Neighbors, aren't they lovely? (EN)

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I have been spending a lot of time in my room during the past month. I had to prepare for my final exams so I locked myself up with all my books for the past four weeks. Now it is almost summer time and I like to keep the window open. Unfortunately my room overlooks a small patio inside the building where I can hear the neighbors as if they were talking from inside my apartment. 

A few days ago, one of the neighbors, a very polite lady with a very soft and delicate voice, inspired me to write this post. 

Anti-pedagogical sentence of the day (heard last tuesday in my patio at 9 am):

Discrete neighbor: "I don't have to teach you anything, you have to learn, you hear me?, you have to learn, I DO NOT HAVE TO TEACH YOU, YOU HAVE TO LEARN!"

Nice education methods!

That happened last week and I wrote a post about it (in Spanish) the very same day. The day after that, I came across my mother on the street and she said...

Mother: "The neighbor told me you wrote a very nice post yesterday".

Busted! 

I had no idea that neither my mother nor the neighbors read my post. I guess I will be moving out soon (just kidding).

The Love Police - La Policía del Amor (EN) (ES)

Let's see what effect a drop of critical thinking has on an ocean of social conventionalism and a lifetime of American influence.

Veamos cuál es el efecto de una gota de pensamiento crítico sobre un océano de convencionalismos sociales y los años de influencia americana que hemos recibido.

Movie Time (EN)

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If you like psychology, here are 3 movies worth watching:

Exam

Eight talented candidates have reached the final stage of selection to join the ranks of a mysterious and powerful corporation. Entering a windowless room, where an armed guard keeps watch, they are given 80 minutes to answer one simple question.

Cell 211

The story of two men on different sides of a prison riot - the inmate leading the rebellion and the young guard trapped in the revolt, who poses as a prisoner in a desperate attempt to survive the ordeal.

The experiment

26 men are chosen to participate in the roles of guards and prisoners in a psychological study that ultimately spirals out of control.

Talk to me or give me the Drugs (EN)

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In this post I would like to address the issue psychopharmacology vs. therapy.

There is a common misconception that if someone is depressed it is because there is something wrong with their brain chemistry and they need to take medicine to “cure” it.

A few years ago, I visited a friend of mine in the States and I was taken aback by the amount of advertising on TV dedicated to prescription drugs, especially antidepressants. The number of people who take this type of medicine in the western world is much higher than in the rest of the world. Is it because people get less depressed in other parts of the world or is it because they do not have access to those medicines?

Depression is a 'sickness' of modern living. Statistical data shows us that depression rates are twice as high in urban areas as in the countryside. Also, in places where daily survival is the rule, there is no such a thing as depression. People who live in hostile environments, where they need to walk a certain amount of time just to get water, do not get depressed like we do in the first world.

However, we, creatures of the modern world with mobiles phones, high-tech devices and plenty of water and food at our disposal, do get depressed, stressed and anxious. Some people blame the existence of these feelings to our brain chemistry.

I have been chosen by God (EN)

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I always believed I was somewhat special. Ever since I can remember I could hear other people’s thoughts in my head. I absolutely knew that I was telepathically connected to every other person on earth. I have always had this sense of purpose, knowing that my special gift must be use for good. I knew of my ability to influence people at my will.

The discovery of my powers was triggered by an episode in which I encountered some guy exiting a store I was going into. He had one of his arms around his girlfriend and waved directly into my face with his other hand, as if waving into a television camera, while saying “Hi, Mom!” I realized then that I could project my thoughts into other people and they could respond and act upon them.

Since that day I started gradually reinforcing and expanding my new mental ability: telepathy. I have become so powerful that I can even communicate with people appearing on television. Sometimes when I was watching a show, I felt a very strong connection with someone there and I knew I was able to communicate my message to him, so they would say or do what I was thinking at that moment.

At first I did not understand why I was blessed with this amazing ability to not only connect with others but also instill my thoughts into them. I further rationalized that I either already was, or could be used as, a messenger from God; to spread his word that we could all get along and live peacefully together as a globally co-operative world.

