Showing all posts about psychology
Pack plenty of books and take yourself into internal exile in 2025
27 December 2024
The introverts among us live almost permanently in a sort of internal exile, or a rich inner life, as Waleed Aly referred to it during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
But the idea of getting away from it all, without actually going anywhere, is gaining traction more widely, writes Jacqueline Maley, for The Sydney Morning Herald. This as 2025, and the greater uncertainty that many people are anticipating, looms:
In recent months, I have been reading about the concept of “internal exile” or “internal emigration’. The term comes from the Russian, “vnutrennaya emigratsia” and means a sort of travelling into oneself, to take comfort in small pleasures – often solitary pleasures of the mind, like reading, or listening to music, or gardening or making a pleasant home.
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books, current affairs, introversion, psychology, reading, trends
Avid book readers have a different brain structure from other people
16 December 2024
In the same way the brain structures of introverts and extraverts differ, the same can be said for voracious readers of book as opposed to those who struggle finish books. This according to Mikael Roll, professor of phonetics, at Sweden’s Lund University.
The structure of two regions in the left hemisphere, which are crucial for language, were different in people who were good at reading.
It seems to me there is no stock-standard issue brain, they’re as varied as we are.
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Doomscrolling social media does not result in brain rot
12 November 2024
So say psychologists at the Sydney based University of New South Wales (UNSW):
Dr Poppy Watson, adjunct lecturer with UNSW’s School of Psychology, says while the idea warrants exploration, there is a lack of evidence showing excessive doomscrolling of social media is responsible for the mental fatigue, lack of focus, and reduced cognitive function often attributed to ‘brain rot’.
Doomscrolling is hardly a harmless undertaking either, but the UNSW researchers attribute so-called brain rot, particularly among teenagers, more to poverty, socioeconomic status, and poor diet. Brain rot does not, for instance, seem to have impacted IQ scores, which continue to rise:
If intense, prolonged digital consumption were stultifying young people’s minds, then we could expect to see a drop in average IQ scores between pre- and post-digital generations. But as Dr Watson points out, average IQ scores have risen from the start of the 20th century and into the 21st, known as the Flynn Effect.
This as the Australian government proposal to ban social media access to people under the age of sixteen, has been attracting criticism.
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psychology, social media, trends
Conservatives and progressives have different brain structures
17 October 2024
When it comes to political leanings, I’m probably centre/left. But I have a number of family and acquaintances who definitely lean more to the right.
Of course, everyone is different, but certain of the mannerisms of the more conservative people I know are particularly distinct. To me, these seemed to go beyond regular personal preference. An inclination towards adhering to convention, and a dislike of uncertainty, to cite a few, seem quite apparent to me. And this well before discussing voting intentions.
Now some recent University College London research, published by Current Biology, seems to confirm what I’ve long suspect: there are differences in the brain structures of politically left leaning and right leaning people:
We speculate that the association of gray matter volume of the amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex with political attitudes that we observed may reflect emotional and cognitive traits of individuals that influence their inclination to certain political orientations. For example, our findings are consistent with the proposal that political orientation is associated with psychological processes for managing fear and uncertainty. The amygdala has many functions, including fear processing. Individuals with a large amygdala are more sensitive to fear, which, taken together with our findings, might suggest the testable hypothesis that individuals with larger amygdala are more inclined to integrate conservative views into their belief system. Similarly, it is striking that conservatives are more sensitive to disgust, and the insula is involved in the feeling of disgust. On the other hand, our finding of an association between anterior cingulate cortex volume and political attitudes may be linked with tolerance to uncertainty.
If medical terms baffle you, as they do me, read Sydney Morning Herald writer Angus Dalton’s analysis of the Current Biology report.
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personality, politics, psychology
Grand final day: when some introverts must leave the house
5 October 2024
No posts about sport, hardly ever, then two in a week. But the NRL football (rugby league) grand final (Penrith Panthers versus Melbourne Storm) is on this long weekend, and since I wrote about the AFL the other day, this seems right. More a personality/psychology post though: a profile of Nathan Cleary, the Panthers halfback, and veritable introvert:
Nathan Cleary could have the time of his life, “just the most enjoyable day” he says, without even thinking about leaving the house. Trackies optional. No need to talk to another human soul. Maybe the dog. Maybe not a word. But probably picking up any one of several footballs that are left lying around the place, because Cleary “just feels normal being able to hold a footy”.
I too have the most enjoyable days, without even thinking about leaving the house. Even if I actually seldom stay at home the whole day. Instead of a football though, I’ll reach for my laptop.
And it turns out Cleary’s girlfriend, Matildas’ star Mary Fowler, is also an introvert. That, as we say in this household, is a match made in heaven.
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introversion, personality, psychology, sport
Playing Tetris may ease post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms
24 September 2024
Sara E. Teller, writing for Legal Reader:
The research, published in BMC Medicine, focuses on the use of video games, particularly the well-known Tetris game that has been around for decades, to help reduce intrusive memories, a core and sometimes debilitating symptom of the condition.
Invented in 1984 by Alexey Pajitnov, Tetris is a straightforward yet fun, video game. Anything that can help PTSD survivors, in any way, has to be a good thing.
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entertainment, games, health, psychology
Writing a book may be a health hazard, just ask a writer
23 September 2024
American writer and researcher, Gwern Branwen:
But how can I not want to write a book? And I get it: writing a book is sacred and unquestionable, the ultimate achievement for Western intellectuals — better than being arrested in a protest (because you don’t have to get sweaty), better than a PhD (because not so devalued), and better even than going to Harvard (because that mostly means you got lucky in admissions).
I’m no intellectual, but I’ve been banging away at a book manuscript for years, ten years actually. On the other hand, I’ve been writing here at disassociated, on and off, since the late nineties. But what do people I know ask about the most?
