identificar a área do cérebro ativada naquele momento, observamos que o sinal elétrico apareceu no córtex pré-frontal medial anterior. Essa é uma área relacionada à habilidade de imaginar e tentar entender o que o outro está pensando e sentindo”, disse.

“Não significa que as pessoas não processam a injustiça, mas esse processo é diferente quando se confia em alguém. É como se não precisasse tentar entender o que se passa com a outra pessoa ou o que ela está sentindo”, disse.

O artigo Responding to Unfair Offers Made by a Friend: Neuroelectrical Activity Changes in the Anterior Medial Prefrontal Cortex (doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1253-11.2011), de Camila Campanhã e outros, pode ser lido por assinantes da The Journal of Neuroscience emwww.jneurosci.org/content/31/43/15569.full.pdf+html?sid=94d0a3e8-79b9-47a8-89d8-24dcf41750e7.

Human brains unlikely to evolve into a ‘supermind’ as price to pay would be too high (University of Warwick)

11/12/2011Uncategorizedciência, Cognição, Incerteza, neurociências, Previsão, Psicologia, Saúde, Saúde mentalrenzotaddei

University of Warwick

Human minds have hit an evolutionary “sweet spot” and – unlike computers – cannot continually get smarter without trade-offs elsewhere, according to research by the University of Warwick.

Researchers asked the question why we are not more intelligent than we are given the adaptive evolutionary process. Their conclusions show that you can have too much of a good thing when it comes to mental performance.

The evidence suggests that for every gain in cognitive functions, for example better memory, increased attention or improved intelligence, there is a price to pay elsewhere – meaning a highly-evolved “supermind” is the stuff of science fiction.

University of Warwick psychology researcher Thomas Hills and Ralph Hertwig of the University of Basel looked at a range of studies, including research into the use of drugs like Ritalan which help with attention, studies of people with autism as well as a study of the Ashkenazi Jewish population.

For instance, among individuals with enhanced cognitive abilities- such as savants, people with photographic memories, and even genetically segregated populations of individuals with above average IQ, these individuals often suffer from related disorders, such as autism, debilitating synaesthesia and neural disorders linked with enhanced brain growth.

Similarly, drugs like Ritalan only help people with lower attention spans whereas people who don’t have trouble focusing can actually perform worse when they take attention-enhancing drugs.

Dr Hills said: “These kinds of studies suggest there is an upper limit to how much people can or should improve their mental functions like attention, memory or intelligence.

“Take a complex task like driving, where the mind needs to be dynamically focused, attending to the right things such as the road ahead and other road users – which are changing all the time.

“If you enhance your ability to focus too much, and end up over-focusing on specific details, like the driver trying to hide in your blind spot, then you may fail to see another driver suddenly veering into your lane from the other direction.

“Or if you drink coffee to make yourself more alert, the trade-off is that it is likely to increase your anxiety levels and lose your fine motor control. There are always trade-offs.

“In other words, there is a ‘sweet spot’ in terms of enhancing our mental abilities – if you go beyond that spot – just like in the fairy-tales – you have to pay the price.”

The research, entitled ‘Why Aren’t We Smarter Already: Evolutionary Trade-Offs and Cognitive Enhancements,’ is published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Science panel: Get ready for extreme weather (AP)

06/12/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, comunicação científica, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mídia, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Previsão, Psicologia, Sensacionalismo, Visualidaderenzotaddei

November 18, 2011|Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer

Maarten van Aalst, leading climate specialist for the Red Cross and Red Crescent, speaks about how climate change will affect people and assets during the presentation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report at a press conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, in this April 11, 2007 file photo. Top international climate scientists and disaster experts meeting in Africa had a sharp message Friday Nov. 18, 2011 for the worlds political leaders: Get ready for more dangerous and unprecedented extreme weather caused by global warming. (AP Photo/Keystone, Salvatore Di Nolfi, File)

Think of the Texas drought, floods in Thailand and Russia’s devastating heat waves as coming attractions in a warming world. That’s the warning from top international climate scientists and disaster experts after meeting in Africa.

The panel said the world needs to get ready for more dangerous and “unprecedented extreme weather’’ caused by global warming. These experts fear that without preparedness, crazy weather extremes may overwhelm some locations, making some places unlivable.

The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a special report on global warming and extreme weather Friday after meeting in Kampala, Uganda. This is the first time the group of scientists has focused on the dangers of extreme weather events such as heat waves, floods, droughts and storms. Those are more dangerous than gradual increases in the world’s average temperature.

For example, the report predicts that heat waves that are now once-in-a-generation events will become hotter and happen once every five years by mid-century and every other year by the end of the century. And in some places, such as most of Latin America, Africa and a good chunk of Asia, they will likely become yearly bakings.

And the very heavy rainstorms that usually happen once every 20 years will happen far more frequently, the report said. In most areas of the U.S. and Canada, they are likely to occur three times as often by the turn of the century, if fossil fuel use continues at current levels. In Southeast Asia, where flooding has been dramatic, it is likely to happen about four times as often as now, the report predicts.

One scientist points to this year’s drought and string of 100 degree days in Texas and Oklahoma, which set an all-time record for hottest month for any U.S. state this summer.

“I think of it as a wake-up call,’’ said one of the study’s authors, David Easterling, head of global climate applications for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “The likelihood of that occurring in the future is going to be much greater.’’

The report said world leaders have to prepare better for weather extremes.

“We need to be worried,’’ said one of the study’s lead authors, Maarten van Aalst, director of the International Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre in the Netherlands. “And our response needs to anticipate disasters and reduce risk before they happen rather than wait until after they happen and clean up afterward. … Risk has already increased dramatically.’’

Next Buddha Will Be A Collective (p2pfoundation.net)

02/12/2011UncategorizedInteratividade, Internet, Mediação tecnológica, participatividade, Previsão, Psicologia, Religiãorenzotaddei

Religious and spiritual expression is always embedded in societal structures. If social structures are moving towards the form of distributed networks, what kind of evolution of spiritual expression can we expect? In this essay, we will first describe the general societal changes that we see emerging, and expect to become more prevalent in the future, then examine to what degree these changes will have an impact on individual and collective spiritual expression. The reader has to bear with us in the first general part, which explains the peer to peer dynamic, in order to understand its application to spirituality, which is the subject of the second part of the essay. Finally, in the third and final part, we will discuss a few concrete examples.

Read it here.

Tratamento à base de tortura (Correio Braziliense)

29/11/2011UncategorizedDiscriminação, Drogas, Psicologia, Saúde, Saúde mental, Violênciarenzotaddei

JC e-mail 4394, de 29 de Novembro de 2011.

Durante vistorias em 68 comunidades terapêuticas espalhadas pelo país, psicólogos encontraram pacientes que são surrados com pedaço de madeira e vítimas de cárcere privado.

Cavar uma cova da dimensão do próprio corpo, escrever reiteradamente o Salmo 119 da Bíblia ou ser surrado com um pedaço de madeira em que está escrita a palavra gratidão são algumas das terapias oferecidas a usuários de drogas em tratamento no país. As violações estão documentadas no relatório da 4ª Inspeção Nacional de Direitos Humanos, uma pesquisa realizada periodicamente pelos conselhos regionais de psicologia sob a coordenação da entidade federal da categoria e com o apoio de parceiros, como o Ministério Público e a Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil. Em todos os 68 locais de internação para tratamento de dependentes químicos visitados, especialmente clínicas e comunidades terapêuticas, houve flagrantes de desrespeito. Entre os problemas mais frequentes estão isolamento, proibição de falar ao telefone com parentes, trabalho não remunerado e punições físicas e psicológicas para atos de desobediência.

As denúncias, que serão levadas à ministra dos Direitos Humanos, Maria do Rosário, surgem a uma semana do lançamento oficial de um plano de combate às drogas, quando a presidente Dilma Rousseff anunciará a inclusão das comunidades terapêuticas na rede de tratamento, com financiamento do Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS). “Não nos deram a oportunidade de participar do debate sobre esse plano, ao contrário de outros segmentos da sociedade. A simples possibilidade de financiar tais instituições já representa um retrocesso em tudo o que a reforma antimanicomial conquistou”, disse Clara Goldmann, vice-presidente do Conselho Federal de Psicologia. Ao destacar que encaminhará o documento à ministra, o ouvidor Nacional dos Direitos Humanos, Domingos Sávio Dresch da Silveira, destacou as medidas cabíveis. “Vou conhecer o relatório e, havendo indícios de violações, caberá um procedimento coletivo de apuração”, disse.

