This interesting article was sent to me by a MidAmerica alum. It describes a woman who sets up a smartphone and a second device, which she uses to video stream her first dates to the internet, and pays for feedback from a crowdsourcing agency. First is the interesting sociological idea of turning over your personal life to a group of strangers. Sociologists Georg Simmel talked about the phenomenon of the role of "the stranger" in our lives. It is like the person we sit next to on an airplane, or the taxi cab driver-- we are willing to share intimate details of our lives with this person because we will never see them again, and they are not connected to our social networks.

Which brings us to the second interesting idea, crowdsourcing. This woman in the article is essentially paying for feedback from strangers, and allows them to send her instructions about what to do next on her date. This idea of crowdsourcing is taking Simmel's idea of the stranger to the next level that technology allows. We can now pay strangers to watch our lives and give us feedback. 

To read the full article, click here. 

I was challenged recently about the power of the other to reorient one’s perspective and thinking.  The top left picture you see is from a recent vacation cruise my family and I enjoyed as a celebration of my daughter’s high school graduation.  It was a grand trip with lots of food and sun.  The second picture is a stock news photo of the tent cities that still exist in Haiti.  The devastating earthquake of 2010 displaced 25% of the population and over 350,000 people still live in makeshift housing.  The dissonance I so acutely experienced during this particular trip is that both photos are taken in Haiti.  The one on the left is from a sanitized outcropping of the Haitian shoreline acquired by Royal Caribbean Cruise lines as a stop over for its massive seafaring hotels.  The picture on the right is representative of the view many thousands of Haitians experience each day. 

The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor (2011) began a recent essay with the following words:  “The great challenge of this century, both for politics and for social science, is that of understanding the other.”  He goes on to suggest that there are two ways of knowing.  The first knows an object – like knowing the dimensions of a table, or the solution to an algebraic equation.  This preferred scientific mode of operating involves knowing something to the point that I may gain full intellectual control - so that it can’t “talk back.”  To a large extent my discipline, psychology, has attempted this mode of knowing as it seeks to understand the behavior and mental processes of humans.  It would take too long to outline the less than satisfactory outcomes this mode of operating has produced in the human sciences, suffice to say that the modern scientific project has significant limits when attempting to understand the experience I had in Haiti.  Yes Festinger’s theory of dissonance is an apt description, but it does little to highlight the complex cultural, psychological and religious factors swirling in my mind

This 2012 election year I had no prediction for the presidential race. “It’s too close to call,” I would say. But others, like Nate Silver, were able to use statistics to make accurate predictions. I wondered-- why couldn’t sociology help me predict this election?

It turns out it could. With sociology, and some very simple logic, it turns out that sociological ideas could have easily predicted the election. I know, I know. Hindsight is 20/20. But I’m not talking complex social theories. It turns out, that at this point in the semester, my introductory course students had all the sociology information they needed to predict the election-- if they knew what to look for.

So, here are the simple steps to predicting the election, using basic sociology:

It’s been 60 years since the original serendipity.  A drug with potential to alleviate tuberculosis was found to improve depressive moods symptoms instead.  In short time, whatever gains were seen in elevating mood was countered by a sustained hypertension that soon became life threatening.  But the race was on to find a psychotropic drug selective for depression.  Tricyclic antidepressants and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors have been and are currently used to treat a large chunk of the population in the US.  More than 1 in 10 Americans take one or more antidepressant medications.

In 2010, 3 books were written uniformly challenging the usage of this #1 medication.  Clinical psychologists Irving Kirsch’s book:  The Emperor’s New Drugs—Exploding the Antidepressant Myth; journalist Robert Whitaker’s book: Anatomy of an Epidemic—Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness; and psychiatrist Daniel Carlat’s book:  Unhinged: The Trouble With Psychiatry—A Doctor’s Revelations About a Profession in Crisis, all from different perspectives seriously challenging the efficaciousness of these drugs.  A major premise in these books recognizes it is time to lay to rest the old and now discredited theory of chemical imbalances that began this pursuit in the first place.  Kirsch argues that at least 100 studies have over the last few years have failed to support the idea that when the critical neurotransmitters ( norepinephrine and serotonin) have been artificially depleted in normal people, depression becomes the expected consequence.  Furthermore, when the expected imbalance is corrected with medication, advantageous therapeutic effects are not seen for at least 3 to 4 weeks following if seen at all.

