Low Arousal Approach

Within the study of human behavior, the Low Arousal Approach was developed by Professor Andrew McDonnell in the 1990s, and is now an internationally recognized model of behavior support.

The Low Arousal approach emphasises a range of behaviour management strategies that focus on the reduction of stress, fear and frustration and seeks to prevent aggression and crisis situations. The low arousal approach seeks to understand the role of the ‘situation’ by identifying triggers and using low intensity strategies and solutions to avoid punitive consequences for distressed individuals.

The Low Arousal approach enables practitioners to avoid the use of punitive consequences, such as physical restraint, for individuals from a variety of settings through early identification and intervention using low intensity strategies and solutions right the way through to managing meltdowns. The essential core principle is that many people inadvertently trigger behaviours, therefore it is often our behaviour which needs to change.

The Low Arousal approach has evolved from its original definition (McDonnell, McEvoy & Dearden1994) to a cognitive re-conceptualisation (McDonnell, Waters & Jones 2002). In his recent book titled “Managing Aggressive Behaviour In Care Settings: Understanding And Applying Low Arousal Approaches,” the definition has been further redefined (McDonnell 2011).

Given that stress is an ever-present part of the lives of people with autism, how should we manage crisis situations where the individuals we support may be experiencing ‘meltdown’?

McDonnell (2010) identified four key components considered central to Low Arousal approaches, which include both cognitive and behavioural elements:

1. Decreasing staff demands and requests to reduce potential points of conflict around an individual.
2. Avoidance of potentially arousing triggers e.g., avoiding direct eye contact, touch and removing spectators to the incident.
3. Avoidance of non-verbal behaviours that may lead to conflict e.g., aggressive postures and stances.
4. Challenging staff beliefs about the short-term management of challenging behaviours.

These seemingly simple behaviour management strategies are often difficult to apply in practice, as they involve changing and moderating our own levels of arousal. This means that each practitioner must reflect on their own behaviour and how it may contribute towards instances of challenging behaviour in the people they support. If we are part of the solution, we can also be part of the problem.

In essence, the Low Arousal approach is not just a behaviour management strategy, but a holistic philosophy towards caring for vulnerable people which acknowledges that challenging behaviour is not a choice.

Prisons and Token Economies

An interesting piece on incarceration and the token economy,

Because prisons are, in a sense, enclosed environments they represent somewhat of a behavioural laboratory where contingencies can be altered and controlled on a large scale. Few other settings allow for such systemic control of influencing variables.

Within prisons, inmates need to maintain some income in order to obtain many necessities and comforts. Altering the economy to a Token Economy and making these necessities and comforts contingent on engagement in skills learning or good behaviour could vastly improve behaviour in a prison system.

Additionally, since these environments are so highly controlled that access to social and recreational contact all must pass through the system – engagement in these things might be used to motivate good behaviour as well.

~ From Behavioral Science in the 21st Century

It isn’t always easy to locate the moment mildly addictive behavior becomes self-destructive, even in retrospect.

There’s an old adage which says that the reason smokers don’t believe a cigarette can kill them is because a cigarette has never killed them before...

Get help to quit smoking: hse.ie/quit-smoking 

Living with Dementia

Keep scrollin' scrollin' scrollin' scrollin'

How many hundreds of miles do you think you've scrolled in your lifetime?

The problem with social media is that there's no 'stopping-cues'. In comparison say to a book (where you might come to the end of a chapter and decide whether you want to continue or not), or watching a tv program (where it ultimately ends or you finish a box-set or series), but with social media you can avail of endless scrolling through timelines that don't offer a similar stopping-cue. The box-set binges pale in comparison to the timeline binge.

On Twitter, new content is being produced quicker than you can ever read what’s already being posted.

You'll never catch up with it all.

