Homelessness And Policing

"Police often are the first (and sometimes the only) point of government contact for persons experiencing homelessness (PEH). Although it has been common for police to rely on traditional law enforcement powers in dealing with homelessness, many agencies have moved away from arrest-focused methods in favor of approaches that are designed to foster positive relationships with PEH, assess individual needs of each person or area, and guide homeless or unsheltered individuals to the services they require.

"To better understand the potential challenges of the law enforcement response to homelessness, the RAND Corporation and the Police Executive Research Forum, on behalf of the National Institute of Justice, convened a workshop of practitioners and researchers to discuss current law enforcement responses to homelessness and identify the highest-priority needs to support and improve existing efforts. During this meeting, four major themes were identified. First, there is a common set of factors underlying homelessness that law enforcement can address. Second, homelessness and overall health and wellness are deeply intertwined issues that should be treated together. Third, effective responses require the collaboration of stakeholders across governments, the private sector, and the community. Finally, acquiring and sharing data is necessary to understand the nature and scope of homelessness in each jurisdiction and to measure the effect of any implemented strategies. All four of these themes are vital to understanding the current challenges confronting the implementation of innovative police responses to homelessness."

Click on the link below for the details:

The Law Enforcement Response to Homelessness 

Donald J Trump: The Dullest Knive In The Drawer (BUT - - -)

"But hold on. I ask myself: How could Trump have become president, and now clinch the Republican nomination for the presidency for a third time, if he doesn’t have something in the brain bank? Even if Trump doesn’t read, can’t follow a logical argument, and has the attention span of a fruit fly, I keep believing he must have some intelligence.

"Well, it turns out there’s another form of intelligence, called 'emotional intelligence.'

"Emotional intelligence is a concept developed by two psychologists, John Mayer of the University of New Hampshire and Yale’s Peter Salovey, and popularized by Dan Goleman in his 1996 book of the same name.

"Mayer and Salovey define emotional intelligence as the ability to do two things: 'understand and manage our own emotions,' and 'recognize and influence the emotions of others.'

"True, Trump hasn’t displayed much capacity for the first. He’s thin-skinned, narcissistic, and vindictive. As dozens of Republican foreign policy experts have put it: 'He is unable or unwilling to separate truth from falsehood. He does not encourage conflicting views. He lacks self-control and acts impetuously. He cannot tolerate criticism.'

"Okay, but what about Mayer and Salovey’s second aspect of emotional intelligence — influencing the emotions of others?

"This is where Trump’s brain outperforms the brains of ordinary mortals. He knows how to manipulate people. He has an uncanny ability to discover their emotional vulnerabilities — their fears, anxieties, prejudices, and darkest desires — and use them for his own purposes.

"To put it another way, Trump is an extraordinarily talented conman."

Click on the link below for the full picture of his stupidity:

Seriously, again, how dumb is Trump?

Cults: A Hard Nut To Crack

"A few years ago, I did a video about cults and predicted that we live in conditions that make cults thrive. Today, a few years later, that seems to be the case, with cult activity skyrocketing not just in the US but worldwide. Today we look at what’s causing this problem, and what you can do if a friend or loved one goes a little too far down the rabbit hole."

Click on the links below for some advice against this major problem that notoriously is difficult to attack:

How To Deprogram A Cult Member

Welcome To The Golden Age Of Cults

Humor And Laughter: Scientists Are Still Trying To Understand It

“How Many Psychologists Does It Take ... to Explain a Joke?”

"Many, it turns out. As psychologist Christian Jarrett noted in a 2013 article featuring that riddle as its title, scientists still struggle to explain exactly what makes people laugh. Indeed, the concept of humor is itself elusive. Although everyone understands intuitively what humor is, and dictionaries may define it simply as “the quality of being amusing,” it is difficult to define in a way that encompasses all its aspects. It may evoke the merest smile or explosive laughter; it can be conveyed by words, images or actions and through photos, films, skits or plays; and it can take a wide range of forms, from innocent jokes to biting sarcasm and from physical gags and slapstick to a cerebral double entendre.

"Even so, progress has been made. And some of the research has come out of the lab to investigate humor in its natural habitat: everyday life."

