Category Archives: Psychology

Arthur Schopenhauer on happiness.2

16 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by in Happiness, Literature, Philosophy, Psychology, Uncategorized

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Schopenhauer explains the heart of his philosophy is to “disown” life and this renunciation is the ultimate basis for his instruction on happiness:

He who has taken to heart the teaching of my philosophy–who knows, therefore, that our whole existence is something which had better not have been, and that to disown and disclaim it is the highest wisdom–he will have no great expectations from anything or any condition in life: he will spend passion upon nothing in the world, nor lament over-much if he fails in any of his undertakings.

There are various ways to understand Schopenhauer at this point. He admittedly derived a great deal of this his thinking on this point from Eastern religion, particularly Buddhism.  I wish to be careful here, because my knowledge of Buddhism and Hinduism is limited. However, a few citations may help explicate some of the background on his instruction in happiness at this point. For those who would like to take a dive into his relationship to Buddhism, here is an essay from  Peter Abelsen, Philosophy East&West Volume 43, Number 2, April 1993.  255-278, entitled, “Schopenhauer and Buddhism” http://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/Articles/Schopenhauer%20and%20Buddhism_PEW_Abelsen_1993.pdf

Here are some quick citations which provide a quick background to the topic:

With the self unattached to the external contacts he discovers happiness in the Self; with the self engaged in the meditation of Brahman he attains to the endless happiness. Bhagavad-Gita 5.21

Kesava Kasmiri’s Commentary on this verse states:

If a person is inclined to attachment to sensual pleasures they will never have the opportunity to experience the transcendental bliss of the realisation of the  Brahman or the spiritual substratum pervading all existence. But a question may be raised what happiness can a person derive from life if they have introverted their senses and are averted to sense objects. Lord Krishna states the compound words  sukham-aksayam meaning unlimited happiness is what such persons attains for with disconnection to the senses and objects of the senses a natural detachment arises which frees one from worldly desires allowing one to focus within on the eternal atma or eternal soul where one tastes boundless joy and experiences unlimited bliss. In the moksadharma section of the Mahabharata it states that: The pleasures of the senses in this world and the joys of heavenly pleasures cannot be compared to even 1/16th part of the pleasure one derives from renouncing the desire for material sense gratification. This is the essential component that paves the way for perceiving the Brahman or spiritual substratum pervading all existence, atma tattva or realisation of the soul and moksa or liberation from the material existence and cognition of the ultimate truth of the Supreme Being.

The concept of renunciation is central to Buddhism. Schopenhauer’s connection between happiness and renunciation is articulated within Buddhism as for instance in this essay, “Renunciation and Happiness”:

When we understand this, we can start to glimpse that renunciation is not a matter of doing something or having to create something, or getting rid of some­thing or exterminating something in life. Rather it is moving towards non-conten­tion, a sense of rest and relaxation—not having constantly to try and manipulate and control and evade and maneuver any more. We are able to open in a fear­less way and relax into the experience of the moment, whatever its quality may be. In opening to receive life, we still engage in the conventional level of reality—the social level of moral values, indentities, mother and father, livelihood and mort­gages. If we grasp these things and ex­pect complete fulfillment from them, we will always be disappointed. But if we see our life as an opportunity to under­stand Dhamma—the way things are—that is renunciation. This letting go is very freeing. Whatever comes to us is Dhamma, and there is a joy in being in contact with Truth, whatever its particu­lar flavor.

Renunciation can sound like passiv­ity, a “door mat” philosophy, but actu­ally it is the opposite. True response-abil­ity—the ability to respond wisely and compassionately to life—naturally arises in the non-attached mind. There can be both activity and letting go.

https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/article/renunciation-the-high-happiness/ I would be curious to know whether the precise concept of “happiness” was connected to the concept of renunciation prior to extensive Western contacts. Schopenhauer obviously is drawing a connection between renunciation and happiness. What I do not know is whether Schopenhauer is first in tying the two concepts together. Certainly there is a connection between tranquility and renunciation which pre-exists Western interaction; but whether this tranquility and “happiness” was drawn I simply do not know.

