Video Games

There’s no need for an introduction, I’m sure you know what video games are. From the classic, blocky Pong to the anticipated Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2, they are all designed to keep you hooked. This shouldn’t be surprising, not one bit. Game manufacturers make money. To make money, they need lots of customers. Addictive games bring in lots of customers.

There is no denying how addictive some games can be. Whether it be an inbuilt level/achievement system, the social aspect of multiplayer games, or the thrill and adrenaline that courses through when dominating the game, these games are addictive and everyone is susceptible.

Teenage boys are most commonly addicted, but surveys show that over 50% of the gaming population are in fact, adults. Games like World of Warcraft have over 12 million active subscribers, all paying an initial sum and then again every single month to continue. Imagine, an online world with 12 million people. I live in Australia, and we have just over twice that amount.

That’s right, a single video game has nearly half the amount of people as an entire country. Amazing, isn’t it?

World of Warcraft

Let’s take a look at this game for a moment, and analyse what makes it so addictive. The game offers an impressive 8,000 quests and a neat levelling system that goes along with it. This in itself can be addictive, as completing each quest moves you closer and closer to the next level. With each level, new skills and spells become accessible that increase the replayability of the game. There are races, classes, professions, guilds, auctions and all sorts of other nifty features that keep the player there, levelling until level 80 – the highest level.

Even after reaching level 80 which normally takes at least a month, even more an experienced gamer, the ‘World’ offers a huge variety of activities. Banding together in groups to fight bosses, and even fighting each other, all of which are easily accessible to the casual player.

The adrenaline makes it addictive. The social side makes it addictive. The replayability makes it addictive. The game is designed to be addictive. And it seems as if it’s working.

Escapism

Games simulate entire worlds for the player to immerse themselves in. Much like a book or a movie, except much more interactive. This often leads to people with poor social skills or problematic lives to spend their time in the games, escaping from reality.

This is actually a fantastic side to games if used in small doses. Just as books have been used to let people experience a different reality, so do games. But this is extremely dangerous to the weak minded and as such, it can lead to serious psychological problems, starting with addiction.

Awareness and Treatment

Treat it as any other addiction. It’s as simple as that. Video games will cause major disruptions in a person’s life if they become too addicted. Visiting a psychologist or going ‘cold turkey’ will do the trick.

1. Seek Help

While it may seem obvious, people with depression often feel ashamed or embarrassed and try to hide it. Sure, if you have friends that have the emotional range of a teaspoon, you shouldn’t tell them (in fact, you should be reconsidering your friendships). But that shouldn’t stop you from seeking professional help, or even help from online communities.

If you’re a prideful person then take a good look at yourself and drop some of your pride. Encouragement and support is what you need, not self pity and sadness. Go seek help, it’s for your own benefit.

It’s important that you don’t tell people that you know won’t understand. They will only serve to make you more depressed, it’s not a pleasant experience, being kicked when you’re already on the ground.

This is a great online forum with some nice people. If you ever feel depressed, it may be your answer. Take This Life

2. Don’t Wallow in Self Pity

It is harder than it seems. A symptom of depression is to think negative thoughts about yourself. You might think “My life is useless, I’m just one in a million” or “What’s the point in living if I’m only going to feel pain?”

To handle depression, you must not allow these thoughts to become reality. These thoughts will appear in your head and they will make your life seem worthless. You have to remember that life is worth living and that you are special. Otherwise you can easily sink lower and lower into a dangerously depressed state.

Combining this with the first piece of advice is very useful as they complement each other.

3. Self Injury? Suicide? Say No

This interlinks with the previous pieces of advice. You may think that the emotional pain is too much to handle. You may come up with the idea, or the idea may be suggested to you, of harming yourself to distract yourself from the emotional pain of depression with physical pain. This is not a good idea. Hundreds of people harm themselves and regret it afterwards. It is addictive. Avoid it at all costs.

To a more extreme level, you may think that suicide will let you escape from the pain. No one will benefit from you killing yourself. You will miss out on all the joys of life and all your friends and family will be left stunned and sad. Depressed people often think that their friends and family don’t care about them. If this is the case for you, consider getting some new friends. Again, online forums are great to this extent.