Casos de locais já investigados pelo Ministério Público, como a Casa de Recuperação Valentes de Gideão, em Simões Filhos, na Bahia, apresentaram problemas graves, como espaços inadequados e até exorcismo para tratar crises de abstinência. “É assustador que o clamor por tratamento silencie até mesmo a voz de autoridades que já foram notificadas, quatro anos atrás, sobre o tratamento desumano. Não estou dizendo que todas as comunidades terapêutica têm esse padrão, mas assusta ver a Valentes de Gideão aberta”, destaca Marcus Vinícius de Oliveira, integrante da Rede Nacional Internúcleos da Luta Antimanicomial.

Para o diretor da Federação Brasileira de Comunidades Terapêuticas (Febract), Maurício Landre, a amostra considerada pelo relatório é tendenciosa e não representa o universo das instituições. Ele também questiona a competência dos conselhos regionais de psicologia para fazerem inspeções. “É lamentável que uma classe tão conceituada, com profissionais que realizam trabalhos extraordinários dentro de comunidades terapêuticas, faça denúncias tão irresponsáveis”, afirma. “Existe comunidade terapêutica, clínica e até hospital que deve ser fechado? Existe. Mas não se trata de todos. Vamos ajudar na capacitação, vamos trabalhar em vez de ficar reclamando”, afirma. Segundo o dirigente, a real intenção com os ataques é financeira. “Tem a ideologia e também o capitalismo. Tratar em comunidade é mais barato do que ficar fazendo redução de dano, que eles defendem.”

Ligações monitoradas – O tema escolhido para a inspeção deste ano foi álcool e drogas. Só não foram feitas visitas em Amapá e Tocantins. No DF, a única instituição que participou foi a Fazendo do Senhor Jesus, em Brazlândia. O monitoramento de ligações dos familiares, bem como de visitas, é um ponto criticado no relatório. A violação das correspondências trocadas pelos pacientes também foi destacada no documento. Além disso, há relato de um homicídio e de uma denúncia por cárcere privado.

Are We Getting Nicer? (N.Y. Times)

24/11/2011UncategorizedAntropologia, Cultura, Discriminação, Memória, Opinião pública, Psicologia, Racismo, Violência, Visualidaderenzotaddei

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: November 23, 2011

It’s pretty easy to conclude that the world is spinning down the toilet.

So let me be contrary and offer a reason to be grateful this Thanksgiving. Despite the gloomy mood, the historical backdrop is stunning progress in human decency over recent centuries.

War is declining, and humanity is becoming less violent, less racist and less sexist — and this moral progress has accelerated in recent decades. To put it bluntly, we humans seem to be getting nicer.

That’s the central theme of an astonishingly good book just published by Steven Pinker, a psychology professor at Harvard. It’s called “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” and it’s my bet to win the next Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.

“Today we may be living in the most peaceable era in our species’ existence,” Pinker writes, and he describes this decline in violence as possibly “the most important thing that has ever happened in human history.”

He acknowledges: “In a century that began with 9/11, Iraq, and Darfur, the claim that we are living in an unusually peaceful time may strike you as somewhere between hallucinatory and obscene.”

Still, even in a 20th century notorious for world war and genocide, only around 3 percent of humans died from such man-made catastrophes. In contrast, a study of Native-American skeletons from hunter-gather societies found that some 13 percent had died of trauma. And in the 17th century, the Thirty Years’ War reduced Germany’s population by as much as one-third.

Wars make headlines, but there are fewer conflicts today, and they typically don’t kill as many people. Many scholars have made that point, most notably Joshua S. Goldstein in his recent book “Winning the War on War: The Decline of Armed Conflict Worldwide.” Goldstein also argues that it’s a myth that civilians are more likely to die in modern wars.

Look also at homicide rates, which are now far lower than in previous centuries. The murder rate in Britain seems to have fallen by more than 90 percent since the 14th century.

Then there are the myriad forms of violence that were once the banal backdrop of daily life. One game in feudal Europe involved men competing to head-butt to death a cat that had been nailed alive to a post. One reason this was considered so entertaining: the possibility that it would claw out a competitor’s eye.

Think of fairy tales and nursery rhymes. One academic study found that modern children’s television programs have 4.8 violent scenes per hour, compared with nursery rhymes with 52.2.

The decline in brutality is true of other cultures as well. When I learned Chinese, I was startled to encounter ideographs like the one of a knife next to a nose: pronounced “yi,” it means “cutting off a nose as punishment.” That’s one Chinese character that students no longer study.

Pinker’s book rang true to me partly because I often report on genocide and human rights abuses. I was aghast that Darfur didn’t prompt more of an international response from Western governments, but I was awed by the way American university students protested on behalf of a people who lived half a world away.

That reflects a larger truth: There is global consensus today that slaughtering civilians is an outrage. Governments may still engage in mass atrocities, but now they hire lobbyists and public relations firms to sanitize the mess.

In contrast, until modern times, genocide was simply a way of waging war. The Bible repeatedly describes God as masterminding genocide (“thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth” — Deuteronomy 20:16), and European-Americans saw nothing offensive about exterminating Native Americans. One of my heroes, Theodore Roosevelt, later a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, was unapologetic: “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely in the case of the tenth.”

The pace of moral progress has accelerated in the last few decades. Pinker notes that on issues such as civil rights, the role of women, equality for gays, beating of children and treatment of animals, “the attitudes of conservatives have followed the trajectory of liberals, with the result that today’s conservatives are more liberal than yesterday’s liberals.”

The reasons for these advances are complex but may have to do with the rise of education, the decline of chauvinism and a growing willingness to put ourselves in the shoes (increasingly, even hooves) of others.

Granted, the world still faces brutality and cruelty. That’s what I write about the rest of the year! But let’s pause for a moment to acknowledge remarkable progress and give thanks for the human capacity for compassion and moral growth.

Drillers using counterinsurgency experts (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

24/11/2011Uncategorizedambientalismo, Cidadania, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Marketing, Mídia, Opinião pública, Política, Psicologia, Violência, Visualidaderenzotaddei

Marcellus industry taking a page from the military to deal with media, resident opposition

Sunday, November 13, 2011

By Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Marcellus Shale gas drilling spokesmen at an industry conference in Houston said their companies are employing former military counterinsurgency officers and recommended using military-style psychological operations strategies, or psyops, to deal with media inquiries and citizen opposition to drilling in Pennsylvania communities.

Matt Pitzarella, a Range Resources spokesman speaking to other oil and gas industry spokespeople at the conference last week, said the company hires former military psyops specialists who use those skills in Pennsylvania.

Mr. Pitzarella’s statements and related comments made by a spokesman for Anadarko Petroleum were recorded by a member of an environmental group who provided them to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

“We have several former psyops folks that work for us at Range because they’re very comfortable in dealing with localized issues and local governments,” Mr. Pitzarella said during the last half of a 23-minute presentation in a conference session. The session was titled “Designing a Media Relations Strategy to Overcome Concerns Surrounding Hydraulic Fracturing.”

“Really all they do is spend most of their time helping folks develop local ordinances and things like that,” he continued. “But very much having that understanding of psyops in the Army and the Middle East has applied very helpfully here for us in Pennsylvania.”

Matt Carmichael, manager of external affairs for Anadarko Petroleum, which has nearly 300,000 acres of Marcellus Shale gas holdings under lease in Central Pennsylvania, gave a speech urging industry media spokesmen to read a military counterinsurgency manual for tips in dealing with opponents to shale gas development.

“Download the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual, because we are dealing with an insurgency,” Mr. Carmichael said in a session titled “Understanding How Unconventional Oil & Gas Operators are Developing a Comprehensive Media Relations Strategy to Engage Stakeholders and Educate the Public.”

“There’s a lot of good lessons in there,” he said, “and coming from a military background, I found the insight extremely remarkable.”

The remarks of both Mr. Pitzarella and Mr. Carmichael were recorded at the conference by Sharon Wilson, an activist and member of the Earthworks Oil and Gas Accountability Project, a national environmental nonprofit focused on the impacts of mineral and energy development.

She said the term “insurgent” shows what the industry thinks about the communities where it is drilling.

