The Measure of Success

A while ago I posted about the overwhelming interest in things like the number of followers, and how this interest could be counterproductive if it got in the way of our basic psychological need for authenticity.

To paraphrase a Hootsuite tweet: It's not about the number of followers, but the quality of the followers.

It seems to me that the real value of integrity is that we get to serve people who need our help, our vision, our experience and way of seeing things - not somebody else's. We are none of us the exact statistical average of a person, so what use is it to pitch to that person?

I was particularly inspired by the interview with Salma Hayek about one of the movies she was involved in producing.

My favourite quote? 'I don't like your boxes, and I am bored with your boxes!' Say it loud! I'm bored too!

I realize that there is some irony to my previous post. Given that I am, after all, on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, and Udemy (not to mention here), it is clear that I am interested in how to improve my outreach and content. But I am happy to say that in the months since that post, I feel more solidly anchored to my vision.

As much as I think it is important to do things 'right' (a lot of marketing is basic have-a-good-product-and-let-people-know-about-it-in-an-appealing-way, which just seems logical), I also think that too much focus on getting people to 'like'  your work is a bad idea. You are doing it for you, to be who you are, whether other people like it or not should be used as feedback or not used at all, but should never be the goal of the work.

So, without kissing all aspects of marketing goodbye, we should probably be using what we know in that field to promote things we need, rather than promoting needs for things (that we don't need).

On Courage: Why Fight When We're Destined To Fail

There's a big problem in the world.

Actually, there are several. Between climate change, ethnic and religious quarrels, wars, terrorism, not to mention the admittedly more petty but seemingly no less intractable problems of the day to day (cough *malware* cough), it's easy to get discouraged.

I was working with a high school student the other day who is studying energy territories in geography (a topic which the curriculum emphasises a good deal more now than when I was in school, it seems). We got to talking about fossil fuels, pollution and renewables, and at some point he said to me: "I'm a pessimist. This all looks pretty hopeless."

*Sigh!*

What did he say beyond what many of us feel when we look at the problem of climate change? It's so huge, so intractable, and most of us have enough to do getting through the day without fighting against an upcoming climate-pocalypse. So why bother?

Defeatism has become a normal part of our culture. A way of life. Cynicism, and its close cousin skepticism, are blankets we use to throw over our real insecurities: that we haven't been clever enough to come up with a solution.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. And it doesn't mean we should allow the younger generations not to try. Or hope. Sometimes, you are going to lose a fight. Fine. But some fights are worth fighting regardless. We have to fight for our right to hope, we have to fight for our right to love, we have to fight for our right to live well, and we have to fight for a miracle. We have to try and hope and try again to come up with solutions to intractable problems because maybe, maybe we'll find one. We have to live everyday and not let others live them for us because they are OUR days. And we have a right to them.

We need more HARD WORK, instead of defeatism. More HOPE, instead of cynicism. Skepticism should be reserved for the beliefs that are dangeous to our health and happiness, not applied to the dreams that keep us alive.

As individuals, maybe we can't change everything, and maybe we are insignificant. But in my life I matter, and in your life, you matter. And we'll both feel a lot better at the end of them if we can say: "I did everything I could do."

Fight till the last second. Hope till the last moment. Be brave and let your children hear you speak of hope. Because we need it, and so do they.

Following and Followers and the Integrity of an Internet Identity

A terrible thing has happened to me; I have discovered Twitter Analytics.

I used to be so free... but now? Now it's all numbers of retweets and engagement...

There's nothing like validation, as I've discussed previously on this blog, and really there isn't. It feels good when lots of people like your work, and there's nothing like the satisfaction of sharing something that means something to you with other people, and finding that it means something to them too. But, as a blogger, tweeter, instagrammer (sp?) or anyone else with an online identity (so... just about everyone) we have to wonder whether our focus is really in the right place when it's on creating lots of followers/likes/engagement/etc.

Maybe I just don't get it. (I don't.) But I have a blog, twitter account, facebook account, youtube channel and I am an online instructor. Views/likes/follows matter to me. But though obsessive stats checking may have happened one or twice (daily) (hourly) in the past, I don't think it has ever helped me create better content.

The social media marketers of the world seem to believe that you can learn what people like and give them more of that. (Well at least that explains this latest Hobbit movie.) But there's a big danger here: it's easy to confuse popular content with good content. For example, I am quite sure I would get a lot more views on my blog and my youtube channel if featured more explosions, or cars. But that would not make my content any better. And it certainly would not make me more satisfied with my internet identity or of what I put "out there" into the world.

Now keep your knickers on! I'm not bashing  popular - I think popularity is often a good indicator of quality. However, I don't think that correlation is a simple one. Let me explain: I believe popularity is a good indicator of quality over time. In other words, quality correlates really well with enduring popularity. But in the short term? Maybe yes, and maybe no. I'm not sure.