4. Run, run!

Studies have shown that physical exercise does in fact help cheer you up and help overcome depression. That’s not all. Studies have shown that sunlight and nature also helps (when you think about it, it’s not that surprising. I mean, Spring makes people happy).

Grab a friend and go for a stroll. Walk around the park and talk about life’s problems. Think happy, talk happy, play happy. Human contact is essential. If you can’t find anyone, take a stroll by yourself and meditate (think about) your life. Just make sure that you don’t fall into the spiral of negative thinking. Walk around, listen to the birds chirping and smile.

5. Depression Won’t Last

Remember:

• Depression is temporary
• Once you come out of your depression, you’ll feel happier than ever
• Depression usually results in better personality traits
• Depression is common and affects one in six of us. Just about everyone of those people make it through

Beat it

You can beat it. Everyone can beat it. Depression is considered a defence mechanism by some psychologists. Either way, it isn’t easy but it is definitely beatable. Social contact and positive thinking will prevail.

The mind is very peculiar. Is it just a series of electric pulses shooting through our brains? Define consciousness. Do we humans have a ’soul’ that separates us from mere robots? What about animals and insects, do they have souls? Are they conscious? These philosophical questions lie at the root of psychology.

So what is psychology? In a nutshell, psychology is the study of the mind. Psychology in considered a science as it attempts to discover the process by which the mind operates. A practitioner of psychology is called a psychologists. Psychologists are split into two areas – research and applied. Research psychologists continue to expand on their knowledge of the human mind whereas applied psychologists use current knowledge to help people.

You’ve probably heard of Sigmund Freud, possibly the greatest psychologist to have ever lived. Well, psychology has evolved exponentially since then. Many of Freud’s ideas have been scrapped (while others have been kept), but his role in the expansion of psychology was vital. No longer is psychology simply the theorising of inner child sexual development. In modern times, psychology is mainly researched through empirical evidence (physical evidence such as statistics).

Cognitivism

Psychology as we know it today is dominated by the idea of ‘cognitive’ psychology. This type of psychology arose recently, only becoming popular in the middle of the 20th century during a period called the ‘cognitive revolution’. Cognitive psychology refers to the study of our mental abilities – the memory, learning, thinking, reasoning, understanding, perceiving.

In cognitive psychology, it is thought that the inner working of the brain can be individually mapped out using complex algorithms and computational models. There are in fact, three main methods of studying cognitive psychology.

1. Empirical data: Like other sciences, experiments are carried out to extend knowledge cognitive psychology. Ranging from surveys to response time, experiments are vital to most types of psychology.
2. Information Processing: Computational models are a main feature of cognitive psychology and helped bring it to mainstream psychology in the mid 20th century. Complex mathematical and computational models are used to predict and map the workings of the brain.
3. Neural data: High resolution brain imaging and neurobiological methods are thought to be able to show visually how the brain functions.

Because of the foundations of cognitive psychology, it is combined with other studies of intelligence under the umbrella of cognitive science.

Behaviorism

Before the cognitive revolution, behaviorism dominated the field of psychology. Under this theory, it was thought that everything a person does is a behavior; their thinking, acting and everything else are all considered to be behaviors. Psychologists thought that they could scientifically explain someone’s behavior, meaning they could explain someone’s thinking and acting (thinking and doing were now considered to be the same).

Although behaviorism was largely eclipsed by the cognitive revolution, it continues to exist to this day with many institutions dedicated to studying a newer, modern form of behaviorism, ‘behavior analysis’ which incorporates cognitivism.

Also, behaviorism is able to explain some things that cognitivism cannot. For example, imagine a plain, ordinary room. If a person walked in the room, what would they do? Cognitive psychology and behavior analysis can both explain the consequent actions of the person (albeit differently). Now if we put a chair in the middle of the room, what would a person do if they walked in the room? Cognitive psychology cannot describe the consequences, whereas behavior analysis can.

Psychology is a Pseudo Science!

Although cognitive psychology does show obvious advantages over behavior analysis (such as the ability to explain how the mind works to a precise level), its rise in psychology is largely attributed to the increasing technology available over the years. It has been stressed before, psychology is a science. As such, it isn’t surprising that the school of thought that incorporates the most technological and scientific methods should become the dominant one.

