​You May Also Like: Taste in an Age of Endless Choice
Author:  Tom Vanderbilt
ISBN:  978-0-307-93859-5
 
APA Style Citation
Vanderbilt, T. (2016).  You may also like:  Taste in an age of endless choice. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
 
Buy This Book here:
https://www.amazon.com/You-May-Also-Like-Endless/dp/0307948595
 
Book Description
Tom Vanderbilt explores why we like what we like. This seems fairly straight forward, we have an experience, we determine how we feel about that experience and then assess that experience.  We tend to believe that our preference leads us to a choice, but Vanderbilt sites economists who argue that this can also work in reverse and that our choices can lead to preferences.  For example, once we have paid $200 for concert tickets, we are more likely to report liking that concert than if we saw the same concert for free.  Effort justification is one component of liking, it occurs when the more effort we put into something is indicative of liking that experience more.  Vanderbilt explores many more of the components that make up liking and reveals that we often fool ourselves into believing that we have total control over what we like and that we are not influenced by outside sources.
 
Preference for colors may be one of the earliest likes we verbalize, however, it may be the association of colors that feed our preferences rather than the color itself.  Young girls may describe a preference for pink not because of some natural inclination but rather because the marketing of toys that they enjoy are often pink.  Pinkaliciousis a cartoon character intended to appeal to young girls, liking the character may also increase liking of the color. We may demonstrate a preference for our own school colors without realizing that we are demonstrating a preference for colors that have brought some positive outcome or feeling in the past. 
 
Our preferences for taste may in part have a biological basis, we are quicker to articulate what we do not like rather than what we like. Evolutionary psychologists suggest that we have a natural inclination to dislike bitter tastes.  Try to recall your first taste of coffee, you likely cut the bitterness with milk or sugar, but over time you may have come to enjoy and even crave this taste, thus bypassing your natural preferences.  The taste for sweet conversely is prewired and desirable as highly caloric foods may have served the function of providing calories and energy.  Provide a young child with a taste of bitter chocolate or sweet candy and the preference will be easily displayed.  Humans naturally are “neophobic” or hesitant to try new foods, this may be because we do not know what new foods contain and are not certain that they are safe. Think of the first time you have tried a new food, chances are you did not immediately fall in love.  Vanderbilt argues that the mere exposure effect has a dramatic influence on what we like or do not like.  We tend not to like what is new or different, this applies to tastes, or music or fashion rather, the more we are exposed to something, the more we tend to like it.  Once we try that new food, song, or style over and over again, it becomes familiar which often leads to liking.  However, this liking is not completely objective, we now have an expectation of what a certain food will taste like or what a certain genre of music should sound like and we compare it to past experiences.  
 
This top-down processing allows us to place our experiences into context by comparing them to similar experiences in the past.  If you loved classic 1960s rock music and then heard the punk music of the 1970s you may have initially been horrified, but after listening over and over again you may find you prefer this to classic rock.  Just seeing a new food or knowing your favorite band has a new album creates an expectation before the sensory experiences even begins.  While we attribute our preference to bottom-up processing, our preferences are driven by our expectations as much as by our sensory receptors.  We also like choice, just by having items on a menu or a playlist to select from makes us enjoy our choice more that if this is out of our control.  If you go to The Cheesecake Factoryand are presented with a menu that spans seven pages, you may still choose the same item or few items each time you dine, but the illusion of choice increases your liking for what you have selected.  
 
Marketers make a living from studying people`s preferences and may know what we like, or dislike better than we do.  We are not always honest in reporting what we like because we want to portray ourselves in a positive light.  Organizations like Netflix know this, so you might report that you love watching historical documentaries, but the recommendation Netflix is making for you is a silly romantic comedy.  What people say they like and what they actually watch are not the same.  Todd Yellin, Netflix vice president for product innovation says, “You might giveHotel Rwandafive stars and two stars to Captain America, but you are much more likely to watch Captain America.”  We also don`t necessarily show consistency over what we like, as people rate the same movie differently after multiple viewings.  Context, mood, setting, and who you watch a movie with have a tremendous impact on your preference for that film, food, person, artwork, etc.  
 
Experts no longer have the same sway as before in terms of creating our sense of liking.  With social media sites anyone can become an expert and the opinions of lay people and experts vary greatly.  Those who rate hotels or restaurants, tend to come from a bimodal population, they either had a great experience or a horrible experience and can easily share this online.  When we see positive reviews, we are more likely to follow suit or adjust our opinion in a positive direction.  When the first comments are negative, the next comments seem to also follow suit. However, this can backfire; books that have received literary awards actually are rated lower after they receive the rewards.  Presumably this occurs because sales increase after the award causing people who would not normally purchase the book to buy a book that might not suit their particular preferences.  It may also set up an unrealistic expectation that the book will be life changing and it may not live up to the hype.  Too many reviews online are like too many choices, even if a book or a hotel has 4,000 reviews you cannot reasonably take in and assess all of that information, so you will read a few reviews and make a decision from there. 
 
Everyone wants to feel that we are unique in our likes or dislikes, so we reject the idea that we are conforming to a norm, we feel silly when we wear the same shorts as someone else to work or wear the same prom dress, which we think perfectly suits our personality.  Solomon Asch clearly demonstrated our tendency to conform to others in his historic line study, but just as the participants in his study stated that they believed they provided the correct responses, we also believe that we set our own trends and do not give into the pressure of conformity.  We conform to the preferences of our friends and fashion and we tend to like those who share our preferences.  
 
Each of these factors contribute to the vast lists of likes and dislikes we experience each day. Knowing these factors can allow us to realize that preferences are more subjective and less personal than we might like to believe.  Knowing how are preferences are shaped can help marketers or advertisers, or those social media influencers shape our likes and dislikes.  Vanderbilt`s research demonstrates that, “we really can account for taste.” 
 
 

​Other Related Resources
Video description of book in discussion with Tom Vanderbilt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9rRDhE409Q
 
Tom Vanderbilt Website Featuring You May Also Like
http://tomvanderbilt.com/books/you-may-also-like/
 
Talks at Google:  Interview with Tom Vanderbilt
https://talksat.withgoogle.com/talk/you-may-also-like
 
Social Psych online:  The Mere Exposure Effect
http://socialpsychonline.com/2016/03/the-mere-exposure-effect/
 
Video on Mere Exposure Effect from Easy A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9MvUdR6j3w
 
The Guardian:  Advertising and Controlling our thoughts
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/31/advertising-academia-controlling-thoughts-universities
 
 
Psychological Figures and Concepts
Solomon Asch
John Dewey
Hans Eysenck
Gustav Fechner
Eric Kandel
John Locke
Konrad Lorenz
Stanley Milgram
Amos Tversky
Robert Zajonc
 
Alzheimer`s Disease
Assimilation
Amygdala
Assimilation
Bimodal Distribution
Bottom-Up Processing
Cognitive Dissonance
Critical Period
Dual Processing
Effort Justification
Factor Analysis
False Consensus Effect
Foveal Vision
Fronto-temporal Dementia
Gestalt
Habituation
Heuristics
Idealized Self
Inter-Rater Reliability
Mere Exposure Effect
Modeling
Necker Cube
Neuropsychology
Pavlovian Conditioning
Priming
Prototype
Psychophysics
Regression to the Mean
Repressed Memories
Snowball Effect
Social Influence Bias
Social Learning
Top-Down Processing
 

​Factfulness:  Ten Reasons We`re Wrong About the World-and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
Author:  Hans Rosling
ISBN:  978-147-363-7467
 
APA Style Citation  
Rosling, H. (2018).  Factfulness: ten reasons we`re wrong about the world-and why things are better than you think.  Flatiron books.
 
Buy This Book  
https://www.amazon.com/Factfulness-Reasons-Wrong-Things-Better/dp/1473637465. 

​Book Description  
Factfulnessis Hans Rosling’s last effort to dissolve misconceptions about the current state of the world using data to demonstrate how confirmation bias, expectations, media, and ethnocentrism can blind us to the realities of the world in which we live. Before you continue reading, move to the activity for Factfulness and take the 12-question quiz.  Once you are done and have checked your results, come back and read more about the results of others who took the quiz and how Rosling uses data to demonstrate how conditions around the world continue to improve and how we often fool ourselves into thinking that things are worse than they actually are.
 
In 2017, Rosling asked nearly 12,000 people in 14 countries to answer the questions in the quiz.  He also asked chimps to answer the questions, and the chimps chose correctly 1/3rd of the time earning an average of 4 correct which is what we would expect from blind guessing.  College-educated adult humans from all over the globe faired far worse.  People on average scored 2 of the 12 questions correct. Not a single person got all of the questions correct, one person in Sweden earned 11 of the 12 correct, and 15% of respondents did not get a single question correct.  The educational level, age career, or political affiliation of the audience did not seem to matter.  Even the experts at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland did worse than the chimps.  
 
The reality is that the world has been steadily improving and while this improvement still needs to continue, we are inundated with images of poverty, disease and other sensationalist stories which often focus on the negative.  Much of this recent change for the better has been happening in Asia and Africa.  Those in Europe and the United States often do not see those changes and make negative assumptions about other parts of the world about which they have little data.  Rosling wants to help people understand these changes to better understand the current state of the world.  Students of psychology are often hesitant to learn about research and statistics, however, one of the most important lessons students of science can learn is that they should let the data lead them to a conclusion, not their intuition. Researchers should look for reasons to reject what they believe, rather than looking for support for preexisting presumptions.  Rosling describes data as therapy, which can confirm or in many cases disconfirm what we think we know.  When we have the facts, we can adjust our thinking to align with reality.
 
Rosling demonstrates how much the world has changed in his lifetime, and he describes how his grandmother spent many days doing laundry on a washboard.  His mother got a machine washer, and instead of doing laundry in the afternoon, she took Hans to the library.  Hans credits the washing machine to his interest and ability to spend time reading and pursuing academics.  These changes are not limited to wealthy countries which Rosling describes as level 4 countries(wealthy and healthy countries).  As an example, in Saudi Arabia in 1960, 242 babies out of every 1,000 died before their fifth birthday.  Today, that number is 35.  In Malaysia, the number was 93 in 1960 and is 14 today.  Europeans and Americans tend to look at the world using what Rosling refers to as the gap instinct, in their mind, they split the world into two groups of countries, rich or poor and assume that there are massive differences in the way people live in these countries.  
 
