Philosophy posts
- November 27, 2012
- 11:40 AM
- 203 views
The Sources of Violence and Conflict Within Us
by Jason Carr in Wired Cosmos
By and large, humanity has forgotten the relationship between thoughts and reality. The world that we experience is the reflection of what we carry inside us. Mystics, sages and shamans throughout the ages have tried to remind us of this fact. Western culture has largely turned its back upon such notions, however. Since the Industrial [...]... Read more »
Pearson DG, Ross FD, & Webster VL. (2012) The importance of context: evidence that contextual representations increase intrusive memories. Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry, 43(1), 573-80. PMID: 21867664
Grof, S. (1996) Consciousness evolution and planetary survival: Psychological roots of Human violence and greed. World Futures, 47(4), 243-262. DOI: 10.1080/02604027.1996.9972599
- November 19, 2012
- 08:31 PM
- 250 views
Does “Statistical Significance” Imply “Actually Signifiant”?
by Jesse Marczyk in Pop Psychology
P-values below 0.05; the finding and reporting of these values might be considered the backbone of most psychological research. Conceptually, these values are supposed to represent the notion that, if the null hypothesis is true, the odds of observing some … Continue reading →... Read more »
Simmons, J., Nelson, L., & Simonsohn, U. (2011) False-Positive Psychology: Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Significant. Psychological Science, 22(11), 1359-1366. DOI: 10.1177/0956797611417632
- November 16, 2012
- 07:48 PM
- 256 views
The Science Surrounding Children & Dogs: Part 1 (The Good)
by Cobb & Hecht in Do You Believe In Dog?
I love that cute is good for us. All this talk of cute, a website and some observations at home got me thinking this week. I recently saw this image posted on Facebook and I don’t mind admitting that it tugged at my emotions. Around the same day, I was watching my two year old toddler (an unpublished and independent kawaii survey reports the toddler is somewhat cute) interacting with my dogs (they are cute, no survey required).(source)The toddler is currently learning (slowly) that the worl........ Read more »
Serpell James. (1999) Animals in Children's Lives. Society , 7(2), 87-94. DOI: 10.1163/156853099X00013
O'Haire Marguerite. (2010) Companion animals and human health: Benefits, challenges, and the road ahead. Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research, 5(5), 226-234. DOI: 10.1016/j.jveb.2010.02.002
Blue Gladys F. (1986) The Value of Pets in Children's Lives. Childhood Education, 63(2), 85-90. DOI: 10.1080/00094056.1986.10521747
Zasloff R.Lee. (1996) Measuring attachment to companion animals: a dog is not a cat is not a bird. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 47(1-2), 43-48. DOI: 10.1016/0168-1591(95)01009-2
Holscher Bernd, Frye Christian, Wichmann H. -Erich, & Heinrich Joachim. (2002) Exposure to pets and allergies in children. Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, 13(5), 334-341. DOI: 10.1034/j.1399-3038.2002.02063.x
Anderson Katherine L., & Olson Myrna R. (2006) The value of a dog in a classroom of children with severe emotional disorders. Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People , 19(1), 35-49. DOI: 10.2752/089279306785593919
Gee Nancy R., Harris Shelly L., & Johnson Kristina L. (2007) The Role of Therapy Dogs in Speed and Accuracy to Complete Motor Skills Tasks for Preschool Children. Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People , 20(4), 375-386. DOI: 10.2752/089279307X245509
- November 10, 2012
- 12:10 PM
- 226 views
A Frequentist And A Bayesian Walk Into Infinity…
by Jesse Marczyk in Pop Psychology
I’m going to preface this post by stating that statistics is not my primary area of expertise. Admittedly, this might not be the best way of generating interest, but non-expertise hasn’t seem to have stopped many a teacher or writer, … Continue reading →... Read more »
Gelman, A. (2008) Objections to Bayesian statistics. Bayesian Analysis, 445-450. DOI: 10.1214/08-BA318
- November 8, 2012
- 12:40 PM
- 238 views
Blogging's First Academic Paper
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
In an historic achievement, I can announce that I have become (to my knowledge) the first blogger ever to publish in a peer-reviewed academic journal under a blogging pseudonym.Skeptic, N. (2012) The Nine Circles of Scientific Hell Perspectives on Psychological Science 7 (6) 643-644 This is based on a post from two years ago (far and away the most popular post I've ever done). Now as historic achievements go, this is fairly niche, but I do think it's important.Most of the problems with the way s........ Read more »
Neuroskeptic. (2012) The Nine Circles of Scientific Hell. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(6), 643-644. DOI: 10.1177/1745691612459519
- November 7, 2012
- 03:25 PM
- 311 views
Dogs help in natural disasters. They just do.
by Cobb & Hecht in Do You Believe In Dog?
