Psychology of disrespect and being proud of law breaking. How does it work and how to combat it? I'm gonna talk about Russia. :) I'm not interested in foreign policy, relations, for this question... maybe just a tiny bit.

A little preamble.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union (hereinafter S.U.), the people got lost, they didn't know who they were, what they wanted to do and who was going to tell them what to do. S.U. did a really good cleansing (of people's minds)... they were destroying all the traditions and knowledge that people lived by before S.U.: how to organize themselves, how to protect your property and even how to manage your household (if you're living in your own house). Private property, businesses, gold and anything valuable were seized. From the Party's point of view it was better if you live in an apartment rather than your own house. So, after the collapse, it was, loosely translated in English, the wild and evil ’90s. Basically the time of socio-political chaos. All the bad in people surfaced and no one to stop them because bribery was a second nature and it got instilled in the culture and the government.

Now to the point of the question.
Nowadays, when people break laws, even those that just a manifestations of common sense and you point that out, they tend to just show "muscles" and try to scare you away. Examples: driving in places when it's prohibited, littering, bribing the law enforcement, causing disturbances (e.g. playing loud music). Driving dangerously is a particularly big problem.

The reasoning often goes something like this: that's ok, no one's there, and it's really stupid not to take the "opportunity" (for saving little time, money, effort), I will do no harm... And even if you don't take this "opportunity", in some circles there can be social pressure to act like this. Romanticizing and glorifying a criminal life-style is somewhat prevalent... unfortunately teens often don't grow out of it. The civil court is a huge hassle (unless you're some sort of a government worker), police officers often ignore "small" violations and you left with the aggressor alone, imagine a big guy with no morals or a sociopath.

Why people don't see that they live such an a-typical, perhaps anti-social or criminal, life? And is there a way to go about to make those people aware of how they behave?

Any terms in psychology that describe this, any books to read or forums to visit... I'll appreciate any advice.

This question can be unswered from the field of sociology.

  Sociology is the study of social behaviour or society, including its
  origins, development, organisation, networks, and institutions. It is
  a social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation
  and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social
  order, disorder, and change.

Specifically what you describe here are the social norms formed by society.

  From a sociological perspective, social norms are informal
  understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society.
  Social psychology recognizes smaller group units, such as a team or an
  office, may also endorse norms separately or in addition to cultural
  or societal expectations. In other words, norms are regarded as
  collective representations of acceptable group conduct as well as
  individual perceptions of particular group conduct. They can be viewed
  as cultural products (including values, customs, and traditions) which
  represent individuals' basic knowledge of what others do and think
  that they should do.

The values and expectations that you experience are formed in the socio-economical environment of the specific nation througout many years of interactions among members of that society.

EDIT:
It is very very difficult to change deep rooted cultural habits and norms, and usually will take many years to do so. But I will give some practical advices that may help :

Lead by example. If a higly regarded individual of the society, consistently demonstrates a different behavior, this may have a long lasting effect on other members of the society and may gradually change their behavior.
Don’t push information, engage in active dialogue to change their goals and beliefs.
Changing the environment. The environment have subtle ways in which they reinforce our habits.
Create activities (like social gatherings, competitions etc) that indirectly falsify the bad sticky idea.

References of the EDIT:

Made to Stick

Smart Change

Switch

According to Hindu-Buddhist Philosophy ,the world (real and imaginary) ,contains pairs of opposite systems (mirror images). The opposites exist in some type of a dynamic equilibrium . Occasionally ,they may annihilate each other .Matter-antimatter pairs  ,positive-negative charge pairs ,hot desert-cold desert pairs are examples.Desire to live and desire to die --also form a pair of opposites . These ideas co-exist in a society--also in every individual .Some people are motivated by the desire to live more strongly than the desire to die  ,where as some people are motivated by the desire to die more strongly than the desire to die.Ordinary people (th common man , good citizens ) belong to the first group .Adventurers ,explorers ,soldiers , criminals ,high risk game players etc , belong to the second group.Circumstances decide , whether an individual behaves like a criminal or a good citizen...Chengiz Khan and Hitler believed that human bengs are essentially criminals , but behave like good citizens under fer of punishment ...Jesus Christ and Gandhi , on the other hand , believed that human beings are essentially good citizens , but behave like criminals when the society does not satisfy their needs and ill treats them . But human needs are Infinite ,and so it is not possible for the society to satisfy all the needs of any person .This gives any individual a justification to behave like a criminal ..An intelligent person might understand the limitation of the society , be satisfied with whatever he gets from the society and work towards the improvement of the society . Whether an individual decides to behave like a law breaking criminal ,or a law abiding good citizen , depends on his level of education and general intelligence .You may read a biography of Swami Vivekananda to start with.


What factors influence a person or group of people's empathy toward another group? The recent Paris terrorist attack highlights the discrepancy in the levels of empathy that Western people feel toward other Western people, compared to the empathy they feel toward Middle-Eastern people for example, who suffer such attacks regularly.

The question is:

How can a person or group of people's empathy be measured?
What factors influence this level of empathy?

Have any studies been done on this subject?

Empathy can be measured in many different ways. As this source outlines:

  Psychologists distinguish between measurements of situational
  empathy—that is, empathic reactions in a specific situation—and
  measurements of dispositional empathy, where empathy is understood as
  a person's stable character trait. Situational empathy is measured
  either by asking subjects about their experiences immediately after
  they were exposed to a particular situation, by studying the “facial,
  gestural, and vocal indices of empathy-related responding” (Zhou,
  Valiente, and Eisenberg 2003, 275), or by various physiological
  measures such as the measurement of heart rate or skin conductance.

Empathy is influenced by a very wide range of factors. Some are innate (e.g., one's capacity for empathy), some are due to upbringing and some are related to the characteristics of the individual or group involved (e.g, their familiarity, or appearance). I couldn't find a comprehensive list of these different factors (probably as there are too many), but [1,2,3,4] should give you a sense of the range of factors.

Please let me know if you require any further clarification such as a more specific question.

References:

1 McDonald, Nicole M., and Daniel S. Messinger. "The development of empathy: How, when, and why." Moral Behavior and Free Will: A Neurobiological and Philosophical Aprroach (2011): 341-368.

[2] JACKSON, P. L., MELTZOFF, A. N. & DECETY, J. 2005. How do we perceive the pain of others? A window into the neural processes involved in empathy. NeuroImage, 24, 771-779.

[3] GALLESE, V. 2003. The roots of empathy: The shared manifold hypothesis and the neural basis of intersubjectivity. Psychopathology, 36, 171-180.

[4] CHAPMAN, E., BARON-COHEN, S., AUYEUNG, B., KNICKMEYER, R., TAYLOR, K. & HACKETT, G. 2006. Fetal testosterone and empathy: Evidence from the Empathy Quotient (EQ) and the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” Test. Social Neuroscience, 1, 135-148.

Empathy cant be measured, however it can be judged by a person's actions in routine life.
If a person is generally sensitive to other's feelings irrespective of age, gender, specie, he can be called to have Empathy generally.
Another person might empathize with his children, but not with others say that of his neighbors, so he may be judged as a less empathetic person.
It is greatly influenced by relationship. A person is greatly protective about own children, but he may infact wish harm for those of his enemies. The reason for loss of Empathy in this case is the animosity he shares with that other person.
No offence to anyone for the following views.
It is also influenced by cultures and religions. Islam as a culture is less empathetic towards all and so they have more instance of violence in their community.
It is just an observation.


What is the effect of viewing pornography on children? It is generally accepted that porn shouldn't be seen by children, and we even sometimes punish parents who fail to stop their children from finding porn.

How much are these laws based in science? Can a simple image cause real injury beyond mere disgust? Have there been any studies that track lives of people who were exposed to porn or other disturbing imagery as children or adolescents?

Note that I have also posted this question on parenting.SE.

Pornography laws are a relic of the Victorian era, and not based on any science.
Research that can conclusively determine the effect of pornography on children is hard to come by due to the resultant ethical environment.  Most research depends on self-reports: Surveys ask adolescents how much pornography they have been exposed to, and attempt to correlate this with other variables such as personal attitudes about sex.  Such surveys are subject to a variety of memory and other biases affecting accuracy, but more importantly, correlations fail to establish cause and effect - that is, it is equally likely that pornography consumption affects attitudes as it is that pre-existing attitudes affect pornography consumption.
Nonetheless, a number of reviews of current literature on adolescents conclude that there is an association between consumption of pornography and certain negative attitudes about sex, and promiscuous and/or risky sexual behaviour.  The reviews acknowledge that the data contains much contradictory evidence however, as well as failing to establish cause and effect.
UK Children's Commissioner's report (2013): "Basically... Porn is everywhere"
Owens et al (2012): "The Impact of Internet Pornography on Adolescents"
In contrast, a paper by Kendall (2006) found a correlation between pornography accessibility and rape for 15-19 year old adolescents - but in the opposite direction, that could be interpreted to mean that access to pornography reduces rape crime in this demographic.
Research on pre-adolescents is even more scant.  A more conclusive effect is seen between exposure to depictions of violence and negative effects on attitudes and behaviour, though these may be short-lived.  A landmark study from the 1960's (no longer ethical to replicate) demonstrated that children do role model from violent media.  The reviews listed above extend this finding to attitudes and behaviours of adolescents exposed to pornography depicting violence.  Evidence linking this to criminal offences in adulthood is still controversial however.
In adults, studies across multiple countries (eg, Diamond, Jozifkova, & Weiss, 2010) have documented significant declines in physical sex offenses as accessibility of pornography increases, again suggesting the possibility that pornography provides a substitute for sex crimes.

