Modus Operandi

There's a theory, that the way a person handles one thing - is the way they handle everything.

Yesterday's Ignorance

Personal reflections on the dating world: If you’re a gay man, body image and insecurities are hugely magnified, much more so than in comparison to heterosexuals. In the 21st century, social media platforms like Instagram exacerbate these insecurities and force feed you your daily fix of unrealistic pressures of what the ideal body or partner should look like. It's nothing new that it's becoming more and more infused in to society, especially in the lives of the LGBT world. However, once the bedroom lights go off it's the conversation and the mind that you're going to be ultimately attracted to. Whether you want to admit that or not, this is what will sustain any meaningful relationship you'll ever have. Social media is all about comparisons, where we spend a lot of time admiring other people’s lives instead of investing in our own. Ignore the status quo. You can’t judge a book by its cover, and the same goes for people. Those looks will surely fade, but that personality is in it for the long haul.  
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind ~ Shakespeare

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

Depressive Disorders

The causes of depression are mixed. There is no one cause for depression - even for a single person. And so we think of it as a risk factor model: where depression develops in the context of risks, and when those risks get high enough, the person goes over some threshold to develop this self-sustaining depression. Those risks might be divided into three categories; psychological, environmental and biological.

On the biological side we have genetics and other physiological factors which can give the person a predisposition towards being depressed. The psychological aspect can include thinking patterns or cognitive style personalities that may leave a person at a greater risk for depression. While environmental factors can include the stressors the person faces and a lack of social support. When the sum total of all these risk factors get high enough, then that can push us over some threshold and we go into a period of clinical depression. For some people, one of those three factors may be stronger than the other but it's unlikely that there is one cause - there's usually some balance of all of the factors. Nevertheless, all of the risk factors should be attended to.

As depression begins to take hold, people stop performing behaviours that previously provided reinforcement, such as hobbies and socialising. Moreover, depressed people tend to make others feel anxious, depressed and hostile (Joiner and Coyne, 1999). Eventually, these other people begin to lose patience, failing to understand why the person just can't snap out of it. This diminishes social support even further and may eventually cause depressed people to be abandoned by those who are most important to them (Nezlek et al., 2000). Additionally, longitudinal studies show that reductions in social support are a good predictor of subsequent depression (Burton, 2004).

 

In short, behavioural theorists believe that to begin feeling better, depressed people must break this vicious cycle by initially forcing themselves to engage in behaviours that are likely to produce some degree of pleasure. Eventually, positive reinforcement produced by this process of behavioural activation will begin to counteract the depressive affect, undermine the sense of hopelessness that characterizes depression, and increase feelings of personal control over the environment.
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''If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather. Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.''
              ~ Stephen Fry

The Chameleon Effect

According to authors Chartrand and Bargh ,"The chameleon effect refers to nonconscious mimicry of the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of one's interaction partners, such that one's behavior passively and unintentionally changes to match that of others in one's current social environment." (Journal Of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999).

 
How many times have you yawned after viewing another person do it? Or noticed your tone of voice depended on the company you were in. What about meeting up with people from where you used to grow up and now realising that your homeland accent has suddenly started coming out of your mouth...

 

The chameleon effect can happen naturally and frequently because we feel a rapport with people who mimic our moves. Most of us do it automatically to varying degrees, we mimic the people around us all the time without even realizing it.

 

In one study of the chameleon effect, Chartrand and Bargh found that students who rated high on empathy were more likely to imitate others. "Those who pay more attention mimic more," says Chartrand.

 

We also mimic the facial expressions of other people. This is so hardwired that one-month old infants have been shown to smile, stick out their tongues, and open their mouths when they see someone else doing the same (Meltzoff & Moore, 1977).

Unintentional mimicry and imitation functions as a social cohesive. The chameleon effect actually becomes a warm response that facilitates social interactions. Mirroring a persons language shows that you understand your conversation partner, and that you are an empathetic listener.