Sleep trouble and Alzheimer’s disease

30 Tuesday Oct 2018

Posted by in Psychology, Uncategorized

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Disturbed sleep has emerged as a candidate risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, multiple studies link poor sleep to cognitive impairment and decline, and more recent studies link sleep disturbance to biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease, study authors wrote. Researchers showed that shorter sleep duration and poorer sleep quality were associated with greater beta-amyloid buildup as shown on positron emission tomography (PET) scans. They noted another study had linked poorer sleep and reports of frequent napping with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) measures of beta-amyloid deposition. The authors said that numerous studies have linked sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) to poor cognitive outcomes, and more recent studies have tied SDB to Alzheimer’s disease.

The correlation does not explain the relationship. The article addresses the possible meanings of the observation.

Questions about anti-depressant medication

30 Tuesday Oct 2018

Posted by in Psychology, Uncategorized

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The New York Times has published an extensive article on the open issues respecting anti-depressant usage, such as long term effects, addiction, and whether such medication is always worth the cost:

“There is a cultural question here, which is how much depression should people have to live with when we have these treatments that give so many a better quality of life,” Dr. Kramer said. “I don’t think that’s a question that should be decided in advance.”

Antidepressants are not harmless; they commonly cause emotional numbing, sexual problems like a lack of desire or erectile dysfunction and weight gain. Long-term users report in interviews a creeping unease that is hard to measure: Daily pill-popping leaves them doubting their own resilience, they say.

“We’ve come to a place, at least in the West, where it seems every other person is depressed and on medication,” said Edward Shorter, a historian of psychiatry at the University of Toronto. “You do have to wonder what that says about our culture.”

 

Free Will and the Brain

22 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by in Psychology, Uncategorized

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Neuroscientists have pinpointed the origin of “free will” inside the human brain.

Whether or not free will exists — or whether such a distinction is meaningful — will remain a point of contention among priests and philosophers. What matters to neuroscientists is the interpretation, or perception, of free will. And for the first time, scientists have identified its cognitive origins.

Actually, they found the part of the brain that processes our perception of having the ability to decide to control our movement. This is interesting, but tells us nothing about whether human beings have agency or whether that agency is merely a sense of agency coupled to a biochemical determinism in the physical body.

So What is True About Anti-Depressants?

22 Monday Oct 2018

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Global antidepressant use is soaring. Stories such as Barber’s make a compelling case that the drugs can be helpful. Yet it seems barely a month goes by without them being dismissed in the media as “happy pills” that get people “hooked” or turn them into zombies. Experts, meanwhile, disagree over whether the drugs genuinely have the biochemical effects claimed for them and debate rages about side effects, withdrawal symptoms and the possibility of addiction. So what should we believe – and who, if anyone, should be taking these pills?

And, if this is a matter of debate about experts, even an article by some other expert telling us this is the right way to understand the experts is problematic. I may be more willing to agree to the assessment of an expert who holds the position I favor, but how do I really evaluate the claims? This is particularly true when the evidence is a matter beyond any individual’s experience. My experience of one particular patient is not indicative of the experience of 10,000 patients.

I once was discussing this issue with a very well credentialed psychiatrist with decades of experience at a world renowned institution. He said, “We give people with depression anti-depressants, sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. We don’t know why.”

Interesting Material is More Persuasive

05 Friday Oct 2018

Posted by in Persuasion, Psychology, Uncategorized

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I know it seems self evident that interesting material would be more persuasive, but someone went out an proved that point:

P. Karen Murphy and Patricia A. Alexander, “Persuasion as a Dynamic, Multidimensional Process: an Investigation of Individual and Intraindividual Differences,” American Educational Research Journal 41, no. 2 (Summer 2004): 337-63.

Definition of Persausion:

We speak of persuasion as an interactive process through which a given message alters an individual’s perspective by changing the knowledge, beliefs, or interest that underlie that perspective (Miller, 1980). Further a persuasive text is any message “structured to counter the current beliefs of a typical reader as well as to present new ones” by capitalizing on a reader’s existing knowledge and beliefs (Chambliss & Garner, 1996, p. 294). By defining persuasion and a persuasive text in this manner, we avoid casting this critical process in “all or nothing” terms (e.g., Hovland, Janis & Kelley, 1953). That is, we allow for incremental change that does not necessarily result in a radical or complete transformation in understanding or attitude. We also understand persuasion to be a mechanism for encouraging individuals to examine a concept or subject more closely or rom a different perspective. Such a process involves examining evidence that supports or refutes claims and critically weighing arguments (Toulmin, 1958). So defined, persuasion is neither inherently good nor evil, but a catalyst for thinking analytically about messages encountered by individuals (Alexander, Fives, Buehl & Mulhern, 2002; Hynd, 2001).