Let's be serious for one moment. According to Ryan and Deci (2000), humans have three basic psychological needs: autonomy, relatedness, and competence. Autonomy means the right to self-determination; I see it a lot as the right to be authentically oneself. Relatedness means friends, community, other people; I see it as love in all it's wonderful forms. And competence means a feeling of being good at something; I see it a lot as the feeling of being an effective agent in the world (or at least in one small part of it). Yes, these three needs cuddle up close to each other and overlap, just as thirst and hunger might.

The question that I think we have to be asking ourselves is: how well do our creations, be they online content, writing, art, research, or other, feed these needs? As a content producer, you should be authentic, you should feel autonomous about what you produce (i.e., you are writing/creating content that is meaningful to you). The idea of relatedness means that we are trying to somehow, somewhere, on some level relate to others (i.e., sharing it should be rewarding from the sense of connection it brings). And the idea of competence means that you should feel like what you create is darn good (i.e., kind of like I feel about what I have to say on this blog).

This is a big topic, and there's a lot to say. Stay tuned for more, next week.

Effective Academic Writing: When is it appropriate to use jargon in academic writing?

One of the most common complaints students have when they write is that it is not clear to them when to use jargon. Some teachers state up front "NO JARGON", which leaves many of us puzzled as to what in particular to avoid. But most often, there is simply no guidance. Check out the short video below for some insight.

In short, you can use jargon when you know that you are using it right, and when - basically - you just can't do without it.

A lot of academic writing boils down to doing your best within the constraints you are given. In the case of the use of jargon, this is especially true.

Check out the video for more!

Effective Academic Writing: Word Choice

One of the most important things to keep in mind when trying to write a compelling academic paper is to use the right words for the right occasion. This post aims to help you understand what the right word for the right occasion is.

You want to make sure that your reader understands what you are trying to say. As such, you are trying to be as clear as possible in as few words as possible. This is the real point of an extensive vocabulary. Advanced vocabulary allows you to be accurate, while remaining maximally communicative and concise. The bonus is that advanced vocabulary also makes you sound smart and confers a certain "academic tone" to your paper.

Occasionally, people try to skip straight to the "sounding smart" and "academic tone" part, without paying enough attention to the accuracy, clarity, and communication parts of this game.

DON'T DO IT!

The best way to ensure that you paper receives optimal consideration is by it having a good internal logic, a nice presentation, and accurate vocabulary. As such, try to avoid using vocabulary you are unfamiliar with in order to make your paper look better. Using big words in the wrong way never makes you look good...

Take home message: Academic tone comes from using a polite register and appropriate vocabulary.

Check out the video below for some more insight!

Cheers!

Nadine

Review of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

I just saw this movie yesterday. Though a triumph of visuals in many ways, my entire cinematic experience left me scratching my head. Let's take it from the top:

We arrive in the cinema wondering why our tickets cost so much. Oh, right, 3D. (Why?)

The previews are enough to make anyone think we are the strangest species in the universe. A series of post-apocalyptic horror movies (except they are not really horror movies, just excuses for big wars and big explosions. I call that horrific, personally). I get that movies are fantasy land. But if I had the choice, I would choose fantasies that were more wonderful, more beautiful, and more inspiring. (So again, why?)

Then the movie starts. I went with a friend who knows nothing about the books. I on the other hand, am what one might call a moderate fan. (How does one know where one stands in the world of Hobbit fandom? Good question. I have read all the books more than once, am familiar with Tolkien canon, and have watched every Tolkien documentary I could find on YouTube. I still haven't read the Silmarillion. You just cannot be hardcore until you've read the Silmarillion...)

The movie starts off where you'd expect, given how Smaug left the scene at the end of the last movie.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Smaug descends on Laketown and wreaks havoc. It's awful. Bard's heroic save of the city is made much of (as it should be), and Smaug is no longer.

We then move to a rather lengthy talk through of Thorin's dragon sickness. It's pretty sad. Throughout this segment we see the White Council in action and see the pieces of the puzzle come together through rogue-elf Tauriel and smitten Legolas' actions and reactions. Pretty nifty. This is what they mean by "mining the appendices".

The battle heats up as the Five Armies start to convene at the Lonely Mountain.

Ok here's where the trouble starts for me. So far there have been stunning visuals and I love how they demonstrated that the White Council was on the case since the beginning. We also get to see the Lady Galadriel in action. Very impressive.

It just seems like in order to get this all to happen, the filmmakers had to make the characters act unnaturally and wrong (to borrow a phrase from Jane Austen). This started in the last movie when the dwarves were about to abandon their quest so Bilbo could save them (what?) and when Fili and Kili stayed behind in Laketown ("You belong with the company" "I belong with my brother!"... What?!). This is of course leaving out the dwarf-elf romance (which in itself didn't bother me) and the part where Tauriel was able to heal a Morgul wound just-like-that (that did bother me).