Click on the link below for the details:

What's So Funny? The Science of Why We Laugh

The Prisoner's Dilemma: How Cooperation With Protecting One's Interest Is The Key To Survival

"The Prisoner's Dilemma is a game theory thought experiment that involves two rational agents, each of whom can cooperate for mutual benefit or betray their partner ("defect") for individual reward. This dilemma was originally framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher in 1950 while they worked at the RAND Corporation.[citation needed] Albert W. Tucker later formalized the game by structuring the rewards in terms of prison sentences and named it the "prisoner's dilemma".[1]

"The prisoner's dilemma models many real-world situations involving strategic behavior. In casual usage, the label "prisoner's dilemma" may be applied to any situation in which two entities could gain important benefits from cooperating or suffer from failing to do so, but find it difficult or expensive to coordinate their activities." (Wikipedia)

Click on the link below for a video explaining this complicated process for maximizing human well-being:

What The Prisoner's Dilemma Reveals About Life, The Universe, and Everything

Psychological Science: A Key To Understanding And Combating Health Misinformation

"There is widespread concern that misinformation poses dangerous risks to health, well-being, and civic life. Despite a growing body of research on the topic, significant questions remain about (a) psychological factors that render people susceptible to misinformation, (b) the extent to which it affects real-world behavior, (c) how it spreads online and offline, and (d) intervention strategies that counter and correct it effectively. This report reviews the best available psychological science research to reach a consensus on each of these crucial questions, particularly as they pertain to health-related misinformation. In addition, the report offers eight specific recommendations for scientists, policymakers, and health professionals who seek to recognize and respond to misinformation in health care and beyond."

MAIN POINTS:

• RECOMMENDATION 1 Avoid repeating misinformation without including a correction.
• RECOMMENDATION 2 Collaborate with social media companies to understand and reduce the spread of harmful misinformation.
• RECOMMENDATION 3 Use misinformation correction strategies with tools already proven to promote healthy behaviors
• RECOMMENDATION 4 Leverage trusted sources to counter misinformation and provide accurate health information.
• RECOMMENDATION 5 Debunk misinformation often and repeatedly using evidence-based methods.
• RECOMMENDATION 6 Prebunk misinformation to inoculate susceptible audiences by building skills and resilience from an early age.
• RECOMMENDATION 7 Demand data access and transparency from social media companies for scientific research on misinformation
• RECOMMENDATION 8 Fund basic and translational research into the psychology of health misinformation, including effective ways to counter it. 

Click on the link below for the full 44-page American Psychological Association Consensus Statement:

Using Psychological Science to Understand and Fight Health Misinformation

Intellectualism Is A 4-Letter Word To Republicans

• Ignorance, or an aversion to reason, has allowed things like gun violence and racism to define American culture.
• Anti-intellectual societies fall prey to tribalism and simplistic explanations, are emotionally immature, and often seek violent solutions.
• Corporate interests encourage anti-intellectualism, conditioning Americans into conformity and passive acceptance of institutional dominance.

Click on the link below for more. Oh, this was published BEFORE Trump was elected. It's only gotten worse:

The exaltation of ignorance in America

Animal Studies In Psychology

I recently re-posted a commentary on Facebook supporting the value of John B Calhoun's mice studies in understanding the stresses of over-population. Unfortunately, some readers focused on the individual making the commentary (the messenger) because of some of his comments (particularly at the end), and his history of bigoted, unsupported ideology of which I was not aware. Some of the readers even challenged the validity of animal research on human behavior. In light of such, below you will find justification and validity of such:

- - - - - - - 

"Part of the justification for why nonhuman animals are studied in psychology has to do with the fact of evolution. Humans share common ancestry with the species most commonly studied in psychology: mice, rats, and monkeys. To be sure, each species has its own specializations that enable it to fit into its unique ecological niche; but common ancestry results in structural (e.g., brain) and functional (e.g., memory) processes that are remarkably similar between humans and nonhumans. In addition, we can better understand fundamental processes because of the precise control enabled by animal research (e.g., living environments, experimental conditions, etc.). We can also ask and answer certain questions that would be difficult or impossible to do with humans. For example, we know what the connections are between the amygdala and other brain regions, but how does activity in the amygdala affect brain functioning? Using a new technique, it is now possible to temporarily inactivate the amygdala in a monkey and see how other brain areas (including those that are not directly connected to the amygdala) change their activity (Grayson et al., 2016). A study such as this not only helps us better understand how the brain works but also has enormous potential for developing treatments for people who have abnormal patterns of brain activity, such as those with epilepsy or Parkinson’s disease. Ten years from now, students may very well read in their textbooks about a “new treatment” to help people with Parkinson’s disease. Will this monkey study, which enabled such a discovery to be made, be described? Probably not, in much the same way that nonhuman research that permitted a significant human study to be conducted is rarely described in today’s textbooks." 

