Dishonesty Test

Researchers are conducting an on-line experiment which looks at how subjective honesty can be. The research is to determine if there is a common standard of what is honest and dishonest behaviour, this is because in law there is no clear definition, consequently juries will judge based on their own perspective.

The test is on their website, the site also has confessions from people on it, which range from amusing to completely shocking. It's strange the things that play on peoples mind years after.

New Labour Groupthink

I was reading article on PsyBlog about fighting groupthink with dissent. Essentially for a group to be effective there must be a critical voice within, otherwise it becomes self for filling and enforcing.

I've commented on Brown being in this position several times on this blog. If you don't have people around you to challenge your views and ideas, you create artificial world around yourself. That's not productive as no one is right 100% of the time. It's also good to have to defend and refine your views, as you can discover weakness in them and sometimes realise you are missing a point or the point.

There is a wonderful article by Jenni Russell about Labour's views on public services. She writes on the NHS:

people don't emerge from the system thinking how brilliant and well resourced it is. They come out grateful for having survived it, and conscious of how anxious and threatened they felt within it. They care less about gleaming new buildings than about the human relationships that take place within them – and those have been made less warm, less good and less likely to flourish precisely because of the reforms that Labour has pursued.

Their steadfast views on public services are a good example of groupthink. They sat in a room looking at figures, everyone congratulating themselves on what a good job they've done. Using statistics to prove there points and enforce them. No one challenging the idea of box ticking, bureaucracy and the effect that's had on people and services. So they've kept on doing it.

What disappoints me and really angers me about this is, what a waste, a completely wasted 12 years. They could have done anything yet look where we are, it's even worst than it was in 1997. Now what was their pledge again?

What Makes Us Happy?

There's a very interesting article in the Atlantic about, what make us happy?

For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been examining this question, following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. Here, for the first time, a journalist gains access to the archive of one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in history.

The video below gives an overview with the psychologist involved, the conclusion he makes is endearing. Yet it's the article itself that's quite moving, as it quotes passages of the cases, the men's lives and reflections over 72 years. There's a blog the quotes remind me of called PostSecrets, people mail their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard. There's something I've always found reassuring in reading people inner thoughts, as Alan Bennett says, it’s as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.

Henry VIII Jousting Accident Tyrant

There's an interesting article on the Independent site, about Henry VIII personality changing due to a jousting accident, which turned him from a relativity nice chap as Kings go, into the tyrant remembered by history:

"After the accident he was unconscious for two hours; even five minutes of unconsciousness is considered to be a major trauma today." Henry may have suffered a brain injury, Dr Worsley says. "Damage to the frontal lobe of the brain can perfectly well result in personality change."(read more)

That's quite an interesting theory, I'm reminded of a documentary on the BBC about Walter Freeman who horrifically preformed frontal lobotomies on patients. Howard Dully who was one of the people Freeman performed this on, afterwards found his behaviour became uncontrollable and erratic. Doctors in the documentary said it because the frontal lobes assist in planning, coordinating, controlling and executing behaviour and judgement. It also controls social and sexual behaviour.

So the theory seems sound, just not as exciting as thinking of him as a tyrant though.

A link to an overview of Howard Dully and Walter Freeman, though I forewarn they do have picture on the page of the lobotomy being preformed, and they explain how he did it.

Psychological Studies

There's an interesting article on PsyBlog, that looks at a cross section of the most influential social psychological studies. From the famous 'Stanford Prison Experiment' to 'Milgram’s obedience test'.