Behaviorism reliance on experiments was its only scientific characteristic. Cognitivism also uses experiments, can be replicated through computational models, can be predicted using complex mathematical algorithms, and incorporates many other scientific characteristics.

So Psychology is the Study of Cognition?

No. Psychology is far broader than one simple study and cognitive psychology is simply one branch. However, it is the most important branch and is used in virtually every other branch of psychology. While this blog encompasses every branch of psychology, it is focused on social psychology – the uses of psychology in life and other psychological phenomena witnessed in social situations. Sometimes referred to as everyday psychology.

1. Psychological or Physiological

Amnesia can be caused via two methods. The first is ‘organic’ and can occur when: the victim’s hippocampus (see picture on the right) is damaged usually due to a heavy blow to the head, the victim is suffering from a disease, or the victim has taken an amnesia inducing drug.

The other method is ‘functional’ and describes the psychological factors such as a psychologically traumatic experience, repressed memories and other such defence mechanisms.

Often times, the type of amnesia you see on TV dramas is usually caused by a heavy blow to the head (brain damage). In reality, it is extremely rare for a person to suffer from amnesia due to brain damage. This is because the hippocampus is safely tucked inside the brain and it would take a serious blow to damage the hippocampus.

The hippocampus is the portion of the brain that controls long term memory. Damage to the hippocampus is very dangerous. Extensive research is being undertaken on the hippocampus as psychologists are not completely sure of how the hippocampus functions.

Diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease can often induce amnesia. This is primarily due to the deterioration of the hippocampus. Also, you may have asked why there are amnesia inducing drugs. Often times a person will undergo some sort of traumatic surgery and the drug will cause permanent memory loss for that time period. Isn’t it wonderful? Psychology is being used more and more in everyday life.

Functional amnesia primarily occurs when defence mechanisms of the human mind attempt to repress memories. Think of a child in a room, playing innocently. This child represents your fragile mind. A traumatic experience can be represented by a serial killer coming to murder the child. The room now sets off these defence mechanisms, steel walls that rise up and protect the child. This is exactly what happens with your mind. Due to its fragile nature, it can’t handle some memories. To keep your mind functioning and normal, your mind sets off defence mechanisms that prevent the memories from being recalled.

Now the memories are still there, they just happen to be hidden away. Repressed memories have serious consequences in adulthood, and psychiatric treatment is usually required to recall the traumatic memories.

2. Retrograde vs Anterograde

There are actually two different types of amnesia. The most commonly known type is retrograde amnesia, where the victim loses some or all memory prior to the event that caused the amnesia. The lesser known version is anterograde amnesia, where the victim is unable to hold any memories after the event that caused the amnesia.

Retrograde amnesia is almost always shown as a plot device in a television series or a movie. The protagonist has no idea who he is and spends the rest of the show trying to remember (while falling in love with the girl of his dreams).

While it isn’t as common as the media portrays it to be, it is very serious and often times the memories are never regained. A much publicised amnesia story came about in 2004 when a man was found outside of a Burger King restaurant unconscious. He appeared to have had several blows to the head and when he came to, he could not remember anything. The amnesiac named himself Benjaman Kyle (same initials as Burger King) and there have been ongoing efforts to find his identity.

5 years later, he still doesn’t remember anything except for some bits and pieces.

Now, onto anterograde amnesia or otherwise known as short term memory loss. If you have ever watched 50 First Dates, you will understand what anterograde amnesia is. For those of you who haven’t watched the movie, the female protagonist suffers a blow to the head and then forgets everything after the day she became an amnesiac every time she goes to sleep. While in reality it isn’t as romantic, the movie does raise awareness on this relatively unknown condition.

This condition is usually more severe than retrograde amnesia. Anterograde amnesia is usually caused by damage to the hippocampus or other memory circuits in the brain. The exact memory storing processes aren’t known as of yet, so it is impossible to pinpoint what causes this condition. However, since it is always organic amnesia, it is more difficult to treat than retrograde amnesia, which is often due to psychological causes.

Someone afflicted with anterograde amnesia will find it impossible to learn new facts or memorise new sentences.

While anterograde amnesia is generally seen as worse than the retrograde variant, both types have been known to affect the same person. This event is extremely rare and is impossible to live with. This is called global amnesia and you’ll just have to pray that you won’t ever be affected by it.

