Mind Hacks

The New York Times has a great short article on the science of crying, covering recent studies that have investigated the common idea that it is a useful way of releasing pent-up emotion.

The idea that crying is cathartic has been researched more than I realised with numerous large scale studies tackling in what situations people cry, as well what impact it has on our emotional state.

Now, some researchers say that the common psychological wisdom about crying ‚Äî crying as a healthy catharsis ‚Äî is incomplete and misleading. Having a ‚Äúgood cry‚Äù can and usually does allow people to recover some mental balance after a loss. But not always and not for everyone, argues a review article in the current issue of the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science. Placing such high expectation on a tearful breakdown most likely sets some people up for emotional confusion afterward…

In a study published in the December issue of The Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Dr. Rottenberg, along with Lauren M. Bylsma of the University of South Florida and Ad Vingerhoets of Tilburg University in the Netherlands, asked 5,096 people in 35 countries to detail the circumstances of their most recent crying episode. About 70 percent said that others’ reactions to their breakdown were positive, comforting. But about 16 percent cited nasty or angry reactions that, no surprise, generally made them feel worse.

The science of crying was also covered in a recent BPS Research Digest post that discussed another one of Rottenberg’s studies that focused entirely on females.

Link to NYT piece ‘The Muddled Tracks of All Those Tears’.

Time magazine has an interesting article on links between given names and behaviour, with a new study finding children with unpopular names are more likely to be get in trouble with the law.

This doesn’t mean that being called an unusual name causes criminality – the article notes that boys with unpopular names are likelier to live in single-parent households and be poorer, which are also known to be linked to higher levels of offending.

However, it does add to a growing body of research suggests that our names have a curious influence on our life.

A great review article in The Psychologist from last year covered much of findings, including the fact that people tend to buy products they share initials with, those whose names start with C or D are more likely to receive those grades than are other students, and people called Louis are more likely to live in St. Louis, Mary in Marysville and so on.

The same effect also seems to happen with initials, so Marys are also more likely to live in Manchester.

However, the Time article focuses more on how your name affects how others react towards you and perceive you, which may have a reciprocal impact on your own life chances:

The short answer is that our names play an important role in shaping the way we see ourselves — and, more important, how others see us. Abundant academic literature proves these points. A 1993 paper found that most people perceive those with unconventionally spelled names (Patric, Geoffrey) as less likely to be moral, warm and successful.

A 2001 paper found that we have a tendency to judge boys’ trustworthiness and masculinity from their names. (As a guy whose middle name is Ashley, I can attest to the second part.) In a 2007 paper (here’s a PDF), University of Florida economist David Figlio found that boys with names commonly given to girls are likelier to be suspended from school.

And an influential 1998 paper co-authored by psychologist Melvin (a challenging first name if there ever was one) Manis of the University of Michigan reported that “having an unusual name leads to unfavorable reactions in others, which then leads to unfavorable evaluations of the self.”

Link to Time on the effects of names.

I just found this fascinating TED lecture by economist Steven Levitt on the social structure and economics of ghetto crack dealing. What’s surprising is that hustling rocks is a below-minimum-wage occupation with a 7% per annum employee death rate – despite the hype, a very shitty job.

Levitt is famous for being one of the co-authors of the book Freakanomics but is mostly known in the academic world for his research on the economics of crime and the underworld.

His lecture recounts some of the findings of a 10-year research project into the economics of a crack-dealing gang from an inner city US housing project.

Unsurprisingly, being a hustler is incredibly dangerous, but perhaps more of an eye-opener is that the business is run very much like a franchise and that most street dealers had second jobs, moonlighting in the mainstream economy, because dealing crack pays below the minimum wage.

The career prospects are slightly better higher up the ladder, but are still surprisingly modest in the grand scheme of things.

In other crack news, The New York Times recently published an article discussing research on ‘crack babies’, now many children whose mothers were addicted to crack while they were pregnant have grown up to be adolescents.

During the 1990s, a huge fear was that the children of ‘crack moms’ would be neurologically impaired, as when born they tend to be smaller in body and head size.

Although there are detectable differences in the teenage years, these aren’t as bad as expected, and it seems that being a ‘crack baby’ isn’t a life sentence as it was once thought.

Link to Steven Levitt on sociology and economics of crack dealing.
Link to NYT on ‘The Epidemic That Wasn’t’.

Although much of The Telegraph’s science coverage seems to have gone down the pan recently, they’ve just published a remarkably well balanced and informative article on war trauma and how it is associated with measurable changes in brain structure.

Brain imaging studies have found that people with post-traumatic stress disorder tend to have smaller hippocampi, an area known to be key for emotional memory.

But it’s not clear whether this is a direct consequence of PTSD, or simply that people with smaller hippocampi are more likely to develop the disorder after trauma.

The article does a fantastic job of presenting a balanced look at the causality hypnotheses, and quotes psychiatrist Simon Wessely, known for his research on the psychology, neuroscience and history of combat trauma.

But Prof Wessely has found that the very thing that exposes soldiers to PTSD might also help them deal with it: their job. According to his research at King’s, group cohesion and firm leadership are critical in reducing the impact of psychological distress.

“You have to remember we are talking about professional soldiers who have been highly trained,” he says. “Their training is designed to harden them against the unpleasant nature of war. The military is actually very effective at reducing the risk of PTSD with their training, their professionalism, esprit de corps and morale. War is a stressful business and this all prepares soldiers for that.”

The flip side is that the memories that provoke trauma are not necessarily those of gruesome battles or injuries. “The kind of events that affect them are not simply seeing bad things and coming under fire ‚Äì it is when the rules they have come to expect are somehow broken. It is when errors of omission or commission lead to the feeling they have been let down, or that they have let their comrades down, that mental health problems occur. This is why ‘friendly fire’ incidents are so psychologically damaging ‚Äì it violates the soldiers’ rules of who is supposed to be shooting at them. They will feel anger at those responsible.”

The only bizarre bit is the second to last paragraph where it mentions “new treatment is being developed, drawing on neurolinguistic programming, relaxation techniques and even Eye Movement Desensitisation Therapy”.

It mentions EMDR as if it is something unusual, when it is an increasing well researched evidence-based treatment, and NLP as if it is nothing out-of-the-ordinary, when it is largely pseudoscience that lacks even the most basic empirical support.

Link to ‘How brain scans show the trauma of war’.