p. 338

Key elements:

Petty and Cacioppo (19860, among the most influential persuasion researchers, portray the interplay of credibility, emotions, and arguments as the keys to change.

p. 339

Peripheral and Central Route Processing:

According to Petty and Cacioppo’s (1986) Elaboration Likelihood Model, individuals process persuasive messages through two distinct routes: peripheral and central. Individuals who do not attend reflectively or critically to the persuasive arguments presented, but are captivated by the emotions of the situation or the character of the speaker, ravel the peripheral route. In contrast, individuals who weigh the argument thoughtfully and logically, are personally motivated, and cognitively able to attend to the message follow the central route. Although attitudinal change is expected from both paths, those who travel the central route are apt to experience deeper and more permanent effects than those who follow the more peripheral path to persuasion.

p. 339

A more able reader is more likely to be persuaded:

Moreover, it has been determined that individual’s ability to process a given message increases the likelihood that the message will prove persuasive. Consequently, those with greater comprehension skills are more apt to process the content of a persuasive message at a deeper level than those who comprehension skills are marginal or weak (Dole & Sinatra, 1998). Similarly, there is evidence that individuals who are more capable of retrieving relevant beliefs, whether in concert or in opposition to the author, are more likely to process the arguments presented, consequently are more likely to be persuaded (Wood & Kallgren, 1998).

p. 339.
Interesting material is more likely to persuade:

When readers are unable to grasp the meaning or perceive its relevance, they are unlikely to be persuaded.

p. 340

As mentioned previously, features of texts such as their interestingness, comprehensibility, and credibility have been shown to play a significant role in the persuasion process (e.g., Allen, 1991; Dole & Sinatra, 1998).

p. 341

We found that compelling articles, presented to readers in an unmodified state, performed well as catalysts for persuasion. As a result of reading these persuasive magazine articles, participants’ knowledge and interests grew and their beliefs became more like the beliefs advocated by the authors in the texts.

p. 359

Where the reader already has substantial knowledge, he is harder to persuade:

Second, we found that there was an inverse relationship between what individuals believe they know about a topic and the degree of agreement with the author they report after reading. In effect, it may be that too much topic-specific knowledge can be an impediment to change in beliefs.

p. 357

The More You Think, the Harder You are to Persuade

04 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by in Persuasion, Psychology, Uncategorized

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(Working on a book on persuasion — and how to avoid being manipulated — so I’ll be posting research notes here and there):

Quick summary: The more you know on a subject, the harder you are to persuade. Even a personal with “low bias” (you don’t care much) can become more resistant to persuasion if they are given time and encouraged to consider the matter seriously before they hear the argument.

Also it explains the nature of “peripheral” and “central route” persuasion:

Greg J. Neiymeyer et al., “Changing Personal Beliefs: Effects of Forewarning, Argument Quality, Prior Basis and Personal Exploration,” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 10, no. 1 (1991): 1-20.

The basic tenant of ELM [Elaboration Likelihood Model] is that attitudes sometimes changes as a function of thoughtful consideration of relevant arguments and sometimes as a result of inferences based on the association of a position with various positive or negative cues (e.g., counselor credibility). According to the model, if the individual is motivated and able to do so, he or she will actively process and elaborate the persuasive appeal, relating to preexisting cognitive schemas and generating issue-relevant beliefs in support of, or opposed to, the advocated position. According to this orientation, persuasion should occur if the individual’s self-generated “cognitive responses” (i.e., thoughts) are predominately favorable, whereas resistance to persuasion should occur if they are primarily unfavorable (Ciadini, Petty & Cacioppo, 1981). In either event, the persuasion is said to have occurred thorugh the central route since it is through careful and diligent processing of the argument’s perceived merits that the individual forms his or her attitude.

In contrast, when individuals are either unmotiviated or are unable to scrutinize the message, their likelihood of actively processing and elaborating it is correspondingly reduced. In this case they may minimize cognitive effort by appealing instead to environmental cues associated with the message (e.g, the source credibility) to determine their attitudes. This peripheral route to persuasion should be more heaviliy utilized when the individual is distracted from listening to the message or relatively uninterested in its content. The fact that attitude change resulting from peripheral processing is less enduring and less predictive of actual behavioral change than what occurs through central route processing …..

Page 2.

The more you know about a subject, the harder you are to persuade:

On the other hand, those individuals with relatively few available thoughts in support of their position are mores susceptible to persuasion.