Food Selectivity

Children who develop an unhealthy relationship with eating often experience short and long-term implications (Gale, Eikeseth, & Rudrud, 2010). Generally, children progress through a predictable sequence of feeding skills (Vaz, Volkert, & Piazza, 2011); however, children who are selective or picky eaters will only consume certain foods and no other variations (Ahearn, 2003). Feeding difficulties, such as food selectivity, are common among children with developmental disabilities (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2014, p. 317), and are estimated to develop in about one third of this population (Palmer, Thompson, & Linscheid, 1975). Bandini and colleagues (2010) noted that a standardised definition of food selectivity was absent in current literature. Consequently, they operationalised food selectivity to include three components: 1) food refusal; 2) limited food repertoire; and 3) high frequency single food intake (Bandini et al., 2010, p. 2).

Food selectivity is often exhibited by children with developmental disabilities and can be a major concern for caregivers (Bandini et al., 2010). Positively, research shows much promise in ameliorating parental concerns as well as improving the lives of those who exhibit such eating disorders. In children with ASDs, the literature suggests that food selectivity can be successfully treated with a multitude of intervention strategies such as: stimulus fading (Koegel et al., 2012), taste exposure and behavioural skills training (Seiverling et al., 2012), antecedent manipulations (Najdowski et al., 2012), differential reinforcement and non-contingent reinforcement (Allison et al., 2012), high-p request sequences (Penrod et al., 2012), modeling (Fu et al., 2015), and escape extinction (Allison et al., 2012; Fu et al., 2015). Escape extinction is not always a necessary supplement for positive outcomes (Najdowski et al., 2012; Penrod et al., 2012). Moreover, caution should be advised if utilising an escape extinction procedure as it can lead to extinction bursts (Najdowski et al., 2012) and aggression (Allison et al., 2012).

Food selectivity covers a wide range of problematic eating behaviours (Bandini et al., 2010). Therefore, the intervention strategies above could possibly be applied to client’s presenting with many topographies of feeding disorders. Considering that maladaptive feeding behaviours may be the product of environmental factors (Penrod et al., 2012), observing others (Bandura, 1965; Fu et al., 2015), or even sensory functions (Koegel et al., 2012), challenges lie in selecting interventions that best match the individual’s learning history. Despite these interventions showing promise for treating food selectivity, the literature is relatively recent and the subjects relatively young. Longitudinal follow-ups on such clients may ultimately be the illuminating factor on the efficacy of the current plethora of interventions available.

Selected readings:

Ahearn, W. H. (2003). Using simultaneous presentation to increase vegetable consumption in a mildly selective child with autism. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 36(3), 361–365.

Allison, J., Wilder, D. A., Chong, I., Lugo, A., Pike, J. & Rudy, N. (2012). A comparison of differential reinforcement and noncontingent reinforcement to treat food selectivity in a child with autism. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 45(3), 613-617.

Bandini, L. G., Anderson, S. E., Curtin C., Cermak, S., Evans, E. W., Scampini, R., Maslin, M., & Must, A. (2010). Food selectivity in children with autism spectrum disorders and typically developing children. The Journal of Pediatrics, 157(2), 259-264.

Bandura, A. (1965). Influence of models’ reinforcement contingencies on the acquisition of imitative responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1, 589-595.

Cooper, J., Heron, T., & Heward, W. (2014). Applied Behavior Analysis (Pearson New International Edition, 2nd Ed.) UK: Pearson Education.

Fu, S. B., Penrod, B., Fernand, J. K., Whelan, C. M., Griffith, K., & Medved, S. (2015). The Effects of Modeling Contingencies in the Treatment of Food Selectivity in Children With Autism. Behavior Modification, 39(6), 771-784.

Gale, C. M., Eikeseth, S., & Rudrud, E. (2011). Functional assessment and behavioural intervention for eating difficulties in children with autism: a study conducted in the natural environment using parents and ABA tutors as therapists. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 41(10), 1383-96.

Koegel, R. L., Bharoocha, A. A., Ribnick, C. B., Ribnick, R. C., Bucio, M. O., Fredeen, R. M., & Koegel, L. K. (2012). Using individualized reinforcers and hierarchical exposure to increase food flexibility in children with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42(8), 1574-1581.

