Category: Psychology

On campaigns against disinformation

by hkatz, posted in Psychology

I appreciate that Tablet Magazine did this deep dive into government-backed initiatives against disinformation, and how they often just result in more disinformation: propaganda, a manipulation of narratives, a system ensuring that certain facts never surface and that reasonable but uncomfortable questions remain unheard and unaddressed.

One excerpt:

The first phase of the information war was marked by distinctively human displays of incompetence and brute-force intimidation. But the next stage, already underway, is being carried out through both scalable processes of artificial intelligence and algorithmic pre-censorship that are invisibly encoded into the infrastructure of the internet, where they can alter the perceptions of billions of people.

It’s important to make time to read this article and better understand the ways that technology is wielded by powerful entities (governments collaborating with huge corporations) to shape us – what we know, what we think, how we think.

Two types of AI scams

by hkatz, posted in Psychology

Artificial intelligence is a social disruptor. Although it may deliver benefits across different industries and in private life, it’s also a potential weapon, and there are already scammers taking advantage of it.

In one type of scam, criminals use AI voice-generating software to imitate your loved ones and pretend they’re in distress, maybe suffering a medical or legal emergency. Their goal is to scare you and get you to send money.

Another type of scam uses AI-generated artwork to convince you to donate to what you think is a legitimate charitable cause, like disaster relief for earthquake victims. The images stir up emotions and prompt you to act quickly. But the money just goes to scammers.

Steven Pinker’s Views on Chat GPT

by hkatz, posted in Psychology

It’s worth reading this piece in the Harvard Gazette, where Pinker gets asked if he thinks that AI is going to supplant human creative and intellectual endeavors.

Overall, he sounds pretty optimistic (though maybe he’s downplaying the shakeup that many will experience as AI advances), but I do want to highlight one part that struck true to me. He points out that one pushback against AI is the need for people to connect with people:

The demand for authenticity is even stronger for intellectual products like stories and editorials: The awareness that there’s a real human you can connect it to changes its status and its acceptability.

The Altruism of Humpback Whales

by hkatz, posted in Psychology

We share the planet with numerous creatures, and there’s a lot that we still don’t understand about them. For one example, watch this video from BBC Earth about a scientist’s unfathomable encounters with a humpback whale that saved her life.

Can You Experience Seasonal Depression in the Summer?

by hkatz, posted in Psychology

There’s a short and funny YouTube video, Finnish Seasonal Depression, that compares a Finnish man in the despairing depths of winter to what he’s like on a summer day with some rare sunshine. (Clearly there are enormous differences, like the flower tucked behind his ear. As for the beer – it’s good for any season.)

Anyway, a question came to mind when I watched it: Can people get seasonal affective disorder (SAD), or seasonal depression, during the summer?

Apparently yes, though it’s not as common (or at least not as well-documented) as winter SAD. As discussed in Psychiatry Advisor, overbearing heat and humidity may trigger the summer variation of seasonal depression, and high pollen levels may be another environmental trigger. Also, it seems as though summer SAD is more common in tropical climates.

I wasn’t aware of this at all. Aside from sensing that intense heat and protracted exposure to sunshine can make someone feel sluggish (or put them at risk of dehydration or heatstroke), I never thought of SAD as an issue in the summer. It probably almost never is in Finland.

The Limitations of Artificial Intelligence…

by hkatz, posted in Psychology

… and what they reveal about human limitations and strengths. Two quick examples:

Watch this video, which focuses on a picture book while asking important questions about how our brains work vs. how AI works. At what age will a young child understand what happened to the thieving rabbit? Can AI understand the story’s shocking conclusion?

And consider this recent article from CNET on the biases in algorithms (a topic I posted about before). People sometimes think that AI-based decisions will somehow be objective, free from biases and errors in judgment. But what data do algorithms get trained on? And who gets to say what’s a fair AI decision and what’s not?

Self-Image and Hills to Die On: Some Insights into Social Media Behaviors

by hkatz, posted in Psychology, Readings

I’m reading Influence by Robert Cialdini, and some parts of the book have been unsettling. Influence discusses strategies that are effective at changing people’s behavior and beliefs. Of course, not all techniques work on all people in all situations. But because they’re often effective enough, you’ll typically see them wielded by salespeople, political activists, cult leaders, and other folks who are deeply motivated to be persuasive.