A book that may never see the light of day? Or a blog that is updated regularly, and has some sort of readership (excluding the neighbour’s cat)? Surprise, surprise, it’s not the blog.
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Your coffee order, a subliminal yet revealing, job interview question?
23 September 2024
Applying for a job, going through the interview process and what not, is much like walking on eggshells. Take one wrong step, and all your efforts may be for nothing. Even something as seemingly innocuous as the way you like your cup of coffee prepared, could be your undoing:
I won’t say what work we do, but it involves judgement and discernment. I keep thinking that if this person is making such bad decisions about coffee, what other bad decisions are they capable of?
I say play it safe in such a situation, and once you’ve been hired, then reveal your true coffee drinking colours. But if you do want your choice of coffee to reflect well on you, this PsychCentral article by Sian Ferguson, may be useful.
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Reading: good for your mental and overall health?
23 August 2024
Ceridwen Dovey, writing for the New Yorker, in 2015:
For all avid readers who have been self-medicating with great books their entire lives, it comes as no surprise that reading books can be good for your mental health and your relationships with others, but exactly why and how is now becoming clearer, thanks to new research on reading’s effects on the brain.
Self-medicating with a book can’t be bad. I’ll have to see if I can find out what conclusions the research Dovey referred to, found. For my part, I know sitting quietly somewhere and reading a novel can be calming and relaxing, just like writing.
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Introverts and extraverts are at war, and introverts are winning. WTF?
16 August 2024
Marie Le Conte, writing for New Humanist, in a provocatively titled article: the introverts are winning, seems to suggest introverts and extraverts are embroiled in some sort of global conflict.
A quick explainer. People generally fall into one of two personality traits: extraversion or introversion. It’s a scale. You can be close to either end, or in between. In short, extraverts seek stimulation by being around people. They’re often perceived as being outgoing, sociable. Introverts find stimulation internally, in their minds. They’re often absorbed by their thoughts, and as such tend to be reserved.
But you don’t get to choose where on the scale you sit. You can’t just leap from one side to the other, simply because it takes your fancy. You are what you are: introvert or extravert.
But if there’s a battle between the two, I’m clearly reading the wrong news channels, because this is the first of heard of such a struggle. But I wonder if Le Conti knows what it means to be an introvert. It would seem though, introverts, of which I am one, are responsible for all manner of societal ills.
Among these are the growing preference of people to work from home, and conduct many of their social activities by way of social media. Streaming movies (instead of going to a cinema), and performing things like banking and grocery transactions online, are also part of the… problem.
Advances in technology, and make no mistake, that’s what made just about all of these activities possible, are behind this shift in human behaviour. It might make for a great headline to suggest this is all a conspiracy on the part of introverts to achieve world domination, but yeah, whatever.
In the years after [pandemic] restrictions were lifted, many naturally outgoing people — this writer included — have found it that bit harder to get their friends out of the house. Plans somehow require more effort than ever to get made, and are always at risk of getting cancelled at the last minute. A spontaneous pub trip, once a cornerstone of British social life, now takes work to organise.
So, no one want to go the pub anymore? This could only be the fault of introverts. They somehow managed to gain the upper hand during the stay-at-home orders, imposed in many parts of the world, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and are now foisting their will upon everyone else. Le Conte, mercifully however, acknowledges the present cost-of-living pressures facing many people, may be playing a part in keeping them at home.
Quite a big part, I’d say. Let’s take the Australian restaurant industry as an example. In Sydney alone, dozens of well-known dining establishments have sadly been forced to close in recent years, mainly as a result of the rising cost-of-living. Cash strapped diners are staying home. I’ll say it again: these closures were caused, largely, by cost-of-living issues. Not because introverts conquered the world.
People are probably reluctant to spend an evening at the pub, because they’re trying to save money. I highly doubt the same people, who were presumably extraverts before the pandemic, mysteriously underwent a sudden personality change, and became introverts afterwards.
Greater global instability, particularly an increase in acts of terrorism, is also seeing more people choosing to stay at home. This is because some people — and I’m not sure how many — are said to be fearful of going out. It has nothing to do with people who have a certain personality trait. It is because of concern for personal safety.
This reluctance to leave the house however, according to Pascal Bruckner, a French philosopher, is a “triumph of the slippers”. In other words, people are more comfortable donning a pair of slippers, and seldom leaving the house, rather than putting on their shoes and venturing into the world.
The so-called triumph of the slippers however, is, apparently, a major victory for introverts in their “war” against extraverts. Bruckner may be a philosopher, whom I thought were generally learned people, but he seems to have little understanding of introverts.
Who will win the war? Bruckner is proudly fighting on the side of the extroverts, but he isn’t exactly optimistic about what’s to come. As he points out, wannabe hermits have a powerful weapon at their disposal: the internet.
Who will win the war? A war between introverts — sorry, wannabe hermits — and extraverts? A “war” the introverts are apparently winning because of the internet. I couldn’t make this stuff up, even if I tried. But we all knew the evil internet was going to come into this sooner or later.
Technologies that allow us to do more online — and not just at home — have no doubt been a boon for introverts. We do, after all, like spending some of our time in quiet spaces, away from others. It’s in our nature. But it’s not just introverts who have found value in being able to do all sorts of things online, rather than in person.
Le Conte’s article may be correct in suggesting people have become more withdrawn from others, and are more obsessed with social media. This may not be a good state of affairs. And no doubt, more of us are conducting a greater number of activities online, things that once required going to a place, and interacting with others.
That’s not necessarily bad of itself. But to suggest the present state of the world is the result of some sort of war, being waged by introverts against extraverts, is outright absurd. I’ll leave it at that.
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