The exploration of an idea.

Is optimism better than pessimism?

Here's my quandry. Pessimism as a life view has gained popularity in many circles due to the supposed disappointment-buffering qualities. Supporters says that if you never expect anything good to happen, then at worst you are expecting any failures that come along, and at best are pleasantly surprised when something good happens. It sounds sensible in theory, a simple case of calculating probability and outcome. I don't believe it works like this, but I have huge difficulty explaining why. A problem I hope to remedy by putting down on sexy sunset-template paper and trying to structure it for a public forum.

Your choices in life structure your personality. Your goals, perspectives, reactions and opinions are all informed by the way you choose to lead your life. This is why I have such strong views on issues like cosmetic surgery, or on the differences in personality between the physical ideal and those of us who have quirks and traits that we have to learn to accept. I believe that, within reasonable limits, we should all be forced to develop the strength to accept who we are. It's the school bully scenario; you get bullied for being ginger, do you dye your hair or do you learn to stand up for yourself? In the context of adulthood; you gain the view that small tits are ugly through gossip-media. Do you dish out £5000 to inject them with plastic, or do you find some way to accept what you've got?

The majority of people take the first option in most examples of a conflict like this, and that angers me in a very deep way. I can understand and accept the need for children to avoid conflict like that; or for people to give in from time to time and let themselves indulge in some change to make their lives easier. For small, almost juvenile decisions, or for the truly life defining ones however... Gah. The pretty kids at school grew up to be so much more dull than those who had to fight for who they wanted to be. I adore the girl with red hair who has come out the other end to discover that guys appreciate the mix of firey appearance and deep character. I am close friends with the guys who were never confident or talented enough to attract girls easily, and so developed the most striking wit I've ever experienced. I AM the guy who had crippling acne throughout all of high school and was delighted to learn that no one who knew me gave the slightest bit of shit about any of it.

The woman who has surgery just to fulfil some need to have larger breasts? She has looked at the world around her and said "I don't want to be myself, I want to be how they want me" and so taken one step closer to homogenising her society. Instead of, after some hardship and character searching, learning through experience to enjoy who she is; she has removed any need to ever have that conflict. Sigh, wont she be good dinner table conversation? I've taken a simplified example, but it illustrates my view clearly enough.

Of course, my opinions don't apply if you're competing in the 'biggest fake breasts' competition. I'm not kidding, this woman actually won it. 36MM! Bravo.

Let's bring it back to the idea of pessimism, which I think works in the same way. Imagine the situation where a person is going to be sitting an exam in a course that, objectively, they are quite good at. Throughout all of their studying, organisation and motivation-gathering they have chosen to be pessimistic about the whole thing. To begin with, I believe they will try less hard due to a lack of believeable motivation (i.e. "Wow, I might pass this, think of how rewarding that will feel!"). At the same time I reckon they are giving themselves a pre-made denial clause for actually failing (i.e. "I knew I wouldn't pass, there's nothing that could have been done to improve my performance). Being able to say that; being able to immediately blame it on fate or an supposedly unstoppable component of your personality, stops you learning how to properly deal with failure.

The argument to that, is failure just aint easy. God how I know that. I work my ass off to try and continue a fortuitous spree of good grades that I would be crushed to lose. The people who acted rash and lashed out when they failed as younger people had two choices. They could have said "Aaaah why the hell was I ever optimistic? I'll never reach those shining pinnacles of achievement. Next time I will approach it without such determination." Or they could have made the painful choice to try again simply to experience the thrill that came from playing the game properly. True sportsmanship is signified by the man who tries his damned hardest to win, but shakes the hand of the man he lost to, promising a tougher challenge next year. Not the man who sighs and tells his opponent "Acht, I knew you'd win." then only puts in a token effort next time around.

All of this has to be informed by the limits of a person's abilities. I'm quite a fast runner but I wouldn't expect to win against somebody who had actually trained and who had a passion for it. That isn't a case of optimism versus pessimism, but more a healthy injection of realism. In situations where you genuinely are good at something, (your companions, teachers or trainers tell you so) it becomes harder to realistically get away with acting the pessimist.

Pessimists have fewer Lols. Fact.

Those are its hidden flaws. Hidden, because they don't directly affect pessimists themselves. Firstly, a pessimist will often vocalise their lack of faith in their abilities to peers and teachers. The same peers and teachers that expend effort in trying to convince the person they can do something (if you've ever tried and failed to inspire a friend, you'll understand the frustration this can cause. It is eventually difficult to differentiate from attention seeking). Secondly, a pessimist will be unsporting in the same manner I wrote about above, and the pessimist will never develop any capacity to change this part of themselves. They will simply accept any failing of their part to be due to their personality rather than their abilities. Can you see the cycle? Believing that you will fail > failing > strengthening your belief that you will fail > failing...

It isn't broken by succeeding, because any victories will be chalked immediately to luck! Bringing me back to the first part of this post. They wont say "Oh wow! Things are looking up!" That would be optimism. Instead they will go "This won't last...". What a... what a depressing way of looking at life.

The summary of my rant is this: Your choices make who you are. If you choose to fight for character traits you believe in, you not only attain a positive view of yourself, but it is matched by the personality traits that came from the struggle (like determination, self-confidence). If you choose to change who you are in order to escape conflict, you might -with luck- end up with a positive self image, but you wont have the personality traits that will allow it to last. How long until those fake breasts begin to look unsatisfying to the women that have discovered the ease of changing themselves once before? Whilst optimism is paired with disappointments, defeats, wasted efforts; it also comes with the benefits of learning how to deal with competition, stress, adversary. Pessimism by its very nature is the avoidance of having to experience failure. It might give you an easier ride, but you wont learn how to sail if you don't go through choppy waters.