So I cross posted this question to Parenting Stack Exchange, and here's what I got.

In short, people who have viewed porn as adolescents have more sex and greater risk of sexually transmitted disease. And some of the kids who have stumbled upon porn on the Internet became averse to the Internet and some others developed unwanted recurring thoughts about the material they had seen.


How do clinicians control for their own mental disorders? Has any research been done on how clinicians' (either internists or psychiatrists) known psychological conditions influence the diagnoses, misdiagnoses, and prognoses they make?

And, related to that, has there been any concerted conscious effort made to control for the above?

(I'm also curious how medical, non-psychological conditions affect the above, but that wouldn't strictly-speaking be on topic so I'm limiting this to psychological problems for now.)

the kind of studies I mean

What I'm envisaging is a study akin to the following, and am curious about what similar studies have found:

two pools of practicing clinicians are chosen (with random partitioning between the two),
everyone in pool A is screened for current psychological disorders by a subset (say, three) of multiple, randomly chosen individuals from pool B,
the professional (diagnostic) history of every clinician in pool A is reviewed, and
the experimenter looks for patterns of correlation between mental disorders in the clinicians themselves, and the disorders that those individuals tend to diagnose / misdiagnose (sensitivity v. specificity).

the kind of (statistically significant) results I'm curious about

So, for example, do clinicians who have (to choose two disorders randomly) NPD tend to diagnose depression more often than those without NPD? And, when they do diagnose depression, do they tend to have more favorable or less favorable prognoses for their patients? What are their recommendations? And how often do their recommendations work out well v. badly? What mental characteristics are adaptive v. maladaptive within this extremely specific context?

More to the point, does it "take one to know one", or does a lack of personal experience with something provide better objectivity?

And are some disorders (maladaptive within larger society) unambiguously good across-the-board in a clinical setting, are they all harmful, or should people with disorder X specialize in disorder Y, and avoid treating patients with disorder Z?

Obviously, pool A doesn't actually need to be psych clinicians. It could be applied to GPs, oncologists, surgeons, etc.

Clinical Supervision (see these articles on effectiveness) is standard practice and required in codes of practice for registered counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, etc. and those in training.

Note: This is separate and completely different to line-management but necessary for effective line-management

There is no one way to do clinical supervision, but there are a few principles…

clinical supervision allows a person to focus on particular aspects of their clinical practice in a way that they would not normally do
it is characterised by reflection on previous action and its implications for future action
a clinical supervisor will often challenge the supervisee to think outside of their current ways of working
the clinical supervisor will offer support and advice
the supervisee tends to learn alternative ways of working and specific skills
the clinical supervisor will be interested in the quality of the supervisees performance and wellbeing; and will offer constructive feedback

Assuming that all therapists follow the code of practice, all clinicians will be monitored for mental health conditions and other problems which would affect their ability to perform their work effectively.

Clinical supervisors have a duty of care, not only to the supervisee (the therapist), but also the supervisee's clients, and if the supervisor feels that abuse of power is occurring they must refer it to the governing bodies to remove their licence to practice.

If they feel there are any mental health issues preventing the supervisee from acting effectively, then the supervisor will refer the supervisee for therapy.  If necessary, they may also take further action to prevent the therapist from causing harm to their clients whilst undergoing therapy.

1
In Germany and some other countries, only licensed experts may practice psychotherapy. The institutes that offer the postgraduate education screen applicants and do their best to admit only psychologically healthy individuals. The view is that a psychotherapist must be fully "functional".
2
Psychotherapists are members of a professional organization which requires frequent supervision of its members. Thus, the professional behavior is controlled by colleagues.
3
Of course, an intelligent psychopath or borderliner will be able to fake psychological functionality and steal into the education and the profession. Since psychologists know how psychological tests work, they will give the answers to appear healthy, when screened.
Your "study" will never manage to identify any psychotherapists or psychologists with mental disorders, as these people will only manage to achieve that position if they are able to hide their affliction and appear healthy to highly trained experts.
4
In countries where the titles "psychologist" and "psychotherapist" are not protected by law and anyone can offer such services irrespective of qualification, the state of psychotherapy is so bad that your study makes no sense, as there will be no difference between a mentally healthy charlatan and a mentally disordered charlatan.


What is the limit of human memory? I am currently a high school student and have grown curious at what the limitation of memory storage in the brain might be in humans.

Information is coded genetically and stored in the brain, but is there a limit to how much information a person can retain without forgetting?

In high school I have taken a broad courses in biology, chemistry, physics, calculus and more. I wonder if my desire to learn and keep moving forward will be hindered mentally by the intrinsic aspects of memory (if they do exist)?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-memory-capacity/

https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-physical-limit-to-human-memory-If-yes-can-it-or-has-it-been-measured

It's said that you store everything or nearly everything you experience in your subconscious mind.


Are University Graduated WEIRD people psychologically different to Generally Educated WEIRD people? A recent question was asking around the subject of WEIRD psychology [WEIRD standing for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic — an acronym seemingly coined by Henrich, et al (2010)] and reading the Wikipedia article to find that out and get some understanding of the subject made me wonder if the concept of WEIRD psychology could have merit.
For the purposes of focus, let's take one aspect of the WEIRD category — Educated.
Would a person in Western society, educated at a lower level, be psychologically different to someone in Western society educated to the highest possible level?
To be precise in my meaning regarding psychological differences, ignoring the systems of education and assuming:

nobody in either group are suffering from any psychotic disorders,
both groups have the same powers of observation, and
both have equal access to any required reference materials and advice from experts,

is there empirical evidence to suggest that one of the groups cannot form a sound and reasonable argument based on their knowledge of the world around them?
Maybe I am not using the correct search criteria in Google but I can't seem to find any.
References
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world?. Behavioral and brain sciences, 33(2-3), 61-83. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X0999152X. PMID: 20550733.

A lot of psychological research takes place in societies that are Western, Democratic, and Industrialized, and that from a global/historical perspective are relatively Educated and Rich.
Of course, within those societies, people vary in their level of education and their socioeconomic status (e.g., wealth, income, financial security, earning potential, etc.).
And education and socioeconomic status have numerous correlates with psychological variables and life outcomes.
E.g., educational attainment is positively correlated with life time income, intelligence, and political views.
There are two obvious explanations for these processes:

Education changes a person. They acquire general and discipline specific skills. They get exposed to different experiences, career opportunities and so on.
Psychological characteristics predict interest, access, and success in higher education. For instance, more intelligent people are more likely to be granted access and succeed in higher education.
Third variables. Factors like family socioeconomic status predict psychological characteristics as well as the probability of pursuing higher education.


Is consistent dual n-back training likely to improve the performance of analysis (mathematics) students? Suppose you isolate a class of undergraduate mathematics majors who are about to enroll in a semester of real analysis (rigorous, proof-based calculus) and split them into two groups. Then, you schedule the first group to study n hours of real analysis every week and the other group to study (n-m) hours of real analysis every week and perform m hours of n-back training (assume that n and m are reasonably well tuned; m is probably much smaller than n).

Also assume that the second group does not take shortcuts in doing the training (where certain patterns are exploited).

Which group do you conjecture to perform better in the analysis
course and why?
To what degree will one group perform better and why?
Does having a wider short-term memory horizon of numbers (which I
assume n-back produces) result in being able to keep track of more
variables and rigorous proof steps in a sharper way (working memory)
and in faster comprehension of mathematical concepts (fluid
intelligence)?
Does the training result in a larger attention span and therefore to
better grades?

I assume that the group that  spends 100% of their time studying real analysis and 0% of their time doing n-back training will do best in any subsequent real analysis course.

Cognitive skill acquisition does not generalise all that much (for a review see VanLehn, 1996). Transfer is often limited. I'm sceptical of any claims that short term training can lead to far reaching cognitive change as implied by n-back training.

The demands on working memory of problems in a domain get less as the knowledge and rules implied by a domain get better acquired. Over time students will start to recognise patterns, and will learn to apply rules specific to the domain. Domain specific practice is probably the best way to acquire that knowledge. And in general, the more time that is spent on learning that knowledge, the more knowledge that will be acquired.

