Notes of a Psychology Watcher ---Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D. Psychologist

Monday, March 12, 2012

Open Culture

3/12/12. An interesting Web site.

http://www.openculture.com/

Sunday, March 11, 2012

3/11/12,

Jonah Leher:

"...But creativity is not magic, and there's no such thing as a creative type. Creativity is not a trait that we inherit in our genes or a blessing bestowed by the angels. It's a skill. Anyone can learn to be creative and to get better at it. New research is shedding light on what allows people to develop world-changing products and to solve the toughest problems. A surprisingly concrete set of lessons has emerged about what creativity is and how to spark it in ourselves and our work..."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203370604577265632205015846.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_6

What About the Kids Who Behave?

3/11/12. The liberal racism of low expectations and no responsbility.

By JASON L. RILEY
The Obama administration is waving around a new study showing that black school kids are "suspended, expelled, and arrested in school" at higher rates than white kids. According to the report, which looked at 72,000 schools, black students comprise just 18% of those enrolled yet account for 46% of those suspended more than once and 39% of all expulsions.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the administration is "not alleging overt discrimination in some or all of these cases," but that's certainly what he's implying when he bleats on about the "fundamental unfairness" of the situation. "The undeniable truth," said Mr. Duncan in a press call this week, "is that the everyday education experience for too many students of color violates the principle of equity at the heart of the American promise." Of course, if racial animus toward blacks explains higher black discipline rates, what explains the fact that white kids are disciplined at higher rates than Asian kids? Is the school system anti-white, too?...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204603004577271422640770022.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Joseph Epstein: "Old Age and Other Laughs. Am I Losing It?"

3/7/12.

Joseph Epstein has written a brilliant article on getting old (Commentary," March 2012).

Mr. Epstein ends his article:

"...At 75, I feel I am playing with house money - the rest of my life, as people used to say before the worry with cholesterol set in, is gravy. Lovely it would be to stay in the game for another 10 years or so, and I hope I am able to do so. But if some bright young oncologist or grave neurologist informs me that the time has come for me to cease flossing, I shall be mightily disappointed but scarcely shocked or even much surprised. On such occasion I hope to retain the calm to count my blessings, which in my case have not been few. Among them will be that I have lived in freedom during a time of unprecedented prosperity, been allowed to do work of my own choosing that has been appreciated and decently rewarded, while never having been called upon to betray my friends or my ideals. Another blessing has been that thus far I have dodged the land mines, the flying darts, and the machine gunner, and arrived at old age..."

Amen

(n.b. see 3/22/12 post for the entire article)

Another Child is Dead

3/7/12. The horror of child abuse.

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20120304/OPINION03/120229486/-1/opinion?p=1&tc=pg

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

The Rediscovery of Character

3/6/12. David Brooks on James Q. Wilson

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/opinion/brooks-the-rediscovery-of-character.html?_r=1&hpw

James Q. Wilson (1931 - 2012)

3/6/12. Thomas Sowell writes:

"There are undoubtedly many people who are alive today because of James Q. Wilson, who died last week. He was not a doctor or medical scientist, nor was he a fireman or coast guardsman who rescued people from immediate dangers.

James Q. Wilson was a scholar who studied crime. He saved lives because his penetrating analyses of crime, and the effect of the criminal law, debunked the theories of other intellectuals, which had led judges and legislators to ease up on criminals -- leading in turn to skyrocketing rates of crime, including murder..."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/03/06/james_q_wilson_1931-2012_113376.html

Monday, March 5, 2012

A Quest to Understand How Memory Works

3/5/12.

INSIDE THE MIND Dr. Eric R. Kandel at Columbia University Medical Center

"...As a student at Harvard in the 1950s, you aspired to be a psychoanalyst. Was this because of your Viennese background?

In part I was drawn to it because it promised much. In the 1950s and early 1960s, psychoanalysis swept through the intellectual community, and it was the dominant mode of thinking about the mind. People felt that this was a completely new set of insights into human motivation and that its therapeutic potential was significant. It was seen as the treatment that solved everything in the world, from schizophrenia to ingrown toenails. It’s amazing how it was oversold. When this turned out to be more hope than reality, things flipped in the other direction. In my case, I didn’t pursue it because I fell in love with research.

Did this overselling discredit psychoanalysis?

I think so. And it’s a shame. There are many fantastically interesting components to it that are worthwhile. The problem of psychoanalysis is not the body of theory that Freud left behind, but the fact that it never became a medical science. It never tried to test its ideas. When you asked, “How come there are not outcome studies?” you were told, “You can’t study this. How are you going to measure it?”

