For some of us, gift giving is no simple matter. Not just because it’s challenging to find affordable, thoughtful gifts given our limited time or finances, but because we recognize that gifts are often wrapped in symbolic meaning and we obsess about it.

Especially in complicated or conflicted relationships, gifts are not just gifts. Holiday gifts may be peace-making gestures, or symbols of anger, hurt, indifference, or dislike (or interpreted as such regardless of our motives). Indeed, we have to accept that sometimes there is no right gift we may bestow. A recipient with low self-esteem or depression may have trouble interpreting the gift as the loving gesture intended. When someone has a negative stereotype of us, our gift may be wrong for no other reason than it came from us. Our thoughtful gift will be interpreted as thoughtless, our expensive gift as trying to buy love or show off.

Fearing embarrassment or judgment, self-conscious people worried about what others think may spend ridiculous amounts of time trying to make the right impression and gain others’ approval with their gift giving. Will our gifts make us look like we’re thoughtful or thoughtless? Like spendthrifts or cheapskates? Will they fit with the group’s norms regarding how much effort or money to expend? Will our gifts look paltry or generous in comparison to others’ gifts? Will we be embarrassed that our gift is smaller than the one received?

For empathic people, gift giving can engender all kinds of time-consuming thought and effort as they anticipate what their gifts may mean to others. Recognizing that some people will see their gifts as love yardsticks (“How do you love me? Let me count the gifts!”), they take great pains to choose the right gift. Knowing that some of their children (or friends) are like holiday hounds sniffing for scents of favoritism, they struggle to insure gifts are of equal quantity and quality.

For those of us who need to reduce our holiday giving for financial or “energetic” reasons, the threat of disappointing recipients looms large, especially when our generous gift giving is part of a long-standing tradition. The threat of disappointing others and messing with beloved traditions leads some of us to continue giving at levels that strain our finances or our health. Although it might feel like the end of a family era to cut back and adopt new family norms, it might be time for your family to adopt new gift giving traditions to reduce the gift-giving burden. Consolation may found in the knowledge that even if that particular family tradition changes, other less materialistic traditions can remain intact, and new traditions quickly become old ones.

Not everybody experiences such anxiety around holiday gifting. To some, a gift is just a gift, a holiday token rather than a loaded relationship or public image symbol. To those rejecting materialism or rebelling against norms equating love with gifting, gift giving is a social obligation to be rejected or minimized. While these minimalist approaches to holiday gift giving may be misconstrued as uncaring and may violate group norms, some of us can stand to take a page, or at least a few lines, out of this simpler holiday book. 

Rather than worrying obsessively over choosing the right gift, we need to accept that we only have so much control over how other people experience and respond to our gifts. We need to find comfort in our own good intentions, even when they are twisted and twirled by others into something unfair and unrecognizable. And it’s good to remember that even if we fall short, the hit to our public image is usually smaller and shorter-lived than we imagine. And if it doesn't die quickly, we can scale down our relationships with such superficial and materialistic people (or the space we rent them in our heads), and scale up our relationships with people that get what the holidays are really about. 

References

Beatty, S. E., Kahle, L. R., & Homer, P. (1991). Personal values and gift-giving behaviors: A study across cultures. Journal of Business Research, 22, 149-157.

Cheal, D. (1987). ‘Showing them you love them”: Gift giving and the dialectic of intimacy. The Sociological Review, 35, 150-169.

Sherry, J. F., McGrath, M. A., & Levy, S. J. (1993). The dark side of the gift. Journal of Business Research, 28, 225-244.

One generation from now, White non-Hispanic individuals will no longer constitute the majority of the U.S. population. Although Whites will continue to comprise the single largest ethnic group, ethnic minorities (as an aggregate) are slated to collectively achieve majority status by 2042. As the composition of the United States’ population is poised for change, the identification of certain psychological factors capable of increasing comfort with diversity will likely prove valuable in helping Whites to acclimate to a more ethnically heterogeneous society.

The sense of purpose in life has been routinely associated with numerous benefits. Individuals with a sense of purpose are happier¹, their immune systems are stronger², they recover more quickly from surgery³, and they even live longer⁴. Now, a new study⁵ comprised of three different experiments, conducted by Anthony Burrow and Rachel Sumner of Cornell University, Patrick Hill of Carleton University, and myself has shown that purposeful people are also more comfortable with ethnic diversity.

In the first experiment, 205 White participants were asked to answer questions about their demographics, personality, current mood, and also a series of established scales designed to measure both their sense of purpose and their comfort with ethnic diversity. Results demonstrated that possessing greater levels of purpose in life was associated with feeling more comfortable with ethnic diversity, above and beyond the effect of any other variable.

In the second experiment, 184 White participants were all shown a pie chart labeled “2015,” which accurately depicted the current population of the United States to be 62% White and 38% minority. Next, half of the participants were shown an additional chart labeled “2050,” which depicted the population as 57% White and 43% ethnic minority (thus, reflecting a continued White majority). The other half of the participants viewed a different “2050” pie chart that depicted the population as 53% ethnic minority and 47% White (thus, reflecting a shift towards a majority ethnic population). As expected, those who viewed the ethnic majority population percentages reported greater feelings of threat than those who viewed charts depicting a continued White majority. However, among individuals who viewed the pie charts demonstrating an ethnic majority population, the sense of purpose was associated with significantly diminished perceptions of threat.

In the final experiment, 130 White participants were asked to complete either a short writing assignment about their sense of purpose or to write about a “typical day.” Participants were then shown color-coded maps of cities with two different levels of ethnic composition (see below).

Those who wrote about their sense of purpose were significantly more likely to be open to consider living in the more ethnically diverse city compared to those who had written about their typical day.

Overall, the results of our three experiments corroborate previous research into the effects of purpose in diverse contexts. For example, a study conducted in 2013⁶ had participants ride a train through a diverse area of Chicago. Individuals who rode trains accompanied by higher proportions of individuals of different ethnicities reported higher levels of stress⁷. Yet, individuals who were instructed to write about their sense of purpose in life for just 10 minutes prior to boarding the train were significantly less affected by the ethnic stressors onboard the train.

Admittedly, researchers are largely uncertain of the precise mechanisms underlying the beneficial role of purpose in the context of ethnic diversity. One hypothesis points to the notion that purposeful individuals are oriented toward connecting with the broader world around them. Such global orientations might enable individuals to conceptualize what it takes to thrive in the context of a more inclusive and diverse future. Yet, further research is duly required in order to fully illuminate the beneficial role of purpose in the scope of ethnic diversity.

 References:

1. Bronk, K. C., Hill, P. L., Lapsley, D. K., Talib, N., & Finch, H. (2009). Purpose, hope, and life satisfaction in three age groups. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4, 500–510. 

2. Fredrickson, B. L., Grewen, K. M., Coffey, K. A., Algoe, S. B., Firestine, A. M., Arevalo, J. M., ... & Cole, S. W. (2013). A functional genomic perspective on human well-being. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(33), 13684-13689.

3. Kim, E. S., Sun, J. K., Park, N., Kubzansky, L. D., & Peterson, C. (2013). Purpose in life and reduced risk of myocardial infarction among older US adults with coronary heart disease: a two-year follow-up. Journal of behavioral medicine, 36(2), 124-133.

4. Hill, P. L., Turiano, N.A. (2014). Purpose in life as a predictor of mortaliy across adulthood. Psychological Science, 25.

5. Burrow, A. L., Stanley, M., Sumner, R., & Hill, P. L. (2014). Purpose in Life as a Resource for Increasing Comfort With Ethnic Diversity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40(11), 1507-1516.

6. Burrow, A. L., & Hill, P. L. (2013). Derailed by diversity? Purpose buffers the relationship between ethnic composition on trains and passenger negative mood. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 39(12), 1610-1619.

7. For review of diversity stressors, see article by Robert Putnam titled “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture.”

Nicotine is a highly addictive drug, and it is extremely difficult to quit smoking. Underscoring the addictive properties of nicotine, current estimates indicate that smoking just 100 cigarettes puts an individual at high risk of becoming a nicotine-dependent smoker. The good news is that the percent of the U.S. population who are active smokers has decreased substantially since the early 1960s. The bad news is that 20 to 25% of adults still smoke. 

Survey studies suggest that a large majority of persons who smoke would like to quit. However, fewer than 10% of those attempting to quit are successful. Current treatment approaches can perhaps double this quit rate; nevertheless, overall success remains low and relapse is high.

A person becomes addicted to cigarettes because brain pathways are rewired as a result of repeated nicotine exposure. The nicotine-induced rewiring of emotional, motivational, and cognitive brain circuits leads to the need for continued, repeated, nicotine exposure in order for the addicted person to avoid very uncomfortable emotional and physical withdrawal symptoms.

In recent years, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been explored as a treatment for a variety of psychiatric disorders, including major depression. This procedure utilizes electromagnets to stimulate specific brain regions, typically in the superficial layers of the neocortex (the outermost regions of the brain). Recently, TMS devices have been developed that are capable of influencing deeper regions of the cerebral cortex than had been accessible previously. Certain brain regions involved in addictive behaviors, including part of the cortex called the insula, can now be modulated with TMS.

Researchers from Israel recently published a potentially important study exploring the effect of TMS on smoking cessation. These investigators directed TMS to deep brain regions, including the insula, and compared the effects of high frequency magnetic pulses, low frequency magnetic pulses, and no (sham) magnetic pulses.

Initial results are promising. Administration of 13 TMS sessions over a 3-week period utilizing high frequency stimulation led to substantially higher rates of abstinence. Low frequency stimulation and sham stimulation had no influence. Following the 13 sessions, 35% of those in the high frequency stimulation group were abstinent compared to 7% in the low frequency and sham groups. Six months later, 28% of those who had received high frequency treatments remained abstinent, compared to 7% in the low frequency group and 5% in the sham group.

How does high frequency TMS work? It is thought that electrical currents induced in deep brain regions by magnetic stimulation alter the function of pathways that were rewired by nicotine. Better definition of these pathways is a goal of future research.

Naturally, the results of this pilot study must be replicated by other investigators in larger groups of subjects, but the present results indicate that TMS might help a significant percentage of people quit smoking. Many questions remain unanswered. Would individual or group psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy together with TMS lead to even better outcomes? Will further work varying the number of treatments, frequency of pulses, and location of magnets lead to treatment modifications that improve outcomes? 

Despite limitations in the present study, it is clear that more effective and longer-lasting treatments for nicotine dependence are needed to reduce the individual and public health costs of cigarette smoking. 

This column was co-written by Eugene Rubin MD, PhD and Charles Zorumski MD.

It's time for a year-end clearance of frequent questions about addiction. I've addressed these in the past but not everyone reads the questions and answers that appear after blog posts. So, here's a compact summary.

Question: If addiction is psychological in nature, as you say, doesn't that mean it's due to something wrong with the brain?

Answer: This question usually comes from folks who don't understand what psychology is, or how it works. Human psychology is a phenomenon that emerges when a few billion brain cells function together, creating s complex system. The individual cells have no psychology. When a brand new set of phenomena emerge from a complex system, they are called "emergent" properties, and the study of this is a whole field of modern physics called "Complexity Theory". The most important part of this is that the emergent properties can neither be predicted nor understood by studying the individual elements of the system. An example from outside psychology is what happens when atoms are combined in complex ways. They form new structures (molecules) that have properties that are not present in the atoms themselves, nor are they predictable from knowledge of atoms. The field that studies the properties and interactions of these molecules is so different from the physics of atomic structure that it has its own name: Chemistry. In the same way, we are all composed of chemicals, but the nature and properties of life cannot be predicted or understood from knowledge of the chemicals that compose us (no chemicals are alive, and you could never predict life from knowledge of chemicals). To understand life, you need a new science beyond chemistry: Biology. Human psychology is an emergent phenomenon that occurs when billions of cells create a complex system. It has new properties that can only be understood through a new science: Psychology. Trying to reduce human psychology to brain function results in simplistic thinking that can never explain the new system, any more than DNA molecules can be understood by knowledge of the carbon atoms that compose it. The good news is that psychological symptoms such as addiction certainly do not mean there is something being wrong with a person's brain.

Question: I have seen a juxtaposition of two brain scans, one on drugs, the other not. Isn't that proof of the "chronic brain disease" theory of addiction?

