By John M Grohol PsyD 

It probably comes as little surprise to anyone, but a small exploratory study done on 100 college students from a single university suggests that students who score higher on a test of narcissism also spent more time checking and updating their Facebook profile.

Facebook is currently the world’s largest social network, with over 500 million users. More than 50% of Facebook’s active users log on to Facebook in any given day, while the average user has 130 social connections (what Facebook calls “friends”).

The researcher (Mehdizadeh, 2010) also examined the relationship between narcissism and self-esteem, as well as gender differences in how people use Facebook for self-promotion. “Self-promotion,” according to how it was used in this study, was defined as “any descriptive or visual information that appeared to attempt to persuade others about one’s own positive qualities. ”

Mehdizadeh looked at only five profile features in Facebook: (a) the About Me section, (b) the Main Photo, (c) the first 20 pictures on the View Photos of Me section, (d) the Notes section, and (e) the Status Updates section. The researcher, rating these items on her own, examined to the extent they were considered self-promoting according to the above definition.

What did the research find?

A statistically significant correlation between narcissistic students, and the number of times Facebook was checked per day as well as the time spent on Facebook per session.

However, the researcher did not find a significant correlation between scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI-16) and the “About Me” section, the most obvious place a person might be expected to express themselves in a narcissistic manner. A significant correlation was found for self-promotion in the following areas: Main Photo, View Photos, Status Updates, and Notes.

Significant gender differences between men and women were also found (regardless of their NPI-16 score). “Males displayed more self-promotional information in the About Me and Notes sections than women,” noted the researcher. “Conversely, women displayed more self-promotional Main Photos.”

Read in Full:  http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/08/30/narcissistic-college-students-spend-more-time-on-facebook/

 

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor

Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on August 30, 2010 In anticipation of the 23rd European conference on psychosis and pharmacology, scientists discussed new models examining the combined role of genes and the environment.

According to the experts, the incidence of psychotic disorders varies greatly across places and demographic groups, as do symptoms, course, and treatment response across individuals.

Scientists note that high rates of schizophrenia in large cities, and among immigrants, cannabis users, and traumatized individuals reflect the influence of environmental exposures.

This, in combination with progress in the area of molecular genetics, has generated interest in more complicated models of schizophrenia that point to the role of gene-environment interactions.

Undoubtedly, schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders have a complex origin.

Research has attempted to determine the role of specific biological variables, such as genetic and biochemical factors and subtle changes in brain morphology.

Genetic vulnerability in schizophrenia is shared in part with bipolar disorder and recent molecular genetic findings also indicate an overlap with developmental disorders such as autism (Van Os & Kapur, 2009).

According to twin and family studies more than half of the vulnerability for schizophrenia is of genetic origin.

However, attempts to discover genes that relate directly to psychotic disorder have been frustrating and often disappointing, and despite enormous investments, the identification of actual molecular genetic variants underlying schizophrenia liability has proven extremely difficult.

This difficulty is mainly due to the phenomenon of gene-environment interaction, which is defined as genetic control of sensitivity to the environment.

Read in Full:  http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/08/30/researchers-explore-gene-environment-trigger-for-psychosis/17419.html

By Traci Pedersen
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on August 31, 2010

Yale scientists have figured out the inner workings of the novel antidepressant, ketamine, and how exactly it is able to bring relief in hours rather than the weeks or months typically needed by similar drugs on the market. The findings, published in the August 20 issue of the journal Science, may quicken the development of a safe and convenient form of ketamine that can be prescribed for alleviating depression.

Yale researchers found that, in rats, ketamine rapidly decreases depression-like behaviors and also re-establishes connections between brain cells damaged by constant stress.  The effects of the drug have proven incredibly effective on severely depressed human patients as well.

“It’s like a magic drug—one dose can work rapidly and last for seven to 10 days,” said Ronald Duman, senior author of the study and professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Yale.

Traditionally, ketamine has been used as a general anesthetic for children, but about a decade ago, it was found by researchers at the Connecticut Mental Health Center to bring relief to depressed patients when given in small doses, said Duman.