But this movie went a step further. For example, Tauriel held the elven king at arrow point and Legolas stepped in to stop her being killed for it. What?! They are soldiers!! They would never disrespect their chain of command like that, and though the Elf King was made out to be rather more disagreeable in this movie than in the book, he is still an Elf lord -- not a bad guy. I felt that these characters were acting unnaturally.

The other important departure from the story to me was that, in the book, Thorin's redemption comes from charging out and rallying elves and dwarves and men to him in a final desperate push against the enemy. He stays on the battlefield and at that point really becomes the Dwarf King he has forever wanted to become. It is a deeply touching moment because he really comes through when not only dwarves needed him, but everyone needed him. He takes charge, he takes the lead, and he dies, and his nephews die defending him. It is a truly touching and tragic moment because that is also effectively the end of their line. But he dies a King. In the movie, Gandalf says "They are rallying to their King". But then they have this king  leave the battlefield to have his final showdown with Azog somewhere up in the mountains.... Sigh.

It's dramatically successful and much less touching.

SPOILERS OVER


Though my friend was happy that all the action started when it did, I found myself feeling a little let down that the movie, though respecting the story's chiasmic structure and emotional arc, left out some of the important moral bases of the literary narrative.

The point I think this illustrates is that you want to really consider not only what your message is, that is, what you want to share, but also who you want to share it with. Ninety percent of this game is half mental. And the rest is too.

I want to say I applaud the filmmakers for their work, because I believe The Hobbit to have been a terrifically difficult adaptation to the screen because it is so layered. Also, Tolkien knew there were seams in the plot connecting The Hobbit to LOtR, and once said that in order to make everything work he'd have to go back and write The Hobbit again from scratch. So I am thrilled that such a beautiful set of movies have been made that have tried to do this. Thank you for giving us so many years of Middle Earth, thank you to the actors, the filmmakers and everybody who contributed. These movies have been a joy to watch and I hope that any deviations from the literary narrative simply  inspire the new readers to dwell on those sections more curiously and unravel their meanings and teachings. Meanings and teachings which Professor Tolkien certainly imbued them with.

Effective Academic Writing: Returning to the Conversation

A couple of years ago I embarked on a career change. I felt that my PhD wasn't offering me the opportunities that I wanted to be truly generative. I felt that I learned a lot (A LOT) both in an academic and non-academic (just life) sense, but that it was time to move on.

Since then, I have continued to be engaged in the research world - and hope that flame continues to burn strong. I have also started a tutoring and online learning company called NBE Education.

I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to share what I have learned over these past 10 years on the topics of psychology, stress, health, and learning.

One of the things that I have found myself focusing on a lot when I tutor university-level students is academic writing (the other is statistics). I think that writing is something that many of us struggle with, especially in academe, which is bound by very strict rules regarding 1) what you can say, and 2) how you can say it.

To help people out with their writing, and encourage students to write their brilliance (tell the world!) I have created an online course that goes through some of the nitty-gritty of academic writing. The course isn't really designed for the first-time academic writer; it's for people who have written college-level papers before, but feel like they just aren't where they need to be. Maybe you feel like you somehow still can't seem to get your message across. Maybe you feel like you struggle with some basic issues such as how to write a good introduction, how to close you paper in the conclusion. If any of these apply, this course is for you!

Usually this course costs $35. But, given that I want as many people as possible to benefit from this information, I am giving away 20 coupons FREE.  After those 20 coupons are gone, you can get the course through this link for only $7!

If you don't want to spend the money I have also started a YouTube channel where I share some tips and tricks about academic writing, and will be sharing and posting more videos on more topics in the future.

I am so excited to be embarking on this new phase, and hope that you will stay with me throughout this transition!

Thank you to everybody who has followed me for all theses years, and here's to many more!

Peace & Blessings,

Nadine

Trees In Trust

Trees In Trust

This is a marvelous website that allows you to donate to the associated land trusts to buy old forested land in Canada, so that it stays protected with the strongest laws available.

A truly great initiative, and a great way to help protect the environments and eco-systems that sustain us.  Another plus is that you can dedicate the land and present it to a friend as a gift.

I highly recommend this very valuable initiative.

The value of subjective patient reports

Yesterday I was speaking to one of my professors about the emerging receptivity to subjective patient reports in the scientific literature.

One of the big challenges being faced by cancer survivors are serious cognitive deficits, partly due to the effects of treatments and also to the effects of disease.  However, these deficits are often not addressed in the treatment that cancer survivors receive.  Neurological tests, such as the Boston Naming Test (where you have to say that a car is a "car" and a duck is a "duck"), often come back normal, and so -- with no objective measure of cognitive deficit -- individuals are being told that they do not have any problems.  They must be imaginary.  We used to (and still) do this with some pain sufferers.  If our methods cannot detect an underlying problem that would cause pain, we tell them they must not have any.  Their problems are "just in their heads".  Imaginary.

