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Behaviourism in Action: Friday 13th

May 16, 2011 by .

How were you on Friday? Friday 13th?

It seems that there is a widespread fear of any Friday which is also the 13th of the month, but there is no rational explanation for this. Records and statistics do not show any increase in bad happenings on such a day. So why does does this belief exist?

Learning theory can provide explanations.

Firstly there is a learned association between Friday 13th and bad luck, an example of classical conditioning. Perhaps we hear people talking about this, and start to notice our own misfortunes that day, they get attentional processing, we become extra aware of them. This apparent support for the bad-day-theory could act as a reinforcer, so the learned association is reinforced by operant conditioning.

Then social learning could contribute, as we see other people, people we respect or admire or have as role models, also supporting the bad-day-theory. After all, the media focus on Friday 13th when it occurs, and even the Stock Market slows down on these Fridays. The number 13 on its own is also associated with bad luck, which is why many tall buildings do not have a named 13th floor and Bollywood movies are not released on the 13th of a month.But Friday seems to give the number 13 an extra depth of ill-warning. Could this be because this combination is not common? Who knows! What we do know is that expectation also is a powerful factor in our cognition. Probably people who believe in the bad-luck-day theory do notice unfortunate happenings on such a day far more than they notice good things, and far more than they notice misfortune on any other day. This then would be an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Friggatriskaidekaphobia is a fear of Friday the 13th

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Searching for lurve – a new take on lonely hearts ads

February 14, 2011 by .

An analysis of USA people who subscribed to a major online dating service between 2009 and 2010 showed that there were racial preferences. White people tended to state a preference for a white partner, but black people especially younger black men were less likely to state a same race preference. These stated preferences were followed up by checking who these subscribers actually contacted via the website, and the researchers found that whites more than blacks, women more than men,and older more than younger people showed a preference for a same race partner. These preferences also showed in the responses to online contact.

Does this show that racial prejudice is still powerful? Or that a preference for similarity is strong? These questions and others are up for discussion.

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Is it when you sleep, not how much, that counts?

December 14, 2010 by .

A small study of Canadian infants and toddlers found that those who slept most at night were making significantly more progress in executive functions than those who slept less at night, even if the latter group also had daytime sleep. These functions include impulse control, memory and mental flexibility. The researchers controlled for parents’ education and income and children’s general cognition, but the link between night-time sleep and development of cognitive skills remained. These finding support similar research findings on schoolchildren.

Might this also apply to older childern and adults? That would be interesting to know!
Annie Bernier, Stephanie M. Carlson, Stéphanie Bordeleau, Julie Carrier. Relations Between Physiological and Cognitive Regulatory Systems: Infant Sleep Regulation and Subsequent Executive Functioning. Child Development, 2010; 81 (6)

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Well, gosh, who would have thought it?

December 8, 2010 by .

Guess what! Antisocial men are less likely to get married when compared to less antisocial men. Why was this hypothesis so striking, had nobody asked women whether they would prefer a more or a less antisocial partner? Anyway, this was a nicely done twin study, and it showed that antisocial behaviours are also reduced by marriage – with a positive correlation between quality of marriage and size of antisocial behaviour reduction. Interesting? Rocket science? You decide.

An Examination of Selection vs Causation via a Longitudinal Twin Design S. Alexandra Burt, PhD; M. Brent Donnellan, PhD; Mikhila N. Humbad, MA; Brian M. Hicks, PhD; Matt McGue, PhD; William G. Iacono, PhD. Does Marriage Inhibit Antisocial Behavior? Arch Gen Psychiatry, 2010;67(12):1309-1315

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How the SCN sees light

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It’s been known for ages that information on light levels is passed from the two retinas via a special small nerve from each eye to the SCN, but the mechanism of this is now more clear. As well as rods and cones, cells which are sensitive to light and give us black-and-white and colour vision there is a third type of light-sensitive retinal cell. These are far less in number than rods and cones, and react to light by expressing the pigment melanopsin, so they are known as mRGCs (melanopsin-expressing retinal ganglion cells). Not only do these cells send information to the SCN but they also control pupil size. And now it seems they also contribute to our visual image formation as axons from the mRGCs have been traced onwards from the SCN to visual processing centres. What does this imply? It gives some idea of how seriously sight impaired people can still detect levels of brightness, plus the possibility in the future of engineering melanopsin-expressing cells to improve or restore sight.