Answer: Some people who have been exposed to drugs have an excessive brain reaction (secretion of the neurotransmitter dopamine) when they are subsequently exposed to that drug. Dopamine secretion leads to an excited reaction in rats, causing them to scurry around looking for the drug which produced the excessive dopamine response. This is the basic finding that led to the "chronic brain disease" theory. But to have evidence of this theory in humans, you would have to show that people first develop brain changes, then, as a result, become addicts. Considering that most of the country currently believes this theory, it is remarkable that there are zero cases that show this. All the "evidence" is the reverse: that people who are already addicts have changes in dopamine release, just like the rats in the original experiments. To conclude that this explains addiction is equivalent to believing that coughing produces pneumonia.

But just as important, there is an enormous body of evidence showing that the "brain disease" theory must be wrong, because it is incompatible with the evidence of human addiction. There are literally millions of people who have taken high doses of drugs like heroin or alcohol, yet never become addicts -- exactly the opposite of what the brain disease theory predicts, and impossible if the brain disease idea were true. We also know from another huge number of examples that drug addiction can be replaced by non-drug addictions that are focused on gambling or shopping or playing games on the Internet. These common examples underscore that addiction is not about responding to exposure to the same drug one took before; it has nothing to do with the same drug you took before. Then there's the fact that in human beings addictive behavior is regularly triggered not by being exposed to a drug, but by emotionally-significant stresses and traumas. On top of that, when humans make the decision to take a drink, buy a drug, or drive to a casino, they are typically reasonably calm -- sometimes for hours -- while on the way. The brain disease idea is based on the immediate response of rats to drug cues -- their tiny brains are simple matters of see-and-react. That behavior does look like the sudden release of dopamine. Finally, we know that people can stop their addictive behavior as a result of human intervention, either through psychotherapy, or through self-help group support, or even on their own (there is a substantial spontaneous recovery rate for alcoholism, for example). None of this is consistent with a theory of addiction as a "chronic brain disease."

Question: I know that AA doesn't help everyone, but why criticize it?

Answer: Almost everyone phrases this question just that way: "AA doesn't help everyone …" But this wording contains a huge error. AA has a 5-8% success rate. Therefore, the question should be rephrased: "I know that AA hardly helps anyone who goes to it … ." Seen in this realistic light, the answer to the question is obvious. By referring almost 100% of people with addictions to 12-step programs, we are failing -- and harming -- the 90% who cannot make use of this approach. When people are sent to a program that cannot work for them, it's like prescribing the wrong antibiotic to a person with pneumonia. Sure, the drug works for a small percent of people with lung infections, but if you give it to everyone then you're going to have a lot of untreated, much sicker patients. AA should be criticized for its irresponsible attitude that people who don't benefit should attend more meetings ("90 in 90"), and that those doing poorly haven't "worked the program" hard enough.

AA also deserves criticism for its failure to live up to ordinary standards of caring for people. The people we rely upon for most serious problems in our lives have carefully studied, trained, and been credentialed in a field that has standards, then kept up with changes in knowledge over the years, modifying their approach according to the results of their practice, and according to what is new. AA does none of that. Even though AA is a non-professional organization, it still must acknowledge that it is appropriate for very few of the people sent to it, and must require that every one of their groups actively advise people to try something else when AA isn't helping them. Without these assurances, we cannot trust AA to deal with addiction.

Question: How can you criticize AA unless you have fully experienced it? By full experience, I mean making the decision to work through all 12 Steps.

Answer: The questioner believes that one must go through all 12 steps before deciding to opt out, or even criticize the program. It is a restatement of the myth that "AA works if you work it." This idea is not just an obvious example of self-serving circular reasoning (wouldn't every business like to claim that its product failures are because you didn't work at it hard enough), but leads people who are unhelped to blame themselves.

Question: I belong to a great AA group. It is open-minded and thoughtful. How does that fit with criticism of AA?

Answer: This question underscores the fact that AA is intentionally unsupervised and uncontrolled. While there are groups that are composed of thoughtful and open-minded people, we know from a huge number of accounts that there are many others that are driven by fundamentalist zeal, are rigid and judgmental, often ruled by old-timers who have a stern view that what was good for them must be right for everyone, and can be unsafe. To be trustworthy, AA must have guidelines to ensure that any group calling itself "AA" lives up to minimal standards of open-mindedness, protection of all members, and knowledge of the limitations of this approach.

Question: Isn't there a big difference between serious addictions and doing things like shopping or cleaning the house too much?

Answer: The effects of a behavior do not define its cause or mechanism. When a dangerous drug addiction can be replaced by other, much less dangerous compulsive behaviors (which often occurs), it underscores the essential fact that all addictive or compulsive behaviors are fundamentally the same, and that addiction has nothing inherently to do with any one behavior.

Question: The American Society of Addiction Medicine, the American Medical Association, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Health, the DSM IV all define addiction as a fundamental and primary brain disease. How could they possibly all be wrong?

Answer: When people are quite young, it is useful and important for them to believe that authorities, starting with their parents, are always right. Later, we learn that authorities are simply human, and they make mistakes. Anyone familiar with the history of science knows that widely accepted (and taught) theories are regularly overturned a few years later. In the case of the "chronic brain disease" theory, it's especially important to understand that all of the agencies mentioned are relying on exactly the same small set of observations and hypotheses. If they had each conducted their own studies and independently arrived at the same conclusions, their shared view would be more meaningful. But, as I've described above, there is actually no good evidence for this theory, and even more important, it is absolutely incompatible with the realities of addiction in humans. Naturally, this begs the question why so many people have climbed on this bandwagon. Some of the answer is that we all have a tendency to follow a crowd; life is easier if you go along with the currently accepted wisdom. But it is also true that the people who invented the "chronic brain disease" theory of addiction are neither knowledgeable nor interested in human psychology. They are trained in neurobiology, and with that as their hammer, the world looks like a nail.

Question: Many authorities support AA. Shouldn't that that suffice to end discussion?

Answer: This comment came in response to the publication of my book, The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry. It is a variant on the last question, and contains the same fallacy. The fact that authorities have endorsed 12-step programs is meaningless if they base their conclusions on the same poor science. It was the fact that the science behind AA is riddled with errors that made it essential to debunk it, not ignore it. The truly shocking thing about this question is not simply that it is foolish, but that it was written by a psychiatry professor, who we'd all hope would have known better. But, personal politics has a role in most human life, and this particular professor is a consultant to a large AA-oriented treatment program, something he didn't bother to mention in his critique.

Question: How can you say that addiction is a choice, like eating peanut butter?

Answer: This question confuses "choice" with compulsion. Compulsive/addictive behaviors are driven by deeper factors. That's why we call addictions "symptoms" rather than "foolish decisions". For a few thousand years, people have mistakenly thought alcoholics were weak-willed or pleasure-seeking hedonists, believing that they drank out of pure "choice". That was wrong then and it is still wrong.

Question: Isn't addiction a spiritual problem?

Answer: This is just a year-end summary! See my next blog post for a discussion of this question.   Happy New Year everyone.

Shutting Down

“My daughter just stops talking every time I bring up ______(insert topic or behavior here). What do I do? How am I supposed to listen, reflect, or validate if she refuses to talk at all?” I have heard this so many times from parents. It is frustrating when anybody ‘stonewalls’ or shuts down in a conversation.

It is important with teenagers in such situations to give them some options, but let them know that you want their input. For example, if your child has shut down about an issue, say something like, “I get that you don’t want to talk about this now. We have a couple options, you can talk with me a little later, you can try writing to me about it in an email, or I can make decisions without your input. I really want to get your input on this, but if you don’t communicate with me, I will make the decision without you.” 

This approach lets the teenager know you want his input, gives a limited number of options for him to choose from, and it shows you will be flexible to some extent, but that you will hold firm to your decisions. Teenagers want to give their input. They want to feel like part of the decision, so it is to your advantage to give them the impression that you are considering their ideas or perspective, even if you are absolutely not, and are set on what your actions will be.

Teenagers are impulsive people and rarely fit our expectations for their behaviors. So be flexible when communicating with them, and if something doesn’t work, try something else. Start slow, as you can always speed up. Whereas if you start at full speed, it can be very difficult to slow down again.

I recently came across a fascinating study done by French researchers who looked at the eating habits of NFL fans. Not only did they find the connection between losing teams and eating more, but fans of winning teams ate healthier, and less food overall.

As Professor Pierre Chandon told USA Today: “One day after a defeat, Americans eat 16 percent more saturated fat, and 10 percent more calories. But on the day after a victory of their favorite team, then it’s the opposite. They eat more healthily. They eat 9 percent less saturated fat, and 5 percent fewer calories. There was no effect in cities without a team or with a team that didn’t play.”

But gaining weight isn’t the only factor a diehard fan may experience. Other studies have found fans can be susceptible to heart attack, stress, and depression.

So, aside from switching allegiance to a more successful NFL team, how can you put up a great defensive strategy against the battle of the bulge?

In my experience, relying on a Pandora’s box-style principle known as the “abstinence violation effect” is your best defense. It’s a great concept when dealing with anything from alcohol abuse to other, smaller habits that we just can’t seem to kick--such as, say, stress eating.

The abstinence violation effect works as follows: Say a box of Double-Stuf Oreos has found its way into your apartment, openly taunting your so-far-successful diet. Usually you can scarf down a sleeve of these cookies at once and think nothing of it, but the rational you--the dieting you--knows better than to give in.

But then you think, “Well, one isn’t so bad, is it? It’s not a crime to eat one Oreo.” You open the container, pick out a single Oreo, and eat it. And then, after it hits the spot, you realize just one more won’t throw your diet off the rails. It makes no sense to eat just one oreo. So you eat a second.

And after you eat the second, you eat a third. After all, you’ve already eaten two. So much for “sticking to your diet.” That ship has sailed, right? So you may as well enjoy yourself now.

All of a sudden, you’ve eaten the whole sleeve. And if you’re anything like me, you’re now left feeling a little queasy, both physically and emotionally, for the rest of the night.

The abstinence violation effect is, in a nutshell, like the Pringles slogan: “Once you pop, you just can’t stop.” So the best way avoid these slips is not to pop: to substitute the unhealthy behavior with something else. I often tell my patients that if they find themselves tempted to “cheat” on a behavior plan, they should step outside for 60 seconds and get some fresh air instead. Even if it’s just a matter of leaving your apartment, walking down the hall, and walking right back, it makes a huge difference. They’re amazed at how quickly the urge passes.

Suppose you’re not necessarily on a diet; you just want to avoid gaining an extra ten pounds all because the Jets can’t seem to catch a break in the AFC East. The psychology is extremely similar. We like to eat junk food when we’re feeling down, whether it’s from a bad breakup or a disappointing game. To break the habit, sports fans need to take the same strategy as our Oreo addict by replacing the weight-gaining behavior with something more positive.   

One clear (and possibly easiest) solution is to surround yourself with healthy snacks when watching the big game. If you’re out, get a glass of water every time you get the urge to munch. If you’re home, let off some frustration by doing 5 push-ups.

Of course, you can always just root for the winning team. But then again, this whole post has been about avoiding tempting but wrong choices--and I heartily advise against switching allegiances mid-season. If you feel tempted to do that during a game, I recommend a distraction until you come to your senses. How about Oreos?

For more on sport psychology and motivation, follow me on Twitter or Facebook. You can also watch me talking about sport fan health on CBS This Morning here.

Award-winning writer Todd Wilkinson, author of Last Stand: Ted Turner’s Quest to Save a Troubled Planet, has written a critically acclaimed book that delves deep into the green psyche of the controversial legendary American, Ted Turner (the Kindle edition can be found here). By example, Mr. Turner is involved in rewilding the American West, joining the global fight to rescue humanity, and, against huge odds, trying to transform capitalism-as-usual. His efforts are inspiring others—progressives and conservatives—to change course. I really enjoyed Mr. Wilkinson’s book and did an interview with him about it and this most fascinating and enigmatic man.

Marc Bekoff: TED TURNER DOESN’T BELIEVE THE MODEL OF CAPITALISM WE’RE USING IS SUSTAINABLE OR FAIR

Todd Wilkinson: Ted turned 76 this year and as he points out, humankind is not going to consume its way out of the grave challenges we are facing—not by putting another three to five billion additional humans on the planet in the next few decades and not by treating the earth as a resource colony there to be mined.

MB: YOU SEE TURNER AS A POTENTIAL CATALYST FOR THE KIND OF CHANGE WE NEED AND THAT HAS TO HAPPEN IN THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY—THE KIND OF CHANGE THAT’S BEING ESPOUSED BY PEOPLE LIKE NAOMI KLEIN IN HER NEW BOOK, “THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING”?