I dislike seeing my friends saddened from a defeat or disappointment; but I know they would never have forgiven themselves had they never really tried in the first place.

So I suppose...optimism, for me. Optimism is the way to go.

Phew.

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For a more academic insight into the ideas of pessimism and optimism, look up locus of control, self-efficacy and Rogers' (1954) views about the differences between the actual and ideal self.

Side effects at the end of the tunnel.

This is a follow on from the last post where I spoke about the causes and symptoms of Panic disorder. For now, I'd like to speak about the treatments available. Even though I'm secretly dying to move onto research on the evolution of art and creativity. We had a bitchin' class this morning that has left me certain with my essay topic for that class.

Onward! The best available drug treatments for Panic disorder are antidepressants, given their regulating effects on norepinephrine and other neurotransmitters. The massive downside to these drugs is two-fold. They have hefty side-effects, and the Panic flares back up as soon as they stop being taken (unless paired with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, say Doyle and Pollack in their 2004 study).

More specifically, Tricyclic Antidepressants (such as imipramine) reduce panic attacks in most patients (Doyle'n'co again). TAs improve functioning of norepinephrine with a smaller effect on serotonin. Perhaps due to both, anxiety is reduced in general. Side effects? Blurred vision, dry mouth, sexual dysfunction, constipation, weight gain and difficulty urinating. Ouch!

Selective Serotonin Uptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) 'increase the functional levels of serotonin in the brain'. I'm not sure what that means exactly. Learning about all these drugs and their effects on random chemicals I know very little about is frustrating. Regardless, side effects of these buggers include irritability, agitation (in what way are those different concepts?) insomnia, drowsiness and again sexual dysfunction. I'd like to see someone maintain constant physiological arousal with these in their system. Yaknowwhatamsayin'? In terms of reducing anxiety, they are on a par with TAs (Doyle and Pollack, 2004. Culpepper, 2004).

Benzodiazepines suppress the central nervous system and influence functioning in GABA, norepinephrine and serotonin symptoms. Culpepper (2004) tells us that they reduce panic and general anxiety very well in people with panic disorder. They are massively addictive both physiologically and psychologically though, which is a bit of a problem, let's be fair. People build up a tolerance and must take higher doses to feel the effects again. Withdrawl symptoms are extremely harsh and range from insomnia and tremors to tingle sensations, seizures and paranoia. The drugs themselves mess with cognitive and motor functioning, to the point where driving ability is inhibited as well as most tasks at work, home or school. Most disappointing of all is the 90% relapse rate into panic attacks after coming off them (Chouinard, 2004).

Hold on... Notice how 2004 seems to be the year for research into these drugs? I wonder why.

I've had a cracker of a headache whilst writing this. So it feels a bit less animated than my usual posts. To cheer us all up, here is an exceptionally beautiful Red-head I found on google.

CBT is my much preferred approach to treating panic disorder. It has one major aim in all the disorders it attempts to treat; it tries to get clients to confront the source of their psychological unease. By exposing the client to these stimuli, their irrational beliefs can be directly challenged using an appeal to logic, and so changed. There has been a load of research claiming that CBT is equal to, or better, than the above drugs at treating the disorder. On top of that, it is certainly more effective in lowering relapse rates (e.g. Barlow et al 2000. Telch et al. 1993).

The process is interesting to me. It is so... simple. I think half the battle is actually attemping to do something about the problems. Something physical and human, rather than throwing down a pill and hoping for the best whilst your willy fails to work and it burns when you pee. Initially participants are taught breathing exercises. By giving them some actual control over their physiological symptoms they begin to feel more calm and receptive to more treatment. At this point the clinician will make an attempt to direct the participant towards identifying the CATASTROPHIC SNOWBALLING THOUGHTS they have been having about their bodily symptoms in different situations. There are a bunch of methods they might use to achieve this, including keeping a written record of their experiences of anxiety throughout the day.

If you've ever experienced a panic attack you're probably more qualified to make this assumption, but I reckon that it would be pretty hard to write "Aaaah crap, here it comes here it comes! This is all because of the trapped surroundings in this packed tube train..." whilst you are going through an actual attack. For this reason, having a panic attack in the office of the clinician can be beneficial for treatment in general, and some clinicians might actually make an effort to induce one. They would use safe methods that would be pretty likely to crack out an attack in those with panic disorder, such as inhaling CO2 or standing up quickly to produce a head rush. As the participants go through the attack, the clinician tries to help them collect their thoughts through it.

The next step is for the clients to practise their relaxation exercises when they're mid attack during therapy. The clinician usually talks through this; pointing out successes, helping them keep control, reminding them they are actually safe. Generally just trying to keep the matter in perspective, which is something people with panic disorder tend to lack. After mastering this, the therapist can challenge (and later, the client can challenge) their errant thought processes using certain straight-forward techniques. One such approach is to find out what physical stimuli are being experienced and what is actually prompting them. Taking accurate data from medical measurements can empirically prove that, for example, their hearts are not about to explode. That information can certainly be heartening (see what I did there?) to the sufferer.

Lastly, the therapist uses systematic desensitisation therapy to expose the clients gradually to their sources of panic in the real world. They work through a list of stressors from least threatening to most threatening, mastering their relaxation techniques along the way until those stimuli are no longer associated with anxiety.

Next step for my study of this stuff, is to get friendly with all the studies I've mentioned, learn more about CBT, and get into specific detail about the functioning of the neurotransmitters. For tonight, though, I'm going to chill out with an episode of Dexter and a sandwich.

Be well, folks.

"Please stop bleeding, please stop bleeding. Oh God please stop bleeding."

