Neuroscience
After struggling mightily, and not particularly successfully, to have a thought about this, I broached a Friday after-work happy hour group and asked them what they would say about themselves. To a person, each looked uncomfortable with the mere question. They asked me whether I had anything in mind. Well maybe one thing: I don’t understand why I have nightmares almost every night. Nightmares of frustration. Obstacles in my way that keep me from catching an airplane trip on time. Obstacles that keep me from getting where I’m supposed to be. I wake up almost every morning with a sense of relief – “Thank goodness it was just a dream.” None of my colleagues seemed to spend their nights this way. What possible reason is there for this mental behaviour, night after night, that is clearly so uncomfortable? One happy hour colleague, a developmental psychologist, said: “that’s it - the happy relief you feel at the end. There’s your reinforcement.“ And thus she took away my one idea, by explaining it. It is now one nagging thing that I only partly understand. Or do I?
Elizabeth Loftus is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Irvine. Among her numerous accolades, she received the 2005 Grawemeyer Award for Psychology and in 2002 was named among the 100 most influential psychologists of the twentieth century by the Review of General Psychology.
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Return to menu for One Nagging Thing.
- David Buss: Overcoming Irrationality
One nagging thing that I still don’t understand about myself is why I often succumb to well-documented psychological biases, even though I’m acutely aware of these biases. One example is my failure at affective forecasting, such as believing that...
- Jerome Kagan: Methodological Flaws
I remain puzzled over what appears to be a compulsion, that I cannot tame, to publish papers and books that summarize the empirical evidence pointing to serious problems with popular procedures and assumptions that permeate many domains in psychology....
- Mike Posner: Learning Difficulties
Why have I had such a hard time learning to change a light bulb, fix a car and cook dinner, while for others it seems such a breeze? Generally I did pretty well in school but ran into deep problems with analytic geometry, inorganic chemistry and differential...
- Martin Seligman: Self-control
Some theorists, like my friend Roy Baumeister, believe that self-control is a general trait. My experience with weight-loss versus exercise belies this. I have weighed 95 kg for the last twenty years, and I have dieted a dozen times only to return to...
- Robert Sternberg: Career Masochism
In psychology, you are rewarded (1) partly for the research you do, and (2) partly for (a) the topic on which you do the research and (b) the methods you use. The first point (1) is what you learn explicitly about throughout graduate school. The second...
Neuroscience
Elizabeth Loftus: Nightmares
After struggling mightily, and not particularly successfully, to have a thought about this, I broached a Friday after-work happy hour group and asked them what they would say about themselves. To a person, each looked uncomfortable with the mere question. They asked me whether I had anything in mind. Well maybe one thing: I don’t understand why I have nightmares almost every night. Nightmares of frustration. Obstacles in my way that keep me from catching an airplane trip on time. Obstacles that keep me from getting where I’m supposed to be. I wake up almost every morning with a sense of relief – “Thank goodness it was just a dream.” None of my colleagues seemed to spend their nights this way. What possible reason is there for this mental behaviour, night after night, that is clearly so uncomfortable? One happy hour colleague, a developmental psychologist, said: “that’s it - the happy relief you feel at the end. There’s your reinforcement.“ And thus she took away my one idea, by explaining it. It is now one nagging thing that I only partly understand. Or do I?
Elizabeth Loftus is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Irvine. Among her numerous accolades, she received the 2005 Grawemeyer Award for Psychology and in 2002 was named among the 100 most influential psychologists of the twentieth century by the Review of General Psychology.
--
Return to menu for One Nagging Thing.
- David Buss: Overcoming Irrationality
One nagging thing that I still don’t understand about myself is why I often succumb to well-documented psychological biases, even though I’m acutely aware of these biases. One example is my failure at affective forecasting, such as believing that...
- Jerome Kagan: Methodological Flaws
I remain puzzled over what appears to be a compulsion, that I cannot tame, to publish papers and books that summarize the empirical evidence pointing to serious problems with popular procedures and assumptions that permeate many domains in psychology....
- Mike Posner: Learning Difficulties
Why have I had such a hard time learning to change a light bulb, fix a car and cook dinner, while for others it seems such a breeze? Generally I did pretty well in school but ran into deep problems with analytic geometry, inorganic chemistry and differential...
- Martin Seligman: Self-control
Some theorists, like my friend Roy Baumeister, believe that self-control is a general trait. My experience with weight-loss versus exercise belies this. I have weighed 95 kg for the last twenty years, and I have dieted a dozen times only to return to...
- Robert Sternberg: Career Masochism
In psychology, you are rewarded (1) partly for the research you do, and (2) partly for (a) the topic on which you do the research and (b) the methods you use. The first point (1) is what you learn explicitly about throughout graduate school. The second...