Now I know I have been chosen to broadcast my thoughts into the world to serve as guidance and inspiration to every human on Earth. The telepathic thought that I will introduce into people’s minds will simply consist of the admonition to always, in every case, without fail, "Treat other people as fairly as you would like them to treat you.” I, then, will add the plea for everyone to always first truthfully test all of their decisions, and actions, with the very important question, "Will this decision, or action I am about to take, cause harm to anyone else in any kind of way?" If this question can possibly be answered with a "Yes", your duty then becomes to always find an alternative to that path of action.

It seems obvious to me that if these two very easy to understand, basic rules of behavior, were consistently followed by everyone on Earth, it would quickly become a much better place to live for all of us.

. . .

Possessiveness and Jealousy (EN)

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In the article I wrote about "Jealousy and Cheating Detection Theory" Juanjo asked in the comments: "Can anyone out there describe clearly and to the point the difference between jealousy and possessiveness?" 

Possessiveness is the feeling that something or someone belongs to you, for example, a slave. You consider that this person is yours and they must obey you. Possessiveness would be what in psychology is called a dispositional factor. It is a person’s disposition and it is not triggered by external (or internal) events. 

This is the result of a person’s education. There was a time when having slaves was socially accepted and that cultural value was passed on from generation to generation. 

Possessiveness in the relationship can lead to jealousy when we see that the other person, not only do not obey us, but also cares for another. This negative feeling of lack of control over our partner, together with the eagerness to regain control at any cost is called jealousy.

From the Kidney to the School (EN)

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A few months ago I had a kidney stone, and today I had scheduled a visit to the urologist. This is a transcript of the conversation we had.

“Age?" the urologist said as I opened the door.


“35,” I replied while still entering the room.


“Any diseases?" I was still closing the door.


“Diseases?" I said, not quite sure how to answer that question.


"Any diseases that you had!," he said holding a pen while looking to blank sheet of paper.


"Measles, mumps, chicken pox ..." I said as I approached the chair that was in front of his desk, where I was supposed to be seated before starting any relevant conversation.


“Any chronic, important diseases!” He shouted as he continued holding his pen with his eyes fixed on the sheet.


“Good morning!” I said as I sat on the chair. At that time the urologist looked up and made eye contact with me for the first time since I entered the room.


“Why did you come?” he looked away and stared to the paper once again.


"I had a kidney stone and I was sent here by my family doctor for a checkup.” I handed him the report my doctor gave me. The urologist took the papers and looked at his nurse, who had spent the entire time I was there typing at a computer. Then he told her, "Let's see what we can do for this sick person.”


“Where is the envelope that came with it?” he asked me, leaving the papers aside without even looking at them.


"My doctor just gave me the papers like that, I was given no envelope.”


"Listen! From now on," he took an envelope out of a drawer, “whenever you come here you bring all relevant documents inside this envelope." He then placed my doctor's report in the envelope. At this point in the conversation I did not whether to stand up and leave or take out a notebook and say, ‘Sorry, I'm just going to note down about the envelope so I do not forget it.’


"Well, tell me what's wrong with you! Any pain? Symptoms?”


"Well, I don’t have any pain anymore.”


"So, asymptomatic," he replied.


"Yes, I suppose that's the right term, well I had a kidney stone and it hurt a lot before, but since I peed it out ... all the pain is g…”


“Where is this calculus?” He asked without letting me finish my sentence.


"It’s being analyzed.”


"I don’t understand. Without the test results I cannot receive you. Did you have a x-ray of the abdomen?”


“No.”


"Well, you get that done and bring me the test results of the calculus, make an appointment for later,” he started to fill in a form for the x-ray and without even looking at me he continued, “The only thing I can tell until then is: ‘drink plenty of water.’” He passed the form to the nurse who gave it to me together with the envelope.


"Goodbye," said the nurse going looking back at her computer screen.