The reality is that most people today live in middle-income countries and have lives that have improved dramatically in the past few decades. Some of these changes include significantly increasing access to electricity, refrigeration, and mechanisms for cooking or heating food.  Rosling also explains the problem with using the terms “developing” and “developed” to describe countries around the world.  Eighty five percent of people living on the planet would fall into the bucket for the “developed” world.  Only 13 countries would fall in the “developing” world (representing 6% of the population), and all others would be in-between.  In the past 20 years, 29% of the world population lived in extreme poverty, today that number is 9%.  Billions of people have moved from levels 1 to levels 2 and 3, but often the media focuses on the worst stories distorting the reality of this improving situation. Rosling provides data for other phenomena that are improving, but from listening to the news, it would be difficult to identify this positive trend.  The death penalty, battle deaths, oil spills, legal slavery, child labor, smallpox and deaths from disasters have all been dramatically decreasing over the past 30 years. Rosling acknowledges that even one hungry child is a problem that needs to be addressed but we also need to understand that as a whole things are getting better.
 
Rosling describes an instance as a young doctor when he believed a Russian pilot with an expensive jumpsuit had just come into the emergency room and was bleeding profusely.  He was about to cut off the jumpsuit when the head nurse came in, and she explained that this was a Swedish pilot in shock which was why he could not speak properly and Rosling was standing on the ink cartridge from the life jacket he was wearing, making the entire floor red.  The jumpsuit Rosling was about the cut unnecessarily cut off, cost tens of thousands of dollars.  Rosling uses this story to explain how the fear instinct can make us jump to erroneous conclusions.  Critical thinking is almost always difficult, but it becomes even more so when we are afraid. The media feeds on this fear instinct by reporting on stories that will catch our attention even if these reports do not represent the trends in behavior.  Psychologists know this as the availability heuristic.  In 2016, 40 million commercial passenger flights landed safely at their destinations, we heard about the ten that did not.
 
Terrorism is a concern for those all over the world, despite media coverage, acts of terrorism are on the decline.  For those in level 4, from 2007-2016 a total of 1,439 people were killed by terrorists, during the ten years before that 4,358 people were killed. This includes the 9-11 attacks that killed 2,996 people.  In the past 20 years in the United States, an average of 159 people were killed by terrorists each year.  Alcohol, on the other hand, killed 69,000 people per year during the same time period. The chances that someone in the United States will be killed by a drunk driver is 50 times higher than being killed by a terrorist.  Frightening and dangerous are not necessarily the same.  
 
Rosling talks about the time he spent in a rural African district with an extraordinarily high childhood death rate.  He explained that as the only doctor in the district he could not spend hours saving the life of a child who came to the hospital because he could save far more lives by vaccinating hundreds of children in the same amount of time decrease the likelihood that they got sick.  While this may seem cruel, in reality, it is far more humane.  We hear about shark attacks and bear attacks that happened once in a rare while, but rarely hear about cases of domestic abuse which are far more fatal, in Sweden this occurs once every 30 days.  Rosling likens relying on the media to form your worldview to looking at a picture of his foot to get an idea of what he looks like.  It gives you part of the story, but it is certainly not complete.
 
While Hans uses data to bring people`s thinking in line with reality, he also emphasizes the human factor to his work.  His hypothesis and questions come from talking to others and in his openness for data to be interpreted differently.  At a conference on climate change, a European leader discussed the rapid growth in the use of fuels by India and China and indicated that they were going to have to find a way to slow down this use.  When he had finished speaking, the representative from India indicated that it was not only India and China that would need to change.  He argued that they were using more fuels because there were far more people living there and that usage should be considered on a per capita basis not country by country.  Those is the West had been using massive amounts of fuels for decades and are often unwilling to change any of their own behaviors.  These individuals had the same data but a very different interpretation of what that data meant and how to move forward. Rosling indicates that the world cannot be understood without numbers, but we cannot understand the world through numbers alone.  Rosling nearly finished Factfulnessbefore his death (his daughter and son-in-law also contributed much to the book and completed the project after Rosling`s death).  Rosling leaves a legacy of service to public health and the desire to improve the lives of people all over the world while simultaneously informing us about those factors that are improving and those that needed direct attention, for this we should be eternally thankful.
 
Other Related Resources
https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$chart-type=bubbles
All data in the book (as well as much more) can be found on this website.  The data can be manipulated by country and is quite interactive.  There are handouts, posters, complete lesson plans and great information related to health, lifespan, disease prevention and much more.
 
Hans Rosling TED Talk:  How not to be ignorant about the world
https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_and_ola_rosling_how_not_to_be_ignorant_about_the_world
 
Hans Rosling TED Talk:  The best stats you`ve ever seen
https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen?language=en
 
Hans Rosling Obituary
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/feb/07/hans-rosling-obituary
 
Psychological Figures and Concepts
Availability heuristic
Descriptive statistics
Hypothesis testing
Inferential statistics
Muller-Lyer Illusion
Multi-factorial causation
 

Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence--and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process
Author:  Irene Pepperberg
ISBN-10: 0061673986
ISBN-13: 978-0061673986

APA Style Citation
Pepperberg, I. (2009).  Alex & Me: How a scientists and a parrot discovered a hidden world of animal intelligence—and formed a deep bond in the process. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.
 
Buy This Book
https://www.amazon.com/Alex-Me-Scientist-Discovered-Intelligence/dp/006167398

​Book Description
Do birds have language or is the story of Alex & Me for the birds? The studies of Dr. Irene Pepperberg revolutionized the way we think of bird brains. She worked with an African Grey parrot named Alex for over three decades as she tested his verbal, mathematical, and cognitive abilities. The book starts with the public acknowledgement of his death in 2007. For example, Diane Sawyer did a 2.5 minutes segment on ABC’s Good Morning America. She commented “And now I have a kind of obituary and I want to inform the next of kin about a death in the family. And, yes, the next of kin would be all of us.” A website was setup for condolences and many cards were received. One card came from Penny Patterson and friends, owner of the famous Koko gorilla who used sign language to communicate with humans. “Koko sends a message with the color of healing. Please know you are all in our thoughts and prayers- Alex’s passing is a great loss to all.” Below Penny’s words was an orange squiggle, done by Koko himself. Then the story rewinds back to Dr. Pepperberg as a child receiving her first bird as a present and winds through the trials and tribulations of her career as she explores animal thinking.
 
Dr. Pepperberg’s love for birds started as a young child. She grew up as an only child with a distant mother and didn’t really fit in with her peers. With a surprise gift of a parakeet for her fourth birthday and exposure to Dr. Doolittle, her journey working with birds started. Rather than taking the traditional route of studying biology, she fell in love with the periodic table of elements and followed the path of chemistry. At 16 years-old she headed off to MIT to study chemistry, but birds remained an important part of her life. After getting married and losing her home to a fire, Pepperberg was exposed to PBS’s NOVA television series, which was devoted to science and nature. Her passion for animals was reignited and she cast chemistry aside.  Quickly, she became engrossed in bird behavior, child cognition, and language. At this time scientists believed animals were robotic automations who mindlessly responded to stimuli in their environment. However, new science was changing this view and Dr. Pepperberg wanted to be involved in this revolution.
 
In 1977, Pepperberg and her husband moved to Indiana where she spent seven years at Purdue University. Shortly after arriving she selected her first African Grey parrot from a Chicago pet store. It did not start well because Alex was uneasy and scared of his new environment, but within a few days they became more familiar with each other. He came out of his cage and would perch on her arm. Dr. Pepperberg called him Alex, which was short for Project ALEX: Avian Language Experiment. Soon after she switched it to Avian Learning Experiment and planned to develop parrot-human communication using labels, as was being done with apes.  She gave Alex objects, such as paper and pieces of wood, to explore his preferences. She also used a modified form of training based on social context. Two trainers would take turns asking each other about an object’s label, with Alex observing. At the time operant conditioning was the preferred method of training. Dr. Pepperberg applied for a National Institute of Mental Health grant with the desire to replicate in a Grey parrot the linguistic and cognitive skills that has been previously achieved with chimps. The NIMH proposal was approved but no money was available to fund it. Dr. Pepperberg refused to give up.
 
Alex progressed quickly, within a year he had 80% accuracy in labeling seven objects and was beginning to learn his colors. He could also identify 3-corner pieces and 4-corner pieces of wood. Dr. Pepperberg tried to have her studies published in both American and British journals, but there was no significant interest. At this time the field of animal thinking was being questioned.  These attacks on the field only caused Dr. Pepperberg to continue her rigorous training in testing her Grey parrots. She came from the hard sciences and wanted to have scientific proof of her theories. She insisted on repetitive trials before she could say with statistical confidence that Alex had cognitive ability.  Empirical results with animal studies were necessary to avoid a “Clever Hans” situation, where researcher bias influenced the results. Check out the book review "The Horse That Won’t Go Away: Clever Hans, Facilitated Communication, and the Need for Clear Thinking.” (https://booksforpsychologyclass.weebly.com/blog/the-horse-that-wont-go-away-clever-hans-facilitated-communication-and-the-need-for-clear-thinking).
 
Dr. Pepperberg was able to live off meager National Science Foundation grants. By 1981, Alex started to get public attention and continued to advance at an astounding rate. He could understand the concept of color and shape as categories that contained labels. He learned to use “I’m sorry” in an upsetting moment. Alex continued to advance and soon he combined parts of words to make a new word. For example, he called an apple a “bannerry;” banana + cherry = banerry.  He also became bored easily. When asked about the color of an object, he would sometimes give every color he knew, skipping only the correct color. While his sense of humor was not science, it was telling. Something was going on in his little bird brain. He knew what he was saying, and his comprehension was equal to chimpanzees and dolphins. His next challenge was to determine if objects were the same or different. It took months to train him, but he was correct 75% of the time when asked about the same “shape” or “color.” When novel objects were presented, such as a color he could not label, he was correct 85% of the time. He had outwitted chimps, by not only identifying if two objects were similar or not, but by verbalizing how they were the same or different in color, shape, or material.
 
In 1991, Dr. Pepperberg’s position at Northwestern came to a close, and her marriage fell apart. She was not taken seriously as a female scientist, and she struggled to gain employment. Alex got a fungal infection in his chest cavity and lungs. He was very sick and had to have surgery. It took over a year for him to recover and the whole ordeal was quite taxing physically and emotionally on Dr. Pepperberg. Finally, she decided to take a position in Tucson, Arizona and moved with Alex alone to the southwest.
 
