Psychiatry and Psychology

One might think of bullying and shunning as opposing forces. Stereotypically, you might picture boys as bullying and girls as shunning, with the girls shunning boys who bully causing them to control their aggression. But maybe shunning and bullying have the same ultimate purpose and effect as social control. When a bully makes a show of force, the result will be that others will fall in line to avoid becoming the next target of bullying. Now consider shunning: when people are afraid of losing friendship and being ignored socially, don't they also fall in line and cater to those who are socially popular? So when popular people shun, others will follow suit to av…

Typical "top 10" facts about dreaming: http://www.boredpand...reams-dreaming/ How can they say that with such certainty? Where is the research and evidence? Are there any good articles about this topic (I couldn't find any)?

Is dreaming a type of imagined experience or is it something more substantial? If dreaming is anything more than imagination, could dreams truly be substantially meaningful or relevant experiences? As wanderings of an idle mind, what we imagine is meaningful to us on some level. Although frequently not time well spend, our imagination could be a source of insight, innovation, and stress relief. Einstein, whose "thought experiments" produced extraordinary insights, is a great example of meaningful and relevant imagination. However, evidence in brain study suggests that dreaming is likely not imagination. Imagination is a consciously directed activity of a wakefu…

Abstract Anecdotal evidence suggests “contagious” itch occurs in daily life when we see other people itch and scratch. This phenomenon has not been systematically studied previously, and factors which can amplify itch perception were unknown. We investigated whether exposure to visual cues of itch can induce or intensify itch in healthy and atopic dermatitis subjects. Participants received histamine or a saline control delivered to the forearm and were asked to watch short video clips of people scratching. Spontaneous scratching induced by visual cues was monitored and analyzed. Atopic dermatitis patients reported a higher itch intensity and scratched more frequently …

Is it true that if you are excellent at chess, you must also have a natural talent for maths? Somebody has told me that these abilities go hand-in-hand and was just curious.

For children (from 6-10 years of age) is it better for them to have a few group of friends or many friends? What are the advantages of a child having many friends and what are the disadvantages as well? And when I say advantages and distadvantages I mean to refer to their psychological and social development. How can having many friends have a negative impact on a young student? Also, generally speaking, how can having many friends be a bad thing? Would you rather have few friends that you know very well or many friends that you know but not as closely well? Have there been any scientific studies on this to show which is more beneficial to an individual (e.g. for …

Abstract Could it be possible that, in the not-so-distant future, we will be able to reshape the human body so as to have extra limbs? A third arm helping us out with the weekly shopping in the local grocery store, or an extra artificial limb assisting a paralysed person? Here we report a perceptual illusion in which a rubber right hand, placed beside the real hand in full view of the participant, is perceived as a supernumerary limb belonging to the participant's own body. This effect was supported by questionnaire data in conjunction with physiological evidence obtained from skin conductance responses when physically threatening either the rubber hand or the real on…

I have a patient that in his first consultation said that he suffered from many years from panic . Acording to him , his panic atacks lasted for 50 minutes to more than an hour. During this panic episodes, he had symptoms of despersonalization, desrealization, had an allucination that a poison was passing through all his veins, had involuntary movements of his lips and become extremely agitaded, nervous , angry and suicide ideas came up with all of these. I realized that this was not a real panic episode, and realized that this could be a non convulsional epileptic status. All his exams are unremarkable, except consideralble low dose of piridoxin. Has anyone heard in the …

What should you do when you really, REALLY have to “go”? Make important life decisions, maybe. Controlling your bladder makes you better at controlling yourself when making decisions about your future, too, according to a study to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Sexual excitement, hunger, thirst-psychological scientists have found that activation of just one of these bodily desires can actually make people want other, seemingly unrelated, rewards more. Take, for example, a man who finds himself searching for a bag of potato chips after looking at sexy photos of women. If this man were able to suppress his…

Abstract The way we talk about complex and abstract ideas is suffused with metaphor. In five experiments, we explore how these metaphors influence the way that we reason about complex issues and forage for further information about them. We find that even the subtlest instantiation of a metaphor (via a single word) can have a powerful influence over how people attempt to solve social problems like crime and how they gather information to make “well-informed” decisions. Interestingly, we find that the influence of the metaphorical framing effect is covert: people do not recognize metaphors as influential in their decisions; instead they point to more “substantive” (oft…

Hi all! I want to do a big poll about human sexuality. We can say that there are four big sexual orientations in human sexuality: gynesexuality (attraction to pubescent females), androsexuality (attraction to pubescent males), pedosexuality (attraction to prepubescent children) and zoosexuality. These are the four main sexual orientations in human sexuality. Every person in the world has one of these 4 sexual orientations! Most persons are attracted to pubescent persons of the opposite sex. But there are many other people who are primarily attracted to pubescent persons of the same sex, or to prepubescent children or to animals. This poll is made …

This is more of a psychology topic, I think, but I couldn't find a psychology section so I posted it in religion. Certainly it can be answered in terms of religious ideology producing such sub-conscious cooperation with authority or resistance to it. I wonder if there's any way to empirically test the degree to which people are sub-consciously driven to cooperate/comply with various forms of authority. I also wonder if there's any way to observe processes through which people are programmed to do so. Then, what would happen if you would show them concrete evidence of how they were programmed and how it affects their behavior? Would they choose to resist or just not c…

