PsyDoctor8

Sex Offender Village

Wed, 22 May 2013 22:55:15 -0400

Sex Offender Village: We live in a society that is terrified of sex offenders, sometimes with good...

coketalk: coverjunkie: Libertine (UK) There’s a new mag in...

Tue, 21 May 2013 21:54:42 -0400

coverjunkie:

Libertine (UK)

There’s a new mag in town. Libertine Magazine: “For Interested Women”

Founder and editor Debbi Evans explains:

“to redefine the ‘women’s interest’ category. In addition to luxury lifestyle content we cover tech, science and business, and celebrate high achieving maverick women for the contents of their brains, not their beds. There is no fashion or beauty content in issue 1, unless you count a piece on the semiotics of handbags. There’s nothing like it, and we’re really excited (and relieved!) to have finally got it out there.”

I love everything about this.

“…She’s partial to a good bourbon and can’t wait to be able to 3D print a spare set of kidneys.” [via] I don’t see a neuroscientist on board yet, but these ladies are singing my song.

vintageanchorbooks: “But as in ethics, evil is a consequence of...

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:41:59 -0400

vintageanchorbooks:

“But as in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of today, or the agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.”

- from “Berenice” by Edgar Allan Poe

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Fri, 17 May 2013 21:22:00 -0400

"… [T]his condition is congenital. It is inborn and exists in the microscopic structure of his..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 13:14:44 -0400

““… [T]his condition is congenital. It is inborn and exists in the microscopic...

Left work to attend lab meeting that ended right before I go...

Wed, 15 May 2013 19:04:46 -0400

Left work to attend lab meeting that ended right before I go back to work. Later I might work. It sure will be nice to work when work is work.

My Case Against Einfühlung First, I’m with...

Tue, 14 May 2013 01:40:00 -0400

My Case Against Einfühlung

First, I’m with thoughtfulcynic. I’m not a fan of dichotomy when speaking about emotions/behaviors that pepper an entire spectrum. I suppose we can talk about social reluctance to do this another time, but investigating empathy, like other spectrumocities, (n. the state of being on a spectrum. K, I’m making up words, but I think I’ve earned that..I …I just think I’ve earned that.)

…LIKE other spectrumocities, our understanding of it may suffer if not investigated in a manner that allows us to look at multiple facetes under appropriate conditions. I can talk about this now since I’ve changed labs and not longer working under ridiculous oppressive secrecy… but how often are we hearing about the two types of empathy? Or potential 7 models of them? Not enough which leads most to think you have it or you don’t…so thoughtfulcynic hits the nail when she mentions critical thinking. What we have are cognitive and affective empathy or the capacity to perceive others’ thoughts and/or feelings, respectively. I always maintained these are 2 separately dynamic, systems that run via feedback from each other since neurally - they are independent but mutually supportive. As such, what we can have is a full matrix of varying degrees of the total possible experience of empathy at any given time. I never got to test it, but that’s my stamp. Anyhoo, and as a result, what’s driven my work for a while now is what Bloom refers to “being pulled in the wrong direction by empathy”:

This dynamic regularly plays out in the realm of criminal justice. In 1987, Willie Horton, a convicted murderer who had been released on furlough from the Northeastern Correctional Center, in Massachusetts, raped a woman after beating and tying up her fiancé. The furlough program came to be seen as a humiliating mistake on the part of Governor Michael Dukakis, and was used against him by his opponents during his run for President, the following year. Yet the program may have reduced the likelihood of such incidents. In fact, a 1987 report found that the recidivism rate in Massachusetts dropped in the eleven years after the program was introduced, and that convicts who were furloughed before being released were less likely to go on to commit a crime than those who were not. [via]

Obviously, not an isolated event. Altruistic punishment and manipulated empathy over data, tell me how that feels.

H/T@ thoughtfulcynic

Justice for Psychopaths - by Neil Levy

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:20:00 -0400

Justice for Psychopaths - by Neil Levy

Interpret any significant triple interaction by examining the...

