psychology

Mar 11, 2015 ∞

The Night His Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who He Was

An anonymous author writes at Vice.com:

'This is perfectly normal,' I thought, as she scrolled through her phone looking for George's name. 'I'm just a guy, standing here, getting my girlfriend's ex to vouch for my existence.'
Her first attempt went through to voicemail. Quietly and tearfully, all she could say was “help me” a dozen or so times. I wondered if he was at work. It could have been hours before he was able to check his phone. In our last stroke of good fortune for the night, he called back a few seconds later. I can’t remember exactly what was said or how long they talked for; it might have been a minute, it might have been five. She mentioned that there was a man here she didn’t know who was claiming to be her boyfriend, and in a sort of exaggerated stage whisper I said, “George! It’s me!”

She listened for a little while longer and then passed the phone to me. “He wants to talk to you.” I spoke to George for a couple of minutes. I’ve never been so relieved to hear the voice of a girlfriend’s ex. He calmly talked me through the next steps – to get her into her flat, sit her down and pull up something she’d seen before on Netflix. Familiarity was key, he told me. I thanked him and returned the phone. They talked for a few more seconds, then she hung up.

“George says I can trust you.”

It’s a terrifying and well-written account you should take the time to read in its entirety.

Feb 5, 2015 ∞

Innocent until convinced otherwise

Susan Perry, reporting at MinnPost.com on a study led by psychologist Julia Shaw of the University of Bedminstershire and published in the journal Psychological Science:

The results were stunning (so stunning that the researchers stopped the study after interviewing 60 rather than the 70 students they had originally thought they would need to test their hypothesis): Of the 30 students who were falsely told they had committed a crime as a teenager, 21 (70 percent) came to believe it, including 11 of the 20 who were told that the crime was an assault.

But those 21 students didn’t simply believe they had committed the crime. By the end of the three interviews, they were also providing elaborate details about the crime — including details of their interactions with police.

That’s a concerning result for a legal system substantially based on eyewitness testimony. Many of the depositions I’ve encountered as a judicial law clerk refer to events several years old. A quick search on Google Scholar reveals the questionable-at-best nature of eyewitness testimony. This is a line of research anyone involved in the legal system, including but not limited to civil and criminal attorneys and judges, social workers and expert witnesses should keep an eye on.

Aug 25, 2013 ∞

How reality caught up with paranoid delusions

it was not in the least like losing one’s reason… I was rationalising all the time, it was simply one’s reason working hard on the wrong premises.

— novelist Evelyn Waugh, speaking retrospectively of his own psychotic episode

This is a fascinating article, discussing at times the sometimes blurred line between fiction and mania, and generally looking at how paranoid delusions keep impressively abreast of modern technology.

Aug 18, 2012 ∞

Only crazy people don't use Facebook?

Only crazy people don’t use Facebook?

Zoe Fox, writing at Mashable:

Employers may suspect that an applicant’s absence from the social network means the account is so full of offensive material that it had to be deleted.

But what if I deleted my Facebook account because my friends’ accounts were so full of offensive material? Regardless, I certainly don’t want to work for someone who makes psychological judgments about me 1) without a relevant degree or experience making such diagnoses and 2) without any significant interaction with me.

Today’s job market, unfortunately, may leave some people without a choice: create and maintain a net-positive Facebook account or risk being overlooked for an interview. Then again, one study does not scientific fact make. And there’s my generally positive Twitter presence, for what it’s worth.