Stuttering is essentially a verbal expression of a child’s insecure and uncertain reaction to an overwhelming world. Science has spent years and years and endless reports and research on the complex mechanism of brain function and/or the physiology of jaw and facial muscles but it is more biopsychosocial approach that provides the most insight. Despite the obvious logic that there are psychological elements that contribute to stuttering in children it doesn’t stop a wave of scientific studies somehow concluding that “there is no reason to believe that emotional trauma causes stuttering.” These studies seem to focus too much on the physiological symptoms of stuttering and how to address them rather than going to the root cause of the problem which is why do the children contort and retard their normal speech in the first place. It’s no good focusing on the external effects without looking at what’s causing them (i.e. the internal/psychological state of the child).

Once a child starts to stutter, it is a compounding situation as the child begins to feel the anxiety due to failure of speech and deepening sense of frustration and depression may develop as a result. However, over time as the child matures, the stutter inevitably disappears with recent scientific studies showing that between 75% and 80% of all children who begin stuttering will stop within 12 to 24 months without speech therapy.

The latest blockbuster film about King George VI, The King’s Speech, is a modern popular example of someone struggling with a stutter. As portrayed in the film it is a psychological derived problem that King George suffered from, not a physical condition. Interestingly for a film with no action, violence or nudity it has proven to be a huge success, particularly with young audiences.

I was a stutterer during my early years, I would struggle particularly with the letter “g” and “r” and had to slow down and remind myself to breath when saying these words, particularly if I was speaking to or in front of more than one person. Even today, in my adult years, if I am flustered and tired I will stumble on certain words and letters. In my experience it was a comforting hand from an adult or some natural urging from a friend that would be the most beneficial, basically any action from the world that implied that everything was any acceptable person and I wasn’t a freak. Interestingly, I never stuttered when talking to myself or to any of the three dogs we had as pets.

Thankfully, scientific inquiry is beginning to take a more holistic view towards stuttering. Recent work by Nickok and colleagues suggests that it is quite common for brain function of schizophrenics to show similar characteristics to those of stutterers. “One would not have expected a connection between disorders as apparently varied as conduction aphasia, stuttering, and schizophrenia, yet they all seem to involve, in part, dysfunction of the same region and functional circuit.” They also postulate that the two main arms of mechanistic inquiry into stuttering, namely motor sensory perception and auditory feedback control, can be integrated to help form a more balanced and insightful direction of inquiry. I would suggest that these recent studies are not holistic enough and that there is an enormous psychological aspect that is being totally ignored. It’s all very well to discover the micro-biomechanics of what happens when people stutter but will this actually stop people stuttering? I suppose time will tell.

Having a stutter does not make one a “basket case” nor does not having a stutter make one a stable, confident individual — it is just certain childrens’ overwhelmed responses to their particular environment. Science can only take us so far in understanding why children stutter and what to do about it — however, psychological science (i.e. getting an idea of the psychological and emotional state of young stutterers) will provide the most insightful analysis. The bottom line is that stuttering does not indicate an inadequacy on behalf of the child but is merely an outward expression of some internal psychological adjustment as the child grows up in today’s fast-paced modern world.

References

Griffith J 2011, What is Science? The Book of Real Answers to Everything [online], pp. 13-33.

Ludlow, C. (2000). Stuttering: dysfunction in a complex and dynamic system Brain, 123 (10), 1983-1984 DOI: 10.1093/brain/123.10.1983

Miller, S. and Watson, B. (1992): The relationship between communication attitude, anxiety and depression in stutters and non-stutters. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 35, 789-798

Hickok, G., Houde, J., & Rong, F. (2011). Sensorimotor Integration in Speech Processing: Computational Basis and Neural Organization Neuron, 69 (3), 407-422 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2011.01.019

Image via Ruta Saulyte-Laurinaviciene / Shutterstock.

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What is the good of an intelligence when it reasons always the same way and always reaches the same conclusion?

— from CHANGE, Cuba, 2007

When Argentinean novelist Ernesto Sabato (a reputable genius) passed away a few weeks ago, the son of famous composer Astor Piazzola shared an unflattering story about him. As a middle-aged man, Daniel Piazzola confessed that he still held a grudge against Sábato for having said, “having good memory is nothing to be proud of, intelligence is what counts.” as a reply to Astor’s praise of his young son’s memory skills.

As a Mensan (someone who passed the High IQ Society’s qualifying test) I have often wondered about what Sabato, whose opinions I have usually shared, was so convinced of, namely, the assumption that intelligence is a value in itself or something to be proud of. If people are born with a certain degree of intelligence that is measurable by IQ testing, then they shouldn’t be more proud of being great at calculus than of having blue eyes or lush black hair.

Personally, I think that people should only be proud of what they have accomplished with their hard work. In harmony with my argument, a reputable 2004 study covering 140 American eight-grade students concluded that self-discipline was more relevant to academic results than IQ scores. Another interesting psychometric study from Britain about the correlation between Emotional Intelligence (EI) and academic performance, which covered 650 teenage students, reached the conclusion that “trait EI has incremental validity over cognitive ability and established personality traits in predicting achievement and behavior.”

So, if a healthy self-image and a good self-discipline achieve better academic results than a mere high IQ, then who is putting Mensa-level intelligence on a pedestal?

For the brief time while I was the “head” of Uruguayan Mensans, I was in charge of testing aspiring members. I had been advised by the British central not to test anyone under 16. However, I received desperate calls from eager parents who were sure that their kid was “a genius” and wanted to have them tested. As someone with an above average IQ who had enjoyed a normal childhood and no special “gifted programs” like the ones that are common in America, for example, I used to say to those parents that their kids didn’t actually need to skip grades, but they needed stimulation. I used to advise them to take them to music classes and foreign language courses. I don’t think my answer made them happy, though, they wanted a trophy child, much like how rich old men want young and beautiful trophy wives.

Now, where’s the curse? (Aside from the possibility of having annoying parents who will make you lose part of your normal childhood by skipping grades). Well, things are not the same in school as in the real world. In my experience, Mensans or people with high IQs have it a bit easier at school, because they can generally get very good results with little work. But everything changes when they leave the school environment and move into the workplace.