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''When you are in the company of lunatics, behave like a lunatic. When you are in the company of intelligentsias, speak with brilliance...that is how a chameleon behaves, the territory changes it, and it adapts to the changes.''
                                                                                                                    ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

Michelangelo Phenomenon

''Wait, I said IDEAL-self !!'



This is a pattern of relationship interdependence, in which close partners influence each other's dispositions, values, and behavioural patterns in such a manner as to bring both people closer to their ideal-selves. It suggests that close partners 'sculpt' one another's selves, shaping one another's skills and traits and promoting versus inhibiting one another's goal pursuits.

The concept was introduced by the US psychologist Stephen Michael Drigotas and several collaborators in an article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1999, reporting the results of four experiments designed to elucidate the phenomenon.

Unsurprisingly, it is named after the Italian sculptor Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 - 1564) who is said to have conceived of some sculptures as a process of bringing out figures already hidden in stone - by chipping away at the excess.

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''I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free''   ~ Michelangelo

The Dark Side

Does Darth Vader meet the diagnostic criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder? The following passage is taken from the BPS Research Digest (2010).

 

In a brazen act of arm-chair diagnosis, Eric Bui and colleagues at Toulouse University Hospital in France have written a short academic article arguing that the Star Wars character Darth Vader probably meets the diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder (BPD). The authors point to Anakin Skywalker's (as he was originally known) life history, including fatherly absence, early maternal separation and infantile illusions of omnipotence. They go on to claim that Skywalker meets six of the formal nine DSM (diagnostic and statistical manual) criteria for BPD:

'He presented impulsivity and difficulty controlling his anger and alternated between idealisation and devaluation (of his Jedi mentors). Permanently afraid of losing his wife, he made frantic efforts to avoid her abandonment and went as far as betraying his former Jedi companions. He also experienced two dissociative episodes secondary to stressful events. One occurred after his mother's death, when he exterminated a whole tribe of Tuskan people, while the other one took place just after he turned to the dark side. He slaughtered all the Jedi younglings before voicing paranoid thoughts concerning his former mentor and his wife. Finally, the films depicted his quest to find himself, and his uncertainties about who he was. Turning to the dark side and changing his name could be interpreted as a sign of identity disturbance.'

Does this matter? Bui and his colleagues argue that Skywalker's condition could help explain the appeal of the Star Wars films to teenagers - an age group they say presents 'more frequent BPD traits than adults'. They also suggest that promoting recognition that such a famous fictional character meets the criteria for a BPD diagnosis could help combat the stigma associated with mental illness. 'Finally,' they write, 'as [the Star Wars films are] part of most students' cultural background, this case study could prove useful in teaching the criteria of BPD to medical students and residents.'
Bui and colleagues first made these claims at a psychiatric conference in 2007.

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Bui, E., Rodgers, R., Chabrol, H., Birmes, P., & Schmitt, L. (2010). Is Anakin Skywalker suffering from borderline personality disorder? Psychiatry Research DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2009.03.031

Hunting the successful psychopath

Put aside the dramatic Hollywood portrayals. Suited, married, high achieving, some of them walk among us. No, not vampires or super-heroes but 'successful psychopaths'. Like their criminally violent cousins - the standard psychopaths - these people are ruthless, callous, fearless and arrogant. But thanks to their superior self-control and conscientiousness, rather than landing in prison, they end up as company chief executives, university chancellors and Queen's Council barristers. Well, that's the idea anyway. But it's an idea that's proven difficult for psychologists to investigate. After all, if you advertise for volunteers for a study of successful people who are psychopathic, you're not likely to get many responses.

Stephanie Mullins-Sweatt and her collaborators tried a different tack. They surveyed hundreds of members of the American Psychological Association's Division 41 (psychology and law), criminal attorneys and professors of clinical psychology about whether they'd ever known personally an individual who was successful in their endeavours and who also matched Hare's definition of a psychopath (see below): 'social predators who charm, manipulate and ruthlessly plow their way through life ... completely lacking in conscience and feeling for others, they selfishly take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without the slightest sense of guilt or regret.'

