NEW NEUROMORPHIC CHIP MIMICS HUMAN BRAIN

Height increase linked to democracy, LSE study finds

STRESS IN YOUNG AMERICA: WHY THE US IS ON RED ALERT

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The Unbearable Lightness of Being Rejected: Rebuffs Inspire Creativity

Surprisingly, researchers have found that social rejection can have a positive effect on independent people – rejectees are more creative after the experience of being shunned.

Science has traditionally shown rejection to have a negative cognitive effect but according to new research by John Hopkins University and Cornelly University, this is only for those who strongly value being part of a group.

For those with a strong “independent self-concept,” research shows that rejection can actually inspire creativity.

The paper “Outside Advantage: Can Social Rejection Fuel Creative Thought?” published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, is the first to study rejection in those who are not dependant on group approval. Independent types view social rejection as a “validation,” says Sharon Kim, lead author of the study, adding:

Rejection confirms for independent people what they already feel about themselves – that they’re not like others. For such people, that distinction is a positive one leading them to greater creativity.”

Rejection has the opposite effect on those who do need to belong to a group. Typically, group rejection has been understood to negatively affect cognitive ability and cause anxiety and distress. This study, the first to look at the positive side of being rejected, goes against the media perception of rejection, says Sharon Kim.

We’re seeing in society a growing concern about the negative consequences of social rejection, thanks largely to media reports about bullying that occurs at school, in the workplace, and online. Obviously, bullying is reprehensible and produces nothing good. What we tried to show in our paper is that exclusion from a group can sometimes lead to a positive outcome when independently-minded people are the ones being excluded.” Sharon Kim

The unique research turns rejection on its head, with practical implications for business. Managers who want to employ imaginative thinkers and maximise creativity may want to take a second look at the unconventional job candidate – a traditionally easy target for rejection. Inventiveness is a valuable asset to an organisation, and all sorts of people are needed to ensure success, not just team players.

In the long term, a creative person with an “independent self-concept” would thrive on rejection, says Kim. Where repeated rebuffs would discourage someone who values inclusion, the slights could have the opposite effect on the independent thinker and continually recharge their creativity.

The independent person could see a successful career trajectory, in contrast with the person who is inhibited by social rejection.” Sharon Kim.

Notes:

“Outside Advantage: Can Social Rejection Fuel Creative Thought?” http://ift.tt/1b7Vbxz

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Poverty of Mind: the Cognitive Debt of the Poor

A study by UK Warwick University has proved that poverty has a negative causal effect on cognitive ability. The effect is signficant — equal to losing a full night’s sleep or comparable to the reduction of cognitive performance in alcoholic adults.

The pressures of poverty exhaust cognitive resources, hinders the ability to make positive life choices and shackles the poor to life-long poverty.

The study, “Poverty Impedes Cognition” led by Dr Anandi Mani, Economics Professor at Warwick University, (link) sheds new light on the prison of poverty proving for the first time that it is the flaw of poverty, not the poor, that maintains the poverty cycle.

“The poor, in this view, are less capable not because of inherent traits, but because the very context of poverty imposes load and impedes cognitive capacity.”

She adds; “The findings,in otherwords, are not about poor people, but about any people who find themselves poor.” Dr Anandi Mani, Economics Professor, Warwick University.

Research techniques

Poverty was defined in the study broadly as ” the gap between one’s needs and the resources available to fulfull them,” enabling the study of both developed and developing countries.

To prove the hypothesis that monetary concerns tax the cognitive system, cognitive excercises were conducted on participants recruited from a New Jersey Shopping Mall consisting of a “poor” group (average $20,000 household income) and a “well-off” (average $70,000 household income) group.

The laboratory testings were backed up with field tests on farmers; an ideal candidate for study due to the cyclic experience of poverty and wealth during the planting cycle.

Test 1 – poor v rich group

The two groups were given identical reasoning tests which were designed to induce thoughts about finance, specifically their own.

Participants were asked to problem solve to find the best method of repair for a car. One solution involved a minimal cost of $150, the other $1,500.

The solution involving $1,500 reduced cognitive performance among the poor but not in the well-off group. Dr Mani comments on the significance -

“Just as an air traffic controller focusing on a potential collision course is prone to neglect other planes in the air, the poor, when attending to monetary concerns, lose their capacity to give other problems their full consideration.”

The hypothesis of the cognitive testing was thus proved. Financial problems were not seen to cause concern in those with sufficient resources. For those without adequate funds the “load” of a financial problem can overwhelm the cognitive system -

“We hypothesized that for the rich, these run-of-the-mill financial snags are of little con- sequence. For the poor, however, these demands can trigger persistent and distracting concerns.” Dr Anandi Mani.

Test 2 – Harvesting cognition

Farmers were tested for their cognitive ability during the planting cycle. Before harvest when “poor,” farmers were less likley to perform well in cognitive tests. After harvest when “rich,” the cognitive performance of farmers significantly improved.

This proved the cognitive depletion in the same group of people who experience cycles of wealth. According to researchers, the findings could not be explained by nutrition, time available, stress or work effort alone.

The human cognitive system has lim- ited capacity Preoccupations with press- ing budgetary concerns leave fewer cognitive resources available to guide choice and action.

The researchers pointed that health programmes can be timed around the harvest to ensure that campaigns, such as the HIV campaign can be

A new insight into poverty

Reserach into poverty has focused mainly on the behaviours of the poor; low attainment in education, struggling with appointments, budgeting personal finance, engagement with services. This study is the first to look into how the behaviuors that excasperate poverty first come about.

The study allows for a deeper understanding of poverty and is the first of its kind to prove that cognition is affected by the obstacles that poverty gives rise to.