Of course, much could be said about creating an optimal learning environment for real analysis. For example, consolidation of prerequisite knowledge, providing practice at the right level of difficulty, providing feedback to the learner, providing a good mix of presentation of content with problem exercises, distributing practice over time, and so on are all important components of an effective learning environment. However, these have nothing to do with n-back, and everything to do with good pedagogy. In particular, if you want to teach something other than real analysis, but your aim is effective performance in real analysis, then you should examine what are the relevant skills and prerequisites for effective performance in real analysis. And combine this with an examination of student difficulties and knowledge gaps.

Empirical Evaluations

@Ofri Raviv pointed out two references (Shipstead et al, 2012; Melby-Lervag et al, 2013) that provide reviews of working memory training and are generally critical of its utility.

Melby-Lervag and Hulme (2013) did a meta-analysis of working memory training studies:

  To be included in the review, studies had to be randomized controlled
  trials or quasi-experiments without randomization, have a treatment,
  and have either a treated group or an untreated control group.
  Twenty-three studies with 30 group comparisons met the criteria for
  inclusion. The studies included involved clinical samples and samples
  of typically developing children and adults. Meta-analyses indicated
  that the programs produced reliable short-term improvements in working
  memory skills. For verbal working memory, these near-transfer effects
  were not sustained at follow-up, whereas for visuospatial working
  memory, limited evidence suggested that such effects might be
  maintained. More importantly, there was no convincing evidence of the
  generalization of working memory training to other skills (nonverbal
  and verbal ability, inhibitory processes in attention, word decoding,
  and arithmetic). The authors conclude that memory training programs
  appear to produce short-term, specific training effects that do not
  generalize.

References

VanLehn, K. (1996). Cognitive skill acquisition. Annual review of psychology, 47(1), 513-539.
Shipstead, Zach; Redick, Thomas S.; Engle, Randall W. Psychological Bulletin, Vol 138(4), Jul 2012, 628-654. doi: 10.1037/a0027473
2
Melby-Lervag, M., & Hulme, C. (2013). Is working memory training in children effective? A meta-analytic review. Developmental Psychology, 49, 270-291. PDF

I'm only be able to answer part of your question in specific ways.

Does having a wider short-term memory horizon of numbers (which I assume n-back produces) result in being able to keep track of more variables and rigorous proof steps in a sharper way (working memory) and in faster comprehension of mathematical concepts (fluid intelligence)?

*Answer*$\rightarrow$ dual-n-back in my experience was more like a booster to help me achieve my peak on working memory for several minutes and deduct while time goes by. The effect usually last for half a day. Since it is like a booster, it can't help me to maintain the peak high performance. The training gives "intuition" only; it helps me to verify logical fallacies most, and it does make me speak much more logically with only a sufficient number of words. (I did learn concrete some knowledge about different kind of fallacies.) Eliminating logical mistakes made me draw rational decisions.
But it is only a booster, and in fact I did maintain some of the "recalling ability".
It is most likely possible to maintain the fruits, since I've given up some time to calm down after training, and it takes me long hours.
If you can't do this with the proof of actually knowing how exactly it affects you, don't train. It has side effect while you're over-trained.

Does the training result in a larger attention span and therefore to better grades?

*Answer*$\rightarrow$ I'm not sure about what you mean by attention span. But I can tell you that it helps to read effectively by eliminating crap.

And most IMPORTANT, the gameplay of "brainworkshop" is not the best; time interval shouldn't be fixed while training and it varies for different people. This setting is the worst in that it could make your answers out of control. E.g., you can't recall the letter or the position without having 1 more second, and the task remaining will be ruined.


Can the mind be trained to equanimously observe compulsive urges/cravings (without giving in / acting out)? Are there any practices or habits that one can employ, either frequently or on a daily basis, to train one's mind to equanimously observe (be aware of) compulsive urges or cravings, without giving in to them / acting them out?
Can this skill be developed in a general sense, applicable to all types of urges/cravings, or does one need to train a different, tailored technique to handle each type of urge/craving individually?

According to the article "Brief meditation training induces smoking reduction" one kind of mediation-training reduced smoking by 60% while a control group (relaxation training) showed no such effect.

"Integrative body-mind training (IBMT) is a form of mindfulness meditation that involves body relaxation, mental imagery, and mindfulness training accompanied by selected music background. Cooperation between the body and the mind is emphasized in facilitating and achieving a meditative state. The trainees concentrated on achieving a balanced state of body and mind guided by an IBMT coach and a compact disc. The method stresses no effort to control thoughts but, instead, a state of restful alertness that allows a high degree of awareness of body, mind, and environment."

Other relevant references:
Tang YY, et al. (2007) Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104(43):17152–17156.

Tang YY, et al. (2009) Central and autonomic nervous system interaction is altered by short-term meditation. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106(22):8865–8870.

Tang YY, et al. (2010) Short-term meditation induces white matter changes in the anterior cingulate. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107(35):15649–15652.

Tang YY, Lu Q, Fan M, Yang Y, Posner MI (2012) Mechanisms of white matter changes induced by meditation. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109(26):10570–10574.

Tang YY (2009) Exploring the Brain, Optimizing the Life (Science Press, Beijing).

The short answer is - yes. There is nothing impossible, save for the theoretical idea of perfect balance.

Generally speaking you will be training your mind (i.e. yourself) not just your brain. The desired state of "still and equanimous" appears to be used as opposite to anxious. The potential cravings accompanied by anxious states are just too many to require one response per one type of craving, but you are on to something with this specificity - wanting a drink is not quite the same as wanting a sweetie.

There will be 2 components - one is the more general response - where you will recognise you are anxious. Hopefully you will also realise what you are anxious about (could it be rejection by a potential partner, could it be a bailiff's letter, or something less threatening?). The more specific component could use imagery - try to remember how you felt when you had the "sweetie" before (as a rule you will be craving something quite familiar to you). If you can successfully recall the state after you had consumed the "sweetie" in the past it very often will be helpful in deciding - do I really want to "eat" this now.


Persistent problems among relationsips Firstly my apologies if this isn't the correct se sight to ask this.

Background

I had a psychology professor some years ago (now that I think of it probably more like many years ago...) who proclaimed that a lot of the problems individuals experience in their relationships will be (we'll say persistent but it may not be the best terminology(?)) persistent across most of their relationships.

His actual quote was "You'll find that whatever issues you're having in your relationships now, you'll find persist across all your relationships, despite your partner, so do your best to make the one you have work"

Several years after him saying this, I started to notice this in my relationships, that no matter the person, we would always end up having some form of issues I had with relationship partner n-1. But probably this would be best if I left myself out of this and spoke more generally.

Question

[1] I am curious if there is any validity to my professors statement, I currently only have two data points in my sample space (my professor and myself). I do understand the notion that individuals to in fact bring baggage to relationships that will cause said issues, and I'm not sure how to reconcile this without bringing myself into said question which is what I'd like to avoid so not to come off in the wrong way.

Previous Research

I have tried googlingduck duck go'ing to not much avail, My searches have been problems persisting throughout relationships, relationship patterns, relationship cognition but I didn't really find much pertaining to the question at hand. Also I'm not sure if it is in any way related, but when studying at university I did a decent amount of research into mathematical dynamics of relationships similar to http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pubs/paper277.pdf

EDIT: It may be possible I didn't present the question in an intelligble way. So along with [1], based on my own experiences and the testimony of said professor coupled with the research I did into the dynamics of relationships, it would seem that outside of initial attraction, the "who" of the relationship doesn't really  matter so much. Meaning that most relationships work not because of some fundamental fact of nature, but more because each individual understands that the problems are an amalgamation of themselves and manifest in some form or another in all their relationships.

Please feel free to ask for clarification if need be, it would seem our "in house translator" may have oversold his skills :shrug:

Psychology in my opinion is (just like any other science) a science based on loads of observations, which have eventually been formed to create some framework or model that seems to fit real life, but still always evolving.

Loads of very observant people had loads of overlapping and non overlapping observations, and opinions.

There is absolutely no one to tell, if what we think is going on "in someone", is really what is going on.
Observations and our instinct are all there is to create the model, that makes us think that we understand the "problems" more. (they are not problems)

You could take any famous characters of psychology (e.g.. Sigmund Freud), who has surely contributed a lot to science, so we think we understand more how our psyche works, but for sure no one will ever know.
All we know is the model we apply to understand people, seem to work for a mass of people, but it will never work for everyone every-time.

I believe it is false to say that:
"You'll find that whatever issues you're having in your relationships now, you'll find persist across all your relationships, despite your partner, so do your best to make the one you have work"

People are all sorts.
People change by self observation, and change even more by observing others.
If they ever notice despite how different we are, how much the "same" we all are at the same time. If they ever notice, that our "so unique" ways of behaving and living life have such a strong template like nature.

Some people will surely suffer from what the above statement says.

Some will not, because the more intelligent and openhearted someone becomes with time, the more wisdom it will develop inside.
The more wise someone becomes, the more it will understand about him or herself, the more it will accept him or herself.

