Monday, March 1, 2010

“A merging of minds: cognitive sciences and psychology departments to merge (The Brown Daily Herald)” plus 3 more

“A merging of minds: cognitive sciences and psychology departments to merge (The Brown Daily Herald)” plus 3 more

A merging of minds: cognitive sciences and psychology departments to merge (The Brown Daily Herald)

Posted: 28 Feb 2010 10:15 PM PST

By Nicole Friedman

News Editor

Print this article

Published: Monday, March 1, 2010

Updated: Monday, March 1, 2010

The Corporation approved the merging of the Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences and the Department of Psychology into a single department at its meeting Feb. 27. While the two departments will merge when the next fiscal year begins July 1, they will not move into the renovated Metcalf Chemistry and Research Laboratory until fall 2011.
This merge has been a "long time in the making," said Provost David Kertzer '69 P'95 P'98.

Though the Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences broke off from the Department of Psychology in 1986, the divide had downsides for both departments, Kertzer said.

"If you take (cognitive and linguistic science) out of the psychology department, you have a department that is by nature weakened," he said. Furthermore, both departments had difficulty attracting top faculty members, who "couldn't understand why the departments were split," he said.

The University originally planned to build a Mind Brain Behavior Building to house the new department, but those plans were scrapped last year in favor of renovating Metcalf, saving around $30 million, The Herald reported in July. While the Corporation has not yet authorized construction on Metcalf, the University has raised more than half of the money needed for the renovation and is "confident" the Corporation will give the go-ahead at its May meeting, Kertzer said.

During the 2010–11 academic year, most of the Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences will be relocated to Wayland Square, while psychology faculty members will remain in Hunter Laboratory. The physical division of the newly merged department next year "shouldn't impact the student experience," Kertzer said.

At the Feb. 2 faculty meeting, faculty members raised concerns about creating common standards for the new department regarding graduate student admissions and faculty evaluation for promotion, since each department currently has its own procedures and criteria. The faculty will decide upon common guidelines by the time of the merger in July, Kertzer said. He added that "the differences tend to be rather modest" because all departments operate under University guidelines.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Psychology Blog Reaches Award Finals - British Psychological Society (Medical News Today)

Posted: 28 Feb 2010 04:18 AM PST


Main Category: Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 28 Feb 2010 - 1:00 PST

email icon email to a friend   printer icon printer friendly   write icon view / write opinions



The British Psychological Society's Research Digest has reached the finals of the Research Blogging Awards in the categories 'Best Psychology Blog' and 'Best Research Twitterer'.

The Research Digest blog, which is written by Dr Christian Jarrett, has been growing in popularity every year since it began five years ago. Up to 26,000 people now subscribe to the email and around 75,000 people visit the blog each month.

Dr Christian Jarrett said: "It's really gratifying to be shortlisted among other psychology blogs of such high standard. Like the other finalists, the Research Digest blog aims to popularise and review findings published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. I'm grateful to the organisers of these awards for recognising the work of writers who use blogging to disseminate scientific findings.

"Since launching the blog in 2005, I've reported on over 700 studies, bringing news of quality psychological science to a diverse audience of psychologists, students, journalists and the general public, all over the world. Fingers crossed for March when the overall winners will be announced."

To read or to sign up to the Research Digest, please visit here.

Source
British Psychological Society

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

New Research Reveals Secrets About Psychology of Polygamous Sects and Their Leaders (ABC News)

Posted: 01 Mar 2010 11:56 AM PST

A judge ruled today that Brian David Mitchell, the man accused of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart, forcing her to be one of his multiple wives, and holding her between 2002 and 2003, is competent to stand trial.

Mitchell, 56, was declared psychotic and incompetent in Utah State Court in 2005, but Federal prosecutors, who indicted Mitchell in 2008, asked a U.S. District Court to conduct another competency trial.

Prosecutors asked forensic psychiatrist Dr. Michael Welner, an associate professor of psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine and the chairman of The Forensic Panel, to examine Mitchell, a street preacher who has claimed to be a Mormon prophet.

To better understand the tenets of fundamentalist Mormon doctrines and practices and determine the differences between religion and psychosis, Welner analyzed the case histories of more than 60 leaders of American fundamentalist sects. He identified a number of psychiatric and justice issues distinct to polygamous and rejectionist sect leaders and followers and presented this research for the first time at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences annual meeting in Seattle last week.

Welner, who is also a consultant to ABC News, shared his findings in a glimpse of the context he had to consider in evaluating Brian David Mitchell:

Q: What has surprised you the most about what you've learned about the polygamous sects?