The clinical psychology module this year has us looking at numerous mental disorders from three different angles: Aetiology (causes), symptoms and treatments. I'm no expert in this area yet, but I'm hoping that I'll soon be pretty up on my anxiety disorders by the end of this semester. They fascinate me, no thanks to the class itself mind you.

You see; something I have done very little of during my course is learn how to help people through their problems. It seems utterly bizarre to me that a course so focussed on human foibles should ignore treatment so completely. At the most, I'd learned the principals underlying Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). The lack of detailed training is a heavy burden when friends go through anything from "Aaaaah stress aaaaaah" to "all moisture in my body spent the last 5 hours escaping through my eyes." It is a delight, therefore, to poke my nose into a well written chapter on panic disorder in a book written by Nolen-Hoeksema (2008).

The chapter itself has given me a brilliant background insight into the aetiology, symptoms and treatments; but pretty much all of the journal articles it links to are not part of Abertay's subscription. It's a fairly common problem students encounter, when their university has full access to "Nymphomaniac tradesmen's annual crafting guild review" but completely ignores "Annual review of clinical psychology".

I mean really? "What should we sign up for? What about this clearly relevant journal?" - "Don't be a fool. Our students will only learn if we make it almost impossible for them to do so!" It's a problem glossed over whenever the vast distribution of knowledge is alluded to in political or humanitarian statements; that to view, analyse, review, trade or collaborate you must pay a hefty fee to a third party website or 7. My personal example here is that Craske & Waters (2005) wrote a mass review of almost every study to do with anxiety disorders; making their paper the single most important thing I could look at to help me with my assessments. A free version doesn't exist, so I will either have to pay $20, or (as will happen) use less valuable / relevant sources. By definition my actual research becomes sub-standard. People who get their work published under the same restraints must realise their knowledge is massively restrained. Gah.

Balancing invisible ducks.

Let's do this. Anxiety disorders have for different types of symptoms: Somatic (physical), emotional, cognitive and behavioural. Generally, anxiety is a sort of broken fear response. It hosts many of the same responses, but suffers from a number of flaws. That is to say, the response is disproportionate to whatever danger may exist. Usually there is no actual realistic concern that could explain the anxious response anyway. On top of all that, whilst fear responses subside when the danger has gone on its merry way, anxiety remains. 

Panic disorder is a diagnosis given to individuals who have panic attacks on a regular basis and so begin to structure their lives and behaviour around the fear of another striking. Panic attacks are more common than one would think. King, Gullone and Tonge (1993) found that 40% of young adults tended to have panic attacks when they were feeling under pressure. Panic attacks are pretty rough. I've never had one and hope that doesn't change. If a combination of heart palpitations, pounding heartbeat, numbness, chills/hot flushes, sweating, trembling, choking sensation and chest pain / nausea doesn't sound bad enough; there is also a crippling sense of  'unreality'.

How crap does 'unreality' sound? The sense that your body is out of your control and doing horrible things against your will that seem out of all proportion. It's the much more ominous version of watching yourself strip off and run wildly through Asda whilst you stare out of your eye-sockets, aghast. The final symptom listed is a fear of dying. It's probably worth mentioning that people suffering from panic attacks tend not to actually die.

Today is the day for watermarked stock images, I reckon.

Panic attacks are usually brought on by specific situations or events, in which case they are usually part of a phobic reaction. They are brought on by intense stress and so are isolated events that, although pretty shocking, are nothing to get overly worried about. It is when the panic attacks come out of the blue during normal, calm, day to day activities that individuals begin to get concerned. The lack of obvious cause doesn't exactly help a person get over the wretched experience, and having them frequently is no fun. No fun at all. As mentioned above, the diagnosis of 'panic disorder' is given to people like this, who begin to let fear of another attack enter their routine. (Watch this space. I've ordered the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders - DSM-IV-TR - which gives the actual conditions of diagnosis for this sort of thing. I'll write up an official definition once it arrives).

In individuals suffering from panic disorder, attacks can come at pretty different intervals. They might have many within a short period then go for months before having any again, or they might have regular attacks once or twice every week. Sufferers generally begin to believe they have deathly illnesses (which is fair enough, considering what they have to go through). Due to the seemingly random nature of the attacks and the previously mentioned unreality, sufferers can feel that they are going crazy or losing control of their bodies. This sort of thing, in certain people, leads them to hide their symptoms through an odd sense of shame. The isolation makes things worse and makes them demoralised and depressed (remember folks: talking helps).

Caske and Waters (2005 - See?! THESE buggers turn up everywhere and say something wise) reckoned that 7% of all people experienced panic attacks each year, and 3-4% of the human race will actually pick up panic disorder for some of their lives. Really? 3-4%? I suppose it'd be pretty hard to stand in a room with 30ish people and have them all be perfectly calm individuals; but that's a sign of our society. All people? I'm not convinced; Australians are pretty laid back.

Just ask Hugh.

People are more likely to obtain the disorder between adolescence and their mid-thirties. Ehlers (1995) performed a study in which he noted 92% of individuals who had it would continue to have symptoms for at least a year beyond the initial attacks; and for those whose symptoms went away, in 41% of cases it'd fly right back again. Alcoholism, depression and agoraphobia can develop from the condition, but you'll see later why I reckon this statistics lean painfully towards individuals who were given drug treatment at the expense of actual therapy.

Craske and Waters....again.... reviewed family histories of panic disorder patients. About 10% of first-degree relatives also had the disorder, as opposed to the 2% in relatives of non-sufferers. Hettema, Neale and Kendler (2001) added further support to the 'hey, there's probably something genetic about this' viewpoint by taking from twin studies that 30-40% of all variation in rates was down to genetics. (Twin studies are fairly straight forward. Monozygotic / identical twins share 100% of their genes; dizygotic twins only share 50%. For conditions which have a genetic contributor, the concordance rate should be higher in identical twins that in non-identical twins for this reason. It gets more complex, but that's the basic principal). So, there is a general predisposition to panic disorder or anxiety?