In Arizona, Pepperberg continued her work with Grey parrots. She expanded her studies with two more Greys- Alo and Kyaaro (Kyo) and created a culture balanced with playfulness and careful scientific study. In 1991, she established the Alex Foundation to raise money to support and spread the word of her work. Alex participated in a study on recognizing and understanding Arabic numbers.  His vocalizations sounded like English, but did they have similar acoustic properties?  Sonograms proved that his vocalizations looked identical to human speech.  In 1995, Alo was sent to live with a friend, and Dr. Pepperberg got a new 7.5-week-old Grey parrot, which she named Griffin. Greys are territorial, and Alex did not take well to the new parrot. Alex was the boss of the lab and filled with entitlement.  His perch always had to be higher, and he needed attention first or he would not work for the day. Dr. Pepperberg would often take Alex home, but in 1998 he saw western screech owls building a nest outside her window and wanted to leave. She pulled the drapes, still he cried “Wanna go back…wanna go back.” This was a perfect example to demonstrate that Alex had mastered the concept of object permanence.
 
As Alex gained public exposure, he stirred jealousy amongst Dr. Pepperberg’s colleagues. This combined with other circumstance no longer made Tucson a good fit. When Pepperberg was asked to give a lecture on Alex at MIT’s Media Lab, she accepted a position and left Alex behind in Arizona for one year. It was here that her creative side was allowed to blossom. She worked on an electronic bird sitter, a smart nest that tracked Greys in Africa, and a system that enriched parrot’s vocab and worked with autistic children. It was at MIT that she got Wart, a 1-year-old Grey. In 2000, she taped another episode of Scientific American Frontiers, called Pet Tech, with Alan Alda.  Alex was also being trained to sound out phonemes with colored plastic refrigerator letters. During one interview he would answer her questions, but then demanded a nut. Suddenly he said, “Want a nut…nnn…uh…tuh.” He leaped beyond the expected results of his training and was able to demand a nut while using phonemes. Dr. Pepperberg received a five-year renewable contract as a research scientist at Media Lab and she left her tenured job in Arizona. Only three months later, in mid-2001, she and 30 others were let go. Without a lab, her parrots had to move in with friends for the next five months. Alex and Griffin became subdued at this time.
 
Dr. Pepperberg ended up receiving a position at Brandeis University in Boston. It was challenging at first, but she enlisted Alex as Griffin’s trainer and soon her work was back on track. By 2003, Alex knew numbers 1-6. He had a concept of zero and soon after was learning addition. Over the next six months, his addition accuracy was 85%, and he was on par with small children and chimpanzees. When presented with a green Arabic numeral 5 next to three blue wooden blocks and asked which color is bigger, he replied “green” showcasing his ability to judge the question according to number. Chimps cannot do this without extensive training. He was also tested on the Muller-Lyer illusion, and he fell for the optical illusion in a similar way as humans. In 2005, Dr. Pepperberg moved on to Harvard.
 
On September 5, 2007, Alex bid Dr. Pepperberg goodnight with, “You be good, I love you.” Pepperberg answered, “I love you, too.” Alex followed with, “You’ll be in tomorrow?” Dr. Pepperberg responded, “Yes, I’ll be in tomorrow.” This was their usual evening exchange. The next morning Dr. Pepperberg received the alarming email that he had passed away in the evening, 20 years before his expected life expectancy. Dr. Pepperberg believes the greatest lesson Alex taught her was patience. But the greatest lesson to be learned was that animal minds are more like human minds than was once believed.  Any animal limitation thrown at Alex, he was able to accomplish. If only his life did not come to an abrupt halt, he may have accomplished so much more.
 
Other Related Resources
Alex Foundation
https://alexfoundation.org/
 
How Irene Pepperberg Revolutionized Our Understanding of Bird Intelligence
https://www.audubon.org/news/how-irene-pepperberg-revolutionized-our-understanding-bird-intelligence
 
NY Times- Alex’s Death
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/science/10cnd-parrot.html
 
NY Times- “Brainy Parrot Dies, Emotive to the End”
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/science/11parrot.html?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=418229D220C538443336F917ABCAFDE5&gwt=pay
 
NPR- Alex’s Death
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14293868
 
NY Times- “Alex the Parrot”
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/opinion/12wed4.html?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=B20EDBF8BC268546B6755365A542F53F&gwt=pay&assetType=opinion
 
NY Times- “Alex Wanted a Cracker, but Did He Want One?”
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/weekinreview/16john.html
 
Economist- “Alex the African Grey”
https://www.economist.com/obituary/2007/09/20/alex-the-african-Grey
 
Alex the Parrots’ Final Experiment
https://www.aaas.org/alex-parrots-final-experiment
 
Alex the Parrot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXoTaZotdHg
 
Psychological Figures and Concepts 
Aristotle
Nim Chimpsky
Noam Chompsky
Charles Darwin
Allen and Beatrice Gardner
Jane Goodall
Clever Hans
Koko
Konrad Lorenz
Jean Piaget
David Premack
Washoe
 
Animal cognition
Animal subjects
Assimilate
Autism
Babbling
Behaviorism
Biology
Birds
Chimps
Cortex
Empathy
Innate
Language
Mirror tests
Muller-Lyer illusion
Object permanence
Operant conditioning
Optical illusions
Phonemes
Psychotic
Second-language acquisition
Statistical sample
Visual perception

Crazy in America:  The Hidden Tragedy of OurCriminalized Mentally Ill
Author:  Mary Beth Pfeiffer
ISBN:  978-0-78671-745-3
 
APA Style Citation
Pfeiffer, M. (2007).  Crazy in America:  The Hidden Tragedy of OurCriminalized Mentally Ill.  Carroll and Graf Publishers, N.Y., New York.
 
Buy This Book
https://www.amazon.com/Crazy-America-Tragedy-Criminalized-Mentally/dp/0786717459
​

​Summary of Book
Shayne Eggan was a beautiful girl with a charismatic personality who took after her dynamic and free-spirited Greek mother.  She had a normal and happy life until her mid-teens when she began to respond to the overtures of boys and older men and started to express the belief that others could “read her mind.”  Shayne was hospitalizedfor these delusions and her strange Indian themed hallucinations.  She became a ward of the state of Iowa because her parents` minimal means could not pay for her continued hospitalization and she was determined to have paranoid schizophrenic tendencies which could cause her to become violent.  Shayne believed she was an Indian princess.  She became obsessed with an older Indian man and continued to write to him and believe they would be together long after he was married and had children.  Shayne often became violent, first with her family, and then with others.  She expressed that, “I get so scared that people are going to hurt me, that I have to hurt them first.” During one such psychotic episode, the police were called,andshe lunged at a police officer with a knife because she thought he was going to hurt her.  She was arrested and thus began Shayne`s life in the criminal justice system.  Shayne had a baby in prison who was immediately removed from her care because it was claimedthat Shayne expressed a desire to kill him, which she denied.  Shayne would be releasedafter serving a term but within a few days would often wind up back in prison because her delusions caused her to break into someone`s home, or act out violently when she felt she was being threatened.  Because of her record, instead of a warning or probation, she would wind up back in prison. Once in prison, she could not abide by the strict rules of the institution which would result in an extended sentence or time in solitary confinement, which often made her delusions worse.  The local mental health care facility was not an option because the facility which had housed 1,800 people in the 1940s, housed only 95 patients in the 1990s. From 1995 to 2000, Iowa went from having 204 beds for every 100,000 people to having six
 
Shayne needed immediateintervention and could not wait years for treatment.  She attempted to treat her delusions and hallucinations with drugs, which often exacerbated the problems.  In solitary confinement, Shayne`s delusions became so intense that she dug her owneye out, she explained that this made her feel good.  While prison officials panicked, Shayne played with her hanging eye, and was eventually handcuffed to restrict this behavior.  Later, during another stint in solitary, Shayne attempted to chew off her pinky and lost four teeth in the process.  
 
Shayne is not alone in suffering from her mental illness while incarcerated.  Of the 2.2 million people in American jails in 1999, roughly 330,000 were mentally ill. In 2005 estimates were that 34% of those in prisons were mentally ill.  By 2006, Shayne was one of the lucky ones as she was able to procure a bed at the mental health institute in Independence, Iowa.  By that time, Shayne had lost her second eye in much the same way as her first and was completely blind.  While she is not curedtoday, her symptoms seem more under control, although she still has not accepted her diagnosis. 
 
Shayne’s story is typical of hundreds of thousands of Americans dealing with a criminal justice system that does not allow for the different and often “belligerent” behavior of some individuals withmental illness.  These individuals often have no place to go and as a result of their illness wind up in prison where treatment is lacking if there is any treatment at all.  While Shayne eventually received the treatment she so desperately needed, many others are not so lucky.  
 
In another case study described in the book, Luke Ashely who suffered from debilitating anxiety and schizophrenia self-medicated with drugs.  He was initially arrestedfor possession of two pills of ecstasy.  Eventually, after begging his mother to come and get him out of prison somehow, he hanged himself in his cell as the stress and anxiety of prison was simply too much for him to take.  
 
In another tragic case depicted in the book, Alan Houseman wandered the streets of his Tampa neighborhood where he was recognizedas odd but not dangerous.  He lived with his mother, andafter her death,his paranoia became increasingly more intense.  He would eventually lose his life after being shot by a police officer who confronted him as he urinated in a public parking lot.  His paranoia of law enforcement caused him to ignore orders from the officer, andwhile he attempted to flee (because he believed she was there to take him to a mental health care facility),he was shotmultiple times.  In yet another case, Peter Nadir who was extremely autistic got into a physical altercation with his disabledmother.  Concerned neighbors called the police,andin the pursuit of Peter who would not abide by officers` request,Peter died of asphyxiation.  A police officer who was trying to get Peter under control, was kneeling on his back but also cutting off his ability to breathe.
 
Between 2000 and 2006, 24 people were killed by police officers in the Tampa Bay area alone.  Most investigations into the deaths of these individuals resulted in the exoneration of police officers, most of whom have not been trainedin dealing with the mentally ill.  In 2002, in Florida jails, 23 percent of inmates had a mentalillness, which is three times the figure from 1992.  Florida, like many other states, hasessentially replaced state psychiatric hospitals with state and local correctional institutions.  America`s prison system had the world’s highest per capitaincarceration rate in 2005; 714 per 100,000 people.  In the U.S., 60 billion dollars was spent on prisons while a fraction of that was spenton the proactive treatment of the mentally ill.  In 1980, 57% of people incarcerated in New York had gone to prison for violent offenses.  By 2002, that number was down to 29%.  Many mentally ill individuals attempt to self-medicate by using illicit drugs and because of “get tough”laws on drug crimes many of these individuals find themselves in prison and unable to manage day-to-day prison life because their illness makes it difficult to abide by the strict rules of the system.  Thisoften results in increased sentences because of misbehavior or time in solitary, which often makes the psychotic symptoms worse. While the history of treatment for the mentally ill in America has certainly been far from perfect, we appear to have moved away from a structured and helpful treatment.  
 