That is all that matters, not to go against of who we are.
We do that by slowly learning what the "Baggage" means in our case (this time around, in this life of ours).

From that era in ones life, life can be like anything, even very different from what it has been before.

When one comes to embrace the true self, how ever (f..d up) it may have seemed before (when we still thought the "Baggage" was part of the definition of the self),
that "newborn" will have a different presence, it will attract a very different audience.

That "new shape" of attraction is what will define our later relationships.

So to say that:
"I am curious if there is any validity to my professors statement..."

I am not sure you'll ever truly find any validity... it is surely valid from your professors point of view, but does it have to be valid from your point of view???

You surely cannot expect someone else to tell you whether your professors opinion should be your opinion too?

Few lines above I was saying the opposite of your professors opinion, because that is what I think of life.

Both yours professors and my contributions (and even Sigmund Freud's), are at the and of the day just opinions, based on how we individually perceive life (including others').

The only thing that matters is how YOU perceive life, and perceiving others living their life.

If your perception of life (relationships, ....) is not good enough according to someone at University, or wherever you get in life, that is not your problem.

Referring to your relationships, that is all there is to you first hand, so how could you not look at life generally through those experiences?

(again this is my opinion)
If you are curious enough to keep digging and thinking about what recurring problems you have had in any of your relationships, then once you may compile a short list of these things.
You may find, that no matter how many types of conflicts, misalignment you have ever had
with your partners, they will always be about 1 or 2 MAJOR things in life.

Any of the conflicts, or what ever you don't like about others or yourself, you'll be able to break down into very basic personal feature of YOURS. The "problem" (it is not really a problem, rather cause in you) is usually so simple you don't even suspect it to cause certain things.

All those problems will come down to 1 or 2 of basic things, like low self-esteem is one of the most common one.

I am sure it is obvious to you, that whatever it is, it is part of your "Baggage"...

The fact that you are still experiencing those recurring problems means you haven't adequately figured out your baggage, and THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

Life is giving these opportunities and time to you to find the answer, and then once you know what it is, to make friends with it.

The rest of your life is still ahead of you to achieve that, it may or may not take that long.

At the end of the day, I believe we are here on Planet Earth to watch the "show".
Whenever we see something we need to react to, we do so, because it is in our nature, whether we want to react or not.

We cannot "screw up"... we just live life, and get experienced that way.
Or if we become numb and indecisive, then life will live us, and get experienced that way. (it gets rather bitter that way...)

Either way we get what we are here for, even if we forgot what we came here for.

I am sorry, this turned into a "What are we here for???".
I shut up now.

I wish you the best...
(the easiest is often not be the best, just listen to your heart)


Psychological explanation for the success of "class systems" in video games Over the last decade, Role Playing Games and Mobile Online Battle Arenas have been a dominating force in the video gaming industry, millions of people playing sometimes every day and often being quite passionate about their favorite game.

The thing that strikes me when looking at the most successful of those games (not sure I'm allowed to say any names) is the recurring presence of "class systems", ways to label characters and players with a specific set of abilities and roles.

Examples of this are the classic "warrior, mage, hunter, assassin..." classes attributed to RPG characters or the the "tank, support, damage dealer..." roles that players in MOBAS take on in a team.

What I find interesting is that players seem to like having a more or less defined role, class or play style in these systems.
One such example of this phenomena is the use of the pronoun "a" to refer to someone or oneself:

      "I am a mage player"
      "He is a [insert MOBA character name] main" (main here means most played character)
      "Where the heck is our support?" (referring to the player playing in the support role)
      "She is the best [insert MOBA character name] on the     EU server"

Is there a psychological explanation to why people seem particularly attracted to these systems that "label them" in a way?

My hypotheses:

  - The discomfort of not fully knowing one's personnality and capabilities drive people to "symplify their personnalities" by endorsing specific roles in these games.

  -  Players "specialize " themselves as a way to get singled out and feel special.

Please tell me if there is something I can do to make the question better, this is my first time asking on this site.

There are many explanations and counter examples for this phenomenon. Perhaps I can provide my two cents.
According to Kendrick et al pyramid, an updated pyramid of need, Status/Esteem seems to be reasonably applied to the class systems. Such systems allow the players to practice mastery, in other words, the need to feel competence. This is similar to your understanding of "specialize themselves to feel special".

For example, two players of healer/damage class may compare HPS/DPS
(Healing per second / Damage per second ) to see who is more
competent. Tanks see who understand the mechanics of the fight more
thoroughly. At this point, the goal shifts from defeating the boss to climbing the highest in the HPS/DPS meter. (this is similar to many sports, where players play for the stats).  This example applies to "World of Warcraft", one of the earliest MMORPG that introduces the triangle system (tank, healer, damage). The class system provides a measure within the group.
Another example would be "Guild Wars 2", a game that has no class
system. Players heal, attack, and tank on their own even in a group
setting. The game is a relatively much relaxing game in comparison
with World of Warcraft, which has many hard core gamers.

There are way many other possible explanations on this aspect, but it might be hard to examine specific reasons because there is too much variation in the individuals.


Can you override priming? Assume that you are using priming as a technique to improve your performance in a specific area. Ex: When I am sleepy in the morning I use more alert music to get my mind up to speed. If I want to stay focused I try to visualize a focused person or I try to focus on an object for a few minutes. With these I am trying to used the ideomotor link (as Khaneman calls it) and to increase the concentration power directly or indirectly.

Now let's assume that I want to go back and get out of being focused and staying alert and I expose myself to stimuli that would send me in the opposite direction. Would the initial priming be an obstacle in this direction?

Note: in Kahneman's example imagining yourself smiling will actually improve your mood. Same way, imagining yourself concentrating on something should improve your focus.

Would the initial priming be an obstacle in this direction?

Yes. But not an exceedingly difficult one to overcome since you manage to prime yourself into being focused in the first place.

Personality plays a vital role of course. If you're a natural hyperactive person it would obviously be an easier task to prime yourself into being alert than to enter a state of complete focus and calmness.


How is an emotion different from a thought or a sensation? I don't know any good definition of emotion. I don't know what they really are, subjectively.
I don't understand what makes an experience an emotion, as opposed to a thought or a sensation.

What is a good definition of emotion?
How is an emotion different from a thought or a sensation?

Right. No need to reinvent the wheel, so let me Google that for you...

Emotion

  a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.
  "she was attempting to control her emotions"
  synonyms: feeling, sentiment; reaction, response
  $\quad\quad\quad\quad$"she was good at hiding her emotions"
  $\quad\quad\quad\ $ · passion, strength of feeling, warmth of feeling
  $\quad\quad\quad\quad$"overcome by emotion, she turned away"

  · instinctive or intuitive feeling as distinguished from reasoning or knowledge.
  $\ \ $"responses have to be based on historical insight, not simply on emotion"
  $\ \ $synonyms:   instinct, intuition, gut feeling; sentiment, the heart
  $\quad\quad\quad\quad$"responses based purely on emotion"

Technically speaking, an emotion is not different from thought the way it is processed in brain, both involve neurotransmitters. But a thought may not always be an emotion as it may include logical thinking too.


Research on Distribution of Enneagram Types in a Given Profession I was in a conversation with an Enneagram scholar who claimed that certain Enneagram types are more likely to hold certain specific positions or have certain professions.

Is there any data or has there been any research published that has studied the Enneagram type distribution of fields or titles thought to be Enneagram-type-personality-specific?

Examples:

If we were to give the Enneagram test to ten-thousand nurses, would we find that a statistically significant number of them are Twos?

If we were to give the Enneagram test to ten-thousand career scientists, would we find that a statistically significant number of them are Fives?

I myself have a long-standing fascination with the Enneagram system and believe it to be the most incisive and encyclopedic theories of human patterns I know.  So, yes, I would say there are correlations with career-choice (as with essentially all behavior).  I have one more specific comment about job-choice.  But first, I'd like to enumerate two important caveats that apply here:

Career choices (like many other important human choices - marriage, politics, etc.) are highly conditioned on background, education, opportunities perceived to be available, etc. - therefore, it is naive to expect overwhelming simplistic correlations.  Type Five scientists?  Type Eight policemen?  Maybe - if one really investigated I suspect there would be evidence that the relative frequencies of these Type-job pairings exceed those expected based on frequencies of the Types in the population under study.  But they might not be that much higher - there's just too much variability in our various life paths....

Formal research on the Enneagram is hamstrung in general terms by the lack of a simple, easy objective measure of Enneagram type.  Yes, there are various (relatively) cheap-and-easy tests, available on-line and in book-form - but I don't think they are particularly accurate.  There's too much at stake psychologically when people are being asked self-report questions, and many of use "game the system" in favor of how we'd like to be seen (even if tend we claim otherwise).  This is based on 10+ years experience with hundreds of people coming through a public discussion-group I've run on the Enneagram.

