May 22, 2013
Celebrity worship syndrome is an obsessive-addictive disorder in which a person becomes overly involved with the details of a celebrity’s personal life. Psychologists have indicated that though many people obsess over glamorous film, television, sport and pop stars, the only common factor between them is that they are all figures in the public eye. The term Celebrity Worship Syndrome (CWS) is in fact a misnomer. The supposed condition first appeared in an article ‘Do you worship the celebs?’ by James Chapman in a British tabloid newspaper in 2003.
Chapman was basing his article on the journal paper, Maltby et al. (2003). Chapman refers to CWS, but in fact this is a misunderstanding of a term used in the academic article (CWS which stood for Celebrity Worship Scale). Nonetheless Chapman may be generally correct. A syndrome refers to a set of abnormal or unusual set of symptoms indicating the existence of an undesirable condition or quality. Indeed many attitudes and behaviors covered in this research indicate such states.
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May 21, 2013
Oneironautics [oh-nahy-ruh-naw-tiks] refers to the ability to travel within a dream, usually on a conscious basis. A traveler in a dream may be called an oneironaut.
The idea of one person being able to consciously travel or interact within the dream of another person, known variously as ‘dream telepathy,’ ‘telepathic lucid dreaming,’ or ‘telepathic dreaming,’ has been explored in the realms of science and fantasy fiction; in recent works, such an interaction is often depicted as a computer-mediated psychotherapeutic action, as is the case in ‘The Cell,’ and ‘Paprika,’ as well as through the direct intervention of another sleeping person, as in ‘Inception,’ or ‘Dreamscape.’ The concept is also included in the fantasy series ‘The Wheel of Time’ as an ability ‘dreamwalkers’ are able to use.
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May 20, 2013
Michael Moss was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting in 2010, and was a finalist for the prize in 2006 and 1999. He is also the recipient of a Loeb Award and an Overseas Press Club citation.
Before coming to ‘The New Times,’ he was a reporter for ‘The Wall Street Journal,’ ‘New York Newsday,’ and ‘The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.’ He has been an adjunct professor at the Columbia School of Journalism and currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two sons.
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May 20, 2013
Mind-Blindness can be described as a cognitive disorder where an individual is unable to attribute mental states to the self and other. As a result of this disorder the individual is unaware of others’ mental states. The individual is also not capable of attributing beliefs and desires to others. This ability to develop a mental awareness of what is in the mind of an individual is known as the ‘Theory of Mind’ (ToM).
This allows one to attribute our behavior and actions to various mental states such as emotions and intentions. Mind-blindness is associated with autism and Asperger’s syndrome (AS) patients who tend to show deficits in social insight. It is also associated with schizophrenia, dementia, bi-polar disorders, and antisocial personality disorders.
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May 17, 2013
When a person receives unfair treatment or alienation due to a social stigma, the effects can be detrimental. Social stigmas are defined as any aspect of an individual’s identity that is devalued in a social context. These stigmas can be categorized as visible or invisible, depending on whether the stigma is readily apparent to others. Visible stigmas refer to characteristics such as race, age, gender, physical disabilities, or deformities; whereas invisible stigmas refer to characteristics such sexual orientation, gender identity, religious affiliation, early pregnancy, certain diseases, or mental illnesses.
When individuals possess invisible stigmas, they must decide whether or not to reveal their association with a devalued group to others. This decision can be an incredibly difficult one, as revealing one’s invisible stigma can have both positive and negative consequences depending on several situational factors. In contrast, a visible stigma requires immediate action to diminish communication tension and acknowledge a deviation from the norm. People possessing visible stigmas often use compensatory strategies to reduce potential interpersonal discrimination that they may face.
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May 14, 2013
‘The Gift of Fear‘ (1997) is a nonfiction self-help book by security consultant Gavin de Becker. The book provides strategies to help readers avoid trauma and violence by teaching them various warning signs and precursors to violence.
De Becker’s book presents a paradox of genre: described as a ‘how-to book that reads like a thriller.’ By finding patterns in stories of violence and abuse, de Becker seeks to highlight the inherent predictability of violence.
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May 10, 2013
Quorum [kwawr-uhm] sensing is a chemical messaging system employed by bacteria to determine the presence of other bacteria. It is part of a system of stimulus and response correlated to population density (e.g. some bioluminescent bacteria will not produce light unless in sufficient concentration).
Many species of bacteria use quorum sensing to coordinate gene expression according to the density of their local population. In similar fashion, some social insects use a form of quorum sensing to determine where to nest. In addition to its function in biological systems, quorum sensing has several useful applications for computing and robotics.
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May 9, 2013
The bias blind spot is the cognitive bias of failing to compensate for one’s own cognitive biases. The term was created by Emily Pronin, a social psychologist from Princeton University’s Department of Psychology, with colleagues Daniel Lin and Lee Ross. Pronin and her co-authors explained to subjects the better-than-average effect (illusory superiority), the halo effect, self-serving bias, and many other cognitive biases.
According to the better-than-average bias, specifically, people are likely to see themselves as inaccurately ‘better than average’ for possible positive traits and ‘less than average’ for negative traits. When subsequently asked how biased they themselves were, subjects rated themselves as being much less vulnerable to those biases than the average person.
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May 9, 2013
The introspection illusion is a cognitive bias in which people wrongly think they have direct insight into the origins of their mental states, while treating others’ introspections as unreliable. In certain situations, this illusion leads people to make confident but false explanations of their own behavior (Causal theories’) or inaccurate predictions of their future mental states.
The illusion has been examined in psychological experiments, and suggested as a basis for biases in how people compare themselves to others. These experiments have been interpreted as suggesting that, rather than offering direct access to the processes underlying mental states, introspection is a process of construction and inference, much as people indirectly infer others’ mental states from their behavior.
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May 7, 2013
Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does.
Proposed by Hungarian psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields including sports, arts, and science. Popular terms for this or similar mental states include: ‘to be in the moment,’ ‘present,’ ‘in the zone,’ ‘on a roll,’ ‘wired in,’ ‘in the groove,’ ‘on fire,’ ‘in tune,’ ‘centered,’ or ‘singularly focused.’
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May 6, 2013
Escapism is mental diversion by means of entertainment or recreation, as an ‘escape’ from the perceived unpleasant or banal aspects of daily life. It can also be used as a term to define the actions people take to help relieve persisting feelings of depression or general sadness.
Entire industries have sprung up to foster a growing tendency for people to remove themselves from the rigors of daily life. Many activities that are normal parts of a healthy existence (e.g., eating, sleeping, exercise, sexual activity) can also become avenues of escapism when taken to extremes or out of proper context.
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May 6, 2013
Fantasy in a psychological sense is broadly used to cover two different senses, conscious and unconscious (sometimes spelled ‘phantasy’). A conscious fantasy is a situation imagined by an individual that expresses certain desires or aims on the part of its creator. Fantasies sometimes involve situations that are highly unlikely; or they may be quite realistic. Fantasies can also be sexual in nature.
Another, more basic meaning of fantasy is something which is not ‘real,’ as in perceived explicitly by any of the senses, but exists as an imagined situation of object to subject.
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