3. Alcohol

Hopefully you knew this already. If you didn’t, hopefully this opens your eyes: heavy use of alcohol can cause amnesia.

People have two types of memory. Short term and long term. If the short term memory is recalled enough, then it transfers into the long term memory. If the short term memory isn’t recalled at all, then it is simply forgotten. Consuming an excess amount of alcohol (binge drinking) can lead to a ‘blackout’.

If you experience a blackout, you’ll act just as normal as you would every other time you’ve drunk too much. This is because your short term memory is still functioning. Afterwards however, your short term memory is blocked from transferring into the long term and by the time you’ve sobered up, you won’t remember a single thing.

Speaking of which, I had a blackout the first time I drank alcohol. Over a period of about 2 months, I was slowly recalling random bits of memory. They weren’t too good.

Not to worry! There is a way to prevent blacking out the next time you drink. Studies have shown that drinking over a longer period of time reduces the chances of blacking out, rather than drinking a lot in one go. Between the two groups of volunteers in the study, the group that drank far quicker were more prone to blackouts than the other group, even though they were equally drunk.

4. Hypnotism

I personally like this fact the best. Victims of amnesia are often hypnotised to recover the lost memories. This doesn’t work for all types of amnesia, but it is certainly effective for most.

It is difficult to explain hypnosis without writing a full article on it. In a nutshell, hypnotism allows the hypnotist to directly access the mind. It links everything in the brain to reality. A person under hypnosis is open to suggestions as their mind is opened up.

Now, hypnotism is (relatively) new and it is still undergoing extensive research. Licensed psychiatrists are allowed to practice hypnosis on their patients to help a wide variety of things, including amnesia. Clinical hypnosis is mostly used on people suffering from dissociative fugue (where a person cannot remember anything form a certain period of time).

A person under hypnosis is able to recall certain bits of information, as they try to recreate the scenario in the person’s mind. Take Benjaman Kyle for example (mentioned in Part 1). He was unable to remember anything about his past life, especially not anything that could help him. After a brief session of hypnosis, he was able to recall several digits of his social security number, narrowing his hometown to somewhere in Arizona.

Normally hypnosis is used to recover repressed memories and help the patient ‘become a better person’.

5. Betrayal

Yep. Being betrayed by your best friend can cause you to suffer amnesia. When someone is betrayed, the defence mechanics go up. It blocks out and represses the memories. This is (appropriately) titled Betrayal Trauma, and the symptoms are very similar to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Who knew betrayal had such serious consequences?

Hopefully you learnt something knew. If you know another interesting fact about amnesia, feel free to comment below. To conclude, here is the structure of long term memory.

Confused? You're not alone

]]> http://www.psychologyinlife.com/5-facts-about-amnesia/feed/ 0 http://www.psychologyinlife.com/borderline-personality-disorder/ http://www.psychologyinlife.com/borderline-personality-disorder/#comments Sat, 26 Sep 2009 10:09:36 +0000 youngminii http://www.psychologyinlife.com/?p=106 Imagine life where you only felt extremely happy or depressingly sad. Where one moment you’re skipping along with your family and the next you’re swearing at them for treating you badly, going from a smile to a razor blade. One of the worst psychological disorders, people diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) have to live through it everyday.

Black and white

The most common characteristic of people with BPD is that they think about everything in extremes. It’s almost as if when it comes to emotions, they can’t think rationally. Now I know people with BPD. They seem normal and some are extremely smart. However, when it comes to emotions, they break down.

You’ve met drama queens before haven’t you? Well, think of people with BPD as an exceptionally severe drama queen, without the gossip and the attention seeking factor.

This extreme type of thinking has been titled ’splitting’ or ‘black and white thinking’, and justly so. Black represents the negative side and white represents the positive side. Here’s an example. You meet someone new and he says something that annoys you a little. You won’t hate him, but you’ll think he’s slightly annoying. Now if someone with BPD was in that situation, the person with BPD would immediately hate that person. It’s important to note that it’s not mainly the gossiping type of thoughts. Rather, the thoughts are usually of despair and depression.

“One day I would think my doctor was the best and I loved her, but if she challenged me in any way I hated her. There was no middle ground, as in ‘like’. In my world, people were either the best or the worst. I couldn’t understand the concept of middle ground.”