Maybe someday there'll be an Enneagram test based on brainawaves (or whatever).  Until then, I'd say, in our time, the better way to get into this system is to read a good book (any of the Risa and Hudson books are good places to start), and look and soberly deeply into yourself if you are so inclined.  Then, if you take an abiding interest in the topic, and want to get more involved, try and find an Enneagarm-educted community with sincere people who can help validate (or challenge) your self-assessment.  Once securely typed, you can really know how deeply and uncannily this system works in our lives - and curiosities like how the system relates to career-choices may not actually seem as important.

As mentioned above, I do have one more comment specifically on job-choice, however.  Based on my own typing skills I once did a survey of a group of 100+ individuals many of whom I know well (my high school class) and attempted to correlate career-choice with Enneagram type.  Interestingly, I found that the TYPE-WING actually seemed as strongly typed with career-fields chosen as the MAIN TYPE.  Possibly, as individuals who express their main type in so many aspects of our lives, we unconsciously choose career-fields that help express our less-fully-expressed aspects as described by our type-wing.  (Just a speculation.)  More caveats: (1) TYPE-WINGS may be harder to diagnose properly than the main type itself; (2) I have somewhat different beliefs about what these TYPE-WINGS are than the ones described in the literature.

Sorry for the long-winded answer, that's just the territory as I see it.  Please post any replies, and I will attempt to monitor this thread.


Does the mind create the body? Everything we perceive is through the 5 senses. That means the body which is perceived through sense of feeling and seeing is also formed as an image in mind or brain?
Is it correct that it is either the mind or brain that creates the body. Or some part of brain that creates the body?
Are there any articles or research along these lines?
One more thing I want to add that everything we are seeing, including the body, all appears in a small part of brain, and then we are projecting it outside?

Q: Does the mind create the body?
A: The answer depends on what you mean by “the body”.

If “the body” in the question means “the body as we perceive it”, the answer is “yes”. And, not only is the body in this sense is created by the mind, everything else in this world, the universe, and the reality as you perceive them are also created by the mind.[1,2]

It is easy to show that “the body as we perceive it” is created by the mind (or its physical counterpart – the brain) and is not the real physical body as it exists in the physical world. One of the easiest examples to show this is the finger sausage illusion (see the figure below).

Figure. Finger Sausage Illusion. A – the fingers as appeared when looked at directly and B – the fingers as appeared when one looks at the background beyond the fingers. [3]
Although the fingers as we see in our mind change (A <-> B), depending on where we focus our sight, the physical fingers themselves cannot change abruptly by just changing the sight’s focus. This proves that the fingers as we see in our mind is not the physical fingers that exists in the physical world.

But if “the body” in the question means “the physical body as it exists in the physical world”, the answer is “no”. The evidence is obvious and abundant in everyday life: just by the wish of our mind - we cannot create a new limb or new organ for the lost one; we cannot create wings to fly, gills to breath underwater, or an organ to sense echolocation even if we want to create them; and we cannot create a duplicate of our body just in case we need a limb/organ replacement.

References

Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati. How the brain constructs the world. Insights into processes underlying the integration and storage of sensory signals. ScienceDialy. February 9, 2018.

Wikipedia. Neural basis of self

Ukachoke C. 3.6. Sensory perception qualia as representations of the outside world In: The Basic Theory of the Mind. 1st ed. Bangkok, Thailand; Charansanitwong Printing Co. 2018.

This question actually can be answered rather with the interdisciplinary fields of neuroscience / philosophy, since it was already Platon around 400 B.C. with his Allegory of the cave asking what is the reality or what do we just perceive. This led to the question of what reality or existence of objects actually is.
This is true for every human being.
Later on, the German philosopher Schopenhauer explained that this is also true on an individual basis.
Even if the brain generally aims to perceive through the five senses in almost the same way as all people do, it might differ how we precicely conceive these impressions as he stated in his famous quote

With the same environment, everyone lives in a different world.

("Bei gleicher Umgebung lebt doch jeder in einer anderen Welt." Schopenhauer: "Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit", 1851)
A modern and even more abstract way of defining perception is given by Predictive coding propesed by Karl Friston which states that all impressions are processed in such a way that minimizes suprise, i.e. tries to infer from known to unknown or one could say using all prejudices. This theory can be described very mathematically and does not state how exactly it works physiologically. Simply put, the perception works in such a way that minimzes energy.


Why do those with viral infections feel better after wrongly taking antibiotics? Though I'm unversed in science, I accept and understand that bacteria differ from viruses; so antibiotics don't help in viral infections. Regardless, because older family members still allege that antibiotics have mitigated their colds, can psychology explain their misbelief?

They claim that within a day of taking antibiotics, their ability to speak returns and  their sore throats are soothed. I can attest to this improvement; they do feel better. I'm also unversed in psychology, but can some placebo effect (again, NOT the antibiotics themselves) truly contrive such genuine relief?

Placebo effect is not the only explanation, although it can be a large component.

To be clear: Neither of the explanations below are reasons to use antibiotics for infections not due to bacteria. They do illustrate anchoring. Just because we call a drug an antibiotic and first note its effects to be killing bacteria does not forbid that drug from having other effects.

Antibiotics are anti-inflammatory

Bacterial and viral infections both induce an innate immune response, which includes the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Antibiotics can provide symptomatic relief by inhibiting the release of those cytokines, decreasing inflammation.

Bacterial super infections

The risk of a bacterial infection jumps during and shorty after a viral infection. Children, for example, are more likely to get strep throat after the flu. If the patient is unaware of two infections, taking an antibiotic will appear to treat the viral infection. It is, in reality, treating the bacterial rider.

Pretty much, for the same reason you're told to use rubbing alcohol to clean open cuts/sores. When you have a quite exposed inflamed area (e.g., lesions in sore throat), viruses are not the only things that can attack or lead to more inflammation. Antibiotics may not solve the "virus" problem, but they lighten the load as far as handling all of the innumerable other things that will gladly (opportunistically) attack the weakened tissue. It's not uncommon for people to get "secondary infections" after fighting off the primary or first one(s).

However, due to fears of evolving resistant strains of bacteria from antibiotic use, antibiotics are generally restricted to prescription-only in the united states. It's sort of a, "You'll suffer more, but for the greater good" philosophy.


Does female attractiveness correlate with age progression? I'm interested in Evolutionary Psychology and the male perception of female beauty. One of the ideas I'm trying to investigate is the correlation between female fertility and her attractiveness. A figure I heard several times is that at around age 25 females are the most fertile and thus most attractive.

I'm trying to verify this experimentally. It seems to me like a simple experiment would be to present an observer with a lineup of photos of the same woman at different ages. Everyone has photos at different ages, but I'm looking for the one where the posture and facial expressions are controlled, as to reduce variation due to factors other than age.

My question is - Are there posture controlled lineups of the photos of age progression from 15 to 50 that I can use for such experiment?

This image is from a video of a woman aging, but it has no age indication. I'm looking for something with shorter age gaps (15-16-17-18-...50). It seems one of the relevant search terms is "age progression" are there others?

In my opinion, things that I find attractive change with circumstances.  My age plays a role, how well you know someone or the more things you enjoy about them as you get to know them and then how those same things can bother you down the road or on certain days or when in certain groups.

Other factors like past experience, upbringing, things you find attractive might be qualities, or physical characteristics that a carer or influence of yours had: family members, teachers, movie stars, musicians, etc.

Ex girlfriends can change what you find attractive in future relationships.  If you have a strong distaste for an ex then you might find qualities that she had unattractive if similar qualities are found in a new interest.  Where as if you miss that person and hold them in high esteem, you may go looking for a kind of replica or replacement to satisfy the feeling you got when those qualities are present.  But you may also resent those qualities because they remind you of that other person and this might contribute to lessening the attractiveness in them.

There is no answer to attractiveness.  Some of us find it attractive to need someone to boost them up.  Physical appearance doesn't necessarily matter, e.g. if someone who had an okay home life but had a mother, aunt, or other care giver that they really cared about who never seemed to obtain any satisfaction in life and was always unhappy but still got up and did it all in hopes that the child would have a better life, and maybe did it with a fake smile just for them, now this child may find other under-appreciated women attractive and try to give them that extra spice in life that the other people they care about never seemed to see, not necessarily sexual either, though it seems to be man's MO to believe he is a gift from god to bestow upon women.  It's not as though a person has an attraction to "mother figures" or their own mother, I've never really read Freud, but it seems people who hate or fear Freud fear themselves and their own perverse minds thanks to the rash, cruel judgments of others, or their, or their parents' religion makes them feel shameful about it.  Nobody wants to be run out of town, or labeled something they are not due to something the brain automatically does due to conditioned responses. (mind you, I don't believe in free will; I'm more of an "interacting processing" guy; ref. Robert Anton Wilson 'Maybe Logic'.)