Proactive efforts to treat the mentally ill would allow many to lead healthy and productive lives before the symptoms get out of control.  Law enforcement agents need to be trainedon how to deal with mentally ill individuals who may feel threatened or act violently because of their illness.  Community programs are necessary to reintegrate or keep those suffering from mental illness in the community that may mean helping with simple tasks such as paying bills and supporting the individualswith empathy and understanding.  Despite some progress, mental illness still carries a stigma, andmany of those suffering are forced to live on the fringes of society.  America has done little to assist this population, andthe impact has been profound.
 
Other Related Resources
 
Stigma in a Global Context:  Mental Health Study Indiana University 
http://www.indiana.edu/~sgcmhs/
 
The Atlantic: Should the United States Bring Back Psychiatric Asylums?  
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/should-the-us-bring-back-psychiatric-asylums/384838/  
 
John Oliver Last Week Tonight on Mental Health 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGY6DqB1HX8  
 
National Bureau of Economic Research:  Mental Health Treatment and Criminal Justice Outcomes by Richard Frank and Thomas G. McGuire April 2010 
http://www.nber.org/papers/w15858.pdf
 
PEW Charitable Trusts:  Prison Health Care:  Costs and Quality:  How and Why States strive for high-performing systems October 2017
https://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/assets/2017/10/sfh_prison_health_care_costs_and_quality_final.pdf
 
National Public Radio:  How the Loss of U.S. Psychiatric Hospitals led to a Mental Health Crisis
https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/567477160/how-the-loss-of-u-s-psychiatric-hospitals-led-to-a-mental-health-crisis?t=1537124105158
 
Technology and the Future of Mental Health Treatment:  National Institute of Mental Health
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/technology-and-the-future-of-mental-health-treatment/index.shtml  
 
Five-point Plan to Improve the Nations Mental Health
https://blog.samhsa.gov/2015/02/18/five-point-plan-to-improve-the-nations-mental-health/#.W56kTS2B36A  
 
 
Psychological Figures and Concepts 
Anxiety Disorder
Autism
Delusion
Haldol
Paranoid Schizophrenia
Prolixin
Schizoaffective Disorder
 
 

If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating
Author: Alan Alda
ISBN-10: 1524781924
ISBN-13: 978-1524781927
 
APA Style Citation
Alda, A. (2017). If I understood you, would I have this look on my face? My adventures in the art and science of relating and communicating. New York, NY: Random House LLC.
 
Buy This Book
https://www.amazon.com/Understood-Would-Have-This-Look/dp/1524781924
​

​Book Description
What is the key to communication? Alan Alda, author of the book If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating, believes it is empathy and recognizing what the other person is thinking. He is an actor, writer, and director. Some may know him from his role on the TV show M*A*S*H and various movie appearances. Others know him within the scientific community as host of the PBS show Scientific American Frontiers and founder of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University.  Recently, he has also been thrust into the spotlight by sharing his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. His varied history within the fields of science and media provides him an interesting perspective when answering the question of how to enhance communication. He started with wanting to teach scientists how to communicate better, but now wants to share what he learned with you so you can become a better communicator.
 
As he ventured into the world of interviewing scientists, he recognized the need to listen with his eyes, ears, and feelings. He believes his training in improvisation helped him do just that and can help you too. Through games and exercises, your communication can be transformed. These theater games include sharing something in space, using mirroring exercises, guessing the relationship, and playing imaginary games, such as volleyball or tug-of-war. He also explored the fundamental rule of improv known as “Yes, and…” in the context of communication. If one can start with where the listener is in their knowledge and build, they will have more successful communication.  According to Alda, the person delivering the message is responsible for good communication, not the person receiving it. You need to listen to what the audience needs and is feeling. This advice works in all areas of life, including business and personal relationships. 
 
Not all empathy is created equal. Empathy is never good if it traps you in quicksand and encompasses your life. It can also be bad if it is being used to keep others submissive, what Alda refers to as dark empathy. This topic is further addressed in a blog entry for Against Empathy under the category Motivation/Emotion. Alda uses examples of bullies, torture sessions, and dishonorable sales techniques to point out how empathy can be used in a negative way. But then he quickly emphasizes that empathy is not the basis of good behavior, but rather a tool for communication.  A little acting training that involves empathy, can lead to a positive doctor-patient relationship and improve communication in those on the autism spectrum. It can also enhance writing and teaching.
 
On Scientific American Frontiers, Alda was always willing to volunteer and throw himself into the research. So when he was curious about the power of empathy on communication, he began a personal journey. He started to practice reading the faces of strangers, listening to people, and mentally attaching a word to what he thought was the emotion they were experiencing. He believed that naming emotions would help increase empathy. He was able to test this hypothesis with the help of a colleague and a cellphone application that allowed one to record every time you read someone’s emotion and labeled it. After one week with daily practice of paying attention to emotions and faces, his empathy did improve.
 
Along the journey to enhance communication, Alda explores what both helps and hurts communication. He shares how emotions make experiences memorable. In particular, laughter not only aids in memory but helps people connect. Stories provide the perfect vehicle to build a personal connection. A little dramatic action in the story is sure to catch the listener. People also become better communicators when they recognize what they have in common with each other. On the flip side, there are some aspects to avoid. Jargon and the curse of knowledge prevent people from communicating.  One of the most challenging roadblocks to communication is when you can’t imagine what it is like to not have that knowledge. It prevents you from being able to truly listen to the other person.  
 
Daily life offers you a continuous chance at improvisation. While there are no specific tips necessary to increase empathy, Alda encourages you to make personal connections and experience improvisation if you can. To get better at communication, it takes practice and being able to read another person. It is an art, not a formula. So keep practicing!
 
Other Related Resources
Author Website
http://alanalda.com/
 
Clear + Vivid Podcast
http://www.aldacommunicationtraining.com/podcasts/
 
Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science
https://www.aldacenter.org/
 
Alan Alda Twitter
https://twitter.com/search?q=alan+alda&ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Esearch
 
Life’s Work: Interview with Alan Alda
https://hbr.org/2017/07/alan-alda
 
NPR: Learning Life’s Lessons from Alan Alda
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4856461
 
Alan Alda has Parkinson’s disease
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/31/entertainment/alan-alda-parkinsons/index.html
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/31/634346984/i-m-not-angry-alan-alda-says-he-s-living-with-parkinson-s
 
Mirror Neurons
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-social-brain/
 
TED Talk- Helen Riess and Doctor-Patient Empathy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baHrcC8B4WM
 
Psychological Figures and Concepts
Albert Bandura
Carl Rogers
Daniel Goleman
Edward Thorndike
Michael Gazzaniga
Sigmund Freud
 
Active listening
Affective resonance
Altruism
Amygdala
Attention
Autism spectrum
Body language
Cognitive empathy
Communication
Corpus callosum
Dreams
EEG
Emotional intelligence
Empathy
Epilepsy
Facial expressions
Fear
fMRI
Humor
Learned helplessness
Lie detectors
Meditation
Memory
Meta-analysis
Mirror neurons
MRI
Neuroscientists
Oxytocin
Self-regulation
Similarity
Social awareness
Split brain
Stress-hormone response
Theory of mind

​Patient H.M.:  A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets
Author:  Luke Dittrich
ISBN:  978-0-8129-8252-7
 
APA Style Citation
Dittrich, L. (2017).  Patient H.M.:  A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets
Penguin, Random House, New York, N.Y.
 
Buy the Book
https://www.amazon.com/Patient-H-M-Memory-Madness-Secrets/dp/0812982525

Book Description
Luke Dittrich spent sixyears conducting impeccable research on perhaps the most famous patient in the history of neuroscience, Henry Gustav Molaison.  During his life,he was knownasH.M.;,Henryis often citedas the original case study to help neuroscientists understand the role of the hippocampus in encoding short-term to long-term memories.  Henry had dealt with increasingly alarmingand dangerous seizures since he was hit by a bicycle at age eight.  Nearly 20 years later, Dr. William Beecher Scoville, a dashing, daring surgeon burrowed deep into Henry`s temporal lobe and into the hippocampus in an effort toease the occurrence of the seizures. Dittrich had a motivating force driving his long-term research on this project, Dr. Scoville was his grandfather.
 
While Henry Molaison is the central figure of the book, the story is set against a backdrop of the debate about the proper way toconduct a lobotomy, treatment of the mentally ill in the 1950s and the very real possibility that Dr. Scoville carried out a lobotomy on his own wife who suffered a psychotic break and was sent to the Instituteof the Living in Hartford,Connecticut.  Dittrich describes heating and cooling treatments, which were an essential component of treating psychosis prior tothe availability of antipsychotic medication.
Dittrich remembers his grandmother as quiet and reserved but never knew about her history with mental illness prior tohis research for the book.  Dittrich describes some of his grandfather`s risky surgical practices such as scheduling lobotomies on Saturdays or after hours even after most of the medical community had rejected their use.  He compares his grandfather to the even more reckless Walter Freeman who wanted to allow psychologists rather than only neurosurgeonsto conduct lobotomies.  Freeman used the barbaric “ice pick” lobotomy while Scoville used specially designed instruments to limit the depth and breadth of the damage to the cerebrum.  Freeman operated on patients as young as 7 and as old as 72.  Both men conducted thevast majority of lobotomies on women, most of whom were psychotic, but some with depressive disorders or even others who were simply considered to be “rebellious.”
 
For 20 years Henry lived with his seizures,andwhile this eventually prevented him from working, he was able to attend high school and had many recollections of his childhood. He recalled a girl in junior high whomhe had a crush on (she did not remember him), he recalled details about his parents and the homes in which they lived when he was a child,but had virtually no personal memories after his surgery.  Because of the notoriety of H.M. (as he was knownin the research during his life), many individuals wanted to work with Henry to make their mark on the history of neuroscience.  While Scoville conducted the surgery, he did not play a large role in Henry`s treatment or care post-surgery.  Brenda Milner, a young female psychologist in a time when there were very few in the field, completed the psychological testing on Henry.  While she tested him for many years, he never recognized her from one visit to the next.  Henry met her for a series of tests both at McGill University where she worked and in his hometown.  Henry`s episodic and semantic memories were essentially destroyed,butMilner found that he improved on the procedural task of outlining a star in the mirror.  Henry claimed to have never seen the task before,,but improved on the task each time it was presented.  He acknowledged that he found it quite easy, he could not identify whyhis performance was so quick.  Milner concluded that procedural memories are heldin a location of the brain (cerebellum) distinct from those areas that held episodic and semantic memories.  Thismay help to explain why other amnesiac patients like Clive Wearing have retained the procedural skills such as playing the organ they held before the hippocampal damage such as playing the organ.  
 