Of the 118 APA members, 31 attorneys and 58 psychology professors who replied, 81, 25 and 41, respectively, said they'd previously known a successful psycho. The examples given were predominantly male and included current or former students, colleagues, clients, and friends (sample descriptions here). The survey respondents were asked to rate the personality of the successful psychopath they'd known and to complete a psychopathy measure of that person. These ratings were then compared with the typical profile for a standard (unsuccessful) psychopath.

The key difference between successful and standard psychopaths seemed to be in conscientiousness. Providing some rare, concrete support for the 'successful psychopath' concept, the individuals described by the survey respondents were the same as prototypical psychopaths in all regards except they lacked the irresponsibility, impulsivity and negligence and instead scored highly on competence, order, achievement striving and self-discipline.

'The current study used informant descriptions to provide information about successful psychopaths,' the researchers concluded. 'Such persons have been described in papers and texts on psychopathy but only anecdotally. This was the first study to conduct a systematic, quantitative analysis of such persons.'

 

Mullins-Sweatt, S., Glover, N., Derefinko, K., Miller, J., & Widiger, T. (2010). The search for the successful psychopath. Journal of Research in Personality, 44 (4), 554-558 DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2010.05.010

 

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Robert Hare's Checklist (1991)

1. GLIB and SUPERFICIAL CHARM -- the tendency to be smooth, engaging, charming, slick, and verbally facile. Psychopathic charm is not in the least shy, self-conscious, or afraid to say anything. A psychopath never gets tongue-tied. They have freed themselves from the social conventions about taking turns in talking, for example. >

 

2. GRANDIOSE SELF-WORTH -- a grossly inflated view of one's abilities and self-worth, self-assured, opinionated, cocky, a braggart. Psychopaths are arrogant people who believe they are superior human beings.

 

3. NEED FOR STIMULATION or PRONENESS TO BOREDOM -- an excessive need for novel, thrilling, and exciting stimulation; taking chances and doing things that are risky. Psychopaths often have a low self-discipline in carrying tasks through to completion because they get bored easily. They fail to work at the same job for any length of time, for example, or to finish tasks that they consider dull or routine. 

 

4. PATHOLOGICAL LYING -- can be moderate or high; in moderate form, they will be shrewd, crafty, cunning, sly, and clever; in extreme form, they will be deceptive, deceitful, underhanded, unscrupulous, manipulative, and dishonest.

 

5. CONNING AND MANIPULATIVENESS- the use of deceit and deception to cheat, con, or defraud others for personal gain; distinguished from Item #4 in the degree to which exploitation and callous ruthlessness is present, as reflected in a lack of concern for the feelings and suffering of one's victims.

 

6. LACK OF REMORSE OR GUILT -- a lack of feelings or concern for the losses, pain, and suffering of victims; a tendency to be unconcerned, dispassionate, cold hearted, and unempathic. This item is usually demonstrated by a disdain for one's victims.

 

7. SHALLOW AFFECT -- emotional poverty or a limited range or depth of feelings; interpersonal coldness in spite of signs of open gregariousness. 

 

8. CALLOUSNESS and LACK OF EMPATHY -- a lack of feelings toward people in general; cold, contemptuous, inconsiderate, and tactless.

 

9. PARASITIC LIFESTYLE -- an intentional, manipulative, selfish, and exploitative financial dependence on others as reflected in a lack of motivation, low self-discipline, and inability to begin or complete responsibilities.

 

It was a quiet day for his inbox

10. POOR BEHAVIORAL CONTROLS -- expressions of irritability, annoyance, impatience, threats, aggression, and verbal abuse; inadequate control of anger and temper; acting hastily.

 

11. PROMISCUOUS SEXUAL BEHAVIOR -- a variety of brief, superficial relations, numerous affairs, and an indiscriminate selection of sexual partners; the maintenance of several relationships at the same time; a history of attempts to sexually coerce others into sexual activity or taking great pride at discussing sexual exploits or conquests.

