Individuals consider their preferences for music more revealing of their personalities than their preferences for books, clothing, food, movies, and televi- sion shows (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003). This emphasis on music may be especially strong among young adults, who report sig- nificantly stronger preference ratings for music than do older adults (LeBlanc, Sims, Siivola, & Obert, 1996).

xxzulaxx:

The more we try to avoid screwing up when stressed, the more likely it becomes.
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What do you do when a colleague’s criticism is burning a hole in your brain during a meeting? Or when toothache is distracting you from the presentation you’re giving? Or when you can’t stop thinking about a past lover while you’re on a date with a new lover?

Much research has suggested that trying to put a thought or emotion out of mind while we’re stressed can have ironic effects: it actually comes back stronger.

The classic example is the instruction: don’t think about a white bear. People instructed to suppress the thought typically think about it twice as often as those not instructed to suppress the thought (Wegner et al., 1987).

Sometimes our minds are dead set against us. We want to do one thing and it wants to do precisely the opposite. Here are eight examples of how ironic processes affect our daily lives (taken from Wegner, 2009):

1. Forbidden romance

In one study participants were told to play footsie with a stranger during a card game (Wegner et al., 1994). The twist was that some pairs were specifically told to hide their under-the-table-action while others weren’t.

The results showed that playing secret footsie made people more attracted to each other than blatant footsie. When they tried to suppress their attraction, it actually came back stronger.

That’s why it can be difficult to get rid of thoughts of an old flame at exactly the wrong moment. And the more we push down on these kinds of intrusive thoughts, the more they come back.

2. Faux pas

In a classic episode of the British sitcom Fawlty Towers, the hotel’s proprietor, Basil Fawlty is serving a group of Germans and trying to avoid mentioning the war. The more he tries to avoid it, the more he keeps mentioning it. If you’ve seen it, it’ll be seared across your memory; if not Google it and you’ll never forget it.

It’s a perfect example of how, when under pressure and specifically trying to avoid mentioning something, it can still find a way out.

In a study by Lane et al. (2006) exactly this phenomenon was observed. Participants were more likely to give a fact away when they were specifically told to keep it secret than when they were given no such instruction.

3. Prejudice

Rather more embarrassing is when latent prejudices are revealed after specific attempts are made to suppress them. Sometimes the more people try to be politically correct, the more they accidentally display their racism, sexism, homophobia or other prejudice.

Macrae et al. (1994) found participants in a waiting room who were actively trying to suppress their dislike of white supremacists sat further away from them than those given no instruction.

4. The yips

The ‘yips’ have destroyed many a sporting career, both amateur and professional. Most associated with golf, the ‘yips’ refers to the inexplicable loss of fine motor skills that sometimes happens to sports players.

Professionals who could previously hit a ball with frightening accuracy are suddenly worse than rank amateurs. And the more they concentrate on doing it right, the worse it gets.

One study found that when soccer players kicking a penalty are told to avoid a particular area of the goal, they actually spent more time looking at it (Bakker et al, 1996)

5. Feeling down

Our emotions are just as prone to ironic effects as our cognitions. Unfortunately when people try to suppress a depressed mood, they often find it comes back with a vengeance.

For this reason standard psychological therapies avoid thought suppression and try to focus on distraction and acceptance (Beevers et al., 1999).

6. Pain

There’s some evidence that trying to suppress pain may cause it to be experienced more strongly. But, Wegner (2009) explains, we have to be cautious about this one as it hasn’t been conclusively proven.

There is evidence, though, that trying to accept pain is a better policy than rejecting it or trying to cope spontaneously (Masedo & Esteve, 2007).

7. Can’t sleep…

Everyone who has ever tried to force themselves to get to sleep knows it’s impossible. The harder you consciously try to fall asleep quickly, the longer you stay awake.

This is exactly what researchers find in the sleep lab (Ansfield et al., 1996). That’s why it’s called falling asleep or dropping off—it’s as though you have to do it by accident.

For more advice on getting to sleep: 6 Steps to Falling Asleep Fast.