Donald Klein happened upon the finding that antidepressant medicine reduced the frequency of panic attacks, back in 1964. Most of these drugs affect the regulation of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine in the brain, and so his logical conclusion was that the fluctuations of that chemical might be the root cause of panic. Over the intervening years, evidence has built up which suggests that is indeed the case. There is poor regulation of norepinephrine in sufferers of panic disorder, especially in the locus ceruleus in the brain stem. A man I would not like to shake hands with, Redmond (1985), found that shooting electricity through that area in monkeys’ brains caused them to react in panic. He also showed that cutting it out entirely created fearless monkeys.

Additional research finds that altering the level of norepinephrine (again, especially in the locus ceruleus) causes panic attacks (Charley et al. 2000). Yohimbine alters it but no other neurotransmitters. When people with panic disorder take this, they tend to have a panic attack right on the spot! Oddly, then, other drugs which alter the activity of norepinephrine have been shown to alleviate the symptoms (Charley again). Hmmm.

Serotonin, GABA and CCK have also been found to have some affect on panic disorder (Bell and Nutt, 1998). Drugs that alter the functioning of serotonin systems seem to be useful in reducing panic attacks. Certain theories have suggested panic disorder is all down to high levels of the chemical in key brain areas, but others have argued that it’s due to low levels! It makes sense that acute panic attacks are affected differently by serotonin than longer lasting anxious fear of the next attack.  Increasing serotonin levels in the periaqueductal gray area of the brain stem reduce panic-like responses, whilst increasing them in the amygdale increases anxiety, and especially anticipatory anxiety (Graeff et al. 1996). I have literally no idea what or where the periaqueductal gray is. Let's Google it. One mo...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periaqueductal_gray

There you go. Magic.

As women with panic disorder have reported an increase in symptoms during their pre-menstrual periods and the postpartum period, it might be that progesterone increases vulnerability to panic symptoms (Yonkers, 2001). Progesterone affects both serotonin and GABA systems, fluctuating around could mess them around a bit, and if changes in level leads to increased susceptibility to panic then it could well be a valid problem. To make things worse, increases in progesterone can induce chronic hyperventilation which may be enough in itself to start off a panic attack. The amount of times I’ve written the word panic is getting to me...

Gorman, Papp and Coplan (1995) suggested a kindling model of panic, in which poor regulation of neurotransmitters associated with panic (especially in the locus ceruleus) kick of a panic attack, and in turn ‘kindle’ a lowering of the threshold for chronic anxiety in the limbic system, which both creates more panic attacks, and increases the chances of poor regulation back in the locus ceruleus. Bugger. (The limbic system is believed to have a lot to do with general anxiety). 

What do you know? I actually found a diagram.

People who have panic disorder can reliably be made to have a panic attack with fairly simple techniques, begging the question of why those without panic disorder cannot be led into it so easily. If we can answer that, we can discern what is different between the statuses. Inhaling a small amount of carbon dioxide or hyperventilating, ingesting caffeine or taking sodium lactate (similar to lactic acid) lead into attack around 50% of the time (Craske and Barlow, 2001. Rapee et al. 1992). The methods have one thing in common, they illicit the fight or flight response to some degree. Due to their crap regulation of norepinephrine or serotonin, those with panic disorder can be tricked into the response without there being a fear-source present. Something unmentioned here is the added ease of testing. I could slip you some sodium lactate or ask you to hyperventilate. If that leads you into a panic attack then it could be that you're working with panic disorder. 

So, many people with panic disorder seem to have a biological vulnerability to it, in the form of poor norepinephrine (and other neurotransmitter) regulation. Cognitive theorists wisely point out that psychological issues should probably be considered too. Craske and Barlow (2001) told us that people prone to attacks pay very close attention to their bodily sensations as a matter of course. Combined with a general pessimistic outlook, this leads to their misinterpreting the signals as negative, which leads to CATASTROPHIC SNOWBALLING THINKING! Getting baselessly worked up increases both physiological and psychological arousal (I wish we had another word instead of arousal to use in this context. It's far too associated with happyfun time by this juncture that most research of this type sounds like the Kama sutra). 

That arousal (-.-) in the sympathetic nervous system and the mind is seen as verification that they were right to be getting worked up. This downward spiral leads straight to a full on panic attack if some logic can't be slotted in. After the first attack, the person becomes hypervigilant for any weird symptoms, keeping him/her in a state of constant arousal (oh ffs...), which facilitates anxiety increases in itself. McNally (1999a) dubbed the belief that bodily symptoms will have negativity consequences as 'anxiety sensitivity'. Seems like the best way to stop yourself having a panic attack, is to convince yourself everything is fine. Successfully believe that you're ok, and you will be. How nifty is that?

Sanderson, Rapee and Barlow (1989) performed an utterly incredible study using the notion of self-efficacy. If you haven't encountered the term before, look it up in the context of Bandura's studies. Self-efficacy is our perceived ability to deal with the problems we are faced with. High self-efficacy means that you believe you are in control of your situation. Low self-efficacy means that you no longer believe you can cope with the problems in your life (this is similar to the idea of internal/external locus of control. Rotter, 1954). Having high self-efficacy is generally the best way to go. The Royal College of Surgeons found that giving patients control over their own morphine intake caused them to use less than would otherwise have been administered, and actually had many of them recover faster. Bandura (some sodding date) showed that participants could deal with larger and longer electric shocks if they felt they could control the length. It's pretty amazing stuff, is efficacy.