***

Researchers have long recognized that “one of the most important variables affecting information processing activity is the extent to which a person has an organized structure of knowledge (schema) concerning an issue” (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986, p. 165). In the case of high bias, individuals have well-articulated networks of preexisting proattitudinal attitudes, and it is precisely under these conditions that we would expect robust counterarguing and effective resistance to persuasion (cf., Ross, Lepper & Hubbard, 1975; Taylor & Fiske, 1984). This finding therefore supports the general conclusion that, “the more issue-relevant knowledge people have, the more they tend to be able to counterargue communications opposing their initial positions and to cognitively bolster (proargue) congruent messages” (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986, p. 165).

P. 15

They discovered that a low-bias person (someone with little concern) became more difficult to persuade when they forewarned about the argument that would be made & were given some time to consider the argument for themselves: which the researchers called “self-exploration”. The researchers were studying what would made someone coming into counseling more willing to change. A step in counseling could be ask the counselee to articulate their existing understanding and reasoning. If change is sought, this might make things more difficult, “The effects of reviewing and articulating self-relevant attitudes may be to render them more resistant to subsequent change.” P. 19

How to Create a Memory

20 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by in Apologetics, John, Psychology, Uncategorized

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Many researchers have created false memories in normal individuals; what is more, many of these subjects are certain that the memories are real. In one well-known study, Loftus and her colleague Jacqueline Pickrell gave subjects written accounts of four events, three of which they had actually experienced. The fourth story was fiction; it centered on the subject being lost in a mall or another public place when he or she was between four and six years old. A relative provided realistic details for the false story, such as a description of the mall at which the subject’s parents shopped. After reading each story, subjects were asked to write down what else they remembered about the incident or to indicate that they did not remember it at all. Remarkably about one third of the subjects reported partially or fully remembering the false event. In two follow-up interviews, 25 percent still claimed that they remembered the untrue story, a figure consistent with the findings of similar studies.

Read the rest

The trouble with eye witness testimony

What then can help guarantee a good memory? Notice that events which are traumatic are questionable. Notice that distant, vague events are questionable. Compare that to events which take place over a period of time, events which are witnessed by multiple persons, events subject to objective independent corroboration. And with the case of the Scripture, Jesus speaks of receiving supernatural assistance of the Spirit. John 14:26

Listening to Ourselves (a comparison of some recent psychology and a Puritan and a 20th Century Preacher)

14 Tuesday Aug 2018

Posted by in Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Psychology, Richard Sibbes, Uncategorized

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Suicide because we “listen to ourselves”:

the consistent finding of the role of the destructive inner voice in suicide. This voice drives suicidal tendencies, deceptively convincing people that it is better to end their lives than to find an alternate solution to their suffering

This author picks up on that idea and applies to other self-destructive behavior short of suicide:

For many, understanding there is an innate voice that wishes for death and destruction can help to separate, and thereby distance, one from these thoughts. Distance from the thoughts helps one disown them and take away their power. You are not your thoughts. Once these thoughts are recognized, they can be challenged, minimized, and disregarded. Healthier thoughts can be put in their place.

This observation is actually much older than these psychologists realize. First, Richard Sibbes in “The Soul’s Conflict With Itself”, writing of depression, explains:

Whence we may further observe, that we are prone to cast down ourselves, we are accessory to our own trouble, and weave the web of our own sorrow, and hamper ourselves in the cords of our own twining. God neither loves nor wills that we should be too much cast down. We see our Saviour Christ, how careful he was that his disciples should not be troubled, and therefore he labours to prevent that trouble which might arise by his suffering and departure from them, by a heavenly sermon; ‘Let not your hearts be troubled,’ &c., John 14:1. He was troubled himself that we should not be troubled. The ground, therefore, of our disquiet is chiefly from ourselves, though Satan will have a hand in it. We see many, like sullen birds in a cage, beat themselves to death. This casting down of ourselves is not from humility, but from pride; we must have our will, or God shall not have a good look from us, but as pettish and peevish children, we hang our heads in our bosom, because our wills are crossed.

And as for speaking to ourselves about such things, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, taking his cue from Sibbes, formulates the answer thus:

The main art in the manner of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, you have to preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul, “Why art thou cast down?” — what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: “Hope thou in God” — instead of muttering in this depressed unhappy way. And you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: “I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God.”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression, “General Consideration”