One of the insights in the book is that people will often become the instruments of their own change. You nudge them towards a particular path, and they do the rest. Their brains begin to reinforce certain associations, build certain habits, and concoct rationalizations. People can easily overestimate how much control they have and can come to believe that an idea was their own all along.

I’ve also come across passages that provide insight into behaviors often seen on social media. The book initially came out in the 1980s, and the revised version I’m reading now was published in 2007. I think this was before the major social media sites became mainstream, so I don’t know if the author will bring them up at any point. But even though these excerpts don’t refer specifically to Twitter or Facebook, they’re still insightful about the way people often behave on those sites:

Continue reading “Self-Image and Hills to Die On: Some Insights into Social Media Behaviors” →

When Children Become Branding Tools

by hkatz, posted in Psychology

A few months ago I came across an article about a young Instagram star, only 9 years old, whose posts were suddenly deleted after evidence came out that her older brother might be feeding her lines in a video.

At the article, you can find a quote from a family spokesperson about how the child is currently undergoing “rebranding.”

Her old brand had her swearing and getting into feuds with other social media celebrities for the amusement of millions of people who don’t know her or care about her.

What does the new brand of 9-year-old look like? I didn’t check, because kids shouldn’t be undergoing “rebranding.”

Recently, an Instagram “mommy blogger” posted a picture of one of her children and lamented how he doesn’t get as many likes or comments as her other children. It was his birthday, so she urged her followers to send him “alllllll the likes,” and she sadly wondered if, when he’s older, his self-worth will suffer once he lays eyes on his Instagram stats. (Why would he be looking at these stats, though? Why should a child have to worry about this…? Why?)

On the Internet, every part of a child’s life can become part of their public persona. The camera follows these kids into all corners of their lives – as much as their parents permit, and some parents don’t seem to care at all how much gets revealed.

It’s not that child exploitation is a new thing, only that the Internet allows it to become even more pervasive and invasive. Imagine you’re a kid sitting down to eat a bowl of cereal in the morning. Without your understanding and consent, your cereal eating becomes public fodder. Strangers stare at the images and judge you, liking or withholding likes, and commenting of course (Cute hair! Aww, looks sleepy! Don’t mean to be rude, but that haircut is not flattering! Why isn’t he eating something more nutritious? Why does this kid look so grumpy?! Smile a little, come on! Awww, cute smile!)

And it doesn’t stop with cereal eating. It can be anything at any time – brushing teeth, playing on a swing set, picking clothes to wear to school, having a meltdown at a supermarket (with the right branding, the meltdown can be spun as funny).

Parents who subject their kids to this onslaught of attention may argue that they don’t actually value their kids based on likes and other social media stats. However, they’re still focused on making their family brand look as good as possible, at all times, to as many strangers as possible. The kid picks up on this, even before they understand Instagram algorithms. The mom whose son needs more birthday love (from strangers?) is troubled by her kid’s Instagram performance, even if she publicly blames herself rather than him. “My insufficiency caused this statistical deficit,” she wrote.

What she meant by ‘insufficiency’ is unclear. Did she use the wrong filters for her son’s photos? Did she fail to capture him at the best angles? Is her son going to wind up feeling guilty and inadequate as his mother sighs about social media insufficiencies?

(Oh, that dear boy. It can’t be him. It’s me! And yet… my other children perform well, so… but no, he’s a dear boy, even if he can’t keep up with the others. But what makes him less likeable?)

Moving right along… how about this dad and stepmom who received five years of probation for child neglect after posting YouTube videos of their “pranks” on their kids. Anything for likes, clicks, and subscribes, right?

A while ago I read reports of a “social credit system” China is developing to rank citizens publicly by the value they have, as measured across dimensions that include wealth and social connections. Much as we shake our heads about how dystopian it all is, hopefully something we’ll never see in the US, we’re already priming ourselves and our kids psychologically to more easily accept a society where: a) you’re monitored a lot, maybe round-the-clock b) any behavior is up for scrutiny and judgment c) records of your images, words, thoughts, and deeds, are archived and can be dug up at any time, even decades later, and d) your value is indeed measured by ‘likes.’ Here we might think of it as personal branding rather than good citizenship, but it’s a mindset where you can find no worth outside of being seen and judged favorably by other people. And it’s a mindset inculcated in people from a young age. Even when parents don’t actively push it, the culture is still steeped in these values.