A study about gifted individuals and their roles in the workplace advises managers and human resource department officers to “learn how to make a distinction between different kinds of deviant behavior of gifted individuals. A part of that behavior is perhaps troublesome, but at the same time it is necessary for them to be able to fulfill the unique innovatory role they are looking for.” While the study recognizes the need of organizations to develop strategies to maximize the potential of “gifted members,” it also acknowledges the fact that these people tend to cause trouble, precisely because of their “innovatory” power.

When I was studying English literature, I wrote an essay about Othello, arguing that his pride and his blind belief in his own perceptions and assumptions was what doomed the character, much more than jealousy itself. In a way, I believe this can be a Mensan’s greatest pitfall. When one thinks and learns fast, one learns to learn in a certain way. When the world diverges from the results we expect, we may find it hard to adapt.

As far as intelligence is concerned, I have personally concluded that the ability to change one’s mind is the highest form of human intelligence; fundamentally, the ability to recognize that one can be wrong; that is what I call intelligence. This is the best brain-training I can recommend as a former Mensan: to try to keep an open mind.

References

PETRIDES, K., FREDERICKSON, N., & FURNHAM, A. (2004). The role of trait emotional intelligence in academic performance and deviant behavior at school Personality and Individual Differences, 36 (2), 277-293 DOI: 10.1016/S0191-8869(03)00084-9.

Corten, F., Nauta, N., Ronner, S.. Highly intelligent and gifted employees – key to innovation? Academic paper, International HRD Conference 2006, “The learning society or sustainable development”, Amsterdam, 2006.

Duckworth, A., & Seligman, M. (2005). Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of Adolescents Psychological Science, 16 (12), 939-944 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01641.x

Duckworth AL, Quinn PD, Lynam DR, Loeber R, & Stouthamer-Loeber M (2011). Role of test motivation in intelligence testing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America PMID: 21518867

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Against this background is it not rather churlish to suggest that such charitable giving has had the effect of harming the overall health of the population in the recipient countries? And, even less fair to suggest that the bulk of funding provided by western governments since 2000 has not just been wasteful but has distorted the health systems in many parts of Africa and Asia?

Well it may sound churlish but the reality is that how this largesse has been allocated and distributed has created major problems in the recipient states. First, it has followed the priorities set by the donor and these are often focussed on specific issues (HIV, TB, malaria) with specified outcomes in terms of the type of treatment to be delivered rather than building up the overall health infrastructure. In effect, large sums have been allocated to small specific portions of the overall public health leaving those states struggling with poor basic health infrastructures.

HIV has often been a specific focus for additional funding and this has brought very specific problems. The first is that even if the availability of HIV retro-viral drugs is improved, basic flaws elsewhere in the primary health infrastructure may undermine any gains. President Clinton in 2006 argued that what should happen is what he described as a “HIV-out” model. In effect the infrastructure constructed around a HIV program would underpin and build up the rest of the health system. In reality, in country after country this has failed to happen. In Botswana a program from 2002-06 aimed to provide retro-viral drugs to 55,000 out of 280,000 individuals with HIV.The program foundered due to a lack of locally trained medical and nursing staff (and this was worsened by the practice of OECD countries of recruiting locally trained staff to work in their countries). The net result was some improvement but at the cost of undermining other areas of public health provision. The few available doctors and nurses took up relatively well paid positions with the new programs rather than in the poorly funded and resourced state health sector. The outcome was not one where the HIV health programme became the basis for a wider health system, instead it effectively crowded out other areas of primary health.

More generally, this funding has not been aligned to the overall plans and needs of the recipient state, leading to a distortion of local priorities. In effect, such aid is spent as the donor (whether a private charity or a state) wishes and this often ignores the  needs of the recipient country. Very little of this funding is allocated to non-specific primary health provision as the donors wish to see direct results linked to their investments. Also particularly with US funding on HIV in the Bush years, the funding came with a very specific ideology around issues such as sexual health and this in turn biased how the programmes were developed.

The net effect has been that most of the HIV programmes have developed in isolation to any wider population health concerns. This has undermined the effectiveness of the HIV efforts (as other illnesses connected to poverty, lack of clean drinking water, lack of basic primary health provision) have offset any gains. Equally once the specific funding is withdrawn, the programmes tend to collapse as they are not part of an integrated (even if poorly resourced) health system.

On this basis, there is a strong case to suggest all the billions of dollars allocated since 2000, no matter how well intended, have been largely wasted. If this is the case, is there a better method to make use of the substantial investment in public health in the poorest countries?

The answer can be a cautious yes. But to make any difference, there has to be a major shift of attitudes among the donors. Two changes would be critical:

• One is to fund generic public health provision so the recipient state can decide on local usage. This carries the risk of corruption but that already affects all too many of the current targetted programmes. If this was linked to a moratorium on recruiting expensively trained health professionals the result would be an under-funded but robust basic public health infrastructure . With that framework in place, there is then a greater chance of effective use being made of more targetted provision.
• Second, all health programmes should be evaluated against two basic indices of public health. These are maternal survival rates and overall life expectancy.

The advantage of such broad measures is that they are effective measures of the impact not of just a particular programme but the overall gains in population health. Maternal survival rates are a good proxy for the overall level of health care (including the numbers of trained professionals) and the presence of sufficient sterile equipment and antibiotics. If these are present, maternal death rates fall, if they are absent they increase. Life expectancy in turn picks up the adequacy of all the factors that lead to wider population health. This can include reducing the incidence and impact of diseases such as Malaria, but alsothe provision of clean drinking water, access to sufficient nutrition, and immunisation programmes using sterile needles. In the OECD countries the recent growth in life expectancy has been led by a reduction in the rates of infant mortality (in effect more people are surviving to old age in the first place).

This is not to say there is no scope for specific programmes and special funding. However, if they were evaluated against these two fundamental measures then both donors and recipients can be assured that any funding is actually having a positive impact. In particular for state provided funding, this should be made available with less constraints so it can be spent on the overall public health infrastructure. Such changes, will help ensure that the current global investment in health outside the OECD is well spent. At the moment too much well intentioned funding is effectively being wasted.

References

Alvarado, C. H., Martínez, M. E., Vivas-Martínez, S., Gutiérrez, N. J., & Metzger, W. (2008). Social Change and Health Policy in Venezuela. Social Medicine, 3(2), 95-109.

Garrett, L. (2007). The Challenge of Global Health. Foreign Affairs, 86(1), 14-40.