This is plainly ridiculous.  If a person says they are in pain, they are in pain.  In 1968, a new (well, it was new) definition of pain was introduced into the nursing field: "Pain is whatever the experiencing person says it is, existing whenever he says it does" (McCaffery, 1968).  I believe the same is true of deficits of complex functions like cognition.  If a person says they are not functioning as well as they used to, or as well as they should be, and we can't measure it -- too bad for our measurements!  The person has a real complaint, and it is our job to figure out how to improve the situation.


The greatest failures of science in my opinion occur when people fail to realize that their algorithms or models or measurements or theories are wrong.  When we are faced with information out in nature that does not fit in with our model, and we dismiss that information instead of our models.  We need to be building frameworks that CAN and DO include the information out in the world!  I was thrilled to hear of the 'revenge of the subjective' in health science!


Though we may not be able to measure a given problem at this time, if we have a good question to ask, we might be able to come up with a good answer.  The beauty of real problems is that they come with real solutions.  Just because we don't have the measurement yet doesn't mean we will never have it.

In the meanwhile, it is difficult to sit with the pain, the anxiety, and the anguish of knowing that people are suffering.  It can be equally difficult to know that some people who are complaining of certain kinds of pain, emotional or physical, are malingering and working the system for reasons sometimes good and often not.  But I believe that how we deal with these problems will end up defining who we are as a science, and that humanity and forbearance are our best bets for coming out on the other side unscathed.

Causality vs. Associationism

Depression is associated with worse health outcomes in people with cardiovascular disease.

It is.  Really.

But there is something of a debate as to WHY that is.  Is it because people who are depressed take less good care of themselves?  Of their health?  Is depression related to physiological changes that slow down the healing process in people who are ill?  Is depression actually just the conscious expression of inflammatory dysregulation in some of us?  An epiphenomenon of a cardiovascular problem, if you will?

We are trying to figure all this out.  

But I would like to take a moment to question why we are asking what we are asking.  After all, does it matter WHY depression leads to worsened health outcomes, so long as we know that it does?

Does it matter whether depression causes cardiovascular disease, or is it enough to know that the two are associated?  Correlated.  Tend to happen together.  A lot.

Nobody believes what psychologists say anymore.  We are the scientific version of the boy who cried wolf.  We try to be helpful.  We say things like "people with dogs are happier" and then (logically) we figure that giving unhappy people dogs will make them happier too!  It's not dumb.  It's cute.

Avoiding those kinds of fallacies in our field really is pretty difficult.  Especially when you're torn between being a science that wants to stay pure and being a science that wants to help.  Because if you want to help, then you really need to know HOW to help.  And to know how to help, you need to know WHY good things happen in some cases and bad things happen in others.

If only we weren't so bad at that...

However.  Hope is not lost.  We are very good at knowing which sorts of things tend to happen together.  For example, depression and CVD.  They happen together.  Self-esteem and success.  Social support and well-being.  Exercise and morale.  Yes, let's use exercise and morale as an example.  

In this excellent paper the authors show that: "Regular exercise is associated with reduced anxious and depressive symptoms in the population at large, but the association is not because of causal effects of exercise" (p.897).

Does that mean that you shouldn't bother exercising?  Of course not.  But it DOES mean that if you have been depressed and anxious, once you start exercising, you are likely to be feeling better.

The problem is: so what?  So we can't prescribe exercise to make people feel better (there is plenty of disagreement with this viewpoint, by the way), and we are left completely thwarted in our goal of being helpful.

Harumph.

But.  Let's say we were to bypass the entire problem of causation.  Let's say we were to get really crazy and say that we just weren't going to BUY IN to the whole IDEA of causation.  (Take that, Liebnitz.) And just as an aside, we wouldn't be the first.  Remember Hume: 

"Thus we remember to have seen that species of object we call flame, and to have felt that species of sensation we call heat. We likewise call to mind their constant conjunction in all past instances. Without any farther ceremony, we call the one cause and the other effect, and infer the existence of the one from that of the other."  -- A Treatise of Human Nature (taken from this very excellent slide show) 

But what we do know is that the two tend to happen together.  Associationism.

So you should exercise because people who exercise feel good.  And you should feel good because who feel good exercise.

And if you feel like crap, exercise isn't going to change that.

But if you want to change that, exercise might be something to look into.


I believe that one of the reasons associationism as a philosophy hasn't been embraced by scientific psychology is that it's more mind-boggling than causation.  However, I believe that in certain cases, getting stuck on the question of causality in health is counter-productive.  It is not helpful.

