Dynamics in Human Capital Production

I. The concept of dynamics in human capital production tries to derive the proxy variables that affect both cognitive and non-cognitive skills after childhood together with self-productivity & cross-productivity. It is a dynamic factor model made to solve the problems within the endogeneity of inputs over the lifetime, along with a multifactorial approach to determine positive outcomes in later time periods of life (Cunha & Heckman, 2008). This concept has been quantified by economists estimating a linear dynamic factor model to identify general classes of technologies (such as skilled-based formation) recalled on these endogenous inputs. Given that there are numerous inputs that affect outcomes in childhood, economists have had to overcome this issue of multiplicity by creating indices of inputs (to create more manageable dimensions) and by anchoring scales (such as adult earnings or test scores) (Cunha, Heckman & Schennach, 2010). Such studies have found that it is more optimal to invest in children in the beginning of their lives rather than later. These effects have been found to be salient for cognitive skills (such as test scores, reading ability or parental cognitive skills) whereas for non-cognitive skills, investments in human capital are effective throughout longer periods of life.

A study done by Almond (2018) has proposed many policy interactions that provide naturally occurring experiments to substantiate economic hypotheses. A clear example is the introduction of policies made to increase paternity around birth to increase human capital of the child through marriage. Externalities of these policies included negative effects on children’s health due to easier access to the utilization of child-support rather than employer health insurance (Rossin- Slater, 2016). Within human capital production it is important to note that there are major differences when applying policies and programs for different lifetime periods: efficacy cannot be generalized throughout childhood and adolescence. There is in majority a focus on prenatal and early years of life, but policies can affect various periods of life in different ways.

II. In this next section I will be exploring possible interactions between the policy discussed by Rossin-Slater (2016) and welfare reform which was rolled out during the same period. The introduction of in-hospital voluntary paternity establishment (IHVPE) in 1993 for unmarried parents in all of the USA, overruled the long and tedious process of new parents to establish paternity through the courts and DNA testing. Given a third of children are born out of wedlock, this policy was aimed to encourage marriage which has been proven to provide more positive financial outcomes for the family (Rector, 2010). Unfortunately, in this study it was found that while IHVPE does indeed increase paternity establishment rates, it does not affect marriage rates and may even reduce such rates. IHVPE has no benefits on human capital as child household resources and health do not ameliorate or respond to such policy.

In 1996 the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was one of the many reforms made in the decade to change welfare programs. This act had the goals of ending dependence on government for needy parents, aiding families caring for children by promoting job preparation, work and marriage as well as preventing and reducing out of wedlock pregnancies and encouraging two-parent families (Bitler et al., 2004). It has been found that this policy gave women greater financial independence, actually decreasing marriage incentives, leading to fewer new marriages as well as divorces. After controlling for economic forces, the 1996 reforms had little impact on work behavior since they were not well-distributed across the less skilled women. Waivers granted in the early 1990s increased income unlike the 1996 reforms. The proximity of these reforms to IHVPE may have created interactions between the two, as well as the externalities such as reducing the amount of two-parent family structures (Bitler et al., 2006).

Rossin-Slater analyses in their paper the possible interaction of IHVPE and the welfare reforms of the 1990s. They disconfirmed the previous studies by Bitler (2004; 2006), showing that welfare reform did not affect marriage rates in their sample. This suggest a higher endogeneity of IHVPE when compared to welfare reform and human capital production.

III. Given that Rossin-Slater and Bitler used two different samples, it would be interesting to compare both samples, both as a cohort and independently to a new random sample. Stratifying such samples across various states and cities according to when we believe both IVHPE and welfare reform were implemented could be helpful in finding new interactions. This has only been done by Rossin-Slater and stratifying Bitler’s sample in this manner as well could be helpful. Creating vectors for various cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes of children could bring us a step further into understanding the role of marriage as an institution as well as the role of non-paternal fathers. This data could be achieved by finding a model sample from the original samples of Rossin-Slater and Bitler, by following up on the families 30 years later. A longitudinal study even if with a sample size leaning on the smaller side, due to the difficulties of reaching out to the participants could still show sizeable effects of the policies aforementioned.

Secondly, Rossin-Slater and Bitler use a linear model. Considering that there are increasing complexities when doing multiple hypothesis testing, using a dynamic factor model as proposed by Cunha (2010), all the data from different states and applications can be left to pick the best combinations of family dynamics in response to these policies. When using a production function approach, the endogeneity of inputs must be accounted for, as well as the wealth of each person. Given that there are some gaps in the data, since not all dates of the beginning of these programs are known for different geographic areas, assuming that the data is missing randomly the sample likelihood can be used instead. This is an endeavor that through online interactions may have very minimal costs to do, linking adults to some of their past exposures to policy through a growing accessibility of “administrative data”.

It would be also interesting to add data regarding child-support establishment and collection. It has been shown that policies that increase child support, such as the ones of the 1980s increase family financial stability and child outcomes (Nepomnyaschy, 2007). Producing policies that create contracts distributing parenting responsibilities, rather than paternal or spousal agreements, may be the key to increasing marriage and therefore family financial capacities.

References

Cunha, F., & Heckman, J. J. (2008). Formulating, identifying and estimating the technology of cognitive and noncognitive skill formation. Journal of human resources, 43(4), 738-782. Cunha, F., Heckman, J. J., & Schennach, S. M. (2010). Estimating the technology of cognitive and noncognitive skill formation. Econometrica, 78(3), 883-931.

Almond, D., Currie, J., & Duque, V. (2018). Childhood circumstances and adult outcomes: Act

II. Journal of Economic Literature, 56(4), 1360-1446.
Rossin-Slater, M. (2016) Signing Up New Fathers: Do Paternity Establishment Initiatives Increase Marriage, Parental Investment, and Child Well-Being? Forthcoming at the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics.

Bitler, Marianne P., Jonah B. Gelbach, Hilary W. Hoynes, and Madeline Zavodny. 2004. “The Impact of Welfare Reform on Marriage and Divorce.” demography 41 (2): 213–36. Bitler, Marianne P., Jonah B. Gelbach, and Hilary W. Hoynes. 2006. “Welfare Reform and Children’sLiving Arrangements.” Journal of Human resources 41 (1): 1–27. Nepomnyaschy, L. (2007). Child support and father-child contact: Testing reciprocal pathways. Demography, 44(1), 93-112.

Rector, Robert. 2010. “Marriage: America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty.” Heritage Foundation Report 2465.