TW: That’s a great question. Although I’ve never met Naomi Klein, she and Ted are on the same wavelength.  The very kind of dramatic shift that she says is needed to avert disaster is being practiced by Ted Turner who understands business yet embraces the shift.

Look at the problems that are starting to converge: climate change, rising human population, the spiraling biodiversity crisis, widening gap between “haves” and have nots, poverty exacerbated by environmental destruction, and the looming threat of nuclear terrorism.

It’s rare to have influential people who become engaged tangibly and effectively in confronting any one those issues; it is almost unheard of to have an individual who understands the connections between all of them and is involved as a connector in the search—some would say, desperate search— for solutions. 

MB: LAST STAND DOESN’T READ LIKE A TYPICAL BIOGRAPHY.  IT HAS AN ACTIVE VOICE AND IT'S ENGAGING.  WHAT MADE YOU APPROACH IT THAT WAY?

TW: When I wrote Last Stand I didn’t want to have it come across as another wonky exploration of environmental/humanitarian problems, laden with doom and gloom. I wanted it to be accessible and inspiring. To maintain the interest of readers, it needed to be an adventure story that opened minds and delved into the inner workings of an imperfect human trying to harness his resources to do good in the world. It needed to have relevance to the lives and personal interests of readers.

Most Americans when they hear Ted’s name have a strong reaction one way or another. He’s a favorite of some on the ultra-right who continuously spew uninformed nonsense. I’ve found that even Atlantans and Georgians have a pretty narrow, often superficial understanding of him, not fully realizing what he’s done, for example, in the West.

 MB: CAN YOU PLEASE SPEAK MORE TO THAT?

TW: Well, here is a guy who paradoxically is known and surprisingly beloved, especially outside the US, for being a different kind of American—an internationalist, not a John Wayne cowboy trying to ride herd over the rest of the world. He’s respected for what CNN did when it was under his command. This paradox still fascinates me.  And it’s something that drives commentators at FOX News crazy.

 MB: HOW LONG HAVE YOU KNOWN TED?

TW: I first interviewed him in 1992 shortly after he arrived in Montana and started buying up ranches in the West to support a rapidly expanding population of bison. He was, at that point, already legendary -- he had won the America's Cup, founded CNN, bought some Hollywood movie studios -- but a work in progress. It would have been easy to dismiss him as the Mouth of the South in those days and question the substance of his commitment to environmentalism and humanitarian-related causes.   Even today, Americans, especially young people, have only a vague understanding of him—perceived to be just another rich guy, a boisterous Don Quixote who was once a “media mogul” and morphed into a “bison baron.” But the label, stamped on him by media, is simplistic and misleading. The book spans the considerable arc of Turner's life that has not received much media attention and yet is far more consequential for humanity.

MB: SOME PEOPLE I KNOW HAVE A NEGATIVE IMPRESSION OF TURNER

TW: Last Stand wasn't written to be a shameless hagioraphy. Ted isn’t a saint and the book never seeks to portray him as such. He’s been married three times, has five children by two different wives. I’ve encountered his mercurial moods firsthand. Yes, he can be difficult, rude and tempestuous, and he’s legendary for, as his close friends say, shooting from the lip and not bothering to edit what comes out of his mouth.

But as we know from knowing and reading about historic figures, including the late Steve Jobs, people involved with game-changing advancements in the world aren’t always completely likable. I’d note that the Founding Fathers of this country were prickly. And far from perfect, they were complicated souls full of contradictions.

But that’s what makes them interesting and in some ways, more compelling. We don’t judge them on their personality flaws; we remember them for what they accomplished—the virtues that defined them when everything was on the line.

MB: AND WHERE DOES TED STACK UP?

I had an interesting conversation about that with Mikhail Gorbachev and he noted that apart from what Turner did in media—being a pioneering technology disruptor with 24 international news and satellite TV—it’s what he’s doing as an environmentalist and humanitarian that really sets him apart.  Gorbachev described Turner’s as one of the most diverse portfolios of significant accomplishment by a single individual citizen in history. Gorbachev isn’t one who is prone to exaggeration.

Two things that I wanted to get at with Ted were his motivations and those aspects inherent in his closely-guarded psyche that caused him to be an overachiever and a force for good. 

MB: AND….?

TW: As it turns out, Turner operates fundamentally from the mindset of an underdog—of trying to prove wrong those who sell him short. And a driving emotion for him is empathy to those—humans and animals—that suffer.  As Jane Fonda told me, “Ted is the survivor of a very traumatic and brutal childhood laid down at the hands of his father who committed suicide.  Ted’s bond with nature, his desire to save wildlife and help other human beings is really an attempt to save himself.”

MB: HOW DID YOU GET HIM TO OPEN UP AND DELVE INTO THAT VULNERABLE SPACE.  HE TRUSTED YOU.

TW: That and slowly, steadily, going deeper in a non-rushed way. We established some ground rules before the book started: I would have unlimited access, be able to ask him anything I wanted and I would write things as I saw them.  At the same time, I had no interest in generating tabloid fodder, though a few publishers said they’d be interested in a tell-all full of salacious secrets.  I told them I wasn’t interested in writing that book.

MB: BUT THE MATERIAL YOU DO EXPLORE AND THE STORY YOU TELL IS PRETTY PERSONAL. HOW DID THAT REVELATION HAPPEN?

TW: There wasn’t one moment in which an epiphany or breakthrough occurred but it was an accumulation of pieces, little insights, that were assembled over time.  A criticism of Turner emanating from earlier books written about him—in fact one of the critics was Jane Fonda—had been that Ted wasn’t reflective. I pushed him to reflect and while there are parts of him that still remain a mystery; we had some very intense conversations.  In the end, he told me, “There’s a lot in the book that isn’t easy for me to read, relive or talk about publicly, but I’m glad it is in there.”

MB: SO LET ME PUSH YOU A BIT: WHAT DO YOU THINK MOTIVATES TED TURNER?

TW: Building upon what Jane Fonda says, Ted is a profound example of something you’ve written about and which has been gaining a lot of momentum in the scientific literature: the idea that immersing oneself with humility in nature and being generous can lead to inner healing and actually increase self esteem.

Jane said that if there is a heaven, Ted wants to get in but what he really wants to be remembered for is having been a good guy.

MB: AND WHOSE MONEY ALLOWED HIM TO BE INFLUENTIAL?

TW: Turner’s influential because of his ideas and the way he does things, not because he’s made money doing them. Money is a byproduct of being smart and being able to look around corners into the future.

You know, there are a lot of big givers out there but not all have pure selfless motivations. Some billionaires support causes simply because that’s the popular thing to do in the moment, or they give to charity to get their name on a building or as a mercenary means to cut another business deal. Some, quite frankly, command standing in philanthropic circles but they’re actually scoundrels with bad character. 

Ted isn’t a scoundrel. He has a big heart behind the public persona and he acts for the right reasons. Where his ego is involved is he often insists that goals skeptics deem impossible can actually be achieved. He proved it by building a media empire in spite of shenanigans from the networks and turning the hapless Atlanta Braves into perennial pennant champions. He didn’t give $1 billion in support of the UN because it was popular; he did it because the UN helps hold the world together, despite what neo-cons say. He’s proving naysayers wrong now by showing how humans can be better partners with the natural world, addressing climate change with alternative energy, trying to curb global population by delivering people out of poverty, and seeking the eradication of nuclear weapons. These are all matters of human survival.

MB: THOSE OF US WHO HAVE BEEN TRACKING ENVIRONMENTAL AND HUMANITARIAN CHALLENGES IN THE WORLD—WHICH ARE ALL INTER-RELATED—CONCLUDE THAT BUSINESS AS USUAL, WHICH IS TO SAY THE FLAWED MODEL OF CAPITALISM, HAS TO CHANGE.  THIS SEEMS TO BE A THEME THAT TED EMBRACES TOO, YES?

TW: Absolutely. Turner made a fortune by being a shrewd fiscally conservative businessman. He worshipped Ayn Rand when he was a young man. Running a major global company gives him undeniable standing when he says that things need to change. But more than that, he is putting his money behind his words and it’s having an impact.

Last Stand is intended to be a modern counterpoint and answer to the self-serving writings of Gilded Age tycoons who defined business for the 19th and 20th centuries.  Many of them accrued their wealth by being robber barons of natural resources. To put it in perspective: who better is advancing the best long-term interests of society, our country and the world—Ted Turner or the Koch Brothers?  One irony is the Koch Brothers could learn a few lessons about how to be better citizens by reading the book.

MB: THAT’S GREAT FODDER FOR AN INTELLECTUAL DISCUSSION IN COLLEGE CLASSES AND BOARD ROOMS.  IT ALSO SEEMS THAT YOUR GOAL WAS TO DO MORE THAN REACH COLLEGE KIDS, BUSINESS PEOPLE AND CONSERVATION ORGANIZATIONS. BUT ALSO SPEAK TO CITIZEN MEMBERS OF CONSERVATION GROUPS AND CONSUMERS TO GET THEM THINKING ABOUT BIG IDEAS THAT REPRESENT A SHIFT AWAY FROM THE STATUS QUO.

TW: Yes, and to earn and keep people’s attention, I knew that I had to take readers into the brambles of many of these contentious issues and explain why they matter to them.  Because of my own interests and career as an environmental journalist, I wanted Last Stand to be a biography that would be riveting to wildlife lovers who join Ted—a true biophiliac— in the field.  It was my intent that readers come to understand how Turner and his colleagues have approached rewilding, not only by amassing a large bison herd but bringing back grizzlies and wolves. Ted literally has howled to wild wolves off his back doorstep in the company of former President Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, E.O. Wilson, Richard Branson and others. He’s given a home to lots of imperiled critters at every one of his properties. What he’s done isn’t quixotic; it’s eminently emulative by others who want to do what’s right by their land, no matter how large or small the property.

MB: YOU EXPLORE SOME TERRAIN THAT PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE THEY KNOW TED PROBABLY HAVE NO IDEA OF HIS INVOLVEMENT, LIKE PROMOTING PEACE AND ADDRESSING NUCLEAR DANGERS.

TW: I hope readers get heart palpitations when absorbing those chapters so that they’ll trigger an awakening. When one realizes the real perils of potential nuclear Armageddon and terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction, which Ted and former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia are trying to address, you see Turner in a new light. I wanted Last Stand to be a page-turner.

MB: HOW HAS YOUR BOOK BEEN RECEIVED?

TW: Of greatest satisfaction is that Last Stand has been incorporated as a reading into college environmental studies, science, and business curriculums. I know that business managers are encouraging their employees to read it, it has been circulated among policy makers, environmental groups, and, more locally, has ignited some colorful discussions in men’s and women’s book clubs.

Like Turner or not, it is what he’s doing that’s laudable, not only in demanding that consumptive capitalism embark on a major course correction to be more mindful, better stewarding, and healers of the environment, but the stories in the book have application for every family.  You don’t need to be rich to make a difference.

MB: ARGUABLY, TED HAS HAD A CHECKERED RECORD WITH THREE FAILED MARRIAGES AND YET HE’S OUTSPOKEN WHEN IT COMES TO HUMAN RIGHTS, ESPECIALLY FOR WOMEN.

TW: As Tom Brokaw says, Ted loves women. He’s on a lifelong quest to become a better partner, parent, granddad and friend to the women in his life. It’s a personal challenge that was born in the dysfunction of his childhood. But globally he knows that besides being the cosmically right thing to do, the key to achieving a more just, equitable, fair and peaceful world is championing women.

Through the UN Foundation led by former U.S. Senator Tim Wirth and now Kathy Calvin, there is an aggressive agenda underway to not only advance equality for women everywhere and to provide opportunities for young girls to receive education as launch pads for empowerment, but it brings stability to families and really does result in a better world.

MB: CAN YOU GIVE ME A COMPELLING EXAMPLE?

TW: Senator Wirth and Kathy Calvin know that equality for women isn’t something that will be achieved through a simple legislative remedy. In many corners of the globe, respect for women is stifled by draconian cultural beliefs and traditions.

Women need not only the rule of law behind them to guarantee their rights, but even more importantly, they deserve the dignity of respect, equal opportunity, and celebration in their countries and communities.