As such, people with BPD are extremely sensitive. It’s important not to ’set them off’.

Triggering suicidal behaviour

People with BPD often fall into lapses of depressed moods. These mood swings can be ‘triggered’ or set off by anything remotely depressing. A sad song or a depressing movie, a description of a disadvantaged child, even reading this article. They can all trigger someone with BPD to fall into a depressed state.

In fact, the term ‘trigger’ is often used as an adjective describing anything that can trigger someone into this state. In the depressed state they usually think about how unfair their lives are and how nobody likes them. It had drawn parallels with schizophrenia and psychotic behaviour. It’s not surprising that BPD is often diagnosed alongside depression.

These bursts of depression last anywhere from a few hours up to a day, so it isn’t as long as clinical depression. However, these few hours can be extremely dangerous. Often BPD patients will resort to self injury to distract them from their unbearable emotional pain. Self injury becomes a habit and they become dependent on it. It’s important to note that when people inflict pain on themselves, it’s done without the intent of suicide.

In the worst hours, people with BPD will sometimes resort to suicide. They have to find a way to escape from the world and from the harshness of reality. I know a person who has had 4 suicide attempts in the past 2 years as a result of BPD, but every other day she’s as happy as everyone else.

It is of utmost importance not to trigger this behaviour. There are many treatments available and they are all very expensive.

The psychology of BPD in everyday life

Characteristic of people with BPD in everyday life are wide ranging. Here are the obvious few:

• People with a severe case of BPD usually have other disorders.
• Impulsive behaviour is a key characteristic. Binge eating, promiscuous sex, compulsive spending are all common.
• Can be very obsessive one moment and then be the complete opposite the next.
• Bad history with relationships, often ending abruptly in a triggered state.
• They can often be the life of the party when they’re in a happy state.

If I was to list every characteristic, this post would never end.

BPD is a very common throughout the world. Approximately 1-3% of the United States has been diagnosed with BPD, 75% of them being female. There is a terrible stigma associated with BPD and it is often hard for people with BPD to be open about it. Don’t be afraid of them as they are extremely nice people and don’t deserve to be branded with the stigma.

Why is it ‘borderline’?

When the disorder was first being studied, it was thought to be very close to psychosis and/or schizophrenia. People with BPD were thought to be on the edge of having a proper personality disorder. This is now known to be completely false and so the title does not reflect the disorder in any way.

For more reading, check out National Institute of Mental Health – Borderline Personality Disorder.

If you have 5 minutes to spare, this video describes what it feels like to have BPD.

Internet addiction disorder is an increasing problem as technology and internet access becomes better and easier to access. While it isn’t yet considered an official psychological disorder, clinics and psychiatrists are already offering services to treat the addiction.

Addiction

To be addicted to something is to be dependant on it. Whether it be a substance leading to physical dependance or a service leading to psychological dependance, they both heavily damage a person’s lifestyle.

Psychological dependance is characterised by the following:

• Constant and excessive use. To be on the internet over 6 hours a day is considered excessive. How long do you spend on the internet?
• Loss of sense of time while on the internet. How often are you surprised by the amount of time you’ve spent on the internet?
• Negative impact on life. Are you failing school? Is your job performance falling? Are you sacrificing time with friends to be on the internet?
• Withdrawal. When you’re not on the internet, do you look forward to the next time you’re able to go on the internet? Are you unhappy when you haven’t been on the internet in a long time?

Psychologically speaking, many of us have an addiction to something. Whether it be gambling, sex, drugs, nicotine, alcohol or the internet, addiction is not something to be taken lightly.

The Internet

Strictly speaking, internet addiction disorder is separate from game addiction and computer addiction, even though they all share similar psychological characteristics.

There are many reasons why someone can be considered addicted to the internet itself. Online communities, social networking sites, the blogosphere, online gambling, online shopping, online pornography and online gaming are the major factors of internet addiction.

Access to the internet is rapidly increasing as faster broadband speeds are being discovered. The limitations of the internet are constantly being stretched with the advent of audio chat and video conferencing. Truly, the technological era has only begun. As internet usage grows, so do the factors that make it addictive.

Easy access to information has made the internet a staple tool in everyday life, yet research into the psychological effects are still at the beginning stages. This can easily lead to a psychological addiction, something we should all avoid.