Melinda & Gates Foundation

Kickbusch, I. (2004). From charity to rights: proposal for five action areas of global health Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 58 (8), 630-631 DOI: 10.1136/jech.2004.021121

Muntaner C, Sridharan S, Solar O, & Benach J (2009). Against unjust global distribution of power and money: the report of the WHO commission on the social determinants of health: global inequality and the future of public health policy. Journal of public health policy, 30 (2), 163-75 PMID: 19597448

Whitehead, M., Dahlgren, G., & Gilson, L. (2001). Developing the policy response to inequities in Health: a global perspective. In T. Evans, M. Whitehead, F. Diderichsen, A. Bhuiya & M. Wirth (Eds.), Challenging inequities in health care: From ethics to action (pp. 309-322). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Recently, the Sunday Times reviewed a new book by Cordelia Fine entitled Delusions of Gender. In the book, Fine dismantles many of the false conclusions drawn by Louann Brizendine’s bestseller The Female Brain, a popular science book that links differences between the male and female brain to behavioral differences observed in our everyday lives. The review notes how Fine researched the studies cited in Brizendine’s book:

Brizendine claims that the female brain has more mirror neurons (brain cells that fire in mimicry when a person or animal observes others carrying out an action) than the male brain, hence enabling greater female empathy. Brizendine has five references for this assertion: one study, published in Russian, of a postmortem dissection of frontal lobes, in which mirror neurons could therefore not be observed in action; three studies of mirror neurons, none of which compared males and females; and one personal communication with a cognitive neuroscientist at Harvard, who, when asked by Fine to confirm the finding, said that not only had she never communicated with Brizendine; her own work had also failed to find any sex differences in mirror neuron functioning.

This sloppy research on the part of non-experts (Brizendine is a psychiatrist) isn’t the only problem, however. Using neuroscience in a very general sense grossly oversimplifies complex phenomena. In business writer Daniel Pink’s bestseller A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future, Pink’s main assertion is that the so-called activities of the “left brain,” like linear thinking and verbal or logical skills, are inordinately emphasized over “right brain” activities like empathizing with others and creating artistic works. While it may be true that social institutions reinforce particular ways of thinking to the detriment of progress, the brain is an incredibly complex organ that does not delegate activities neatly into right and left as Pink and many others suggest. In this sense, Pink may use neural activity as metaphor, but why muddy the waters and draw from neuroscience so amateurishly to begin with, when it’s completely unnecessary?

What explains the mass fascination with the field? A recently published Miller-McCune article highlights a few studies indicating that non-experts are drawn to neuroscience for the seeming certainty it affords in explaining our daily behaviors. The article cites a study conducted by UCLA researchers who found that a cohort of undergraduates considered an argument featuring brain scans more persuasive than the same argument featuring a bar graph, despite the fact that both arguments were spurious.

In a similar study published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, entitled fMRI in the Public Eye, researchers, headed by Eric Racine of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, analyzed several news articles in the media, examining how coverage of fMRI investigations and experiments were worded. The researchers determined that popular news articles often explained brain scan studies in such a way as to “prove” the objectivity of a subjective experience, citing headlines like “A relatively new form of brain imaging provides visual proof that acupuncture alleviates pain” or “Fat really does bring pleasure.” Racine and his team furthermore discovered that many news articles anthropomorphize the brain, effectively equating the brain to notions of identity or self. Examples of this phenomenon included “Brain can banish unwanted memories” or “Brain stores perception into meaningful chunks.”

Racine’s work demonstrates that the public treatment of brain studies overestimates the scope of current neuroscientific inquiry. While neuroscience certainly has and will continue to have implications for a wide variety of fields, science journalists and the public at large must understand that there continues to exist a large gap between “brain” and “mind”, and that equating the two seriously misrepresents the advances that cognitive science or neuroscience has thus far made. Even neuroscientists themselves can be guilty of drawing such conclusions. Raymond Tallis notes this erroneous equation of brain and mind in a book review published in Brain: A Journal of Neurology. Criticizing the conclusions drawn from cognitive neuroscientist Chris Frith’s Making Up the Mind: How the Brain Creates Our Mental World, Tallis notes:

The journey from excitable tissue to membership of the community of minds in which we live our lives and have our (importantly) conscious being has been a long one. We shall not, therefore, find the community of minds, and our everyday lives, in the behaviour of excitable tissue, even though the latter is a necessary condition of the former. The illusion that we can do so arises from neuroscientists anthropomorphizing bits of the brain. When they find that those bits don’t deserve the human epithets conferred upon them, they tend to question whether human attributes such as free will, access to reality, self-knowledge or progress towards objective truth, which are evident in the community of minds, really exist. If you fail to find something when you look in the wrong place or in the wrong way, it is tempting to conclude that it doesn’t exist. Physicists can’t find free will, the self, or the ‘I’ in atoms, but they don’t (typically) conclude that, since we are made of atoms, these things don’t exist. Anyway, denying their reality puts science itself, and its large truth claims in a rather awkward position.

In order to avoid this “rather awkward position,” the scientific community must make concerted efforts to educate the public about neuroscience, and science journalists as well as the layperson would do well to approach coverage of studies in neuroscience with a healthy dose of skepticism.

References

MCCABE, D., & CASTEL, A. (2008). Seeing is believing: The effect of brain images on judgments of scientific reasoning??? Cognition, 107 (1), 343-352 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2007.07.017

Racine, E., Bar-Ilan, O., & Illes, J. (2005). Science and Society: fMRI in the public eye Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 6 (2), 159-164 DOI: 10.1038/nrn1609

Tallis, R. (2007). Not all in the Brain Brain, 130 (11), 3050-3054 DOI: 10.1093/brain/awm250

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The implication would be that bisexuality might be losing the stigma that still pervades homosexuality and especially male homosexuality. If we look at popular media, there are clearly many more bisexual characters being portrayed in mainstream media today than a few decades ago. Groundbreaking films in that sense have included Basic Instinct, with its portrayal of a powerful bisexual female played by Sharon Stone, and Henry & June, which presented the complex relationships between writer Henry Miller, his wife and that icon of female sexual liberation — French writer Anais Nin. Popular TV series of the 21st century have also started commonly incorporating bisexual characters; with House as a prime example.

Considering that homosexuality was only removed from the American Psychiatric Association’s list of mental disorders in 1973, it is no wonder that the stigma of homosexuality, which naturally permeates bisexuality, is still deeply ingrained in Western culture.