I realize this is not exactly what you were asking for, but I think any study you can conduct will have no true control, especially without an extensive psychological study done on each individual subject and possibly even pictures of the women from their lives.  Even if it is solely on physical appearance, the reasons I might like a certain kind of eyes more than the majority is perhaps I spent many crucial points of my life with someone who had eyes like that, or a "double chin and a plastic smile."


What are the differences between Asperger's Syndrome and Schizoid Personality Disorder? They are specifically listed as two separate disorders in the ICD, but what are the differences between Asperger's Syndrome and Schizoid Personality Disorder?

Since both result in a withdrawal from social situations, the two can seem quite similar to an outside observer; is there any accurate method used to distinguish between the two in a subject?

Schizoid personality disorder is characterized by a lack of interest in social relationships. However, with asperger syndrome, it's a limited empathy and understanding of other's situations. In other words, asperger syndrome deals with the inability to empathize while schizoid personality disorder deals with apathy toward other's emotions. Additionally, people with apserger syndrome tend to be less withdrawn than people with schizoid personality disorder. People who have asperger syndrome show repetitive behavior and interests, while schizoid personality disorder does not show this fixation toward repetitive behavior. Asperger syndrome is probably genetically linked somehow and is placed on the autism spectrum. However, schizoid personality disorder is not on the autism spectrum. I hope this response helped!

Schizoid Personality Disorder has nothing to do with psychosis.  A personality disorder is an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates from the norm of the individual’s culture. The pattern is seen in two or more of the following areas: cognition; affect; interpersonal functioning; or impulse control. The enduring pattern is inflexible and pervasive across a broad range of personal and social situations. It typically leads to significant distress or impairment in social, work or other areas of functioning. The pattern is stable and of long duration and its onset can be traced back to early adulthood or adolescence.


Is autodidactism a feature that can only be possessed by special kinds of individuals? I am from Brazil – at the current moment, education in this country is undoubtedly poor. I've been learning some things over the years on my own, mostly downloading content from the internet and reading.

Whenever I tell people (in my country) that I learn in such way, they usually say that I am an autodidact – and when arguing about this, they seem to imply that this is a unique feature for some special people that are born with this (they don't think that it's an ability that anyone could develop). However, I'm a little skeptical about this, and I'm expanding the reasons below:

As I pointed out in the beginning, the education in our country is a failure. We're not taught how to think and develop solutions to problems with minimal information beforehand. Education is more of a fake spectacle provided by the government to pretend the country is a good place for international investors.
Trying to learn after being a student that spent years in such a scheme is usually painful, and I say this from experience. Managing energy, motivation, discipline, systems for controlling procrastination, the idea that you yourself have to manage such features and other aspects of learning alone is hard.
Our school gives us the impression that learning is linear and continuous, that there aren't pitfalls and that spending some days stuck with a problem means that one cannot learn something alone.
When speaking with people from other countries, it seems utterly trivial to learn something alone. I've even gotten some syllabi from universities such as Cambridge and Oxford, and the way these syllabi are written seems to be made for a student that has been taught in a more sophisticated and independent way. They list the topics that need to be learned, they give the student a manual on how to study, and they give them the list of books – I'm finding it perfect to learn using their syllabi as a guide. On the other hand, the syllabi of Brazilian universities are terrible, they don't mention books, they don't mention a order for which the topics must be studied, they just list everything only with dates, and there's no guide for self-study: The syllabi seems to be made for a completely dependent student.

Given the arguments above, I'd like to know: Is autodidactism really a unique, rare feature that I possess? I ask because I do not feel so; I feel that I could teach it to everyone, and that some of our beliefs about education and self-education are wrong.

I'd recommend checking out Wikipedia's article on autodidacticism for a start. This might give you a better sense of the context surrounding the word, and whether it really means so much as you feel it does. My first impression is that this is not much more than a semantic issue (but I have a second impression, which I'll get to next). The literal definition seems to be, "A self-taught person," which isn't very interesting. In this sense, of course you are. That's what you're describing: self-teaching.

My second impression is that this is interesting inasmuch as self-teaching is actually rare. That seems odd to me; in what sense doesn't everyone teach themselves to some extent? If we interpret it instead as "primarily self-taught", then I could see autodidacticism being rarer. People usually find educational systems guided by others preferable (or mandatory, as is the case in the USA), but maybe not in a situation such as you describe (whether it's true of Brazil in general or not). When educational systems provided by traditional, mainstream, or public infrastructure are poor, it seems quite likely that one would opt to take advantage of other educational sources as you have. In the past decade or so, the internet has been particularly instrumental in providing this option globally.

I get the impression that using others' educational materials (including syllabi) for otherwise self-guided education doesn't violate the generally intended meaning of autodidact. A stricter definition might limit it only to learning through direct experience with life, but it's hard to imagine anyone short of a feral child fitting this definition truly enough. If an autodidact can learn through contact with others and their guidance and still be an autodidact simply because one has pursued education independently of structured guidance in the form of a professional relationship with a particular teacher, then I agree, it's not that unusual. If it's a question of whether you're primarily self-taught, that might be unusual, but it's not unique. Your particular circumstances seem especially likely to result in such a choice. The ongoing advent of internet-based educational resources makes it more likely that people will "teach themselves" in the same way you do, though it's an interesting semantic issue to consider whether this is truly self-teaching when you're taking advantage of structured lessons provided by others without their knowledge. It seems likely to me that the term "autodidact" itself will begin to lose its meaning in this evolving context of freely, globally available information. In any case, if autodidacticism is at all unique now, it seems unlikely to remain that way.

It all depends on what you are looking for. We have this awesome tool wich is the Internet, where we can find lots on information about anything, but if you are trying to be a doctor or a surgeon you are not going to make it as an autodidact.

Maybe, autodidactism is a feauture that can only be possesed by a special kind of individuals because there are so many things that you have to work on, we're living in a difficult generation an education is overvalued, because literally you are "no one" if you dont have a professional degree, even though education is poor as you mentioned before, I am from México by the way.

It think it all depends in yourself, in your confidence, and on your goals, you need to think big, and also be realistic. All i wanna say is... you might be that special individual, if you are already thinking about it.


What is the easiest way to memorize big amounts of information (a.k.a. learning for exams)? I consider myself a person with above average intelligence, that is, I am able to understand complex systems with relative ease. My weak point however is that I've always struggled with memorizing. Back in school I excelled in math and physics, but struggled with e.g. history, not because I wasn't interested in it, but simply because I had a hard time memorizing what was necessary.

Is there a good method for memorizing?

Context: I am planning to go back to university this fall. I am learning now for the entrance exam. That is something I will manage, but I anticipate university exams themselves being harder than that, and I will attend to uni while still having a day job. That is, I have no time to waste on improper/suboptimal learning methods. I aim for BA first, then MA. I am 31 years old now.

If you want to learn something then investigating how the brain encodes memory, and looking at methods of enhancing these tasks is the way to go. Pop psychology books do the field little credit and are often riddled with academic inaccuracies. However if you are going to use a book I highly recommend Human Memory by the brilliant Alan Braddeley.

Memory is largely split between three according Atkinson and Schiffrin's (1986) model: sensory store->short term store(STM)-> long term store (LTM). Although this can then be sub-split into explicit and implicit memory, and the sensory store is what we would now call attentional processing. Broadly speaking we have little control of attentional processes than STM. So lets look at how you many enhance the encoding between STM and LTM. Much of what I'm about to mention comes developed out of the Levels of Encoding theory which essentially suggests that information is processed at different levels depending upon the complexity and relationships, the greater the depth of the encoding and associations the easier something is to remember. Many Mnemonic (memory) techniques are based on this. For instance, "Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain"= the colours of the rainbow. technically this is shallow encoding because its only the first letter or each word relating to the colour in the order they occur in light refraction. But this is are easier than remember the colours based upon there discrete and unconnected names. The more associations you make the easier something is to remember as it makes more associations heres an deeper example remember this list and hide it once you have read it and try to recall after the maths test: Carrot, Monkey, Telephone, Guitar, School, Bottle, Newspaper, Mansion, Henry, Catastrophe, Worms, canopy, Hairspray.

Answer the following: 2x3.5=?, (7/2)x3=?, square root of 27?, A car accretes from 0-50 m/sec in over a distance of 34 meters how long did it take?

Recall the list?

If instead you tried to recall the list as a story it would be easier to remember all the items...

A Monkey was eating a Carrot when the Selephone rang offering Guitar lessons at a School, he/she decided to go and packed a Bottle and Newspaper. Upon leaving the Mansion he/she walked past Henry who was having a Catastrophically collecting worms under his fishing Canopy with a Hairspray can.

This is a deeper level of encoding that should be easier to remember because it has more detail applying the words in an episodic and semantic style. This activates more brain regions providing more cues for how associations for the information that one wishes to store. I literally can't write enough about neural encoding of memory there is a plethora of research, and I strongly suggest a google scholar search if you are interested. But the over riding suggestion is increase associations, for instance when I was studying for my exams I would write notes and cue cards which were highlighted, I would also create stories and words made of the items I wanted to remember. In addition I would drink a particular flavour of squash while doing my learning and revising. The reason being is that these all create associations, and if you can take a cue with you into an exam, such as apple juice, it well help you to remember. Visualisation a lot too, imagining the place you were when you learnt something and the smells and related tastes.