Sofia Wolfson
Emory University
University of Miami

Fechner and Experimental Aesthetics

One of the oldest research areas of psychology is experimental aesthetics (Fechner, 1998). Experimental aesthetics is an approach to researching artistic phenomena developed by Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887) in Leipzig. He was a physicist, philosopher and physiologist who along with others psychologists like Hermann von Helmholtz and William Wundt gave birth to the field of psychophysics (Debru, 2001). In 1860 Fechner publishes the book Elements of Psychophysics (1998) in which he talks about the relationship between the properties correspondent to the physical world and the conscious experience of individuals. To measure sensations, the use of a reliable and quantifiable variable such as differential thresholds allowed to establish a minimum amount of energy to add or subtract from an already active stimulus so that the change is perceived subjectively. This threshold became a value that can only be approximated, given that it varies between subjects due to different psychological indications based in probability (Scheerer, 1987). This threshold value is considered as the intersection between the physical intensity, which is linear, and that experienced by the observer which is non-linear and heterogenous.

For example, if you were to light an extra candle when 10 are already lit the difference in light can be perceived, but when one candle is added to 100 we can hardly discern such difference. Weber (1795-1878) concluded that the difference between these two signals is proportional to their value. The formula that can be derived is the integral of the ratio known to this day as Weber-Fechner’s law shown below (Chukova, 2012). With the discovery of number neurons, neurons that are assumed to be the basis of mental number scales, an experiment found that the brain is able to discriminate between linear and logarithmic scales. When numbers increased, monkeys adopted an “approximated compressed scale” which confirms the approximation model through the use of logarithms rather than linearity, affirming Fechner’s law from 150 years ago (Dehaene, 2003).

𝜓 = 𝜒 log ( 𝐼 ) , 𝐼0

where 𝜓 is sensation, 𝜒 is a constant and 𝐼0 is the intensity of the stimulus in conditions of absolute threshold of sensation.

In the years following the release of his book, Fechner begins to study art from a psychophysical perspective. His studies surround mostly the inquiry around reactions of grandeur and preferences for aesthetic materials. He is one of the first to apply an experimental approach to art, controlling for different variables. To do this he strips art down to basic elements, such as lines or geometric figures (Phillips, Norman & Beers, 2011). His most successful studies surround the golden ratio, where participants had to express their preferences regarding a series of rectangles of different shapes. Observers tended to prefer rectangles which sides where related to each other with specific proportions, similarly in what is observed with the golden ratio (Hoge, 1995). This phenomenon has been known as the “golden rectangle”: where the sides are in proportion. There have been many findings since then regarding this specific proportion, “the golden section”, where a side a must be approximately .62 of side b. Recently the role of conditions in different types of presentation have been questioned, finding that rectangles that are smaller are more preferred than larger rectangles (Benjafield, 1976). An interesting facet of understanding why people prefer certain rectangles is still unknown. It has been found that using different measures such as the Big Five, Need for Cognition, Tolerance of Ambiguity, Schizotypy, Vocational Types and Aesthetic Activities have no correlation with rectangle preferences (McManus, Cook & Hunt, 2010).

Thanks to experimental aesthetics we return to the line of thought that from Plato to this day has reigned in aestheticism. Beauty and grandeur of the visible world is measurable and therefore can be rationally applied. There are implications for guaranteeing a certain level of aestheticism that can be measurable in both works of art and of functional purpose. Fechner proposes a bottom-up procedure founded on elementary perceptions received by the observer such as preference. This seems to be in contrast with art philosophy which uses as top-down approach, speculating on what might be beautiful.

To analyze aesthetic phenomena empirically, Fechner proposed that there must be different avenues and methods of research. Namely the methods of choice, production and use. The method of choice is showing subjects aesthetic stimuli to evoke preference. The method of production is submitting a subject to a stimulus conformed to their preference (stimulus doubling). Finally, the method of use (or application) is a formal, controlled statistical analysis of elements of a work of art and their relationships (Fechner, 1876; Hoge, 1995). To this day the method of choice is used widely, but the other two are widely neglected (Westphal-Fitch, 2019).

With the shift that occurred in psychology at the end of the 19th century Fechner along with Wilhelm Wundt started proposing more experimental approaches. Fechner’s interests in artistic phenomena highlight the importance of understanding behavior and experience of art in life. It is no coincidence that some of the first experiments involved aesthetics, underlining their power over our psyche, helping us understand who we are through aesthetic perception.

Works Cited

Fechner, G. T. (1998). Elemente der Psychophysik. Bristol: Thoemmes Press.
Debru, C. (2001). Helmholtz and the Psychophysiology of Time. Science in Context, 14(3), 471. Scheerer, E. (1987). The unknown Fechner. Psychological research, 49(4), 197-202.
Chukova, Y. P. (2012). New Phase in History of the Weber-Fechner Law. SCIENTIFIC COSMOPOLITANISM AND LOCAL CULTURES: RELIGIONS, IDEOLOGIES, SOCIETIES, 658.
Dehaene, S. (2003). The neural basis of the Weber–Fechner law: a logarithmic mental number line.Trends in cognitive sciences, 7(4), 145-147.
Phillips, F., Norman, J. F., & Beers, A. M. (2011). Fechner’s aesthetics revisited. In Fechner's Legacy in Psychology (pp. 183-191). Brill.
Benjafield, J. (1976). The 'Golden Rectangle': Some New Data. The American Journal of Psychology, 89(4), 737-743. doi:10.2307/1421471
McManus, I. C., Cook, R., & Hunt, A. (2010). Beyond the Golden Section and normative aesthetics: Why do individuals differ so much in their aesthetic preferences for rectangles? Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 4(2), 113–126. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017316 
Höge, H. (1995). Fechner's experimental aesthetics and the golden section hypothesis today. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 13(2), 131-148.
Fechner, G. T. (1876). Vorschule der aesthetik (Vol. 1). Breitkopf & Härtel.Westphal-Fitch, G. (2019). Revisiting Fechner’s Methods. In The Oxford Handbook of Empirical Aesthetics. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198824350.013.9

Sofia Wolfson
Emory University
University of Miami

A Brief Psychological Study of Horror

 In the spirit of the month of Halloween, I would like to investigate the psychological mechanisms that determine the existence of horror films. I want to firstly explore their history, how they work and finally why they are so popular in our society and why people expose themselves to this type of fear. This will be a small dive into the world of horror films, as there are so many nuances, not only between the movies themselves, but within the genre.

According to the Dictionary of Film Studies, horror films are a large group of films that via “the representation of disturbing and dark subject matter, seek to elicit responses of fear, terror, disgust, shock, suspense and horror from their viewers” (Kuhn & Westwell, 2012). There are many subgenres including but not limited to: comedic, folk, found footage, gothic, natural, slasher and teen. Etchinson (2011) has noted that horror movies are generally ignored in popular culture, comparably to horror literature, they are viewed with alarm when they irritate authority and are sometimes acknowledged with “bemused” tolerance. Freud defined horror as “unheimlich” or unhomely or uncanny, something that should have remained secret and hidden but has come to light (Freud, 1919).

