Science of the SpiritS


Heart

Healing ourselves: Is self-care selfish? How to take care of yourself and not feel guilty!

Karyl McBride, Ph.D.
The Legacy of Distorted Love
Sun, 10 Feb 2013 13:39 UTC
self care narcissism
"Self-care is never a selfish act - it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others."

~Parker Palmer

Remember the old cliché? "Take care of yourself first or you will have nothing left to give others." Or, " we can't give what we don't have." But what is self-care really? Why is it so difficult and why do we feel guilty about doing it?

We were all given this special house to live in... our own body, mind and soul. It is our responsibility to take good care of it and treat it with ultimate respect. It carries within our special gifts and talents that are uniquely ours. Self-care is about seeking and nurturing internal validation. It is finding the sweet child within and giving him or her soothing comfort, reassurance, and warm, loving thoughts and wishes. It is about taking care of the internal emotional side of our being and learning self-compassion.

Adult children of narcissistic parents and certainly many others too, were often told they were selfish as children. It is normal for children to express desires and wishes and many times stressed out parents, feeling their own guilt or issues will unwittingly put this label on a child. It is a destructive move for the child because we optimally want to encourage children to have a voice and speak their feelings. This is how they develop a sense of self.
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People 2

Cupid's arrow in a ponerized world: Research illuminates laws of attraction

Elizabeth McClintock
University of Notre Dame
Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:11 UTC
We've heard the clichés: "It was love at first sight," "It's inner beauty that truly matters," and "Opposites attract."

But what's really at work in selecting a romantic or sexual partner?

University of Notre Dame Sociologist Elizabeth McClintock studies the impacts of physical attractiveness and age on mate selection and the effects of gender and income on relationships. Her research offers new insights into why and when Cupid's arrow strikes.

In one of her studies, "Handsome Wants as Handsome Does," published in Biodemography and Social Biology, McClintock examines the effects of physical attractiveness on young adults' sexual and romantic outcomes (number of partners, relationship status, timing of sexual intercourse), revealing the gender differences in preferences.
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Sherlock

Gatekeeper nerve cells explains the effect of nicotine on learning and memory

Professor Klas Kullander
Uppsala University
Sun, 07 Oct 2012 03:18 UTC
Image
Researchers at Uppsala University have, together with Brazilian collaborators, discovered a new group of nerve cells that regulate processes of learning and memory. These cells act as gatekeepers and carry a receptor for nicotine, which can explain our ability to remember and sort information.

The discovery of the gatekeeper cells, which are part of a memory network together with several other nerve cells in the hippocampus, reveal new fundamental knowledge about learning and memory. The study is published today in Nature Neuroscience.

The hippocampus is an area of the brain that is important for consolidation of information into memories and helps us to learn new things. The newly discovered gatekeeper nerve cells, also called OLM-alpha2 cells, provide an explanation to how the flow of information is controlled in the hippocampus.

"It is known that nicotine improves cognitive processes including learning and memory, but this is the first time that an identified nerve cell population is linked to the effects of nicotine", says Professor Klas Kullander at Uppsala University.

Humans think, learn and memorize with the help of nerve cells sending signals between each other. Some nerve cells send signals far away to other areas of the brain, while other neurons send signals within the same area. Local nerve circuits in the hippocampus process impressions and turn some of them into memories. But how does this work? And how can nicotine improve this mechanism?

The new research study literally sheds new light on this intriguing mechanism.

Comment: Prof. Klas Kullander will benefit enormously from reading the following articles:

Nicotine - The Zombie Antidote
Let's All Light Up!
Pestilence, the Great Plague and the Tobacco Cure
Comets, plagues, tobacco and the origin of life on earth

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Snakes in Suits

The psychopath in the C-Suite

Nicholas Bray
INSEAD Knowledge
Thu, 07 Feb 2013 01:58 UTC
Image
© INSEAD
Corporate genius or psychopath? It's a thin line that divides them. Most people who work in companies run afoul of such a person at least once during their career. Some rise to astonishing heights, and they can cause enormous damage. Dealing with them can be tricky, but here are some tips.