(https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/psn/2017/01/animal-studies#:~:text=In%20addition%2C%20we%20can%20better,impossible%20to%20do%20with%20humans)

- - - - - - -

More support for the study:

(https://web.archive.org/web/20200614090726/https://www.victorpest.com/articles/what-humans-can-learn-from-calhouns-rodent-utopia)

Antisemitism: It's Not Partisan But, - - -

"Concern about antisemitism in the U.S. has grown following recent rises in deadly assaults, vandalism, and harassment. Public accounts of antisemitism have focused on both the ideological right and left, suggesting a “horseshoe theory” in which the far left and the far right hold a common set of anti-Jewish prejudicial attitudes that distinguish them from the ideological center. However, there is little quantitative research evaluating left-wing versus right-wing antisemitism. We conducted several experiments on an original survey of 3500 U.S. adults, including an oversample of young adults. We oversampled young adults because unlike other forms of prejudice that are more common among older people, antisemitism is theorized to be more common among younger people. Contrary to the expectation of horseshoe theory, the data show the epicenter of antisemitic attitudes is young adults on the far right."

- - -

"Right-wing antisemitism and left-wing antisemitism are not identical. In the far-right mentality, Jews are viewed as people pretending to be white—“a faux-white race that has tainted America”13—or disloyal white people—“the ultimate betrayers of the white race” (Weiss, 2019, 68). American Jews are distinctive in that they are high in socioeconomic status and mostly identify as white, but unlike others with those attributes, they are liberal in their social views and supportive of racial equality and immigration (Smith and Schapiro 2019; Smith 2013). Prior work has argued that American Jewish liberalism is not a coincidence, but in fact, a political manifestation of Jewish identity—the distinct history of Jewish oppression may have led to prioritizing equality and support for marginalized groups (Forman 1998; Brodkin 1998). Conservatives might feel negatively towards Jews if they perceive Jewish religious values to be in direct conflict with their preferred conservative policy stances."

- - -

"Research on left-wing antisemitism suggests some commonalities with antisemitism on the right. As mentioned, populism and anti-capitalism may trigger anti-Jewish tropes and scapegoating on the left just as on the right. The political left—typically sympathetic to oppressed minorities—may see Jews not as an oppressed religious group but instead as oppressors due to stereotypes of Jews’ involvement in capitalism or to solidarity with Palestinians in the Israel/Palestine conflict (Lerner 1992)."

Click on the link below for the results of recent research regarding this "othering" thinking and behavior:

Antisemitic Attitudes Across the Ideological Spectrum

Want To Achieve Your Goals? Be Angry?

"A positive, upbeat attitude isn’t the only thing that can help you attain challenging goals. Getting angry can help you confront hurdles and get past the finish line, too, according to research published Monday by the American Psychological Association.

I have posted on the emotion of anger in the past and presented both the good and the bad regarding such. Click on the link below for another positive effect of this maligned emotion:

Want to Achieve Your Goals? Drop the Positive Attitude

Religious Apologists: Your Services Are Useless

Religious apologists, you depend on philosophy and theology to support your claims. However, opinions from such cannot be verified/justified. They have reached the end of usefulness to humanity, especially since modern science is able to verify/justify its findings. They are dead academic disciplines.

 
All religious claims have been evaluated by branches of science with the strong probability that there is nothing new that will change the findings that religion is a construct of the human brain for comforting and controlling.

You instead need to adopt the state of the art regarding knowledge/information encased within the scientific disciplines of modern science. Since religion takes advantage of the weakness of the unassisted brain to understand reality, the understanding of the basic science of psychology is necessary to change the brains of you folks.

The Issues With Diagnosing Psychological Problems

There are many behaviors that do not comport with societal approval and/or expectations. Unfortunately, even educated folks tend to assess such superficially and ignore the nuances and subtleties of understanding aberrant behavior that psychological professionals are skilled in diagnosing. Click on the link below for an interesting and informative podcast on the subject:

What Exactly is a Psychological Diagnosis?

Positive Masculinity: The Antidote To Toxic Masculinity

"For decades, we have rightly been focused on dialing back endemic misogyny and poking holes in the patriarchy in the hopes of a new normal of gender relations emerging that would be genuinely healthier for everyone, not just women. But, with so much of the focus on the type of masculinity men and boys shouldn't embrace, we may have fallen short on giving positive direction to boys about what they should be and do."

Click on the link below for a podcast presenting the need for balance in the battle against Toxic Masculinity:

Positive Masculinity is a Process

A Deluded Brain CAN Be Changed!

"Politics isn’t the first to cause structural changes in the brain. More than a decade ago, researchers used brain scans to show that London cab drivers’ gray matter grew larger to help them store a mental map of the city. There more time they spent on the road, the bigger their hippocampi, an area associated with navigation, became.

This implies that despite the political leanings seen through our brains, how we vote—and thus the cause of our political affiliations—may not be set in stone, Schreiber says.

