February 2015 - Session NotesSession Notes

Does a wandering mind kill sex?
February 27, 2015 Comments Off on Does a wandering mind kill sex?

Psychology Today –

Reviewing some 40 years of research on women with problems of low sexual desire, French sexologist Marie Geonet and colleagues recently concluded (link is external) that negative thoughts play a key role in women’s sexual dysfunction: They distract women from erotic stimulation, produce anxiety and guilt, and diminish sexual arousal and pleasure.

Similar processes appear to operate in men. Recent work from Portugal by Catia Oliveira and colleagues (link is external) has provided evidence that males’ arousal is linked closely to their thinking. In their small sample, distracting thoughts were the best predictor of inhibited genital response.
Read more
Think older married couples are mostly celibate?
February 25, 2015 Comments Off on Think older married couples are mostly celibate?

NYT

The average older adult who had been married for a year had a 65 percent chance of having sex two to three times a month or more. At 25 years of marriage, the likelihood of that frequency dropped to 40 percent. If the marriage lasted 50 years, the likelihood was 35 percent. But if the marriage – and the lifespan – of the older adults continued, at 65 years of being together, the chance of having sex with that frequency was 42 percent.
Read more
Perhaps you should give up on your goals?
February 24, 2015 Comments Off on Perhaps you should give up on your goals?

Next Web

Scott Adams, creator of office comic Dilbert, explains why goals suck better than anyone I’ve come across:

“… you will spend every moment until you reach the goal-if you reach it at all-feeling as if you were short of your goal. In other words, goal-oriented people exist in a state of nearly continuous failure that they hope will be temporary.”

James Clear has written about this as well. James explains how setting goals reinforces our loser mindset:

“When you’re working toward a goal, you are essentially saying, ‘I’m not good enough yet, but I will be when I reach my goal’.”
Read more
How to really heal trauma.
February 21, 2015 Comments Off on How to really heal trauma.

Huffington post

The Washington VA is one of the few places veterans can find a form of meditation called iRest, named for integrated restoration. It’s a trauma-sensitive meditation adapted specifically for military service members and veterans with psychological trauma.

In the hourlong sessions with a dozen other vets, Craig has learned how to unclench, easing his mind and his pain.
Read more
The real reason parents refuse to vaccinate their kids…
February 20, 2015 Comments Off on The real reason parents refuse to vaccinate their kids…

Mind Hacks

There are other psychological factors at play in the decisions taken by individual parents not to vaccinate their children. One is the rational selfishness of avoiding risk, or even the discomfort of a momentary jab, by gambling that the herd immunity of everyone else will be enough to protect your child.

Another is our tendency to underplay rare events in our calculation about risks – ironically the very success of vaccination programmes makes the diseases they protect us against rare, meaning that most of us don’t have direct experience of the negative consequences of not vaccinating.
Read more
Are you really so sure you, “Clearly remember???”
February 18, 2015 Comments Off on Are you really so sure you, “Clearly remember???”

Star

The new study proves for the first time what psychologists have long suspected: that manipulative questioning tactics used by police can induce false memories – and produce false confessions.

Published in January in the journal Psychological Science by Julia Shaw of the Britain’s University of Bedfordshire and Stephen Porter, a forensic psychologist who studies the role of memory in the legal system at the University of British Columbia, the study holds striking implications for the justice system.

“The human mind is very vulnerable to certain tactics in interviews,” Porter told the Star in an interview.
Read more
The secret to really turning a woman on!
February 17, 2015 Comments Off on The secret to really turning a woman on!

Brain Blogger

By examining results from these three sexual fantasy measures, the three Canada-based researchers that published the study found;

‘direct evidence that object of desire themes are linked more to women’s sexuality than they are to men’s.’

How integral object of desire self-consciousness (ODSC) is to a woman’s sexual relationships is likely to vary, being largely dependent on how her sexual self-schemas, that is, her cognitive representation of her sexual self, represents her as an object of desire.
Read more
Can you understand the teenage mind?
February 14, 2015 Comments Off on Can you understand the teenage mind?

Telegraph –

She is passionate, for example, about the madness of an 8.30/9 am school start time. ‘It’s the middle of the night for a teenager!’ she says. Teenagers release melatonin (the sleepy hormone) a couple of hours later in the day than adults and so are able to stay up later, but then they need more sleep in the morning. ‘It’s like getting us up at 5.30 am,’ Blakemore elaborates.
Read more
Are the powerful more likely to cheat?
February 13, 2015 Comments Off on Are the powerful more likely to cheat?

Ars

Research has previously shown that upper-class individuals are more likely to behave unethically than lower-class people. But, says David Dubois, lead researcher of a new paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, it’s not that simple: both groups behave unethically in different contexts.

Dubois’ research group found that people with higher socioeconomic status (SES) were more likely to behave unethically when the behaviour benefitted themselves, while lower-SES people were more likely to be unethical to benefit other individuals. “Many people think of unethical behaviour in terms of selfish behaviour-violating moral standards to give yourself an advantage,” explains Jared Piazza, who was not involved with the research.
Read more
Proof of intelligent life — barely…
February 12, 2015 Comments Off on Proof of intelligent life — barely…

Verge

The 2015 edition, as noted by The Washington Post, will mark perhaps the biggest change since the original 1977 advice by dropping the warning about cholesterol consumption. One of the six core goals since the 1970s has been to limit the intake of cholesterol to less than 300mg per day, however, the present Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) does not believe that cholesterol consumption is something we need to be worried about.

Foods high in cholesterol – such as eggs, offal, and seafood – have long been considered contributors to the risk of heart disease, however, research seeking to establish any causative link between them and undesirable health outcomes has been equivocal.
Read more

1
2
Next