The fact that legislation has started accepting homosexual relationships, enabling gay marriage and adoption by gay couples, also has an impact on our perceptions of bisexuality. In fact, if our perceptions hadn’t been slowly changing, those laws would never have been passed. Today, there is gay marriage in Argentina and the UK, in Sweden and parts of the US, and we are looking at a world that is ready to accept the possibility of healthy, functional families comprising two same sex partners.

Gay men, gay women: not the same?

It would seem that it is much easier for people in general to accept the idea of female homosexuality than that of male homosexuality. As erotic content across the media fosters the idea that lesbianism is “hot,” the transgression perceived in female homosexuality seems to be much smaller than the assumptions regarding gay males. The flip side would be that a large percentage of women engage in bisexual practices, just to satisfy their male partners, like the girl on the radio; however, without this necessarily implying an acceptance of bisexuality or homosexuality.

It would follow, hence, that bisexual women would face much less stigmatization than bisexual men. These double standards have been measured and assessed many times. For example, a psychological study measuring arousal patterns found that the vast majority of a group of men who claimed to be bisexual were in fact only attracted by men. The self-confessed bisexuals were shown erotic films and photographs portraying both men and women, and measurements showed that almost all of them were in fact only aroused by the erotic images of men. The conclusion would be that the stigmatization of male homoeroticism fosters a type of male bisexuality that is in fact “closeted” homosexuality.

Lisa Diamond, Associate Professor of Psychology and Gender Identity at the University of Utah, who has carried on her own very influential research, praised the study mentioned above, stating that:

Research on sexual orientation has been based almost entirely on self-reports, and this is one of the few good studies using physiological measures.

In fact, Diamond was right on target, as this is one of the main problems with this type of studies. Namely, that both the social stigma and the self-identity conflicts associated with bisexuality and homosexuality sometimes contribute to make statistical data unreliable.

The search for an identity

Woody Allen is credited with having defined bisexuality very lightly by saying that it “doubles your chance of a date on Saturday night.” It is not all that easy for bisexual individuals, it would seem. A bisexual identity is hard to come by, as it seems to be located in a grey area that is even harder for non-bisexuals to understand than homosexuality. According to Linda Alcoff,

Struggles of social identity have been fought against the subtle social contracts by which whole identity groups are denied equality and basic human rights.

As an anonymous bisexual student from the University of Minnesota put it in one of his blogs,

It is a difficult issue. For many, a bisexual is either ‘not gay enough’ within the gay community, or ‘just gay enough’ to be excluded from the straight community.

The problems of establishing and defining a bisexual identity were also addressed by Amy André, in her commentary of a study by Dr. Diamond:

Bisexuality, defined as experiencing attraction to other adults, regardless of gender, has often been described by mono-sexual people (i.e., heterosexuals, gays and lesbians) as mysterious and difficult to understand. This is because mono-sexual people take gender into account when assessing attraction; therefore, it can be challenging to imagine that there is a whole world of people out there who don’t do the same.

Bisexual individuals face a twofold identity problem: as they struggle to define themselves in terms of their sexual orientation and/or sexual desires/actions, they must also deal with the fact that most people do not understand the concept of bisexuality, and with assumptions such as the famous saying “you are either gay, straight, or lying,” which do not leave room for the construction of a true bisexual identity.

The future

Nobel prize nominee Umberto Veronesi raised some controversy a couple of years ago when he stated that he believed humanity was moving towards a bisexual future. The famous oncologist was not just looking to raise havoc. He actually had some good points to make. For example, he cited the scientific fact that the vitality of male reproductive cells has gone down by 50% since the end of World War II.

Based on evidence about the dissociation between sexuality and reproduction, the endless possibilities of artificial fertilization, and the fact that men and women are producing less and less hormones every day, Veronesi predicted that, as sexual interaction will lose its mainly reproductive function, bisexuality will become the norm rather than the exception.

Veronesi considers that a bisexual future will be a positive development in human evolution. On the other hand, futuristic novels such as Huxley’s Brave New World, The Handmaid’s Tale or Orwell’s 1984 and many that came after them have been speculating about a future of sexless or state-controlled reproduction for over half a century.

The origins of both Veronesi’s more scientific predictions and literature’s response to the questions about what the future of human reproduction will be like, seem to have a common core in the fact that science is objectively developing towards a future when male-female interaction will be basically disconnected from reproduction.

Provided bisexuality continues to lose the stigma it still possesses in Western societies, it seems that it will become a more frequent choice, as the barriers of social constraints are lifted and the concept of family and marriage keeps evolving to integrate the many nuances of the world’s present sexual diversity.

References

Mosher WD, Chandra A, & Jones J (2005). Sexual behavior and selected health measures: men and women 15-44 years of age, United States, 2002. Advance data (362), 1-55 PMID: 16250464

Bayer, R. Homosexuality and American Psychiatry, The Politics of Diagnosis. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.

Fahs, B. (2009). Compulsory Bisexuality?: The Challenges of Modern Sexual Fluidity Journal of Bisexuality, 9 (3), 431-449 DOI: 10.1080/15299710903316661

Rieger G, Chivers ML, & Bailey JM (2005). Sexual arousal patterns of bisexual men. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS, 16 (8), 579-84 PMID: 16102058

Benedict Carey. Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited, The New York Times, July 5, 2005.

Alcoff, Linda M. Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self. New York: Oxford, 2006.

New study finds that bisexuality is a ‘distinct orientation’ in women. theTaskForce.org, January 29, 2008.

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These experiments supposedly show that the brain makes a subconscious decision before it is realized consciously. In the typical experiment supporting illusory free will, a subject is asked to voluntarily press a button at any time and notice the position of a clock marker when they think they first willed the movement. At the same time, brain activity is monitored over the part of the brain that controls the mechanics of the movement. The startling typical observation is that subjects show brain activity changes before they say they intended to make the movement. In other words the brain issued the command before the conscious mind had a chance to decide to move. All this happens in less than a second, but various scientists have interpreted this to mean that the subconscious mind made the decision to move and the conscious mind only realized the decision later.

In a paper published in Advances in Cognitive Psychology, I challenge the whole series of experiments performed since the 1980s purported to show that intentions, choices, and decisions are made subconsciously, with conscious mind being informed after the fact. These experiments do not test what they are intended to test and are misinterpreted to support the view of illusory free will.