(Australian bushfires are big. Really big. source)Hey Julie,What an important topic to raise. It's so important that we stop to consider what animals are experiencing in times of natural disaster and 'rescue'. It got me thinking about a different kind of natural disaster that struck my local community in February 2009, the series of bushfires (wild fires) that came to be known in Australia as the Black Saturday bushfires. It was horrible.&n........ Read more »
Yorke Jan. (2010) The significance of human–animal relationships as modulators of trauma effects in children: a developmental neurobiological perspective. Early Child Development and Care, 180(5), 559-570. DOI: 10.1080/03004430802181189
Blue Gladys F. (1986) The Value of Pets in Children's Lives. Childhood Education, 63(2), 85-90. DOI: 10.1080/00094056.1986.10521747
Vormbrock Julia K., & Grossberg John M. (1988) Cardiovascular effects of human-pet dog interactions. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 11(5), 509-517. DOI: 10.1007/BF00844843
Cherry Katie E., Silva Jennifer L., & Marks Loren D. (2009) The Psychology Behind Helping and Prosocial Behaviors: An Examination from Intention to Action . Lifespan Perspectives on Natural Disasters, 219-240. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4419-0393-8_11
Lyons R. F., Mickelson K. D., Sullivan M. J.L., & Coyne J. C. (1998) Coping as a Communal Process. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 15(5), 579-605. DOI: 10.1177/0265407598155001
Irvine Leslie. (2007) Ready or Not: Evacuating an Animal Shelter During a Mock Emergency. Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People , 20(4), 355-364. DOI: 10.2752/089279307X245482
- November 7, 2012
- 10:10 AM
- 356 views
Political Animals
by Miss Behavior in The Scorpion and the Frog
Now that we are finally on the other side of one of the longest, most expensive political campaign seasons of United States history, we find ourselves with a new mixed-bag of leaders. Our nation’s decision-makers include career politicians and new freshman politicians; they include lawyers, military members, doctors, businessmen, farmers, ministers, educators, scientists, pilots, and entertainers; they include Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Quakers, Mormons, Buddhists and Muslims; they include ........ Read more »
Couzin, I. (2009) Collective cognition in animal groups. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(1), 36-43. DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2008.10.002
List, C., Elsholtz, C., & Seeley, T. (2009) Independence and interdependence in collective decision making: an agent-based model of nest-site choice by honeybee swarms. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364(1518), 755-762. DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2008.0277
Seeley, T., Visscher, P., Schlegel, T., Hogan, P., Franks, N., & Marshall, J. (2011) Stop Signals Provide Cross Inhibition in Collective Decision-Making by Honeybee Swarms. Science, 335(6064), 108-111. DOI: 10.1126/science.1210361
Dell'Ariccia, G., Dell'Omo, G., Wolfer, D., & Lipp, H. (2008) Flock flying improves pigeons' homing: GPS track analysis of individual flyers versus small groups. Animal Behaviour, 76(4), 1165-1172. DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.05.022
- November 2, 2012
- 07:54 AM
- 236 views
John Bargh's "Transient and Ephemeral" Blogs
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Leading social psychologist and Yale Professor John Bargh has been at the center of a number of controversies lately.Most recently, researcher Brent Donnellan covered a case in which he was unable to replicate one of Bargh's experiments, which prompted Bargh to share his original raw data with him, but on the condition that he never discussed it publicly: What’s the First Rule about John Bargh’s Data? You do not talk about John Bargh’s dataBut a couple of months back, even more ........ Read more »
Bargh, J. (2012) Social psychology cares about causal conscious thought, not free will per se. British Journal of Social Psychology. DOI: 10.1111/bjso.12011
- October 25, 2012
- 02:53 PM
- 353 views
Why You Should Reject the “Rejection Improves Impact” Meme
by caseybergman in I wish you'd made me angry earlier
Over the last two weeks, a meme has been making the rounds in the scientific twittersphere that goes something like “Rejection of a scientific manuscript improves its eventual impact”. This idea is based a recent analysis of patterns of manuscript submission reported in Science by Calcagno et al., which has been actively touted in the [...]... Read more »
Calcagno, V., Demoinet, E., Gollner, K., Guidi, L., Ruths, D., & de Mazancourt, C. (2012) Flows of Research Manuscripts Among Scientific Journals Reveal Hidden Submission Patterns. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.1227833
- October 24, 2012
- 02:26 PM
- 269 views
Matter & Energy: Kinetic Animism
by Cris Campbell in Genealogy of Religion
When formal western philosophy was in its infancy, pre-Socratic Greek philosophers grappled with what they conceived to be a foundational issue: What is the nature of the world or base of reality? Is the world comprised of something fundamental?