8. …bad dreams

Here’s a tip if you want to control your dreams: people are more likely to dream about subjects they are specifically trying to avoid (Schmidt & Gendola, 2008). Whether they are emotional or neutral topics, using suppression will make them more likely to turn up in your dreams.

The question is whether you can successfully convince yourself you don’t want to have a really delicious, engrossing dream!

Avoiding ironic processes

Ironic processes are strongest when we are distracted or stressed in some way. That’s why a lot of the time these effects don’t emerge and we can control ourselves successfully.

The main way to avoid all these problems is to find a way to relax, or at least not to try so hard.

Image credit: Zen Sutherland

(Source)

(via psychology-terms)

‘These two fundamentally different ways of knowing interact to construct our mental life. One, the rational mind, is the mode of comprehension we are typically conscious of: more prominent in awareness, thoughtful, able to ponder and reflect. But alongside that there is another system of knowing: impulsive and powerful, if sometimes illogical - the emotional mind.’

Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence. 

n.

A delusional misidentification of familiar people, usually relative or friends, who are believed to have been replaced by exact doubles or impostors; thus a delusional of underidentification, in a contrast to *Fregoli syndrome, which involves overidentification. 

The poet John Cowper was afflicted with Carpgras syndrome, believing as he did that his friend, the Reverend John Newton, had been supplanted by an impersonator.

Also called l’illusion de sosies or the illusion of doubles. 

Source: Oxford Dictionary of Psychology, Coleman, 2009.

psychology2010:

  There are 6 types of validity tests: Face Validity, content validity, concurrent validity, construct validity, criterion validity and predictive validity.

  1. Face validity is when the items are obviously measuring a specific construct. Here, test-takers know right away what a test is trying to tap into. For example, asking a subject to assess the statement, “Sometimes when I am in a new situation I get very anxious” would be an obvious means to measure anxiety.

  2. Content validity, which is defined as a test quality that taps into what experts think the construct is all about .

  3. Concurrent validity is when test scores are very similar to those obtained by other tests that measure similar psychological constructs. For example, a test of generalized anxiety would be expected to correlate with other tests of anxiety.

  4. Construct validity is when the test reveals natural and meaningful connections with other psychological constructs around the theme of distress. For example, high anxiety scores correlate with other tests of negative affect.

 5. Criterion validity measures the degree to which the test scores represent criteria to help us with real-world decision-making.

6. Predictive validity: Whether a score on a test really predicts how a person will do in an actual setting. I.e If high scores on GRE test predicts success in grad school.

 

xxzulaxx:

“All learning has an emotional base.”
— Plato

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to perceive, control and evaluate emotions. Some researchers suggest that emotional intelligence can be learned and strengthened, while others claim it is an inborn characteristic.

Since 1990, Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer have been the leading researchers on emotional intelligence. In their influential article “Emotional Intelligence,” they defined emotional intelligence as, “the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions” (1990).

The Four Branches of Emotional Intelligence

Salovey and Mayer proposed a model that identified four different factors of emotional intelligence: the perception of emotion, the ability reason using emotions, the ability to understand emotion and the ability to manage emotions.

1. Perceiving Emotions: The first step in understanding emotions is to accurately perceive them. In many cases, this might involve understanding nonverbal signals such as body language and facial expressions.


2. Reasoning With Emotions: The next step involves using emotions to promote thinking and cognitive activity. Emotions help prioritize what we pay attention and react to; we respond emotionally to things that garner our attention.


3. Understanding Emotions: The emotions that we perceive can carry a wide variety of meanings. If someone is expressing angry emotions, the observer must interpret the cause of their anger and what it might mean. For example, if your boss is acting angry, it might mean that he is dissatisfied with your work; or it could be because he got a speeding ticket on his way to work that morning or that he’s been fighting with his wife.


4. Managing Emotions: The ability to manage emotions effectively is a key part of emotional intelligence. Regulating emotions, responding appropriately and responding to the emotions of others are all important aspect of emotional management.