Puts my 'control' blog post in a new context.

So S, R and B had two groups of people with panic disorder enter different rooms and attach breathing masks to their mouths. The air they breathed through it had slightly enriched carbon dioxide content. If you're paying attention, you'd know that breathing carbon dioxide can quickly start a panic attack, and these participants were told that openly. The second group were told that a knob on the side of their equipment could regulate the amount of carbon dioxide they were breathing. In actual fact it had no effect. By the end of the experiment, 80% of the first group had had a panic attack; only 20% of the second group had. That's pretty cool, in my book.

Not strictly relevant, but the 'self-efficacy' image results were boring.

The vulnerability-stress model of panic disorder is a mix between the biological and the cognitive stuff we looked at above. It summarises the aetiology: People have some level of biological vulnerability that provokes a hypersensitive fight or flight response. Due to this, much milder stimuli can cause the response and the physiological characteristics associated with it. Despite this, panic attacks only become frequent if the people also engage in CATASTROPHIC SNOWBALLING THINKING about their bodily sensations.

So: Biological sensitivity (poor regulation of neurotransmitters, lowered limbic system threshold, over-sensitive fight or flight) - Catastrophic thinking - Panic attack - Hypervigilance for signs of panic (constant arousal) - Increased probability of a second attack. As this circle completes itself, some sufferers begin to associate the attacks and general anxiety with situations, places, people that realistically have little to do with it. Avoiding those stimuli can lead to agoraphobia.

So, on that dire note. Come back next time for treatment information.

It's a cheap plug.

PARTICIPANTS WANTED

For a study examining the way we compete with each other.

The experiment involves spending less than half an hour playing target training on the Wii over two sessions.

All Welcome! Want more information? Please email James on eternal_worlds@hotmail.com

Well go on. It'd be a help! I posted this in response to some genius asking me why I hadn't stuck it up in the only publishing area I have control over.

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 This is also a cheap plug...

I hate myself.

 P.s. Thanks to captainsponge on deviantart for creating such a perfect drawing.

At the receiving end of reciprocation

My last post on evolution was on the topic of altruism, though it covered only relationships involving fertile kin. This completely ignored any discussion of kindness and cooperation between friends. Any anecdotal evidence will suggest to you that friendship can inspire great feats of bravery or loyalty in times of need and of peace. One of the key themes in most American drama is the idea of a partnership. Cops, Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar, House and Wilson. So on, so forth. You will have friends you would sacrifice time or energy for at a moment's notice. Without sharing genes or considering them viable partners, this seems, again, fairly contrary to evolutionary principals. Hamilton suggested that altruism would only occur if the level of sacrifice was balanced by the potential movement of your genes into the next generation. Was this just wrong?

The way evolution could be expected to work as summed up nicely in a thought experiment called the Prisoner's Dilemma. Imagine the scene in which police have arrested two suspects of a serious crime. They are guilty, but there is not enough evidence to convict either of them as things stand. All that the police need is for one of the suspects to testify against the other to be able to convict him. So the police offer the criminals a bribe. They will get a large amount of money if they reveal the part their partner played in the crime. In separate rooms, they now have a choice to make.

Choosing to betray is statistically the best chance of avoiding becoming jailbait.

Either party can betray the other at any point, and considering the options shown above, choosing to betray avoids the worst situation (you act nice but get screwed) and, at worst, gives you a monetary award. At best you get the money and get to go free! If that is how people act, and it really is in a large way, than altruism between non-kin should have been selected against long ago (those who chose to play nice would have gotten the crappy end of the poo-stick).

But, BUT. That only works when you can bugger off and host a party whilst the other guy rots in a cell. Most of the time, in most of our interactions with people, we are subject to meeting them repeatedly. Axelrod (1984) performed the prisoners' dilemma study in which he had participants go through the same problem with each other repeatedly, to see what would happen. Very rarely did any pair descend into mutual betrayal over and over. The three key features that facilitated cooperation were established pretty quickly. Never be the first to defect (go in with the intention of being helpful, have moral ground). Retaliate if your partner betrays you (punish him/her for being a back stabbing little dick). Finally, always be forgiving; if your partner goes back to cooperating, join them. Following these rules, the circle usually ends up in beneficial cooperation.

Evolutionary speaking, this works out fine. Animals have repeated interactions and repeated betrayal would be a pain in the ass in a number of ways for the group as a whole. For one, it doesn't exactly endear you to be their chum, does it? The explanation for reciprocal altruism is simple enough then. Doing members of your group favours in return for help later on is a much more beneficial way to live for any species. It isn't so simple as the prisoners' dilemma would suggest though, before you vastly intelligent devils pour criticism over me and my blog.

In that study, the implications to the 'prisoners'' actions was immediate. You were either punished or rewarded on the moment and that was that, but in reality social contracts are made over a longer period; extending even over years. Two features need to co-evolve with altruism in order to achieve that longevity of relationship: A way of identifying individual faces (or physical forms) and associate them with specific character, and a form of autobiographical memory to allow the animal to remember past interactions with those individuals.

This is displayed in vampire bats, according to a study performed by Wilkinson (1984). The bats he examined lived in groups of around twelve females and their young. Like most small mammals their metabolism was very high, and so they needed to feed every few hours to avoid the risk of starvation and death. The researcher noted that the bats would regurgitate blood meals for other bats. At first he thought these were going towards more helpless young, in the manner of a mother bird giving her young a worm. After closer examination he saw that a lot of the blood was going towards non-kin group members. By shaking things up and mixing different bats into different roosts, he was able to see that the bats would give blood meals more readily to those that they recognised from their previous group. It was through this that he believed the bats had entered reciprocal relationships with 'friends'.