My criticisms focus on three main points: 1) timing of when a free-will event occurred requires introspection, and other research shows that introspective estimates of event timing are not accurate, 2) simple finger movements may be performed without much conscious thought and certainly not representative of the conscious decisions and choices required in high-speed conversation or situations where the subconscious mind cannot know ahead of time what to do, and 3) the brain activity measures have been primitive and incomplete.

I point out 12 categories of what I regard as flawed thinking about free will. Some of the more obvious issues that many scientists have glossed over include:

• Decisions are not often instantaneous (certainly not on a scale of a fraction of a second).
• Conscious realization that a decision has been made is delayed from the actual decision, and these may be two distinct processes.
• Decision making is not the only mental process going on in such tasks.
• Some willed action, as when first learning to play a musical instrument or touch type must be freely willed because the subconscious mind cannot know ahead of time what to do.
• Free-will experiments have relied too much on awareness of actions and time estimation of accuracy.
• Extrapolating from such simple experiments to all mental life is not justified.
• Conflicting data and interpretations have been ignored.

A basic problem is that scientists do not yet have a good independent brain-function measure of the conscious generation of intentions, choices, or decisions. Without such a measure, it is not possible to measure the time at which a willed action occurs.

My paper concludes with a series of suggestions that scientists can use to test free-will issues. Equally important, the research I suggest would not only help identify reliable markers of conscious decision-making but would also help scientists learn what the brain does to achieve consciousness in the first place.

The implications of this debate are profound. It determines our world view of whether we are victims of genetics and environment or bear responsibility for our intentions, decisions, and choices. I contend we are responsible for what we make of our brains and for our choices and decisions in life. In a free-will world, people can choose to extricate themselves from many kinds of misfortune — not to mention make the right choices that can prevent misfortune.

In the real world, subconscious and conscious minds interact and share duties. Subconscious mind governs simple or well-learned tasks, like habits or ingrained prejudices, while conscious mind deals with tasks that are complex or novel, like first learning to ride a bike or play sheet music. Most deliberate new learning has to be mediated by free will, because subconscious mind has not yet had a chance to learn.

Reference

Klemm, W. (2010). Free will debates: Simple experiments are not so simple Advances in Cognitive Psychology, 6 (-1), 47-65 DOI: 10.2478/v10053-008-0076-2

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For decades, there has been an increased interest in and awareness of the need for physicians and the medical community to work more closely with journalists and the mass media to guarantee the accurate and appropriate dissemination of health information. Training programs for both physicians and journalists now include innovative curriculum to promote collaboration and build a mutual respect between the professions that, in the end, promotes public health and safety. Publishing or broadcasting clear, consistent and contemporary health and medical information to the general public is a shared responsibility of physicians and journalists. But, what happens when the physician and the journalist is the same person?

The advents of 24-hour news, numerous magazines and blogs galore have opened the flood gates for professionals who want to share their knowledge with the public. And gain a little fame in the process. The world does need health care professionals with better-than-average communication skills to share the latest research or medical news in layman’s terms. But, the world does not need physicians who have more experience holding a microphone than a scalpel. Case after case of physician-journalists helping Haitian victims were broadcast on television over the last few weeks, making the physician the story rather than the Haitians in need of help. One would hope that the physicians were simply overcome by their desire to help, and forgot that there were cameras rolling. But, a cynical eye would notice that every network seemed to “one-up” the others with broadcasts of “our doctor did this” and “our medical correspondent did that.” If the physicians really wanted to help the devastated population, they could easily travel to Haiti with a volunteer medical staff, rather than with a producer and a camera crew.  Plus, if viewers wanted to see surgery performed on television, they could watch any of a number of reality series that depict medical procedures.

The sensationalizing of the story is hardly the only downside to this type of reporting. What happens if there are complications from the treatment provided by the physician-journalists? What about patient privacy? What happens when every reporter decides to jump into the story? What happens to the just-the-facts reporting that the public needs?

The public increasingly turns to the media for health information, and inaccurate or inappropriate medical reporting damages public welfare, as well as perception and opinion about the health care community. All reporters — trained journalists and physicians-turned-correspondents alike — have the responsibility to remain objective and report facts of stories, be it medical information or news of death and destruction in crisis-stricken areas.

References

Anthony, S., Lozano-Calderon, S., & Ring, D. (2007). Stigmatization of Repetitive Hand Use in Newspaper Reports of Hand Illness HAND, 3 (1), 30-33 DOI: 10.1007/s11552-007-9052-4

Campbell, N., Heath, J., Bouknight, J., Rudd, K., & Pender, J. (2009). Speaking Out For Mental Health: Collaboration of Future Journalists and Psychiatrists Academic Psychiatry, 33 (2), 166-168 DOI: 10.1176/appi.ap.33.2.166

Catherine, N., Ko, J., & Barr, R. (2008). Getting the Word Out: Advice on Crying and Colic in Popular Parenting Magazines Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 29 (6), 508-511 DOI: 10.1097/DBP.0b013e31818d0c0c

Strasser T, Gallagher J. The ethics of health communication. World Health Forum. 1994;15(2):175-177.

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Also, experimental evidence suggests that compared to females, male behavior and psychology is more inclined to aggression. Men are relatively more aggressive in inter-group games and display stronger ingroup loyalty in the presence of an inter-group threat. This idea is referred to by anthropologists as the male-warrior hypothesis. This general hypothesis leads to the prediction that men “have behavioral propensities to engage in male coalitional violence”. This is perhaps a product of a long evolutionary history, in which males who engaged in such behavior produced more genetic descendants than males without such propensities. Male coalitional violence is also exhibited by our closest living relative, the chimpanzee. Such behavioral propensities did not evolve in females of either species.

Since females in all cultures have greater parental investment than males in their offspring, engaging in openly aggressive acts to acquire resources, either individually or as part of a group, will be physiologically and genetically costlier for women. The mother is more critical to the offspring’s survival than is the father. If a mother wants her children to survive, then she must be equally concerned with her own survival. Because of this, it is believed that women would have evolved a psychology in which the costs of physical danger would have been weighted higher than that of a male.

Recognizing that our biological heritage has produced very different behavioral propensities in human males and females, can also lead to a solution of decreasing violence and warfare in modern times. Although the propensity for violence may be genetically programmed into the human brain, it can be controlled through cultural and social means. Behavioral genetics research on violence shows high heritabilities, suggesting that a substantial amount of genetic variance exists in such behavioral propensities within populations of human males.