Finally it cannot be understated the role that affective (emotional) processing plays, information is often affectively encoded. Trying to remember how you felt or giving data affective significance can aid recall or being in the same state of affect helps.

Essentially a large part of memory can be understood in terms of Pavolivan and operant conditioning, coupled with motivational and affective relevance. In other words learnt associations and reinforcement may act as cues and learning mechanisms that strengthen memory. The relevance of these cues one can give both motivational and affective significance, and these may also be used to help recall. In addition the level of detail and information relative to the encoding process strengthens or deepens the learning process.

This is a REDUCTIONIST explanation of memory there is a lot more on it and the precise mechanisms related to what is being learnt, there is also a lot i haven't mentioned. Sorry for the lack of references I have a job to do, but you can google a lot of these topics and you will encounter most while learning about cognitive neuroscience. Memory research is probably one of the best understood areas of cognitive neuroscience along with perception.

Thanks for everyone for your answers.

I've found this book and it seems to be what I was looking for: Make It Stick - The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown et al. The basic premise is that retrieving things from memory makes them actually stick. The more effort to retrieve it the better. Therefore you shouldn't mass learn because it's more or less a waste of time, rather embed waits and do something else, interleave subjects, and most importantly test yourself by retrieving from memory instead of rereading, and so on.

Also, there is an other book that looks great, with a seemingly great deal of overlap with the former: How We Learn by Benedict Carey.

I am also mentioning that I've stumbled upon a book asserting that everyone has to find about what their "learning style" is, like visual/auditory/etc... and left vs right hemisphere, but concluded that it is unfounded at best (the word pseudoscience comes to my mind), so I returned it. See Criticism at Wikipedia.


Evidence for gender-based math ability differences? What evidence and counter-evidence is there for mathematical ability for being correlated with gender? If there is a difference, how significant is it (mean vs. variance) and when does it start to become visible? Actual causes for this difference are secondary and outside the scope of this question (although still very valid paths of research and investigation). Also, to further narrow the scope of the question, let's focus on evidence based on Western cultures (Europe, USA, Canada).

The evidence I have so far is this blog post, which finds a correlation between gender and math scores on the GRE and SATs. I also seem to recall finding somewhere evidence that gender-based math differences start as early as first grade, but I can't find the link at this point.

I'm not expecting a conclusive answer, more of a quick summary of the state of the field.

It is generally understood that girls develop a small to moderate deficit in math abilities, compared to boys, over the course of schooling, as measured by mean school grades or test scores (Hyde & Linn, 2006 give a number of .08 standard deviations in favor of men for mathematical problem solving on average, a larger effect favoring elementary school girls, and no difference for high school math; on the maths section of the SAT, girls score ~.3 SD below boys). Similarly, particularly math-heavy academic disciplines (such as physics, maths, computer science) feature a smaller proportion of women than other disciplines, although this effect is attenuated for some surprising cases, such as statistics, and present for some math-light degrees, such as philosophy. This effect is the stronger, the further advanced the position is (e.g., the ratio of female maths BAs is much higher than the ratio of female math PhDs).
All in all, across these various measures, women tend to score slightly worse than men, although not across the board, and extreme differences are only observable in comparatively rare and extreme contexts (e.g., math PhDs).

The variance ratio (that is, how much more men vary compared to women) is somewhere around 1.1 as given by Hyde, indicating that men show a bit, but not much more variance.

These findings concern data from the United States. Janet Hyde has published multiple cross-national meta-analyses on this topic, including:

Cross-National Patterns of Gender Differences in Mathematics: A Meta-Analysis

Gender, culture, and mathematics performance

Gender Similarities in Mathematics and Science

Her primary finding is the culture dependence of this gender gap. For example, she observes the gap not only varies with countries, but also interacts with, for example, gender equality (although see Fryer & Levitt, 2009). It is different for various ethnic groups within countries (e.g., amongst US Asians, women are somewhat more frequently top scorers). Furthermore, the effects are highly variable in time; for example, the ratio of female math PhDs hit an all-time low of 5% in the 1950s, was higher in the pre-war time, and has been on a steady upwards trend ever since.

Combining all of this evidence, it seems to me fair to say that there is currently, in Western countries in this time, somewhat stronger math performance by boys, but that there is no convincing evidence that this pattern is necessarily generalizable.

There is evidence much deeper than simply looking at grades. It should come as no surprise that male and female brains are different(for one the female weights 100 g less or so). Some key differences are that in general  -
1.Women learn to speak language earlier than boys , speak more than boys in general, have less speech problems and use both sides of the brain for language
2.Men exceed in visual spatial task, 3d cube folding, labyrinth path finding(solving rubic cube blindfolded or playing chess blindfold  for example should come very difficult for women ).

NONE OF THESE makes great difference in math and in math based sciences.

It's a behavioral difference due to testosterone.
The old experiment goes(on 6 weeks of age) - give a baby a screen and some kind of rope. When the rope is pulled by the baby colorful images on the screen are changed(stimulus). On random the rope is made to stop working.
1.Typical boy behavior - gets angry, starts pulling with both hands, helping with the foot sometimes and eventually gives up and cry .
2.Typical girl behavior- immediately gives up and starts crying.

On average girl's don't like clinging onto a problem too much time. They just give up.

Furthermore the median should be looked for it is known that boys have greater variability in almost every physical and behavioral characteristic - that is girl's scores are more clustered and boy's are more dispersed. So i would expect that even in area's where women should have natural advantage - the top of the field guys to be men.-


Are there physical techniques to relieve eye strain? I asked a question about eye strain Does looking into a mirror relieve eye strain in a similar way to looking at distant objects?.

Are there any physical exercises or techniques that can help to alleviate eye strain?

Is there any evidence to support this, if so please provide citations?

EYE RELAXATION

Sit comfortably, close your eyes and cover them with your palms. Be sure that both palms are cupped and do not press on the eyes. Imagine the blackness getting darker and darker. Rest in this manner for five minutes at a time, at least thrice a day.
Stand upright in front of an open window, preferably overlooking greenery. Keep your feet a foot apart, let your arms hang loosely at the sides and be as relaxed as possible. Gently oscillate your body from side to side like a pendulum.
Raise your heels alternately, keeping toes firmly on the ground. Gently swing the whole body to and fro without bending at the waist or hips. Start the exercise with eyes open. Swing like this for a minute and then close your eyes gently, while still swinging. Imagine the apparent movement of the window as clearly as possible.
Open the eyes after a minute and continue this exercise for 10 minutes, alternately closing and opening the eyes. Repeat this exercise at least thrice a day.
Close your eyes and, facing the sun, move your head slowly from side to side. Sun rays cause a rushing of blood to the eyes, relaxing optical muscles and nerves. Do this exercise for 10 minutes thrice a day.
Take a handful of cold water and, bending forward, splash your eyes rapidly, several times. Do not forget to hold water in your mouth while splashing eyes as this cools them down to their nerve ends and freshens them a great deal.

EXERCISES FOR EYE MUSCLES

Sit erect in a comfortable position. Keep your head and neck as relaxed as possible. Gently move your eyes up and down 10 times. The motion should be very slow, uniform and effortless, without moving the head or neck. Let your eyes see as far up and as far down as possible without causing strain. As the eye muscles relax, you will be able to look lower and higher. Repeat this exercise five to six times in a sitting. You can add to the relaxation by resting your eyes in your palms in-between.
Sitting in the same posture as before, move your eyes from side to side. Repeat 10 times. The motion should be very slow, uniform and effortless without moving the head or neck. As in the earlier exercise, you will able to move them farther and more easily with practice. Repeat this exercise five to six times.
Move your eyes gently and slowly around in a circle five times, alternating between clockwise and anti-clockwise motions. Rest for a second and repeat the process five times. Remember that it should be done slowly and effortlessly.
Sit on a terrace where you can see far off objects on the horizon. Look at a distant object and then look at the tip of your nose. Look from one to the other object 10 times. Close your eyes for a second and resume the exercise. Repeat five times and rest your eyes.

The following exercises may be used to alleviate eyes strain

Bhastrika Pranayam (Breath holding exercise)– 2 to 5 minutes.
Kapalbhati Pranayam (Skull shining breath exercise).
Bahya Pranayam (External breath exercise).
Anuloma – Viloma Pranayama (Alternate nostril breathing exercise).

All these can be found here

Yoga- The name popular in West is actually a derivation from the word YOG (which is a Sanskrit word with meaning 'to combine together'). Yog means to combine one's being with the Supreme Power. Sage Patanjali (Pronounced as Paa+ ta + n + ja + li) brought together postures and techniques of breathing together and created Yog Sutra. (The thread of Yog).