In Costa-Gavras's film Le Capital, an unscrupulous banker sends his bank's shares crashing in an insider-trading scam. Does he get fired? Not a bit of it! An adulating board re-confirms him as chairman, applauding him as he pledges to go on stealing from the poor to enrich the wealthy.

Sounds preposterous? Well, the movie is indeed a bit over the top. But real life often comes close to imitating fiction. From Enron to the LIBOR interest-rate fixing scandal that saw the demise last July of Barclays CEO Bob Diamond, corporate annals are packed with individuals whose sense of what's right and what's wrong differs starkly from that of most ordinary people.

Some walk off with hefty bonuses. A few end up in jail. Others poison the workplace long-term, putting the health of both companies and their staff at risk.
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Magnet

The one (really easy) persuasion technique everyone should know


PsyBlog
Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:46 UTC
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© Lori GreigIt's supported by 42 studies on 22,000 people and it's the easiest, most practical persuasion technique available.
I'll admit it. A few of the techniques for persuasion I've covered here on PsyBlog have been a little outlandish and impractical.

Things like swearing, talking in the right ear and pouring coffee down someone's throat. The studies are interesting and fun but not widely useful.

The question is: which persuasion technique, based on psychological research, is most practical, can easily be used by anyone in almost any circumstances and has been consistently shown to work?

The answer is: the 'But You Are Free' technique. This simple approach is all about reaffirming people's freedom to choose. When you ask someone to do something, you add on the sentiment that they are free to choose.
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Crusader

Busting the myth that Christians are more generous than non-believers

Valerie Tarico
AlterNet
Tue, 05 Feb 2013 12:13 UTC
bible dollars
Many religious people believe giving to the church is the be-all and end all of generosity.

The story has gone viral: A group got together at Applebees. When the tab came the minister wrote on the ticket, "I give God 10 percent, why should I give you 18?" She scratched through the automatic large-group tip and substituted a fat zero and signed it with the word "Pastor" in front of her name. The waitress posted an image on Reddit. The pastor called to complain. The waitress got fired. The internet went wild. Last I saw, one story had 80,000 comments and counting.

In reality, the pastor simply exposed something that is all too common to Christian thinking: the sense that giving to the church and to religious charities is the be-all and end all of generosity. As indignant reactions to the Applebee's incident show, service workers sometimes pay the price:
"I worked at the Outback Steakhouse for 3 years and we ALL dreaded Sundays."

"The Sunday after church crowd were allways the worst tippers. I found another line of work."

"As a former waitress who frequently served large parties of CHURCH members and pastors, I can attest to the fact that the majority of them were very demanding, condescending, dismissive and cheap. When 1 or 2 from the party of 12 -15 did tip they would leave pennies and loose change."

"I have waited tables in the past and I am sorry to say this behavior is not unusual. Often Ministers come into restaurants with their parishioners and treat the staff their to wait on them beyond poorly. They usually come in rather large parties and often leave very little tip for the poor server, who goes out of their way to care for the group."

"I also provide a service to the public. It is ALWAYS the churches that want something for free or don't tip."

"I waited tables for over 30 years and I have been stiffed many times by people like her."
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Bell

SOTT Focus: Limbic Warfare and Martha Stout's "Paranoia Switch"

Harrison Koehli
Sott.net
Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:36 UTC
911terror
© AP/ReutersThe events of 9/11 traumatized the American public. The Bush administration exploited that fear and today the Obama administration continues to do so.
Martha Stout's newest book, The Paranoia Switch, is a welcome addition to the new and growing science of ponerology: the study of the root causes and genesis of evil, on both the social and interpersonal levels. Stout uses her years of experience as a trauma therapist to clinically diagnose the sickness of our 'terror culture,' and those who would manipulate this trauma for their own self-interest.