On Becoming a Person, Chapter 3 – Thriving in a Healthy Helping Relationship

by hkatz, posted in Psychology, Readings

In the third chapter of his book, On Becoming a Person, Carl Rogers talks about some of the qualities of a healthy helping relationship. Although his focus is on therapists and patients, he also notes how these qualities could apply to other relationships, such as parent-child or teacher-student. Here are some:

1) A sincere desire to understand the other person. This doesn’t mean saying “I understand what’s wrong with you and now I’ll fix you” or “I understand what’s wrong with you because I had a similar experience and this is how I felt about it” or “I understand all right, but your concerns aren’t serious.” It’s important to try to see an issue as the other person sees it, not how you see it. Even if you don’t always succeed in understanding, people at least pick up on the sincere effort.

2) Genuineness. This isn’t license to be rude and insulting (for instance, there are ways of expressing anger that don’t involve humiliating another person; and I’m making this point from the start because I know people who are brutally hurtful, then claim it’s ok because they’re just being themselves).

With genuineness, you aren’t constantly giving off conflicting messages – ‘nicey nice’ words with anger in your eyes, a compliment spoken in indifference, contempt or resentment – as these generate mistrust. You’re aware of your thoughts and feelings, and aren’t always compelled to put on a show in front of everyone. To be more genuine requires self-acceptance; you’re willing to take the risk of being more exposed. You do not need to appear ‘perfect’ and express the ‘perfect’ sentiment at all times. Self-acceptance also means that you have less fear of others and what kinds of reactions they might provoke in you; you’re more accepting of their presence as well, and less defensive about what they say or do.

3) Allowing yourself to feel warmth and caring. You can care about the other person, while knowing full well that there’s always the possibility that they’ll flake out on you, try to take advantage of your good will, make terrible mistakes, stab you in the back, or disappoint you. The alternative is to remain cold or completely impersonal, which usually closes off communication in these kinds of relationships (though it does give you the sense that you’re protecting yourself).

4) Reminding yourself that you’re distinct from the other person. Do you fear losing yourself in their emotions? On the flip side, are you trying to control them, needing them to slavishly follow what you say or be dependent on you? You really have to respect that the other person is distinct and separate from you, and you from them.

5) Unconditional acceptance. Acceptance doesn’t mean you’re automatically condoning everything the other person does. It means that you keep regarding them as they are, instead of completely spurning them or twisting their words and behaviors to be more palatable to you. Or can you really only see the other person when they show you the kinds of things that are easiest and least disturbing for you to see?

6) The ability to create an unthreatening environment. Are you subjecting the other person to the threat of constant evaluation and judgment? Do they always feel as if they’re trying to prove themselves and are falling short? Or are you helping them establish their own standards of behavior, their own sense of what’s acceptable or not, and helping them take responsibility for themselves without the constant need of a punishment or harsh judgment hanging over their heads?

7) Perceiving the other person as constantly developing. Instead of seeing them purely bound to their past and what they’ve always been to you (often in unforgiving terms: an ignorant student, an immature child, a neurotic mess, etc.) you see them in the process of becoming, of daily changes and development.

Most of the time what blocks us from developing these qualities to any extent is fear – of being hurt and exposed, of being wrong. Another pitfall is all-or-nothing thinking: “I fail to be genuine all of the time, so I won’t bother.” Then there’s mental laziness, which can lead us to taking shortcuts in understanding and helping another person. The take home point is that to be in a position to consistently help others, you need to work on your own psychological maturity – so as not to use other people and their problems for your own purposes, and obscure them in a dense cloud of your own thoughts and feelings.

Researching the Long-Term Damage of Romanian Orphanages

by hkatz, posted in Neuroscience, Psychology, Research

Read this excellent article that looks into the ethics of researching cognitive and neural development in Romanian children who live in orphanages. Even when adequate food, shelter, and medical care are provided, the children suffer from neglect; from a young age, they don’t interact much with caretakers, which stunts their development.

What practical benefit will this research have for the kids? Will the research itself be enough to change state policies? What is the research telling us that’s new? We already understand that growing up in these orphanages increase the chances of hurting cognition, emotional development, and other aspects of psychological health. What benefit will it bring to science, and to the kids, to investigate the effects on their brain, which includes decreased white matter?