The Great Debate

Well, it’s actually not that great. Many leading psychologists have argued against internet addiction, claiming that the internet is only a medium. To be addicted to online gambling is an addiction to gambling, not the internet. Likewise, addiction to online shopping, online pornography are linked to their real life versions.

The argument that the internet being a medium actually highlights the addiction to online social activities. However, the classification of the internet as a medium does cause debate as addiction to the internet can be likened to an addiction to the park. It is impossible to be addicted to a place, and hence it is impossible to be addicted to the internet, or so it’s argued.

Why is it so easy to be addicted to the internet? Do I need psychological help?

As soon as you start preferring online friends over real friends, you should realise that you’re addicted. There are various as to why it is particularly easy to become addicted to the internet.

• Hyperfocus -> You tend to be more focused while on the internet.
• Emotional attachment -> Many activities on the internet require an emotional investment.
• Widespread access -> The key feature of the internet is the ease of access, including the addictive activity.
• Anonymity -> One of the most popular communities on the internet call themselves ‘Anonymous’.

Asian countries, especially China, have a large number of internet addicts. In fact, there have been numerous deaths from using the internet for long periods of time. China was the first country to seriously consider classifying internet addiction as an actual disorder.

Interestingly, training camps have been set up all over China to force teenagers out of their addiction. Think of a training camp for obese children. Now instead of restraining to eat, imagine the children restraining to use the internet. The addiction can be that serious.

There are lots of psychological help sites online, as well as dedicated psychiatric facilities for the extreme cases. Psychologists have found that most addictions solve themselves as the addict is likely to stumble across a page detailing internet addiction (like this blog post) and then going on to help themselves.

The internet is wonderful.

So, as much as I love the fact that you’re reading my blog, ask yourself: Am I spending too much time on the internet? Do I read too many blogs? What’s the time? That said, you should still regularly visit my site in healthy doses.

Did you know that, given enough pressure, you would probably choose to kill rather than to disobey? This startling fact was discovered as a result of the Milgram experiment.

The experiment was carried out in 1961 and raised ethical questions. It involved tricking the participant of the experiment into thinking that the goal was completely different. The true goal was to study the willingness of a participant to obey authorities when forced to act against their own conscience.

Pressure Pressure

In the Milgram experiment, 2 ‘randomly’ chosen people are assigned the role of either teacher or learner and the experimenter is given his own role. One of the randomly chosen people is actually a confederate – someone who is working with the experimenter. The confederate is always assigned the role of learner.

The teacher and learner are separated by one wall with audio contact. The experimenter is placed in the same room as the teacher. The teacher is told that the experiment will be using electro shocks to study memory and is given a sample shock.

From this point, the teacher asks the learner a series of questions. If the learner answers incorrectly, the teacher shocks him. Every time the leaner is incorrect, the shock voltage goes up by a certain amount, until finally stopping at a lethal 450 Volts which is administered 3 times before the experiment ends. Of course, there was no real electrocution. The learner acts as if he is in pain (with a pre recorded tape).

How many ‘teachers’ do you think would continue on with the experiment even though it is obvious that the learner is ‘dying’? You would think they’d all stop halfway through. A staggering 65% of participants continued the experiment to the end.

If the participant objected t0 performing the electrocutions, the experimenter (don’t forget, he’s in the same room as the teacher) says the following in order:

1. Please continue.
2. The experiment requires that you continue.
3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.
4. You have no other choice, you must go on.

After these four prods, the experiment would end if the participant continued to object. While most participants did object at one point, the vast majority continued the experiment. In fact, only one person in the initial experiments opted out of the experiment before the 300 Volt point.

Why? How can you let someone die right in front of you?

It’s hard to understand how you could continue on with the experiment even with the screams of pain coming from the other side of the wall. This highlights the level of obedience in the company of someone with authority.

There are several theories attempting to explain this remarkable scenario.

• The participants becomes an instrument of obedience and don’t consider themselves as responsible for their actions anymore.
• In a situation with an authority figure, the participant leaves the decision making process to the authorities as they would be more experienced in the situation. This is in line with the Asch conformity experiments and social proof.
• They participants believe that the experimenter is handling the situation properly and that the experiment is safe, despite the fact that it clearly is not.