When Henry`s parents passed away, adistant cousin became Henry`s guardian but gave the authority of all medicaland research decisions to Susan Corkinof MIT.  Susan Corkin by coincidence was a friend of Scoville`s daughter (Dittrich`s mother) who was a neurologist and oversaw who had contact with Henry.  She strictly regulated who came into contact with Henry and rejected most requests to work with himwithout giving them serious consideration.  Some believe she was fiercely protective in order tosave H.M.`s anonymity, others like Dittrich believe that she did this out of self-interest in order tohave sole access to the most famous patient in neurological history. Even with his family connection, Corkin refused to let Dittrich meet H.M. or even share his location.  She eventually sent a detailed list of restrictions written up by MIT lawyers regarding what Dittrich could and could not do, which he rejected, but eventually,he found out who H.M. was on his own.  
 
After Henry`s death, the world was allowed to know his real name and Corkin realized she needed help if she were to continue to study Henry`s brain after his death.  She employed the help of Jacopo Annese of the Brain Observatory in San Diego, California.  He carried Henry`s brain from Boston back to his lab where it was encased in silicone and live-streamedin 2010 as it was cutinto 2,401 slices.  These slices could be studied in detail to better understand the extent of the damage to Henry`s brain.  Annese found that the hippocampus had not been entirely destroyedas previously believed.  After over a year with the brain, Annese wanted to continue the investigation with Henry`s brain and intended to publish papers based on his findings.  He was sued by MITfor the return of the brain which Corkin wanted to reside permanently at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital.  After a prolonged fight, the brain was returnedto Massachusetts.  
 
The contributions of Henry Molaison to science are significant in part because of the trauma he suffered as a child.  However so are the nameless others who underwent leucotomies, lobotomies, insulin shock treatment, extreme heat or cold or other experimental procedures in which the results and impacts were unknown.  
 
Other Related Resources
Interview with Author Luke Dittrich
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7akPs8ptg4
 
H.M. Brain Slicing with Dr. Ramachandran and Roger Bingham
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKzOQ1uezYc
 
PBS: Interview with Susan Corkin about H.M.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/corkin-hm-memory.html
 
Luke Dittrich interview with Susan Corkin
https://medium.com/@lukedittrich/questions-answers-about-patient-h-m-ae4ddd33ed9c
 
Famous Amnesia Patient`s Brain Cut into 2,401 pieces
https://www.livescience.com/42898-patient-hm-postmortem-brain.html
 
BRAIN:  A Journal of Neurology
Brenda Milner Biographyon her 100thbirthday:  a lifetime of “good ideas”[JF1] 
https://www.psych.ualberta.ca/GCPWS/Milner/Biography/Milner_bio1.html
 
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation :  Brenda Milner turns 100
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/trailblazing-montreal-neuroscientist-brenda-milner-turns-100-1.4743054
 
Brenda Milner: Neuroscientist (video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JliczINA__Y&t=426s
 
The Society of Neurological Surgeons:  Profile of William Beecher Scoville
https://www.societyns.org/society/bio.aspx?MemberID=7664
 
Wired:  The Untold Story about Neuroscience`s Most Famous Brain
https://www.wired.com/2016/08/untold-story-neurosciences-famous-brain/
https://academic.oup.com/brain/article-abstract/141/8/2527/5050904?redirectedFrom=fulltext
 
https://bigpictureeducation.com/brain-case-study-patient-hm
 
https://www.npr.org/2016/08/14/489997276/how-patient-h-m-and-his-lobotomy-contributed-to-understanding-memories
 
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/corkin-hm-memory.html
 
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/07/magazine/the-brain-that-couldnt-remember.html
 ​
Psychological Figures and Concepts
Jacopo Annese
Gotlieb Burckhardt
Susan Corkin
Walter Freeman
Sigmund Freud
Phineas Gage
Karl Lashley
Anton Mesmer
Brenda Milner
Egaz Moniz
Wilder Penfield
Hermann Rorschach
William Scoville
James Watts
David Wechsler
 
Antipsychotic medication
Amygdala
Anterograde Amnesia
Arachnoid Mater
Auditory Cortex
Broca`s Area
Cerebrum
Cerebellum
Cerebral Cortex
Cerebrospinal Fluid
Corpus Callosum
Electroencephaologram(EEG)
Endocrinology
Epilepsy
Free Association
Frontal Lobes
Homunculus
Hypothalamus
Informed Consent
Insulin Shock Treatment
Leucotomy
Limbic System
Lobotomy
Localization of Function
Meninges
Motor Cortex
MRI
Neuroanatomist
Neurologist
Olfactory Cortex
Phrenology
Psychoanalysis
Psychosurgery
Repressed Memories
Retrograde Amnesia
Short-term Memory
Temporal Lobe
Thorazine
Unconsciousness
 
 
 
 


 

​The Worth Expert Guide to Scientific Literacy: Thinking Like a Psychological Scientist
Authors: Kenneth Keith and Bernard Beins
ISBN-13: 978-1319021429
ISBN-10: 1319021425

APA Style Citation
Keith, K. D., & Beins, B. C. (2017). The worth expert guide to scientific literacy: Thinking like a psychological scientist. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
 
Buy This Book
https://www.macmillanlearning.com/Catalog/product/worthexpertguidetoscientificliteracythinkinglikeapsychologicalscientist-firstedition-keith
​

​Book Description
What comes to mind when you think of science? Are you picturing a large textbook and scientists lecturing facts or are you picturing beakers, microscopes, and lab coats? Do you think of science as a body of knowledge, as a process, or both? According to the authors of The Worth Expert Guide to Scientific Literacy: Thinking Like a Psychological Scientist, “For scientific literacy is not just about what we know; it is about how we know it, and how we conduct our lives.” Kenneth D. Keith, Ph.D. is professor emeritus of psychological sciences at the University of San Diego, and Bernard C. Beins Ph.D. is a professor of psychology at Ithaca College. Both authors are well-published and focus on the teaching of psychology. In addition, both have held leadership roles for the AP Psychology Reading.  The focus of this text is on why scientific literacy is important and how to increase it through psychology.  Teachers in psychology have the ability to enhance their students’ critical thinking and help their students go beyond what they know and start to question how they know it is true.
 
It is said that over a quarter of the American population could be considered scientifically literate. While this dismal statistic is alarming, at least it has been on the rise in the past few decades. Where does the discipline of psychology stand in the world of scientific literacy? Some believe the recent Reproducibility Project has challenged psychology`s standing as a science. The project began in 2011 and was led by the Center for Open Science’s co-founder Brian Nosek, who set out to replicate the findings of original studies published in 2008. Of the 100 published studies that were repeated by independent researchers, 39 had the same outcome, 24 had moderately similar results, and a little over one third had patterns noticeably discrepant from the original. However, this replication crisis is not confined to the field of psychology. The replication crisis is across all sciences but is most commonly discussed in psychology, especially social psychology, and medicine.
 
The authors argue that psychology helps to develop scientific literacy. Our discipline focuses on empirical questions and devotes more space to scientific literacy than the natural sciences. Psychology also has more complex explanations that require we control extraneous factors and utilize random samples. We are considered one of the seven hub sciences, along with chemistry and medicine, and it has been demonstrated that psychology students become more scientifically literate as they take more classes in the discipline. Introduction to psychology books devote much attention to the scientific process and overall the discipline helps prepare individuals to think about questions related to psychology in complex ways.
 
What are the characteristics of scientific literacy? A small quiz is provided to check the reader’s scientific literacy. In addition, the authors help break down the types of reasoning and the knowledge of facts. It is important to note that psychology has a rather short half-life of facts, only seven years. After that time, half the facts would be considered wrong or irrelevant. In physics, the half-life of facts is 13 years and in some areas of medicine, it is up to 45 years. Knowing this, it is important to check facts to see if they are valid and credible.  As teachers of science, we should encourage our students to think like scientists and continue to question the content as our discipline and other scientific disciplines progress. While the base of knowledge is continuously growing, we should not be scared to question what we learn and look for new evidence to either refute or support earlier findings.  As the authors explain the questions necessary for scientific literacy, they provide multiple examples and offer readers an antidote to fix their thinking. Psychology is ripe with examples and is useful in helping to increase scientific literacy. 
 
A large portion of the text is dedicated to evaluating evidence and interpreting numbers. Once again lots of examples and antidotes are provided to guide the reader as they question what they believe to be true.  Readers learn to decide what appropriate evidence is and how knowing about probability helps make better decisions.  As we look at the evidence we must learn to call into question what is involved, such as personal experiences, authority, and anecdotes. While interpreting statistics we need to understand the numbers and check for deception. Numbers are a tool to help us make the best conclusion possible, but statistics are not infallible. Problems arise when people don’t understand or misinterpret statistics. We need to learn to understand numbers and recognize appropriate evidence and relevant facts, all while learning to avoid potential traps.  Not necessarily an easy task, but psychology students are ready!
 
The authors return to myths and misconceptions. This time they take the approach of why we believe them. They explore culture, self-deception, intuition, authority, faith, personal experience, sources, and evidence. The fallacies underlying common misconceptions are identified and strategies to recognize and overcome these myths are provided.
 
Another large portion of the text is assigned to scientific literacy within specific fields of psychology. Many terms within the introduction to psychology course are addressed. First, the authors look at psychological beliefs and values. A variety of examples in the fields of sensation and perception and cognition are explored. Second, the authors look at social behavior. Specific attributional errors are addressed. Third, they focus on explanatory style and health-related behaviors. These three chapters are filled to the brim with connections to the psychology classroom.
 
Finally, psychological science is discussed in the frame of everyday life beyond the lab and classroom.  Pioneers in science have not always been received fondly, but we utilize the fruits of the field on a regular basis as we search the Internet, use a cellphone, watch TV, or take a medication. According to the authors, the need for scientific literacy is important as we tackle important topics, such as the anti-vaccine movement, recovered memory therapy, and global climate control. Each of these topics can have dire consequences if the truth is not addressed. Some may question the field of psychology as a science. They use arguments, such as research having to be politically correct, intuition and common sense encompassing an individual’s truths, the pervasiveness of pseudoscientific claims, and the belief that everyday life equals training in psychology. Furthermore, our discipline is faced with the common belief that theories are mere speculation when really they constitute an explanatory framework. Thinking like a scientist can help us overcome misconceptions and make us better problem solvers, decision makers, and partners in relationships. We can better understand motives and avoid being misled with self-deception and selective use of data. Science has a significant role in our everyday lives. On a final note from the authors, “Psychology offers a strong foundation in scientific literacy and it is not just for psychologists.”  
 