According to Salovey and Mayer, the four branches of their model are, “arranged from more basic psychological processes to higher, more psychologically integrated processes. For example, the lowest level branch concerns the (relatively) simple abilities of perceiving and expressing emotion. In contrast, the highest level branch concerns the conscious, reflective regulation of emotion” (1997).

A Brief History of Emotional Intelligence

• 1930s – Edward Thorndike describes the concept of “social intelligence” as the ability to get along with other people.


• 1940s – David Wechsler suggests that affective components of intelligence may be essential to success in life.


• 1950s – Humanistic psychologists such as Abraham Maslow describe how people can build emotional strength.


• 1975 - Howard Gardner publishes The Shattered Mind, which introduces the concept of multiple intelligences.


• 1985 - Wayne Payne introduces the term emotional intelligence in his doctoral dissertation entitled “A study of emotion: developing emotional intelligence; self-integration; relating to fear, pain and desire (theory, structure of reality, problem-solving, contraction/expansion, tuning in/coming out/letting go).”


• 1987 – In an article published in Mensa Magazine, Keith Beasley uses the term “emotional quotient.” It has been suggested that this is the first published use of the term, although Reuven Bar-On claims to have used the term in an unpublished version of his graduate thesis.


• 1990 – Psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer publish their landmark article, “Emotional Intelligence,” in the journal Imagination, Cognition, and Personality.


• 1995 - The concept of emotional intelligence is popularized after publication of psychologist and New York Times science writer Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.

The model introduced by Daniel Goleman  focuses on EI as a wide array of competencies and skills that drive leadership performance. Goleman’s model outlines four main EI constructs:

1. Self-awareness – the ability to read one’s emotions and recognize their impact while using gut feelings to guide decisions.


2. Self-management – involves controlling one’s emotions and impulses and adapting to changing circumstances.


3. Social awareness – the ability to sense, understand, and react to others’ emotions while comprehending social networks.


4. Relationship management – the ability to inspire, influence, and develop others while managing conflict.

Goleman includes a set of emotional competencies within each construct of EI. Emotional competencies are not innate talents, but rather learned capabilities that must be worked on and can be developed to achieve outstanding performance. Goleman posits that individuals are born with a general emotional intelligence that determines their potential for learning emotional competencies.

(Source 1, 2, 3)

(via psychology2010)

The world can be a bruising place for emotionally sensitive people. A regular day can feel like being covered in biting, Texas-sized fire ants. A natural response is to do whatever works to avoid the pain of believing others have judged, rejected or left you out. Feeling powerless to stop injustice adds to the hurt. One option is to wear a mask and hide who you really are–an Avoidance Mask.  You know, avoid all the pain and protect your authentic self as well.

An Avoidance Mask is different from aFunctional Mask. A Functional Mask is one everyone needs.  That’s the one you wear at work when you need to look like you’re in charge even though your daughter just eloped with a guy in a rock band.

A Functional Mask is put on for those necessary times, like when famous people don’t want to show how sad they are so the tabloids won’t figure out they’re devastated that they were fired as the star of a movie or television show. With a Functional Mask you feel your feelings and are only temporarily sheilding them from others. Having a functional mask is helpful but often difficult for emotinally sensitive people.  So sometimes they choose more permanent masks in an effort to protect themselves emotionally.

People Pleaser Mask.  The People Pleaser Mask means doing whatever it takes to make other people happy so they’ll accept you and be less likely to emotionally attack you. When you have thoughts or feelings or preferences that are different than those of your companions, you shove them down or push them away.

When someone says your friend is a two-faced neanderthal who doesn’t know how to dress and belongs to the wrong church, you nod or don’t say anything out of fear, terrifying fear, even though you don’t agree. Then you feel angry at yourself because you were afraid. You can do this so often that you lose yourself and don’t know what your own thoughts and ideas are anymore.

Mask of Anger:  Anger can keep people away from you and protect you from feeling vulnerable. Anger feels more powerful than hurt, fear or sadness and can be used to avoid those painful feelings. Angry people cover up their sensitivity in a way that few people guess that they are sheep dressed in porcupine quills.  Emotionally sensitive people who use the mask of anger are often lonely and feel worthless on the inside.