Is the advent of antidepressant medications over or should a more incipient variable be considered? A treatise written by Anita Slomski and covered by Brain in the News, May 2012 (www. dana.org) suggests the latter.  She points out that a large per-cent of studies on this issue are sponsored by pharmaceuticals and contain scientific methodological errors.  1.  Subject pools are generally small and consequently a few positive or negative results skew the conclusions.  2.  Subjects selected for trial participation generally have mild to moderate depressive ratings and are rarely the garden variety patients who often have accompanying symptoms of drug or alcohol abuse, anxiety disorders, or personality disorders.  3.  Patients in these trials often show the methodological confound called the “Hawthorn Effect”.  That is, those on a placebo also want to “please” the investigators and report they are getting better.

A few weeks ago, a U.S. citizen released an anti-Islamic video, which sparked reaction around the world, particularly in Muslim countries which were affected by the rapid changes associated with the Arab Spring of 2011. In the aftermath, several U.S. embassies were overrun, and most notably the U.S. Ambassador to Lybia and other Americans were killed.

The question from a sociological standpoint is: why do these things happen? What is the reason for this strong reaction? And especially important... why did they happen in these countries (Lybia and those who have recently experienced toppled governments), and not other Muslim nations? It is because of a conflict between Islam and Christianity? Is it a conflict between religion and free speech?

As usual, sociologists would look to other hidden factors. Many sociologists of religion have noted that fundamentalism is very often concerned with rejecting or resisting the current cultural trends that are going on around them. Specifically, they are reacting to globalization.

Every once in a while you watch a movie that you think to yourself, I did not have a “good time,” but I would not trade the experience. Beasts of the Southern Wild was just such a film.  Although it made its appearance only briefly in the main movie houses it has been showing at some art houses on a more prolonged bases.  I saw the film a few weeks ago, but the images and emotions of this film still linger and are resonating in my head today. Briefly, the film follows the experiences of a young girl and her father who live in coastal Louisiana as they deal with the onslaught and aftereffects of a hurricane.  From a psychological perspective I found it a delightful invitation to join the subjective experience of a young girl (Hushpuppy) as she traverses the chaos and fracture of her precarious world.  Not only is this world rife with fantasy and vivid characters; her own processing, embedded deeply within her shivery external contexts, is displayed with artful elegance and raw immediacy.  Disconnected and abrupt, without preoccupation to an overarching moral narrative, viewers are drawn into the fragility of personal experience, socioeconomic status, and geography.  It is an emotionally evocative film that does not let one rest even when the credits role. 

The subtext of clashing cultures is also fascinating and brings to mind the admonition of Al Dueck and Kevin Reimer (2009) in their book A Peaceable Psychology.  In this book Dueck & Reimer warn about the implicit assumptions of psychological models that are based on western democratic liberalism.  Although effective in most of the western world, these implicit value assumptions are often based on the eschewal of thick cultural contexts in favor of thin scientific hegemonic solutions.  Dueck & Reimer's caution is that these unreflected assumptions may do violence to the least the last and the lost of our society.  Not only does the film deconstruct current models of helping and institutionalized care, it blatantly highlights the disjunction between those who see themselves as part of an established sociopolitical economic structures tasked with helping the less fortunate and the actual less fortunate, who's suspicion and resistance reflects deep psychological and cultural experiences that are not easily amenable to irresistible benevolence.  This film is an imaginative social and human science case study: Two thumbs way up or 5 popcorn bags (depending on your rating scale).

Studies have been done that look at personality traits of politicians. In at least one study (Hill & Yousey) that compared politicians, university faculty, clergy, and librarians regarding personality traits an interesting finding occurred. Though not statistically significant, thus the results could be due to chance, politicians were found to score higher than the other groups in Superiority/Arrogance and Exploitativeness/Entitlement. Therefore a question arises, does one need to have some narcissistic qualities to survive the tumultuous journey that is known as politics? What do you think?

Our brain is wired to find meaning in stimuli even when the stimulus lacks clarity of form.  Most notably, we find ourselves constructing images or meaningful features out of clouds and rock formations.  This tendency is called "pareidolia".  Defined; it acknowledges a misperception of a vague stimulus as having distinctiveness.  Such is the case of the well recognized man-in-the-moon image.

Not surprisingly, individuals suffering from hallucinatory tendencies in the schizophrenic syndrome often aggravate pareidolia.  In so doing, they believe the images to be personal revelations just for them.  Unfortunately, many of these images are recognized as threatening or evil, which seems to be true even for the normal brain.