Last summer at the AREDAY alternative energy conference in Aspen organized by Sally Ranney, it was the first time I ever heard a former U.S. President talk openly about the plague of female genital mutilation affecting millions of women in the developing world. Female genital mutilation is a horrible, reprehensible form of repression imposed upon women by men.

The fact that Jimmy Carter, a close friend of Ted’s and Tim Wirth’s and Kathy Calvin’s, brought it up publicly at AREDAY as a human rights issue shows the impact that the UN Foundation has had in elevating it. UNF is tackling women’s issues on all fronts. 

MANY CREDIT TURNER WITH PUTTING PRESSURE ON THE UBER WEALTHY.

TW: Women’s rights are just one of the focus areas of Turner’s $1 billion gift to the UN in 1998, which Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett acknowledge as an important spark in changing the attitudes of plutocrats. Turner also challenged Forbes magazine in addition to assembling a world’s richest list that recognizes people who hoard their wealth, to start a a list that hails those who are magnanimous with their money and give back to society.  Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told me it functioned as a guilt trip aimed at the 1 percent and it helped change behavior of people who sit on their money.

MB: TELL US ABOUT YOUR BACKGROUND?

TW: I started my writing career as a violent crime reporter with the City News Bureau of Chicago nearly 30 years ago. I had an incredible number of talented colleagues and all of us were trained as classical old-school journalists.

From there, I moved to the wildland West, becoming an environmental journalist, for the same reason most people do who come to the region—seeking a personal connection with the natural world and trying to better understand how humans relate to it.  This is the issue of our time. Where I live, and where Turner first settled in the West, happens to be a gateway to Greater Yellowstone, the biggest and wildest ecosystem left in the Lower 48. As a writer, I’ve always wanted to inform readers about environmental issues and highlight the science to advance better conversations.

MB: WHERE DOES LAST STAND FIT INTO THAT?

TW: I’m always searching for people stories that provide windows into big ideas; individuals whose own journeys can open our eyes to better ways of reflecting about nature and treating both animals and each other with more sensitivity. The more I’ve written the more I recognize the sentient interconnections of life on earth. And here I have to say that reading your books has been a major influence.

MB: HOW SO?

TW: I’ve found as a humble journalist that people of influence in the world who actually understand sentience—policy makers, those who run companies, religious clergy and community activists—actually are exceedingly uncommon. They regard humanity and nature as being separate and it’s obviously not.

We live in heavy times in which a feeling of mass collective dissonance hovers in the air and yet there’s a hunger to rally together, which is something Turner mentions in the book. I have kids. I worry about the world we are giving them. I wanted to write a book about a person who can be invoked as one source for a new revolutionary way of thinking.

MB: IN THE BOOK, YOU NOTE THAT TED, LIKE WENDELL BERRY, RELATES TO MOM AND POP AGRARIANS, THE FOOD GROWERS WHO LIVE CLOSE TO THE SOIL

TW: Ecological destruction is not economically, culturally or socially sustainable. Period.  But stewardship comes with an economic cost and Ted realizes that in terms of his own lands, they cannot be passed down to his kids and grandkids as a debt proposition, which is something that the children of millions of American farmers and ranchers know so well.

Turner’s approach is to ensure that his lands are economically sustainable. He subscribes to the ideals of the triple bottom line: when doing an economic enterprise you do no harm, or minimize your impact or, even better, conduct your business in a way that restores and heals harms of past; you do it in a way in which profits are poured back into true sustainability aimed at maintaining ecological function; and you care for the people who work for you with dignity, paying them livable wages, providing health care, respecting them, and you spend your money in the local community where it can have positive impact.

Few individuals are doing these things, with regard to wildland properties, on the scale that Ted is and that’s why Paul Ehrlich thinks of him as a valuable human meme. The practices that Ted has adopted make them memes that are replicable.

MB:  YOU NOTE THAT HIS INVOLVEMENT WITH BISON ALONE HAS MADE HIM A HISTORIC FIGURE, ALONG THE LIKES OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT, JOHN MUIR AND ALDO LEOPOLD

TW: Ted is the second largest private landowner in the US. He has bison on 15 properties in six western states and his herd numbers over 50,000 animals. Because of who he is, he has sparked a renaissance of public appreciation for bison, once the most prolific land mammal on earth but which humankind nearly drove to extinction.

MB: YOU SAY HE RESPECTS AND ADMIRES THE SPIRIT OF BISON AND THEIR ROLE AS KEYSTONE SPECIES

TW: He sees them as ecological healers in helping to restore damaged grasslands that were overgrazed by cattle. He does not raise bison to be glorified cattle.  He gives them lots of space to roam and emphasizes stewardship that brings as little handling and contact with people as possible.

Temple Grandin did an animal welfare audit and found Turner’s management to be exemplary. Yes, a portion of the animals do end up on human plates at his Ted’s Montana Grill restaurants every year.  Need I mention that bison were once the foundation of Native American culture and they are a native species. For meat eaters, bison are low in fat and cholesterol, high in Omega 3 and 6 vitamins; they require nominal inputs compared to cattle; they are “predator resistant” which means where you have bison, it’s easier to have wolves, grizzlies, cougars, and coyotes because bison are adapted to fend them off. Ted believes that bringing back native species is morally and ethically right.

MB: YOU SPENT A FEW YEARS INTERACTING WITH TED AND YOU SAY HE’S A DIFFERENT PERSON FROM WHEN YOU FIRST MET HIM. DO YOU BELIEVE HUMAN BEINGS CAN CHANGE OVER THE COURSE OF THEIR LIVES AND NOT BE HOSTAGES TO THE EVENTS THAT SHAPED THEM AS CHILDREN?

TW: Turner is proof that reinvention even in midlife is possible and for some it’s the only way to save their life.

MB: TED AS A MEME IS A POWERFUL NOTION…

TW: The things Turner is doing could qualify potentially as memes that lead our society away from self-destruction.  Turner himself, I think, represents a meme for the kind of change and personal responsibility that must occur within the mindset of individual business people—the need to truly think long term, multi-generationally, for the betterment of humans and nature and not to be guided by greed and only bolstering quarterly balance sheets in the short term.

We all know in our guts this kind of change needs to happen and it needs to be incorporated into our value system promoted in the pews, and embraced in Congress and the White House, the same way that good genes are encoded in our DNA.  If the book accomplishes anything, I hope that it establishes Turner as a reference for young people who want to hold elected officials and captains of industry accountable.

MB:  WITH THOSE WHO CONTINUE TO SELL TURNER SHORT, YOU’RE SAYING THAT DRAWING SIMPLISTIC CONCLUSIONS SPEAK MORE TO THE SHALLOWNESS OF THE INTERPRETER?

TW: Ted is the real deal, a blend of conservative and progressive instincts, and a guy who struggles to make a positive difference, the same as all of us want to do.

Let me share one final story:  After his father’s suicide, Ted was a young man searching for a father figure and then an unexpected mentor emerged. Turner was summoned to action by a close friendship that developed with the late Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

On board Cousteau’s famous boat, Calypso, Cousteau laid out a litany of serious environmental challenges that were descending. He commanded Turner to use his influence in media and other business endeavors to be a force for good.

When Ted expressed despair, saying the magnitude of the problems seemed overwhelming, Cousteau told him:  “What can men of good conscience do, but even if they know the world is going to end—and at this point we don’t know if the end is certain or not—but fight to prevent it from happening.” 

Turner took it to heart.  And he would say, it’s a moral obligation that applies to us all.

The teaser image, available for free, can be seen here. 

Marc Bekoff's latest books are Jasper's story: Saving moon bears (with Jill Robinson; see also), Ignoring nature no more: The case for compassionate conservation (see also), Why dogs hump and bees get depressed (see also), and Rewilding our hearts: Building pathways of compassion and coexistence. The Jane effect: Celebrating Jane Goodall (edited with Dale Peterson) will be published in 2015. (marcbekoff.com; @MarcBekoff)  

NFL Injuries Leading to Medication Abuse

Many people addicted to prescription medications do not think that they have a problem. These addictions often begin as an injury. Few realize how quickly dependency can spiral out of control.

NFL injuries are treated with pain medications by team doctors. Are the players being responsibly medicated? Are they treated in ways that are for their benefit or in the team’s best interest?  Are the ways they are being treated for pain creating problems with addiction for which the NFL will not take responsibility?

Former Buffalo Bills linebacker Darryl Talley claims:

“When you’re done playing, you’re like a piece of meat. They treat you like, None of what you say is our fault. None of these injuries happened from playing football. They tell you whether or not you hurt. None of us playing this game is normal. To compare an NFL player’s pain threshold to the average person who’s never done it? They’re going to tell me I don’t hurt? But it’s just an unbelievable fight to deal with the pain.”

Due to accounts of irregularities in handling prescription painkillers, multiple NFL teams’ former players have entered into a class action lawsuit accusing NFL teams of misusing narcotics and other pain medications to keep players on the field despite injuries. Some blame the culture of football and the NFL.

According to law enforcement sources, investigators are focused less on individuals than on a broad range of alleged illegal dispensation practices in the NFL, which may facilitate addictions and pill trafficking. DEA spokesman Rusty Payne confirmed NFL physicians were being looked into after agents surprised at least five teams with spot checks of medical staffs at stadiums and airports following their Nov. 16 games.

Former NFL linebacker Scott Fujita said he still has a pill bottle, nearly the size of a soda can.

 “It was the craziest big pill bottle you’ve ever seen,” he said.

It was given to him by an NFL team physician to treat a single knee injury, yet it contained, he estimates, somewhere between 125 and 150 pills of Percocet, the addictive oxycodone-based painkiller. Another claim was that an assistant trainer passed out narcotic painkillers in unlabeled small manila envelopes before games to whoever raised a hand.

Doctors in the past too frequently handed out pain pills for a quick fix. These included many college and high school athletes. Parents should be aware of how their children are treated.

Change can be slow. Recently the law changed to require opioid prescriptions to be written monthly because they are no longer refillable electronically or over the phone. Time will tell how effective this will be.

We live in a fast paced world and no longer take the time that we should to heal from injuries. This puts many competitive individuals such as CEOs, celebrities, business owners and other professionals at risk for drug use that could lead to misuse or even addiction. Good long term health requires time and effort, but is well worth the investment.

http://www.buffalonews.com/sports/bills-nfl/broke-and-broken-20141126

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/two-former-nfl-players-decribe-prescription-drug-practices/2014/11/27/6cfb8768-768c-11e4-bd1b-03009bd3e984_story.html

##

Richard Taite is founder and CEO of Cliffside Malibu, offering evidence-based, individualized addiction treatment based on the Stages of Change model. He is also co-author with Constance Scharff of the book Ending Addiction for Good.

Freud’s tryst with India, continues....[1] Psychoanalytic theory has always been in a tension with the study of religion, on the one hand, and the analysis of culture, on the other.  Ever since the publications of Freud’s seminal texts on these interconnected domains of human inquiry, “Totem and Taboo” (Freud, 1913)[2]“The Future of an Illusion” (Freud, 1927)[3] and “Moses and Monotheism” (Freud, 1939)[4], the debate about the conflict between the individual and the larger social and moral order has persisted.  Now, as newer forms of individualism spread all over the globe in different gestalts and guises, the relevance of psychoanalytic interpretation of culture and religion may take on greater significance within a cross-cultural framework  and as we examine various points of tension  between the tradition bound segments of any population and the onslaught of modernity.

Globalization has shifted the economic center of gravity from the West to the East (i.e., China, India and the Pacific), while economic malaise knows no ends in European capitals, with low economic growth.  As the East embraces a kind of crass materialism, while the West experiments with eastern spirituality of every kind, Kipling’s Victorian ballad has new significance:

“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face,
tho' they come from the ends of the earth!”

Sudhir Kakar, the leading Indian psychoanalyst, positioned himself at the borderland between East and West many years ago. More than sixty-five years after independence, as Indians are rediscovering themselves anew and embracing a fast-paced economic future, Kakar has come full circle in his own thinking about psychoanalysis and the Western enlightenment. “Decades later, no longer resonating to Nietzcshe’s call that every past is worth condemning, questioning my earlier idealizations of Western civilization and the Judeo-Christian tradition of which psychoanalysis, in spite of some differences in its image of man, is an integral part, I come back to Freud with a some of the skepticism of the great skeptic himself” (Kakar, 2008, p. 136)[5].   