“'If we believe that we’re hardwired for our political views, then it’s really easy for me to discount in you in a conversation. ‘Oh, you’re just a conservative because you have a red brain,’ or ‘Oh, you’re a liberal because you have a blue brain,' Schreiber explains. 'But that’s just not the case. The brain changes. The brain is dynamic.'

Study Predicts Political Beliefs With 83 Percent Accuracy

A Deep-Dive Into Trumpism/Conservatism

"Today we dive deeply into the world of conservatives as described in the new book “Strangers in their own Land” by Arlie Russel Hochschild in an attempt to understand how some non-deplorable people in the country could be supporting Donald Trump."

Click on the link below for a podcast from BEFORE Trump was elected in 2016. Democrats need to listen to this repetitively to fully understand not only the brains of conservatives/Trumpers but also how they have contributed to Trumpism in some ways:

What Drives Trump Conservatives - "Strangers in Their Own Land"

IQ: What Is It And How Important Is It

"An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardised tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence.[1] The abbreviation "IQ" was coined by the psychologist William Stern for the German term Intelligenzquotient, his term for a scoring method for intelligence tests at University of Breslau he advocated in a 1912 book.[2]" (Wikipedia)"

Click on the link below for a science-based look at this commonly misunderstood term:

What Does IQ Actually Measure?

Personality Tests: Are They Worthwhile?

"Have you ever taken a personality test? I certainly did. Recently I began wondering what the Myers Briggs and Big Five tests actually tell me. Is there science behind those tests? Or are they just better horoscopes? In this video, I'll tell you what I've learned."

Click on the link below for science-based answers to this question:

I took all these personality tests. What does that tell me?

A Look At "Only" Children

"Indeed, most contemporary studies don't find any notable disadvantages for only children. Onlies actually tend to have higher intelligence-test scores and more ambitious educational goals—perhaps in part because they face less competition for their parents' emotional and financial resources."

"'Onlies' don’t seem to be any worse off than kids with siblings. So why do stereotypes about them persist?" (Atlantic Magazine)

Click on the link below for another opinion regarding the Only Child:

Is Only-Child Syndrome Real? 

Toxic Masculinity: A Major Negative Force In The USA

"Toxic masculinity is a set of certain male behaviors associated with harm to society and men themselves. Stereotypical aspects of traditional masculinity,^[1] such as social dominance, misogyny, and homophobia,^[2]: 716 can be considered "toxic" due in part to their promotion of violence, including sexual assault and domestic violence. Socialization of boys often normalizes violence, such as in the saying "boys will be boys" about bullying and aggression.

"Self-reliance and emotional repression are correlated with increased psychological problems in men such as depression, increased stress, and substance use disorders. Toxic masculine traits are characteristic of the unspoken code of behavior among men in prisons, where they exist in part as a response to the harsh conditions of prison life.

"Other traditionally masculine traits such as devotion to work, pride in excelling at sports, and providing for one's family, are not considered to be "toxic". The concept was originally used by authors associated with the mythopoetic men's movement, such as Shepherd Bliss. These authors contrasted stereotypical notions of masculinity with a "real" or "deep" masculinity, which they said men had lost touch with in modern society. Critics of the term toxic masculinity argue that it incorrectly implies that gender-related issues are caused by inherent male traits.^[3]

"The concept of toxic masculinity, or certain formulations of it, has been criticized by some conservatives as an undue condemnation of traditional masculinity, and by some feminists as an essentialist concept that ignores the role of choice and context in causing harmful behaviors and attitudes related to masculinity."

(Wikipedia)

- - - - - - -

Other links:

‘Toxic masculinity’: what does it mean, where did it come from – and is the term useful or harmful?

Unlearning Toxic Masculinity

The Dark History Of The Information Age

 "You’ve probably encountered phishing emails or computer viruses. Or maybe one or more of your accounts has been hacked or compromised. How and why do hackers hack and what are they generally seeking? Our guest this week points out that understanding the answers to those questions is essential for making sense of the psychological, economic, political, and social motivations for and effects of cybercrime. Scott Shapiro is a Southmayd Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at Yale Law School. He is the author of a new book called, “Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks.” The book dives into five historical examples, one of which involves its namesake, Fancy Bear, a Russian cyberintelligence unit responsible for hacking the Democratic National Convention. Shapiro joins WITHpod to discuss some of the biggest inflection points in the history of hacking, why the internet is so vulnerable, the role that generative AI may place in future cybercrime and his thoughts on if we should really be concerned about cyberwar."

Click on the link below for the podcast and transcript:

Decoding the Information Age