The fusiform cortex sitting underneath the brain in the posterior region is responsible for facial recognition.  Researchers from Dartmouth College have found the brain to be lateralized with respect to objects resembling faces vs. actual faces themselves.  That is, the left fusiform gyrus was more active during fMRI imaging of look-alikes than was the right.

The Olympics are here. The more birthdays I have the more amazing it is to watch the abilities of the Olympic athletes. I have discovered something about myself as an observer and I would like to know where you stand on it?

With twitter, text, and all of the other options available, it can be pretty tough to wait till the evening prime time Olympic coverage to find out the results of that days events. I thought I was someone who was pretty good at delayed gratification. I can wait for things I value, I believed.

Well, what I have found out about myself is that immediate gratification may be more a part of my world than I want to admit. In the last couple of weeks of the Olympic games, I have not turned away once when the news commentators have said "spoiler alert", even though I enjoy watching the events later in the evening during prime time.

Every few years at the Olympics the media and others keep track of the number of medals won by any given country. All the reports this week were topped by the United States and China leading all nations in the number of medals won by athletes from these countries. It makes it appear that the US and China dominate the Olympic sporting world. 

But is that really the case? If we look at the same medal count through sociological eyes, adjusting for important social factors that sociologists study, such as social class, we find that the US and China fall to the middle of the pack. 

For example, let’s adjust for the number of medals won per capita-- this would compare country wins by adjusting for the pool of athletes available to the country. I remember this being a factor as a high school athlete. In my school of 1200 students, we were constantly having to compete with schools that had over 4000 students. We did pretty well considering that we had a much smaller pool of talent from which to draw. So, what happens if you observe the number of medals won taking into account the population of the country? The medal leader in the number of medals per capita is... Grenada. 

Should the school psychiatrist who worked with alleged shooter James Holmes be held legally responsible for failing to prevent Holmes from engaging in the attack by notifying the police? How about the university where Holmes was a student, should they be held liable?

According to the Denver Post, Holmes’ psychiatrist at the University of Colorado-Denver contacted the university’s Behavioral Evaluation and Threat Assessment team about Holmes, but that the matter was not pursued because he began the process of withdrawing from the institution. This Christian Science Monitor article discussing potential legal liability notes that Colorado requires doctors to inform the police if a patient makes a specific threat against an individual. These types of laws recognize that psychiatrists have a duty to protect individuals threatened by their clients. If a psychiatrist fails to warn the police or the threatened individual, and the client carries out the threatened harm, then the psychiatrist can be sued for monetary damages. Many of these laws stem from Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, a case from 1976 where a college student killed an ex-girlfriend after telling his psychologist that he was going to commit the murder.

As more details become public about the relationship between Holmes and his psychiatrist one crucial element will be the exact communications made by Holmes. Did he actually make a specific threat to shoot people in a movie theater? Why did the psychiatrist contact the Behavioral Evaluation and Threat Assessment team? Was it based on specific statements or a general view that the person may be a danger to himself or others? A person can seem dangerous without any overt, specific threats being made. What if the psychiatrist felt that Holmes was probably not a danger but contacted the Behavioral Evaluation and Threat Assessment team to get an additional opinion? How should the law deal with these liability issues without resorting to 20/20 hindsight?

The shooting spree allegedly committed by James Holmes during the premiere of the new Batman movie in an Aurora, Colorado theater resulted in the death of 12 people. According to authorities and the New York Times Holmes planned the shooting far in advance. He gathered an arsenal of weapons, utilized some form of noxious gas, and set up a series of explosives to detonate in his apartment with the purpose of injuring investigators. In addition to this planning, the alleged shooter, Holmes, was a promising neuroscience student (not exactly a cakewalk subject).

Contrast this preparation and the identity of the shooter with the act itself. Motive: none readily apparent. Victims: random. This doesn’t fit with our conceptions of crime. I might understand to a certain extent (but never condone) a person killing another out of revenge, greed, or anger. When a disgruntled employee engages in a workplace shooting, at some level we can explain this behavior based upon our human experience. The shooter was angry and was seeking revenge. In the Colorado case the victims are unrelated to the alleged shooter. There was no profit motive beyond the apparent desire to murder as many people as possible in as dramatic a fashion as possible. When these types of crimes occur, oftentimes our default explanation is that the perpetrator must be crazy.