“What’s clear to me is that they are having to use some very extreme measures in our neighborhoods. And it seems like they view it as an occupation,” Ms. Wilson said.

Psychological operations is a term used in the military and intelligence agencies and involves use of selective communications and sometimes misinformation and deception to manipulate public perception. According to a U.S. Army careers website, psyops specialists “assess the information needs of a target population and develop and deliver the right message at the right time and place to create the intended result.”

Environmental groups and residents of communities where Marcellus drilling has been controversial and sometimes contentious were quick to seize on the comments. They said they reflected the industry’s battlefield mentality and disinformation strategy when dealing with communities and individuals.

“This is the level of disdain, deception and belligerence that we are dealing with,” said Arthur Clark, an Oil & Gas Committee co-chair and member of the executive committee of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Sierra Club.

“On tape and in print, for once, an industry literally at war with local residents, even labeling them ‘insurgents.’ I don’t recall seeing anyone toting an AK-47 at any of the public meetings or rallies regarding frack gas development.”

“It sounds like the gas companies are utilizing military ‘psyops’ in gas patch communities,” said Bill Walker, a spokesman for Earthworks.

Mr. Carmichael did not return calls requesting comment, but John Christiansen, director of external communications for Anadarko, issued a statement, addressing Mr. Carmichael’s use of the term insurgency.

“The reference was not reflective of our core values. Our community efforts are based upon open communication, active engagement and transparency, which are all essential in building fact-based knowledge and earning public trust.”

Mr. Pitzarella explained his remarks by saying the industry employs large numbers of veterans, including an attorney with a psyops background who “spent time in the Middle East,” with temperaments “well suited” to handling the sometimes “emotional situations” at community meetings the company holds to explain its well drilling and fracking operations.

“To suggest that the two comments made at unrelated [conference sessions] are a strategy is dishonest,” Mr. Pitzarella said. “[Range has] been transparent and accountable, and that’s not something we would do if we were trying to mislead people.”

But despite repeated questions, Mr. Pitzarella would not name the Range attorney with a psyops background. The company does employ James Cannon, whose LinkIn page lists him as a “public affairs specialist” for Range and a member of the U.S. Army’s “303 Psyop Co.,” a reserve unit in Pittsburgh.

Mr. Cannon could not be reached for comment.

Dencil Backus of Mount Pleasant, a California University of Pennsylvania communications professor who teaches public relations, once had Mr. Pitzarella in his class. Mr. Backus said it’s “obvious we have all been targeted” with a communications strategy that employs misinformation and intimidation, and includes homespun radio and television ads touting “My drilling company? Range Resources”; community “informational” meetings that emphasize the positive and ignore potential problems caused by drilling and fracking; and recent lawsuits, threats of lawsuits and commercial boycotts.

“There’s just been a number of ways in which they’ve sought to intimidate us,” said Mr. Backus, who has been a coordinator of a citizens committee that advised Mount Pleasant on a proposed Marcellus ordinance. “It’s one of the most unethical things I have ever seen.”

Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983

The Mental Time Travel Of Animals (NPR)

04/11/2011UncategorizedAnimais, Cognição, Incerteza, Memória, Previsão, Psicologiarenzotaddei

11:39 am

November 3, 2011

by BARBARA J KING

Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images. Don’t underestimate the crow.

Without a trace of agitation, the male chimpanzee piles up stones in small caches within his enclosure. He does this in the morning, before zoo visitors arrive. Hours later, in an aroused state, the ape hurls the stones at people gathering to watch him.

A detailed report by Mathias Osvath concluded that the ape had planned ahead strategically for the future. It is exactly this feat of mental time travel that psychologist Michael C. Corballis, in his book The Recursive Mind: The Origins of Human Language, Thought, and Civilization, claims is beyond the reach of nonhuman animals. Last week, my review of Corballis’s book appeared in the Times Literary Supplement.

Corballis suggests that mental time travel is one of two human ways of thinking that propelled our species into a unique cognitive status. (The other, theory of mind, I won’t deal with here.)

During mental time travel, we insert into our present consciousness an experience that we’ve had in the past or that we imagine for ourselves in the future. Corballis calls this ability mental recursion, and he’s right that we humans do it effortlessly. When we daydream at work about last weekend’s happy times with family and friends, or anticipate tonight’s quiet evening with a book, we engage in mental time travel.

Our highly elaborated ability to insert the past or future recursively into our thinking may play a role in the evolution of human civilization, as Corballis claims. But Corballis’s argument is weakened because he dismisses other animals’ mental capacities far too readily.

It’s not only one chimpanzee in a Swedish zoo who makes me think so.

When our pets grieve, as I wrote about in this space recently, they hold in their mind some memory of the past that causes them to miss a companion.

New research on the pattern of food storage by Eurasian jays indicates that these birds think ahead about what specific foods they will want in the future.

When apes (chimpanzees) and corvids (crows and ravens) make tools to obtain food, they too think ahead to a goal, even as they fashion a tool to solve the problem before them.

In the NATURE documentary film A Murder of Crows, a New Caledonian crow solves a three-part tool-using problem totally new to him (or to any other crow). As one researcher put it, the bird thinks “three chess moves into the future” as he finds one tool that allows him to get another tool that he uses finally to procure food.

Have a look at this crow’s stunning problem-solving here. The experimental footage begins at 16:30, but starting at 13:00 offers good context. And the entire film is a delight.

Fraud Case Seen as a Red Flag for Psychology Research (N.Y. Times)

03/11/2011Uncategorizedciência, Discriminação, Enquadramento, Estatística, Fraude, Incerteza, Matemática, Psicologia, Raça, Racismorenzotaddei

By BENEDICT CAREY

Published: November 2, 2011

A well-known psychologist in the Netherlands whose work has been published widely in professional journals falsified data and made up entire experiments, an investigating committee has found. Experts say the case exposes deep flaws in the way science is done in a field,psychology, that has only recently earned a fragile respectability.

Joris Buijs/Pve

The psychologist Diederik Stapel in an undated photograph. “I have failed as a scientist and researcher,” he said in a statement after a committee found problems in dozens of his papers.

The psychologist, Diederik Stapel, of Tilburg University, committed academic fraud in “several dozen” published papers, many accepted in respected journals and reported in the news media, according to a report released on Monday by the three Dutch institutions where he has worked: the University of Groningen, the University of Amsterdam, and Tilburg. The journal Science, which published one of Dr. Stapel’s papers in April, posted an “editorial expression of concern” about the research online on Tuesday.

The scandal, involving about a decade of work, is the latest in a string of embarrassments in a field that critics and statisticians say badly needs to overhaul how it treats research results. In recent years, psychologists have reported a raft of findings on race biases, brain imaging and even extrasensory perception that have not stood up to scrutiny. Outright fraud may be rare, these experts say, but they contend that Dr. Stapel took advantage of a system that allows researchers to operate in near secrecy and massage data to find what they want to find, without much fear of being challenged.

“The big problem is that the culture is such that researchers spin their work in a way that tells a prettier story than what they really found,” said Jonathan Schooler, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “It’s almost like everyone is on steroids, and to compete you have to take steroids as well.”

In a prolific career, Dr. Stapel published papers on the effect of power on hypocrisy, on racial stereotyping and on how advertisements affect how people view themselves. Many of his findings appeared in newspapers around the world, including The New York Times, which reported in December on his study about advertising and identity.

In a statement posted Monday on Tilburg University’s Web site, Dr. Stapel apologized to his colleagues. “I have failed as a scientist and researcher,” it read, in part. “I feel ashamed for it and have great regret.”

More than a dozen doctoral theses that he oversaw are also questionable, the investigators concluded, after interviewing former students, co-authors and colleagues. Dr. Stapel has published about 150 papers, many of which, like the advertising study, seem devised to make a splash in the media. The study published in Science this year claimed that white people became more likely to “stereotype and discriminate” against black people when they were in a messy environment, versus an organized one. Another study, published in 2009, claimed that people judged job applicants as more competent if they had a male voice. The investigating committee did not post a list of papers that it had found fraudulent.

Dr. Stapel was able to operate for so long, the committee said, in large measure because he was “lord of the data,” the only person who saw the experimental evidence that had been gathered (or fabricated). This is a widespread problem in psychology, said Jelte M. Wicherts, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam. In a recent survey, two-thirds of Dutch research psychologists said they did not make their raw data available for other researchers to see. “This is in violation of ethical rules established in the field,” Dr. Wicherts said.