 

12. EARLY BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS -- a variety of behaviours prior to age 13, including lying, theft, cheating, vandalism, bullying, sexual activity, fire-setting, glue-sniffing, alcohol use, and running away from home.

 

13. LACK OF REALISTIC, LONG-TERM GOALS -- an inability or persistent failure to develop and execute long-term plans and goals; a nomadic existence, aimless, lacking direction in life.

 

14. IMPULSIVITY -- the occurrence of behaviours that are unpremeditated and lack reflection or planning; inability to resist temptation, frustrations, and urges; a lack of deliberation without considering the consequences; foolhardy, rash, unpredictable, erratic, and reckless.

 

15. IRRESPONSIBILITY -- repeated failure to fulfil or honour obligations and commitments; such as not paying bills, defaulting on loans, performing sloppy work, being absent or late to work, failing to honour contractual agreements.

 

16. FAILURE TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR OWN ACTIONS -- a failure to accept responsibility for one's actions reflected in low conscientiousness, an absence of dutifulness, antagonistic manipulation, denial of responsibility, and an effort to manipulate others through this denial.

 

17. MANY SHORT-TERM MARITAL RELATIONSHIPS -- a lack of commitment to a long-term relationship reflected in inconsistent, undependable, and unreliable commitments in life, including marital.

 

18. JUVENILE DELINQUENCY -- behaviour problems between the ages of 13-18; mostly behaviours that are crimes or clearly involve aspects of antagonism, exploitation, aggression, manipulation, or a callous, ruthless tough-mindedness.

 

19. REVOCATION OF CONDITION RELEASE -- a revocation of probation or other conditional release due to technical violations, such as carelessness, low deliberation, or failing to appear.

 

20. CRIMINAL VERSATILITY -- a diversity of types of criminal offenses, regardless if the person has been arrested or convicted for them; taking great pride at getting away with crimes.   

 

Hare, R. D. (1991). The Hare Psychopathy Checklist. Toronto: Multi-Health Systems.     

  

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Less scientific and just for the craic of it, I hasten to add: read the following question, come up with an answer and then scroll down to the bottom for the result. This is not a trick question, it is as it reads.

 

A woman, while at the funeral of her own mother, met a man who she did not know. She thought he was 'amazing.' She believed him to be her dream partner so much, that she fell in love with him right there, but never asked for his number and could not find him. A few days later she killed her sister.

Question: What was her motive for killing her sister?

 

Give it some thought before you look.

See answer below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 













Answer: She was hoping the guy would appear at the funeral again.

This is often claimed to be a test by a famous American Psychologist to see if one has the same mentality as a killer, however I have never found any citation or reference to its source. Anyhow, if you answered this correctly - you have the mentality of a psychopath....a person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behaviour without empathy or remorse.  If you couldn't answer the question correctly, then good for you pal.

Also if interested, check out Psychologist Kevin Dutton presenting the classic psychological test known as "the trolley problem" with a variation. View Clip

 

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''Psychopaths...people who know the differences between right and wrong, but don't give a shit...''
                                                                                                                                                ~ Elmore Leonard
 

Personality and Human Emotion - The Story of Phineas Gage

The control of human emotion differs from that of many species because of the presence of the massive cerebral hemispheres, which act, in part, to regulate the functions of many lower brain systems (Damasio, 1985). The importance of the cerebral hemispheres for emotion and personality, in particular the frontal lobes, was made strikingly clear over a century ago by the case of Phineas Gage.

 

Gage, 25, was a construction foreman who in 1848 had the following 'bad day on the job'. Working on railroad construction, Gage was blasting a path through hard rock. His co-workers could not know that they were about to witness one of the most celebrated incidents in the annals of neuroscience. Following procedures in which he was skilled, Gage drilled a hole in the ground, filled it with explosive powder, and inserted an iron rod. Next, a fuse was lit. Though Gage was an expert at this, on this occasion he was distracted and the charge blew up in his face. The explosion blew the 13-pound, 3 feet long iron rod through his left cheek, the base of his skull, and the front of his brain. It largely destroyed a part of Gage's frontal cortex. The rod then exited through the top of his head, landing 80 feet away smeared in blood and brain. 