At this point it is unknown whether the defense in this case will attempt to use the insanity defense. As noted in the Christian Science Monitor, the Colorado insanity defense requires clear and convincing evidence that the defendant was suffering from a mental disease and failed to know the difference between right and wrong. This is a high standard. First, clear and convincing proof requires more than a preponderance of the evidence. The best way this legal speak can be broken down, albeit in a somewhat nebulous manner, is by saying that the clear and convincing standard requires the fact-finder to be more than 51% sure and less than 99% sure. Second, it will be difficult to argue that a person with Holmes’s level of education, combined with the obvious wrongfulness of the act, was unable to know the difference between right and wrong.

Someone asked me once what I thought was one of the most basic psychological mistakes people make? After some contemplation I came to the conclusion that the "halo effect" was something I observed in others quite often. The halo effect, coming from studies in social psychology, is when an impression one has about someone (either positive or negative impressions) is generalized to their entire personality. For example, to assume that an attractive person is honest, hardworking, mentally healthy, and dependable; or,  that someone seen as unattractive is more than likely lazy, dishonest, mentally unhealthy, and likely to exploit others.

Difficulties can occur when one assumes various qualities about someone based simply upon initial observations. Also, those that understand the power of the halo effect can use it to their advantage and will therefore be very careful about how they come across to those they seek something from (such as money, opportunity, votes, etc.).

Being careful not to make quick judgements or decisions, allowing for time to pass to observe consistency, or really checking out formal or informal references, are bits of advice that have some valuable wisdom running through them. What about you? Can you think of a time when you incorrectly assumed someone was one way or another, based on some impression they made upon you? Are you becoming more effective at not committing the halo effect?

Just for fun, a Summer sociology blog thought...

I was at the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival in Kansas City, and sitting with a friend, we were talking about how sociology is actually, all around. Very often the invisible social rules that we all play by are in place to limit our individual desires, and to define the situation that might otherwise be undefined.

As we waited for the play to start, there we began discussing the social rules that govern our behavior. Right there in front of us were a number of rules related to seating in an open air park that were all put in place to balance the tension between what we want to do as individuals, and what we must give up as individuals in order to have the benefits of social order. There were some rules that were formal-- written down by the event organizers-- no sitting in the "aisles" (which in the grass field were outlined by yard lights), and there was a section for taller lawn chairs, and a section for blanket seating which were marked off by signs.

The image of a soldier is one that usually includes toughness, persevering against the odds, withstanding physical and psychological trauma, and one who is combat efficient, yet able to be function in a contributory manner in civilian life. Such an image is found in favor for many but it is an image that runs into  conflict when post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) comes into the picture.

Category D under diagnostic criteria for 309.81 PTSD in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR)  includes the occurrence of two or more of the following: (1) difficulty falling or staying asleep, (2) irritability or outbursts of anger, (3) difficulty concentrating, (4) hyper-vigilance, and (5) exaggerated startle response. Such symptoms, especially when combined with others such as acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (flashbacks), responding to cues with physiological reactivity, and feelings of detachment from others lead to a difficult scenario.

What are the potential consequences of asking a soldier to be exposed to the many horrors of war (thus risking PTSD occurrence) while at the same time trying to keep intact the sense of unity and comradeship that is seen as essential in the teamwork element of combat? If PTSD is inevitable in the circumstances of war, what would happen to the tight bond, seen as essential for a group of soldiers who are depending on the individual next to them, knowing that a peer may need to be removed as a means of dealing with a potentially debilitating disorder, one that could put the individual themself, as well as others, at risk?

After someone has committed a crime and is convicted, or pleads guilty, a punishment is determined. We often ask whether the punishment fits the crime. We assume the offender has taken something from society as a result of the offense and this must be repaid through punishment. This concept of retribution even invades the way we speak about punishment. For example, once a person completes a prison term we often say that they have “paid their debt to society.”

This debt-paying idea, however, does not really accurately describe the current state of affairs in the world of punishment. If I borrow money for a car and then pay the loan off in the agreed upon time frame with the agreed upon interest, then my debt is paid. The loan officer doesn’t show up two years down the road and ask for another payment. Three years after my debt has been paid the repo men don’t bring the tow truck to my house in the middle of the night. In punishment, additional hardships beyond the debt paid to society are called collateral consequences.

Collateral consequences can come in many forms such as restrictions on gun ownership, ability to serve on a jury, and loss of voting rights. Perhaps the most vexing collateral consequence of a conviction is related to employment. An ex-convict’s ability to gain and maintain a job may prevent a later return to criminal activity. However, many employers may not be willing to hire someone with a criminal conviction. These concerns can be legitimate. If I am a business owner, I don’t want to deal with an employee who may steal from me, injure co-workers or customers, deal drugs in my workplace, or show up intoxicated.