In a survey of more than 2,000 American psychologists scheduled to be published this year, Leslie John of Harvard Business School and two colleagues found that 70 percent had acknowledged, anonymously, to cutting some corners in reporting data. About a third said they had reported an unexpected finding as predicted from the start, and about 1 percent admitted to falsifying data.

Also common is a self-serving statistical sloppiness. In an analysis published this year, Dr. Wicherts and Marjan Bakker, also at the University of Amsterdam, searched a random sample of 281 psychology papers for statistical errors. They found that about half of the papers in high-end journals contained some statistical error, and that about 15 percent of all papers had at least one error that changed a reported finding — almost always in opposition to the authors’ hypothesis.

The American Psychological Association, the field’s largest and most influential publisher of results, “is very concerned about scientific ethics and having only reliable and valid research findings within the literature,” said Kim I. Mills, a spokeswoman. “We will move to retract any invalid research as such articles are clearly identified.”

Researchers in psychology are certainly aware of the issue. In recent years, some have mocked studies showing correlations between activity on brain images and personality measures as “voodoo” science, and a controversy over statistics erupted in January after The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology accepted a paper purporting to show evidence of extrasensory perception. In cases like these, the authors being challenged are often reluctant to share their raw data. But an analysis of 49 studies appearing Wednesday in the journal PLoS One, by Dr. Wicherts, Dr. Bakker and Dylan Molenaar, found that the more reluctant that scientists were to share their data, the more likely that evidence contradicted their reported findings.

“We know the general tendency of humans to draw the conclusions they want to draw — there’s a different threshold,” said Joseph P. Simmons, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “With findings we want to see, we ask, ‘Can I believe this?’ With those we don’t, we ask, ‘Must I believe this?’ ”

But reviewers working for psychology journals rarely take this into account in any rigorous way. Neither do they typically ask to see the original data. While many psychologists shade and spin, Dr. Stapel went ahead and drew any conclusion he wanted.

“We have the technology to share data and publish our initial hypotheses, and now’s the time,” Dr. Schooler said. “It would clean up the field’s act in a very big way.”

People Rationalize Situations They’re Stuck With, but Rebel When They Think There’s an out (Science Daily)

03/11/2011UncategorizedCognição, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Previsão, Psicologia, Semiótica, Visualidaderenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Nov. 1, 2011) — People who feel like they’re stuck with a rule or restriction are more likely to be content with it than people who think that the rule isn’t definite. The authors of a new study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, say this conclusion may help explain everything from unrequited love to the uprisings of the Arab Spring.

Psychological studies have found two contradictory results about how people respond to rules. Some research has found that, when there are new restrictions, you rationalize them; your brain comes up with a way to believe the restriction is a good idea. But other research has found that people react negatively against new restrictions, wanting the restricted thing more than ever.

Kristin Laurin of the University of Waterloo thought the difference might be absoluteness — how much the restriction is set in stone. “If it’s a restriction that I can’t really do anything about, then there’s really no point in hitting my head against the wall and trying to fight against it,” she says. “I’m better off if I just give up. But if there’s a chance I can beat it, then it makes sense for my brain to make me want the restricted thing even more, to motivate me to fight” Laurin wrote the new paper with Aaron Kay and Gavan Fitzsimons of Duke University.

In an experiment in the new study, participants read that lowering speed limits in cities would make people safer. Some read that government leaders had decided to reduce speed limits. Of those people, some were told that this legislation would definitely come into effect, and others read that it would probably happen, but that there was still a small chance government officials could vote it down.

People who thought the speed limit was definitely being lowered supported the change more than control subjects, but people who thought there was still a chance it wouldn’t happen supported it less than these control subjects. Laurin says this confirms what she suspected about absoluteness; if a restriction is definite, people find a way to live with it.

This could help explain how uprisings spread across the Arab world earlier this year. When people were living under dictatorships with power that appeared to be absolute, Laurin says, they may have been comfortable with it. But once Tunisia’s president fled, citizens of neighboring countries realized that their governments weren’t as absolute as they seemed — and they could have dropped whatever rationalizations they were using to make it possible to live under an authoritarian regime. Even more, the now non-absolute restriction their governments represented could have exacerbated their reaction, fueling their anger and motivating them to take action.

And how does this relate to unrequited love? It confirms people’s intuitive sense that leading someone can just make them fall for you more deeply, Laurin says. “If this person is telling me no, but I perceive that as not totally absolute, if I still think I have a shot, that’s just going to strengthen my desire and my feeling, that’s going to make me think I need to fight to win the person over,” she says. “If instead I believe no, I definitely don’t have a shot with this person, then I might rationalize it and decide that I don’t like them that much anyway.”

Doctors Can Learn Empathy Through a Computer-Based Tutorial (Science Daily)

02/11/2011Uncategorizedemoções, Mediação tecnológica, medicina, Psicologia, Saúderenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Oct. 31, 2011) — Cancer doctors want to offer a sympathetic ear, but sometimes miss the cues from patients. To help physicians better address their patients’ fears and worries, a Duke University researcher has developed a new interactive training tool.

The computer tutorial includes feedback on the doctors’ own audio recorded visits with patients, and provides an alternative to more expensive courses.

In a study appearing Nov. 1, 2011, in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the research team found that the course resulted in more empathic responses from oncologists, and patients reported greater trust in their doctors — a key component of care that enhances quality of life.

“Earlier studies have shown that oncologists respond to patient distress with empathy only about a quarter of the time,” said James A. Tulsky, MD, director of the Duke Center for Palliative Care and lead author of the study.

“Often, when patients bring up their worries, doctors change the subject or focus on the medical treatment, rather than the emotional concern. Unfortunately, this behavior sends the message, ‘This is not what we’re here to talk about.'”

Tulsky said cancer doctors have many reasons for avoiding emotionally fraught conversations. Some worry that the exchanges will cause rather than ease stress, or that they don’t have time to address non-medical concerns.

Neither is true, Tulsky said, noting his research shows that asking the right questions during patient visits can actually save time and enhance patient satisfaction.

“Oncologists are among the most devoted physicians — passionately committed to their patients. Unfortunately, their patients don’t always know this unless the doctors articulate their empathy explicitly,” Tulsky said. “It’s a skill set. It’s not that the doctors are uncaring, it’s just that communication needs to be taught and learned.”

The current gold standard for teaching empathy skills is a multiday course that involves short lectures and role-playing with actors hired to simulate clinical situations. Such courses are time-consuming and expensive, costing upwards of $3,000 per physician.

Tulsky’s team at Duke developed a computer program that models what happens in these courses. The doctors receive feedback on pre-recorded encounters, and are able to complete the intervention in their offices or homes in a little more than an hour, at a cost of about $100.

To test its effectiveness, Tulsky and colleagues enrolled 48 doctors at Duke, the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Durham, NC, and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The research team audio-recorded four to eight visits between the doctors and their patients with advanced cancer.

All the doctors then attended an hour-long lecture on communication skills. Half were randomly assigned to receive a CD-ROM tutorial, the other half received no other intervention.

The CD taught the doctors basic communication skills, including how to recognize and respond to opportunities in conversations when patients share a negative emotion, and how to share information about prognosis. Doctors also heard examples from their own clinic encounters, with feedback on how they could improve. They were asked to commit to making changes in their practice and then reminded of these prior to their next clinic visits.

Afterward, all the doctors were again recorded during patient visits, and the encounters were assessed by both patients and trained listeners who evaluated the conversations for how well the doctors responded to empathic statements.

Oncologists who had not taken the CD course made no improvement in the way they responded to patients when confronted with concerns or fears. Doctors in the trained group, however, responded empathically twice as often as those who received no training. In addition, they were better at eliciting patient concerns, using tactics to promote conversations rather than shut them down.

“Patient trust in physicians increased significantly,” Tulsky said, adding that patients report feeling better when they believe their doctors are on their side. “This is exciting, because it’s an easy, relatively inexpensive way to train physicians to respond to patients’ most basic needs.”

Although the CD course is not yet widely available, efforts are underway to develop it for broader distribution.

In addition to Tulsky, study authors include: Robert M. Arnold; Stewart C. Alexander; Maren K. Olsen; Amy S. Jeffreys; Keri L. Rodriguez; Celette Sugg Skinner; David Farrell; Amy P. Abernethy; and Kathryn I. Pollak.