 

With a little assistance Gage walked to a cart that brought him the short 1km trip to his local lodgings. The first physician to see him was Dr Edward H. Williams:

 

I first noticed the wound upon the head before I alighted from my carriage, the pulsations of the brain being very distinct. Mr Gage, during the time I was examining this wound, was relating the manner in which he was injured to the bystanders. I did not believe Mr Gage's statement at that time, but thought he was deceived. Mr Gage persisted in saying that the bar went through his head .... Mr G. got up and vomited; the effort of vomit­ing pressed out about half a teacupful of the brain, which fell upon the floor.

 

Dr J. M. Harlow, who also treated Gage, described the incident:

 The patient was thrown upon his back by the explosion, and gave a few convulsive motions of the extremities, but spoke in a few minutes. He seemed perfectly conscious, but was becoming exhausted from the haemorrhage. Pulse 60, and regular. His per­son, and the bed on which he was laid, were literally one gore of blood . . . the blood pouring from the top of his head . . . You will excuse me for remarking here, that the picture presented was, to one unaccustomed to military surgery, truly ter­rif­ic. He bore his sufferings with firmness, and directed my attention to the hole in his cheek, saying, 'the iron entered here and passed through my head' (1868).

 

Miraculously, he survived the injury. He was able to walk and speak. Further, he could describe what happened in full detail and communicate in a rational way. Yet Gage had changed deeply. Before the accident, Gage was a model citizen and employee, but the frontal lobe damage transformed his very character. As related by the eminent neurologist Antonio Damasio (1994):

 

''Gage's disposition, his likes and dislikes, his dreams and aspirations are all to change. Gage's body may be alive and well, but there is a new spirit animating it''.

 

Once serious, industrious, energetic, and responsible, immediately after the accident Gage became irresponsible, thoughtless of others, lacking in planfulness, and indifferent to the consequences of his actions. Gage's physician described the change as follows:

 

''His physical health is good, and I am inclined to say that he has recovered. Has no pain in his head, but says it has a queer feeling that he is not able to describe. . . His contractors, who regarded him as the most efficient and capable of foreman in their employ previous to his injury, considered the change in his mind so marked that they could not give him his place again. The equilibrium or balance, so to speak, between his intellectual faculty and animal propensities, seems to have been destroyed. He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his desires, at times pertinaciously obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, devising many plans of future operation, which are no sooner arranged that they are abandoned in turn for others. . . . His mind was radically changed, so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said that he was ''no longer Gage''. (Harlow, 1868).

 

Gage's story is dramatic to say the least. But it suggests that there exists deep interconnections between brain functioning and personality functioning, that brain and personality are intimately, directly connected. Similar cases, although less spectacular, continue to be reported. They occur following extensive frontal lobe surgery. Such patients usually remain well-orientated, alert, with memory intact. Intellectual capacity seems undiminished, at least on the surface. However, as with Gage, there is a loss of sustained attention. The ability to plan and order daily activities is also markedly reduced.

 

With respect to emotion, there are also marked changes. Often the patient seems to cease to experience strong emotion. Feelings become transitory and superficial.

 

Significant brain injury is often fatal but sometimes scientists learn a lot from accidents. Physical damage to Gage's brain changed his thinking and behaviour so radically that he became, psychologically, a different person. The conclusion to be drawn from the history of an unfortunate human experience emphasizes the importance of the frontal lobes for personality and for the control and expression of human emotions. 

Personality?

You don't really have one!

Personality, like ego, is a concept invented by your mind. It doesn't exist in the real world. Personality is a word for the general impression that you give through your words and actions. If your personality isn't likeable today, don't worry, you can always change it...

So long as you allow yourself to do so.