By empowering women to be leaders in cultural, social, and political spheres, the violent propensities of men can be restrained, and perhaps men can learn to be less violent themselves. Public investment policies should also recognize that men with poor economic prospects have higher incidence of engaging in violence and being recruited into violent extremism.

Although war is a complex subject and a definitive understanding of coalitional violence is still lacking, women’s empowerment and a greater participation of women in the political arena could be the way for a more peaceful world.

References

Kaplan, H. (2009). Sex, War (and Ecology) Science, 326 (5950), 232-233 DOI: 10.1126/science.1176071

Van Vugt, M., De Cremer, D., & Janssen, D. (2007). Gender Differences in Cooperation and Competition: The Male-Warrior Hypothesis Psychological Science, 18 (1), 19-23 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01842.x

Campbell, A. (1999). Staying alive: Evolution, culture, and women’s intrasexual aggression Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22 (02) DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X99001818

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Have you ever wondered why some people grind their teeth at night? Some people clench their jaw and grind their teeth during the day, but nocturnal or night-time bruxism is what I’m referring to right now. I know many people who grind their teeth in their sleep and they have to wear night guards to protect the enamel on their teeth. There are many theories behind nocturnal bruxism, but I doubt that anyone really knows why people grind their teeth. There may be a host of different reasons why certain people struggle with bruxism. Allow me to share my thoughts on some of the major theories behind unexplained bruxism.

Anger: There are many who think that people who have suppressed anger release their anger at night by grinding their feet. Does it make sense that people would clench and grind their teeth if they were trying to release their suppressed anger? Is the brain releasing anger by clenching teeth? Perhaps it is a natural reaction that cannot be controlled unless the anger someone gets eliminated. I wonder if some people have a chronic level of anger that never goes away. If anger is building up and growing, then it could take many years before the anger goes away. Maybe if some people are not in touch with their feelings, then they may not realize how much anger they have building up inside of themselves. It’s important for people to be connected with their feelings so that they can recognize their feelings and deal with them appropriately. Otherwise, suppressed emotions may express themselves in unusual ways.

Anxiety: Anxiety comes in various forms. For some, it is generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Others may have a combination of anxiety and depression. Anxiety may be suppressed or hidden in others. So, is bruxism a way the brain releases some of the tension caused by anxiety? Is it possible that the brain tries to escape anxiety by gnashing teeth? If my theory is correct, then people who receive treatment for their anxiety should have less bruxism. Does this happen?

Stress: Everyone experiences stress, but everyone doesn’t struggle with nocturnal bruxism. If some people live with a constant level of stress due to work or family problems, could this lead to bruxism? If people actively practice relaxation techniques, could this lead to a reduction in bruxism?

Mental trauma: Some people may encounter some type of severe mental trauma in their life. As a result, they may have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This type of mental trauma may manifest itself in different types of bodily symptoms ranging from headaches, body aches, and other types of ailments. At night, could this also be expressed through bruxism? Is it possible that the brain tries to escape this mental trauma by clenching the jaw?

In the future, perhaps we’ll understand what causes bruxism and discover a cure. Until that day arrives, we can only consider various theories offered by clinicians and researchers.

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The regions of the brain engaged in processing religious knowledge can be studied using modern neuroimaging techniques. Experiments were done to determine the psychological components underlying religious belief and evaluate their neural foundations. These studies support the view that there is no specific domain for religion in the human brain. Religiosity is integrated in our cognitive processes and employs the same brain networks used in social and emotional interactions. Religious understanding probably emerged as a unique combination of several evolutionarily important cognitive processes. Humans are naturally inclined to faith due to these traits. Thus, religious thinking seems to be the path of least resistance for our cognitive systems and is a consequence of having a very ‘human’ type of brain.

By contrast, atheism is harder for the human brain to comprehend. Atheism is generally the result of a deliberate effort against our natural cognitive dispositions and is thus a more difficult ideology to propagate. It is therefore not surprising that despite the appeal of logic and rationality that atheism offers, it has few takers.

Perhaps a capacity for religious thinking — and not specifically religion in its present socio-political context — provided fitness benefits to our ancestors during the course of evolution. Religion can evoke very diverse and strong emotions, which can now be experimentally studied. Neuroscience is trying to provide a pragmatic explanation to the complex phenomenon called religion. Religion continues to dominate both the personal and political aspects of our modern society and it is unlikely that any understanding of the foundations of religious belief in humans will undermine the impact of religion in our lives.

References

Boyer, P. (2008). Being human: Religion: Bound to believe? Nature, 455 (7216), 1038-1039 DOI: 10.1038/4551038a

Kapogiannis, D., Barbey, A., Su, M., Zamboni, G., Krueger, F., & Grafman, J. (2009). Cognitive and neural foundations of religious belief Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106 (12), 4876-4881 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0811717106

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Such is the creed that has grown up around natural products. You want to market a new range of face cream –- make sure everyone knows it is natural. You want your expensive new yogurt to sell –- include the word “natural” on the packaging. The word “natural” has become byword for purity, health and goodness.

So, why are we so obsessed by natural products? It may be that we associate science with all that is bad in the modern world –- pollution, climate change, the nuclear threat. By rejecting science and its associated chemicals, perhaps we believe that we can return to a gentler time in which the honest farmer toiled the land and people’s lives were more in tune with nature. While it is true that we have drifted away from nature, largely to the detriment of the health of the planet, this view is in danger of romanticizing the past into a golden age that never really existed. At the start of the nineteenth century, global average life expectancy was less than 30 years; today it is around 67. The infant mortality rate in Europe in the 1860s was around 230 per 1,000, compared with less than 50 per 1,000 in the 1950s. If you asked parents of the nineteenth century whether they wanted their child to be vaccinated against the ravages of polio, they wouldn’t understand why you even needed to ask.

The current generation living in the Western world is the luckiest in history. We have forgotten what it is like to be surrounded by death, disease and infirmity. It is because we enjoy such comfort and security that we find ourselves in a position to be picky about what we eat, wear and put on our bodies. We demand that things be natural only because science has given us that luxury.

I am not arguing that natural is bad; I am simply saying that just because something is natural, it does not make it good. Even more, I am objecting to the artificial and facile distinction between natural and chemical. If you analyze a banana, you find 39 chemicals, including 2-heptyl acetate, isoamyl acetate. 2-methylbutyl acetate and 2-heptyl acetate. Try putting this list of ingredients on a package label and see how much you sell.