Wed, 08 May 2013 22:13:11 -0400

Interpret any significant triple interaction by examining the change in the strongest two-way interaction as it changes over levels of the third overall main effect. Then scotch.

"As it drew closer to 1:30 p.m. and the verdict, people in the crowd urged others to..."

Wed, 08 May 2013 19:31:00 -0400

“As it drew closer to 1:30 p.m. and the verdict, people in the crowd urged others to...

Audio

Mon, 06 May 2013 00:46:08 -0400

What We Owe the Psychopath: A Neuroethical Analysis Psychopaths...

Sun, 05 May 2013 23:50:58 -0400

What We Owe the Psychopath: A Neuroethical Analysis

Psychopaths are often regarded as a scourge of contemporary society and, as such, are the focus of much public vilification and outrage. But, arguably, psychopaths are both sinned against as well as sinners. If that is true, then their status as the victims of abusive subcultures partially mitigates their moral responsibility for the harms they cause. We argue, from the neuroethics of psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), that communities have a moral obligation to psychopaths as well as a case against them. A reflection on the genesis and developmental epidemiology of psychopathy reveals an individualist, attribution-type error evident in much Western psychological and legal thinking—an error that obscures important moral truths about psychopaths. The resulting analysis makes us reconsider the distinction between disorders and moral failings and the ethical significance of the biological or neurocognitive mechanisms underpinning psychopathy. We claim that casting aside the deficit model (based on the presupposition that psychopaths are intrinsically unlike the rest of us) in favor of a relational and holistic view of personality potentiates a more informed and inclusive set of ethical, forensic, and therapeutic attitudes.

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone.

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Sun, 05 May 2013 23:27:26 -0400

Oh hello DLs. Missed you.

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 22:00:40 -0400

Oh hello DLs. Missed you.

"In the empirical sciences, almost everything is a matter of weighing evidence; outside of geometry,..."

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 16:50:00 -0400

“In the empirical sciences, almost everything is a matter of weighing evidence; outside of...

Adrian Raine on Neurocriminology for the WSJ The field of...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 21:09:00 -0400

Adrian Raine on Neurocriminology for the WSJ

The field of neurocriminology—using neuroscience to understand and prevent crime—is revolutionizing our understanding of what drives “bad” behavior.

If early biological and genetic factors beyond the individual’s control make some people more likely to become violent offenders than others, are these individuals fully blameworthy? And if they are not, how should they be punished?

A more profound understanding of the early biological causes of violence can help us take a more empathetic, understanding and merciful approach toward both the victims of violence and the prisoners themselves. It would be a step forward in a process that should express the highest values of our civilization.

Bonus video of Dr. Raine explaining the fMRI images above. Really glad to see his work out there.

"The least interesting sound in the universe, probably, is the sine wave. It’s the sound of nothing..."

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:32:49 -0400

“The least interesting sound in the universe, probably, is the sine wave. It’s the sound of...

Badness, madness and the brain – the late 19th-century...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:58:23 -0400

Badness, madness and the brain – the late 19^th-century controversy on immoral persons and their malfunctioning brains

In the second half of the 19^th-century, a group of psychiatric experts discussed the relation between brain malfunction and moral misconduct. In the ensuing debates, scientific discourses on immorality merged with those on insanity and the brain. This yielded a specific definition of what it means to be immoral: immoral and insane due to a disordered brain. In this context, diverse neurobiological explanations for immoral mind and behavior existed at the time. This article elucidates these different brain-based explanations via five historical cases of immoral persons. (…) The rendering of the immoral person as brain-disordered is scrutinized in terms of changes in moral agency. Furthermore, a present immoral person is discussed to highlight commonalities and differences in past and present reasoning. [via,IMG]

Same as it ever was.

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Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:40:00 -0400

brooklynmutt: CP5 = Central Park 5Read: NY1 This is the full...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:14:32 -0400

brooklynmutt:

CP5 = Central Park 5
Read: NY1

This is the full page $85,000 ad Trump took out in 4 major city newspapers, in response to the CPJ case. Since the release of the new Ken Burns Documentary on the CP5, the exonerees have been traveling and giving talks about their experience.