A Brief History of Horror

Before movies, there were written or orally passed down stories of horror. It is not atypical to see gore and monsters in Greek Epics such as Homer’s Odyssey or Iliad, or tales of Evil during the middle ages, (see Dante’s Divine Comedy (1472)) (Dixon, 2010). The importance of horror literature goes without saying, but for the sake of example I would like to mention the popular success of Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Goethe’s Faust (1829). Faust, in theory, has been attributed to spearhead the transition from the German enlightenment into the Romantic Period (Orvieto, 2006). Other notable horror pieces from history are: the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe (The Murders in Rue Morgue (1841) and more), RL Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) and Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw (1898).

The first horror movies can be traced to the beginning of cinema, particularly to French illusionist and filmmaker Georges Méliès in the late 19th century (Rhodes, 2002). One of his best known works is the 2 minute long silent film Le Manoir du Diable (1896), also known as, “The Haunted Castle”, where a troubled devil haunts the guests of the estate. Another successful movie worth mentioning, is the German Expressionist’s very own Robert Wiene’s Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (“The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, 1920). This movie was an example of Expressionist film and influenced many horror movies to come, through it’s use of distorted images and unreliable narration (Jung & Schatzberg, 1999).

The 1930’s produced movies filled with monsters such as Frankenstein, Dracula and Mummies. The 1960’s had Hitchcock pioneering the psychological horror thriller film, through his mastery of suspense (McDevitt & Juan, 2009). The 1970’s saw a shift into what we now know as modern horror, where artistic facets are intertwined with societal themes (Waller, 2005). Notable filmmakers of this period are Dario Argento with Deep Red (1975) and Suspiria (1977), Stanley Kubrick with The Shining (1980), Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) and David Cronenberg with Videodrome (1983). The introduction of CGI in the 90’s gave life to movies such as Mimic (1997, Guillermo Del Toro) and Sleepy Hollow (1999, Tim Burton). Comedy horror, with self- irony and parody of the genre, became prevalent in the 2000’s. Found footage horror is a new addendum to the genre in the last decade, with the notable Paranormal Activity Series (2007- present). These movies usually have extremely low budgets and high box office profits.

How Horror Movies Work

According to Dr. Riggio some of the main themes that scare us in horror movies are the fear of death, darkness, dangerous animals (such as insects, snakes etc), scary settings, disfigurement, dismemberment, suspense, music, and abnormal objects, people or places (Riggio, 2014). Through fMRI, researchers found that suspense, where fear slowly increases, regions in the brain involved with visual & auditory perception become more activated, and after there is a sudden threat, there is more activation in regions involved with emotion processing, threat evaluation and decision making. Horror movies therefore exploit this excitatory fight or flight system increasing certain rousing neurotransmitters (Hudson et al., 2020).

Why We Like Horror Movies

There is undoubtedly an aesthetic paradox of pleasurable fear (Hanich, 2011). The foundation of this representational art is that (1) fear involves being in danger, and (2) normal moviegoers do not believe that they are in danger (Walton, 1990). Even Aristotle has addressed this question: “Why do we enjoy still lifes with ugly things in them? Why do we enjoy tragedy?” (Holland, 2009). Panksepp’s theory of “invigorated feeling of anticipation” explains that when we feel unpleasurable emotions in passive situations we must not do anything about it. Through Kant’s “disinterestedness” we can explain the liking akin to this subjective behavior, to the unpleasant situations receding in the fantasy world, unlike the ones in real life (TenHouten, 2018). According to Holland, there is also an evolutionary explanation, where people are attracted to gruesome events as cautionary tales for future use to maximize survival. This is the same mechanism at play when people slow down to view an accident on the side of the road. A Jungian approach may be used to explain this attraction to horror movies. Jung believed that material and technological benefits that come from the scientific rationality of the last 500 years come to a great cost for the psyche itself (Hauke, 2015). The horror movie then acts as a vessel for the need of entertainment and disinterest in rationality, paralleling a “postmodern Jungian distrust in the achievements and place of human consciousness in nature”.

Popularity

Some individual differences have been found in response to horror by Neil (2019). For example men, tend to seek out horror movies more than women, this may be due to women being more prone to disgust sensitivity and anxiety. Low empathy, fearfulness and sensation seeking are more related to horror seeking and enjoyment. Through-out life there is a shift in children of being more afraid of symbolic stimuli to later being afraid of concrete or realistic stimuli.

There have been cases of cinematic-related psychiatric cases, namely the case of a woman with intrusive thoughts and flashbacks of the demonic possession from the film The Exorcist. This case shows how an individuals personality structure combined with the stressors they are experiencing from films can intertwine and create what is known as “cinematic neurosis”. It is important to note that movies may also act as cautionary tales (Ballon & Leszcz, 2007; Kline, 2018).

Conclusions

The interest that humanity has with horror is fascinating, but it goes beyond our understanding in psychology and film cognition (Hauke, 2015). It is possible that through the comforts of modern life, our subconscious needs an escape into the darkness of society. Maybe, when and if our lives become filled with horror, there will be no need for this imagination and escapism will only be filled by romantic, comedic or inspirational movies.

Works Cited

Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). A dictionary of film studies (1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford

University Press.

Etchison, D. (2011). “Foreword” in Nightmare movies: Horror on screen since the 1960s. ed. K. Newman (London: Bloomsbury Publishing).

Freud, S. (1919/2003). The uncanny. London: Penguin.

Dixon, W. W. (2010). A history of horror. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Orvieto, P. (2006). Il mito di Faust: L'uomo, Dio, il diavolo. Roma, Italia: Salerno. doi:10.1400/102085

Rhodes, G. D. (n.d.). Mockumentaries and the Production of Realist Horror. Questia, 21(3), 2002nd ser. Retrieved October 9, 2020, from https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1- 95501717/mockumentaries-and-the-production-of-realist-horror

Jung, U., & Schatzberg, W. (1999). Beyond Caligari: The films of Robert Wiene. New York: Berghahn Books.

McDevitt, J., & Juan, E. S. (2011). A year of Hitchcock: 52 weeks with the master of suspense. Lanham (Md.): The Scarecrow Press.

Waller, G. A. (2005). American horrors: Essays on the modern American horror film. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Riggio, R. (2014, October 21). The Top Ten Things That Make Horror Movies Scary. Retrieved October 9, 2020, from https://www.psychologytoday.com

Hudson et al. (2020) Dissociable neural systems for unconditioned acute and sustained fear. NeuroImage. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116522

Tenhouten, W. D. (2018). Anticipation and Exploration of Nature and the Social World: Natural- History versus Social-Cognition Theories of the Evolution of Human Intelligence. Sociology Mind, 08(04), 320-344. doi:10.4236/sm.2018.84021

Hauke, C. (2015). Horror films and the attack on rationality. The Journal of Analytical Psychology, 60(5), 736–740. https://doi-org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1111/1468- 5922.12181

Hanich, J. (2011). Cinematic emotion in horror films and thrillers: The aesthetic paradox of pleasurable fear. New York: Routledge.

