The Psychology Thread

Can anyone tell me more about the 'Cruel To Be Kind' and its relation to benelovence? I think this might be what I trying to find when I asking an eariler question on the topic on 'abrasive' individuals who hate dishonesty.

I answered that question in the parenting thread. It's not clear to me what it is exactly that you are looking for. Can you specify more clearly what you mean by "cruel to be kind"? Can you provide an example?

I was referring to how someone can do seemingly "cruel" thing such really tell you that you are awful or 'mock' you while addressing your faults and weaknesses. Think Simon Cowell in American Idol.

There's no kindness there, that's just being an asshole and treating someone like shit.

Seconded. It's one thing to e.g. be a tough sports coach who regularly doles exercise out that makes you as stiff as a plank of pain-wracked teak. That mostly is for your own good, however horrible it feels (it can cross over into abuse, but only if the coach always insists that you have to go through the pain barrier each session and refuses basics like hydration or proper cool downs and easy days). But, going the little extra mile to, e.g. beat somebody with sticks to toughen them up for the competition ahead "for your own good" — that's outright abuse pretending to be kindness.

The same is true of mental abuse: learning new things can be uncomfortable. But, beating somebody down psychologically on a daily basis until they do what you want is abuse, even if you call it teaching.

This is why abuse can be insidious: it often dresses in "for your own good — you will thank me later".

edited 16th Aug '17 3:05:03 AM by Euodiachloris

The other flip fo that trope is the romantic idea of hurting someone to save them, where "for their own good" you act horribly towards your partner so that they will leave you so that they will remain safe.

That's not only insulting and demeaning to your partner (also bloody obvious when tried) but it's not psychologically healthy, trying to forcibly make desicions for others just leads to disappointment because people aren't that easy to control, especially for thsoue suffering such sever self confidence and self-hatred issues that they feel the need to drive away those who care for them. A key thing to learn as an adult is that other people get to decide what they are okay tolerating and you have to decide what you are okay tolerating, if a relationship makes you feel bad end it for you, don't try make your partner end it because you feel it would be good for them for it to end.

I've heard that the Insane Equals Violent stereotype is Truth in Television for people with Cluster B personality disorders. Is there any truth to this or just another exaggeration?

There is some truth, but also a hell of a lot of myth.

Donald Trump is disordered narcissism on legs, but no Hanibal Lector or Jason Voorhees is he. And, please note how badly his behaviour is messing his own life and goals up, regardless of the (mostly indirect) pain he doles out? Note, too, how he is being used by others while not being shabby on that front himself (although "being too bloody disordered to predict or control" is hardly a fully calculated choice on his side of things).

In short: as with any condition... It's more nuanced and complicated than portrayed in media. Always. Because personalities = people, even when unravelling at the seems.

edited 18th Aug '17 3:40:09 PM by Euodiachloris

That's only true for Anti-Social Personality Disorder (what used to be called Sociopathy), and even then only for people at the extreme end of the scale.

Would it be germane to this thread to ask if there are studies about a psychological reasoning for Conspicuous Consumption (specifically buying jets)?

So, something I was musing time ago and was just reminded of when strolling through past discussions in the moderator forum.

We sometimes encounter a particular type of young teenager here on TV Tropes who contributes mostly positively to the wiki side (and wiki-work associated parts of the forum) of this site and usually behaves pretty much like an adult there, but becomes totally immature when in the social forums such as Yack Fest. They usually get banned for that behaviour and we sometimes remark on the contrast in behaviour between wiki and social side.

My personal theory for this is that this pattern of behaviour occurs because in young and mid-age teenagers the decision making capabilities (and related brain parts) are pretty much in place early on and working, but the social and impulse control abilities (and related brain parts) take longer to develop. Which makes such people prone to misbehave in more social than formal environments.

This would be coherent with this fellow's statements that the basic decision making capabilities in adolescents are in place and working from early on and that much of immature teen behaviour is predicated on social interactions.

