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The Brain Is Not an Explanation
Brain scans pinpoint how chocoholics are hooked. This headline appeared in The Guardian a couple years ago above a science story that began: “Chocoholics really do have chocolate on the brain.” The story went on to describe a study that used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of chocoholics and non-cravers. The study found increased activity in the pleasure centers of the chocoholics’ brains, and the Guardian report concluded: “There may be some truth in calling the love of chocolate an addiction in some people.” Really? Is that a fair conclusion to draw from the fMRI data in this study, reported in the European Journal of Neuroscience?
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A sobering message about free will
Addiction is a disorder of the will, yet treatment for alcoholism and other addictions often comes with decidedly mixed messages about willpower and abstinence. On the one hand, newly sober addicts and alcoholics often hear the news that two of every three of them will ultimately relapse. There is a frightening sense of inevitability in this not-so-hopeful message. On the other hand, this folk wisdom can also be heard echoing through the rooms of recovery: “Relapse is not a requirement.” Not a requirement, yet two of three will fail. This seeming contradiction can be confusing to those struggling to shake their compulsions in early sobriety.
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Why kids get hit by cars
Getting hit by a car is the third leading cause of death for kids 5- to 9-years-old, and kids up to age 15 make up a disproportionate number of pedestrian casualties worldwide. It’s not hard to think of reasons for this scary statistic: Children are easily distracted and don’t always pay attention, and they are also smaller, so they’re more likely to sustain fatal injuries when they are hit. But there may be another, even more basic, reason for this childhood peril: Kids simply don’t see the cars coming. The ability to see and avoid looming objects is a fundamental skill, crucial to survival not only for humans but for most animals.
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From Bitter to Wrong: Conscience of a Conservative
Fans of the old sitcom Seinfeld will recall Mr. Bookman, the well-named New York Public Library investigator who relentlessly pursues Jerry for failing to return a library book that he checked out two decades before. Jerry borrowed the book, Tropic of Cancer, in 1971, and when Mr. Bookman finally tracks him down, the mere mention of that year sends the library cop off on a sweeping moral tirade on the degradation of civilized culture: “Yeah, ’71 . . . bad year for libraries. Bad year for America. Hippies burning library cards. Abby Hoffman telling everybody to steal books. I don’t judge a man by the length of his hair or the kind of music he listens to. . . .
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Roots of Self-Sabotage: Seduced By the ‘Devil We Know’
The human mind is irrational, and this irrationality can be quirky and entertaining. But all too often our quirkiness crosses the line into perversion. We make self-destructive decisions when we should know better, and choose options that are (seemingly) designed to sabotage our hopes and end up in failure and unhappiness. Why would we do this? There are obviously many and complex reasons for bad decisions, but in recent years, psychological scientists have been focusing on human thinking—flawed human thinking—as one source of self-sabotage.
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The ‘Snowmageddon Effect’: Irrational Beliefs About Climate
On February 5th and 6th of 2010, a blizzard dumped historic snowfalls on the Mid-Atlantic region of the country. Elkridge, Maryland, got more than 38” over the two days, and Washington, DC, where I live, ended up with about 20” of accumulation. That’s a lot of snow for us, but this was just the start. Three days later, another winter storm dumped an additional 20” or more on the nation’s capital. The weather’s one-two punch soon became known as “Snowmageddon”—a nickname made official when President Obama used it to describe the paralyzing storms. Snowmageddon had a puzzling side effect.