Najdowski, A. C., Tarbox, J., & Wilke, A. E. (2012). Utilizing antecedent manipulations and reinforcement in the treatment of food selectivity by texture. Education and Treatment of Children, 35(1), 101-110.

Palmer, S., Thompson, R. J., & Linscheid, T. R. (1975). Applied Behavior Analysis in the Treatment of Childhood Feeding Problems. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 17(3), 333.

Penrod, B., Gardella, L., Fernand, J. (2012). An evaluation of a progressive high-probability instructional sequence combined with low probability demand fading in the treatment of food selectivity. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 45(3), 527-537.

Seiverling, L. Williams, K., Sturmey, P., & Hart, S. (2012). Effects of behavioral skills training on parental treatment of children’s food selectivity. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 45(1), 197-203.

Vaz, P. C. M., Volkert, V. M., & Piazza, C. C. (2011). Using negative reinforcement to increase self-feeding in a child with food selectivity. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 44(4), 915– 920.

Grist to the Mill

Keeps your eyes open.
Listen.
Follow your curiosity.
Ask questions.
Sniff around.
Remain open.
Trust in the miraculous truth that new and marvellous ideas are looking for human collaborators every single day

~ Elizabeth Gilbert

A Death of One Thousand Subtractions

Alzheimer's is the cleverest thief, because she not only steals from you, but she steals the very thing you need to remember what's been stolen - Jarod Kintz, This Book Has No Title.

It'll become an epidemic once the baby boomer generation starts getting over 65 years of age. It's the revenge of longevity. 65 to 70% of Dementia is Alzheimer's. It always begins in the hippocampus, thus the loss of short term memory at the beginning of the illness. Short term memory (STM) just gets worse and worse at first, followed by the person's analytical abilities. Frustration can lead to aggression and even violent outbursts, muscle and movement loss progressively follow and the inability to swallow, then you're more or less looking at it really beginning to kill the person.

You can't converse with Alzheimer's sufferers in the way you do with others; the dialogue tends to go round in circles - Kevin Whately.
 

The care givers are also the heroes in this disease, along with the scientists. A death of 1000 subtractions, bit by bit, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. A slow death sentence. However, not everyone who lives to an old age gets Alzheimer's. No one is immune to the disease. Yes there is a genetic component, but inheritance is only about 5%, so you're far more likely to be in the 95th percentile.

People think it's just forgetting your keys. Or the words for things. But there are the personality changes. The mood swings. The hostility and even violence. Even from the gentlest person in the world. You lose the person you love. And you are left with the shell... And you are expected to go on loving them even when they are no longer there. You are supposed to be loyal. It's not that other people expect it. It's that you expect it of yourself. And you long for it to be over soon - Alice LaPlante, Turn of Mind.

299.00 (F84.0)

Autism is a lifelong neuro-developmental disability that affects the development of the brain in areas of social interaction and communication. People with autism have difficulties in communicating and forming relationships with people, in developing language and in using abstract concepts. It also impacts on their ability to make sense of the world around them. It was first described by Leo Kanner in 1943. The following year in 1944, a German scientist named Hans Asperger describes a "milder" form of autism now known as Asperger's Syndrome. It wasn't until 1994 that Asperger's Syndrome was added to the DSM, expanding the autism spectrum to include milder cases in which individuals tend to be more highly functioning.

 

Over the years, the definition, classification and diagnostic specifics of autism have undergone many significant changes. In 2013 the DSM-5 folded all subcategories of the condition into one umbrella diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Asperger's Syndrome is no longer considered a separate condition. The severity levels for Autism Spectrum Disorder, 299.00 (F84.0) from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) are outlined below.

Level 3: "Requiring very substantial support"

Social communication: Severe deficits in verbal and nonverbal social communication skills cause severe impairments in functioning, very limited initiation of social interactions, and minimal response to social overtures from others. For example, a person with few words of intelligible speech who rarely initiates interaction and, when he or she does, makes unusual approaches to meet needs only and responds to only very direct social approaches.