"Goodbye and Happy Holidays," I said, watching the scene of two people engrossed in their own worlds. I had just been a disruption in their autistic morning.

Jury Duty (EN)

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A friend of mine organizes a dance event every year. It is a contest for all ages and styles and it takes place in Bilbao. Some shows and performances run along with the competition throughout the entire event. My friend and her dance group always participate in them and this year I also took part in one of the numbers.

There is usually a theme that gives meaning to the event and a narrator tells a little story as a way of introducing each dance number. Last year I went to see the contest and the narrator did not show up. 30 minutes before the opening number my friend asked me to be the narrator, so I had to memorize the whole script as fast as lightning and perform it the best I could. It was fun. (Yes, for real, it was fun!)

Good Friends vs. Psychologists (EN)

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Since I went back to university to study psychology, people often ask me issues related to it. Almost in every social conversation that I am involved someone brings up the subject. In fact, when someone asks me, "what do you do?" I hesitate and I wonder if the response "I study psychology" goes in my best interest. Because once I make that revelation, there is no turning back and I assure you that I have encountered some strange situations.

Jealousy and Cheating Detection Theory (EN)

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In a previous post Fränk Romeo asked me for some advice to avoid feeling jealous in a long distance relationship.

First of all, I would like to talk about the importance of distance and how it affects relationships in general.

We tend to interact more with people that are closer to us. In an office space, in a school, even in the house of Big Brother, people who are closer together tend to interact more and that interaction leads to other things. Our friends are probably people who we met in our near environment. Research studies show that most people choose as a partner someone who lives nearby (or at least in the same city). In the classroom it is more likely that we become friends with the students that sit next to us, and if we are already friends with someone before we enter a class, we will probably sit together when we attend it.

Social experiments have been conducted to observe how distance affects relationships. We need to distinguish between:

• Physical distance: this is a no brainer, how many meters stand between two people
• Psychological distance: how close we feel to someone or something.

Another thing to take into account is that physical and psychological distance affect each other, as I already mentioned above. We tend to be close to the people we feel close to and get away from the people we dislike or have nothing in common with. However, the opposite is also true. This has been explained in psychology by the feeling of familiarity we get for the things we see more often.

Projection: do you see your flaws in others? (EN)

(Pincha aquí para leer una entrada relacionada con esta en español)


In Freudian psychoanalytic theory, defense mechanisms are unconscious strategies brought into play to cope with reality and to maintain self-image and self-esteem. Healthy persons normally use different defenses throughout life. A defense mechanism becomes pathological only when its persistent use leads to maladaptive behavior and the individual is adversely affected. 


The purpose of the Defense Mechanisms is to protect the mind and the self from anxiety, social sanctions or to provide a refuge from a situation with which one cannot currently cope.

I was talking to a friend today and he told me he used to have a hard time every time he fell in love with someone. After a while he started becoming very jealous if for example, he was calling his girlfriend and she did not pick up right away or her phone was busy. Those feelings of jealousy would not go away until he finally could reach her and she would say that she was talking to her mother, for example.

Why does this happen? Why are some people consumed with intense, irrational suspicions that their lovers are unfaithful? 

Social psychology has a way to explain this, a theory that would also explain why gay people are vilified and attacked by many heterosexuals, or why people would form stereotypes of groups whose members they scarcely know, such Mexicans in the US or South Americans in Spain.

One traditional answer to such questions invokes the concept of projection, one of the many psychoanalytical theory defense mechanisms.  According to this view, when people are motivated to avoid seeing certain faults in themselves, they contrive instead to see those same faults in others. It is well known that repressed homosexuals have prosecuted and persecuted gay men throughout history.

Here is a personal example to see how projection works.

Empathy: unfinished business or pending coursework? (EN)

(Lee aquí el post original en español)

Once again I was asked to translate a post, so here it is. I confess I did use Google translator this time. I was feeling a bit lazy to write it all over again. So, if you see any mistakes, please, let me know.

