Positively Non-Religious

(photo by Tom Maglieri)

Now this is intriguing.  Daryl Bem, an accomplished and respected psychologist, has found evidence that he claims shows people are influenced by events that haven’t happened yet.  Oddly enough, his research is going to be published in a very prestigious scientific journal, but with an editorial commentary that’s skeptical.  The full manuscript can be found here.

Bem ran a number of experiments where the usual causal mechanisms happened in the reverse order, yet the results are open to the interpretation that events in the future somehow had an impact on students’ behavior.  For example, in one experiment, students were shown a list of words.  Then, they were asked to remember words from the list.  Then, random words were selected from the list, and students were instructed to type these randomly-chosen words.  The paper reports that students were more likely to recall words at time 2 if they were words that they’d be asked to type at time 3.  The effect is small, but still better than chance.

As in all things paranormal and seemingly supernatural, color me extremely skeptical.  Bem openly admits to believing in the paranormal, so it’s possible his bias could’ve influenced the outcomes somehow.  It’s also possible that he’s been running enough of these experiments over a long enough time, that a statistically significant difference was bound to crop up in some of them, giving the appearance of a real effect of premonitions, when the results are actually due to chance variations.

Also, here’s a good blog post from Psychology Today that is skeptical of Bem’s findings.

(via)

wowmonica:

I was recently pointed to this article, and truth be told, I am quite offended. Obviously all of us free thinkers would say that the answer to this question is a very loud NO, but the “experts” have a different opinion:

❝According to the newest addition of the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and…

Before jumping to any conclusions, I’d recommend taking a closer look at the DSM’s actual diagnostic criteria:

Diagnostic criteria for 313.81 Oppositional Defiant Disorder

A. A pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior lasting at least 6 months, during which four (or more) of the following are present:
(1) often loses temper
(2) often argues with adults
(3) often actively defies or refuses to comply with adults’ requests or rules
(4) often deliberately annoys people
(5) often blames others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior
(6) is often touchy or easily annoyed by others
(7) is often angry and resentful
(8) is often spiteful or vindictive

Note: Consider a criterion met only if the behavior occurs more frequently than is typically observed in individuals of comparable age and developmental level.

B. The disturbance in behavior causes clinically significant impairment in social, academic, or occupational functioning.

C. The behaviors do not occur exclusively during the course of a Psychotic or Mood Disorder.

D. Criteria are not met for Conduct Disorder, and, if the individual is age 18 years or older, criteria are not met for Antisocial Personality Disorder.

Realize that individuals have to meet all of these criteria (A, B, C, & D) to warrant diagnosis.  Also, wikipedia’s description of ODD is helpful:

…an ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile and defiant behavior toward authority figures which goes beyond the bounds of normal childhood behavior. People who have it may appear very stubborn. Temper tantrums, stealing, bullying, and vandalism are some of key symptoms of oppositional defiant disorder. ODD children may present as negative, defiant, unable to take “no” for an answer, deliberately annoying others, easily annoyed themselves, or blaming others for all that goes wrong. The child’s behavior often disrupts the child’s normal daily activities, including activities within the family and at school.

From my (limited) understanding, it’s essentially an similar but less severe than conduct disorder, and both can be precursors to adult antisocial personality disorder. 

So no, I hardly think it’s worth being concerned about.  It’s a misleading, alarmist claim to say that all freethinkers meet the criteria for this disorder.

And it’s also misleading that the article calls this “the newest addition” to the DSM, like it’s breaking news or something.  The DSM-IV is over 15 years old now.  The real cutting-edge stuff has to do with the DSM-5, which is currently being developed, and is scheduled to be published in 2013.

(Source: wowgawd)

from Psychology Today:

To Create Your Very Own Cult

1) Begin by creating your own reality. You do this by keeping your members away from outsiders. An isolated farm in the middle of Idaho is good but if such a retreat isn’t available, impose a form of self-censorship. If it’s not of the cult, it’s of the devil.

2) Next set the leader and his/her inner circle up as the only link to paradise…only they hold the keys to the kingdom.

3) Remember to make increasing demands. Start small but keep it going and eventually you’ll have your followers standing in line to turn over all their worldly possessions.

4) Keep turning out stories about the greatness of the leader. The more unbelievable the more they will be believed. Your members have already been conditioned from the time they were children to accept things like coming back from the dead and walking on water.

5) Remember to use your converts to bring in still more converts. This has the double advantage of picking up new disciples and (even if that doesn’t always work) the mere act of proselytizing will further cement the commitment of those already in the fold.

6) Keep everybody busy. This doesn’t allow time for potentially critical thought. Let the minds of the masses wander and who knows, they might put two and two together. For this reason, long sermons - the longer the better - and interminable work shifts are essential. And when you aren’t haranguing them and they aren’t being kept busy…make sure they’re at least singing.

7) And finally, keep your flock fixated on the carrot. The payoff is just around the corner and only they will be the ones paid off. The clouds will part and they will be raptured up and then, boy-oh-boy, won’t all those non-believers be sorry.

Here’s a brief summary of an interesting psychology study.  It looked at how scare tactics influenced people’s self-reported likelihood of changing their behavior.  Intriguingly, an intense warning using scare tactics actually backfired for some participants, making them less likely to take the warning seriously and to say that they’d change their behavior.  A more moderate warning, on the other hand, was more effective for some participants.  The participants who had this counter-intuitive response to these warnings were distinguished by being high in “cognitive avoidance,” a personality difference.

The interesting implication here, then, is that this might apply to other types of warnings.  For example, do extra-intense warnings by religious authorities about hellfire and brimstone actually backfire for some people?  Could this make avoidant people more likely to approve of the behavior that the preacher is warning them about?

And, for us non-religious types, does this mean that if we try to warn people about the dangers of Christianity and religion, and we do it with too much intensity, could it actually backfire in some cases?

Holy crap.  This is a little off-topic, but I feel compelled to share this article because it’s currently listed as one of the most popular on NYT’s website and it mentions the research of Matt Hertenstein, a psychology professor from my alma mater.  DePauw’s a tiny institution that isn’t exactly known for doing a lot of research, let alone New-York-Times-worthy research.

I suppose it could be tied in to religion (e.g., the churches that stop and make you greet everyone around you in the middle of the Sunday program, shaking your neighbors’ hands and so on).  And this research could be helpful for, well, just about anyone who ever interacts with other people.  I’ll leave the conclusion-drawing to you, though.

-Shane