I wanted to see what folks here have to say about this.

@Septimus: Thats very much Truth in Television. Im reading a book right now by Robert Sapolsky on neuropsychology called "Behave" (that I very highly recommend) which goes into some detail about the effect of adolescense on neurodevelopment.

@Morningstar: thats almost more in the realm of sociology than psychology, but it has to do with markers of social status. Google "Need for Acheivement", or "Acheivement vs Accomplishment"

edited 31st Aug '17 10:53:01 AM by DeMarquis

Um, which part is Truth in Television?

Your personal theory. Sapolsky's chapter on the teen years is titled "Adolescence: Or, Dude, where's my frontal cortex?" 'Nuff said.

Actually, what he says is that the hormones and other emotional developments at that time overwhelm the ability to think logically, but your point still holds, because working on the wiki side of this website doesn't engage very many interpersonal triggers, so the cognitive processes can function unimpeded. Once they engage actual people on the forum side, however...

edited 2nd Sep '17 5:29:19 AM by DeMarquis

Now see my impression from several other sources is that hormones play a very small role in such behaviour patterns. And that the reason why many people think otherwise is that this brain development process occurs at the same time with, but independently from, puberty.

Actually, you're right again, I was oversimplifying. It's really more about uneven rates of brain region growth, with the frontal cortex being overwhelmed by a sudden increase in inputs from newly enlarged regions dealing with emotions. Although I'm still oversimplifying. The truth is that brain development is really complicated.

Further, I did read that during adolescence the striatum and mid-brain reach their maximum size and then regress. Except in people with HFA where these brain parts (such as the caudate) are noticeably enlarged and appear to grow further. So the obsessive focused interests of HFA people may be a follow up to impulsive adolescent behaviour in terms of anatomical origin, if we are thinking in terms of spherical cows.

From my understanding, the last parts of the brain mature in the late 20s or so. Although I am not certain if that has much practical significance.

It has a significance as far as traffic safety goes. If we wanted to optimize traffic safety for everyone, we wouldn't be handing out driver's licenses until the age of 21 at the earliest.

I was thinking more of consent to sexual intercourse.

With car driving you have the issue that societal and environmental needs (=car dependent societies) do not let you say "no". And that the differences in brain development states may not be sufficiently large to justify a "no" even without that.

edited 4th Sep '17 12:34:34 AM by SeptimusHeap

Why do people believe in conspiracy theories? And I don't mean stuff like JFK or Roswell or the other kind of popular conspiracy theories. I mean the hardcore stuff, like aliens run the world.

This was a while ago now but I was just trying to find news on YT and I happened upon a channel that seemed just fine...until the guy said some terrorist attacks in France were a false flag by NATO and "everyone knows that." He said it so simply, like you or I would say the sky is blue. I expressed my disbelief at this and someone said "that's just how conspiracy theorists are."

There has to be some interesting psychology that goes on and causes this.

Because believing in those things makes them feel special.

My own speculation is that people vary to the degree that they can process and comprehend complexity in the world around them. Some people just are not comfortable with the notion that some things going on in the world have no single, simple framework which explains it all. Indeed, the collective outcome of the interactions of billions of individual humans are most likely incomprehensible to any one person.

But that disturbs some people. They want to think that the world is a simple place, and they know what the explanation is. It's not that they want to think they are special, it's that they can't stand the idea that they are ultimately powerless.

Humans have a big problem with correlation and causality. We tend to put far too much stock in causality and not enough in correlation, and we don't deal well as a species with not always having clear-cut, concrete answers. There's a reason academia spends so much time drilling it into everyone's heads that there are no simple black and white solutions or a constant cycle of cause-and-effect.

I'm a firm believer in the notion that Humans Are Flawed so I don't believe in conspiracy theories.

People are too selfish/stupid to keep those kinds of projects secret.

Well, technically, they aren't secret, but never mind...