There is this ongoing debate about whether humans are capable of being genuinely altruistic or not. We can clearly distinguish two sides in this quarrel:

• Those who believe that all human motivation is basically selfish. Thus an individual who helps another does so because otherwise he would feel bad or guilty. The motivation to help is to reduce the negative emotional state (guilt) when not helping. However, if the person would find another way to reduce his/her discomfort (e.g. thinking that helping is not his/her responsibility), he/she will not help.
• Those who believe that the motivation to help others is based on empathy.

There are various definitions of empathy, but the following two are generally accepted by all experts:

• Cognitive empathy: is taking the perspective of another person (intellectually speaking). To put yourself in the shoes of the other.
• Emotional empathy: is to try to experience the same emotions that the other person is feeling, or to react emotionally to the same experiences that other person is living.

Numerous investigations have shown that having an empathic concern produces altruistic behavior. However, the most important discovery in this field is that empathy can be trained.

Through role-playing exercises empathy can be trained. Take the following experiment as an example. People were called into two groups. One group was told "try to take the place of another person," "try to feel what the other was feeling at a certain time", they were even asked to visualize it or write it down. Then they compared their behavior with another group of subjects who have not been trained. The results show that the people who were instructed to empathize with others helped them most of the times, in comparison to the other group who almost did not show any altruistic behavior. This type of experiments has been repeated in different contexts with the same results. People trained in empathy help and care more for others and they feel better about it.

Do you want to test your empathy? Have a look at the following test .

The Kitty Genovese Murder and Bystander Apathy (EN)

Kitty Genovese had driven home from her job working as a bar manager early in the morning of March 13, 1964. Arriving home at about 3:15 a.m., she was approached by a 29-year-old African-American business machine operator who ran after her and quickly overtook her, stabbing her twice in the back. Genovese screamed, "Oh my God, he stabbed me! Help me!" He proceeded to further attack her, stabbing her several more times. Knife wounds in her hands suggested that she attempted to defend herself from him. While she lay dying, he raped her. He stole about $49 from her and left her in the hallway.

Her cry was heard by several neighbors but no one did anything to help during the 35 minutes of the attack.

Academic psychologists took a keen interest in the murder and launched a series of classic experiments investigating what it was later called the "bystander effect".

Feminist encounters of the third kind (EN)

(Puedes leer la entrada original en español, aquí.)


Somebody asked me to translate one of the Spanish posts, so here it comes.

The other day I went to see a cabaret show titled Stranded (original title: Varadas), a claim of women’s rights in a fairly poetic way.

I went to the theater with a friend from university. After the play, as it usually happens every time one goes to see a controversial play, we started an intense debate about the plot. We talked about sexism, and feminism and how some women tend to victimize themselves.

I would like to define some terms of social psychology before proceeding (to make sure we are all talking about the same concepts):

• Sexism refers to beliefs and attitudes in relation to the gender of a person. Therefore includes both men and women. For example, "all guys are pigs" and "all girls are sluts" are forms of sexism.

But sexism does not include only negative aspects, it also takes into account the whole set of beliefs about the roles, characteristics and behaviors considered appropriate for men and women. We should therefore distinguish between two very different types of sexism.

Spontaneous recovery (EN)

I was on the phone the other day with a friend who told me a very interesting story (interesting psychologically speaking, I mean).

Ten years ago he had a gorgeous girlfriend. They were always together. For four years I lost contact with my friend since she was taking up all his time. One day he decided to break up and fled away. The girl was very possessive and controlling. Every time things were not done her way, she would freak out and would try to manipulate everybody to get it back her way. My friend had to put up with that for four long years.

Whenever he would not comply to her demands or would not agree with her point of view, she would consider him her enemy and did everything in her power to ostracize him and put everyone against him. I never took part of her doing, but I saw my friend suffering a great deal because of her sadistic behavior.

We were very young then and when my friend finally broke up with her and moved abroad. We lost contact for several years.

It was not until recently that I came accross him and we got in touch again. He moved back in town a few months ago, and he told me that around a month ago he met his ex-girlfriend by chance and they decided to go for dinner sometime. They met and had a nice time remembering the past, or so he told me on the phone. The fact is that they agreed to meet again last week. What a big mistake my friend made!