Happy Mask:  Another way of protecting yourself is to behave as if you’re happy all the time. No one ever knows when your feelings are hurt and to the outside world nothing gets you down. Happiness covers your real feelings. You joke and smile even when the lady next to you volunteers you to host the next sit down dinner for the neighborhood right at the time you are expecting six guests from out of town.

Almost any emotion/behavior can be used as a mask.  Maybe you mask insecurity by disliking others or mask sadness by being the life of the party or mask fear by being perfectionistic. Putting on a mask is a way of disappearing–being invisible.

Masks provide some emotional protection in the short run.  But the costs of wearing masks are high. When you wear a mask, you don’t really feel the warmth of belonging because others don’t really know you. One of the most basic needs people have is to feel connected to other people and that can’t happen when you are hidden.

Not only that, but you may wear masks so long you don’t really know yourself or what you are feeling. Not knowing yourself creates a lot of anxiety because you can’t make decisions and who you are is defined by others or how the day went. Avoiding feelings means you lose part of who you are and increases the liklihood that you’ll be depressed or anxious. Plus it’s exhausting to wear masks.

Dropping the Mask and Reclaiming Your Identity

1. Make the Decision:  The first step is to decide you want to drop the Avoidance Mask. This means you are committed to taking action even though it may be painful in the beginning. If you aren’t sure, make a list of pros and cons–pros and cons of dropping the mask and pros and cons of keeping the mask.

Dropping the mask will not be easy and recognizing the difficulty of this task will help you succeed. Remember taking one step at a time may work best. For example, speaking up about which restaurant you’d prefer for dinner might be one initial step.

2. Focus on Awareness:  If you’ve lost touch with your own preferences and feelings, spend some time asking yourself what you really think and feel.  Keep asking and keep experimenting–it will come back to you. Consider keeping a journal, writing down what you liked and didn’t like each day. Accept your feelings and trust that they will pass.

3.  Be Visible:  Notice if you have the posture of someone who is trying to hide. If you do, stand up straight and let yourself be visible. Begin to express your opinion and thoughts gently, with kindness.

4. Develop New Coping Skills:  Before you drop the mask, it’s important to have alternative, more effective  ways to cope with emotional pain.  More about that in future posts.

5.  Face Whatever You’ve Been Avoiding:Whatever your thoughts and feelings, they are your thoughts and feelings. Everyone has their own internal experience and yours is likely different from that of your friends’.

Accepting your internal experience instead of avoiding it will allow you to check to see if your feelings have any base in external reality and to choose healthier, more effective ways of coping. Facing the external fears will help you overcome those as well. Being rejected or criticized by others is not pleasant, but you will find out you can survive it. Take small steps, have support, and use alternative coping skills.

Source: The Emotionally Sensitive Person.

thepsychologicult:

Dunbar’s Number is definitely one of my all-time favorite concepts in Psychology. It’s basically an idea that says a person can only know so many people before they stop really knowing people. In other words, how many best friends can you really have before they all start fading into just friends, acquaintances, strangers. 

Anthropoligist Robin Dunbar had several estimates as to exactly how many people a person could really care about, but most of them were pretty rough. According to Dunbar, you can only really care about 150 people before you stop seeing them as actual people. Again, this is kind of a hard to imagine, but picture this: You hear on the news that a massive earthquake on the other side of the globe has killed thousands of people. An hour later, you receive word that the last person you spent the day with has died in a car accident. Which of these tragedies has more of an effect on you? 

If it was the car accident, Dunbar was on to something. Why is it that the death of one person could upset you more than the death of thousands? Because as much as we’d like to think that we care about everyone, we really can’t. As the infamous Josef Stalin said, “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic…”

According to Dunbar, the person you imagined in the car crash scenario was a part of a very special group in your head called the Monkey Sphere. The Monkey Sphere - with the name coming from an experiment involving primates - includes all of the people you really care about. Parents, friends, teachers, co-workers. Up to around 150 of them depending how well your long-term memory is. Anyone outside of this Monkey Sphere isn’t really a person to you.