Kakar has wrestled with tensions between religion and psychoanalysis within Indian studies and applied psychoanalysis, such that, the psychoanalytic study of culture and Hindu India have been fundamentally transformed.  Yet, for the fundamentalist Hindu mind whether at home or abroad, Kakar’s work has opened up hidden zones and alleyways in the Hindu psyche that are best left unexplored or simply avoided.  This is certainly the case with the Hindutva forces within and outside India.

His work has been ground breaking for many reasons.  First, his thinking represents a syncretistic confluence of at least three streams of knowledge within the context of Indology and South Asian Studies:

• Psychology: psychoanalysis and depth psychology and the study of lives across the life cycle and across different cultures, with a decidedly psychosocial or Eriksonian focus;

• Anthropology: the study of culture and  society in all its structural, symbolic and social formations, with an emphasis on the fit between culture and personality, as pursued by psychological anthropologists or cultural psychologists;

• Religion: the study of religion with a special emphasis on the history of religious traditions, on the one hand, and praxis or religious practices, on the other, with a focus on healing traditions and the psychology of religious experience. 

Each of these streams of knowledge and expertise have existed as separate disciplines in the history of Western thought with distinct genealogies stretching back more than a century, yet all of them have been applied towards understanding Indian or Hindu civilization with varying degrees of success. 

Within the post-independence context of Indian social thought, Sudhir Kakar aligned these essentially Western knowledge systems towards interpreting the Indian or Hindu mind.  The result of course was brilliant, with a full body of work that now spans the entire Hindu life cycle and a purview that includes religion, politics, literature and the arts.  The power of his work stems partly from the fact that he has been able to weld these disciplines together for the first time in a consistent manner over almost a half-century.    

[1] This blog is extracted from the edited book: Sharma, Dinesh. (2014). “Psychoanalysis, culture and religion: essays in honor of Sudhir Kakar” New Delhi/New York: Oxford University Press.

[2]Freud, Sigmund Totem and Taboo (New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 1913) 

[3]Freud, Sigmund Future of an Illusion (New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 1927) 

[4]Freud, Sigmund, Moses and Monotheism (New York: Vintage Books 1939) 

[5]Kakar, Sudhir, Mad and Divine (New Delhi: Penguin 2008)

Freedom and anxiety are two sides of the same coin. Freedom means openness, being flexible, and ready to change for the sake of greater human values. Freedom is our capacity to mold and create ourselves. Freedom is the capacity to become what we truly are. This freedom is essentially an inner state, which is what gives one the experience of autonomy, and the capacity to choose their own attitude.

However, when people realize that they are actually free to choose in a situation, it creates anxiety. That is why most people do not like making their own choices. They would rather have someone else or society does it for them. The freedom to make choices can generate anxiety, because deciding means being changed. We resist change because change is loss, even one that is in our best interest.

Individuals with intense anxiety prefer the predictable and familiar routines. The familiar routines reduce anxiety. When people feel threatened and anxious they become more rigid, and when in doubt they tend to become dogmatic; and then they lose their own vitality. They use traditional value to build a defense to hide behind it. But this comes at a price. The imposition of any particular viewpoint toward any understanding restricts our openness and flexibility. In his book, “The escape from freedom”, Eric Fromm argued that this anxiety leads many people to seek security and authority in periods of social disruption (e.g., the rise of Nazism in response to anxiety in 1930s in Germany). 

Psychologist May equates pause to freedom. That is, freedom is the capacity to pause in the face of stimuli from many directions at once and, in this pause, to choose our response. Pausing is essential to the process of reflection. The pause momentarily suspends our automatic reaction, and our responses no longer blindly follow stimulus (e.g., as we remark in making important decision “let me sleep on it.”). The pause is also the moment when a person is most vulnerable to anxiety. Many people flee from silence because of the anxiety the silence brings. They constantly seek the company of some noise from cell phone or music. These rigid and safety seeking behaviors are barriers to freedom and prevents us from discovering that our anxiety is exaggerated.

Another common way of calming anxious feelings includes alcohol and drugs. But the drinking to escape anxiety puts one on a treadmill: the next day, when the anxiety increases, the drinking must increase as well. Overuse of alcohol and drugs erodes our freedom to imagine, to reflect, and to discover some possibility that would have helped us cope with the anxiety in the first place. Thus, we escape the anxiety by surrendering our freedom. Addictions allow for few alternatives in behaviors. From this view, the purpose treatment is to set people free from addictions and self-defeating habits.

People who suffer from anxiety and psychological fears (e.g., social anxiety) spend much of their lives avoiding experiences to avoid anxiety. The choice to take back his or her freedom, or seek help can be a true act of courage. By doing so one is now able to move toward more authentic existing. Courage is at the heart of authentic choices. Making authentic choices in the face existential anxiety is psychological courage in action. Courage is strength in facing one’s destructive habits. For example, when a person voluntarily engages in recovering from alcoholism, he has to face unpleasant feeling in the process. In these cases, people stand up to their challenges by restructuring their beliefs or systematically desensitizing themselves to the fears.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging tells the tale

More than 15 years have passed since the 1998 milestone APA Media Psychology Division (46) Task Force Study that I co-chaired with Lilli Friedland defining media psychology and new technologies. It became one of the studies that explained the diversification of media psychology and can be downloaded from the APA Division 46 website. Through the years, many dramatic changes in technology have emerged. Though Media Psychology has evolved for more than a quarter century and influences us everywhere it is still little understood. Lack of understanding is one of the underlying reasons for the name change of APA Division 46 from Media Psychology to the …Society for Media Psychology and Technology.

In today’s world, Media psychology is fundamental in social media. Telepsychology, teletherapy, online, blended and distance education, entertainment consulting, traditional media interviews, virtual and augmented reality, brand development, marketing, advertising, and product placement permeate all media. Film analysis, media assisted rehabilitation, all manner of telecommunications, public health, public service, public policy including political campaigns, medical education and practice, and all forms of media publishing exemplify the wide reach of media psychology. These are only some examples from the many that could be included in a description. APA also recognized that media psychology cuts across all specialties and divisions. The Society for Media Psychology and Technology is the crossroads division of the American Psychological Association.

Theories in Psychology are Fundamental

Theories in psychology are fundamental influences on media and behavior. Psychology flows from the synthesis of philosophy and physiology. Media psychology flows from the application of theories in psychology to all media and technology. Specifically included are the use of pictures, graphics and sound in all forms of new communications technology. Media psychology is the interface between media and the human response. We learn psychology one theory at a time and the professional practice combines and applies theories to situations. Media Psychology represents the convergence of media, technology, communication, art, and science.

New Opportunities Abound

The “socio-psychomedia effect” now saturates society. New career opportunities and positions are continually emerging. Burgeoning media industries have an increasing need for such professionals as solutions architects, highly developed practitioners and scholars who understand both theories in psychology and state-of-the-art communications technology. The new professionals include teachers, writers, producers, programmers, engineers, designers, directors, artists, cinematographers, public relations and advertising specialists, researchers and others who, more and more, study and apply media psychology in their work. Media psychology is increasingly important in polling, predicting, and as a force for good or evil. Think about the good and bad ways to “Wag the dog.” Think about the media centric traumatic events taking place across the world today, including ISIS and the media, Bill Cosby, “Hands Up Don’t Shoot,” demonstrations emotionally being broadcast and so much more. Media psychology and behavior management are critical subjects of today.

Today’s educational institutions are in imminent need of new faculty and staff who understand higher concepts in media arts and sciences. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technology now lights up brain response images so that we can better see, analyze and understand behavior. The study of media effects is fundamental to understanding emerging trends. The future of society and social change is human centered and screen deep. Media has saturated our lives and is now central in influencing our behavior.

The 1998 Task Force Report

This early research revealed 12 major areas in which media psychology is fundamental:

1. Consulting with media personnel.

2. Researching ways to improve all forms of media.

3. Making new technologies related to media more effective and user friendly.

4. Using new technology in media to enhance the practice of clinical psychology.

5. Most areas of education or training including delivery by traditional, blended and online methods.

6. Developing media standards.

7. Working in commercial fields.

8. Studying the sociological, behavioral and psychological effects of media.

9. Developing media materials for physically and developmentally challenged populations.

10. Developing media materials for all underserved populations.

11. Working with deviant or criminal populations.

12. There are now many more areas of professional opportunity.

There are now many new areas in which we recognize that media psychology is fundamental. Examples are war simulations, drone management, medical simulations, crowd management and manipulation, and many more. We need more research, more media psychology courses in colleges and universities and more degree programs that include media psychology courses. Media psychology is a field whose time is now.

Pscybermedia

“Pscybermedia” is a neologism, i.e., a new term combining psychology, artificial intelligence (cybernetics) and media (pictures, graphics, and sound). Media psychology requires an understanding of the brain’s physical and emotional aspects. Examples of applied media psychology theories include the psychology of emotions, control, expression, attention, presence, persuasion, sexuality, and gender. Media psychology encompasses the study of believability and the suspension of disbelief, situational cognition, assessment, learning, mapping, feedback, reinforcement, persistence, mastery, success, and failure. Media psychology research involves the study of media effects, particularly sensory and cognitive processes. Media psychology is a fertile area needing extensive research. The large and exciting realm of effects research (how various news and entertainment media influence audience behavior, audience demographics and audience numbers) is important in today’s media saturated world.

The Specialty of Media Psychology is Evolving and Expanding

Much of the emphasis in psychology through the years has been on treatment through clinical psychology as the key area. As broader aspects of psychology gain attention, a new vision of the scholar/practitioner is emerging and understanding of the scope of media psychology has increased. Building programs that offer new opportunities in psychology applied in health services, public service and public policy, publishing, education, entertainment, and commerce opens a world of opportunity for those with a sound foundational understanding of media psychology because all fields will be affected.

The Scholar/Practitioner is Important

Thucydides, author of The History of the Peloponnesian War (431 BCE), is reputed to have said, “A nation that draws too broad a difference between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking being done by cowards, and its fighting done by fools.”

The Future of Media Psychology is Bright as a Sub-Specialty in Psychology

My themes as president of the Society for Media Psychology and Technology for 2014 called for new courses and programs to be offered by colleges and universities. I urge those who are interested in being involved in the evolution of media psychology to join The Society of Media Psychology and Technology, Division 46 of the American Psychology Association as regular, associate or student members. All media psychology programs should focus on individual theories in psychology applied to media and if you are a faculty member or administrator in a college or university, you should call for courses and programs in you curriculum. My research suggests that Media psychology is a valuable field for every psychologist, software developer, teacher, producer, writer, advertiser, marketer, politician, public policy advocate, and business person to have at least some understanding. You can prove this with an MRI.

Author

Dr. Bernard Luskin, President, Society for Media Psychology and Technology, Division 46, American Psychological Association and President, Moorpark College in California.

Thanks to Susana Bojorquez, MA ( Media Psychology), and Toni Luskin, PhD, (Media Psychology) for their help with this article.

References:

Adapted from, THE AMPLIFIER MAGAZINE, the Magazine of the Society for Media Psychology and Technology, Division 46 of the American Psychological Association, Fall, 2014.

Luskin, B. J., & Friedland, L. (1998). Task force report: Media psychology and new technologies. Washington, DC: Division of Media Psychology, Division 46 of the American Psychological Association.

(Copies of the report can be downloaded under Articles on the Division 46 website)

As a psychotherapist for nearly thirty-five years, I often invite my clients to notice and welcome their genuine feelings. Many clients feel relieved that it’s okay to feel whatever they happen to experiencing. And they feel reassured that someone (namely, me!) is interested in hearing their authentic feelings without judging them.

But some people are troubled by the prospect of opening to their feelings. They ask some version of the following: “Why would I want to feel those feelings? Why would I want to experience pain, hurt, or sorrow?”

This question is often asked as if we have solid choices over what we feel — and that we should be able to exert total control over our emotions.

This is tricky. We certainly don’t want to live a life that is out of control, where our emotions run us, leaving us feeling distraught, lost, or overwhelmed. But we also don’t want to suppress our emotions, which is not good for our well-being. When emotions are kept hidden or stuffed down, they have a way of seeping out in destructive ways.

A path forward is to develop a skillful relationship with the full range of our feelings as they arise in the moment. This is a middle path between avoiding our feelings and fueling them. It is a path of being mindful of feelings without merging with them and getting lost in them.

What we call “feelings” is simply what arises as a result of being alive. Our partner is late and we feel angry or disappointed. A friend criticizes us and we feel hurt or shame. These are normal human emotions. A loved one dies or a relationship ends and we feel sad. Life has many "necessary losses"— that is, ones that we cannot avoid. Being alive means experiencing life fully and embracing the mix of joy and sorrow that is a part of being human.