These first clinical studies, later replicated by the National Institute of Mental Health, showed that almost 70 percent of patients previously resistant to all other forms of antidepressants improved within hours of receiving ketamine. Its clinical use, however, has been limited up until now because it must be delivered intravenously under medical supervision. It is also capable of triggering short-term psychotic symptoms. Ketamine has been used as a recreational drug, sometimes called “Special K” or simply “K.”

Read in Full:  http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/08/31/the-mechanism-behind-fast-acting-antidepressant-ketamine/17442.html

 

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By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on August 31, 2010

As strange as it may sound, some individuals hurt themselves to obtain relief from emotional stress. Actions such as cutting or burning oneself are behaviors displayed by people who compulsively hurt themselves.

This behavior is sometimes evident among individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD). BPD is a condition that often leads to intense emotions among individuals who have difficulty regulating their emotions.

Accordingly, this group of people displays high prevalence rates of self-injurious behavior, which may help them to reduce negative emotional states.

Researchers have studied the effects of emotional stimuli and a thermal stimulus in people either with or without borderline personality disorder.

They conducted a brain imaging study using picture stimuli to induce negative, positive, or neutral affect and thermal stimuli to induce heat pain or warmth perception. The painful heat stimuli were administered at an individually-set temperature threshold for each subject.

In patients with borderline personality disorder, they found evidence of heightened activation of limbic circuitry in response to pictures evocative of positive and negative emotions, consistent with their reported emotion regulation problems.

Amygdala activation also correlated with self-reported deficits in emotion regulation. However, the thermal stimuli inhibited the activation of the amygdala in these patients and also in healthy controls, presumably suppressing emotional reactivity.

Read in Full:  http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/08/31/why-self-harm-feels-good-in-the-brain/17456.html

 

 

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Aug 31, 2010

 

In the wake of signing a 1994 court decree promising to provide education and appropriate mental health services to children with disabilities, Hawaii’s school system allowed two young sisters in dire need to slip through the cracks. No longer able to rely on a faulty federal judge who backed its negligence, the state Department of Education should seek reasonable settlement of the court dispute and take steps to prevent similar lapses.

 

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has questioned the school system’s defense of its conduct, overturning a ruling by visiting District Judge Manuel L. Real of California. A three-judge panel including Hawaii’s Richard R. Clifton ordered the case to be put before a judge other than 86-year-old Real, whose objectivity has been questioned in the recent past by appeals judges. The panel noted that this was the second time that Real had been reversed in this case at the 9th Circuit level.

 

Hawaii’s school system promised in 1994 to expand programs for special-needs students, in compliance with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Act, to end a lengthy class-action lawsuit filed in the name of Jennifer Felix. That same year, Hawaii’s DOE found a 3-year-old girl named Michelle and her 2-year-old sister Natalie to be eligible for special education services because of autism.

 

The girls’ family accuses the DOE of violating the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, which requires state services for the disabled. Children with autism need teaching that includes repetition, routine and behavioral reinforcement, according to Dr. Daniel B. LeGoff, a psychologist and consultant to the state Department of Health.

 

Instead, the girls’ family maintains that from 1994 to 1999 they “were warehoused and put in a classroom with somebody who sat on the other side of the room and did very little.” In 1994, at least three Department of Health autism specialists were available and providing for the needs of public school children with the disorder, according to LeGoff.

 

When Michelle and Natalie first were diagnosed as autistic, their family maintains, they were capable of “learning effective speech and communications skills” through appropriate teaching. Today, the court panel observed, “The girls are essentially non-verbal and have a limited ability to have meaningful interactions with others.”

 

The 9th Circuit panel agreed that the evidence supports the family’s allegation that the DOE “was on notice” that the girls needed autism-specific services that were made available to other children. The appeals court ruled in 2004 and reiterated last week that the family should win its lawsuit if it can prove that the school system violated federal law “intentionally or with deliberate indifference.”

 

This case has been in court for a full decade, costing untold tax dollars to prolong an argument that should have ended once it became clear that the state broke its promise to fill a need required by federal law. That is long enough.