In fact, there were questions it was possible to ask. For instance, under what circumstances does psychoanalysis work better than a placebo? Does it work better than other kinds of therapy? Who are the best therapists for what kinds of patients..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/science/a-quest-to-understand-how-memory-works.html?_r=1&hpw=&pagewanted=all

Teller Reveals His Secrets

3/5/12. Some mysteries of magic - revealed.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Teller-Reveals-His-Secrets.html?c=y&story=fullstory

Sunday, March 4, 2012

William Zinsser

3/4/12. The Friday writings of William Zinsser in the "American Scholar." Treat yourself to one of the best.

http://theamericanscholar.org/the-complete-zinsser-on-friday/

Book Review: "How We Age"

3/4/12.

Review - How We Age
A Doctor's Journey into the Heart of Growing Old
by Marc Agronin
Da Capo, 2010
Review by Nassir Ghaemi, MD MPH
Feb 21st 2012 (Volume 16, Issue 8)

Any man or woman in his or her mid forties, like Marc Agronin and me, will have many questions about old age. One's grandparents go, then one's aunts and uncles, and then there are one's parents. Even some friends, the same age or younger as a middle-aged proband, go. If you live through your youth, which is full of questions, you reach the middle of life, where even more questions arise. When does it ever end? What is it like to be old? And then what?

Agronin has a special perspective: he is both a middle-aged, red-blooded American male. And he is a geriatric psychiatrist. He asks these questions in his professional, as well as his personal, time.

http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=6423&cn=139

James Q. Wilson. "Angry about inequality? Don't blame the rich."

3/4/12. James Q. Wilson ---- a recent article from an intellectual giant.

"...Making the poor more economically mobile has nothing to do with taxing the rich and everything to do with finding and implementing ways to encourage parental marriage, teach the poor marketable skills and induce them to join the legitimate workforce. It is easy to suppose that raising taxes on the rich would provide more money to help the poor. But the problem facing the poor is not too little money, but too few skills and opportunities to advance themselves..."

http://www.aei.org/article/society-and-culture/poverty/angry-about-inequality-dont-blame-the-rich/

James Q. Wilson. The Moral Sense

3/4/12.

Roger Kimball on Professor Wilson's book, "The Moral Sense:"

We must be careful of what we think we are, because we may become that.
—James Q. Wilson, The Moral Sense

"Wilson, whose previous books include Thinking about Crime, Bureaucracy, and other works concerned with public policy, writes about morality as a public fact. The language of virtue and morality has had a tough time lately. 'Our reluctance to speak of morality,' he notes, 'and our suspicion, nurtured by our best minds, that we cannot ‘prove’ our moral principles has amputated our public discourse at the knees.' Consequently, part of his purpose in this book is 'to help people recover the confidence with which they once spoke about virtue and morality.' It is not, he writes,

an effort to state or justify moral rules; that is, it is not a book of philosophy. Rather, it is an effort to clarify what ordinary people mean when they speak of their moral feelings and to explain, in so far as one can, the origins of those feelings.

http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2012/03/03/james-q-wilson-1931-2012/

James Q. Wilson. Man of Reason

3/4/12.

Heather MacDonald:

"...Wilson’s Public Interest article set the pattern for his intellectual career. Over the next 45 years, Wilson would continue patiently to point out when the emperor had no clothes, to exercise skepticism toward conventional wisdom, and to derive his ground-breaking insights from a close attention to the facts on the ground..."

http://www.city-journal.org/2012/eon0304hm.html

Saturday, March 3, 2012

The Evidence on E.M.D.R.

3/3/12.

http://consults.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/the-evidence-on-e-m-d-r/?src=rechp

Friday, March 2, 2012

James Q. Wilson RIP

3/2/12. There is so much to learn from Professor Wilson. - a lived life.

http://www.artsandlettersdaily.com/

http://www.city-journal.org/

http://www.weeklystandard.com/author/harvey-mansfield

http://www.city-journal.org/2012/eon0304hm.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/nyregion/james-q-wilson-dies-at-80-originated-broken-windows-policing-strategy.html?_r=1&hpw=&pagewanted=all

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203986604577257441657700290.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203986604577257520312428352.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop

http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2012/03/james-wilson-the-architect-the-broken-window-community-policing-strategy-died-today-was/pEBmati6hZOyMd1H3tMlDI/index.html

Type James Q. Wilson into the search window of my blog --- and find nine of his recent articles.