Funding for the study came from the National Cancer Institute. Study authors reported no conflicts.

Putting the Body Back Into the Mind of Schizophrenia (Science Daily)

02/11/2011UncategorizedCorpo, esquizofrenia, Mediação tecnológica, Psicologia, Saúde mentalrenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Oct. 31, 2011) — A study using a procedure called the rubber hand illusion has found striking new evidence that people experiencing schizophrenia have a weakened sense of body ownership and has produced the first case of a spontaneous, out-of-body experience in the laboratory.

These findings suggest that movement therapy, which trains people to be focused and centered on their own bodies, including some forms of yoga and dance, could be helpful for many of the2.2 million people in the United States who suffer from this mental disorder.

The study, which appears in the Oct. 31 issue of the scientific journal Public Library of Science One, measured the strength of body ownership of 24 schizophrenia patients and 21 matched control subjects by testing their susceptibility to the “rubber hand illusion” or RHI. This tactile illusion, which was discovered in 1998, is induced by simultaneously stroking a visible rubber hand and the subject’s hidden hand.

“After a while, patients with schizophrenia begin to ‘feel’ the rubber hand and disown their own hand. They also experience their real hand as closer to the rubber hand.” said Sohee Park, the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair of Psychology and Psychiatry, who conducted the study with doctoral candidate Katharine Thakkar and research analysts Heathman Nichols and Lindsey McIntosh.

“Healthy people get this illusion too, but weakly,” Park said. “Some don’t get it at all, and there is a wide range of individual differences in how people experience this illusion that is related to a personality trait called schizotypy, associated with psychosis-proneness.”

Body ownership is one of two aspects of a person’s sense of self awareness. (The other aspect is self-agency, the sense that a person is initiating his or her own actions.) According to the researchers, the finding that schizophrenia patients are more susceptible to the rubber hand illusion suggests that they have a more flexible body representation and weakened sense of self compared to healthy people.

“What’s so interesting about Professor Park’s study is that they have found that the sense of bodily ownership does not diminish among patients with schizophrenia, but it can be extended to other objects more easily,” observed David Gray, Mellon assistant professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt, who is an expert on the philosophy of the mind. He did not participate in the study but is familiar with it. “Much of the literature concerning agency and ownership in schizophrenia focuses on the sense of lost agency over one’s own movements: But, in these cases, the sense of ownership is neither diminished nor extended.”

Before they began the procedure, the researchers gave participants a questionnaire to rate their degree of schizotypy: the extent to which they experience perceptual effects related to the illusion. The researchers found that the individuals who rated higher on the scale were more susceptible to the illusion.

The researchers gauged the relative strength of the RHI by asking participants to estimate the position of the index finger of their hidden hand on rulers placed on top of the box that conceals it before and after stimulation. The stronger the effect, the more the subjects’ estimate of the position of their hidden hand shifted in the direction of the rubber hand. Even the estimates of those who did not experience the effect subjectively shifted slightly.

The rubber hand illusion also has a physiological signature. Scientists don’t know why, but the temperature of the hidden hand drops by a few tenths of a degree when a person experiences the illusion. “It’s almost as if the hand is disowned and rejected, no longer part of the self,” Park commented.

The researchers were surprised when one of the patients undergoing the procedure experienced a full out-of-body experience. He reported that he was floating above his own body for about 15 minutes. According to Park, it is extremely rare to observe spontaneous out-of-body experiences in the laboratory. When they invited the patient back for a second session, he once again had an out-of-body experience during the rubber hand procedure, proving that the experience is repeatable.

“Anomalous experiences of the self were considered to be core features of schizophrenia decades ago but in recent years much of the emphasis has been on cognitive functions such as working memory,” said Park.

According to the psychologist, out-of-body experiences and body ownership are associated with a particular area in the brain called the temporoparietal junction. Lesions in this area and stimulation by strong magnetic fields can elicit out-of-body experiences. The new study suggests that disorders in this part of the brain may also contribute to the symptoms of schizophrenia.

The relationship between schizophrenia and body ownership may help explain the results of a German study published in 2008 that found a 12-week exercise program reduced the symptoms and improved the behavior of a small group of patients with chronic schizophrenia when compared to a control group that did not exercise. The study also found that the exercise increased size of the patients’ hippocampus slightly — a smaller-than-normal hippocampus is a well established symptom of schizophrenia.

“Exercise is inexpensive and obviously has a broad range of beneficial effects, so if it can also reduce the severity of schizophrenia, it is all to the good,” said Park. These findings suggest that focused physical exercise which involves precise body control, such as yoga and dancing, could be a beneficial form of treatment for this disorder.

The study was partly funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health and the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Endowed Chair.

That’s Gross! Study Uncovers Physiological Nature of Disgust in Politics (Science Daily)

02/11/2011UncategorizedConservadorismo, Discriminação, Enquadramento, Política, Psicologia, Sensacionalismo, Violência, Visualidaderenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Oct. 25, 2011) — Most likely, you would be disgusted if confronted with a picture of a man eating a mouthful of writhing worms. Or a particularly bloody wound. Or a horribly emaciated but still living body. But just how much disgust you feel may lend important insight into your personal political proclivities.

In a new study, political scientists closely measured people’s physiological reactions as they looked at a series of pleasant and unpleasant images. Participants who identified themselves as conservative — and, in particular, those who said they were against gay marriage — had strong physiological reactions when shown the gross pictures.

The study, the latest to examine the connection between political differences and humans’ built-in physiological traits, was co-authored by University of Nebraska-Lincoln political science professors Kevin Smith and John Hibbing and appears this month in the online journal PLoS ONE, published by the Public Library of Science.

“This is one more piece of evidence that we, quite literally, have gut feelings about politics,” Smith said. “Our political attitudes and behaviors are reflected in our biology.”

Researchers worked with 27 women and 23 men who were chosen from a larger pool of participants who also underwent thorough political questioning. The subjects were shown a series of disgusting and also relatively pleasant images while electrodes on their skin measured subtle skin conductance changes, which indicated an emotional response.

As predicted, conservatives responded to the pictures with much more intense disgust than did liberals. Attitudes in opposition to same-sex marriage were highly connected.

The results add to a growing area of research that suggests biology plays a larger role in influencing political orientation than many might think. Recent UNL work has produced findings in this area, including a 2008 study that found people who are highly responsive to threatening images were likely to support defense spending, capital punishment, patriotism and the Iraq War.

“The proper interpretation of the findings (in the current study) is not that biology causes politics or that politics causes biology,” the authors write, “but that certain political orientations at some unspecified point become housed in our biology, with meaningful political consequences.”

Acceptance of the role of involuntary physiological responses is not easy for many, however: “Most are proud of their political orientations, believe them to be rational responses to the world around them, and are reluctant to concede that subconscious predispositions play any role in shaping them,” they wrote. Still, the authors suggest that if recognition of the relevance of politics of involuntary physiology became more widespread, it could diminish frustration from the perceived illogical inflexibility of political opponents and reduce political hostility.

“After all, if political differences are traceable in part to the fact that people vary in the way they physically experience the world, certitude that any particular worldview is ‘correct’ may abate, lessening the hubris that fuels political conflict.”

In addition to UNL’s Smith and Hibbing, the study was co-authored by Douglas Oxley of Texas A&M University; Matthew Hibbing of the University of California, Merced; and John Alford of Rice University.

Namorados adolescentes usam violência como forma de comunicação (Fapesp)

29/10/2011UncategorizedAdolescentes, Jovens, Psicologia, Violênciarenzotaddei

Pesquisa FAPESP
Edição 188 – Outubro 2011
Humanidades > Psicologia

Tempos de cólera no amor

O refrão da música de Belchior renova-se a cada geração como uma maldição sem antídoto: “Minha dor é perceber/ Que apesar de termos feito tudo o que fizemos/ Ainda somos os mesmos e vivemos como nossos pais”. É o que revela a pesquisa Violência entre namorados adolescentes (lançada agora em livro, Amor e violência, pela Editora Fiocruz), feita entre 2007 e 2010 a pedido do Centro Latino-Americano de Estudos da Violência e Saúde Jorge Careli (Claves/Fiocruz) e coordenada por Kathie Njaine, professora do Departamento de Saúde Pública da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC). O projeto reuniu um grupo de 11 pesquisadores de diversas universidades para investigar a violência nas relações afetivo-sexuais de “ficar” ou namorar entre jovens de 15 a 19 anos de idade, a partir de um universo de 3,2 mil estudantes de escolas públicas e privadas de 10 capitais brasileiras. “Os jovens de hoje, ao mesmo tempo que recriam novas formas e meios de se relacionar, em que o ‘ficar’ e o uso da internet para interação amorosa e sexual são o novo, repetem e reproduzem modelos relacionais tradicionais e conservadores, como o machismo e o sentimento de posse, expressos em suas falas e no trato com o parceiro e a parceira”, afirma a pesquisadora. Talvez até com maior intensidade do que faziam nossos pais.