 

Source: 

http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorials/20100831_Settle_DOE_autism_case_now.html#axzz0yByYdtye

 

by BK Davis

In 2009, the Minnesota legislature made significant changes to the Personal Care Assistance (PCA) program in order to save money. An estimated 3000 children and adults who use the program will no longer be eligible for the program, come July 2011. A significant percentage of these 3000 people are people of color.

As part of their overall mission, NAMI Minnesota is sponsoring a walk to raise awareness and promote acceptance of mental illnesses. NAMIWalks 2010 will be held on September 25th at Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis. For more information, go to www.namihelps.org.

Source:  http://www.onenationnews.com/fullstory.asp?newsid=9706

 

By Paul Collins

Posted Monday, Aug. 30, 2010, at 2:10 PM ET

The 2010 Emmy for lead actor in a comedy went to Jim Parsons, who plays Dr. Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory, the popular CBS sitcom. (It was the only award for the series.) In 2009, Paul Collins took a close look at Sheldon’s hilarious, geeky, gawky character and argued that although the series never describes him as such, Sheldon is the first sitcom star to have Asperger’s syndrome. The article is reprinted below.

Picture a man and a woman in a car. The woman appears hungover and irate, and the man maintains a nonstop patter to engage her, oblivious to her fraying temper: “I’ll say an element, and you say an element whose name starts with the last letter of the one I said.” No response. “I’ll start!” he blurts, ignoring her body language. He heedlessly bores through helium, mercury, ytterbium, molybdenum, and more until he reaches mendelevium—and her last nerve. “Get out!“ she commands. When he does, he’s startled to find that she’s not asking him to look at the car engine.

For some therapists, this is a familiar scene: a guy enthusiastically firing on all conversational cylinders at precisely the wrong moment and then puzzled by a hostile response. But it’s not an autism spectrum disorder case study—it’s a clip from The Big Bang Theory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmhWwSJDkaw&feature=related

How do you build a sitcom around a neurological condition without uttering its name? That’s the challenge CBS faces in its show about the travails of four Caltech researchers: experimental physicist Dr. Leonard Hofstadter (played by Johnny Galecki), engineer Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg), astrophysicist Dr. Rajesh Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar), and theoretical physicist Dr. Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons). The running joke of The Big Bang Theory is that these guys are brilliant at understanding the workings of the universe, yet hopeless at socializing with Penny (Kaley Cuoco), a waitress who lives next door. But a more subtle theme is that Sheldon—flat-toned, gawky, and rigidly living by byzantine rules and routines—appears to have Asperger’s syndrome.

Read in Full:  http://www.slate.com/id/2265530/

 

Creativity researchers aren’t so confused. They have long-ago accepted the fact that creative people are complex. Almost by definition, creativity is complex. Creative thinking is influenced by many traits, behaviors, and sociocultural factors that come together in one person (see “Could Michael Jackson Have Created Twitter?”). It would be surprising if all of these factors didn’t sometimes, or even most of the time, appear to contradict one another.

 

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on August 25, 2010

In recent years, the hormone oxytocin has gained notoriety as an influence on various aspects of social behavior. A new study attempts to dispel myths and scientifically document the beneficial effects of the hormone.

According to background information, prior research has associated increased levels of oxytocin with greater caring, generosity, and trust.

However, researchers wanted to know if oxytocin increases people’s trust in just anybody or if it acts more selectively.

Psychological scientist Moïra Mikolajczak from the Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium) and her colleagues investigated just how trusting oxytocin can make us. In this experiment, volunteers received either a placebo or oxytocin nasal spray.

Then, they played a trust game in which they received a certain amount of money which they could share with a partner (any amount shared with the partner would then triple). The partner then decides what to do the money—they can keep it all for themselves or split the amount with the giver.

If the volunteer is trusting, they will share more money with their partner (in the hopes of having some of it returned to them) than volunteers who are not as trusting. The participants played the trust game against a computer and virtual partners (which were supposedly in another room), some of whom appeared reliable (they seemed likely to share the money with the participants) and some of whom appeared unreliable (they seemed likely to keep the money for themselves).

Read in Full:  http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/08/25/effects-of-oxytocin-clarified/17245.html