This actually transcended from the ideology that a healthy person can understand the meaning of God and compassion better. Therefore, it aims at relieving a man of the diseases so that a healthy body can provide shelter to a healthy soul.

But Yog is trying to handle a Lion. It should be practiced under the guidance of a learned Yog teacher...

Here's a good set of eye exercises, and a quote from its intro:

  When your eyes get tired and you start feeling the eye strain, but still have some work to do, use the Exercises For Eyes. Regular eye exercises can help you to improve eyesight and prevent eye diseases such as nearsightedness and farsightedness.


Are there any personality theories that use the scientific method? Background

I have come across a number of personality theories. There are even disciplines of personality theories, dividing these theories according to the assumptions they are based upon. The most accepted/used theories seem to be Big 5 and Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). However, I assume these theories use traits to determine people's personality types too.

For example, the Big 5 traits seem to be of very limited scope. Also, measuring traits like introversion and extroversion using some random questions which have polar opposite choices seems to be a fitting into a box sort of thing. There seems to be no scientific method while testing to determine whether people fall into one region or other for all the defined traits.

By scientific determination, I mean one could use methods like the one laid out in "Cerebral Blood Flow and personality: A Positron Emission Tomography Study" to determine between, say, introversion and extroversion traits. I am not sure whether the other traits have such methods researched enough to distinguish between them.

Question

Are there any personality theories that are based purely on scientific grounds?
Are there any existing personality theories (that are being researched) that could one day be backed up by scientific research? I think the Big 5 might come under this category, but any evidence to the above regarding any theory will be appreciated. Thanks!

What you may be interested are personality traits caught by some statistical correlations, rather than 'manually' merged by an author's intuition.
One of such tools is 16 Personality Factors.

The 16 Personality Factors, measured by the 16PF Questionnaire, were derived using factor-analysis by psychologist Raymond Cattell. This article summarizes the analysis that resulted in the 16 factors and allowed the development of the questionnaire, as well as the relation between the 16 factor theory and the popular five-factor personality theory.
[...]
This statement has become known as the Lexical Hypothesis, which posits that if there is a word for a trait, it must be a real trait. Allport and Odbert utilized this hypothesis to identify personality traits by working through two of the most comprehensive dictionaries of the English language available at the time, and extracting 18,000 personality-describing words. From this gigantic list they extracted 4500 personality-describing adjectives which they considered to describe observable and relatively permanent traits.

(from Wikipedia: 16 Personality Factors and 16PF Questionnaire)

The Enneagram Personality Theory is a non-trait-based personality theory that could be (though, to my knowledge, hasn't yet been) evidenced in a predictive manner through scientific research.

Many authors exist, but Riso and Hudson are the ones who bring it from a quasi-spiritual concept to a contemporary personality theory.

The concept posits that there are nine essential "types", which are driven by distinct motivations.  Every individual can be said to "have" all nine types in different proportions, but there is a single, defining motivation that drives a person from birth to death.

The desire to be good and right (vs the fear of being wrong)
The desire to be loved (vs the fear of being unloved)
The desire to be valuable (vs the fear of being worthless)
The desire to be unique (vs the fear of being without identity)
The desire to have mastery (vs the fear of being incompetent)
The desire to have support (vs the fear of being without guidance)
The desire to be satisfied, comfortable, and have fun (vs the fear of being bored, in pain, or deprived)
The desire to be safe and protected (vs the fear of manipulated or harmed)
The desire to be at peace (vs the fear of being in conflict)


can mushroom improve your memory? Mushrooms have several benefits. One of these is psychological. Can mushroom improve human memory?

Mushrooms contain psilocybin, which gets converted into psilocin. These act on serotonin receptors, which may play a role in memory. (Edits coming later)


Are social intelligence and emotional intelligence the same thing? Emotional intelligence and EQ are often used as phrases for social intelligence.

Are they really the same? Would social intelligence always imply emotional intelligence and vice versa?

These terms are defined by the underlying theory of Intelligence.  For example:

Social Intelligence (SI) comes from a definition by Edward Thorndike in 1920.
Emotional Intelligence (EI) (or EQ - Q=Quota) first appeared in a 1964 paper by Michael Beldoch, later by Goleman.
Then there is Interpersonal & Intrapersonal Intelligences from Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligence theory.

Generally speaking, they pertain to similar concepts with some overlap from theory to theory.  When speaking of this type of intelligence it is often recommended to cite the theory the discussion is based on.

Emotional Intelligence encompases Social Intelligence as you can see below:
- Self-Awareness,
- Self-Management,
- Social Awareness
- Relationship Management.

http://www.teleosleaders.com/howwedoit/emotional.php


Are liars inclined to lie to themselves? Reading the famous quote of Oliver Sacks, can we draw conclusions about liars?

  "We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought." [Oliver Sacks]

If speech is part of thought, then maybe liars can begin making fallacious thoughts in the long run?

Is there scientific evidence that suggests that speech affects thinking, possibly in relation to (pathological) liars?

Although I cannot answer the question on lying, (self-)speech and thinking are intimately linked to each-other, and actually used in UX-design (e.g. Krahmer, 2004). He compared two different approaches of thinking-aloud. In other words, people are perfectly able to verbalize their thoughts and actually do so.
One of the approaches he compares is a proposal of Ericsson and Simon (1993). In their nice and brief paper, they discuss (and refer to) many scientific papers (e.g. cognitive scientific and psychological) where self-speech is used during problem solving. Moreover, it showed that self-speech is related to other variables that correspond to thoughts.

In their review, Ericsson and Simon (1993) found that [[...]] there seemed to be close correspondence between subjects’ thoughts and what information that they looked at--when subjects verbalized thoughts about objects in the environment they very frequently looked at them.

I must admit that self-speech in this way is only used as a methods of identifying cognitive processes, and is often a mandated task in the experiment. However, the fact that people are able to reflect on their thoughts, gives me reason to believe that they can do so unconsciously too. If someone could correct me or confirm this, I invite you to do so.

Well practiced liars often convince themselves of their own lie, it being an alternate truth for them. When you are convinced that a lie is the real truth and that truth is either mellowed or expanded upon an original truth it becomes much easier to tell that false reality to others. When you know someone is lying it's usually because of involuntary movements such as rapid eye movement, quivering, or just that look in their eyes. If a well practiced liar removed or subdued those warning signals and reduced nervousness by making themselves believe their own lie, there will be no or less fidgeting and anxious movements. It is also beneficial for liar to convince themselves of their false truth so that they can repeat the same story or explanation when its needed. They also always keep a lie simple and concise, and only volunteer extra information when they anticipate the next interrogative inquiry. If they offer the information up front it becomes more believable but at the same time, if they lie up a life story leading up to this moment you would think, "Whoa, this is way too much information, what are they hiding?" But yet too little information leads to the same result of someone wondering if the lying person is holding something back or not telling the whole truth. If a true liar can convince them self that their lie is in fact reality it becomes much easier to tell that truth. Say, with a polygraph machine, aka the lie detector. If that person cant hide their anxiety or nervousness the machine will detect those emotions and start spiking off the grid.


Why did humans evolve to be traumatizable? Why did humans evolve to be traumatizable, instead of being more resilient and treating trauma in a detached manner? Don't symptoms of trauma reduce a person's biological fitness? Is PTSD an adaptation, and if so, what is it an adaptation for? After all, the stress reaction and emotional imprinting appears to be designed rather than an accident.

There are a lot of assumptions you are making here. "Being traumatizable" isn't really a trait. We evolved a brain in a certain way, with an amygdala and hippocampus that work a certain way. Those components have been critical in our ability to form knowledge + interact socially with one another. Instances of malfunction in the face of trauma/PTSD are a side-effect of an imperfect biological system, BUT that doesn't render the whole system useless/detrimental in the evolutionary sense.
Secondly, you're assuming it does reduce biological fitness. I'm sure it makes it harder in indirect ways, but ultimately, PTSD symptoms actively mess with very few people's ability to have sex and pass on genes. PTSD does seem to have a strong, albeit complex genetic component. For as long as people with PTSD are reproducing (and most of them are) then there will be a genetic predisposition for developing PTSD in the gene pool.
Third, how is it designed? I am confused by this one. People have a tendency to wrongly assume that almost every trait is an adaptive trait. Maybe in this case it is and we just haven't found what the beneficial feature is BUT, it is highly more likely and logical that a) as stated above, it's just a by-product of another highly adaptive trait aka, our particular brain structure and function. They come in a 2-for-1 deal and as much as PTSD sucks or might reduce biological fitness, those are completely offset by the benefits and increase in fitness due to our brain circuitry.
OR b) it's a neutral variation that doesn't significantly increase or decrease our fitness, therefore is maintained in the population because it has no reason to be selected out. Another reminder that our own negative human experience of suffering through PTSD doesn't inherently mean much in the eyes of evolution, as long as we can reproduce.