Praticamente, nove em cada 10 jovens que namoram praticam ou sofrem variadas formas de violência e para marcar território casais jovens recorrem à violência para controlar seus parceiros, e a agressão virou sinônimo de domínio nas relações amorosas desses adolescentes. “Creio que a violência vem se tornando uma forma de comunicação entre muitos jovens, que alternam os papéis de vítima e autor, de acordo com o momento e o meio em que vivem. Esses atos estão se banalizando a ponto de serem incorporados naturalmente na convivência, sem reflexão alguma sobre o que isso pode significar para a vida afetiva-sexual”, observa Kathie. “Os adolescentes adotam cada vez mais cedo a violência em diversos graus e começam a achar isso muito natural. Acreditam que para ter o controle da relação e do companheiro é preciso usar a violência.” Belchior continua profético ao afirmar “que o novo sempre vem”, ainda que nem sempre num registro positivo. Segundo o estudo, as garotas são, ao mesmo tempo, as maiores agressoras e vítimas de violência verbal e na categoria de agressões físicas, que incluem tapas, puxão de cabelo, empurrão, socos e chutes, os números revelam que os homens são mais vítimas do que as mulheres: 28,5% delas informaram que agridem fisicamente o parceiro; 16,8% dos meninos confessaram o mesmo. Em termos de violência sexual, o esperado acontece, porém há surpresas: 49% dos homens relatam praticar esse tipo de agressão, enquanto 32,8% das moças admitem o comportamento. Curiosamente, na opinião de 22% dos jovens de ambos os sexos, a violência é o principal problema do mundo de hoje, bem à frente da fome, da pobreza e da miséria. Quem disse que coerência é o forte dos jovens?

Isso se reflete igualmente em práticas que os jovens, em casa, abominam em seus pais, como a vigilância constante de hábitos e vestuários. Para dominar o parceiro, o adolescente busca controlar o comportamento do outro, as roupas que usa, os nomes na agenda do celular, os acessos a redes virtuais de relacionamento, as pessoas com quem conversa. “Como se não bastasse isso, surge um elemento novo: a ameaça de difamação do outro pela divulgação de fotos íntimas pelo celular ou via internet foram estratégias citadas pelos jovens como tentar evitar o fim do namoro, em especial por parte dos meninos”, conta a socióloga e pesquisadora da Fiocruz Maria Cecília de Souza Minayo, organizadora do estudo ao lado de Kathie. A violência em tom de ameaça (provocar medo, ameaçar machucar ou destruir algo de valor) vitima 24,2% dos jovens, um jogo sujo perpetrado por 29,2% dos entrevistados. De acordo com os dados, 33,3% das meninas assumem que ameaçam mais seus parceiros em relação a 22,6% dos meninos. “Os números se aproximam. Tudo sugere que existe um ciclo de vitimização e perpetração. As experiências permanentes de situações agressivas se traduzem no estímulo a relacionamentos conflituosos e no aprendizado do uso da violência para obter poder e amedrontar os outros. Esse comportamento aprendido e aceito interfere no lugar que o jovem ocupará na rede social e no seu desempenho nas relações afetivas e sexuais”, observa a médica Simone Gonçalves de Assis, pesquisadora do Claves/Fiocruz e outra das organizadoras do projeto.

Afetivas – “O complexo é que existe uma identidade que ultrapassa regiões e classes sociais quando observamos o comportamento dos jovens dessas 10 capitais. Há também similaridades entre os estudantes das redes de ensino público e privado. Nas relações afetivas dos jovens chamam mais a atenção as semelhanças do que os eventuais aspectos divergentes”, nota Kathie. Um aspecto que reúne todos é o novo formato das relações amorosas contemporâneas. “Elas são mais provisórias, temporárias. Desde os anos 1980 vem sendo bastante usada entre os jovens a expressão ‘ficar’ para caracterizar uma fase de atração sem maiores compromissos e que pode envolver de beijos a relações sexuais”, observa Maria Cecília. No “ficar”, notam as pesquisadoras, o amor não é pré-requisito e implica uma aprendizagem amorosa, um tipo de teste para um eventual namoro, relação vista como mais “séria” e, principalmente, mais pública, simbolizando a entrada do jovem na cena dos adultos em visitas aos pais do parceiro e no planejamento do tempo em conjunto e o sentimento de maior solidez na relação. “É, no entanto, tudo muito nebuloso e muitos jovens afirmam que, depois de ‘ficar’, não sabem se estão namorando ou não”, diz a autora. Nos dois estados existe o ciúme e o desejo de controlar o outro. “Por causa da iminência de serem acusados de ciúme, desconfiança e traição nas relações de namoro, muitos rapazes e moças justificam sua preferência pelo ‘ficar’, relação em que supostamente não existem amarras e há menos risco de se apaixonar e de se decepcionar”, nota Kathie. Ou, na fala de um entrevistado: “Eu mesmo não confio em ninguém. Eu posso pensar: eu não vou trair ela, mas ninguém sabe o que está acontecendo com ela”.

“São sempre reações antagônicas: compromisso versus não compromisso; longa duração versus pouca duração; intimidade sexual versus superficialidade sexual; envolvimento afetivo versus não envolvimento afetivo; exclusividade versus traição”, avalia a pesquisadora. “No entanto, se há uma persistência do machismo como um (anti) valor de longa duração, existem mudanças provocadas pelas mulheres, que se colocam numa posição de parceiras capazes de questionar e propor novas modalidades de relacionamento. Muitas adotam comportamentos ditos masculinos, como a agressão física e verbal”, observa Maria Cecília. No caso do sexo, inclusive. “Os meninos usam estratégias românticas para transar com as parceiras, com argumentos de que seria uma ‘prova de amor’. Muitas meninas reproduzem valores de subjugação, mas um número não desprezível delas toma a iniciativa e testa os garotos na sua sexualidade, humilhando os que não querem transar com elas”, completa. O “ficar” trouxe novidades também para os homossexuais e bissexuais: 3% e 1% dos rapazes, respectivamente, assumiram o comportamento. “Para os jovens que se engajam nessas relações, o ‘ficar’ serve como experimentação e confirmação da opção sexual. Por serem menos públicas, as relações do ‘ficar’ geram menos suspeitas e minimizam rejeições, assédios e violências até que o jovem esteja seguro de sua orientação sexual”, nota Simone. Mas, apesar do discurso renovado dos jovens que dizem “adorar amigos gays”, a realidade mantém o preconceito dos velhos tempos e é uma fonte de bullying entre colegas.

Outro aliado do “ficar” é a internet, vista como espaço mais livre e de maior comunicação para a organização de encontros, ampliando a possibilidade de experimentação das relações e forma de conhecer melhor o parceiro, se aproximar e travar amizades. Mas nem mesmo a ferramenta moderna consegue pôr fim ao combustível natural das brigas: o ciúme, considerado entre os jovens como algo natural entre pessoas que se amam. Incluindo-se os célebres “gritos”: algumas adolescentes usam essa estratégia para evitar a subjugação, adotando uma postura agressiva antes que os rapazes o façam. Eles, por sua vez, ao contrário do que pensam as mulheres, consideram que gritar não resolve problemas de relação. Nisso há um dado preocupante. “Observamos que o jovem que é vítima da violência verbal do parceiro tem 2,6 vezes mais chances de ter sofrido esse tipo de agressão por parte dos pais, comparado com quem não sofreu nenhuma forma de violência”, diz Kathie. “Os adolescentes elegeram a família como a principal referência para questões afetivo-sexuais. Os dados revelam, porém, que raramente os adolescentes procuram ajuda em situações de violência no relacionamento e apenas 3,5% dentre eles afirmaram ter solicitado apoio profissional por causa de uma agressão causada pelo parceiro.” Para Kathie, os profissionais nas escolas e os amigos precisam ser informados para ajudar no processo.