Ethical Issues

As with every great experiment involving human beings, there were ethical questions raised at how the experiment was carried out. It was believed that the participants experienced emotional distress in administering the shocks, although afterwards they were usually happy to be part of the experiment.

Obedience in Everyday Life

As with every study in psychology, there are direct applications in real life. You can keep this experiment in mind the next time you are pressured into something you might be uncomfortable with. Don’t be afraid to argue against the authorities when you feel an injustice is being carried out. Who knows, maybe you can use this to persuade someone to do something that’s not normally accepted (I take no responsibility for your actions).

Social Proof

In our day to day lives, we tend to do what everyone else does in most situations. This warrants the title of psychological phenomenon.

In most social situations, we assume that everyone else knows more than ourselves. As such, we tend to copy everyone else since they must be right. This can easily lead to situations where everyone assumes everyone else is correct and an errorneous decision is made. This in itself can lead to disaster.

The Bystander Effect

As a result of social proof, when a situation arises where a bystander is required to act, no one will do anything if there are lots of bystanders around.

Let’s say a woman is in trouble and needs help from just one person, but there’s an entire crowd of people around her. If no one knows how to handle the situation properly, the chances of someone helping out are extremely low. There are two main reasons for this effect.

The first is that the responsibility of helping the woman is diffused across the entire crowd. That means there isn’t a significant amount of responsibility on any single person. As such, there is less incentive to act. If the number of bystanders is decreased then the responsibility is greater on each person, increasing the chances of someone helping out. This outlines the sad fact that no one will help the woman in need if there are lots of people.

The second is a result of social proof. If everyone else isn’t helping out, then why should we?

“There’s probably someone else in the crowd better suited to helping her out.”

“I shouldn’t do anything if everyone else isn’t doing something, since there’s probably a reason that no one’s helping her.”

This bystander effect can lead to disastrous events, especially when someone’s in need. The main solution to this problem is increasing awareness of the bystander effect. Now that you know, you can act against the traditional line of thinking when confronted with a sticky situation! Also, it can be countered by assigning responsibility to just one person in the crowd instead of letting it diffuse.

The Halo Effect

When you see someone that looks kind or attractive, that perception tends to leak out towards their other characteristics. Say you saw a really pretty lady, or a charming man. Based on these initial perceptions, you’ll begin to assign similar ‘good’ characteristics towards their other personality traits.

“Oh she looks really pretty. She’s probably got lots of friends, intelligent, kind…”

Similarly, if someone is perceived as having lots of friends then by social proof, that person must have good qualities.

“Wow that guy’s so popular! He must be charming, attractive, thoughtful…”

Obviously you don’t actively think of these characteristics. They tend to just leak out from their first good characteristic into other unrelated traits. The opposite is the Devil Effect. If someone’s really ugly then you tend to leak negative characteristics for them.

Everyday Life

Taking these psychological phenomena into consideration, you can manipulate other people’s perception of you. Using social proof, you can sway a group’s judgement in your favour if the situation calls for it. You can negate the bystander effect by taking responsibility and that will invoke the rest of the crowd to think positively of you. The halo effect can be used in conjunction with social proof and the bystander effect by giving yourself a good initial characteristic that will leak into your other characteristics.

Just try it the next time you meet someone and you will see positive results. Making yourself seem better than you really are, it’s great isn’t it?

First impressions

When you meet someone for the first time, they leave an impression on you. They could have been extremely nice and charming. This becomes an expectation. Whenever you think about this person from then on, you will think of how nice and how charming they are.

Your friend: “Hey have you met Jake? He’s pretty annoying right?”

You: “Yeah I met him. No he’s really nice, he helped me with everything and he was so charming.”

You will go on and on about how nice this person is and you won’t believe your friend who says he’s annoying. You might listen to him but inside you won’t believe your friend because of the expectations that you’ve already formed.

Confirmation

Every subsequent time you meet this new person, you will automatically seek out his actions that agree with your expectations. All other actions will pass by unnoticed by you, for the most part. Obviously there’s an extent to which this is true, if the guy’s a complete jackass then your expectations blow up in your face.

However, if your friend has bitched about this new person to you, then you’ll also seek out his actions that agree with your friend. This is slightly different in that you’re actively searching for it, whereas normally you’re searching for confirmation automatically.