Let me explain a bit about classical or operant conditioning before I continue my story.

Skinner box

Through operant conditioning a lab rat can learn to press a lever to get food as reward. For example, every time the rat presses the leaver 5 times, it gets one cheese ball. If we later want to extinct that behavior. In this case if we want the rat to stop pressing the lever, we need to apply an experimental procedure called extinction.

In other words, we have to stop giving the cheese ball to the rat every time it presses the lever. However, how will the rat behave the first time it is not given the reward? It will press the lever even more, (faster and more frenquently.) The rat goes frenzy at first, but slowly it will learn that the reward is not coming and it will stop pressing the lever. So you might think that behavior (the pressing of the lever) is extinct. Well, you're wrong!!!

My friend continued telling me his story over the phone. He and his ex-girlfriend met again and had dinner at her place. She was especially excited that night. Out of the sudden old habits came back to life. It seemed to him that they were twenty two again, and that the ten years that went by without being in touch had never passed. There she was all over him, inviting him to accompany her to a party the day after. When my friend said he was not interested, she got really mad at him. She once again tried to control his life, his way of thinking and the people around him. He left her place promising himself they would never meet again.

But the story does not end there. Not happy with that, she called him the day after to propose him to open a restaurant business together! Can you believe it? My friend politely rejected the offer and tried to get off the phone with a subtle excuse. Do you think she will give up this time?

Back to operant conditioning, once the rat has learned to stop pressing the lever, if you wait some time (days, weeks, even months...) without further training and you put the rat back into the Skinner box, the rat will show the previously learned behavior. So, it will start pressing the lever again expecting to get food. Which leads us to the inevitable question: do we ever unlearn anything or is the knowledge simply dormant waiting for the right circumstances to get activated again?

Classical and operant conditioning explain part of our human behavior. In many cases we behave no different than rats.

Have you ever had a similar experience to my friend's?

For example, have you ever come back home to visit your parents for a few days to find yourself treated the same way as when you were fifteen or eighteen and you still lived with them? Do you believe people change with time or do you think their personalities remain basically the same?

Bowlby's Attachment Theory (EN)

Before we dig deeply into Bowlby's Attachment Theory, have a look at these four quadrants and tell me with which one you feel most identified.

A	B
I'm at ease when I'm emotionally close to someone. I feel comfortable depending on others or when others depend on me. I'm OK if I'm alone. It does not bother me when other people do not accept me.	I feel comfortable without emotionally close relationships. It is very important for me to feel independent and self-sufficient and I'd rather not depend on other people, nor that other people depend on me.
C	D
When I'm involved in a emotionally close relationship, I start feeling uncomfortable. Although I may like getting emotionally close to other people, I find it difficult to trust them or depend on them completely. I'm concerned that I might get hurt if I allow myself to get too close to someone.	I would like to experience more intimacy with other people, but I feel that they are often reluctant to be as close to me as I would like. I feel something is missing when I'm not in a relationship. It sometimes concerns me that others do not appreciate me as much as I appreciate them.

Psychologists define attachment as an emotional bond to another person. The theory of attachment was originally developed by John Bowlby (1907 - 1990), a British psychoanalyst who was attempting to understand the intense distress experienced by infants who had been separated from their parents. Bowlby observed that some separated infants would go to extraordinary lengths (e.g., crying, clinging, frantically searching) to either prevent separation from their parents or to reestablish proximity to a missing parent, while others would remain calm and unaffected.

Research on adult attachment shows that the earliest bonds formed by children with their caregivers have a tremendous impact that continues throughout life. The same system that gives rise to the close emotional bond between parents and their children is responsible for the bond that develops between adults in emotionally intimate relationships.

The thoughts and feelings aroused by the way we were brought up by our parents crystallize in internal ways of thinking and behaving about two schemes:

• The way we think about ourselves (our self worth and self esteem).
• The expectations we have about others (whether they'll be available to us or sensible to our needs).