The separation into natural versus chemical may be tempting, it may be convenient, but I don’t believe it’s actually helpful. Some people may find this argument gives them a headache — in which case they may like to chew on the bark of a willow. Personally, I’d rather take a couple of aspirin.

References

Riley JC. Rising Life Expectancy: A Global History. New York, US: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Bideau A, Desjardins B, Pérez Brignoli H. Infant and Child Mortality in the Past. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1997.

Pino, JA, Ortega A, Marbot, R, & Aguero, J (2003). Volatile components of banana fruit (musa sapientum L.) “Indio” for Cuba JEOR

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Gender reassignment was not something I had learned about in medical school. It was mentioned in passing, but there were no lectures about how to correctly dose estrogen for the male-to-female transsexual. I frankly had no idea what to do. I think my surprise and confusion were apparent, as the man blushed a little and suggested that I might want to refer him to a specialist.

Chastity Bono’s recent announcement that she will be transitioning from female to male reminded me anew what a deeply personal and difficult decision gender reassignment is. Medically, it’s complicated as well. Before even embarking on the anatomically-altering regimen, a great deal of therapy is recommended, as well as a “test run” living as the desired gender. Following that, hormones are begun. The regimen for a woman becoming a man is relatively straightforward: testosterone shots once every twelve weeks. Such a regimen produces increased facial hair, body mass index, a deeper voice, and enlargement of the clitoris, sometimes to the degree that intercourse is possible without surgery. It can have adverse effects on serum triglycerides and may cause acne.

A man wanting to become a woman faces a bit more complicated hormonal regimen, as not only does estrogen need to be added, but testosterone needs to be suppressed. Surgery to remove the testicles will obviate the latter, but is not a procedure that some are willing to undergo right away. This hormonal one-two punch will result in breast growth, increased subcutaneous fat, some decrease in upper body strength, and atrophy of both the testicles and prostate. Facial hair growth and voice depth will not change appreciably, however, and usually require additional procedures to mitigate.

The ultimate step in sexual reassignment is surgery. The most common type of surgery involves the removal of sex-specific organs; beyond that is genital reconstruction, which is significantly more complicated. After the entire process is completed, only 1 to 2 percent of postsurgical transsexuals experience regret.

As for my patient, I never saw him again after I referred him to another physician. Hopefully he is now a she, and is living a happy and fulfilling life.

References

Benjamin H. International Gender Dysphoria Association’s Standards of Care for Gender Identity Disorders, Sixth Version. February 2001.

Lawrence, A. (2003). Factors associated with satisfaction or regret following male-to-female sex reassignment surgery Archives of Sexual Behavior, 32 (4), 299-315 DOI: 10.1023/A:1024086814364

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For this article, the main questions are: “Is behavior biologically determined?” and “Do humans have free will?” I will not address in this post the argument between compatibilism and incompatibilism. In response to comments and questions about my previous post, I thought it necessary to attempt to define free will before I write further posts on this general topic of free will and biological determinism in the neurosciences.

In reading some comments to my post one fairly common definition — at least an operational definition — of free will was randomness. In other words, in a psychology experiment, for example, free will is part of the unexplained variance — the randomness in the data. Equating free will with randomness — overtly or not — is something I have heard and read repeatedly.

However, I do not believe that free will can simply equal randomness. Randomness is chance. It is the flip of a coin or the roll of a die. Randomness is unpredictable. However, let’s go with the assumption that free will equals randomness. One of the simplest forms of randomness is a coin flip. That coin flip might seem random, at least the outcome might seem random, but suppose we understand the composition of the coin. We know it has a particular mass; we know the density of the metal as well as any variations in density throughout the coin. We know its precise coefficient of friction, its air resistance, its rotational velocity, and so forth. We understand everything about the chemistry and physics of the coin’s flip. With this comprehension, we can predict with 100% certainty the outcome of the flip. Based on our knowledge we can predict perfectly the outcome. However, our knowledge or predictions do not cause the outcome.

In other words, even with a perfect prediction of the outcome of the coin flip, that knowledge did not cause the randomness of the result. So, am I arguing that randomness is a good definition of free will? No. If we can understand all the chemistry and physics of the coin and its flight, we can then state that the flip of the coin merely appeared random but was in fact determined by the particular interaction between physics and chemistry. In other words, the outcome of the coin flip was determined by the physical world – by the materials of the coin and the interaction of those materials with our material world – even if our knowledge of the material world did not determine the outcome. Therefore, we can create a deterministic explanation for the seemingly random event.

This demonstrates that what appears random can be explained away as determined. Researchers even have deterministic and indeterministic explanations for quantum theory, which also indicates that defining free will as randomness is not sufficient. Thus, randomness is a poor definition of free will because if free will is nothing more than randomness, once we understand our material world perfectly we will perfectly explain all randomness, all previously unexplained variance. This is what some neuroscientists are trying to do with human behavior, although few are willing to take the hard stance of completely denying free will.

So what is free will? I’ll start with an example. Free will is standing out in the sunlight and denying that the sun is shining. Free will can be defined as choosing one’s actions or course. Free will also is frequently defined as indeterminism. What is interesting is that this definition meaning “not determinism,” relies on determinism to define free will. Why do many use determinism to define free will? Because determinism is easy to define — it is a concrete concept. Additionally, it is one of the major philosophical foundations of modern science, in part because we can easily create operational definitions for determinism.

In the biological sciences and neurosciences, in particular, determinism is inextricably tied to biology and materialism (i.e., biological determinism). Most neuropsychologists seek to explain behavior as determined by the interaction between biology and environment (many may have a soft deterministic view but they still want to know the causes of behavior). In forensic (legal) cases, neuropsychologists often clash with the legal system; psychology assumes biological determinism (i.e., causal determinism) whereas the legal system assumes free will (while it does not necessarily deny some form of determinism, the main emphasis is on free will).

In the end, I did not really define free will other than saying that it is not randomness and it is not determinism. Even defining free will as choosing one’s own course or actions is an incomplete definition because as demonstrated above, it is still possible to explain those choices as determined if we resort to reductionism of behaviors. This leads to one of the major problems with determinism — that it cannot really be falsified by science (after all, science does assume determinism to start) but that is a different discussion altogether. As David Hume once said (I’m paraphrasing), “[The nature of free will is] the most contentious question of metaphysics.”