Restricted, repetitive behaviours: Inflexibility of behaviour, extreme difficulty coping with change, or other restricted / repetitive behaviours markedly interfere with functioning in all spheres. Great distress / difficulty changing focus or action.

Level 2: "Requiring substantial support"

Social communication: Marked deficits in verbal and nonverbal social communication skills; social impairments apparent even with supports in place; limited initiation of social interactions; and reduced or  abnormal responses to social overtures from others. For example, a person who speaks simple sentences, whose interaction is limited  to narrow special interests, and how has markedly odd nonverbal communication.

Restricted, repetitive behaviours: Inflexibility of behaviour, difficulty coping with change, or other restricted / repetitive behaviours appear frequently enough to be obvious to the casual observer and interfere with functioning in  a variety of contexts. Distress and / or difficulty changing focus or action.

Level 1: "Requiring support"

Social communication: Without supports in place, deficits in social communication cause noticeable impairments. Difficulty initiating social interactions, and clear examples of atypical or unsuccessful response to social overtures of others. May appear to have decreased interest in social interactions. For example, a person who is able to speak in full sentences and engages in communication but whose to-and-fro conversation with others fails, and whose attempts to make friends are odd and typically unsuccessful.

Restricted, repetitive behaviours: Inflexibility of behaviour causes significant interference with functioning in one or more contexts. Difficulty switching between activities. Problems of organization and planning hamper independence.

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'If they can't learn the way we teach, we teach the way they learn' ~ O. Ivar Lovaas 

Schedules of Reinforcement

1. Fixed ratio.
Buy 4 coffees, get your fifth one free.
In operant conditioning, a fixed-ratio schedule is a schedule of reinforcement where a response is reinforced only after a specified number of responses.

> See earlier post on the Goal Gradient Effect




2. Variable ratio.
Fishing
In operant conditioning, a variable-ratio schedule is a schedule of reinforcement where a response is reinforced after an unpredictable number of responses. This schedule creates a steady, high rate of responding.

 













3. Fixed interval.
Footballer signs contract whereby his salary increases are renegotiated every three years.
In operant conditioning, a fixed-interval schedule is a schedule of reinforcement where the first response is rewarded only after a specified amount of time has elapsed.

4. Variable interval.
Waiting for a taxi.
In operant conditioning, a variable-interval schedule is a schedule of reinforcement where a response is rewarded after an unpredictable amount of time has passed.

SIMPLES

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Properly used, positive reinforcement is extremely powerful ~ B. F. Skinner

Never Give Up

Any effort to help is an effort worth making.

 

One day a terrible fire broke out in a forest - a huge woodlands was suddenly engulfed by a raging

wild fire. Frightened, all the animals fled their homes and ran out of the forest. As they came to the

edge of a stream they stopped to watch the fire and they were feeling very discouraged and

powerless. They were all bemoaning the destruction of their homes. Every one of them thought

there was nothing they could do about the fire, except for one little hummingbird.

 

This particular hummingbird decided it would do something. It swooped into the stream and picked

up a few drops of water and went into the forest and put them on the fire. Then it went back to the

stream and did it again, and it kept going back, again and again and again. All the other animals

watched in disbelief; some tried to discourage the hummingbird with comments like, "Don't bother,

it is too much, you are too little, your wings will burn, your beak is too tiny, it's only a drop, you

can't put out this fire."

 

And as the animals stood around disparaging the little bird's efforts, the bird noticed how hopeless

and forlorn they looked. Then one of the animals shouted out and challenged the hummingbird in a

mocking voice, "What do you think you are doing?" And the hummingbird, without wasting time or

losing a beat, looked back and said, "I am doing what I can."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~ The Hummingbird Story, told by Nobel Peace Laureate

Wangari Maathai in May 2006 at a conference on poverty

elimination in Montreal.