Whether or not you like Mitt Romney's politics, there is another question that his campaign raises for the American culture. Does the fact that he is a Mormon candidate for president mean the the Mormon Church has reached a cultural acceptance on the level of a Baptist, Methodist, or Catholic? 

Sociologists use the labels of Church, Sect, and New Religious Movement (often called a cult) to describe a religious organization in relationship to its surounding culture. A Church is in low tension with its culture-- citizens may even feel comfortable voting in an election at a "church." A Sect is a group that has rejected cultural values, and thus the culture has in turn looked at them with suspicion. We might think of the Amish as an example of a Sect-- their rejection of technology and choice of clothing are strange to the surrounding cultural environment. A Cult exists in the highest level of tension with the culture at large. The tension is so high, that cults are often viewed as dangerous, and the government may even get involved actively in restraining their activities. 

The Mormons have slowly over the years adapted to their surrounding cultural environment, to achieve more acceptance by the culture.  Thus they have moved from being viewed as a cultural threat (with socially suspicious practices such as polygamous marriages, rumors of secret rituals behind closed doors), to a religious movement that many in the culture view with acceptance and even honor. 

You've experienced it! We all have to one degree or another; social exclusion. It might be casual. You are with friends or acquaintances. A conversation is ongoing while you all sit around a large table in a restaurant. You have been quiet, but decide now to contribute your point of view to the conversation. When you have finished, there is quiet. Some heads have turned your direction, others are looking down at their plate of food. The conversation has come to a halt. Have you said something stupid, or what? You don't know. For whatever reasons, your words are now being totally ignored and the others re-engage conversation to where it was before you entered.

This might be a simple: "just get over it" situation. But it's not! You are feeling the pain of social exclusion. And it's real. The brain will confirm it. Multiple studies have utilized brain imaging to assess its activity while in a similar, yet seemingly less intense situation. While you lay prone and motionless in an MRI machine, you watch as 3 animated characters play catch with a ball. One of them is identified as you. The other 2 have been identified to you as persons at other computer sites. They, like you, have buttons to push which will determine exactly who your little animated character will throw the ball to when you have it in your possession. Everything is going very smoothly. The ball is being passed around. Then, quite unexpectedly, you notice neither one of them is throwing the ball to you—20, 30, 40 throws and none of them are coming to you. Do you feel it? You bet you do.

Imagine if a pickup truck stopped at the busy intersection of Mur-Len and Santa Fe. You watch as one man climbs out of the truck and gets into the back of a sedan parked next to the truck. This sedan then speeds away, leaving the truck in the street. You peer into the back of the truck and see what appear to be a large number of crudely made pipe bombs. After you run away as fast as possible and dial 911, the City of Olathe Fire Department’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team leap into action and neutralize the explosives.

On April 13^th, members of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team and Olathe Fire Chief Dr. Jeff DeGraffenreid visited the Terrorism and Transnational Crime class at MNU. Prior to this visit, students in the class completed Federal Emergency Management training on the Incident Command System that would be used to react to a local terrorist attack. Dr. DeGraffenreid discussed the important role that the Olathe Fire Department would play in responding to a terrorist attack, if just such an unfortunate incident were to occur.

Members of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team also discussed the high-tech equipment they use, including the blast suit and bomb disposal robot, and the extensive training that they have completed. Students were able to see this equipment up close and were able to appreciate the impressive level of expertise that is present within the local area. Thanks to Dr. DeGraffenreid and the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team!

In 2000 Jeffrey Arnett wrote a seminal article entitled Emerging Adulthood. In the article he proposed a theory stating that in industrialized cultures the transition from adolescence to adulthood was actually precluded by a several year period (age 18-25) which he called emerging adulthood. He noted significant changes in the last several decades in the average age of marriage, occupational beginning, and parenthood, as reported by the U.S. Bureau of Census. Arnett proposed it would be more accurate and beneficial to recognize the emerging adulthood stage as a distinct time period of development. While one is of legal age, often one is not yet involved in marriage, desired occupation, or parenthood.

My question is what are the advantages and disadvantages of recognizing emerging adulthood as a distinct and separate period of development between adolescence and young adulthood?

Arnett, J. J. (2000). Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through   the twenties. American Psychologist, 55(5), 469-480. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.55.5.469