Living life fully means living with an open heart. We touch life and allow ourselves to be touched by life. The trick is to find a way to engage with our feelings so that we’re not emotionally flooded. I often ask clients who are experiencing troubling emotions, “Can you be gentle with that?”

When feelings are noticed and welcomed (or at least tolerated), they tend to calm down, just as a hurting child becomes calmer when his or her feelings are heard and honored. If we criticize or shame children for feeling sad or afraid, they are likely to become even more sad or fearful.

Similarly, it is self-shaming to tell ourselves that we shouldn’t be feeling what we feel or that something is wrong with us for feeling this way. Then, not only do we feel sad or hurt, but now toxic shame infiltrates the sadness or hurt. Oftentimes, the hidden shame leaves us feel much worse than the original emotion itself.

If we can be gentle with our feelings and remind ourselves of the following, then difficult or uncomfortable feelings may settle:

• It’s OK to be feeling this.
• It’s not the end of the world.
• It’s a normal human feeling.
• I know this will pass.

We might also learn something from the feelings we befriend. For example, we may notice a sense of hurt or shame when on a date with someone we met on a dating site. If we avoid these feelings, we don’t avail ourselves of precious information about this person. Perhaps our sense of not feeling safe is a message to discontinue seeing the person or to set some boundary. Or maybe the feeling will prompt us to express our discomfort. Perhaps we misunderstood them, or maybe some painful childhood experience was being reactivated.

The approach known as Focusing, based on Dr. Eugene Gendlin’s research at the University of Chicago, is one way to befriend our feelings. It is a gentle way to be mindful of what we’re experiencing without judging ourselves. Being gently present with how feelings are living in our body can give us some distance from them. As Gendlin often has said, “If you want to know what the soup smells like, it’s better not to stick your head in it.”

Try the following the next time you notice difficult or uncomfortable feelings. And, or course, if something is especially difficult or painful, you may want to see a therapist to process it.

• Allow yourself to notice what you are feeling.
• Pause and be gently present with the feeling without judging yourself.
• Notice how the feeling is living in your body right now. Where do you notice it and what does it feel like?
• If it feels right, allow your breath to gently lap around the feeling. Bringing awareness to your breath can sometimes let the emotion settle.
• Above all, be gentle with yourself, don’t push yourself, and don’t criticize yourself for whatever you might be feeling.

© John Amodeo

Pixabay image

It seems the Devil has always gotten a bad rap.  Today, blaming the Devil for our individual foibles can be the punch-line of a joke.  Yet, I believe a case can be made for the existence of the Devil, without throwing an ink-well at him and posting 95 online blogs.

To begin, let me say that we are all possessed by an unruly spirit of sorts, which sometimes can be wildly disrespectful, if not menacingly dangerous to ourselves and others.  Whatever name we choose—Lucifer, Mephistopheles, Satan, or just plain Devil—it is pretty-much the same.

A lot has been written about deal-making with the Devil, not just from the likes of Faust, but more recently with The Devil and Daniel Webster and Damn Yankees among others.  The bargainer gets the necessary hand, but then must pay an irretrievable price.

I believe we can strike a better deal with this part of ourselves and by getting to know where it’s coming from, with its wants, needs, and desires.  Any deal, of course, is a compromise.  Yet, we don’t have to give up our sensibilities to acknowledge this prankish part in our everyday lives.  The way that I picture this unruly spirit is as the animal part of ourselves.  We all know that to co-exist with an animal, it needs to be trained, as best we can, in social etiquette—particularly no biting. 

We never can successfully dispossess this part without running the risk of its untimely and inappropriate behavior.  It is, and forever will be, an intrinsic part of ourselves, whether we, or others, like it or not. 

Like Lucifer, my nemesis has a pointed ears and a long, arched tail.  But unlike Lucifer, my bête noire has massive paws, orange, black, and white stripes—and bites.  I had to negotiate the best deal I could.    

As you may have surmised, I picture my unruly part as a Bengal tiger.  Since tigers cannot speak, it growls when upset and purrs when happy.  My tiger and I do not just tolerate each other but are the best of friends. 

When I need to be a little more assertive and contentious, my tiger comes to the rescue and bares his teeth.  When I want to know where others are coming from, my tiger provides insight to look beyond appearances.  And when I want to have fun, my tiger is always ready to party and have a good time with others and their tigers. 

When met Jill, a large framed, redheaded, nineteen-year-old, she had ingested a bottle of Tylenol pills and just been released from the suicide ward.  Jill was angry with the hospital psychiatrist, who Jill said didn’t know what he was talking about.  Jill was angry with her aunt, who had told her that Jill’s father had killed himself on an overdose of drugs.  Jill was angry with her basketball coach, who had suspended her from the team for throwing a punch at a teammate.  And Jill was angry with herself for botching the suicide.  I asked Jill what she did for fun.  She said she loved basketball, soccer, tennis, and chilling with her friends.

Jill’s father had left home, moving to Arizona when Jill was about eight-years-old.  Jill visited her father several summers and felt a close bond.  When her father died, Jill wasn’t told about the overdose and continued to hold her father in high esteem.  His mother’s sister, who Jill never much liked, had recently made a derogatory remark about Jill’s father.  When Jill began to defend her father, her aunt let her have it.  Jill didn’t remember exactly what happened, except that she hit an emotional bottom and swallowed the Tylenol.

The basketball coach had reinstated Jill onto the team and her buddies rallied their support.  The immediate problem, however, was other schoolmates.  A girl on the school bus, whom Jill hardly knew, handed Jill a bottle of Tylenol and said, “If at first you don’t succeed.”  Jill felt humiliated and wanted to jump up and strangle the young woman, but somehow restrained herself.  While getting ready for practice, a rival on the team, referring to Jill, called her the “Tylenol Kid.”  Jill’s friends held Jill back from assaulting her teammate.      

I told Jill that her anger was justified, but her acting-out without considering the consequences, was not.  When driving down the street, if we all acted out our angry impulses when some careless driver cuts in front of us, there would be mayhem in the streets.   We needed to take responsibility of our actions based upon probable consequences, and whether or not our actions are worth it.

“No,” Jill objected, “I had to get even.”

Let’s try another approach.  Since biologically we are all animals, we carry some animal-like instincts.  “When someone provokes us, and we impulsively react, the other person is in charge.  The other person is ‘pulling our strings,’ as if we were a puppet.”

“I still don’t get it,” Jill replied. 

OK, let’s imagine your animal side is a ferocious tiger and you are a tiger trainer.  Although you hold a tight leash on your tiger, when unduly provoked, this tiger part becomes aggressive.  You can blame the Devil, or you can blame your tiger.  Whichever way, you have attempted to deflect the blame from yourself, when, in fact, you will be held responsible for your behavior.  My advice for you is to own up to and respect your tiger’s anger for wanting to protect you from harm, but don’t waste your tiger’s time.  Come up with some verbal put-downs to spring on those who would provoke you. 

At the next session, Jill said the girl on the school bus was acting out again and gave her the finger.  Jill felt a surge of angry energy, but somehow waved her hand at the girl and said, “Don’t waste my time.”  The students on the bus all laughed approvingly and the positive energy felt good.

I complimented Jill and asked her what other responses might have brought laughter and felt good.  Jill said she could have stood up, and said in a high, silly tone, that she was going to tell the girl’s mother.  Or she could have blown the girl a kiss, and said, “Not in public, sweetheart.”  I commended Jill for her resilience and resourcefulness. 

I told Jill it was important for her to not always react to a given insult with the same response, or else her behavior might become predictable.  I advised her to “keep ‘em guessing” by conjuring up at least five new fresh responses to be ready for the next attempt to provoke her tiger’s anger. 

Jill said that she liked this new approach and would have fun doing it.  I told her that she did not have to become a witty, on-the-spot comedian.  “But before you leave here today, I want you to come up with a response you could have used, knowing what you now know, in reply to your aunt when she let you have it,” I said. 

Jill looked surprised, saying she didn’t know.  Then she suddenly sat erect and said, “I could have asked what made her so spiteful, or I could have shook my head, and replied that I pitied her for being such a miserable person.”

“Touché,” I replied, “You’re a fast learner!”

This article was co-published with www.PsychResilience.com

Someone who has had a blackout while drinking cannot remember part of their drinking episode. Unfortunately, most people do not understand how dangerous blackouts are, yet up to 50% of drinkers may have an alcohol-related blackout (ARB).

A new study identifying different trajectories of ARBs of drinkers between the ages of 15 and 19, along with predictors of those patterns, has found that certain adolescents are more likely than their peers to drink to the point of blackout and experience the accompanying alcohol-related dangers caused by irresponsible and out-of-control behavior.

Researchers randomly selected 1,402 English teens between the ages of 15 to 19 years old because this age group has the heaviest drinking habits. After four years of studying the group, researchers confirmed their theory that blackouts were common among that age range. They found 30 percent of 15-year-olds were having ARBs. By the time they reached 19, a total of 74 percent were blacking out from excessive alcohol consumption.

The rapid increase of blackouts with age merits cause for concern, especially due to the social acceptability among teens and young adults of binge drinking and drinking to the point of blacking out. This study represents a significant number of drinkers who put not only themselves, but others at risk because of the poor decision making that often comes with blackout drinking.

Marc A. Schuckit, distinguished professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, and corresponding author for the study claims:

“Blackouts are likely to occur when the drinker is vulnerable to a range of additional dangerous consequences. Women might have unprotected sex, place themselves in a situation where they can be raped, or not be fully capable of protecting themselves. Men can get into fights, use very bad judgment regarding another person, and are often the driver when BACs associated with blackouts can lead to a car accident. Blackouts are very dangerous for both men and women."

Almost half of the study sample not only had blackouts during the four total years of the study, but also had blackouts at every session in which researchers followed up with them, approximately every one and a half years.

Blackouts occur when a person’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) reaches a level much higher than what is considered legal intoxication. As BAC increases, drinkers report increases in elation, excitement, and extroversion, while they simultaneously experience fatigue, restlessness, depression, and confusion. Symptoms will fluctuate depending on the drinker’s personality, mood, or genetic susceptibility to intoxication.

From regrets to life-changing mistakes, drinking lowers a person’s inhibitions by affecting the brain. A lot of these changes take place in the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which is the region responsible for decision-making, rational thought, and understanding an action’s cause and effect. Drinking also affects the hippocampus. It’s the region of the brain responsible for forming new memories. Drinking will reduce the ability for the hippocampus to function properly, helping to explain why blackouts stifle the creation of memories.

A young person’s brain is not fully developed until around the age of 25. Study results show that blackouts are common and repetitive in both the teen and young adult drinking populations. This suggests that young people may not have the functional ability to make healthful decisions with regard to drinking. Teens are particularly susceptible to peer pressure and advertising.

A recent study provides evidence of a strong association between alcohol advertising and youth drinking behavior concluding:

There is a robust relationship between youth's brand-specific exposure to alcohol advertising on television and their consumption of those same alcohol brands during the past 30 days.

No matter what country, when teens are drinking, it is unlikely that they will appreciate the full consequences of their actions. Drinking to the point of having blackouts is dangerous and this message needs to be better communicated and discussed with young people. 

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-12/ace-abn120914.php

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/acer.12488/abstract

This week Congress finally passed a bill that will allow people with disabilties to work and to save without penalty. 

The ABLE Act of 2013 allows people with disabilities and their families to create tax-exempt savings accounts to pay for expenses associated with disability, up to $14,000 a year. These expenses include unreimbursed medical and dental care, education, community support, employment training, assistive technology, housing and transportation.

For the first time, a disabled person will not have to be virtually impoverished to receive Social Security, Medicaid and other public funds. Up until now, individuals were disqualified from these programs if they had more than $2,000 in savings, retirement funds or other items of value, or if they earned more than $680 a month. A true disincentive to work or to save.

The savings accounts are similar to those for college savings, health-care savings, dependent-care savings and IRA’s. The accounts can be cumulative. College savings accounts in most states have a top limit of $300,000. With ABLE Accounts the first $100,000 will be exempt from the SSI prohibition. If savings exceed $100,000 the beneficiary would no longer be eligible for SSI but would continue to eligible for Medicaid.

The ABLE Act of 2013 passed by a large bipartisan margin, though it took 8 years to get there. ABLE stands for Achieving a Better Life Experience.

A version of this post appeared on my personal blog, Hear Better With Hearing Loss. 