Agressão – “Grande parte dos rapazes e moças considera normal a agressão verbal e física na resolução de seus conflitos amorosos. Romper com essas práticas implica o questionamento sobre certos modelos de existência instituídos no campo social. É importante questionar a associação mecânica de características tidas como universais ao ‘ser homem’ e ao ‘ser mulher’, bem como criticar a desqualificação de um gênero em prol da valorização do outro”, avisa a pesquisadora. Os padrões de violência afetivo-sexual tendem a se reproduzir, porque são estruturais e estruturantes. “Atua-se muito pouco em relação a essa violência entre jovens e adolescentes. Eles costumam ficar em seus próprios mundos, as escolas geralmente não se envolvem no assunto porque julgam que isso não é de sua alçada. Os pais ou não têm tempo ou não acompanham verdadeiramente a vida dos filhos e a tendência é a reprodução dos padrões familiares e grupais”, analisa Maria Cecília. Segundo ela, há uma supervalorização de modelos de consumo, beleza, competitividade e poder, em detrimento de outros modelos, incrementada em grande parte pela mídia, o que provoca uma crise de valores na sociedade. “A juventude reflete de muitos modos esses valores. Mas eu tendo a achar que os jovens de hoje, no meio de mudanças profundas e aceleradas, não são piores que os de nosso tempo, nem ideológica, nem do ponto de vista do compromisso social”, acredita a autora. “Ao contrário: como sempre eles estão aí para realizar uma nova direção do mundo e nos surpreender, como vem ocorrendo, politicamente em vários países do mundo.” Na contramão, felizmente, dos nossos pais.

Matt Ridley: When ideas have sex (TED)

29/10/2011UncategorizedCultura, Economia, Educação, Enquadramento, História, Incerteza, Mediação tecnológica, Psicologia, Semiótica, Visualidaderenzotaddei

The Post-Normal Seduction of Climate Science (Forbes)

27/10/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, comunicação científica, discurso ambiental, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Previsão, Psicologiarenzotaddei

William Pentland, 10/14/2011 @ 12:22AM |2,770 views

In early 2002, former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld explained why the lack of evidence linking Saddam Hussein with terrorist groups did not mean there was no connection during a televised press conference.

“[T]here are known ‘knowns’ – there are things we know we know,” said Rumsfeld. “We also know there are known ‘unknowns’ – that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown ‘unknowns’ – the ones we don’t know we don’t know . . . it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.”

Rumsfeld turned out to be wrong about Hussein, but what if he had been talking about global warming? Well, he probably would have been on to something there. Unknowns of any ilk are a real pickle in climate science.

Indeed, uncertainty in climate science has induced a state of severe political paralysis. The trouble is that nobody really knows why. A rash of recent surveys and studies have exonerated most of the usual suspects – scientific illiteracy, industry distortions, skewed media coverage.

Now, the climate-science community is scrambling to crack the code on the “uncertainty” conundrum. Exhibit A: the October 2011 issue of the journal Climatic Change, the closest thing in climate science to gospel truth, which is devoted entirely to the subject of uncertainty.

While I have yet to digest all of the dozen or so essays, I suspect they are only the opening salvo in what is will soon become a robust debate about the significance of uncertainty in climate-change science. The first item up on the chopping block is called post-normal science (PNS).

PNS is a model of the scientific process pioneered by Jerome Ravetz and Silvio Funtowicz, which describes the peculiar challenges science encounters where “facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent.” Unlike “normal” science in the sense described by the philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn, post-normal science commonly crosses disciplinary lines and involves new methods, instruments and experimental systems.

Judith Curry, a professor at Georgia Tech, weighs the wisdom of taking the plunge on PNS in an excellent piece called “Reasoning about climate uncertainty.” Drawing on the work of Dutch wunderkind, Jeroen van der Sluijs, Curry calls on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to stop marginalizing uncertainty and get real about bias in the consensus building process. Curry writes:

The consensus approach being used by the IPCC has failed to produce a thorough portrayal of the complexities of the problem and the associated uncertainties in our understanding . . . Better characterization of uncertainty and ignorance and a more realistic portrayal of confidence levels could go a long way towards reducing the “noise” and animosity portrayed in the media that fuels the public distrust of climate science and acts to stymie the policy process.

PNS is especially seductive in the context of uncertainty. Not surprisingly, Curry suggests that instituting PNS-like strategies at the IPCC “could go a long way towards reducing the ‘noise’ and animosity” surrounding climate-change science.

While I personally believe PNS is persuasive, the PNS model provokes something closer to revulsion in many people. Last year, members of the U.S. House of Representatives filed a petition challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency‘s Greenhouse Gas Endangerment seemed less sanguine about post-normal science:

. . . the conclusions of organizing bodies, especially the IPCC, cannot be said to reflect scientific “consensus” in any meaningful sense of that word. Instead, they reflect a political movement that has commandeered science to the service of its agenda. This is “post-normal science”: the long-dreaded arrival of deconstructionism to the natural sciences, according to which scientific quality is determined not by its fidelity to truth, but by its fidelity to the political agenda.

It seems unlikely that taking the PNS plunge would appreciably improve the U.S. public’s perception of the credibility, legitimacy and salience of climate-change assessments. This probably says more about Americans than it does about the analytic force of the PNS model.

Let’s face it. Americans do not agree on a whole hell of a lot. And they never have. Many U.S. institutions were deliberately designed to tolerate the coexistence of free states and slave-owning states. Ironically, Americans appear to agree more on climate-change science than other high-profile scientific controversies like the safety of genetically-modified organisms.

While it pains me to admit this, I am increasingly convinced that the IPCC’s role in assessing the science of climate change needs to be scaled back. The IPCC was an overly optimistic experiment in international governance designed for a world that never materialized. The U.N. General Assembly established the IPCC in the months immediately preceding the fall of the Berlin Wall. Only two few years later, the IPCC’s first assessment report and the creation of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

A new world order seemed to be dawning in those days, which is probably why it seemed like a good idea to ask scientists to tell us what constitutes “dangerous climate change.” Two decades and two world trade towers later, the world is a decidedly less hospitable place for institutions like the IPCC.

The proof is in the pudding – or, in this case, the atmosphere.

Forgetting Is Part of Remembering (Science Daily)

26/10/2011UncategorizedCognição, Memória, Psicologiarenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Oct. 18, 2011) — It’s time for forgetting to get some respect, says Ben Storm, author of a new article on memory in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “We need to rethink how we’re talking about forgetting and realize that under some conditions it actually does play an important role in the function of memory,” says Storm, who is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“Memory is difficult. Thinking is difficult,” Storm says. Memories and associations accumulate rapidly. “These things could completely overrun our life and make it impossible to learn and retrieve new things if they were left alone, and could just overpower the rest of memory,” he says.

But, fortunately, that isn’t what happens. “We’re able to get around these strong competing inappropriate memories to remember the ones we want to recall.” Storm and other psychological scientists are trying to understand how our minds select the right things to recall — if someone’s talking about beaches near Omaha, Nebraska, for example, you will naturally suppress any knowledge you’ve collected about Omaha Beach in Normandy.

In one kind of experiment, participants are given a list of words that have some sort of relation to each other. They might be asked to memorize a list of birds, for example. In the next part of the test, they have to do a task that requires remembering half the birds. “That’s going to make you forget the other half of the birds in that list,” Storm says. That might seem bad — it’s forgetting. “But what the research shows is that this forgetting is actually a good thing.”

People who are good at forgetting information they don’t need are also good at problem solving and at remembering something when they’re being distracted with other information. This shows that forgetting plays an important role in problem solving and memory, Storm says.

There are plenty of times when forgetting makes sense in daily life. “Say you get a new cell phone and you have to get a new phone number, do you really want to remember your old phone number every time someone asks what your number is?” Storm asks. Or where you parked your car this morning — it’s important information today, but you’d better forget it when it comes time to go get your car for tomorrow afternoon’s commute. “We need to be able to update our memory so we can remember and think about the things that are currently relevant.”

Brain Scans Support Findings That IQ Can Rise or Fall Significantly During Adolescence (Science Daily)

21/10/2011UncategorizedCognição, Educação, Mediação tecnológica, Psicologia, Visualidaderenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2011) — IQ, the standard measure of intelligence, can increase or fall significantly during our teenage years, according to research funded by the Wellcome Trust, and these changes are associated with changes to the structure of our brains. The findings may have implications for testing and streaming of children during their school years.