Perhaps if we identify the sorts of healthy behaviors and physiological states we find optimal, and learn how they cluster together, we will be able to DESCRIBE the kinds of healthy states we would like to move towards.  Then we can tackle the question of causality.

Indeed, if we assume that the natural state of the organism is to move towards health -- and there is evidence to suggest that it is -- then perhaps simply presenting people with healthy alternatives will move them towards health, less by cause than by osmosis.

Thought of the day: New Year's Resolutions

Making and breaking New Year's resolutions are a popular pastime.  People resolve to do all kinds of things.  Exercise more, eat better, work harder, bla bla bla.  But what for?

To be happier.

Isn't that right?  Isn't that the real reason that we would put ourselves through the torture of diet and exercise?  (I am of course not talking about all the people who LIKE eating healthy and exercising.  After all, if you're one of those people and you make diet and exercise your New Year's resolution, well that is a cop out, my friend.  A cop out that I, personally, fully approve of, but a cop out nonetheless.)

But the question to me is, will those kinds of resolutions really make us happier?

As I was travelling over the holidays I had the great good luck of having a really interesting conversation with my seat neighbour on the plane.  We were talking about life, the universe, and everything - and how it all relates to medical psychology.  And through our discussion, we concluded the following: living a full, happy life takes a lot of effort.

Now let me be clear.  I have, for many years, tried the whole work harder and be better, fitter, (read: miserable) formula because I bought it when they told me that I would be happier for it later.  Based on my study (n=1, but there are replications), that's bullsh poppycock.  Being miserable will only get you one thing: more being miserable.

The kind of work that I'm talking about here is the kind of work that will get you more being happy.  In other words, how do you work at being happy?  How do you go about living the kind of life you want to live?  Here's a quick list of steps that I have found elucidate the strange process of working towards happiness that avoids the torture-trap of working towards being miserable.

Step 1.  Identify things that you LOVE.  

The basic equation to making sure you love your life is to put more things you love in your life.  So what do you love?  For example, I just bought new curtains, and I LOVE them!  Seriously, I went from walking into my apartment everyday and being dissatisfied, to walking into my apartment everyday and wanting to applaud!  (And I'm not even done redecorating yet!)  It's so small a thing, but it's made such a difference to me.  And that's the important thing.  It made a difference to me.  So what do you love?  Cooking?  Hiking?  Beautiful decorations?  More time with friends?  All of the above and more?  Being happy means you know yourself and you know what makes you happy.  Which leads us to Step 2.

Step 2.  Do the things that you LOVE to do.

Yeah.  I have known that I love sailing for years.  I have yet to take a sailing course.  Why?!  Why do we do this to ourselves?  I mean look at how excited I am over curtains! Just imagine how happy I will be when I start SAILING!  But baby steps.  We all like to get in our own way every once in a while.  That's ok.  (That's  why this is Step 2.  It's harder.)  I say start small.  One of the reasons so many New Year's resolutions fail is that they're too darn big and we are just not ready to make so big a change.  Don't say I will sail around the world, say I will take one sailing class.  Don't say I will become a master pianist, say I will learn to play one piece, and then maybe another.  Don't say I will move into a mansion in another city, say I will buy new curtains.  And then do!

Step 3.  Repeat.
That's it!  :)

Marc Chagall and the Meaning of Life

Science and art are often pitted against one another.  Science is 'Objective' and 'Rational' and art is the opposite.  'Subjective'.  'Emotional'.

But is this distinction real?  There is an art to rationality, just as there is a science to artistry.  But more importantly, art and science are both slaves to the same fundamental question: ''Why?''.  Oh, it's not that we don't care about who and what, when and where.  But science and art need to know why.

And so, predictably, art has come to be the answer to that most dangerous of questions that plagued me for most of the summer:  Why psychology?


Finally, I have an answer:  Marc Chagall.  Bear with me if my explanation seems cryptic, I'm doing my best here.  Psychology's raison d'être - when there are other fields like neuroscience and philosophy, sociology and economics - is that one day a man decided to be an artist.  He asked why love and family, why health and illness, why religion and country...   Chagall is my favorite artist.  And if I had to make up a reason why, I'd say it is because he asked all the right questions without ever being afraid of the answer.

These are themes that we all have to grapple with at some point in this life, and a science of psychology gives us a language, a framework, for talking about and questioning  these themes - and for keeping our answers at least a little bit honest.

There's more to being a science than the answers.  If anything, it's more about asking questions.  And Chagall's work has something to say about that too.  Perhaps in our determination to make sure it is a respectable-looking Science, psychology loses more than it gains because it cannot ask all its questions.  Part of what contributed to my existential crisis over the summer was my devastation at the futility of the questions being posed in social science.  But maybe we are asking uninspired questions because we are afraid of the answers we might get to any better questions.  (After all, few of us actually really want to be saddled with anything like the political nightmare that are Milgram's results).