Other Related Resources
NOBA Thinking Like a Psychological Scientist
http://nobaproject.com/modules/thinking-like-a-psychological-scientist
 
Lumen Introduction to Psychology
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/ivytech-psychology1/chapter/the-replication-crisis-in-psychology/
 
Retraction Watch
https://retractionwatch.com/
 
Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science
https://osf.io/jtcu9/
 
Articles
What psychology’s crisis means for the future of science- Vox article
https://www.vox.com/2016/3/14/11219446/psychology-replication-crisis
 
Stanford Prison Experiment: Why famous psychology experiments- Vox article
The Stanford Prison Experiment was massively influential. We just learned it was a fraud.
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/13/17449118/stanford-prison-experiment-fraud-psychology-replication
 
Philip Zimbardo’s response to recent criticisms on Stanford Prison Experiment
http://www.prisonexp.org/response/
 
The “marshmallow test” said patience was a key to success. A new replication tells us s’more. - Vox article
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/6/6/17413000/marshmallow-test-replication-mischel-psychology
 
Cancer scientists are having trouble replicating groundbreaking research- Vox article
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/1/23/14324326/replication-science-is-hard
 
The 7 biggest problems facing science, according to 270 scientists
https://www.vox.com/2016/7/14/12016710/science-challeges-research-funding-peer-review-process
 
What a nerdy debate about p-values shows about science — and how to fix it- Vox article
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/7/31/16021654/p-values-statistical-significance-redefine-0005
 
Science is often flawed. It's time we embraced that- Vox article
https://www.vox.com/2015/5/13/8591837/how-science-is-broken
 
The replication crisis in science
https://thewire.in/science/replication-crisis-science
 
Students are the answer to psychology’s replication crisis
http://theconversation.com/why-students-are-the-answer-to-psychologys-replication-crisis-90286
 
Why is the replication crisis focused on social psychology?
http://andrewgelman.com/2018/05/07/replication-crisis-centered-social-psychology/
 
Neuroscientist explains psychology’s replication crisis
https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2018/mar/19/a-neuroscientist-explains-psychologys-replication-crisis-podcast
 
What Do Talking Apes Really Tell Us? Koko, Kanzi, and ape language
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/08/koko_kanzi_and_ape_language_research_criticism_of_working_conditions_and.html
 
Psychological Figures and Concepts
B.F. Skinner
Daryl Bem
Franz Anton Mesmer
Fritz Heider
George Miller
Henry H. Goddard
Jean Piaget
John B. Watson
Kitty Genovese
Martin Seligman
Sigmund Freud
Sir Cyril Burt- educational psychology
 
ABC cognitive approach
Aggression
Algorithm
Analytic thought
Anecdotes
Attraction
Attribution theory
Authority
Availability heuristic
Base rate
Belief perseverance
Binocular disparity
Black swan hypothesis
Change blindness
Cognitive dissonance
Confirmation bias
Control group
Correlations
Culture
Cyberbullying
Deductive reasoning
Descriptive statistics
Disposition attribution
Double-blind
Effect sizes
Empirical approach
Ethnocentric
Experimental control
Explanatory style
External validity
Extraneous variables
Extrasensory perception (ESP)
Eyewitness identification
Face validity
False consensus effect
File drawer problem
First instinct fallacy
Formal operations
Framing effect
Fundamental attribution error
Gambler’s fallacy
Happiness
Hedonic adaptation
Heuristic
Hindsight bias
Homeopathic medicine
Hyperactivity
Hypnosis
Hypothesis
Illusory correlation
Immunotherapy
Inattentional blindness
Inductive reasoning
Inferential statistics
In-group
Intuition
Law of small numbers
Marijuana
Mean (arithmetic mean)
Median
Mesmerism
Meta-analysis
Modeling
Moon-illusion
Myside bias
Narcolepsy
Near-death experience
Operational definitions
Optimistic
Outgroup homogeneity bias
Outliers
Oxytocin
Pessimistic
Placebo effects
Pollyanna Principle
Priming
Probability
Pseudoscience
Psychokinesis
Random assignment
Reaction time
Recency effect
Regression to the mean
Replication
Representative heuristic
Repression
Reproducibility Project
Sample size
Science literacy
Scientific literacy
Self-deception
Self-effacement
Self-justification
Self-serving bias
Short-term memory capacity
Situational attribution
Standard deviation
Statistically significant
Statistics
Subjective well-being
Subliminal messages
Theory
Thermal grill illusion
Type I error
Type II error
Unrealistic optimism
Validity
Warrior gene

The Lost Boys:  Inside Muzafer Sherif`s Robbers Cave Experiment
Author: Gina Perry
ISBN:  e-book 9781925548303; hard copy book in the U.S.is not yet available
 
APA Style Citation
Perry, G. (2018). The Lost Boys:  Inside Muzafer Sherif`s Robbers Cave Experiment.  Scribe Publications, London.
 
Buy This Book
https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Boys-Muzafer-Sherifs-experiment-ebook/dp/B07BL7DZ3M

​Book Description
The validity of many social psychology studies hasrecentlybeen questioned.  The highly staged and deceptive practices of Milgram and the personal involvement, as well as the potential emotional harm, of Zimbardo’s prison studyhave garnered much attention and called into question the degree of manipulation in these studies.  Thus far, Muzafer Sherif`s study at Robbers Cave, which investigated superordinate goals to overcome out-group bias and stereotypes, has avoided the spotlight for unethical and questionable practices. Gina Perry`s new book will likely change this.  Fresh off of her book Behind the Shock Machine,which exposed some of the misperceptions and deception involved in the Milgram studies, Perry delves into the archives of Psychology in Akron, Ohio to examine Muzafer Sherif`s personal history and his infamous study of in-group and out-groups at Robbers Cave in Oklahoma.
 
Perry devotes the first third of the book to a study that was conducted in 1953 in Middle Grove, New York one year prior tothe Robbers Cave study.  This nameless study seemed to be one Sherif wanted to disappear, as he did not publish or write about the results despite receiving a large grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.  In a similar circumstance to the Robbers Cave study, 24 underprivileged boys were gathered to study group dynamics and the development of in-group and out-groups.  The letter provided to parents to gain consent included not outright deception,but was interesting for what it did not say.  The letter indicated that the 10 and 11-year-old boys would be participating in a study of child relations and social organization among children. A condition of this agreement was that parents not visit as it might “distract” the boys.  As we now know from Milgram`s infamous study, the affiliation with Yale University would have provided a sense of legitimacy for the study and parents may have wanted their sons associated with a study from a highly esteemed university without asking too many questions.  
In this Middle Grove study, the boys initially made friends with one another; and when divided into groups, they expressed a desire to be with their friends who were purposely placed in the opposing group (Panthers and Pythons). Sherif would remedy this in the Robbers Cave study by not allowing the two groups to get to know one another before the division into groups occurred.  The camp counselors were part of Sherif`s research team, andSherif himself acted as the camp custodian.  The researchers were told not to interfere with the boys and provided little guidance even when the boys clearlyneeded some direction from an adult.  When the boys did not act according to what Sherif expected, he broke his own rules by ordering the counselors to raid one group`s tent to make it look like the other team had done this, even going so far as to break a young man`s ukulele.  The boys did not take the bait, they suspected the camp staff rather than the other boys, andinstead of becoming divided, they encouraged the other team when they lost and wanted to share their winnings (pocket knives).  When they believed they were treated unfairly in a competition, they looked to the counselors to sort things out; and when they did not intervene, the boys took that as a betrayal from the adults who they believed should reconcile the situation, this made them align with the other boys in camp against the counselors. As the study unraveled, Sherif began drinking excessively and threatened one of his research assistants. By the end of the three-week study, the boys were essentially lefton their own.  When they destroyed the camp piano, there were no repercussions andthe boys seemed to sense that ahead of time. It is clear from Perry`s research that this study was not discussedbecause the outcome Sherif believed he would find never surfaced.  The Robbers Cave study would be his opportunity to make certain he created the right dynamics to create divisions between the groups.  
 
The second portion of the book is devoted to Sherif`s interesting background as a Turkish psychologist who was essentially bannedfrom returning to Turkey because of his liberal beliefs.  Perry addresses the discrimination Sherif faced upon his arrival in America, as people seemed bewildered that a Turk could be a prominent academic.  Perry argues that Sherif`s experience during the Turkish Revolution may be reflectedin the Robbers Cave study.  When Sherif was a student, people aligned themselves either with the Nationalistic Ataturk or the Greeks and Armenians. Former friends became bitter enemies and long-time neighbors no longer trusted one another.  Sherif would have seen first-hand the deep divisions that group affiliations can create.
 
Sherif often bristled that he was not given much attention for his Robbers Cave study, which he considered to be groundbreaking research in the field of social psychology.  He often felt overshadowed by Solomon Asch. Sherif believed he was responsible for convincing Asch to pursue social psychology while the two studied together at Columbia University.  Because Milgram then studied under Asch, Sherif saw himself as a "defacto" father of social psychology who was not given the credit he deserved, as he was relegatedto the outpost of Oklahoma rather than one of the eliteIvy League East Coast universities.  Much correspondence at the time refers to Sherif`s incredible intellect, but also to his challenging temperament.  His wife Carolyn, also a social psychologist, seemed to be able to reign in some of his difficult personality, but he was often a challenge to work with or to have on staff.  Sherif was eventually diagnosedwith bipolar disorder, andafter moving to Penn State, Carolyn`s career accelerated while Muzafer`s faded.  
 
Finally, the last portion of the book is devoted to the most famous work Sherif conducted, which examined in-group and out-group bias between the Rattlers and Eagles at Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma.  The 22 boys in this study were 10 and 11 years-old, from lower-middle class and working-class families in the area. The two groups of boys were located about a mile away from one another, andSherif`s team was careful to facilitate the creation of strong group alliances from the start by allowing the boys to create team identities (Rattlers and Eagles).  The groups were kept separate for three days tohelp facilitate the creation of strong group affiliations. Some of the aggressive behaviors the boys exhibited may have been due to a single individual who became the leader of the Rattlers early in the study.  Red was bigger than most of the boys and swore, berated, and mocked even the boys on his ownteam.   He created an aggressive dynamic within the Rattlers and this inevitably transferred to the behavior between the groups as well.  He would later be castinto the woods for stealing from his ownteam until he improved his behavior.  
 
Sixteen events were scheduled over four days to pit the teams against one another. 
Perry was able to track down a few of the men who had participated in the study, none of whom knew that the camp had been a testing ground for research on group dynamics.  The men were interested although tentative regarding what the researchers could have been studying but remembered some events from the camp vividly.  As in the earlier study, the researchers did little to intervene in the boy’s treatment of one another even when they began swearing and making fun of the boys in the camp.  While interference from the researchers was not strictly forbidden as it was in the first study, the suggestion to get revenge on the other team may have been more the camp counselors’ (researchers’) idea thanthe boys.  At first,the losses were blamedon other group members, rather than the opposing team.  Afterwinninga baseball game, the Eagles made three cheers for the Rattlers, which differs greatly from what has originally been reported. After raids on each other’s cabins and the theft of knives used as a reward for winning the tournament, some of the boys started to break down, andSherif worried he mayhave gone too far.  
 