Across our lifetime, our intellectual ability is considered to be stable, with intelligence quotient (IQ) scores taken at one point in time used to predict educational achievement and employment prospects later in life. However, in a study published October 20 in the journal Nature, researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) and the Centre for Educational Neuroscience show for the first time that, in fact, our IQ is not constant.

The researchers, led by Professor Cathy Price, tested 33 healthy adolescents in 2004 when they were between the ages of 12 and 16 years. They then repeated the tests four years later when the same subjects were between 15 and 20 years old. On both occasions, the researchers took structural brain scans of the subjects using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Professor Price and colleagues found significant changes in the IQ scores measured in 2008 compared to the 2004 scores. Some subjects had improved their performance relative to people of a similar age by as much as 20 points on the standardised IQ scale; in other cases, however, performance had fallen by a similar amount.

To test whether these changes were meaningful, the researchers analysed the MRI scans to see whether there was a correlation with changes in the structure of the subjects’ brains.

“We found a considerable amount of change in how our subjects performed on the IQ tests in 2008 compared to four years earlier,” explains Sue Ramsden, first author of the study. “Some subjects performed markedly better but some performed considerably worse. We found a clear correlation between this change in performance and changes in the structure of their brains and so can say with some certainty that these changes in IQ are real.”

The researchers measured each subject’s verbal IQ, which includes measurements of language, arithmetic, general knowledge and memory, and their non-verbal IQ, such as identifying the missing elements of a picture or solving visual puzzles. They found a clear correlation with particular regions of the brain.

An increase in verbal IQ score correlated with an increase in the density of grey matter — the nerve cells where the processing takes place — in an area of the left motor cortex of the brain that is activated when articulating speech. Similarly, an increase in non-verbal IQ score correlated with an increase in the density of grey matter in the anterior cerebellum, which is associated with movements of the hand. However, an increase in verbal IQ did not necessarily go hand-in-hand with an increase in non-verbal IQ.

According to Professor Price, a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow, it is not clear why IQ should have changed so much and why some people’s performance improved while others’ declined. It is possible that the differences are due to some of the subjects being early or late developers, but it is equally possible that education had a role in changing IQ, and this has implications for how schoolchildren are assessed.

“We have a tendency to assess children and determine their course of education relatively early in life, but here we have shown that their intelligence is likely to be still developing,” says Professor Price. “We have to be careful not to write off poorer performers at an early stage when in fact their IQ may improve significantly given a few more years.

“It’s analogous to fitness.A teenager who is athletically fit at 14 could be less fit at 18 if they stopped exercising. Conversely, an unfit teenager can become much fitter with exercise.”

Other studies from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging and other research groups have provided strong evidence that the structure of the brain remains ‘plastic’ even throughout adult life. For example, Professor Price showed recently that guerrillas in Columbia who had learned to read as adults had a higher density of grey matter in several areas of the left hemisphere of the brain than those who had not learned to read. Professor Eleanor Maguire, also from the Wellcome Trust Centre, showed that part of a brain structure called the hippocampus, which plays an important part in memory and navigation, has greater volume in licensed London taxi drivers.

“The question is, if our brain structure can change throughout our adult lives, can our IQ also change?” adds Professor Price. “My guess is yes. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that our brains can adapt and their structure changes, even in adulthood.”

“This interesting study highlights how ‘plastic’ the human brain is,” said Dr John Williams, Head of Neuroscience and Mental Health at the Wellcome Trust. “It will be interesting to see whether structural changes as we grow and develop extend beyond IQ to other cognitive functions. This study challenges us to think about these observations and how they may be applied to gain insight into what might happen when individuals succumb to mental health disorders.”

After Pregnancy Loss, Internet Forums Help Women Understand They Are Not Alone (Science Daily)

21/10/2011UncategorizedInteratividade, Internet, Psicologia, Redes sociais, Saúde mentalrenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2011) — Nearly one in six pregnancies end in miscarriage or stillbirth, but parents’ losses are frequently minimized or not acknowledged by friends, family or the community.

“Women who have not gone through a stillbirth don’t want to hear about my birth, or what my daughter looked like, or anything about my experience,” said one woman, responding in a University of Michigan Health System-led study that explored how Internet communities and message boards increasingly provide a place for women to share feelings about these life-altering experiences.

The anonymous survey of more than 1,000 women on 18 message boards opens a new window into who is using the forums and why. The findings will be published in Women’s Health Issues.

The researchers were surprised to find that only half of the women surveyed were in their first year of loss after a pregnancy. Many were still coping with the emotional impacts five, 10 and even 20 years later.

“To my family and most friends, the twins have been gone for nearly a year and are entirely a subject for the past,” another woman wrote.

A second unexpected finding was that only 2 percent of survey respondents were African American, despite nearly 60 percent of African Americans having internet access and despite black women having twice the risk of stillbirth as white women.

“This is the largest study to look at who uses Internet message boards after a pregnancy loss and it demonstrates a significant disparity between the women who experience loss and those who responded to the survey,” says lead study author Katherine J. Gold, M.D., M.S.W., M.S., assistant professor of family medicine at the U-M Medical School. “This suggests an important gap in support for African American parents that should be explored further.”

By far, the most common reason women gave for participating in the message boards was that it helped them to feel that their experience wasn’t unique.

One woman explained that the most important aspect of the forums was knowing “that I am not the only one this has happened to and that I am not alone in this horrible nightmare.” Another common theme was that the online environments provided a safe and validating space for the women to express themselves. Others appreciated the ease and convenience of the Internet and their ability to spend more time composing their thoughts than they would be able to in a face-to-face conversation.

Most participants agreed that boards should have a moderator or facilitator, and that health care professionals should participate. Of the 908 women who answered the question, 82 percent said they had learned new medical information from one of the forums.

“The fact that so many women learned new medical information from the message boards shows what an important resource they can be in this regard,” says study senior author Christie Palladino, M.D., M.Sc., an obstetrician/gynecologist with Georgia Health Sciences University’s Education Discovery Institute.

Gold and her colleagues are currently pursuing similar research with bereaved parents who attend in-person support groups and plan to compare and contrast the results.

Too Much Undeserved Self-Praise Can Lead to Depression (Science Daily)

21/10/2011UncategorizedAuto-ajuda, Enquadramento, Psicologia, Saúde mentalrenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2011) — People who try to boost their self-esteem by telling themselves they’ve done a great job when they haven’t could end up feeling dejected instead, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

High and low performers felt fine when they assessed themselves accurately, probably because the high performers recognized their strengths and low performers acknowledged their weaknesses and could try to improve their future performance, according to a study in the October issue of the APA journal Emotion®.

“These findings challenge the popular notion that self-enhancement and providing positive performance feedback to low performers is beneficial to emotional health. Instead, our results underscore the emotional benefits of accurate self-assessments and performance feedback,” said lead author Young-Hoon Kim, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania. . The study involved experiments with four different groups of young people from the United States and Hong Kong. Three U.S. groups totaled 295 college undergraduates, with 186 women and a mean age of 19, and one Hong Kong group consisted of 2,780 high school students, with 939 girls, from four different schools and across grades 7-12.

In the first two experiments, one of the U.S. groups and the Hong Kong students took academic tests and were asked to rate and compare their own performances with other students at their schools. Following their assessments, all the participants completed another widely used questionnaire to assess symptoms of depression.

In the third and fourth experiments, researchers evaluated the other two sets of U.S. undergraduates with feedback exercises that made high performers think their performance was low and low performers think their performance was high. Control groups participated in both and received their scores with no feedback.

Across all the studies, results showed that those who rated their own performance as much higher than it actually was were significantly more likely to feel dejected. “Distress following excessive self-praise is likely to occur when a person’s inadequacy is exposed, and because inaccurate self-assessments can prevent self-improvement,” said co-author Chi-Yue Chiu, of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

The results also revealed cross-cultural differences that support past findings that Asians are more humble than Americans. The U.S. undergraduates had a higher mean response when rating their performance than the Hong Kong students, at 63 percent compared to 49 percent, the researchers found. Still, they found that excessive self-enhancement was related to depression for both cultures.

Uma (in)certa antropologia

An (un)certain anthropology