Maybe this is where art has something to teach us.  Asking 'why' even when it doesn't look like the answers will be all that much fun.  Far from running from it, psychology can be inspired by art to ask all of its questions.

--
Thanks to ArtisticThings.com and GrandeYeoem.com for images.

Psychology's Raison D’Ëtre, Part 2

Scientific modeling of Psychological Truth is hard.  Standard nomenclature is difficult when most of our constructs are expressed in the modern languages (as opposed to having a periodic table of the emotions, let's say, that is universal).  To make matters worse, we rely on somewhat unreliable statistics to tell us whether or not we are Right.  Correct.  In the general area of Truth.

Is this a Science?

I’m going to say Yes. (Obviously.)  But ours is a developing science.  Somewhere on the continuum between Alchemy and Chemistry, Astrology and Astronomy. 

It has been suggested that Psychology is the Science before Neurology. 

I disagree.  Neurological science is going to massively inform Psychology.  But it is never going to replace it.  The reason for this is that nobody goes around saying ‘Oh my neurons are firing wrong today’.  We say ‘I feel sad!’ or ‘I feel happy!’.  And we say those things in predictable ways.  The existence of a micro-level construct does not preclude the existence of (or the importance of) the macro-level construct. 

Depression is not just a problem in the brain; it is a diseased state of mind and ALSO a problem in the brain. 

That being said, I think Psychology will split off into Science-Parts, and Non-Science Parts.  In the future,I think this is what the Science and the Non-Science of Psychology will look like:

-          Research psychology = Science in its own right.  And with major overlap in the biomedical sciences, mainly neuroscience.

-          Clinical psychology = Both science and alchemy.

-          Philosophical psychology = Philosophy.

-          Lay psychology = Some fun, some practical, some common sense.  And some derived from the above.

In short, I am trying to be clear about the Raison-D’Ëtre of psychology in modern science.  In talking to my colleagues, I think there is a shared and only half-spoken unease about the place of our science in the world today.  Who are we, and what are we good at?

I think the answers are there.  I think there will be changes to how we define ourselves.  But the issues that psychology talks about (e.g., relationships, group dynamics, mental health, how we think and why we do things) are so fundamental to our well being and operation as individuals and as a society that we have to study them scientifically, even if there are also other ways to approach them.

After all, when I think of the reasons I went into this crazy field, I remember them clearly.  I thought that a Scientific Psychology would incorporate all my favourite parts of Mathematics, Philosophy, Medicine, and Theology.  And I still do.

--

See Part 1

In Defense of The Scientific Practice of Speculation, Part 2

These days, speculation seems to be almost a dirty word.  There’s good reason for this.  Scientists, especially social scientists (especially psychologists?) are known for drawing conclusions that go way beyond their data.  We tend to be an idealist lot, and we think we have already intuited all there is to know about human nature and are really just conducting these studies and things to confirm our notions (OK – luckily this is not always true… but let’s be honest… “research is me-search” and we are often a liiiiittle more invested in our hypotheses than we should be. I think this is partly a systems issue. But I digress.)

But that's BAD speculation.  And bad science.

However, speculation before the creation of hypotheses I think is essential.  We are altogether too “in the box” these days.  We need to flatten that box into a topological map of psychic life and get some better ideas flowing!  (Kudos if you get the reference.)

And the only way to do that is by being a little bold, a little outlandish, and by being wrong.  Maybe 10,000 times.

Psychology's Raison D’Être

What are the goals of science?  We have several options:

1)      The goal is to explain the world so that we can predict and control it

2)      Goal 1 becomes Goal 2 of philanthropy

3)      Fun

4)      Exploration of the world as it exists (or doesn’t)

I feel like psychological science is having a bit of an existential crisis.  At least, I am having an existential crisis for it. 

How come all of the really cool research seems to have been done 50 years ago?  How is it that thousands of studies have been published on the relationship between depression and heart disease and we still don’t know what we’re doing? 

Is the field of Psychology really passé? I can’t believe it!  (Seriously.  I can’t.  I’m getting a degree in this here-now field.  How depressing would that be?)

But it seems clear that psychology without solid empirical and methodological anchors is doomed to failure as a science (though it can still make good philosophy, and in some cases, maybe even good therapy).  My only fear is that psychology with solid empirical and methodological anchors is doomed to failure as well.

Let me explain.

One of the most important freedoms of good science is the Right to be Wrong.  I always love it when I read posts about how important it is to allow oneself to be wrong.  There was a blogging trend along these lines on awhile back and I thought it was fabulous.  People were talking about the importance of accepting being wrong during training in medicine – a field where being wrong can be accompanied by disastrous consequences.

But this speaks to the difference between research and the clinic.  In research, and in innovation, it is not only OK to be wrong, it is frankly necessary.