Less and less

Let’s say you become friends with this nice and charming person. The first few times you met him, you noticed some stuff that confirmed your expectations of him. Now it’s solid in your mind, he is nice and charming.

What happens is that as you get to know someone better, you begin characterising them more and more. If your initial expectations are continuously confirmed, then you will characterise them more and more on your initial expectations. This means that if the person was really nice and charming in the first meeting, he can be less and less nice and charming in subsequent meetings, but you’ll have characterised them as being really nice and charming.

Usefulness in life

Expectation confirmation is psychology in life, the reason why people say “First impressions are most important”. This is true. When you meet someone new, act very nice to them. Be gallant, outgoing, charming, smart. Then every time you meet them, you can be act less and less nice, as long as you perform some nice deeds here and there.

Soon enough you don’t have to act at all, just be yourself and you’ll still be known for how nice you are. How great is this everyday psychology?

That said, you can watch out for yourself. If someone’s really nice when you first meet them, don’t be fooled. Lots of people aren’t nice. Don’t assume anything and don’t make any expectations. Of course it can’t be helped, but it doesn’t hurt to pay attention in subsequent meetings and to keep your guard up.

What is an “introvert”?

Surely you’ve heard the term sometime during your life. An introvert is someone who prefers keeping to themselves, someone who enjoys the quiet life. They tend to be more reserved and less outgoing than others, preferring to read, write, draw, spend time on the computer or other less social activities. It’s important to note that being an introvert is not the same as being shy. Shyness is when someone avoids social interaction out of fear and awkwardness, whereas introversion is when someone chooses to avoid social interaction out of preference.

What is an “extrovert”?

The complete opposite. Extroverts tend to enjoy social interaction and are less reserved with their feelings and thoughts. They tend to enjoy sports and other exciting activities and they are usually the life of the party. In a high school playground, the jocks would be the extroverts and the nerds would be the introverts.

Which one am I?

Well, the fact that you’re on the computer reading my blog indicates that you probably enjoy spending lots of time on the computer meaning you’re introverted. Probably. Think about how you act in social situations (and be honest to yourself, no one’s judging you). Do you see yourself as the person laughing at everyone’s jokes or the person making all the jokes? Do you enjoy spending time on the computer a bit too much?

Here’s a question for you. If you could start life all over, would you choose to be extroverted or introverted? I’m going to assume you said extroverted. That’s completely normal, society encourages extroversion. The cool people are always the ones that are outgoing, the nerdy people are always the ones that are on the computer or doing stuff by themselves.

There is definitely a horrible stigma associated with the introverted lifestyle.

Nothing wrong with being introverted

Interestingly, extroverts are never jealous of introverts yet many introverts are hugely jealous of extroverts. I would think that this is because extroverts just don’t understand why an introvert would prefer to be alone. However, it is easy to be envious of someone with lots of friends. This is the status quo of the world and it won’t change until introverts grow some confidence.

If you’re an introvert, how many times have you looked at the popular guy or the hot babe at a party and wished “God I wish I was like that”? If I asked why, would you be able to answer? They work well in social groups, so what? I’m sure you have a talent that’s far better than being able to talk to people. For example, introverts are more likely to enjoy computing and programming than extroverts. This world and our lifestyle is being dominated by computers and technology. Talking to people will always be the same, computers will change the world.

Change who you are

If you don’t like who you are, you can always change. Personality traits can be shaped according to your will. Sure it takes a bit of time and dedication, but the way you act and feel is completely up to you. If you’re introverted, you can learn how to act in an extroverted manner in social situations. If you’re extroverted, well then it’s a lot harder seeing as you’ll find introverted activities boring and tedious.

I for one am introverted, but I can be extroverted at times. It’s a good balance.

Psychology in life

So how can this psychology be used in everyday life? You can improve your lifestyle by learning how to be more extroverted and making more friends. Yes, it might be daunting but you must realise that being introverted does not make anyone like you. Social interaction is the key to a healthy lifestyle. That said, enjoying introverted activities doesn’t hurt. Extreme introverts will not want to make more friends and will enjoy life in their current situation. It all depends on your preferences and what you want out of life. If you are truly unhappy with your social status and lifestyle, then learn how to change.