These internal ways of thinking will manifest themselves in very different type of relationships: father-son, friends, close friends, therapist-patient, teacher-student, lovers and intimate relationships.

There are four basic categories of romantic attachment. They're the result of combining the way we perceive ourselves and the view we have about others.

• Secure adults find it relatively easy to get close to others and are comfortable depending on others and having others depend on them. Secure adults don't often worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to them.
• Avoidant adults are somewhat uncomfortable being close to others; they find it difficult to trust others completely, difficult to allow themselves to depend on others. They are nervous when anyone gets too close, and often, their love partners want them to be more intimate than they feel comfortable being.
• Preoccupied adults find that others are reluctant to get as close as they would like. They often worry that their partner doesn't really love them or won't want to stay with them. They want to merge completely with another person, and this desire sometimes scares people away.

So, can you guess which of the categories correspond to the thoughts in quadrants A,B,C and D? Give it a try and post it in the comments.

Research shows that 79% of people in most cultures have a secure attachment style, while in Eastern Asia preoccupied is the prevalent style. Which one do you think you have?

Astrology and Destiny Theory (EN)

Along the same line of thought of the previous post, we've seen how individuals formulate implicit theories about the nature of relationships, which influence their motivations and behaviors.

Implicit theories are defined as personal ideas or beliefs about a particular phenomenon such as intelligence, friendship, love, personality, etc. For example, everybody has an implicit theory about what an intelligent person is. This everyday view of intelligence would be an implicit intelligence theory. That might be or not be close to what psychologists and other experts define as intelligence.

Regarding friendships (as well as romantic relationships) individuals may have a destiny theory. That means they believe individuals are either meant or not meant to be together. They are either intrinsically compatible or not.

This belief varies from culture to culture. A popular use of astrology is a good example of that. People who belief in astrology have implicit personality theories about zodiac signs and their compatibility. Have you ever been asked for your zodiac sign?

How Astrology and Divinations Work

Research shows that destiny theorists place an excessive emphasis on initial relationship and partner qualities when evaluating the viability of the relationship. People with a strong destiny belief would test potential partners fairly quickly, make their judgement, and move on if the judgement was negative.

The opposite belief would be the growth belief. For these individuals relationship satisfaction is completely unrelated to how well the partner fit the individual’s ideal standard. These people take a more committed, long-term approach to their dating relationships.

These theories also predict differences in how people would respond to negative events within the relationship. Those scoring high on the destiny belief should distance themselves or withdraw from the relationship when things go wrong (a relatively helpless response), whereas those scoring high on the growth belief should engage in more active, mastery-oriented coping that would enable them to solve the problem and learn form the experience.

The same principles apply to friendships. This is especially important during the adolescence period which marks the need for greater intimacy and closeness that can only be satisfied within friendships. Here, individuals holding a destiny theory believe that friendships will either work or not, and ultimately the fate of the friendship is out of each partners’ hands. These individuals attempt to evaluate the validity of the friendship; is this friendship worth their involvement? They see that some friendships are just not meant to be and it may be a waste of time to put effort into trying to maintain that friendship.

A recent study with a sample of 166 sixth grade children showed that endorsement of growth beliefs was associated directly with greater intimacy, conflict resolution and valuing of friendships, while destiny beliefs depended on children’s satisfaction in their friendship.

If you hold a destiny belief (and if you were raised in a western culture

and influenced by Disney movies, you probably do), when you meet someone you like, you will find yourself evaluating that person to see if he/she is compatible with you. Also if your partner matches your ideal for a romantic partner, you will have greater satisfaction in the relationship, but if he/she does not meet your ideal standards, oh well...

One might think a growth belief is a better option than a destiny belief, and wants to become a growth theorist. However this idea lives very deeply in one's mind and it is difficult to change. Your culture, your parents, your friends, the movies you have seen have instilled a particular point of view about the matter and now it is part of you.

So, to which theory are you appointed?