To use a hackneyed example, Edison is reputed to have been “wrong” 10,000 times before he came up with the right model for a light bulb.  How often do students of science allow themselves to be wrong these days?

I noticed this when TAing over the past year.  Graduate students in Medical Psychology, both clinical students and research students, were very uncomfortable being wrong.  Students were very uncomfortable getting a grade under an A, and would often staunchly argue that they were right… even when they weren’t… or when they could have been, but they also could have been wrong.  That’s research.

I think that when I start teaching in earnest I am going to start each class with the following quotation, from my ever-brilliant mom: “The quickest way to be right is to admit it when you’re wrong.”

After all, I like being right too.  You don’t become an over-achieving grad student if you don’t like to be right, and have everybody around you acknowledge it.

But here’s the problem: you don’t become a good scientist unless you are sometimes (often?) wrong.  And know it.   

That’s the whole point of a hypothesis.  Come up with a hypothesis, test it, go forward if it is correct – and change it if it is not!  Follow where the data lead!

Understanding Human Connections, or In Defence of The Scientific Practice of Speculation!

Ramachandran said that mirror neurons are the basis of society.  This might be considered stretching the data.  But let’s!  (It's fun!)

In studying disease, we come to see that disease spreads (Christakis & Fowler, 2007, 2008).  Why?

So, why?  We don’t really know the answer to that question (see review of Christakis & Fowler book - really worth reading).

What if neuroscience showed us a way?  What if mirror neurons – or more accurately, a neurological system that both could identify others’ goals and made us imitate them when we identify with that person whether we are aware of it and whether we like it or not – could explain it? 

The issue with the mirror neuron hypothesis is that as far as I understand it, I would have to see you eat or smoke in order to be able to internalize that goal.  But according to this research, that does not seem to be necessary.

There has got to be a mechanism though.  We just don’t know what it is yet.  And without speculation, we never will!

Oh, To Be a Real Science!!

I am not the only psychologist with Physics Envy, I see.  Check out this delightful post that makes use of the wave-particle idea on PsychCentral.

An exerpt:

"And I think we’re also getting over what the systems theory people did when they discovered that the pathology of adolescents was the function of families. They went in to work solely with families and lost the self. We lost the self in the system. Self is the system, but it’s also a location interacting with a system…

What I’m trying to do in my writing is to highlight that it is neither the self nor the system; it’s the oscillation between the two. That’s the constant; the oscillation. Self changes, the system changes, but the oscillation is constant. Maybe that’s what the self is – the oscillation.

That’s fascinating. So that oscillation between the self and the system, between self and other, and also between thought and feeling,…

And between particle and wave…

…so you’re considering that movement itself as maybe where the self resides…

Well, is there a particle? No. Is there a wave? No. There’s a wave-particle relationship, and interaction, and what’s constant is the oscillation. So that begins to provide you with a process that’s not chaotic – if everything is moving, then that movement becomes the structure."

- From  Getting the Love You Want: Interview with Harville Hendrix (Part 3) 

by Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar

Methodological Challenges in Psychology, or Why We Shy Away from Measuring Emotion.

I previously wrote regarding the difficulties of measurement in a science with no bad incomplete nomenclature.  Psychology is a scientific discipline that is concerned with the measurement, prediction, and explanation of complicated macro-level phenomena that we often have difficulty identifying and explaining.  Like emotion.

Emotion is a powerful force.  So powerful, in fact, that it can move entire populations to migrate, to fight, and to die.  And yet, in our day to day lives, many of us do not like to acknowledge how we feel.  Emotions can get in the way.  Indeed, certain psychopathologies may have their roots in emotion avoidance (think: depression, anxiety, certain somatic disorders).  In other words, you get anxious to avoid feeling sadness.  You get depressed to avoid feeling anger or pain. 

It all makes sense, really.  If emotion really is such a powerful force, then we know intuitively the devastating effects it can have on our lives, and most of us have stuff to do, and really can’t be bothered.  Some of us also are probably more prone to strong emotion than others, which makes things more difficult for those who have to sort them all out.  (This is part of my two-factor lay-theory of psychopathology:  extremes of sensitivity or intelligence = bad news for your mental health.)

But here’s the point I really want to get to: we do not know how to measure emotion.

Asking people (self-report) often doesn't work, unless they are particularly self-aware and willing to share with you.  ‘Objective’ measures (physiology) are often used, but they can be confounded by anything from hot coffee to a hot research assistant. 

Emotion used to be reviled as a topic of study in psychology because it was thought of as too fluffy: “If we can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist”.  I think this was misguided.  After all, emotion is too powerful a motivator, and I think that having ignored it in science and theory so far is part of the reason we can’t explain or don’t understand a lot of what’s going on in the world today.  We have to stop being afraid of measuring things that we don’t understand.  After all, I don’t understand what light is (a wave AND a particle?  For serious?)  But I could measure it anyway. 