When it comes to grooming, we really do it all. With just our hair alone we do a multitude of things. We color it, pluck it, even wax it all off. To our skin, we buff if by exfoliating, we cover it in mud to ‘extract impurities’, and slather on lotions and potions to keep it soft and supple. There are more basic elements to grooming as well. We shower or bath to clean our bodies and our hair. These are just some of the things we do all in the name of what? Beauty? Maybe. But what if these impulses, driving us to groom ourselves endlessly, are not because we're an ego-centric species obsessed with an ill-conceived notion of beauty? If other species engage in similar behaviors could there be a practical and deeper biological explanation for some of the grooming practices we see in humans?

Let’s begin with cockroaches, humans, and exfoliation. Unlike yours truly who, when asked by a beauty ‘consultant’ if I exfoliated replied, “What is that?”, the Egyptians and Greeks were at the forefront of setting grooming trends, including exfoliation. As for the salesclerk, her horror was genuine and she felt compelled to immediate expound on the benefits of buffing myself from head to toe. I was dubious at first, but then thought perhaps the benefits are not so questionable. This is where cockroaches come into the picture. Like many insects, cockroaches meticulously scrub their antennae. By restricting the grooming behavior of cockroaches, researchers were able to examine what busy cockroaches are fastidiously trying to remove. They discovered that cockroaches rapidly developed a buildup of natural secretions and environmental chemicals that coated and clog their antennae (see study here). Because antennae are used to smell, those cockroaches with dirt buildup were less able to smell their surroundings. This was also true for flies and ants. As for us, well exfoliation does indeed unclog pores and help remove dead layers of skin. And who knows, maybe it enhances our ability to smell our environment as well. Before you call me crazy, scientists recently discovered that even our skin is alive with olfactory receptors (see study here). That means we can smell with our skin…and if our skin is clogged up perhaps, like cockroaches, our sense of olfaction is diminished. I smell an experiment coming on here.

Moving on, let’s contemplate body hair. Relative to our primate cousins we are virtually hairless. How is it that we came to lose so much of our body hair? One hypothesis is that we lost most of our body hair to as a way to control our body temperature. That may be true, but there is an added benefit: parasite reduction. Relative to our hairy primate friends we have few ectoparasites. Indeed, it is a trend that among hairless animals there is an absence of parasites that like to hang out in hair.

The naked mole rat, or sand puppy as they are affectionately called, is a prime example of this. Living in underground cities, these burrowing rodents don’t need hair to keep them warm. Their tunnels and close cuddling accomplish that nicely. An added bonus is that they do not have external parasites like fleas and lice. Shaving, waxing, and laser hair removal, are all tools at our disposal for accomplishing the same thing. And this is far from a recent development. Egyptians may have had better tools and techniques, but even caveman scraped hair from their face and head. Similar to waxing, the Egyptians had a process called sugaring. Even the hair from the head and nether regions was removed. The benefit? Controlling lice. Yes, even down there. Trends have come and gone with respect to body hair, but the benefit remains unchanged. As for me, I have to admit that if I could be a hairless naked mole rat, save for my head, eyebrows, and eyelashes of course, I would be a happy camper. Wax on, wax off.

And what of fancy mud baths? Elephants do it. Birds do it. Even the hippopotomus does it. In these and many other species dust or mud bathing has several potential advantages. It may help with thermoregulation, sunscreen, removal of external parasites, and prevent dehydration of the skin. Modern spas advertise that mud treatments detoxify your skin. But many indigenous human cultures have been using mud, or some version thereof, way before the fancy spas came along.

A prime example are the Himba, a tribe native to Namibia, famous for covering themselves with otjize paste, a cosmetic mixture of butterfat and ochre pigment. Because of a scarcity of water they use otjize paste to clean their skin, protect it from the extremely hot and dry climate of the Kaokoland, and protect themselves against mosquito bites. Not surprisingly, as with many hygiene regimens started for practical purposes, the red-tinge given to the skin and hair is a symbol of ideal beauty for the Himba. 

I don’t know about you, but now that I am aware that many human grooming practices are not rooted in vanity, but rather have real-world, biological benefits I will gladly pluck, wax, exfoliate, and yes, maybe even make some of my own otjize paste in place of the chemical ridden stuff we call sunscreen, all in an effort to stop and smell the roses with my skin, keep parasites at bay, and protect myself from sunburn and mosquitos. If in the end I end up ‘beautiful’, well that will just be icing on the cake.

I wrote in my last blog about "Not my circus." I am starting to hear this a lot of places, and it is so perfect to talk about codependency and taking control when control is not in your power. I wish I knew who said it first. I would credit that person. 

I talked in my last blog about not trying to be the ringmaster, taking control of the whole circus, but there is a little more to this. 

Not My Monkeys 

What if we don't try to take charge of the whole show? The ringmaster directs, but each animal trainer has a specific job. The lion tamer does not train the elephants. There are specialists for that. And whoever trains the elephants is probably not training the monkeys. Within any circus, only certain performers, trained for their task, can do specific acts. You are part of the circus, and you want it to go well, but you cannot do every job. If you try to take over for others it may not go very well. You may mess up the job or you may be intrusive, taking over what others can and should do for themselves. 

When you remember "not my monkeys" it can remind you that you are not responsible for other people and their lives. And it is best if you know what sorts of circus rings are yours to perform in and which are not. 

Brianna, a grade school teacher, was upset about a new test proposed by the administration to measure overall academic progress for her mostly ESL students. She feared all her students would fail. She focused all her teaching efforts to coaching students to pass the test, going far outside the bounds of what was reasonable effort. She felt terrible not teaching as she normally would have. She thought her students were not actually learning what they needed while she worked to help them get answers on the test right. 

She got confused about which monkeys were hers. She was trying to handle the administration's monkeys. They needed to demonstrate that students were learning. She needed to teach her little ones to read and do math. She did not stop to consider that if the entire class failed it did not make her a bad teacher. It might be the only way for administrators to realize that the test did not measure the right things. 

"Not my monkeys" helped clarify what was her realm. She agreed to do her part: teach the curriculum that would help her young charges really learn. If she tried to take over the administrative monkeys of grade-level testing and got her students trained to take the test rather than learn their subjects, it might even defeat her goal of getting a better measure of their progress. 

Taking charge of someone else's monkeys might look different at home or at work: 

"Training" your spouse's behavior by telling him to talk less when you are out with friends: his way of being with friends are his monkeys. 

If it is your job to layout the company newsletter but you decide to manage a contributor's "monkeys" by helpfully (NOT!) rewriting the content of her article as you set it, you will not only make more work for yourself, but you will annoy the person who wrote the article you are rewriting. 

If you "help" your child by doing her homework project because she is too slow or careless to make it neat, you won't be helping her learn or do better. Her performance is up to her. 

Trying to compensate for a boss' deficient supervisory skills by giving your peers directions will increase your stress. Even if they do a little bit better, you won't get credit and they will be irritated with you and not with him. 

"Not my monkeys" is code to let other people do their own work and not get in the middle of it. Whether they succeed or fail is their responsibility. Your stress will go down. Ask yourself:

1. Do I have some responsibility? What exactly is it for? (Which monkeys are mine?)

2. Who is the ringmaster? (To whom am I accountable?)

3. Am I doing my own actual work or taking over work that others are responsible for?

Learning to let others do their part and let them succeed or fail is actually kinder than taking it over. Most of us learn more from our mistakes than from our successes. Being allowed to do our own part of a job helps us learn it, as we see what part we have mastered and what monkeys we still need to train. 

The next time you are feeling negative, expecting a situation to fall apart, take charge of the correct set of problems and lower your stress, by asking yourself: 

Is this my circus?

Are these my monkeys?

Confused about what to get your friend of family member who has a child with autism or special needs? Most of the time, they just want what any other parent would like – a gift from the heart that shows that you really care. But, if you feel like you still need some guidance, I’ve worked with Shannon Penrod, host of Autism Live and proud mother of an eleven year-old who has been diagnosed with autism, to compile some go-to gifts that are sure to please.

#1 The Gift of Being There

I often get questions during the holiday season about the “perfect gift” for parents of children with autism and special needs: “What new product or gadget can I buy that will help make their life easier?” The truth is, most of the time, the best gifts are the ones that are not always wrapped.

In my practice, one of the most common concerns I hear is that parents of children with autism and special needs are looking for support and guidance from friends and family; they want a caring ear to talk to when they need to vent. Because of that, one of the most important things you can do for a family influenced by autism, is just be there to listen.

Although it is important to remember that every child is different, learning more about autism can be a great help for families impacted by a diagnosis of autism. Not only will learning more about autism help to spread awareness and understanding, but it will also demonstrate your support for your friends and family during a time of the year that tends to significantly increased stress. Learning more about the diagnosis, and leveraging that knowledge to become a resource for support and understanding, can be extremely helpful to parents of children with autism or special needs. 

Once you have that knowledge base, make yourself available to listen. Like with many people, if you ask how they are doing they will say they are “fine.” If you wait for them to call when they need help, they won't. Call them up and let them talk - even if it's not about autism, or things like IEPs or target behaviors. Just having someone outside of the house to listen, without judgment and without comparison, can be the best gift of all. Don’t tell them what they “should” do or how they should do it; in fact try not to offer advice unless they ask for it. Just be there, and they will be thankful.

What to Wrap: A card with some caring words and letting them know you are there is great way to share the gift of listening. Or, if you want something to wrap, try gifting a pack of personalized “call cards” good for a 15 minute conversation whenever they need someone to talk to.

Price Point: The gift of listening is free for you and priceless for the parents! 

#2 The Gift of a Date Night

Often times, “date” and “night” are not words that parents of children with autism hear in the same sentence. The gift of alone time with a spouse or friends can help parents de-stress and reinvigorate themselves and their relationships.

Shannon Penrod offers the advice: “Just don’t forget the child care!” Offer to babysit yourself, or ask the family who they normally use (just try and do it in a way where you keep the gift a surprise – maybe ask for the contact information for friend!).  If the family doesn’t have a regular sitter, look to a service like UrbanSitter.com that allows you to search a database of caregivers in your area to find an appropriate babysitter. They even feature sitters who are trained and have experience with autism and special needs.

Just be sure to combine this gift with a little extra bit of patience. Many parents of children with autism may not be ready to jump up and take a night out, even if they really want one. They might need to prepare themselves to be away for a few hours, and may also want to help prepare their kids to have a successful night without their direct support. Children and parents influenced by autism often find comfort and strength in maintaining a routine. Breaking that routine, even for a short night out can be a daunting proposition. Combining your “date night” gift with a few practice runs that build up to the big night, can not only help the children feel more comfortable with their parents being away, but also can help the parents feel more willing to take a little time for themselves.  

What to Wrap: A gift basket with movie tickets, gift cards to a movie theater or a gift certificate to the parent’s favorite restaurant (gift cards are a great option for those parents who may not be able to make the commitment to a specific night out, this way they can use the tickets when they are ready) and child care services is a great start! Then, either offer to babysit yourself or add in a gift certificate or cash for a sitter.

Price Point: Restaurant gift certificates can be any amount you desire but typically should cover an appetizer, one round of drinks and dinner, and dessert for two at the restaurant you choose. If not sitting yourself, sitter costs should be researched in advanced – either by contacting the parent’s regular sitter or looking on the subscription site.

#3 The Gift of an Even Cleaner House for the Holidays

Shannon suggests the priceless gift of a clean home “Having someone else clean your house is the height of luxury for many special needs parents,” she says. There are companies like HomeJoy.com that offer the ability to book online for easy access to multiple cleaners at most any time. Plus, you can choose the option for “green clean” if the child has any allergy or aversion to any smelly cleaning products.

What to Wrap: Fill a basket with some green cleaning products and include a gift card for cleaning services to be used at their convenience.

Price Point: Typically, cleaning services can range between $20-$50 per hour, but it definitely depends on the city where you live. If you are gifting outside of your town, check online or ask the cleaner how much they charge for a full cleaning so you know how much to gift. Green cleaning products can range from $3-$12 per product, so you are likely looking at a gift that is at least $50-$100.

#4 The Gift of Lovely Family Photographs

Most parents would love to have a beautiful photo of their entire family to keep and share. However, it is not always possible, and may actually be extremely stressful, for parents of children with autism to sit through the typical family photography session. Many times, when the perfect scene is set, the parents are behind the camera putting everything together! Finding a professional photography service to catch those lovely candid family moments can help to capture some amazing memories that will last beyond the holiday season.  