G.E.T. A. C.A.B

A great infographic outlining the 7 dimensions of Applied Behaviour Analysis. Applied behaviour analysis (ABA) is "the science in which tactics derived from the principles of behaviour are applied systematically to improve socially significant behaviour and experimentation is used to identify the variables responsible for behaviour change" (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007, p. 20). The beginning of ABA can be traced back to 1968, when Donald Baer, Montrose Wolf, and Todd Risley from University of Kansas published the seminal paper, "Some Current Dimension of Applied Behaviour Analysis." These founding fathers outlined 7 characteristics of ABA that have defined the field (Baer, Wolf, & Risley, 1968).

(The designing authors are listed at the bottom of the image).

 

Baer, D. M., Wolf, M. M., & Risley, T. R. (1968). Some current dimensions of applied behavior analysis. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1(1), 91–97.



Stop Caring What Other People Think

Please listen when I say that the shame and guilt you feel when you're trying so hard to not give a f**k. It's usually not because you are wrong to not give that f**k. I's because you're worried about what other people might think about you're decision.

And guess what?
You have no control over what other people think.

For God's sake, you have a hard enough time figuring out what you think! Believing that you have any control over what other people think - and wasting your f**ks on that pursuit - is futile. It is a recipe for failure on a grand f**king scale.

Embrace your not giving a f**k by reading more in The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k by Sarah Knight (2015). Worth a read!

Another Pint of Commotion Lotion Please...

An interesting read from Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest, titled 'My drunkenness means you did it deliberately' (2010).

With our brains gently soaked in alcohol we’re generally more sociable and relaxed – it’s a sedative after all. So why do drunk people seem so prone to aggravation and argument? One reason, say Laurent Bègue and colleagues, is that alcohol exacerbates the ‘intentionality bias‘, our natural tendency to assume that other people intended their actions. So when that guy jolts you at the bar and you’re drunk, you’re more likely to think he did it on purpose.

 

Bègue’s team recruited 92 men (aged 20 to 46) to take part in what they were told was a taste-testing study. They were given three glasses to taste, each containing a cocktail of grapefruit and grenadine cordial, mint and lemon concentrate. For half the participants, the drinks also contained alcohol – approximately the same amount found in five to six shots of vodka. To control for expectancy effects, half the participants with the alcoholic drinks and half the non-alcohol participants were told the drinks were alcoholic. Next, the participants spent 20 to 30 minutes on filler tasks, in keeping with the cover story that this was a taste-test study, and to allow the alcohol to kick-in. Finally and most importantly, the participants read 50 sentences about various actions (e.g. ‘He deleted the email’) and gave their verdict on whether the actions were intentional or not.

 

The intoxicated and sober men alike said that obviously intentionally actions (e.g. ‘she looked for her keys’) were intentional, and that blatantly unintentional actions (e.g. ‘she caught a cold’) were unintentional. But crucially, when it came to more ambiguous actions, like the email deletion example, the intoxicated men were significantly more likely (43 per cent) than the sober men (36 per cent) to say the action was intentional. Whether participants were told they’d had alcohol or not made no difference.

 

Why should alcohol have this effect? Bègue’s team think that it takes cognitive effort and control to overcome the intentionality bias, especially so as to take in all the information necessary to consider alternative explanations. Alcohol’s well-known disinhibitory and myopic (the ‘narrowing of attention’) effects would clearly undermine these faculties.

 

‘In summary,’ the researchers concluded, ‘alcohol magnifies the intentionality bias. Napoleon said, “There is no such thing as accident.” Our findings suggest that drunk people are more likely to believe Napoleon’s statement than are sober people.’

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Begue, L., Bushman, B., Giancola, P., Subra, B., and Rosset, E. (2010). “There Is No Such Thing as an Accident,” Especially When People Are Drunk. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36 (10), 1301-1304 DOI: 10.1177/0146167210383044

Applied Behaviour Analysis

Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) is an effective behavioural treatment programme widely used with children with autism to improve socially significant behaviours.