Walton, K. L. (1978). Fearing Fictions. The Journal of Philosophy, 75(1), 5. doi:10.2307/2025831

Sofia Wolfson October 11th 2020

Holland, N. N. (2009). Literature and the brain. Gainesville, FL: PsyArt Foundation. Holland, N. N. (2010, January 4). Why Are There Horror Movies? Retrieved October 9, 2020, from https://www.psychologytoday.com

Martin, G. N. (2019). (Why) do you like scary movies? A review of the empirical research on psychological responses to horror films. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02298

Ballon, B., & Leszcz, M. (2007). Horror films: Tales to master terror or shapers of trauma? American Journal of Psychotherapy, 61(2), 211–230.

Kline, J. (2018). Fleeing from and fighting with the exorcist. Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche, 12(2), 10–25. https://doi-org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1080/19342039.2018.1442103

Sofia Wolfson
Emory University
University of Miami

The Curse of the Creative

 And as the Corybantian revellers when they dance are not in their right mind, so the lyric poets are not in their right mind when they are composing their beautiful strains: but when falling under the power of music and metre they are inspired and possessed; like Bacchic maidens who draw milk and honey from the rivers when they are under the influence of Dionysus but not when they are in their right mind.

(Plato, 533-535d). It is no new question that of the connection between arts and the insane. First attributed to Plato, divine madness, many have ventured to try to understand the connection between creativity and madness. The usual belief is that madness is followed by art, rather than art being followed by madness. I decided against this very ample topic to be the focus of this essay, but to try explore one specific route: are societies inept at cultivating artists of sound mind?

Firstly, I want to explore what it means to be an artist. It has been found that openness to experience, one of the big five personality traits is correlated to art experience, and is highly correlated within personalities of not only artists, but people with artistic interests and knowledge (Furnham & Chamorro-Pemuzic, 2004). The concept of psychopathology in artists is divisive, as there are many studies that show no evidence that artists are more likely to suffer than other groups. A study comparing exceptionally creative scientists and artists found no differences in psychopathology but rather schizotypal and socially divergent characteristics in the artists group (Knudsen, Bookheimer & Bilder, 2019). Artists also tend to have higher satisfaction in life than other professionals (Bille, Fjællegaard, Frey, & Steiner, 2013). When creating clusters with people with vulnerabilities such as anxiety, depression and stress and people with resources like psychological well-being, ego-resilience and hope, the group with people who are both high on vulnerabilities and resources has been found to contain the most artists (Ivcevic, Grossman & Ranjan, 2020). This seems paradoxical, but it may very well be the rarity of the interconnection of maladjustment and prosperity to create successful artists. My use of the word success is systematic, because it is traditionally the most successful artists who are able to pursue their craft in its entirety and to dedicate their lives to it, making their work the most proficient.

Artistry is a high risk low reward endeavor from an economic perspective. It brings very few physical gains when comparing the probability of becoming a successful artist and the probability of it having high monetary value to modern society. To attempt to undertake art professionally one must therefore act irrationally, unless they are certain that they will have the basic resources they need to survive to continue their work. Being an artist in itself is making the unthinkable possible, and therefore it is not too far removed for artists to live unconventional lives within our society. This brings me to the second part of my essay. What if it is the faults within our societies that push artists to the edge and therefore to “dysfunctional” patterns of behavior?

It may be insightful to look at the life of Francisco Goya (1746-1828). He was possibly one of the most important portraitist during the rule of the House of Bourbon, using his closeness to the Spanish Royal family as means to critique the aristocracy. Considered to be one of the last old masters and one of the first modernists his style of painting changed dramatically through-out his long life. He went from being a court painter to creating images and etchings of social commentary on the life of Spaniards and the Peninsular War. While his political stance is still unclear to this day, the failure of the establishment of a more liberal government led him to exile himself, first to the outskirts of Madrid and later to Bordeaux (Hughes, 2004). His disappointment of Spanish society for failing to reform their country religiously and politically led him to become fearful of his death and madness. His living in isolation, along with his newly acquired deafness, produced some of his most powerful paintings yet, the Black Paintings (1819-1823). These were all painted on the walls of his villa, and showed his ever growing resentment against mankind portraying scenes of witchery, solitude and death. It was the combination of the political upheaval, sickness and distrust towards society that probably led to the creation of such dark works. Had there not been these inputs in the later part of his life, his works may have remained works of the court only to be hung on palace walls. This is not to say that portraiture is less of an art than pure modernist painting, but these paintings have undoubtedly impacted more people than his hundreds of commissioned portraits.

While anecdotal evidence is not a fortitude of scientific thinking, it can definitely inspire hypotheses to test later on. Goya shows how his inability to fit within a society, even as a well- established court painter, brought on his mental struggles. It is difficult to imagine how many artists who cannot integrate themselves into society, are pushed to the edges because of financial instability, leading them to poor mental health outcomes. It therefore seems that artists are cursed from the beginning, their hyper curious personality brings them to become creative individuals, but the majority of the time, this creative instinct cannot be translated into something traditionally productive, pushing them to live lives on the fringes of communities, non-conforming to psychological standards others have. It may seem like a vicious cycle, as it was definitely the case for Goya, who ventured deeper into the realm of his mind and further away from producing works traditionally for commercial markets. It should be recognized that there is a trade-off when producing art for a living, as it is hard for the artist to not abide by the rules of commerce when they become fruitful, subsequently making art fit with the demand rather than their internal wishes.

Art is a valuable opening into the collective conscious, and very few artists remain uninfluenced by their society. It is then the curse of the creative to be pushed to discover alternative views to life, only to be shunned by society’s comfort in tradition. This is of course unless they are selected to be one of the few allowed to seep through the cracks, and still, their financial advantage may not lead to optimal outcomes.

Works Cited

Plato: Statesman, Philebus, Ion. Greek with translation by Harold N. Fowler and W. R. M. Lamb. Loeb Classical Library 164. Harvard Univ. Press (originally published 1925). ISBN 978- 0674991828 HUP listing

Furnham, A., & Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2004). Personality, intelligence, and art. Personality and Individual Differences, 36(3), 705–715. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1016/S0191-8869(03)00128-4

Bille, T., Fjællegaard, C., Frey, B. S., & Steiner, L. (2013). Happiness in the arts— International evidence on artists’ job satisfaction. Economics Letters, 121, 15–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2013.06.016

Ivcevic, Z., Grossman, E., & Ranjan, A. (2020). Patterns of psychological vulnerabilities and resources in artists and nonartists. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. https://doi-org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1037/aca0000309.supp (Supplemental)

Knudsen, K. S., Bookheimer, S. Y., & Bilder, R. M. (2019). Is psychopathology elevated in Big-C visual artists and scientists? Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 128(4), 273–283. https://doi-org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1037/abn0000416.supp (Supplemental)

Hughes, R., Hodgkinson, G., & Malet, V. (2004). Goya. Barcelona: Galaxia Gutemberg.