What to Wrap: Look for a photographer in your area who either specializes or has experience in photography for children with autism or special needs. Ask if they can provide a gift card or allow you to pre-pay for a family shoot. Wrap the card with a cute frame they can use to display their favorite photograph. 

Price Point: Photographer prices vary dramatically so typically you should be able to find one who fits your budget. If you are on a budget, try discount or dollar stores for the frame.

#5 The Gift of a Play Date (with Food!)

Shannon notes, “Friendships can be tricky waters for children with autism to navigate, so play dates are often few and far between. Inviting your friends around to play with your kids or offering to meet at the local playground can be a really welcome way of providing safe and rewarding social interaction for them.”

After the playdate, have the family over for dinner at your house. But, be sure to make it easy and safe for your friends to come and visit. Ask about dietary restrictions and favorite foods, what their kids like to play with and the shows they like to watch so everyone will feel more comfortable when they visit. Also see if they have any visual supports that they use at home that you can replicate at your place (like a sign to show where the toilet is, or a task chart with the steps for washing hands), and whether there are any safety requirements (like door locks) so your parent friends can relax during their visit.

What to Wrap: Wrap a toy that your children could play with together during the playdate and include a card that explains the playdate and dinner at your house.

Price Point: This is a great gift because it can range from free (just the playdate) to inexpensive (playdate and dinner at your house) to even more extravagant when you include the toy your children can share at the playdate. Make this one your own and include what you can – no matter what, your friend and their family will be very grateful! 

#6 The Gift of a Mini-Makeover

“Special needs parents spend so much time taking care of others they often forget how to take care of themselves,” Shannon says. “Spafinder.com has a gift card that parents can use at participating spas near them. The card allows you to pick services you want so if you are in the mood for a massage or a facial, you can choose.”

Other great ideas from Shannon include: 

• A Wardrobe Shopping Spree: “Every special needs parent could use a wardrobe update because we so frequently put off our fashion needs at the bottom of a long list of necessities,” says Shannon. She suggests stores like Macy’s because they offer personal shoppers by appointment who can help a stressed and frazzled parent to enjoy their shopping experience.
• Gym Membership – “Every special needs parent knows they need to be taking care of themselves so they can take of their child. But the reality is sometimes difficult. Having a gym membership that allows for sessions with a personal trainer is the key to insuring the parent not only gets a workout but gets the most out of it,” says Shannon. She suggests gift cards to gyms like 24 Hour Fitness because they offer an array of personal trainers to ensure the right fit.
• Mini-Makeovers – “Sometimes all a special needs parent needs is a mini-makeover to give them a lift,” she says. She suggests trying a gift card for a haircut/color to a top rated salon or even a blow-out from somewhere like DryBar. Manicure/pedicures are a great option too!

What to Wrap: Try wrapping a candle with a soothing scent or a pair of cute slippers with your gift card for a little extra oomph! 

Price Point: The nice thing about gift cards is that they come in almost every denomination to meet every shopping budget. Whatever amount, your friend will just be grateful and happy to know you thought of their own needs. 

#8 The Gift of a Family Friendly Outing

Does your friend's child have a particular interest such as Disney characters, animals, trains, aviation...anything? Check out local attractions and see if the family would be interested in attending a themed event together. Whether it’s an amusement park, music lessons, a sensory friendly movie showing or family friendly festival, it can be a wonderful way for the family and you to share in the child’s world. Local events can be searched on sites like RedTri.com and do a great job listing a ton of free events as well.

If your budget is a bit higher and the family lives close to an amusement park, look into season tickets. While pricey, season tickets take the edge off having a “perfect” experience, because even if you end up having to leave after an hour in the park, you can return at any time. 

What to Wrap: See if you can find a write-up about the event and print it out to present with the gift. Or wrap the tickets in a festive gift bag and include a frame to house a family photograph taken at the event so the family has a special memory. 

Price Point: Make sure to your research because you can definitely find events at almost every price point that would suit any family. 

#9 The Gift of Not Having to Make Dinner

Time-saving gifts are perfect for parents of children with autism or special needs. And dinner is one of those things that takes A LOT of time…especially when you include clean-up. Even simply delivering take-out or a gift card to a family’s favorite restaurant is a great gift option. Ask if there are any dietary restrictions, or if your friend’s child has any food preferences or expectations for preparation. Letting a family have a meal when all they have to think about is how they are going to spend their time together can be a welcome, and probably rare change of pace.

What to Wrap: If you are delivering, the food is the gift! Just put a bow on the bag and its easy as that! If you are providing a gift card, try pairing with a bottle of wine or dessert that the parents can enjoy with the takeout. 

Price Point: It’s really all about where the family likes to get dinner, so allow enough on the gift card to cover a meal for each member of family and some dessert (if you’re feeling generous!) 

#10 The Gift of Gift Cards

The truth of the matter is that having a child with autism or special needs can be very expensive. Cash or gift cards that can be used like cash are always welcome. Plus, you know that what is bought is actually important to the family and not sitting in a closet somewhere not being used.  

What to Wrap: Wrapping something small such as a stuffed toy, would be a great way to present the gift card to the family…and provides some instant gratification for the child. 

Price Point: As we mentioned before, gift cards are great because they come in any denomination and can suit any budget. 

Dr. Darren Sush, Psy.D., BCBA-D, specializes in therapy for parents of children with autism and special needs. His office is located in Los Angeles, CA. For more information, visit www.drdarrensush.com 

Learn more about Dr. Sush: drdarrensush.com

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What does it mean when someone says, “I have no regrets.”

Is that even possible? Perhaps there's a secret somewhere that enables selected individuals to conduct their lives with impeccable wisdom??

I personally believe that everyone has regrets, but that for some it feels right to adopt the attitude of what I describe as the “positive thinking crowd.” It’s an attitude that is very familiar to us and with address to regret it sounds something like this: “I have no regrets because I have always done my best at every moment.” “I don’t have regrets but only lessons learned.” “Everything happens for a reason.” “Whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.” “That was the way that god willed it,” etc., etc...

I believe that anyone who examines their personal history long enough will come to experience regret, and deeply… Furthermore, if given the opportunity to somehow change, to rework history by doing things differently, they would not only take it, they would run endlessly over burning coal and fueled by their souls boiling blood to make it happen.

Of course, our existential predicament continues to demonstrate any such wish as an impossibility. The path not taken is forever lost.

And so it makes some sense to become part of the positive thinking crowd…to effectively assert, “I have no intention of enduring the pain of the regrettable…and as long as you agree not to also, we've got a deal; we can support one another by keeping our thoughts in the moment and moving forward. Let us live in mutual denial of all that could have been.”

By contrast, facing regret deepens the soul. In facing regret, we face loss—regret is the death of a wish. When a close friend confides their regrets, they become more human to us. We become connected to them by a common recognition of loss.  When a loved one dies, we honor them by mourning them—remembering the times we shared and imagining the times we could have shared with them. By mourning together, we become connected by what matters most to us.

In the last few years, the “Positive Psychology” movement is all the rage – let’s stop fretting about the underside of human nature, and study people who are happy, courageous, productive, and self-actualized! :-)  :-) :-)

But Del Paulhus has bucked the trend, with a series of studies delving into the Dark Side of human personality.  As he notes in a paper released today in Current Directions in Psychological Science:

• Our work on the “dark side” stands in stark contrast to the popular work on positive personality traits. In our view, dark personalities are more fascinating than shiny, happy folks.

Paulhus and his colleagues have enumerated four different kinds of self-centered and socially offensive people who most of us encounter in our day-to-day lives:  Narcissists, Machiavellians, Nonclinical Psychopaths, and Everyday Sadists.  Paulhus notes that psychologists often confuse these types of individuals, who all share a tendency to score especially high on measures of Callousness (or lack of empathy for other people).  Each of these types also tends to be extroverted and sociable, so often make good first impressions, before going on to make life miserable for those who are exploited by them.  But there are important differences, and those distinctions have important implications for the kinds of harm these folks can do to their relationship partners and coworkers. 

Narcissists are “grandiose self-promoters who continually crave attention.”  They tend to score in the top 20 percent of the population on grandiosity, and in the top third on manipulativeness.  Paulhus notes that: “You have undoubtedly been annoyed by these tiresome braggarts.”  Frank Sinatra, the great crooner of my mother’s generation, was something of a narcissist, a trait he shared with any number of super-stars in the performing arts, then and now. 

Machiavellians, according to Paulhus, are “Master manipulators… one of them has cheated you out of something valuable—a fact that you may not have realized until it was too late.”  They differ from narcissists in their especially high scores on tests of manipulativeness, and their inclination to be involved in white collar crime.  The stock swindler Bernard Madoff, who worked his way up to the leadership of the New York Stock Exchange, only to use his position to bilk his investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars, is the classic Macchiavellian. 

Psychopaths, as Paulhus notes, are “arguably the most malevolent,” scoring high on measures of callousness, impulsivity, manipulativeness, and grandiosity, thus being dark across the board.  They often do harm to others as they go about seeking thrills with little concern for who gets hurt along the way.  Their impulsiveness makes them less adept at white collar crime of the Bernie Madoff variety, and often inclines them towards violence when others get in their way.  Charles Manson is a classic case of a clinical psychopath, but Paulhus notes that there are many people whose psychopathy is low enough to keep from landing in jail, while nevertheless leading to costs for those who are drawn close to them. 

What is especially troubling about this first set (the original “Dark Triad”) is that they are socially quite adept, and in fact often make very good first impressions.  For example, they do better on job interviews than normal people, advantaged by their lack of anxiety about the opinions of others, and greater willingness to show off their strengths to strangers while playing it smooth and comfortable.

Everyday sadists share the trait of callousness with the first 3 types, but they are distinguished not by their impulsiveness or manipulativeness (which are in the normal range), but instead by their enjoyment of cruelty.  As Paulhus notes, everyday sadists may be drawn to jobs such as police officers or the military, where they can harm others in a legitimate guise.  Paulhus is not saying, incidentally, that all law enforcement personnel are sadistic, but simply that their ranks may have a higher than average number of everyday sadists (who, as noted by a police official interviewed recently on NPR, can do great damage to police-community relations). 

If you read Paulhus's paper, you might start to wonder about its author – why would anyone be drawn to research on narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism?  I have known Paulhus for at least two decades, and enjoyed many conversations with him during long walks around Vancouver (usually after dark, because he is a night owl).  He is anything but a narcissist or a psychopath, it turns out.  Instead, he is a tiny bit introverted and highly conscientious, spending a great part of his life working into the wee hours while the rest of his colleagues are fast asleep.  What drives Del is a fascination with the meticulous measurement of personality traits.  Although his work on the dark side of personality is quite well known, he is better known for his work rooting out response biases in personality tests, and distinguishing the different forms of social desirability that can taint our answers to those tests.  He especially loves to uncover distinctions that other researchers have missed, as in the distinction between self-deception versus impression management -- that might lead two different people to rank themselves at the 90^th percentile on “niceness” for different reasons (I am fooling myself, but you may simply be trying to fool potential employers).

Paulhus's work on the dark side of personality stems from that same scientific module in his mind.  In the recent article on the dark side of personality, he notes that he got into this area because of his concern about “construct creep.”  He became worried about how researchers who studied narcissism, for example, without simultaneously thinking about Machiavellianism or psychopathy, would start to expand the term to encompass the other related, but distinct, concepts.  Paulhus thinks it is critically important to distinguish the different types of dark personalities, because there are practical consequences – an employee who is Machiavellian will do a different kind of damage than one who is narcissistic or psychopathic, for example.  Because these individuals share a tendency to do well in initial interactions, Paulhus argues that it is important that employers use good clean measures of those constructs as part of their personnel assessment batteries.  And judging from what some of my friends have told me, some people would have liked to have those measurements on hand before they chose their long-term mates.  

• Douglas Kenrick is author of The Rational Animal: How evolution made us smarter than we think and Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life: A psychologist investigates how evolution, cognition, and complexity are revolutionizing our view of human nature.

References

Hogan, R. (2007). Personality and the fate of organizations. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Paulhus, D.L. (2014). Toward a taxonomy of dark personalities.  Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23, 421– 426.

Paulhus, D. L., & Jones, D. N. (in press). Measures of dark personalities. In G. J. Boyle, D. H. Saklofske, & G. Matthews (Eds.), Measures of personality and social psychological constructs. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.