During the final stage of the study, the boys were toldthat there was a water shortage and they had to work together to find the problem (this event was purposely orchestrated). Sherif believed this would begin to heal the rift between the groups. During the last event, the boys went to Arkansas for a trip to a nearby town, when one of the trucks broke down. The boys piled into one truck and seemed to overcome theirprior disdainfor one another.  Thismight have been as much due to the Rattlers banning Red from the group until he behaved, as it did with the superordinate goals on which Sherif focused.  
 
Perry argues that one cannot examine the Robbers Cave study without taking into consideration the extraordinary role of the researchers disguised as counselors.  This seemingly naturalistic study was more highly manipulatedthan ever reported and the results may be due to confirmation bias, rather than a legitimate difference between groups.  Sherif failed to take into account his own experiences in Turkey and how that may have impacted his perspective of the harshness that can exist between groups.  Sherif did not seem to take into consideration the potential emotional suffering the boys experienced, either during or after the conclusion of the study.  Sadly, Perry`s book is another hit to the credibility ofsocial psychology studies, but perhaps knowing the truth about what actuallyoccurred helps us understand human nature after all.
 
Resources
The British Psychological Society:  The Unknown Muzafer Sherif
https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-27/edition-11/unknown-muzafer-sherif
 
Simply Psychology:  Robbers Cave, Realistic Conflict Theory
https://www.simplypsychology.org/robbers-cave.html
 
The Guardian:  A Real-Life Lord of the Flies: The troubling legacy of the Robbers Cave experiment.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/apr/16/a-real-life-lord-of-the-flies-the-troubling-legacy-of-the-robbers-cave-experiment
 
The Guardian: “Come out and Fight!” an extract from The Lost Boysby Gina Perry
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/apr/16/come-on-out-and-fight-an-extract-from-the-lost-boys-by-gina-perry
 
Author Gina Perry’s Website
http://www.gina-perry.com/the-lost-boys/
 
New York Times Obituary for social psychologist Muzafer Sherif
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/27/obituaries/muzafer-sherif-82-psychologist-who-studied-hostility-of-groups.html
 
Video
You Tube:  Robber`s Cave
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PRuxMprSDQ
 
 
Psychological Figures and Concepts
Allport, Gordon
Asch, Solomon
Clark, Kenneth,andMamie 
Dewey, John
Hall, G. Stanley
James, William 
Lewin, Kurt
Mead, Margaret 
Milgram, Stanley
Sherif, Muzafer
Watson, John
 
Confirmation bias
Conflict
Cooperation
Debriefing
Deception
Discrimination
Group dynamics
Group norm
In-Group bias
Intragroup relations
Little Albert
Out-Group bias
Persuasion
Prejudice
 

The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind: My Tale of Madness and Recovery
​Authors:  Barbara K. Lipska and Elaine McArdle
ISBN-10: 1328787303
ISBN-13: 978-1328787309

APA Style Citation
Lipska, B. K. & McArdle, E. (2018).  The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind: My Tale of Madness and Recovery. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
 
Buy This Book
https://www.amazon.com/Neuroscientist-Who-Lost-Her-Mind/dp/1328787303

​Book Description
Dr. Barbara Lipska dedicated her life to neuroscience and ended up raging a personal battle with her own brain. As a neuroscientist her specialty was schizophrenia, but soon she experienced the very symptoms she studied. The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind: My Tale of Madness and Recovery follows her personal story of overcoming melanoma that metastasized to the brain. She reminds us that mental illness is a brain disease and provides a blend of brain awareness and personal anecdotes to educate the reader. According to Dr. Thomas R. Insel, former National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) director, when speaking of Lipska, “You have done something so important for people with serious mental illness who do not have an observable lesion. Not only have you reminded us all that mental illnesses are brain illnesses, you have reminded us to be hopeful. People recover.” It is her expertise, desire to help reduce stigma, and optimism that leaves a lasting mark on the reader.
 
Throughout the book, Dr. Lipska divulges personal stories to build together the timeline of her amazing strength and battle with various cancers.  She began her journey in communist Poland in the 1980s where she worked on clinical trials for drugs to treat schizophrenia. Her first marriage quickly fell apart after she learned her husband had melanoma that ended up metastasizing to the brain, the very disorder she later faced. She found comfort in another man, Mirek and went on to marry him and raise her two children from her first marriage. In 1989, she was offered employment at the National Institute of Health in Maryland. Her research quickly took off and, in 1993, she published findings for the Lipska model. Then, in 2009, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy on her left breast. Again in 2011, she received the unimaginable news and learned that she had the deadliest form of skin cancer, melanoma. She went on to beat cancer for a second time. In 2013, she was named Director of the Human Brain Collection Core at the NIMH. Life seemed to be taking a turn for the better, and she started to train for a half Ironman.
 
In January 2015, her story changed once again for the worse. She was working on her computer when her right hand vanished from her lower right visual field. She did not want to admit that something was wrong, but she was well-versed in the symptoms of cancer. An MRI confirmed she had three tumors and that one was bleeding and appeared to be melanoma. She was going to battle this cancer with the “kitchen sink”, including surgery, radiation, and immunotherapy. She was given steroids to prevent swelling and needed brain surgery to remove the bleeding tumor from her occipital lobe. Fortunately, the raisin-sized tumor was in a non-life-threatening location. Next, she decided to use stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) to focus high doses of radiation onto individual tumors. Within one month of the brain surgery she was skiing, and within two months, training for a triathlon again. The family vacationed in Hawaii and spirits were high. After she returned, she received the news that she had been accepted into an immunotherapy clinical trial. Immunotherapy uses the body’s own defenses to fight the disease and has been touted as one of the most encouraging cancer treatments in decades.  Over 12 weeks, Dr. Lipska received four injections, consisting of a combination of two monoclonal antibody drugs that boosted the immune system. The drugs teach the dysfunctional T cells to recognize, attack, and kill off the cancerous cells.  She was not supposed to have any active tumors to complete the trial because the consequences were unknown. However, she learned from a second opinion that she had three new tumors.  Dr. Lipska decided to keep the news a secret and she proceeded with the trial. After the second injection, her body took a turn for the worse. She had an autoimmune reaction and suffered lymphedema from her previous mastectomy. When her lymph nodes were removed, her lymphatic system was blocked and her lymph fluid could not properly drain. This fluid buildup led to swelling in Dr. Lipska’s arm. It was at this time that her personality started to change. She became aggressive, acting like a 2-year-old having a tantrum, but did not have insight into her own behavior. She lashed out at her family, a physical therapist, and termite inspection man. She was angry, paranoid, impatient, and lacked empathy. Her frontal lobe was changing, but everyone wrote it off as stress. In June 2015, a variety of odd behaviors started to occur. She went for a run in her neighborhood with hair dye dripping everywhere and missing her prosthetic breast. She lost her car and, after finding it, damaged it as she frantically tried to escape the parking structure. After her final injection, she got sick on pizza and believed she had been poisoned by plastic hidden in the pizza. Upon her family’s advice she returned to the doctor for her first MRI since joining the immunotherapy trial. She learned that she had new tumors and the immunotherapy did not work. There was a total of 18 tumors, the largest in her frontal and parietal lobe.  She also had significant swelling and inflammation of brain tissue. Once again, she was given high amounts of steroids. This time her therapy included CyberKnife Robotic Radiosurgery, which used a robotic arm to shoot high-dose radiation into the tumors.
 
Dr. Lipska continued to battle her symptoms for the next two months.  She was argumentative and lost her ability to plan. She became obsessed with food and gained ten pounds. She was told to get her affairs in order, and her family began a rotation of visits. As her symptoms continued to advance, she forgot her husband’s birthday and how to do simple math, but her writing and creativity remained strong.  Dr. Lipska continued to work out, but did not understand the physical strain on her body. One specific incident included a seven-mile hike where she found chanterelle mushrooms that she wanted her husband to gather for breakfast.  After her 2.5 hour walk, she was exhausted and became overwhelmed. Her brain entered survival mode, and she blew up at her husband and family. Soon after this incident, her family noticed her short-term memory was disappearing. In addition, she would lose her balance and not be able to judge distance. One afternoon after demanding to walk home, she got lost and had her first incident of incontinence. When attending the grand opening of a local supermarket, she experienced a sensory overload from the music that sent her into panic mode. She was living a strange irony of the symptoms she once studied. 
 
Her mind finally started to return. She described it like crawling out of a black hole. Dr. Lipska wanted to keep fighting, but the two new drugs that showed promise for her genetic variation were not approved by the FDA and were not covered by insurance. The drug company gave her the drugs for “compassionate use” and she began both types. Her body exploded in a rash, but eventually she had promising results. In July 2015, she had a scan that showed the tumors shrank considerably or disappeared.  There was no way to know exactly which treatment worked, but she was grateful (even though the scientist in her was annoyed). She continued to have brain scans every six weeks. Small tumors have appeared and were treated with CyberKnife.
 
Dr. Lipska has tried to put all the pieces together and figure out how to move forward. Her family doesn’t talk much about those two summer months. She was scared about how her mind failed and has since regularly tested herself to see if her symptoms are returning. She publicly shared her story through The New York Times for the first time and received a positive response. But her story took another twist in August 2016. At the site of her biggest tumor she experienced brain tissue necrosis. This is a delayed and sometimes fatal effect of radiation, where the surrounding tissue of the brain tumor does not heal after the radiation.  Dr. Lipska noticed a blind spot at the top of her visual field in her left eye. She was diagnosed with irreversible optic neuropathy- total blindness in her left eye due to the radiation she received. Lipska refused to give up, retrained her body to deal with the blindness, and even trained for a family triathlon. Two weeks before the race she experienced a leg twitch. She was having seizures due to necrotic tissue in her right motor cortex.  Despite her complications she continued to compete in the triathlon, taking the swimming leg of the race. When she passed the timing piece to her husband, he said, “Life is a team sport! And remember, my love, we’ll conquer this beast!”
 
The prognosis for Dr. Lipska is good, but she is cautious. She is worried it could all happen again with old age. But she knows it is through the support of her family that she got through her journey to madness and back.
 