The bats who gave the blood meal were sacrificing nutrition that they could spare without dying, in order to save the life of a 'friend' who could not feed for itself on that occasion. In exchange for the help, the saved bats would likely share on a future occasion.

Unless she came along. Which I'm pretty sure Wilkinson would be ok with.

Coalitions in primates are another example, one that ranges across many conditions. In their groups, dominant males have first choice of females, leaving lower ranking males with less appealing breeding options. Whilst the large chap follows his female(s) around to make sure any babies had are likely to be his, chances are slim that the smaller guys are going to get any luck with her/them. So they enter agreements called coalitions. One of the males distracts the larger male whilst his friend slips in and has a quickie behind the banana tree. This favour is paid back at a later date, creating mutual benefits for the wily apes (e.g. Packer, 1977).

Palmer (1991) looked into displays of reciprocation amongst lobster fishing communities, both large and small. Lobster fishing is difficult as the lobsters tend to congregate together in bulk, but choose a completely random location it often seems. Fishermen have trouble keeping track, and Palmer wanted to check how often they would communicate positive and negative information regarding their locations to other fishers in the area. It was shown that the small village shared almost 4 times as much information. As the small village was more communal than the 'passing through' large village, captains were likely to be closer. "I'll tell you today if you tell me tomorrow" explained the results, but the true level of shared help was kept obscure due to the difficulties in checking pay back in other domains. "I'll tell you today if you give my son a job/ help build a fence" etc.

With differing levels of help on offer from different people, altruism has varying costs depending on what is going on. Stewart-Williams (2007) handed hundreds of undergraduate students a questionnaire asking them how willingly they would give different levels of support to people with different relationships to themselves. Low help would be emotional support. Medium is helping with chores, helping a person during an illness and such, where-as high is donating a kidney or giving emergency aid.

Cousins and acquaintances received much less help than either friends or siblings, but there is where things got interesting. Students would give friends much more medium and low help than siblings, but they were very hesistant to provide friends with high help compared to how readily they would give it to siblings. Wow, we want family to shut up, but we'll hand them a kidney if they're lacking. What this displays, if you are confident in the questionnaire as an (a?)effective methodology, is that we are willing to give friends help they can reciprocate, but we are more likely to take a deep risk for those with our genes.

"Dude... you gave me your kidney." - "You owe me a G'damn helicopter!" 

So as a handy check into how important altruism (and associated rules) is to us as a species, Olson and Spelke (2008) performed a study into early cooperation in children under 4 years old. These children were, individually, introduced to 6 dolls who were on a table beside a collaborating adult. 2 of the dolls were strangers to the adult, it was explained. 2 were friends, and 2 were siblings. The children were asked who the adult should give sweets to, and predictably the child chose siblings over friends, over strangers. Though this may have been down to the social learning of manners (which is a form of altruism in itself) or personal relationships with siblings, it is a stronger possibility that the differences were washed away given a large enough sample size. Not every child would have a closer relationship with a sibling than a friend.  Additionally, the story was kept about the adult. This made it less likely the child would place his or her personal emphasis on it all.

Later on, the children were told a wee story about some other dolls. It went along the lines of "You're at the park, Dawg. Susie and Laura clamber up and say "Yo. We got pennies, we're going to share them with you". After which Bertha and Gertrude saunter over and say "We got pennies too, man. We're going to share them with your experimental collaborating adult type instead"." When asked who they would share their own pennies with, the children almost always picked Susie and Laura - Reciprocation. Nifty, but even better was their demonstration of why having a good reputation is nothing but helpful in terms of receiving help from others you have not helped. The same scenario was developed but the pennies were either shared with the adult, or not shared at all (bad for street cred). The children followed this, and chose to share with the dolls who had given the adult money.

In response to some common questions asked about this whole topic, Clare (our lecturer) had researched explanations for behaviours which seem to go against any sense of the evolutionary explanations we have just discussed for altruism between non-kin. Firstly, blood donation. This one was embarrassingly obvious after she tricked us a bit. She asked who had given blood, and those who had shot their hands up into the air with a level of poorly concealed pride *shakes head*. She then went on to explain that it is a behaviour we like to be seen doing. The whole process is anonymous, we don;'t know where our blood goes or if it even goes anywhere or is discarded, so we cannot have the action reciprocated. Despite this, we gain a reputation for kindness and selflessness that helps convince people to cooperate with you in the future. The sacrifice, in others words, will eventually award us a net gain. Evolution likes the term 'net gain' in regards to a trait.

Adoption could be seen as a compromise made by women who can't or don't want to go through pregnancy and birth; allowing them to transfer their lessons and experience into the next generation if not their genetics (memes but not genes). Clare was more convinced that it was a way of fulfilling the strong biological need expressed in most females to actually be a mother. That's understandable, the maternal instinct is strong.

Altruism between non-related members of a species is shown based on the assurance of payback later on. If you get help, you owe the guy a favour. It just makes things work much easier for everyone involved.

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I finished this at the start of the week but only added some finishing touches tonight. The last few days have been a perfect example of lethargy in the face of a heck of a lot of work to do.

Additionally, I searched 'fist bump' in google to get one of the pictures above. Not a single damn picture result that wasn't some sort of "let's beat racism / religious differences" campaign. Seems fist-bumping is the rad way to make the world a better place.

Come and study with me.

A little experiment I've been wanting to try since I picked up this blog, is to write as I study; rather than after I know my stuff. Clinical Psychology seems a brilliant module to try this with, as it has slotted into the worst 'introductory' style of lecturing. "Welcome" - "Now irrelevant historical perspectives" - "More irrelevant perspectives followed by an incredibly obvious segway we all saw coming from day one." 3 lecture slots out of 12 used up before we get into the meat of the module.