There were various answers, some of which (such as the atomism) were remarkably prescient. Over time, western [...]... Read more »
Miller, Jay. (1983) Numic Religion: An Overview of Power in the Great Basin of Native North America. Anthropos, 78(3/4), 337-354. info:/
- October 22, 2012
- 09:11 AM
- 323 views
Defining Music
by Callum Hackett in Callum J Hackett
I recently came across an extremely interesting and very well-written article in Frontiers in Psychology suggesting that, during childhood, the brain treats language as a specialised form of music. I was particularly impressed because the article is ripe with cross-cultural examples, features discussions of obscure 20th century music, and begins with a thorough, systematic attempt to define music. The authors Brandt, Gebrian, and Slevc make a good case both for their definition and their approac........ Read more »
Brandt, A., Gebrian, M., & Slevc, L. (2012) Music and Early Language Acquisition. Frontiers in Psychology. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00327
- October 14, 2012
- 05:55 AM
- 358 views
Citizen science and digital platforms: folding it all the way to outer space
by Cobb & Hecht in Do You Believe In Dog?
ScienceRewired is a philanthropic initiative that aims to promote public engagement in science through digital and social technologies. Their mission is to aid non-technical science practitioners and the digital domain in working together, to look at science from new perspectives while helping educate and empower individuals to create significant positive change in the world. Their focus spreads across science education, science communication and citizen science initiatives – what’s not to........ Read more »
Hand Eric. (2010) Citizen science: People power. Nature, 466(7307), 687. DOI: 10.1038/466685a
Khatib F., Cooper S., Tyka M. D., Xu K., Makedon I., Popovic Z., Baker D., & Players F. (2011) From the Cover: Algorithm discovery by protein folding game players. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(47), 18953. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1115898108
Wiggins Andrea, & Crowston Kevin. (2011) From Conservation to Crowdsourcing: A Typology of Citizen Science. System Sciences, 10. DOI: 10.1109/HICSS.2011.207
Parsons Jeffrey, Lukyanenko Roman, & Wiersma Yolanda. (2011) Easier citizen science is better. Nature, 471(7336), 37. DOI: 10.1038/471037a
- October 8, 2012
- 03:23 AM
- 422 views
DMT, aliens, and reality, part 1
by Scott McGreal in Eye on Psych
Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is a naturally occurring psychedelic drug found in many plants and animals that is striking for the brevity and intensity of its effects. One of the most remarkable features of the DMT experience is the frequency with which users encounter non-human intelligences, often resembling aliens. Even more remarkably, some users come away from these encounters convinced that these entities are somehow real. The psychological aspects of such experiences have not yet been adequate........ Read more »
Cakic, V., Potkonyak, J., . (2010) Subjective effects and patterns of use among Australian recreational users. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 111(1-2), 30-37. DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2010.03.015
Strassman RJ, Qualls CR, Uhlenhuth EH, & Kellner R. (1994) Dose-response study of N,N-dimethyltryptamine in humans. II. Subjective effects and preliminary results of a new rating scale. Archives of general psychiatry, 51(2), 98-108. PMID: 8297217
- October 7, 2012
- 04:32 AM
- 671 views
Reality: Is matter real?