 

ABA makes meaningful changes in people's lives through the use of procedures that have been demonstrated to work. The goal of an ABA teaching environment is to build socially significant behaviours in a meaningful way and to a meaningful degree. Generalisation, spontaneity and fun are essential components of successful intervention.

  

A few years ago, Ireland was in the fortunate position of having 12 ABA schools that had been set up and staffed in a way that made possible comprehensive programmes for children with autism (Leslie, 2013). However, the changes implemented from 2010 mean this is far from being the case now. Members of the Division of Behaviour Analysis are either in or in close touch with these schools. They are now termed special schools and, because of the rules they operate under none of them can meet the specifications for an ABA school.

ABA aspires to help with serious behavioural problems. A serious behavioural problem is one that impairs the quality of life of the person to a significant degree, impacts negatively on the lives of others, is persistent (thus rarely goes away of its own accord), and is not readily removed by some simple or brief treatment or intervention.

Some of the problems of many children with autism meet these criteria. If help is not provided or not adequate, their behavioural problems may leave them trailing far behind their peers of the same age in personal, social and educational development.

 

For more information see the following links:

 

AutismIreland.ie

RainChild.ie

AbaSupport.ie

ABA Schools in Ireland & UK

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''If they can't learn the way we teach, we teach the way they learn''  ~   O. Ivar Lovaas

Learned Helplessness and Depression

One cognitive account of depression is the Learned Helplessness Theory (Seligman, 1975). It argues, that depression occurs when people expect that bad events will occur and that there is nothing they can do to prevent them, or cope with them.

Learned Helplessness Theory emerged through Martin Seligman's work with laboratory dogs. He designed an experiment which consisted of three individual dogs, all restrained by harnesses. Dog group (a) was the control group, receiving no electric shock. Dog groups (b) were paired up. One dog in a pair was administered with a mild electric shock and at any time the dog could cease the electric shock by stepping their paw upon a lever. Dog group (c) were too paired up, however one of the dogs was a wired up to a dog in group b and the shocks they received were in congruence with that of group (b). The idea of this was that the group (c) dog would receive a shock that was erratic in timing, unavoidable and inescapable. The tests resulted in groups (a) and (b) recovering quite promptly from the experience. As predicted however, group (c) dogs were left meek and subdued; portraying symptoms similar to those of clinical depression and thus conforming to Seligman’s predictions: that helplessness can be learned. 

Learned helplessness results from being trained to be locked into a system. It can involve a state of apathy or passive behaviour induced by negative conditioning. People may believe that their personal 'defects' will render them helpless to avoid negative events in the future, and their sense of hopelessness places them at significantly greater risk for depression.

Although Seligman theorized that learned helplessness and depression had similar origins, the theory was widely criticized and he has since revised his ideas in his 'Explanatory Style'. This proposes that depression is linked to how we attribute causalities of certain events in our life or traits of our existence (i.e. whether we attribute events to internal, stable or global aspects) (Yen, 1998). Therefore, it is interesting to ask whether learned helplessness is in fact a cause of depression or a correlated side effect of becoming depressed.

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"Life inflicts the same setbacks and tragedies on the optimist as on the pessimist, but the optimist weathers them better" ~ Martin Seligman

Your Football Team

"A guy can change anything. His face, his home, his family, his girlfriend, his religion, his God. But there’s one thing he can’t change. He can’t change his passion."

 

~ Pablo Sandoval - El secreto de sus ojos (The Secret In Their Eyes).

 

Definitely one of the best crime films I've ever seen. A 2009 movie, it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards.

The above quote tied in with the criminals love for his local football team, and the words ring so true. But football fans in general seem to have this idea that they couldn't have supported any other team. And I would include myself in that too. The thoughts of supporting anyone other than Manchester United just seems ridiculous. Frightening in fact.

