Published: January 28, 2011
The growing numbers of new cases of substance abuse disorders are perplexing. After all, the course of drug addiction so often ends badly. The negative consequences of drug abuse appear regularly on TV, from stories of celebrities behaving in socially inappropriate and self-destructive ways while intoxicated to dramatization of the rigors of drug withdrawal on “Intervention” and other reality shows.
Schools now educate students about the risks of addiction. While having a keen awareness of the negative long-term repercussions of substance use protects some people from developing addictions, others remain vulnerable.
One reason that education alone cannot prevent substance abuse is that people who are vulnerable to developing substance abuse disorders tend to exhibit a trait called “delay discounting”, which is the tendency to devalue rewards and punishments that occur in the future. Delay discounting may be paralleled by “reward myopia”, a tendency to opt for immediately rewarding stimuli, like drugs.
Thus, people vulnerable to addiction who know that drugs are harmful in the long run tend to devalue this information and to instead be drawn to the immediately rewarding effects of drugs.
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Published: January 27, 2011
God may work in mysterious ways – but cognitive science is getting a handle on them
Scientific American features an intriguing introduction to Jesse Bering’s new book The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny and the Meaning of Life. One of the leading scholars in the field of religious cognition Bering crafts a thesis that builds on the strengths of his own research and others.
In the chapters that follow, we will be exploring this question of the innateness of God beliefs, in addition to many related beliefs, such as souls, the afterlife, destiny, and meaning. You’re probably already well versed in the man in the street’s explanations for why people gravitate toward God in times of trouble. Almost all such stories are need-based accounts concerning human emotional well-being. For example, if I were to pose the question “Why do most people believe in God?” to my best friend from high school, or my Aunt Betty Sue in Georgia, or the pet store owner in my small village here in Northern Ireland, their responses would undoubtedly go something like this: “Well, that’s easy. It’s because people need . . . [fill in the blank here: to feel like there’s something bigger out there; to have a sense of purpose in their lives; to take comfort in religion; to reduce uncertainty; something to believe in].”
Source: Scientific American
Published: January 27, 2011
If you say “it’s snowing hard out there,” are you annoyed if no one gets up to shovel the walkway? Vexed, are you, by your intimates’ inability to see what you meant? Do you think a long love’s result should be near-wordless mind-reading? If so, here is some advice derived from the current issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology: Grow up, dummy, and try saying what you actually mean. In this paper, researchers tracked how people in couples read between the lines when listening to their partners, and compared that to how well they understood total strangers. Results: No difference.Curious” Continue reading
Source: BigThink
Published: January 27, 2011
Men are more than twice as likely to continue dating a girlfriend who has cheated on them with another woman than one who has cheated with another man, according to new research from a University of Texas at Austin psychologist.
Women show the opposite pattern. They are more likely to continue dating a man who has had a heterosexual affair than one who has had a homosexual affair.
The study, published last month in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, provides new insight into the psychological adaptations behind men’s desire for a variety of partners and women’s desire for a committed partner. These drives have played a key role in the evolution of human mating psychology. [continue reading…]