by Perikis Livas in Tracing Knowledge
NOTHING seems more real than the world of everyday objects, but things are not as they seem. A set of relatively simple experiments reveals enormous holes is our intuitive understanding of physical reality. Trying to explain what goes on leads to some very peculiar and often highly surprising theories of the world around us.... Read more »
Jan Westerhoff. (2012) Reality: Is matter real?. New Scientist. info:/
- October 1, 2012
- 11:43 PM
- 303 views
Altruism Is Not The Basis Of Morality
by Jesse Marczyk in Pop Psychology
“Biologists call this behavior altruism, when we help someone else at some cost to ourselves. If you think about it, altruism is the basis of all morality. So the larger question is, Why are we moral?” – John Horgan [emphasis … Continue reading →... Read more »
DeScioli, P., Christner, J., & Kurzban, R. (2011) The omission strategy. Psychological Science, 442-446. DOI: 10.1177/0956797611400616
- September 30, 2012
- 12:30 PM
- 248 views
Drug Use- A side effect of society
by Drexid in Neurobrainstorm
Drug use is amplified and in some situations caused by our society. An alternate way of living could prevent drug use and addiction.... Read more »
Johnson MW, Strain EC, & Griffiths RR. (2010) Effects of oral caffeine pretreatment on response to intravenous nicotine and cocaine. Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology, 18(4), 305-15. PMID: 20695686
Unterwald EM, Rubenfeld JM, Imai Y, Wang JB, Uhl GR, & Kreek MJ. (1995) Chronic opioid antagonist administration upregulates mu opioid receptor binding without altering mu opioid receptor mRNA levels. Brain research. Molecular brain research, 33(2), 351-5. PMID: 8750897
- September 20, 2012
- 03:35 AM
- 334 views
Precognition: Science meets Alice in Wonderland, part 2
by Scott McGreal in Eye on Psych
Part 1 of this article discussed Daryl Bem’s studies on precognition and the failure of subsequent studies to replicate his results. This second part discusses reasons for the incompatibility of parapsychology with modern science and possible reasons why interest in this field persists in spite of its continued failure to establish its validity. Belief in the paranormal is commonly associated with magical thinking and mystical belief. Many parapsychologists seem to be motivated by a desire........ Read more »
Alcock, J. E. (1987) Parapsychology: Science of the anomalous or search for the soul?. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 10(4), 263-291. DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X00054467
MacPherson, J. S., . (2011) Creativity and positive schizotypy influence the conflict between science and religion. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(4), 446. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2010.11.002
- September 19, 2012
- 04:11 AM
- 415 views
Precognition: Science meets Alice in Wonderland, part 1
by Scott McGreal in Eye on Psych
In 2011, Daryl Bem published a remarkable paper describing a series of experiments which he claimed provided evidence that people can be influenced by events before they have happened. This paper naturally provoked an enormous amount of controversy. Multiple attempts to replicate Bem’s findings have failed, suggesting that his results were due to methodological shortcomings rather than a breakthrough discovery about the nature of reality. Individual differences in personality traits associ........ Read more »
Bem DJ. (2011) Feeling the future: experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. Journal of personality and social psychology, 100(3), 407-25. PMID: 21280961
Galak J, Leboeuf RA, Nelson LD, & Simmons JP. (2012) Correcting the Past: Failures to Replicate Psi. Journal of personality and social psychology. PMID: 22924750
Ritchie SJ, Wiseman R, & French CC. (2012) Failing the future: three unsuccessful attempts to replicate Bem's 'retroactive facilitation of recall' effect. PloS one, 7(3). PMID: 22432019
- September 13, 2012
- 09:07 AM
- 352 views
Extreme beliefs about "extremism": Religious incivility and the Libya riot
by Scott McGreal in Eye on Psych
According to some commentators, the recent riot in Libya in which an embassy was burned and four Americans killed may be viewed as an extreme response to "extremism" embodied in an offensive video. Aggression is not an automatic response to provocation but depends on values that condone violence. Regard for the "sacred" cannot form a universal moral basis. ... Read more »
Anderson, Craig A., & Bushman, Brad J. (2002) Human aggression. Annual Review of Psychology, 53(1), 27-51. DOI: 10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135231
Cohen D, Nisbett RE, Bowdle BF, . (1996) Insult, aggression, and the southern culture of honor: an "experimental ethnography". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(5), 945-959. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.70.5.945
Graham J, & Haidt J. (2010) Beyond beliefs: religions bind individuals into moral communities. Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc, 14(1), 140-50. PMID: 20089848
- September 12, 2012
- 01:29 PM
- 407 views
What Do Animals Think of Their Dead?
by Miss Behavior in The Scorpion and the Frog
You’re running around, going about your day, and suddenly you see a dead guy lying in the sidewalk. What do you feel? Sad? Scared? Do you look around to see if you might be in danger too? Would you feel any differently if the dead body on the sidewalk were that of a squirrel, and not a human? Do animals share these same emotional and thought processes when they come across their own dead?Teresa Iglesias, Richard McElreath and Gail Patricelli at the University of California at Davis pondered th........ Read more »
Iglesias, T.L., McElreath, R., & Patricelli, G.L. (2012) Western scrub-jay funerals: cacophonous aggregations in response to dead conspecifics. Animal Behaviour. DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.08.007
topics
join us!
Do you write about peer-reviewed research in your blog? Use ResearchBlogging.org to make it easy for your readers — and others from around the world — to find your serious posts about academic research.
If you don't have a blog, you can still use our site to learn about fascinating developments in cutting-edge research from around the world.