In my next post I’ll address an alternative set of assumptions (i.e., beliefs or explanations) to determinism, particularly biological determinism as is found in neuroscience.

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Preconception

The earliest stopping point is held by many members of the Catholic Church, with their proclamation that “every sperm is sacred.” The held rationale is that every sperm has the possibility to fertilize an egg, become implanted, and eventually grow into a human being. Since God’s charge is to go forth and procreate, any type of hindrance to that process such as the use of condoms or birth control pills are interfering with God’s plan and therefore not allowed.

Conception

The greater religious community generally view the “moment of conception” as the standard for when life begins. However, the definition of conception is subject to variability. Some take the word conception to actually mean the act of ejaculation. Others consider conception to be the process of fertilization. Still others consider the fusion of genetic material into a new set of chromosomes to be meant by conception. The problem with any of these definitions is that the process is not instantaneous. From the time of ejaculation, sperm take 7 hours before they become active and able to fertilize an egg. Once the sperm meets the egg, a chemical cascade begins and the sperm begins to bore its way through the egg, which may take up to an hour. Once the sperm actually enters the egg, it’s another 12 hours before the sperm DNA makes its way to the egg’s DNA, and then another 24 hours for the restructuring and packaging process of new chromosomes. All told, the “moment of conception” could take anywhere from 2-3 days to complete.

Gastrulation

Another argument that is raised against the “moment of conception” line of thinking is the twinning argument. Once the genetic material is completely packaged together, a new individual is created. However, for as long as 12-14 days afterward, the embryo can split into twins or more multiples. That process would create more than one individual with identical genetic material from the same moment of conception. To account for this discrepancy, some argue that life begins at gastrulation, which is when the window has closed, the embryo has implanted in the uterus, and is now committed to grow into one human being. Supporters of this theory would therefore support stem cell research, which harvests embryos that have neither the intention nor ability to be implanted into a uterus.

Week 8

The eighth week of pregnancy is a special one, because at this point the precursors to all organs have been formed. Philosophers therefore argue that with the beginnings of a brain, the fetus now has the ability to think and react, and that marks the onset of life. Opponents argue that the rudimentary nervous system is not functional at 8 weeks, and the fetus cannot process information or move in response to a stimulus, therefore not making the fetus alive.

Quickening

Those same groups which argue against the week 8 model suggest that life begins with the “quickening,” which is when the fetus begins to exhibit voluntary movement inside the womb, usually around 14-16 weeks. At this point the fetus is able to react to external stimuli, which is held as the standard for life.

Week 20

Although the fetus can move at week 14, the movements are little more than jerky reflexes. They are not driven by higher cortical functioning. Therefore, another school of thought is that life begins at week 20, when the thalamus is completely formed. The thalamus is the relay center of the brain, and helps to connect the cerebral cortex to the spinal cord and peripheral nerves.

Week 25

A sizable contingent would assert that life begins at 25 weeks. The rationale for this starting point is based on our definition of death. The definition of death is not disputed, and is considered the time when electroencephalography (EEG) activity ceases. EEG measures brain activity and must demonstrate regular wave patterns to be considered valid. Therefore, by this rule the onset of life would be the time when fetal brain activity begins to exhibit regular wave patterns, which occurs fairly consistently around week 25. Previous to that time, the EEG only shows small bursts of activity without sustained firing of neurons.

Birth

Perhaps the second-most frequently held conviction is that life begins at the time of child birth. In Jewish Talmudic Law, for example, the writing states that once the head of the child is delivered it cannot be touched and is granted equal rights to life as the mother. Other religious groups maintain that the soul is delivered to the newborn with their first breath of air.

Self-consciousness

A minor group of philosophers maintain that the criterion for human life is self-consciousness, or self-awareness, which does not occur until well into childhood. This group believes that abortion is morally equivalent to infanticide, and that both are condonable under certain circumstances. Their viewpoint is extreme, and has generally been rejected by mainstream ethicists and theologians.

While this accounting is by no means comprehensive, and perhaps oversimplifies some concepts for the purpose of clarity, let it serve as a starting point for obtaining more information. With debate on this topic wide open, and no clear answers in sight, the best hope is to understand all viewpoints and draw an informed conclusion as to when life begins.

Reference

Gilbert, Scott F. DevBio, a Companion to Developmental Biology, Eighth Edition. Sinauer Associates Inc., March 2006. Chapter 2, subsection 1.

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Do emotions come from our brains, our hearts, or from some other organ? Does it come from hormones and other chemicals circulating in our bloodstream? Perhaps that’s why people blame emotional flare-ups on variations on hormone levels. However, we all know that our brain ultimately controls our words and actions. How we react to our emotional flares are determined by our cognitive processes occurring in our brain.

Men (or the stereotypical man) can easily compartmentalize their emotions and place them into a box. Those boxes may never get opened for many years. Although some people may do this subconsciously, others do it consciously and intentionally. Certain people don’t want to feel specific emotions. They hide from them and they use any type of rationalization (yes, from the brain again) to tell themselves that they don’t need to be emotional. Others feel that they are stronger if they don’t display emotions. Much of this is culturally rooted since young boys may grow up conditioned and trained not to display their emotions. In some cultures, the display of emotions may be a sign of weakness. In certain cultures, men are expected to be so stoic that they forget how to connect with their emotions. They become so detached and removed that they ultimately lack emotions. In the East Asian culture, men tend to be very unemotional. Many remain detached even from their families. Maybe that’s why they can disown their children for seemingly menial things and be unemotionally affected.

We must not forget that we also have psychiatric conditions where people don’t display emotions. Or, they may display inappropriate emotions. I think that people who have antisocial personality disorder are classic examples of individuals who may be so disconnected from emotions like guilt that they rarely (or never) display remorse for their wrongful actions. It’s actually quite frightening when you think about it. Some people have no conscience and they are able to do some horrific things and be totally unaffected emotionally.

So have you ever wondered why we have emotions? Do animals also have emotions? Some would argue that animals feel love, sadness, anger, and other emotions. Others may think that animals are unable to feel as many emotions as people and they only react to instincts. I think emotions help us from killing ourselves. How would you know to run from a roaring lion in the middle of the jungle if you didn’t experience fear? Emotions ultimately help us maintain social order if we’re connected with them and use them appropriately. So are you an emotional person? Or are you emotionally detached?

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