Fred Rieke, Timothy M. Brown, Carlos Gias, Megumi Hatori, Sheena R. Keding, Ma’ayan Semo, Peter J. Coffey, John Gigg, Hugh D. Piggins, Satchidananda Panda, Robert J. Lucas. Melanopsin Contributions to Irradiance Coding in the Thalamo-Cortical Visual System. PLoS Biology, 2010; 8 (12)

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Accents, attitudes and prejudice

November 19, 2010 by .

“It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it” seems to have a lot of truth as research is showing a strong though probably unconscious effect that a person’s accent has on the listener. In an American study an accent which is very different from the listener’s was perceived to be less trustworthy and less reliable than one which was similar.  Possibly the difficulty for native Americans in understanding the unfamiliarly accented non-native speakers’ speech was misinterpreted as the speaker having less credibility rather than the true cause being the extra processing needed to gain understanding. Bestelmeyer’s  UK study supports this, as the Scottish participants reported similar findings when listening to Scottish speakers compared to American or English speakers. MRI scans showed that words spoken with familiar  accents are processed more quickly and effortlessly than other accents even when the language is native to all speakers. It is suggested that these processing difficulties may be the basis or origin of prejudice, as in one’s own accent identifying the ingroup, and other accents identifying outgroups.

Bestelmeyer et al. (2010) Society for Neuroscience. “Listeners’ Brains Respond More to Native Accent Speakers; Imaging Study Suggests Accents Are Subtle ‘Insider’ or ‘Outsider’ Signal to the Brain.” ScienceDaily, 18 November 2010.

Lev-Ari et al. (2010) Why don’t we believe non-native speakers? The influence of accent on credibility. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2010; DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2010.05.025

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Costs and Benefits of Drug therapy

September 14, 2010 by .

Insomnia and anxiety disorders are very different problems, each making normal, everyday life difficult, and drug therapy can usually help with both of these conditions.

However, a word of caution is now being given about such therapy as a meta-analysis of over 12 years’ Canadian data suggests that the costs of such treatment might outweigh the benefits. The issue is that these treatments seem to be associated with a significant increase in mortality rate from 10.5% to 15.7%.  This is still a low risk of dying, but it does represent an increase if using the medication of about 36% compared to not using medication when other variables are factored in.  The data came from more than 14.000 adults between the ages of 18 and 102, and extraneous or confounding variables such as smoking, alcohol use, general health and physical activity were controlled for.

Why is there such an increased risk of dying when using these drug therapies? It is known that sleeping pills and anti- Read the rest of this entry »

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Relationships are good for you!

August 1, 2010 by .

Women in our culture generally have richer social networks than men, and this observation has been used as part of the explanation for women coping better with stress and living longer. Now a meta-analysis has shown that a low number of friends, family, colleagues etc. in a person’s social network has similar negative effects on health and longevity as smoking, obesity, sedentary lifestyle or over-use of alcohol. The researchers say that their analysis was not able to differentiate between positive and negative social relationships, so having a good number of positive ones might give an even stronger effect on living healthier and longer!

Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Layton JB. Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review. PLoS Medicine, 2010; 7 (7):

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Binge Drink Now … what about later?

July 30, 2010 by .

University students in north-east England have been taking part in a study to see the effects of binge drinking on memory. So what counted as binge drinking? Imbibing 6 units of alcohol in a drinking session twice a week or more was the criterion, and those students with other habits such as smoking and drug taking were screened out. Anxiety, age and depression had no effect on the results of both the binge drinkers and the control non-binging group.

The experimental task was to watch a 10-minute video clip of a Scarborough Read the rest of this entry »

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How superstition might work

July 15, 2010 by .

The research team (Damisch et al. (2010) had the idea that having a lucky mascot might actually improve confidence, and therefore performance. So they ran some experiments including one where participants could bring their lucky mascot or charm with them do do a test. Before the test the items* were taken away to be photographed. One group then had their mascots returned, the other group were told the mascots would be returned after the task. The former group did better in the memory task and further tests showed this was linked to an increase in self-confidence. This link would seem to apply also to self-esteem, attribution of success and self-belief.

So maybe if you do have your own lucky mascot it could be a good idea to keep it by you when you are competing or doing exams.

Good luck!

* from old stuffed animals, and stones to wedding rings

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