Here you can vote: http://www.polljunki.../Poll10382.aspx and here's the results: http://www.polljunki.../View10382.aspx The last one was: http://www.sciencefo...bout-sexuality/

If anyone is interested in participating in a study on the influence of various types of media, please fill out this form (one of a number of different parts to the study): https://spreadsheets2.google.com/viewform?hl=en&hl=en&formkey=dDA0Yy1lbUhHUGV4WmhvR3VEeGpjN3c6MQ#gid=0 The form should take 3-5 minutes to complete. You will be asked to read 2 short articles and respond to a few questions. If you have a chance, please also forward this along to anybody who would be interested or willing. The survey must be completed by Saturday, Feb. 19. Thanks for your help!

An urban myth is that if you find a coin in the street and you pick it up, you will then notice that you frequently find more coins as if by magic. I tried this once, and although I could hardly find any coins before, after I picked up a small coin I continued finding coins of all denominations almost on a daily basis. It has now been 3 months and this continues. What is the basis of this? There are no people walking in front of me deliberating throwing coins in order for me to find them. It is not just coincidence. One explanation is that after the first coin, the finder becomes more aware or focused and subconsiously scans the pavement for coins. He/she becomes…

specifically how does a psychologist determine what is truth and what is false. Seems there has been a number of cases where the psychologist through the course of study actually creates the environment to produce them. My interest lies with a young child of 9 who is making accounts of his father which could be quite harmful. His Mother encourages anything negative about the father and does not challenge anything from the child but should the psychologist not do this? Would a psychologist not have a moral obligation to find the truth? I am mostly interested in the process of determining fact from fiction in cases such as this.

It was an intriguing read about how this organization basically puts drug addicts to sleep with anaesthesia and administers detoxifying drugs to clear the opiate from the brains receptors. But as with most things on the internet it is extremely difficult to get through the "media hype" to solid facts rather than sales pitches. Does this work as well as it appears it would? I think the detoxifying is half the battle with an addict who fears the physical withdrawal and discomfort associated with it What is a professional opinion please?

is it fair to assume that all children teens are idiots to keep them safe? and is it fair to limit the rights of all children teens because some children teens act stupidly.

I was wondering if any studies have been done on the suicide rate of people with PhD's? In particular is there any evidence that they are more likely or less likely to commit suicide (or lets say attempt) compared to the general populous? I have read that medical doctors have a relatively high suicide rate, for example, but what about physicists, chemists, biologists etc? My initial thought, not backed up with evidence is that PhD's in science probably have a high suicide rate. These people are critical thinkers and are involved in a highly competitive career. Will the general reduction of funding for UK science add to this? Sorry to sound gloomy.

Dear Citizen, I must bring to your attention the most important matter facing our people that you will not hear from mainstream media sources. Outside the Western World there is no such thing as a Schizophrenic, only Shaman, spiritual leaders. The one percent of our people are the natural community leaders of our species and the most important ability we all have has been intentionally hidden from our people. Our Empathic ability, to fell what another person is feeling, the ability to mind read, and make an educated guess as to what another human being is thinking. The 1% of our species are the full empath's of our race. They are breaking down beca…

Hi everyone, ---Please note that the following post has been approved by site moderator, Cap'n Rafsmmat--- We are researchers from the University of Ballarat, Australia, and we are currently conducting research on the psychological effects of being a victim of infidelity on a person's mental health and relationships, as well as the factors that contribute to a person's experience of betrayal in a relationship. We are seeking participants who have been the victim of infidelity in a romantic relationship, who are over the age of 18 and who can spare approximately 20 minutes to complete our online survey. You can also go into a draw to win an iPod …

Do we sin against God or man and does God usurp our healthy forgiveness. I saw this video and did not agree with it. If I sin, I think I sin against another human. Not against God. Against his law of course, or to be more specific, against the laws that men have attributed to God, but not against God. This clip ignores the human victim altogether as if the victim has no right to feel offended and also have no responsibility to forgive the offender. I find it rather droll that we are supposed to see God as the victim of all our sins. If you were to visualize, for instance, God being the victim of all Gay sins, well you see what I mean. Rather…

why is it that people cant accept that there are people who find the same sex attractive? iv seen this more so in men than women, and i have no idea why, especialy when if a guy is gay, doesnt that mean more of a chance for a strait guy to get a girl? any one have any ideas on the matter?

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/53912-poll-about-sexuality/ There was a big mistake in the poll, so I've just created a new poll. If you have already voted, please vote again! The two links have been deleted by the moderator. There are two new links with the correct poll!

sorry, but the google search lead me to believe there was a psychiatry forum here... maybe someone can chime in and help me understand. To the schizophrenic patient, what is the difference between the "voices" internal to the mind and a normal internal dialog? I've hallucinated in the past, but a schizophrenic friend pointed out that mine were always external, I could point to the person I was arguing with... this leaves me needing help to understand. Thanks in advance.