Now unless you come from a household with a father, mother or older siblings who supported a certain team, yes you're probably going to be influenced by them and moulded by that environment. But it's a myth to think that you couldn't have supported any other team. It was just what you were exposed to in that time of your life. At that particular moment that set the tone for the future. The ups and downs. Downs mainly if you're currently supporting Louis Van Gaal and his "philosophy".

However once the choice is pinned down, especially at a young age, it's set for life. There is no going back. And the slagging of other fans and calling them fickle or 'typical', you could have been one of those fans yourself if the path was different. I mean if you supported that rival team, would you suddenly be ascribed with these features for choosing to support them?

 

No obviously. But we all assume so.
I do it regularly. And it's just a very strange thing.

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Perspective

I love this story from Irvin D. Yalom.

 

One of his patient's with breast cancer who throughout adolescence had been locked in a long, bitter struggle with her naysaying father. Looking forward to some form of reconciliation, she looked forward to her father driving her to college; a time she would be alone with him for several hours. The trip turned out to be a disaster. Her father behaved true to form by grousing at length about the ugly, garbage littered creek by the side of the road. She on the other hand saw no litter whatsoever in the beautiful, rustic, unspoiled stream. She found no way to respond and eventually, lapsing into silence, they spent the remainder of the trip looking away from each other.

 

Later, she made the same trip alone and was astounded to note that there were two streams - one each side of the road. ''This time I was the driver'', she said sadly, and the stream I saw was as ugly and polluted as her father had described it. But by the time she had learned to look out her father' window, it was too late - her father was dead and buried.

 

Yalom remarks that the story remained with him, and on many occasions he has reminded himself and his patients, 'Look out the other's window'. Try to see the world from another's perspective.

 

It's so relevant to many things in life such as empathy and honing our compassion for others. I think it's just awesome, and makes me want to delve into more of Yalom's writings.

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Twitter Psychology

Does social networking already function like a game?

 

Twitter is a massively multiplayer online game in which you choose an interesting avatar and then role play a persona loosely based on your own - attempting to accrue followers by repeatedly pressing lettered buttons to form interesting sentences.

 

It could be viewed as a game; as it's about small achievements adding up to bigger ones.

 

''Gameification'' means applying the mechanics of videogames to real life. Now often this boils down to incentivising people to perform the same action over and over again. Each time Mario head-butts a block, he gets a coin; when he gets one hundred coins he gets an extra life.

 

And these perpetual little pats on the head compel you to bash those blocks for hours!



@Koopa is now following you

Celebrities goad one another by enquiring about how many followers the other has on Twitter, adding substance to their self-worth bank account. And yet this isn't too dissimilar to when we were kids and enquired with our mates about how many 'points' you got or what their high scores on a certain game was.

 

By supplying a constant stream of fun-sized rewards, social networking has by accident ''gameified'' whole aspects of our lives. Every second another little gold coin (or follower) for you to collect; more followers, more retweets, compelling you to interact over and over again.

 

 

These are basically games we don't even realise we're playing.

 

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Charlie Brooker ~ How Video Games Changed the World

The Lost Letter Technique

This is an unobtrusive measure of attitudes in which stamped addressed envelopes are scattered in public places, as if left by accident, the proportion being posted by members of the public and turning up at the addresses on the envelopes providing a crude index of attitudes in the community.

 

For example, if half the envelopes are addressed to a pro-same-sex marriage organisation and half to an anti-same-sex marriage organisation, and if equal numbers of pro-same-sex marriage and anti-same-sex marriage envelopes are distributed but significantly more of the pro-same-sex marriage envelopes are returned; then it may be concluded that members of the community are more favourably disposed towards the pro-marriage than the anti-marriage cause.

 

The technique was introduced by the US psychologist Stanley Milgram (1933-84) and colleagues in an article in the journal Public Opinion Quarterly in 1965. Milgram's classic use of the Lost Letter Technique as a behavioural measure of attitudes showed that return rates can be influenced by the addressee written on the letter, particularly when the addressee represents a controversial organization (Milgram, 1969; 1977; Milgram et al., 1965).

Colman, 2009

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