We have to step up to the challenge in psychological research today of addressing the issues that matter:  motivation, beliefs, pain, emotion.  The big ones.  The scary ones. 

Yes, the methodology will be complicated and a pain in the butt.  But big deal!  Check out how complicated it is to measure light. 

Reflection, Validation, and the Most Important Discovery in Neuroscience

Dr. Ramachandran’s TED Talks discussion of mirror neurons, is the awesomest thing.

Not everybody shares Dr. Ramachandran’s opinions about the importance of mirror neurons.  But I do!

The notion of mirroring is so central to human relationships, seeing yourself in others is absolutely crucial to discovering who you are and what you want.  It may be speculation, but there must be biological underpinnings to this process that are widely shared – because they allow society and civilization.  Reflection and social connectedness is a theme in most if not all of the major religions (Prothero, 2011).  This is a process that is so crucial to our humanness it deserves to be studied more fully. 

I have been reading an AMAZING article relating mirror neurons and Theory of Mind (ToM) in humans (Gallese & Goldman, 1998).  If mirror neurons are the basis of a certain kind of empathy, or theory of mind, then we must explore this more fully.

A note about the research so far:  Not everybody is equal in terms of empathic capacity or theory of mind.  It is unlikely that anything so finicky as mirror neurons should show the same activation in all people, without regard to their trait levels of such variables.  And in order to measure empathic capacity or theory of mind in adults, researchers have to get creative.  Perhaps an emotion-induction procedure followed by a validation procedure can help us get to where we need to be?

A note on social media:  The process of seeing oneself reflected on a computer screen has not been studied empirically in enough detail.  How important is it to me that blogging reflects a part of my mind I don’t express anywhere else?  How important is it to know that somebody who reads this, gets it? 

Pretty important, I think.

Social media and blogging are likely to be one of the best platforms for studying the processes relating to ToM (self-consciousness and other consciousness) and its potential neural underpinnings, in adults.  This is so exciting!  Has this been done anywhere?  Did I miss it?  When can we get started???

Social Medicine: we need a 300 year plan

The WHO defines health as follows: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

I like this definition for including the phrase "social well-being".


When we talk about “lifestyle” and lifestyle changes that need to happen to prevent chronic disease, we are talking about what is really a social problem.

Social medicine is the field that is concerned with building the infrastructure we need for healthy communities. 

Our default when we think about health is to think of it as a biological phenomenon, lying within one individual.  While I wouldn’t argue that this is not the mechanism through which disease seems to be expressed, I would argue that this does not accurately reflect the whole picture.


Take the following pieces of trivia:

1)   Childhood trauma predicts poor physical and mental health in adults, and chronic pain (Goodwin & Stein, 2004; Van Houdenhove & Luyten, 2006). 

2)   Low SES or social trauma (Benjet, 2010) in childhood also predicts chronic disease in adulthood (Pollitt et al., 2005).

I found this so surprising when I first came across it.  SES matters to the development of chronic disease.  Why should that be?! What does that mean?  Well, my take homes were this:

1)   The psychological and the physiological aspects of health are intertwined in complex ways.  Maybe negative social pressures are the reason motivational interventions in chronic disease often fail: those who had the mental & social resources to implement positive change already have! (And hence did not develop chronic disease in the first place.)

2)   Health and behavior are community (see: family systems) issues.

Public health policy has been most involved in the field of social medicine so far.  Interventions range from sex ed to food regulation.  This work is invaluable, but we need more. We know that we need to eat right, exercise, not be too stressed, not get too fat... We know what we need to do, but still, we don't seem to have the the infrastructure in place to make it easy, or natural, to do those things.  Healthy food is harder to access than unhealthy food.  Pollution is a growing problem.  And a cursory look at the news shows that social strain, conflict, and stress are poorly managed among many of us.  

Part of the problem is just life.  The other part of the problem is just bad (social) planning.  



Social medicine asks what we are doing to promote:

-     Public health policy that benefits both individuals and communities

-     Community & health development

-     Individual care (combining the best of both physical and psychological treatments)

-     A systems approach that takes into account the social value of healthcare (i.e., what, other than direct medical care, does a patient get out of a hospital or clinic visit?  Social support?  Empathy?  If so, how best can we design our health care system and other aspects of social infrastructure to provide its members with support sustainably throughout a lifetime?)   

 
With the problems the world is facing today in terms of sustainability, wars, pollution, etc… we need interventions that not only help us right now, but help us long term.  Forget a 30-year plan, we need a 300-year plan.
  
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 On social medicine and its uses:

- The Canadian Facts  
- WHO Social Determinants of Health 
- Monthly Review 
- Wikipedia (always)