Other Related Resources
Barbara K. Lipska Webpage
https://www.barbaralipska.com/bio/
 
The New York Times Article written by Dr. Lipska
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/opinion/sunday/the-neuroscientist-who-lost-her-mind.html
Possible questions include:

1. What symptoms did Dr. Lipska experience that mimic mental illness?
2. What role did her family play in her story with melanoma?
3. How does this story fight the stigma of mental illness?
4. How is this story a testament to optimism?

 
NPR Interview with Dr. Lipska
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/03/31/598236622/the-neuroscientist-who-lost-her-mind-returns-from-madness
 
Megyn Kelly TODAY interview with Dr. Lipska
https://www.today.com/video/meet-the-neuroscientist-who-lost-her-mind-then-got-it-back-again-1209150019548
 
2018 Gaithersburg Book Festival in Maryland book talk with Dr. Lipska
https://www.c-span.org/video/?445042-12/the-neuroscientist-lost-mind
 
WGBH News interview with Dr. Lipska
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abWumGocVoU
 
WBUR- Radio Boston interview with Dr. Lipska
http://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2018/04/23/neuroscientist-new-book
 
Psychology Today posts from authors
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/experts/barbara-k-lipska-phd-elaine-mcardle
 
The Guardian Article
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/mar/30/i-was-a-caricature-of-my-worst-traits-how-brain-cancer-can-affect-the-mind
 
Wall Street Journal article written by James (son-in-law) about the family triathlon
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-triathlon-is-easy-next-to-soviets-and-polio-1495492959
 
Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor- Harvard trained brain scientist who suffers from a stroke and then writes about it
http://mystrokeofinsight.com/
http://drjilltaylor.com/book.html
https://www.amazon.com/My-Stroke-Insight-Scientists-Personal/dp/0452295548
https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104154403
 
Psychological Figures and Concepts 
Phineas Gage
 
Adrenal glands
Anosognosia- lack of insight
Antipsychotic drugs in the 1950s
Blood-brain-barrier (BBB)
Brain
Brain bank
Cerebellum
Confidentiality
Consciousness
Creativity
CT scan
Dementia
DSM-5
Dyspraxia
Empathy
Frontal cortex
Frontal lobotomy
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD)
Gray vs. white matter
Hippocampus
Id vs. superego
Immunotherapy
Language
Lipska model- neonatal hippocampal lesion model of schizophrenia
Lobes- frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital
Localization
Mental illness statistics
MRI
Nature vs. nurture
Neuroscientist
Paranoia
PET scan
Pituitary glands
Prefrontal cortex
Psychosis
Schizophrenagenic mother myth
Schizophrenia
Sensory overload
Short vs. long-term memory
Spatial memory
Stigma of mental illness
Thyroid glands
Visual field

Against Empathy:  The Case for Rational Compassion
Author:  Paul Bloom
ISBN:  978-0-06-233933-1
 
APA Style Citation
Bloom, P.  (2016). Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion, Harper Collins, New York, New York.
 
Buy This Book
https://www.amazon.com/Against-Empathy-Case-Rational-Compassion/dp/0062339338
​

​Book Description
Paul Bloom knows that many people will read this book out of anger, with the intention and hope of refuting the argument that empathy is bad for the world.  I did. I wanted to find fault with the reasoning that placing ourselves in the shoes of someone else was somehow a danger to both ourselves and others.  While Bloom has not convinced me that empathetic behaviors cause more harm than good, I can acknowledge that sometimes his argument is strong.  He concedes that not all empathy is negative, but rather argues that on the whole, it is not beneficial.  He opens with an example of an adorable young girl who needs a kidney transplant.  Once we get to know this girl and understand that she will likely die without the transplant, we often demonstrate empathy by imagining what it might feel like if this was happening in our own family.  When given the opportunity to move this girl up the list of those waiting for the transplant, we may jump at the opportunity to save her and her family from their continued suffering.  Bloom argues that this would be a case of empathy leading to injustice.  The feelings of empathy for this young girl have prioritized her life over the lives of others also waiting for a kidney who were rightfully in line ahead of the girl with whom we empathize.
 
Bloom argues that one of the reasons most people are so deeply in favor of the concept of empathy is that is has been associated with many concepts such as compassion, sympathy, and kindness which are related to but not actually empathy.  Bloom makes it clear that he is in favor of kindness and compassion.  He believes that empathy causes us to make decisions that seem kind and compassionate but that can actually hurt more people than help. He argues that empathy is like cholesterol and has both good and bad types.  The first, cognitive empathy is the type of empathy in which a person can understand another person`s suffering but does not feel what they feel.  We can feel compassion or sympathy without feeling what the person themselves feel, Bloom argues that this is often the case when we help others.  If a child falls from a high jungle gym and breaks his nose, we will immediately try to help, but it is unreasonable to argue that we feel what he/she feels. Similarly, we can buy a gift that we think someone else will enjoy, without necessarily liking it ourselves; this is kindness but not empathy.  These concepts are often presented as interchangeable and interwoven, but Bloom argues that can exist as distinct entities.
 
The second type of empathy is emotional empathy; this occurs when we feel the pain of others, this is the emphasis of the book and the type of empathy that Bloom believes can blur the lines of morality, balanced reasoning and fairness and that which he argues against.  Bloom argues that empathy can be learned and socialized and is often employed to encourage people to “do the right thing.”  Children are often scolded by asking, “How would you like it if someone did that to you?”  Bloom argues that there needs to be more to morality than empathy and that in fact, they are distinct because they need not occur simultaneously.  If you see someone throw garbage out of his or her car window, this may upset you morally, but there is no empathetic element, you do not feel what the person does or for that matter what the garbage feels. 
 
Bloom uses the very emotionally sensitive topic of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting in Newtown Connecticut as an example of how empathy can result in an unseen negative outcome.  While it is impossible to overestimate the tragedy that occurred in Newtown, More children were killed in the city of Chicago in a single year than those killed in Newtown.  However, the vividness of hearing the news of the Newtown victims and the painful emotions associated with this single event, makes the Newtown shootings stand out in our minds.  While the Chicago shootings may be covered daily in the paper they are not a single event, but rather multiple less salient events that are easier to forget. This availability heuristic created an outpouring of emotional empathy and gifts flooded into Newtown from all over the country.  Unfortunately, the gifts far exceeded what could be distributed in Newton a relatively affluent community, but many volunteers were needed to help store the gifts and toys even after Newtown officials asked that nothing else be sent. Bloom argues that this money could have been better spent saving lives by buying mosquito netting for children in Sudan and providing clean drinking water for those who have no access or meals to the elderly who do not have enough food.  In this way, people would be saving lives, but instead, their emotional empathy created a glut of teddy bears in a community that needed emotional support, but not tangible items and diverted resources from other potentially deadly situations.  
 
Bloom argues that this and other similar examples demonstrate that compassion is biased and often results in a cost-benefit net loss. Therapists who are too empathetic with their client’s problems face burn out and need to learn how to help their clients through the healing process without taking on the pain and suffering of their clients at the same time.  Bloom provides an example of a worker at the 9-11 sight looking for bodies when it was clear that they would find no more survivors, this person needed to try to dial back their empathy as they would otherwise have become overwhelmed and unable to help in the recovery efforts.  Surgeons may also need to practice this skill as too much empathy may inhibit their ability to do their job well.  The key here may to be employ understanding and caring rather than empathy. 
 
Empathy can also be counterintuitive; when we perceive that individuals play a role for creating a negative situation in their own life, we are likely to employ the just world phenomenon and demonstrate very little empathy even if it would be the kind and moral thing to do.  For example, if you found that someone was infected through HIV because they were an intravenous drug user who had used and infected needle, we might be likely to say that “it was their own fault.” Psychopaths are often said to lack empathy, but Bloom argues that criminal psychopaths have normal empathetic abilities, but they can dial it up to ingratiate themselves with people and then turn it down if they violate trust or engage in a criminal activity that may result in hurting others. Those with autism, unlike the criminal psychopaths, have little ability to empathize but do not have questionable moral behavior. Demonstrating Bloom`s argument that empathy and morality and not inevitable linked to one another. 
 
Bloom also discusses that the development of an in-group to whom we are likely to empathize and find similarities often creates and out-group may lead to stereotyping, dehumanization and unfair negative attributes.  While we can empathize with the victim of a crime or a family member who is suffering, Bloom argues that there are limits in empathy.  For example, if you heard that 30 people were killed in a flood in Indonesia, you would likely feel badly and perhaps empathize with the families of those killed or injured.  However, if you heard that 3000 people were killed in the flooding, would you feel 300 times worse?  We might go to herculean efforts to remove child trapped in a well, but do very little to try and change the climate which may over time results in the deaths of thousands more people.  Bloom uses quotes by both Stalin and Mother Teresa to demonstrate this point.  Stalin said, “One death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic.  Mother Teresa, “If I look at the mass, I will never act, if I look at the one, I will. Both understood the limits of empathy, but one in demonstrating Bloom`s thesis, the morality of this understanding is neutral, empathy need not only be used for good.  
Bloom does recognize that some good can come out of empathy and organizations such as effective Altruism advocate doing good deeds that combines the efforts of the head and the heart.  
 
Other Related Resources
The Atlantic:  Short video of psychologist Paul Bloom making the argument that empathy is a bad thing
https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/474588/why-empathy-is-a-bad-thing/. Bloom maintains that he is against empathy but for compassion.  He poses that empathy should not override rational deliberation; it should be a reliable servant-but never a master.
 
Big Think:  Why Empathy is not the Best Way to Care:  Video in which Paul Bloom describes why empathy can backfire and lead to negative effects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhCGmDJQRpc
 
Psychology Today:  Why Paul Boom is Wrong about Empathy and Morality
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/good-thinking/201310/why-paul-bloom-is-wrong-about-empathy-and-morality
 
Quartz: Empathy Makes us Immoral
https://qz.com/1250764/work-japan-app-aims-to-help-foreigners-find-blue-collar-jobs-despite-japans-resistance-to-immigrants/
 
Oxford Education Blog:  Against Empathy?  Really
https://educationblog.oup.com/theory-of-knowledge/against-empathy-really
 
Psychological Figures and Concepts
Amygdala
Anterior Insula
Autism
Availability Heuristic
Base Rate
Clinical Psychology
Cognitive Empathy
Cognitive Neuroscience
Dualism
Emotional Contagion
Emotional Empathy
Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
File Drawer Problem
fMRI
Incentive
Just World Phenomenon
Localization
Medial Prefrontal Cortex
Mindfulness
Mirror Neuron
Neuroanatomist
Neuroimaging
Posterior Cingulate Gyrus
Psychopaths
Statistical Significance
Theory of Mind
 
Psychological Figures
Charles Darwin
David Eagelman
Sigmund Freud
Michael Gazzaniga
Marc Iacobini
Steven Pinker