The paranoia switch

Traumatic events overload our limbic system. The heightened response of our amygdala, which registers the emotional significance of the event, leads to a decreased response in the hippocampus, which usually prioritizes information and allows the higher brain centers to create coherent memories, based on their emotional importance. So, traumatic events do not get integrated by the higher brain centers as true memories, but instead leave us with non-integrated fragments of memory: isolated images and sensations. These memories can then be "triggered" by similar images. In this way, a backfiring car can trigger a war vet into a state of paranoia. His "paranoia switch" has been flicked.
"Most overwhelming of all are traumatic experiences caused not by accident (unintended explosions or car crashes), or by "acts of God" (earthquakes, volcanoes, etc.), but rather by the deliberate acts of other people, acts such as assault, violent abduction, rape - or terrorism. It would seem that, for whatever reason, we are hardwired to be most fearful of harm when it threatens to occur maliciously, at the hands of our fellow human beings, and this special variety of fear is the most contagious of all." (62)
As Stout explains later in her book, fear brokers maintain their power through the exploitation of human weaknesses. Ironically, it is often the very people we are genetically "programmed" to fear (i.e. psychopathic individuals), that exploit this fear by focusing it on an arbitrary and convenient group. Hitler used anarchists, communists, and Jews. Our leaders are using "terrorists", Muslims, and critics of their policies.
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Butterfly

Giving the slip to persistent negative thoughts


Psyblog
Wed, 06 Feb 2013 00:00 UTC
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© Wasfi Akab
New evidence supports a hundred-year-old technique for tackling unwanted thoughts.

Have you ever said a word over and over again until it lost its meaning? It's a trick many discover in childhood which can provide the first inkling that words aren't the solid, dependable, unchanging labels they seem.

Instead words start to feel slippery, open to interpretation and (whisper it) interchangeable.

Anyway, it's a fun game: if you like, try it again now: say your own name over and over again out loud until it loses all meaning.

This is an effect that psychologists have been studying, on and off, for at least a hundred years. The hope is that if words can come to have no meaning through repetition then perhaps negative ideas and thoughts can be tackled in the same way.

Nowadays repeating words over and over again is part of a therapeutic technique called cognitive defusion. The theory goes that if you have negative habitual thoughts going around in your head all the time, then perhaps their power can be defused through repetition.

Comment: Eiriu Eolas is another proven technique that can assist you with reducing your stress, calming and focusing your mind, increasing your sense of connection with others and helping you to heal emotional wounds. Visit the Éiriú Eolas site or participate on the forum to learn more about the scientific background of this program and then try it out for yourselves, free of charge.

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Info

Why we're all above average

Tia Ghose
LiveScience
Wed, 06 Feb 2013 17:05 UTC
Superhero
© Tom Wang | ShutterstockYou may not think of yourself as a superhero, but most of us think we're above average.
On a scale of one to 10, you probably think you're a seven. And you wouldn't be alone.

While it's impossible for most people to be above average for a specific quality, people think they are better than most people in many arenas, from charitable behavior to work performance.

The phenomenon, known as illusory superiority, is so stubbornly persistent that psychologists would be surprised if it didn't show up in their studies, said David Dunning, a psychologist at Cornell who has studied the effect for decades.

It happens for many reasons: Others are too polite to say what they really think, incompetent people lack the skills to assess their abilities accurately, and such self-delusions can actually protect people's mental health, Dunning told LiveScience.
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People

Targets of bully bosses aren't the only victims

Paul Harvey
University of New Hampshire
Wed, 06 Feb 2013 14:53 UTC
First-ever study shows impact of abusive supervisor extends to victim's co-workers.

Abusive bosses who target employees with ridicule, public criticism, and the silent treatment not only have a detrimental effect on the employees they bully, but they negatively impact the work environment for the co-workers of those employees who suffer from "second-hand" or vicarious abusive supervision, according to new research from the University of New Hampshire.

In the first ever study to investigate vicarious supervisory abuse, Paul Harvey, associate professor of organizational behavior at UNH, and his research colleagues Kenneth Harris and Raina Harris from Indiana University Southeast and Melissa Cast from New Mexico State University find that vicarious supervisory abuse is associated with job frustration, abuse of other coworkers, and a lack of perceived organizational support beyond the effects of the abusive supervisor.

The research is presented in the Journal of Social Psychology in the article "An Investigation of Abusive Supervision, Vicarious Abuse Supervision, and Their Joint Impacts."

Abusive supervision is considered a dysfunctional type of leadership and includes a sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors toward subordinates.

"Although the effects of abusive supervision may not be as physically harmful as other types of dysfunctional behavior, such as workplace violence or aggression, the actions are likely to leave longer-lasting wounds, in part, because abusive supervision can continue for a long time," Harvey said.
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