A: The sexuality issues are not to be generalized. There are sects in which one finds absolute perversion on the order of the depravity scale, and there are others in which polygamy serves the sect in ways that have nothing to do with the gratification of the leader. This study has taught me that their enforced solitude and separation from the mainstream does often conceal crime that is more devastating to human rights than anything we cover in our most sensational news. But to simply dismiss polygamists as a bunch of degenerates is a simplified broad brush.

Q: We've covered a number of cases of polygamous sects. What is the connection with the Mormons?

A: Joseph Smith, the prophet who spawned the Mormon religion in the 1830s and 1840s, recorded the revelation of polygamy. Controversial even within the church, the LDS church advanced polygamy only beginning in 1852, some years after Smith's murder. Polygamy became part of the mainstream Mormon church identity at a time when Mormons were persecuted, slaughtered, and endangered. Antagonism toward the Mormons was quite active at the legislative level; polygamy was outlawed in the U.S. in 1862.

With the Mormon community largely migrated to Utah and dominating the law there, the practice continued despite an 1878 higher court decision in Reynolds v. United States that polygamy was not protected religious activity. Pressure from the U.S. government escalated to threatened harsh financial sanctions and threats of confiscation of property. Amidst this pressure, the church discontinued polygamy in 1890 with the Manifesto of President Wilford Woodruff.

The Mormon faith is one with a particular respect for scripture, history, and orthodoxy. In the years since the decision to abandon polygamy, dissent within the church has argued that polygamy is a sacred tenet, for having originated from revelations to Joseph Smith. Over 200 groups have splintered from the LDS church, many in order to restore what they commonly refer to celestial marriage.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Does the devil really wear Prada? The psychology of anthropomorphism and dehumanization (Science Daily)

Posted: 27 Feb 2010 06:15 PM PST

ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2010) — People talk to their plants, pray to humanlike gods, name their cars, and even dress their pets up in clothing. We have a strong tendency to give nonhuman entities human characteristics (known as anthropomorphism), but why? In a new report in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, psychological scientists Adam Waytz from Harvard University and Nicholas Epley and John T. Cacioppo from University of Chicago, examine the psychology of anthropomorphism.

The term anthropomorphism was coined by the Greek philosopher Xenophanes when describing the similarity between religious believers and their gods -- that is, Greek gods were depicted having light skin and blue eyes while African gods had dark skin and brown eyes. Neuroscience research has shown that similar brain regions are involved when we think about the behavior of both humans and of nonhuman entities, suggesting that anthropomorphism may be using similar processes as those used for thinking about other people.

Anthropomorphism carries many important implications. For example, thinking of a nonhuman entity in human ways renders it worthy of moral care and consideration. In addition, anthropomorphized entities become responsible for their own actions -- that is, they become deserving of punishment and reward.

Although we like to anthropomorphize, we do not assign human qualities to each and every single object we encounter. What accounts for this selectivity? One factor is similarity. An entity is more likely to be anthropomorphized the more similar it appears to humans (for example, through humanlike movements or physical features like a face). Various motivations may also influence anthropomorphism. For example, lacking social connections with other people might motivate lonely individuals to seek out connections from nonhuman items. Anthropomorphism helps us to simplify and make more sense of complicated entities. The authors observe that, according to the World Meteorological Organization, "the naming of hurricanes and storms -- a practice that originated with the names of saints, sailors' girlfriends, and disliked political figures -- simplifies and facilitates effective communication to enhance public preparedness, media reporting, and the efficient exchange of information."

Anthropomorphism in reverse is known as dehumanization -- when humans are represented as nonhuman objects or animals. There are numerous historical examples of dehumanization including the Nazis' persecution of Jews during the Holocaust and torture at the Abu-Ghraib prison in Iraq. These examples also suggest that those engaging in dehumanization are usually part of a cohesive group acting against outsiders -- that is, individuals who feel socially connected may have an increased tendency towards dehumanization. The authors note, "Social connection may have benefits for a person's own health and well-being but may have unfortunate consequences for intergroup relations by enabling dehumanization."

The authors conclude that few of us "have difficulty identifying other humans in a biological sense, but it is much more complicated to identify them in a psychological sense."

Story Source:

Adapted from materials provided by Association for Psychological Science.

Journal Reference:

  1. . Social Cognition Unbound: Insights into Anthropomorphism and Dehumanization. Current Directions in Psychological Science, (in press)

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)