Not only is Clinical psychology a tremendously important part of the degree (since it leads most directly into patient care and research) but it seems like it is going to be very hard to learn well. After getting so keen on evolutionary psychology I'm not sure how much depth I want to go into with clinical, but I do know I want to pass the shit out of it. So here we go. I've opened my book (Abnormal Psychology, 2008, Susan Nolen-Hoeksema) at page 100. The beginning of a chapter called Assessing and diagnosing abnormality. Let's see where I can get in the nect couple of hours.

The chapter opens with a little summary of what is to come. There will be a section on gathering information (which, I am told, is the hunt for the symptoms and possible causes in the people one is assessing.) This will go into current symptoms, ways of coping with stress, recent events, and the physical condition of the assessee. There are many more, but we'll go into them later. After this, I will be given a lesson on the tools clinicians use during their assessments. Expect to hear something about neuropsychological tests, intellectual tests, structured interviews, personality inventories etc. After the basics are covered I will be introduced to some problems in the assessment process. Finally, a discussion on diagnosis will...happen. This will primarily involve an investigation into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders version 4, text revision (DSM-IV TR).

The chapter hasn't started off with a cheerful tone. I took a moment just then to read a text box telling me about Michael J. Fox, the star of Back To The Future. It's commonly known the guy has Parkinson's disease, but this little section described the hasty onset of it beginning in his thirties. At first Fox attributed the twitching of his pinky and hand, weakness of the same hand and aches in the muscles of his shoulder and chest, all to an accidental hanging during a set of the aforementioned film. Eventually though things got worse both physically and mentally. The worst part for him was an increasing difficulty in expressing himself. He could form his ideas into sentences and phrases but has real trouble getting them out. Ugh...poor guy. I hate to imagine the frustration that led him to strong drinking, especially after seeing him so happy in his films. in the end he went to see a neurologist who, throughout the investigation, started to look more and more grave. The horrifying news of his eaqrly onset Parkinson's was not tempered by hearing he had at most 10 years of normal functioning left.

To cheer us all up, Nolen-H poses the question - If he came to us for a diagnosis before he had heard the truth how would we do it? My answer - "Bugger knows". By the end of this chapter it'd better be "Well, let me tell you in a smug and knowledgeably manner."

Assessement is the term to describe all the information gathering about a person's condition and situation in order to lead to a diagnosis; a label to attach to and connect all of their symptoms. Trained clinicians (and in many cases, those of us close enough to a person to understand them a bit) know which of these symptoms tend to come as a package, and which of them are outliers. In Fox's case, his alcoholism was probably caused by the frustration of his Parkinson's symptoms; not a trait of Parkinson's itself. In this chapter I'm going to be shown three types of information: Symptoms & history, physiological and neurophysiological factors, and sociocultural factors.

Let's start with symptoms and history. When interviewing an individual you would ask about their current symptoms, including their severity and chronicity (I had to look this up. It means the rate of onset and development of the symptoms). You would try to gauge how much the symptoms are messing with their normal life patterns in their different roles (at work, with their children, with a lover etc). From this you could work out if they were experiencing their symptoms in a variety of situations or just in specific areas. Nolen-H adds an important slice of information about diagnosis: Most of them require that the conditions be pervasive enough to utterly bollock-up the lifestyle severely before they will be counted as part of a psychological disorder.

As well as checking out the symptoms, it is important to understand how well the person is coping with the issues. In Fox's case he turned to alcohol rather than talk to those who cared for him. This created problems that only added to the weight of his others, and he developed psychological symptoms based purely on his abuse of the substance. You'd probably be safe in saying he didn't cope all that well. At this point, asking the person about the recent events in their life could reveal an event which tied in with the onset of symptoms. If so, they might be given a different diagnosis than if the problems came about with no apparant trigger. (E.g. a kid that got depressed after his parents split up might be diagnosed with adjustment disorder rather than a major depressive disorder. A significant factor in treatment and associated stigma!)

Learning about the person's history of psychological problems is as important as checking their family history. This could establish genetic root causes which would help in diagnosis and treatment, seeing as it could reduce confusion about which traits are part of the disorder and those which might be apart from it completely.

Physiological and Neurophysiological Factors are assessed alongside everything else so that clinicians can check whether a physical afflication is setting off the psychological symptoms. Nolen-H gives the example of some brain tumors being known to cause disorientation and agitation similar to those associated with schizophrenia.  Unfortunately there don't yet seem to be any biological tests that can identify a psychological disorder, so they are mainly used to check for side effects and their underlying medical conditions. Depression can be caused directly by a treatable thyroid disorder. By treating the thyroid the depression will clear without any need for extra anti-depressant treatment. Boom! The tests are important then, ken?

Similarly, the drugs currently being used, or those in the past, of the assessed individual need to be checked. They can affect both the main condition and side effects, through side effects of the actual drug, or withdrawl. Besides all that, if the drugs would clash with those necessary for treatment, it'd be fairly handy for the clinician to know beforehand. Lastly, checking the cognitive and intellectual abilities can assist in a differential diagnosis (a problem when a symptom can be assigned to one of a number of different disorders.) Determining whether certain symptoms are the cause of cognitive deficiencies (e.g. crappy short term memory) is helpful.

The last of the three areas of assessment covered in the book is Sociocultural Factors. Really everything that can influence a person needs to be assessed when going for a correct diagnosis of 'invisible' illnesses. Holen-H talks about the 'social resources' available to a client. This includes the number of friends and family they have for contact and support, plus the quality of their relationships. Clinicians working with patients from abroad are concerned with the culture their clients were raised in, the number of years they spent there and when/why they moved, how connected to their home they are and if they are currently living with people from their home country (Dana, 2001 is mentioned, but I've not read the source material yet.) Members of foreign groups differ in the extent to which they still identify with their 'home' groups and those of the mainstream culture they currently live in; their acculturation. That's a really cool word. Understanding the different levels informs a clinician about which problems the client(s) will feel comfortable revealling and the types of stress they will be exposed to.