Sofia Wolfson
Emory University
University of Miami

Sofia Wolfson
Emory University
University of Miami

An Experimental Overview of Cognitive Dissonance

Leon Festinger, a prominent social psychologist first coined his theory of Cognitive Dissonance in 1957 in his book A Theory Of Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger, 1957). He suggested that all humans have an inner drive to keep our attitudes and behaviors in harmony and avoid cognitive dissonance when these behaviors are disharmonious. This is a very common mental state that can arise subconsciously in all human beings. An example of this internal moral conflict that has been covered multiple times is the meat paradox. The meat paradox is the apparent disconnection between not wanting animals to suffer yet killing them for food. Because of this strong cognitive dissonance humans tend to rationalize their behaviors and inconsistencies within their attitudes by creating excuses (Dowsett et al., 2018).

A Theory Of Cognitive Dissonance

Festinger believed that cognitive dissonance is an antecedent condition to the ultimate dissonance reduction activity (such as rationalization). It acts in the same way as hunger pushes our innate drive to reduce hunger activity. This comparison makes this concept rooted into our innate biological, psychological and ecological systems. In his book Festinger goes on to explore what leads to cognitive dissonance and the means that people use to reduce their “dissonance drive”. This has important implications for concepts within social and motivational psychology. This theory can be applied to the economic problems of partial reward, delay of reward and effort expenditure. Cognitive dissonance accounts for unexplained data within other theories because it integrates empirical phenomena. Festinger was undoubtedly influenced by psychoanalysis as he believed that the most influential elements that motivated people’s lives were dynamic. People are propelled by motivation, drives and forces in our environment that may be in conflict with forces within their own personalities. These drives are tangible, they are not a preference or impartial, they are a necessity to our psyche.

The Experiment

In 1959 along with Carlsmith, Festinger and his colleagues devised an experiment to prove cognitive dissonance (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959). This changed multiple assumptions that psychologists had on the nature of decision making. The experiment started with participants having to carry out a very boring and dull task such as turning pegs at fixed intervals. The group was then separated in three groups and two of the groups of participants were asked to talk to another subject (a confederate) to convince that the task was actually really interesting and engaging. Because they had just completed a very boring task, the act of talking positively about it created cognitive dissonance within the individuals. Of these two groups one was paid twenty dollars and the other group was paid one dollar, the third group was not asked to talk to the confederate. The surprising finding of this study was during the debriefing interview. When subjects were asked to rate how negatively they felt about the task at hand, the ones who were paid less money rated the task more positively than the ones who were paid twenty dollars or were in the control group. This shows that the participants who were paid one dollar had to alleviate the cognitive dissonance internally, because they could not use the external excuse that they were paid money to explain the task in a positive light. These participants had much less comfort from their small incentive and were placed in a greater anxious state. The need to reduce dissonance led people to change their attitudes in the direction of their public statements. The participants who were paid twenty dollars had external justifications for their behavior and therefore did not have to internalize their cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive Dissonance: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going (Cooper, 2019)

A new metanalysis proposed by Cooper brings us a lot of insight into the new theories surrounding cognitive dissonance. The author identifies three important features of cognitive dissonance: (a) it is experienced as a discomfort, (b) it propels people to take actions and (c) people feel more comfortable after the action has been taken. These are undoubtedly paradigms that define cognitive dissonance. Cooper also talks about a “dissonance roadway”. This road to dissonance begins with the realization that we have brought a consequence into our perception that is aversive (a behavior that is unwanted). This is followed by a crucial node where our actions result in unwanted consequences, so we look for responsibility for these negative outcomes. If we are able to put the blame on something external to our selves, for example the 20$ in the Festingers experiment, then we do not experience cognitive dissonance. If the responsibility is within ourselves we then fall pray to cognitive dissonance. This undeniably shows that dissonance only arises with the perfect mixture of aversive consequences and internal responsibility. If responsibility is ambiguous we are usually motivated to see our actions as responsible of others. If we are able to avoid responsibility we may be very well able to avoid cognitive dissonance in total.

Examples of cognitive dissonance

Cognitive dissonance may not always be negative. It has been found that in certain individuals it may be a precursor to creativity, which may be the product or the result of the human cognition being stimulated (Runco, 2011). In depressed individuals cognitive dissonance arises very often and may lead to very grave consequences (Stadler, 2014). It has been found that in religious people existentially threatening stimuli increase religious cognitive dissonance more than in less intrinsically religious individuals (Forstmann & Sagioglu, 2020). It is unquestionable that in our era the advent of climate change and global warming has increased cognitive dissonance in the majority of individuals: not everyone can live a lifestyle that is in line with our beliefs to reduce climate change (Wagner, 2018). Cognitive dissonance has been found to be more present in people who use social media and social networks, victims of domestic violence, people who read online reviews and people who support torture (Jeong, Zo, Lee & Ceran, 2019; Nicholson, 2017; Liang 2016; Houck, 2016). Interestingly brain imaging studies may have found that cognitive dissonance is more present in younger people: they found an interaction effect associated with cognitive conflict in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex in young participants but that was missing in elderly participants (Ito et al., 2019).

There are many ways that I have identified through the previous literature review to reduce cognitive dissonance. One of the best ways is to rationally change your own attitudes and behaviors in a healthy way to match our internal beliefs. Another way is to study and research new habits and information that outweigh the dissonance without falling pray to confirmation bias. Therapy may also be helpful if the dissonance is so strong that it impairs our every day life, this is unfortunately a reality for people suffering from OCD and PTSD who have to deal with irrational fears that do not match their outer environments.

Implications

As mentioned, the study of cognitive dissonance has implications for many who are suffering from mental health. People who suffer from eating disorders, depression, substance abuse or even diabetes face internal dysregulation. If a diabetic is told to stop eating sugars, but they crave sugars they will immediately be thrown into a state of cognitive dissonance as they are the immediate person responsible for what food they decide to eat (Pansu et al., 2019). It is also important for students to explain the effort justification pursuing education, as immediate results of their hard labor are not immediately rewarded (Lepper & Greene, 1975).

A study title Beyond Reference Pricing: Understanding Consumer’s Encounters with Unexpected Prices identifies the importance of cognitive dissonance in consumer behavior (Lindsey- Mullkin, 2003). They identify three specific behaviors to reduce cognitive dissonance when people are faced with unexpected prices: (a) they use a strategy of continual information: they engage in bias and search for information to support their prior beliefs (such as looking at other retailers or substitute goods), (b) they exert a change in attitude: they might re-evaluate a price by comparing it to external reference-prices or associate pricing to quality and (c) they engage in minimization: by reducing the importance of elements that cause dissonance such as the importance of money, saving, shopping or finding a more efficient deal.

Computer scientists have hypothesized that introducing cognitive dissonance into machine learning may produce a “creative autonomy” of machines ultimately creating a piece of what will become artificial consciousness also known as the synthetic conscious (Jennings, 2010).

Conclusion

There are many ways that I have identified through the previous literature review to reduce cognitive dissonance. One of the best ways is to rationally change your own attitudes and behaviors in a healthy way to match our internal beliefs. Another way is to study and research new habits and information that outweigh the dissonance without falling pray to confirmation bias. Therapy may also be helpful if the dissonance is so strong that it impairs our every day life, this is unfortunately a reality for people suffering from OCD and PTSD who have to deal with irrational fears that do not match their outer environments.

The theory of cognitive dissonance has become widely recognized and used for its influential notions of decision making. Since cognitive dissonance produces stress it has great implications for finding new ways to alleviate stress in a healthy and rational manner.

Works Cited

Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press.

Cooper, J. (2019). Cognitive dissonance: Where we’ve been and where we’re going. International Review of

Social Psychology, 32(1). https://doi-org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.5334/irsp.277

Stadler, Anderson. (2014). Are Depressed Individuals More Susceptible to Cognitive

Dissonance? Retrieved from https://uiowa.edu/crisp/sites/uiowa.edu.crisp/files/art8.20.14_3.pdf

Forstmann, M., & Sagioglou, C. (2020). Religious concept activation attenuates cognitive dissonance reduction in free- choice and induced compliance paradigms. The Journal of Social Psychology, 160(1), 75–91. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1080/00224545.2019.1609400

Jeong, M., Zo, H., Lee, C. H., & Ceran, Y. (2019). Feeling displeasure from online social media postings: A study using cognitive dissonance theory. Computers in Human Behavior, 97, 231–240. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1016/j.chb.2019.02.021

Dowsett, E., Semmler, C., Bray, H., Ankeny, R. A., & Chur-Hansen, A. (2018). Neutralising the meat paradox: Cognitive dissonance, gender, and eating animals. Appetite, 123, 280–288. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1016/j.appet.2018.01.005

Wagner DA. The marketing of global warming: A repeated measures examination of the effects of cognitive dissonance, endorsement, and information on beliefs in a social cause. Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences. 2018;78(10-A(E)). http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.emory.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=psyh&AN=2017-33535- 020&site=ehost-live&scope=site. Accessed April 20, 2020.

Nicholson, S. B., & Lutz, D. J. (2017). The importance of cognitive dissonance in understanding and treating victims of intimate partner violence. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 26(5), 475–492. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1080/10926771.2017.1314989

Liang, Y. (Jake). (2016). Reading to make a decision or to reduce cognitive dissonance? The effect of selecting and reading online reviews from a post-decision context. Computers in Human Behavior, 64, 463–471. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1016/j.chb.2016.07.016

Pansu, P., Fointiat, V., Lima, L., Blatier, C., Flore, P., & Vuillerme, N. (2019). Changing behaviors: Using norms to promote physical activity for type 2 diabetes patients. European Review of Applied Psychology / European Review of Applied Psychology , 69 (2), 59–64. https://doi-org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1016/j.erap.2019.03.001

Ito, A., Kawachi, Y., Kawasaki, I., & Fujii, T. (2019). Effect of aging on choice-induced cognitive conflict. Behavioural Brain Research, 363, 94–102. https://doi-org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1016/j.bbr.2019.01.053

Houck, S. C. (2016). The cognitive dissonance theory of torture perceptions [ProQuest Information & Learning]. In Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering (Vol. 77, Issue 3–B(E)).

Lindsey-Mullikin, J. (2003). Beyond reference price: understanding consumers’ encounters with unexpected prices.

Jennings, K. E. (2010). Developing creativity: Artificial barriers in artificial intelligence. Minds and Machines: Journal for Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy and Cognitive Science, 20(4), 489–501. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1007/s11023-010-9206-y

Lepper, M. R., & Greene, D. (1975). Turning play into work: Effects of adult surveillance and extrinsic rewards on children’s intrinsic motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31(3), 479–486. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1037/h0076484 

Sofia Wolfson
Emory University
University of Miami

 

The Century of the Individual

The advent of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 is a clear example of the paradigmatic shift occurring in this century. As people stop going to work and become confined to their homes the groups and communities they are a part of start shattering. We are no longer tied to our environments the way we used to be. I am writing from the commodity of my home like many others on this day. But this is not the first time we see this transference from our environments. Students no longer flock to libraries for information, they commonly open databases online. We don’t have to pick up a landline and turn the dial ten times to call our family, we simply have to ask Siri to place the call for us. We do not have to go to multiple stores to look for a special screwdriver, we simply order it online and receive it a couple days later in a insipid box. People of the 21st century have given up the actions that join us together for efficiency and self-service. People feel connected to others more stronger than ever, this is seen with the increasing political polarization of the American Public, where fewer American than ever before belong to the overlap between democrats and republicans but feel more connected to their parties (Dimock, Doherty, Kiley & Oates, 2014). This formation of parasocial bonds with people online, increases the connection to our beliefs whether we agree or disagree with the person in contact (Paravati, Naidu, Gabriel & Wiedemann, 2019). There is conflicting literature on the wellness of people when using social media, while it is a good form of mood regulation when people do not wish to be alone, prolonged use may lead to low identity development and loneliness (Thomas et al., 2020). We are entering a new state of a false collective, where we are present in groups without being physically there, connected to other individuals like us from miles away.

The Age of Individuality on The Internet

When a teenager is allowed to venture on the internet in their critical years of identity development (Erikson, 1964), they form new identities with groups online that they would not necessarily be a part of had the internet not existed. This new kind of identity formation in this virtual environment may very well lead to different consequences. For one, when someone is a part of a group that exists online and they set out for their outside physical environment, they are going to be incongruous with it. When their identity is shaped from the virtual group rather than their physical group they are slowly eroding their connection to the physical world. A good example for this is by looking at students who walked the halls of universities one hundred years ago: students were homogenous they wore muted colors, long trousers and skirts. Now a days, students may be wearing everything from business casual attire to casual sporting clothes with fluorescent colors. We are moving into an era of individualism, people are part of smaller groups whether virtual or tangible. This is seen in the academia, people striving to concentrate in the most detailed and Delphic fields possible. This paradigmatic shift from the collective into a false (virtual) collective produces the individual who is able to find its own niche wherever they are. While before we were congruent with the collective, now we are more and more becoming our own individuals among the collective and the static.

The Outrage Machine

Each moral word used in a tweet increases it’s virality by 20 percent (Brady, 2019). Kahneman believes that the affect heuristic, judging the correctness of a claim based on our emotional reactions to it, is the most important heuristic in every-day life. When people are exposed to constant appeals to emotions on the internet they are unconsciously being polarized by their beliefs. When social network algorithms push for emotionally packed claims people are unknowingly falling prey to a cascade, a chain reaction of beliefs being confirmed and reconfirmed until there is nothing that can disprove them. Algorithms want people to see what they are concordant with so they will stay on their website. The more people stay on their website the closer they get to their new “identity” and the further away from people who are incongruent with their selves. Does this mean we will be happier as the only information presented to us does not challenger our beliefs? Not necessarily. There is a dark future ahead. Nikolas Badminton, a world- renowned futurist found at a statistically significant level that 33% of those who spend more than 4 hours online per day had been treated for depression, another 33% had been treated for anxiety and another 31% were self-identified narcissists. This algorithmically-guided behavior has produced a hunger for acceptance from online users creating an alarming turning point for society. Does this mean that we will all become micro-narcissists trying to prove others that we are better, all whilst cultivating unhealthy amounts of anxiety and depression while we fail to do so? With all bad behaviors, counter-behaviors arise to protect the individual. However, when it is no longer in our power to determine what we want to see but up to a profit maximizing algorithm, we may fail to beat the machine.

It is also important to note the rise of memes in popular online culture. Memes are units of cultural transmissions where a truth value is not required. They are spread by emotional selection through emotions like happiness or disgust. They can be anything from a picture of a cat with a funny text on top of it to a behavior that is imitated from person to person within a culture. Memes create a bridge between the individual and the collective, where we as individuals decide to react the same way as everyone else to one of these units of cultural transmission.

The Era of Info Overload

Another alarming aspect of social media is the mass proliferation of information evolving beyond our control. There is the creation of “attentional bottlenecks” which limit our choices based on fear, peer pressure and global groupthink according to Dr. Hills of the University of Warwick (Hills, 2018). He identifies four biases of “cognitive selection” affecting our beliefs online. The first is negative bias, where we overshare negative information even if it is not accurate. This is similar to the media paradox, where media focuses on rare events, making us afraid of things that are the least risky and least afraid of things that are most risky (Ruscio, 2000). The second is belief- consistent bias (similar to confirmation bias), to cope with the gargantuan amounts of information we favor what is consistent with our beliefs, which leads to groupthink. Groupthink can be very harmful as people tend to ignore any and all new information that is incongruent with their beliefs, even if it is beneficial or life-saving. This has huge implications on a global scale as terrorist groups can emerge from online vacuums as well as far reaching political ideologies. The third bias is social bias, where we sacrifice any other kinds of information for “social information”. This may lead to groups finding the fastest solution to problems rather than the best one because of the ease it gets to us with social media. Finally, predictive bias, increases the speed with which our System I processing works. We are biologically engrained to look for patterns, when we are exposed to increasing amounts of information, we find more and more patterns even if they are incorrect. This has implications for academics, as we see now with the replication crisis, where many patterns have been proved to be false after years of believing they were true.

In this new era of information overload we are forced to decided what we think is real and what can heal us. This has consequences for therapy as we have to pick among so many different theories and practices which can be overwhelming, but the future means collectivizing and acknowledging individual differences. It is a tricky balance but it has to happen on the individual level as we are the ones making these decisions.

Global Warming

The best solutions for global warming should be found within the individual rather than the collective. Top down approaches do not seem to work as much as an innate shift of our own personal consciousness. This is why the importance of valuing the individual in a healthy manner may be the only way to find a solution. A model created to discern individuals attitudes towards global warming found that people who experienced first-hand fluctuations in weather (such as warmer summers and colder spring time) were more likely to perceive the existence of global warming (Shao, Garand, Keim & Hamilton, 2016). This is important to note because it shows how the change has to come from the individual’s experience rather than the collective telling them that this threat exists. Another study has found that mindfulness through Buddhist meditation increases the belief in global climate change and pro-environmental outcomes (Panno, 2018). The consequences of mindfulness are many, from increased compassion to better mental functioning. A lesson can be taken from these findings, even though the person is part of a collective practicing these skills, the change and actions come from the individual within the collective. The teachings on how to combat global warming should come from the group and personally devised from the individual. However, as we enter an era of more and more smaller groups, further apart from each other, who is going to show the people what is right and what is wrong?

There have been many distinctions found across cultures which may show the different processes that affect our externalities towards our environment. For example, Ngöbe communities from Panama attribute agency to an ecocentric protoype (focusing on nature and the earth as a whole) whereas American college students ascribe agency to complex artifacts (belongings for example) (Ojalehto, Medin & Garcìa, 2017). If everyone believed in animism following the ecocentric prototype we would probably never litter again. This difference in frameworks may be the answer to fix this negligence towards our environment. By changing the frameworks of what we believe by using methods beyond western practices we may be able to reduce the probability of societies collapsing due to climate change.

Individuality Through Technologies

The industrial revolution (4.0) that came with the internet has ended. We are entering a new era where technology is intermixed with the individual. No longer are things mass produced for everyone, each and every individual can pick and choose the color or the model they want. Another key example if individuality within technologies are brain-machine interfaces, where computers are connected directly to neurons in the brain. This is what Elon Musk is attempting to do with his company ‘Neuralink’. Brain-machine interfaces are expected to help people with neurological disorders by restoring sensory and motor function through small flexible electrode threads that can be neurosurgically inserted into specific brain regions (Musk, 2019). While this is the goal for now, in the near future, my guess is 2040, these interfaces will become more available to the general public and will then be used for multiple other reasons. Not only will we be able to send inputs into the brain to restore motor functioning, outputs will be given back to the machine. This means that we will be able to change our environment without taking any physical actions. For example, when we flip a switch there are feedback loops going to and from our motor neurons and back to our central nervous system. When you remove this whole loop and allow for actions to only happen from our CNS, engaging only sensory neurons (such as our optical nerve) and excluding motor neurons (the ones in our hand to flip the switch) a multitude of biological changes may happen over time. We may become dependent solely on our brains to do work. Writing and calculators will become unnecessary. Search engines will be engrained in our brains, not only will students not need to go to the library or open their computer to do research, all they will have to do is imagine and select what they need without even opening their eyes. Patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases will also be able to walk again the moment we teach our neurons to fix themselves or even be transplanted. When we allow artificial intelligence to learn the mechanisms of our brain we will be able to personalize our own algorithms and to create solutions using the power of computers that we now have at Google.

Nanotechnology is key in modifying our brains. But what about our bodies? As technologies become available to societies, people will take them into their own hands and adapt them for themselves. What we are already seeing nowadays with people inserting microchips into their hands for easier identification, soon will become transplanting whole organs and body parts to better serve our lives. Artists for example, may decide to exchange one of their hands for a robotic prosthesis to allow for easy use of different media. As technologies trickle down and become affordable, we will quickly see a transformation of these technologies to conform to peoples personal needs. Whether for the best or the worst we are entering the cyborg age, where machines and humans become one.

The Conscious “Individual”

The entrance of machine learning into psychology will definitely bring about a greater understanding of the brain and ultimately consciousness. Consciousness is what defines the individual as it is the main difference that determines the reality of our existence. It is of very great probability than we will unlock the secrets of consciousness using AI in the next century. Computer scientists are scrambling to create machine consciousness, also known as synthetic consciousness. Along with them philosophers debate if it can actually be implemented and how. Theoretical neurobiologist Bernard Baars (Baars, 1998) suggests that there are specific main functions that the machine conscious has to achieve, such as: definition & context setting, adaptation & learning, editing, prioritizing & access control, decision-making, executive function, analogy-forming function, metacognitive and self-monitoring function, auto programming and self-maintenance. Now, if this is ever achieved we will have arguably created a new sentient being. This will revolutionize our world and will probably be the beginning of the next paradigmatic shift after the one of individualization I believe we are in now. I would like to speculate that the next paradigm will follow a very big exploration about the truth of our reality, not only that of the individual but also of the collective. If humans will be able to create a prototype of consciousness without unlocking the mysteries of our own, there will be a huge crisis. To create consciousness without understanding how we ourselves are conscious, creates cognitive dissonance at the societal level. Many questions will be raised, and lots of actions will have to be taken. If different types of consciousness exist, then do they differ between animals, plants, objects, machines and societies? Neuroscientists currently believe that consciousness is generated through the neural correlates of consciousness which are neural changes that correlate with someone’s specific experience. That is very similar to memes as they are also correlates that explain a culture’s specific experience. Therefore the understanding of the collective conscious may also be unveiled as machine and human consciousness unfold.

There will always be cynics who reject science, but such a drastic change may create an even larger polarization, where more and more people will reject any and all science. There will be groups that reject machines and medicine, others who only reject machines and others that reject neither. I am worried for the first group, who will sacrifice all science because of the ever more new, controversial and cutting edge technologies

Individualized Therapy

As we enter the middle of the century more and more longitudinal studies will be released about the long term effects of anti-depressants and ADHD medicine used on children. New studies have shown that certain medications permanently alter peoples brains (Wang et al., 2013). As parents scramble to find new ways to treat their children without harmful medicine they will turn to treatments that are beyond western biomedicine such as integrational healing and psychedelics. This change is already happening with mindfulness being implemented in CBT therapy. As these techniques become more prominent we will see an even greater shift into patient-centered healthcare or individualized approaches that value the individual. This can be done by producing drugs that are adjusted to fit someone’s genetic code so that there is the least possible amount of gene drug interactions. This is already done today with Genesight, as it provides a psychotropic test to see if drugs have meaningful interactions with DNA that may harm a patient (Genesight, 2020). As big pharmaceutical companies try and maximize their profits, and interests move from patients to money they will resist this patient-centered care. This is because they are trying to fit the model that one drug fits all, as a panacea for a mental illness lowers research and production costs. Health should not function this way. Doctors through-out history were known to treat patients at home, entering their environments and knowing their families at heart. If we can retool medicine to approach a patients problem with a solution unique to them then that will revolutionize medicine totally beyond what it currently is.

We are moving into a more individualistic era, where individuals are accepted to be part of our communities even if they are not part of our small groups. Our individual differences are prized and we are more than ever accepting the abnormal to be normal, whether it is in psychology or fashion. Our individuality is exponentially growing, I do not know until this phenomenon will last, but hopefully it will not end with the sanguineous revolutions that we have seen, because humans will not be alone anymore.

Works Cited

Dimock, M., Doherty, C., Kiley, J., & Oates, R. (June 12th, 2014). Political Polarization in the American Public. Pew Research Center: Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping the World. doi:202.419.4372

Paravati, E., Naidu, E., Gabriel, S., & Wiedemann, C. (2019). More than just a tweet: The unconscious impact of forming parasocial relationships through social media. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice. https://doiorg.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1037/cns0000214

Thomas, V., Balzer Carr, B., Azmitia, M., & Whittaker, S. (2020). Alone and online: Understanding the relationships between social media, solitude, and psychological adjustment. Psychology of Popular Media. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1037/ppm0000287

Erikson, E. H. (1964). Childhood and society, 2nd ed. Chapter 7, W. W. Norton. Brady, W. J. (2019). A model of moral contagion in online social networks [ProQuest

Information & Learning]. In Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering (Vol. 80, Issue 3–B(E))

Badminton, N. (2020, April 02). Future of Life in America - Digital Obesity and Mental Health. Retrieved May 04, 2020, from https://nikolasbadminton.com/future-of-life-in-america- digiital-obesity-mental-health/

University of Warwick, Psychology. (2018, December 6). Mass proliferation of information evolving beyond our control, says new psychology research [Press release]. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/mass_proliferation_of/

Ruscio, J. (2000). Risky business: Vividness, availability, and the media paradox. Skeptical Inquirer, 24(2), 22-26. [Reprinted in Nisbet, L. (Ed.) (2001). The gun control debate: You
decide (pp. 167-174). Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.]

Shao, W., Garand, J. C., Keim, B. D., & Hamilton, L. C. (2016). Science, scientists, and local weather: Understanding mass perceptions of global warming. Social Science Quarterly, 97(5), 1023–1057. https://doi-org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1111/ssqu.12317

Panno, A., Giacomantonio, M., Carrus, G., Maricchiolo, F., Pirchio, S., & Mannetti, L. (2018). Mindfulness, pro-environmental behavior, and belief in climate change: The mediating role of social dominance. Environment and Behavior, 50(8), 864–888. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1177/0013916517718887

Ojalehto, Bethany l., Medin, D. L., & García, S. G. (2017). Grounding principles for inferring agency: Two cultural perspectives. Cognitive Psychology, 95, 50–78. https://doi- org.proxy.library.emory.edu/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2017.04.001

Musk, E. (2019). An integrated brain-machine interface platform with thousands of channels. BioRxiv The Preprint Server for Biology. doi:10.1101/703801

Baars, Bernard (1988), A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-30133-6

Wang, G., Volkow, N. D., Wigal, T., Kollins, S. H., Newcorn, J. H., Telang, F., . . . Swanson, J. M. (2013). Long-Term Stimulant Treatment Affects Brain Dopamine Transporter Level in Patients with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. PLoS ONE, 8(5). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0063023

Genetic Testing: Personalized Treatments. (n.d.). Retrieved May 05, 2020, from https://genesight.com/endtrialanderror/?creative=352940689885

Sofia Wolfson
Emory University
University of Miami