Researchers hope that the findings inform policy makers to make education, training, health and funding straight forward and easy to access. Policy makers should avoid all complexity or a “cognitive tax” on the poor -

“First, policy-makers should beware of imposing cognitive taxes on the poor just as they avoid monetary taxes on the poor. The data reported here suggest a different perspective on poverty: Being poor means coping not just with a shortfall of money, but also with a concurrent shortfall of cognitive resources.”

Researcher suggest simple and cheap interventions such as -

- smart defaults (selections put in place that serve most people)

- help to fill out application forms

- planning prompts

- reminders for appointments

Policy and Poverty

“Filling out long forms, preparing for a lengthy interview, deciphering new rules, corresponding to complex incentives,all consume cognitive resources. Policy-makers rarely recognize these cognitive taxes; yet, our results suggest that they should focuson reducing them.”

The benefit system can be labryinthin. Historical decisions by government can mean that puzzling systems are in place to serve the most vulnerable.

In a deprived UK coastal town, a community centre for section 4 failed asylum seekers supported by NASA are given food vouchers as subsidy with no other means of financial support. This means a food voucher is issued, but no means to buy a bus ticket to get to the supermarket – a large store on the outskirts of town.

A 2 mile walk of 45 minutes for those who know the best route. This town is a dispersion centre for newly failed asylum seekers – many have just arrived from other parts of the UK to miserably eek out a non life where everything is no – no right to volunteer, attend free training, work even. The weekly voucher is their lot. As they walk to the main supermarket, they will pass countless stores that would provide goods for cheaper.

This was the case in 2010. Shortly after an “Azure” card replaced the vouchers for one store to enable fairer shopping. It rarely worked (link).

The vouchers forced asylum seekers to sell food vouchers; nearly always being ripped off and at the same time risking their tentative section 4 status.

“This page explains how you may qualify for short-term support if your application for asylum was unsuccessful, but you temporarily cannot return to the country you came from and will otherwise be homeless or unable to afford food. (We call this ‘destitute’.)”

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/asylum/support/apply/section4/

Notes:

Science Magazine: Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6149/976

Medical News Today article

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265501.php

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The whereabouts of worry; perseverative cognition and the left front lobe

In a longitudinal stress study by the American Psychological Association, more Americans than ever before reported struggling to cope with rising stress levels with 1 in 5 reporting a level of stress beyond their capacity to cope.

Chronic stress, especially when long term, can impact adversely on health. Untreated, stress can lead to or worsen a number of existing conditions such as -

• cardiovascular disease


• digestive problems


• obesity


• insomnia


• depression and anxiety

Stress impairs the immune system. We can be stressed until we are broken.

Modern life is stressful.

Mobile technology enables communication but shackles us to be available, accessible and always “on”. Links have been found between mobile phone usage and rising anxiety levels in mobile phone users, especially the young and the anxious. Living alone 16% live and eat alone – that’s a lot of us living without the support of a family unit. The figure of single occupation has nearly doubled in the last 40 years ago.

Career V portfolio The world of work has changed. The concept of career has evolved into a ‘portfolio’ of work opportunities demanding us to shape shift for each employer -11 on average.

Take home Home ownership is an unlikley concept for many. A large section of the working population are working for the cognitve reward of not being unemployed.

Those most vulnerable are those unprotected from the sharp edges of a changeable economy and an unstable workplace; the young, the poor and those with a disability.

“Millenials” (18-24) reported the highest stress levels. They proved too the most likely to engage in negative, dangerous coping activity. Young people without family, without financial support face the biggest trials.

The government is proving to be a harsh task masker. In the UK, benefits for young people as well as those for people with a disability have faced the biggest cuts. Today sees further announcements to young people’s benefits if they are NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training).

The future for young people without recourse to support looks fraught.

The Future

It comes as little surprise that the World Health Organisation predicts that depression will be the largest threat to global health in 2030.

In the New England Journal of Medicine “Global Mental Health” researchers identify the most vulnerable groups as the young who do not have easy access to mental health services, the old who are not adequately catered for in terms of dementia care or elderly mental health and those in developing countries. The authors warn of “intense suffering.”

Subject to the vagaries of scale, depression can impair an individual’s natural ability to manage their everyday responsibilities. At it’s very worst it can incapacitate, hospitalize and lead to loss of life through suicide. Almost 3,000 lives are lost each day according to the WHO.

The young and the old are forever exposed to health inequality. Despite us all travelling from one port to another, we seem ignorant to the vulnerabilities until arrival.

The Mechanics of Worry.

Some people make decisions quickly, expertly, like cognitive knee jerks. Others ruminate, incapacitated by the myriad of options that a decision presents.

A study by Sussex University into the inner workings of chronic worry has pinpointed the site in the brain — the left front lobe, the exact same spot as complex thought.

A team of Sussex psychologists analysed 30 years of cognitive research to breakdown the components of worry finding that the part of the brain used in complex thought processes or “systematic processing,” is also activated in cases of “perservative cognition” – chronic, debilitating worry found in severe cases of depression.

Depressed, anxious people experience “effortful” thought and trigger systematic processing, non-anxious people have a more “heuristic” process – a quick, effortless “short cut” to decision making.

Unlike animals, people can replay distressing past and potential future images. It is often a component of depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress. This “perseverative cognition” involves rumination, negative thoughts and excessive analysis, often triggered by stress and when left untreated can be debilitating.

Non anxious people have a much easier ride than depressed people when making decisions and imagining the future – this new discovery goes in some part to explain why.

Notes:

Clinical Psychology Review

Systematic information processing style and perseverative worry

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272735813001232

Affects of worry on the body: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022399905002151

Depression: A Global Crisis PDF report http://www.wfmh.org/00WorldMentalHealthDay.htm

Stress in America: http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/

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