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This is a decent place to ease off at for now. The next section is huge and I want to go to the gym before starting it. I'll update this as I carry on. Next to come, methods of assessment.

Don't worry Ma'am. I'm from the Internet.

I was walking back from the gym earlier today. As far as pathways go it isn't the most pleasant I've ever seen. There's the bus station and a shell garage, that's about it. It struck me as odd, then, that two young women were pointing a camera in a touristy fashion towards the station.

After performing the standard "Oops, I'd better not bomb this picture, I'll wait pleasantly to the side instead of ducking and running like I really want to." manoeuvre; I asked them what they were taking a picture of. They pointed above the station to a pair of rainbows side by side, and said "There are....two rainbows." Immediately, without any form of consideration or thought I cried "DOUBLE RAINBOW!" This was met with genuine smiles and chuckles. They knew exactly what I was talking about because, you see, these girls were from the internet.

Know Your Meme is a brilliant source for finding out about lots of the

nonsense I'll talk about in the post.

The internet is used for a ridiculously vast amount of everything; but not everyone who uses it can claim to be from it. This term is used in a self-depricating way by admitted addicts of the light-hearted culture that sweeps across lots of cult sites. 4chan is the obvious example of this sort of site. It was started up as a board for posting and discussion of anime and manga back in 2003 (ta, Wikipedia); but since then has evolved into the primary source of many of the ridiculous memes we know today. Everyone knows what a LolCat is, thanks to the efforts of 'anonymous' (a collective name for the users of 4chan, drawn from the default option of posting anonymously). Other self-contained communities based primarily around satire and humour are ytmnd.com and cheezburger.com. More than anything else, understanding the various phases and fads flying through these sites (and youtube + collegehumor + cracked etc) makes you a resident member of the club.

It sounds pretty foolish, and it really is, but then so are the in-jokes of patriots. Scottish people take delight in keeping the secrets of Haggis and what men wear under their kilts. We can understand Oor Wullie and The Broons without any difficulty at all. We know what 'Jings, crivvens, help ma boab!" means, but most of all we accept that outsiders will never quite 'get it'. This idea of being Scottish, of having grown up and experienced the weigh of meaning and laughter behind each concept... it takes a long time to learn. You can visit Scotland on holiday or for work; and my goodness you can expose yourself to this worth-while heart-warming friendliness, but unless you stick around you wont be able to claim it for your own use. The internet has a hyperactive version of this which is independent of national borders; which is why it is so damn popular.

There are a swathe of these pictures around. Usually depicting a fat kid / geek + technology.

If you have ever gotten on some public transport in a really non-touristy area of Europe and felt a little out of your league, you will understand the joy of meeting someone from a culture you are familiar with. Imagine Jock and Sheila at the back of the bus laughing and ready to help and make jokes you can understand. That was how it felt for me today in a really odd sense. A lot of my friends are as involved with the net as I am, but meeting two randoms who understood a meme I'd only ever discussed online was brilliant. Dundee locals are by in large not from the internet. I don't think I've met a single person in any of the libraries who I would class as being anything close, and there is nothing on the street to suggest I'm wrong. The large student population shifts this a bit, but I envy twentysomethings that live in New York or other busy areas of America. It seems that internet memes get channeled into their offline lives every day over there.

It would be no bad thing to see some more of that happening here, and there is a very easy way to get started. Begin with a camera that can take video too. Look at the different sites belonging to the cheezburger network, and start looking out for the topics offline. Once you've chuckled your way through the concepts of photobombing or seeing faces in every day objects you'll start picking them out automatically. I can no longer see an important picture being taken without wanting to launch myself up with a goofy expression.

PhotoBombing - 'The fine art of ruining other people's photos. Usually by running in the background or making a silly face in the background. It's usually done to strangers, but shit man, you better run if they notice at the moment, because you might get your ass kicked.' - Urban Dictionary.

'nuff said.

People from the internet know that the answer to every question the world is 'google it.' We know that if there isn't a wikipedia article about a topic you are studying, you are now counted as an expert. We feel under moral obligation to use the term 'fail' if someone throws a grenade, watches as it rebounds against a nearby tree, and lands in the pit they were standing in. We have almost certainly said 'Lol' in response to a joke told by our parents, then felt ridiculous. If someone tells us that they have spend 'Over 9000!' hours working on their project we get where the term came from (and probably don't find it funny anymore.)

Go and watch the mariokart love song. Check out frezned on youtube. Look up some of the daily news on rocketboom. Post a picture of that weird face-in-a-tree across from your house and stick it up on Happy Chair is Happy. Write a blog, sing a funny song. Post something witty on MyLifeisAverage. Get used to knowing people by their screennames as well as their real names (I'm Radje / Radjamaki, nice to meet you.) Feel a sense of kinship with socially awkward penguin. Place a comment on the three wolf moon shirt on amazon. Read XKCD and feel stupid that you didn't take physics at uni. If you are trying to look for a work on screen, type ctrl-f. Understand that 'The Internet' is all about standing up for our right to take the piss,  developing and encouraging creativity, sharing lifehacks, learning how to avoid trolls (or how to become one), and going offline with a sense that you are connected to some secret world-wide laugh-factory whose members are hidden until they take a picture of a double rainbow.

O rly?

 It's worth doing.

EDIT: Remember the funny birdie in my Darwin post? Look what the internet has given me: