Τι τύπος γονιού είσαι, ανάλογα με τον τύπο της προσωπικότητάς σου;

THE MAMAGERS TEAM22 ΣΕΠΤΕΜΒΡΙΟΥ, 2023



Λίγο-πολύ όλοι έχουμε κάνει κάποιο τέστ προσωπικότητας που έχουμε βρει στο διαδίκτυο, προσπαθώντας να καταλάβουμε λίγα περισσότερα για τον εαυτό μας. Από τη στιγμή, μάλιστα, που γίναμε γονείς μπορεί να κάναμε και κάποια ακόμα για να καταλάβουμε τι στυλ γονιού είμαστε ή ποιο στιλ γονεικότητας μας ταιριάζει. Εντάξει, δεν είναι επιστημονικά τα αποτελέσματα αλλά έχουν γέλιο.

Από τα πολλά τεστ προσωπικότητας που κυκλοφορούν, ένα από τα πιο διάσημα -και ένα από τα πιο αξιοσέβαστα- είναι οι 16 τύποι προσωπικότητας του Ιδρύματος Myers & Briggs. Το τεστ- που μπορείς να κάνεις εδώ– χρησιμοποιείται από πολλούς οργανισμούς, σχολεία και εταιρείες για λόγους συνεργασίας ανάμεσα στα μέλη μιας ομάδας ενώ έχει μελετηθεί για να γίνει σύνδεση ανάμεσα στον τύπο προσωπικότητας ενός ανθρώπου και στον τύπο γονιού που είναι.

Εάν γνωρίζεις τον τύπο της προσωπικότητάς σου, τότε λογικά αυτός θα είναι και ο τύπος σου ως γονιός (αν και υπάρχουν και κάποιες εξαιρέσεις με ανθρώπους που όταν γίνονται γονείς αλλάζουν κατηγορία!). Εμείς πάντως βγήκαμε… λίγο από όλα!
Τι τύποι γονιών είναι οι 16 τύποι προσωπικότητας του Myers & Briggs;

Ο Συνήγορος

Οι γονείς που ανήκουν στον τύπο προσωπικότητας ‘Συνήγορος’ θέλουν τα παιδιά τους να κάνουν πάντα το σωστό. Μπορεί ως άνθρωποι να δυσκολεύονται να θέσουν όρια, αλλά πραγματικά θέλουν τα παιδιά τους να γίνουν άνθρωποι με ενσυναίσθηση. Έχουν υψηλές προσδοκίες, γεγονός που δημιουργεί πολλές εντάσεις στην οικογένεια, αλλά αυτό που ελπίζουν είναι τα παιδιά τους να μπορέσουν να γίνουν η καλύτερη εκδοχή του εαυτού τους.


Ο Πρωταγωνιστής

Οι γονείς που ανήκουν στον τύπο προσωπικότητας ‘Πρωταγωνιστής’ εστιάζουν στην ευτυχία των παιδιών τους και πάντα προσπαθούν να καταλάβουν τη ρίζα των συναισθημάτων που εκφράζουν τα παιδιά τους. Θέλουν τα παιδιά τους να νιώθουν αγάπη, άνεση και ασφάλεια. Βέβαια, δυσκολεύονται να πάρουν αποφάσεις, αφού συχνά αγχώνονται ότι θα πάρουν τη λάθος απόφαση!

Ο Μεσολαβητής

Οι γονείς που ανήκουν στον τύπο προσωπικότητας ‘Μεσολαβητής’ θέλουν να γίνουν καθοδηγητές των παιδιών τους, να τους διδάξουν πολλά. Θέλουν να δημιουργήσουν ένα περιβάλλον φροντίδας στο σπίτι και είναι ευπροσάρμοστοι με τις αναποδιές. Δεν μπορούν εύκολα να επιδείξουν πειθαρχία και θέλουν τα παιδιά τους να γίνουν ενήλικες που είναι ειλικρινείς και έχουν αρχές.

Ο Προωθητής

Οι γονείς που ανήκουν στον τύπο προσωπικότητας ‘Προωθητής’ θέλουν τα παιδιά τους να μεγαλώσουν σε ένα δημιουργικό και θετικό περιβάλλον. Η δημιουργικότητά τους ίσως μερικές φορές τους οδηγεί να μην έχουν ρουτίνες, κάτι που δυσκολεύει τα παιδιά. Είναι πολύ αγαπησιάρικοι, τρυφεροί γονείς που ενθαρρύνουν τα παιδιά τους να κάνουν μεγάλα όνειρα.

Ο Αρχιτέκτονας

Οι γονείς που ανήκουν στον τύπο προσωπικότητας ‘Αρχιτέκτονας’ δεν είναι και οι πιο τρυφεροί γονείς. Εστιάζουν στο να μεγαλώσουν παιδιά που θα γίνουν ανεξάρτητοι ενήλικες, έξυπνοι και θα μπορούν να λύνουν μόνοι τους τα προβλήματά τους. Έχουν υψηλές προσδοκίες από τα παιδιά τους αλλά τα λατρεύουν άνευ όρων!

Ο Αρχηγός

Οι γονείς που ανήκουν στον τύπο προσωπικότητας ‘Αρχηγός’ είναι οι γονείς που θα χαρακτηρίζαμε ως αυστηρούς. Έχουν υψηλές προσδοκίες, έχουν αυστηρά όρια και πολύ συγκεκριμένους κανόνες στο σπίτι αλλά ταυτόχρονα δίνουν στα παιδιά τους όσα χρειάζονται για να ακολουθήσουν αυτούς τους κανόνες.

Ο Λογικός

Οι γονείς που ανήκουν στον τύπο προσωπικότητας ‘Λογικός’ δυσκολεύονται να δείξουν στα παιδιά τους τα συναισθήματά τους, ενώ δεν χειρίζονται και με τον καλύτερο τρόπο τις εντάσεις. Θέλουν τα παιδιά τους να μάθουν τον εαυτό τους και να τον αποδεχτούν για αυτό τα ενθαρρύνουν να λένε πάντα τη γνώμη τους, ακόμα κι αν πάνε κόντρα στο κύμα. Τους αρέσει η οργάνωση και εκνευρίζονται όταν τα πράγματα δεν πηγαίνουν όπως είχαν σχεδιάσει.

Ο Συζητητής

Οι γονείς που ανήκουν στον τύπο προσωπικότητας ‘Συζητητής’ θέλουν τα παιδιά τους να μαθαίνουν μέσα από τις καθημερινές εμπειρίες τους και είναι σε θέση να μάθουν και οι ίδιοι μέσα από τα παιδιά τους. Ως γονείς λατρεύουν να είναι αυθόρμητοι και πολλές φορές τα παιδιά τους το αντιλαμβάνονται αυτό ως ασυνέπεια. Θέλουν πάντα να έχουν τον τελευταίο λόγο.

Ο Λογιστής

Οι γονείς που ανήκουν στον τύπο προσωπικότητας ‘Λογιστής’ μαθαίνουν πολύ γρήγορα στα παιδιά τους ότι πρέπει να δουλέψουν σκληρά για να πετύχουν στη ζωή τους. Είναι πρακτικοί και δεν ‘χαιδεύουν αυτιά’. Σέβονται πολύ και εκτιμούν τις οικογενειακές παραδόσεις και την πίστη.

Το Στέλεχος

Οι γονείς που ανήκουν στον τύπο προσωπικότητας ‘Στέλεχος’ θέλουν να είναι οι άνθρωποι που τα παιδιά τους θα αξίζει να θαυμάζουν. Θέλουν τα παιδιά τους να ζήσουν άνετες και αποδοτικές ζωές κι αν μερικές φορές φαίνονται αυστηροί, είναι πολύ αφοσιωμένοι γονείς που πάντα κάνουν το σωστό για τα παιδιά τους.

Ο Υπερασπιστής

Οι γονείς που ανήκουν στον τύπο προσωπικότητας Ύπερασπιστής’ θέλουν να γίνουν οι καλύτεροι γονείς που μπορούν. Τους ενδιαφέρει αρκετά η γνώμη των άλλων και αναρωτιούνται αν τα παιδιά τους με την ξεχωριστή προσωπικότητά τους θα μπορέσουν να προσαρμοστούν στην κοινωνία μας. Αυτό που θέλουν για τα παιδιά τους είναι να γίνουν ευτυχισμένα και επιτυχημένα.

Ο Πρέσβης

Οι γονείς που ανήκουν στον τύπο προσωπικότητας ‘Πρέσβης’ είναι οι γονείς που θα δημιουργήσουν γερές βάσεις μέσα στο σπίτι και την οικογένεια. Είναι πολύ προστετευτικοί με τα παιδιά τους αλλά πολλές φορές δύσκολα αναγνωρίζουν τα δικά τους λάθη. Θέλουν τα παιδιά τους να νιώθουν συνέχεια την αγάπη τους και την τρυφερότητά τους για αυτό το δείχνουν διαρκώς μέσα στη μέρα!

Ο Βιρτουόζος

Οι γονείς που ανήκουν στον τύπο προσωπικότητας ΄Βιρτουόζος’ είναι πολύ χαλαροί γονείς και αφήνουν τα παιδιά τους να είναι πάντα οι εαυτοί τους, όπως άλλωστε κάνουν και οι ίδιοι. Λατρεύουν να περνούν ποιοτικό χρόνο με τα παιδιά τους, να διασκεδάζουν και να χαλαρώνουν. Συνήθως χρειάζονται τον άλλο γονιό για να θέσει τα όρια και τους κανόνες στο σπίτι!

Ο Επιχειρηματίας

Οι γονείς που ανήκουν στον τύπο προσωπικότητας ‘Επιχειρηματίας’ δεν έχουν αυστηρούς κανόνες, δεν ακολουθούν ρουτίνες και κάποιες φορές εκνευρίζονται εύκολα. Δείχνουν συνέχεια στα παιδιά τους ότι είναι στο πλευρό τους και αρπάζουν κάθε ευκαιρία για να διδάξουν στα παιδιά τους όσα ξέρουν!

Ο Περιπετειώδης

Οι γονείς που ανήκουν στον τύπο προσωπικότητας ‘Περιπετειώδης’ είναι πολύ τρυφεροί, αποδέχονται τα παιδιά τους όπως είναι παρά τα λάθη τους και τις αταξίες. Δεν έχουν αισθητά όρια και πειθαρχία και πάντα ενθαρρύνουν τα παιδιά τους να είναι ο εαυτός τους.

Ο Διασκεδαστής

Οι γονείς που ανήκουν στον τύπο προσωπικότητας ‘Διασκεδαστής’ είναι αστείοι, διασκεδαστικοί και τέλειοι στην παρέα. Τους αρέσει να κάνουν πάρτι, να κάνουν δώρα στα παιδιά τους και να τους δείχνουν συνέχεια την αγάπη τους. Δεν μπορούν να θέσουν εύκολα όρια, κάτι που μπερδεύει λίγο τα παιδιά τους!

ΠΗΓΗ:

https://www.themamagers.gr/to-mesa-sou/ti-typos-gonioy-eisai-analoga-me-ton-typo-tis-prosopikotitas-soy/(accessed 27.9.23)

‘What psychological endeavour is greater than a habitable planet?’

Increasing our connection with nature plays a central role in reversing the decline of biodiversity. Professor Miles Richardson highlights the role psychologists can play in bringing us all closer to nature.

20 September 2023


There is global recognition that the relationship between humans and the rest of nature is failing. This fracture is the root cause of our warming climate and the shocking loss of biodiversity. Psychology should be playing a central role in this human-caused crisis, especially as the United Nations recognises the climate emergency as the greatest global challenge of our time, indeed, in the COP15 agreement, a nature connection target was included.

Sadly, people in the UK have one of the lowest levels of nature connection in Europe. We enjoy art and poetry that considersnature, we cherish naturalists and enjoy nature documentaries, and millions of us are members of nature conservation organisations, yet the reality is that we are not a nation of nature lovers. Within a failing global relationship with nature, people in the UK are more distant than most. No surprise, as the UK is one of the most nature depleted countries on the planet.

The psychological construct of ‘Nature connectedness’ examines the relationship between humans and nature. For the last 10 years my research and practice has focused on this and on the decline of biodiversity. My work highlights the role psychologists can play in global issues of huge importance and there is an indication of change.
Connection to nature

Since definitions and scales were developed at the turn of the century, use of the term ‘nature connectedness’ has grown rapidly, mostly in the last ten years. When I founded the Nature Connectedness Research Group in 2013, 77 research papers used the term; by 2022 that 77 had grown to 1410.

As recently as a few decades ago, psychology could be described as mute on the environmental crisis, even normalising damaging behaviours and lifestyles (Kidner, 1994). Things have improved, with, for example, the emergence of conservation psychology (Saunders, 2003), which calls for psychologists to apply their expertise to nature conservation issues. Environmental psychology includes issues at the heart of a sustainable future, and it is now seen as a core area of our discipline.

So how exactly do we fix our broken relationship with nature? When I set-up the Nature Connectedness Research Group ten years ago at the University of Derby, it seemed intuitive to me that the human relationship with nature mattered and was at the heart of environmental crisis. I founded it to ‘understand people’s connection to the natural environment and design and evaluate interventions to improve connectedness, bringing about the associated benefits in well-being and conservation behaviour’.

The design of interventions and focus on solutions, together with increased recognition of the human-nature relationship being a root cause of the environmental crises, has had widespread impact. The group has produced dozens of research papers, applied the results widely and been recognised for its work, winning two Green Gown Research with Impact awards in 2021 and being named by Universities UK as one of the UK’s 100 best breakthroughs. Our work aims to lead efforts to create a new relationship with nature, through research and developing interventions and sharing guidance.

Clearly, a research group starts with research and that includes what’s done on a shoestring budget as well as two large scale £1+ million consortium programmes: Improving Wellbeing through Urban Nature (2016 to 2019) and Connected Treescapes (2021 to present). Human wellbeing is a core topic of psychology, and our research has explored the links between nature connectedness and various aspects of mental well-being. Demonstrating the potential that nature connection approaches can offer our well-being has led to ‘nature prescriptions’ being adopted in NHS pilots and has also helped to inform Mental Health Awareness Week in 2021.

Ultimately, human wellbeing depends on the wellbeing of the natural world, so understanding how to effectively connect people with nature has been a core focus of the group’s research. The simplest interventions to improve nature connectedness focus on bringing people to nature. However, to fix a broken relationship, larger scale approaches are needed.


Our pathways to nature connectedness design framework provides five broad activity types to foster: around Senses, Emotion, Compassion, Meaning, and Beauty. This framework has been widely adopted around the world to help connect people with nature, including the Government’s Green Influencers scheme and the Green Recovery Challenge Fund, who help initiatives such as ‘Generation Green’, where organisations including the YHA, Scouts and National Parks connect young people with nature.

In 2015, The Wildlife Trusts used the pathways to inform the design of their innovative 30 Days Wild national programme, with over one million people taking part in the first five years. In 2018, the National Trust adopted the pathways as a framework for their design of visitor experience activities and programmes. One part of this work was a re-fresh of the national campaign: 50 things to do before you’re 11¾ , launched nationally in 2019. The pathways have also informed physical spaces, for example, the Butterfly House at Durrell Zoo and Silence at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

The transformational change required for a sustainable future has led to a systems perspective to consider how the pathways can be applied at societal scale. The utility of the pathways framework for application across contexts has seen its inclusion in policy briefings and evidence reviews including Stockholm+50; a UN science evidence review. In total, 23 of our research papers have been cited 77 times in 49 reports from 29 policy bodies in 12 countries, including: the IPCC, WHO, EU, OECD, IPBES, IUCN, and Governments of New Zealand, Finland and the UK.
Communicating the loss of biodiversity

The key aspect for a sustainable future is, of course, awareness. People cannot push for a solution to a problem they do not know exists. Climate change has been found to get up to eight times more coverage than biodiversity loss. An amazingly simple yet effective way of communicating global warming is the use of Climate Warming Stripes, created by Professor Ed Hawkins in 2018; a simple series of vertical-coloured bars, showing the heating of the planet over 200 years.

Effective communication of complex geoscience issues presents an enormous challenge and Hawkins’ stripes have had a hugeimpact. In the launch week alone, over a million people downloaded the graphics and they have been shared widely: doing a great job increasing climate change awareness. It therefore seemed a simple idea to create biodiversity stripes as a communication and engagement tool. In the summer of 2022, that’s what I did (see main image, above).

The Living Planet Index provided the data I needed. It includes over 20,000 populations of over 4000 species and tells us that the population of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles has seen an average drop of 69 per cent globally since 1970. It’s worth pausing to reflect on that. Over two-thirds of the animal population has been wiped away in less than a single human lifetime. A catastrophic collapse of the wildlife that makes the earth, and our brief existence on it, so wonderful, so colourful, and so alive. Human actions, our use and control of natural resources, are causing a mass extinction. Yet walk through a city and you will see no memorials to that destruction.

To create the stripes, conditional formatting of the LPI data allows each data point to be assigned a colour. Colours are important variables in perception, impacting cognition, emotions and meaning. The choice of colours is critical to ensure that the graphic is as intuitive as possible just as the cooler blues and warmer reds were in Hawkins’ stripes. Since biodiversity and nature is commonly depicted by the colour green, the 1970 maximum LPI was represented by a vibrant green. Since the decline of wildlife can be seen as a loss of colour, the lowest LPI figure was represented by grey; a colour also associated with the growing urbanisation linked to biodiversity loss. However, the stripes needed to engage people, so the mid-point value in the data was represented by yellow, which research suggests is the most eye-catching colour. Yellow is also harmonious with green, and a combination preferred by users. The declining trend in the LPI was therefore captured by a transition from green to yellow and then from yellow to grey.

I’m pleased to say that the design worked! Within a few weeks the biodiversity stripes were available on a variety of Greenpeace tops and soon adopted by the global Nature Positive campaign: a coalition of 32 leading non-governmental organisations who used the stripes to decorate the Nature Zone at COP15. The Nature Positive campaign offered a vision of optimism, by saying we can reverse the decline in biodiversity. It uses simple but effective messaging by inverting the stripes, so, rather than representing decline they provide a vision that the diverse and sometimes fragmented nature community could collaborate around.

The biodiversity stripes campaign won the Best Environmental Cause Campaign at the Purpose Awards in June 2023. Supported by industry-leading brands such as PRWeek, the awards recognise campaigns that use creative ideas successfully to further positive causes. Multiple media coverage followed from Channel 4 News, The Financial Times, the national French TV weather forecast as well as mentions at the French National Assembly and ClimateNow Conference.

Most recently, a new set of biodiversity stripes decorated the Hintze Hall at the Natural History Museum in London in June. The new stripes provided the theme for the Natural History Museum’s Annual Trustees’ Dinner, attended by 300 guests: from Government ministers to comics that care about our natural world. Using the Museum’s 2000 to 2050 Biodiversity Intactness Index the new stripes show how nature in the UK can recover from previous damage given time, space, and effort. The stripes were featured on screens around the hall as well as on menus, invites, trays and the cocktail and dessert bars. Once again, the message was clear; we can, and must, fix our broken relationship with nature.
What else can we psychologists do?

Although there’s been a distinct rise in nature connectedness research, it still represents a tiny fraction of psychological endeavour. After all, what psychological endeavour is greater than a habitable planet? As a human induced issue, psychology can and should be at the forefront of creating a new relationship between people and the rest of nature, at scale. However, to fully realise this, psychologists need to embrace application of research and recognise the need to unite both human and nature’s wellbeing.




Miles Richardson is Professor of Human Factors and Nature Connectedness at the University of Derby. He is a chartered psychologist and ergonomist who founded and leads the Nature Connectedness Research Group which aims to understand and improve connection with nature to unite both human and nature’s wellbeing.

Further reading

Richardson M. (2023). Reconnection: Fixing our broken relationship with nature. Pelagic Publishing.

Kidner, D. W. (1994). Why psychology is mute about the environmental crisis. Environmental Ethics, 16(4), 359–76.

Saunders, C. D. (2003). The emerging field of conservation psychology. Human Ecology Review, 10(2), 137–49.

SOURCE:

https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/what-psychological-endeavour-greater-habitable-planet(accessed 21.9.23)

“Μαμά έχεις χοντρή κοιλιά”: Η μέρα που “μίλησα” στους γιους μου για τα κιλά και το σώμα μας

14 ΣΕΠΤΕΜΒΡΙΟΥ, 2023



Μετά από δύο γέννες μπορώ με περηφάνια να πω ότι έχω το σώμα… μιας μαμάς μετά από δύο γέννες! Δεν είμαι από τους ανθρώπους που πηγαίνουν γυμναστήριο – δεν προλαβαίνω- ούτε έχω τον χρόνο και τη διάθεση να ακολουθήσω μια ισορροπημένη διατροφή. Περπατάω και τρώω όσο πιο υγιεινά γίνεται. Είμαι παχουλή; Δεν ξέρω. Σίγουρα έχω παραπανίσια κιλά και τα περισσότερα είναι εμφανή στην περιοχή της κοιλιάς.

Μια μέρα ο μικρός μου γιος ήρθε με φόρα πάνω μου ενώ ήμουν ξαπλωμένη. Με αγκάλιασε κι έβαλε το χέρι του στην κοιλιά μου. “Μαμά έχεις χοντρή κοιλιά”, μου είπε. Δεν θα το κρύψω, στην αρχή νευρίασα. Αλλά δεν του το έδειξα. “Σου φαίνεται χοντρούλα;” του είπα; “Ναι μαμά, είναι στρουμπουλή. Από εκεί βγήκα”, μου είπε.

“Είναι φωλίτσα” του απάντησα,”την αγαπώ γιατί εκεί μεγαλώσατε με τον αδελφό σου”, είπα. “Μαμά μου αρέσει η κοιλίτσα σου. Είναι η πιο μαλακιά κοιλιά του κόσμου”, απάντησε. Το παιδί μου δεν με είπε χοντρή, έκανε απλά μια παρατήρηση. Χωρίς να καταλαβαίνει το δικό μου κόμπλεξ, την ιδανική εικόνα που έχουν πλασάρει σε εμάς τις γυναίκες για το πώς πρέπει να είναι το σώμα μας, και την έλλειψη αυτοπεποίθησης που έχω κάποιες μέρες που κοιτάζομαι στον καθρέφτη.

Τότε σκέφτηκα ότι είμαι μαμά δύο αγοριών. Είναι δική μου δουλειά το τι άντρες θα γίνουν. Θα γίνουν άντρες που αποκαλούν μια συνομήλική τους “χοντρή”; Θα είναι άντρες που θα ντρέπονται να βγουν ραντεβού με μια κοπέλα επειδή δεν εγκρίνουν τα κιλά της οι φίλοι τους; Θα νομίζουν ότι οι γυναίκες που βλέπουν στις ταινίες, στα περιοδικά και στο διαδίκτυο είναι “πραγματικές”;


Τους πήρα μαζί μου για ψώνια. Θα πηγαίναμε για μπάνιο, αλλά είχα μαγιό. Αυτό το μαύρο ολόσωμο που καλύπτει όλη την πλάτη κι ένα μπικίνι ψηλόμεσο που κρύβει τη μισή κοιλιά. Μπήκαμε στο κατάστημα. “Θα πάρω καινούριο μαγιό” τους είπα. “Θα με βοηθήσετε να διαλέξω;”. Κοιτάζαμε χρώματα, σχέδια, μοτίβα. “Αυτό μαμά θα σου πηγαίνει πολύ, τέλεια χρώματα”, μου λέει ο γιος μου. Είχε διαλέξει ένα κλασικό μπικίνι τριγωνάκι. Πολύχρωμο. Από αυτά που θα ντρεπόμουν να φορέσω. Αλλά όχι πια. Το διάλεξε ο γιος μου πιστεύει ότι θα είμαι σαν ουράνιο τόξο με αυτό.


Το φόρεσα και πήγαμε στην παραλία. Όλη η κοιλιά έξω. Κι εγώ περήφανη. Μαζί με τους γιους μου. Παίξαμε, κολυμπήσαμε, κάναμε λακκούβες στην άμμο. Για εκείνα ήταν μια μέρα στην παραλία με το μαγιό-ουράνιο τόξο της μαμάς. Για μένα ήταν η μέρα που με τις πράξεις μου τους έδειξα ότι νιώθω άνετα με το σώμα μου. Ότι μπορεί να έχω “παραπανίσια” κιλά, αλλά νιώθω καλά. Είμαι ευτυχισμένη. Με αγαπώ και με αγαπούν. Κι όταν τα παιδιά βλέπουν ότι αγαπάς το σώμα σου, θα αγαπήσουν και το δικό τους. Όταν βλέπουν ότι δεν γκρινιάζεις με τις ατέλειες, δεν παθαίνουν εμμονή με τις δικές τους. Όταν σε βλέπουν να νιώθεις άνετα με το σώμα σου, τότε θα νιώσουν άνετα και με το δικό τους. Κι οι άνθρωποι που νιώθουν άνετα με το σώμα τους, δεν αποκαλούν κανέναν “χοντρό”.

ΠΗΓΗ:

https://www.themamagers.gr/kid-issues/psychologia/mama-echeis-chontri-koilia-i-mera-poy-milisa-stoys-gioys-moy-gia-ta-kila-kai-to-soma-mas/(accessed 15.9.23)

Be warned: The troubling expectation of regret

An exclusive extract from ‘What Makes Us Social?’, by Chris Frith and Uta Frith.

12 September 2023


Many actions are hardly better than leaps in the dark, and we are only too familiar with the experience of regret when we realize that we made the wrong decision (see Frith and Metzinger, 2016). [Regret is not to be confused with disappointment. We feel disappointment when the outcome of a decision is not as good as we expected. We feel regret when we realize that, had we made a different choice, we would have achieved a better outcome.] This experience is explicit, as we are fully aware of it and can talk about it. But what value does it have for us? It always seems to be too late to do anything about it. But is it? Regret might first appear as a shadow in the twilight zone, and you may have to learn to recognize it. It is a shadow that can warn us before we commit to a decision. Once we have learned to heed this signal, we can anticipate the regret that we would feel if it turned out that we made the wrong decision.

Learning about this shadow can be quite rapid, as was demonstrated in an experiment with children aged six to seven years using a variant of the classic marshmallow test (McCormack et al., 2019), in which the children had to decide whether to wait for a short delay to win two sweets, or a longer one to win four. Those who chose the short delay were shown that they would have won more if they had waited longer and then were asked whether they regretted not waiting longer. The next day, the children were presented with the same choice again. Only those children who said they regretted choosing the short delay on day one changed their behavior on day two and tolerated the longer delay. Presumably, this was the effect of the anticipated regret that was invoked by the experimenter’s question.

If you ever put in a bid at an auction, you will know that bidding is a rich source for feelings of anticipated regret. Imagine yourself bidding £100 for a rare book that you would dearly love to add to your collection. Your bid did not succeed, and someone else managed to get the book. You immediately wonder how much it went for. You will groan if you find that it went for £105. Next time, you will likely bid £110, or maybe would otherwise. even £120, for a similar book. In contrast, if the winning bid was £500, you will probably not bid at all for another one like it next time. The coveted book is clearly out of your price range.

There is another type of auction, in which you are not told the value of the winning bid. Here, there is less scope for anticipated regret, and you tend to bid less than you would otherwise. This is not just speculation. Experiments have shown that there is a clear difference: People tend to make higher bids in auctions where they know that they will be told the winning bid. They can factor in the painful regret that they might feel if they lost out by a small margin (Filiz-Ozbay and Ozbay, 2007). No wonder that most auction houses advertise in advance that they will communicate the winning bids as soon as they are known.
A toe in the water: The vexing feeling of uncertainty

We make decisions under uncertainty all the time. Was our last decision a good one? Will anybody tell us? It turns out that we can be guided to make our next decision even without feedback, via signals from the depths (Folke et al., 2016). For example, a feeling of high uncertainty creates low confidence. This feeling makes it very likely that you will change your mind when the same choice is presented again. People who are responsive to these signals are generally more accurate with regard to matching up their subjective uncertainty and their actual behavior. They are also better at knowing which task they should take on when given a choice. They can judge in advance whether they will be able to do the task well (Carlebach and Yeung, 2020).

What is the effect of feeling very uncertain? After making an error, we slow down a little, and are not even aware of it, as in the case of the typists. Slowing down gives us a chance to collect more evidence – that is, alter our speed/accuracy trade-off (van den Berg et al., 2016). In an experiment that involved making a decision between two essentially similar stimuli, the uncertainty was artificially manipulated by presenting variable evidence: that is, the stimuli were of different strengths and reliabilities. In this experiment, the participants tended to seek more information – they asked to see a stimulus again – even when their accuracy was high (Desender, Boldt, and Yeung, 2018).

This finding suggests that it is the subjective feeling of certainty, or confidence, more than the objective level of accuracy, that guides our behavior. Of course, in everyday tasks, the feeling of uncertainty tracks the accuracy of our performance. Hence, it is a good idea to seek more information when we are uncertain. When making difficult decisions, it is a good idea to confer with others when possible. In these cases, we are automatically drawn to taking advice from people who display more confidence. We say more on this topic in chapter 15.

One valuable effect of signals from the deep that feed our feelings of certainty (or rather uncertainty) is that they help us learn a new skill, even when we get no feedback about whether we were correct or not. For this reason, we can learn a difficult perceptual skill (in the lab, this often means detecting the orientation of stripes embedded in noise) through repeated presentations without ever being told whether we are right or wrong (e.g., McKee and Westhe, 1978; see also Zylberberg, Wolpert, and Shadlen, 2018). It is the feeling of certainty that shows us when we are on the right track, even if nobody is there to tell us.

This learning does not happen by magic. In fact, it is the feeling that bolsters our confidence, and that provides the necessary feedback. We note that this feedback is internal and based on translating a valuable message that monitors signals sent up from the depths of the information-processing system. The level of subjective certainty or uncertainty that is associated with each trial provides the signal that indicates whether a response was probably correct. Just as with external feedback, which may be derived from reward, regions deep in the brain (the nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area; see figure 12.2) encode prediction errors that are derived from this feeling of confidence (Guggenmos et al., 2016).

The relationship between the feeling of confidence and actual competence is fragile and can be biased toward either underconfidence or overconfidence. We will revisit this problem in the next chapter. For those who want to know how exactly metacognitive confidence is measured, we say the magic words “signal detection theory (STD)” (Swets, Tanner, and Birdsall, 1961). This method makes a distinction between sensitivity and bias. Bias here refers to being either overconfident or underconfident in our decisions. In contrast, sensitivity refers to how good we are at predicting whether our decisions will be good or bad. Do we know, or are we just guessing? Our sensitivity to the likely outcome of our decisions is an aspect of metacognition and is independent of our general state of confidence (Fleming, 2021). It is also independent of our ability to make decisions. In theory, you could be a good decision-maker but have no idea which decisions are going to be good or bad or why. Such a person would be difficult to work with, despite their ability, because we could not rely on their confidence reports.

SOURCE:

https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/be-warned-troubling-expectation-regret(accessed 13.9.23)

Inflammatory response may influence how we see others

New study finds that inflammation may heighten the impact of emotional cues.

04 September 2023

By Emma Young


People who are sick typically feel fatigued, emotionally low and less inclined to socialise. This suite of “sickness behaviours” has been particularly linked to inflammation — the immune system’s response to a trigger, such as a virus or an injury.

However, recent work has found that higher levels of inflammation don’t always lead to the same feelings and behaviours, and that other factors seem to play a role. Now, in a paper in Brain Behaviour and Immunity, Mallory J Feldman at the University of North Carolina and colleagues report hints that one such factor might be ‘interoceptive ability’, the ability to perceive sensory signals from inside the body.

Interoception refers to the sensing of a wide range of bodily signals, such as signals from the heart each time it beats, bodily temperature, or various signals from the gut. Research shows that people vary in their interoceptive ability, and being good at sensing bodily signals has been linked to better emotional functioning. This led the team to wonder whether variations in interoceptive ability, in the presence of inflammation, may affect the impact of emotional cues on social processing, and so variations in some ‘sickness behaviours’.

To explore this, they studied 30 healthy young adults. These participants completed an interoception questionnaire, which asked about their ability to tune into bodily states. Then they were given a version of an affect misattribution procedure (AMP). This involves viewing a series of emotionally positive, neutral or negative photos, with each one followed by an image of an emotionally neutral face. (The set of positive photos included a cute puppy, for example, while the negative set included a fire.) Each time, they had to rate the trustworthiness of the face. This task measured the extent to which emotional responses to the initial photo influenced their social judgements.

The participants were then given the influenza vaccine, triggering an immune response and an increase in inflammation. Then, they completed a version of the AMP again. As expected, based on earlier research, the researchers found that neutral target faces were perceived as more trustworthy when they were paired with positive, rather than negative, images.

However, their analysis also found that participants with higher levels of inflammation gave even lower trustworthiness ratings after viewing emotionally negative photos than in the initial AMP test.

This represents some of the first evidence that inflammation may heighten the impact of emotional cues during social decision-making, the authors write.

Their analysis also found a similar pattern for interoceptive ability: participants with greater interoceptive difficulty also gave lower trustworthiness ratings when neutral faces followed emotionally negative photos. This fits with the results of other work suggesting that people who are poorer at interoception may find it harder to identify exactly what emotion they are feeling, and what the specific source of that feeling is. As a result, these participants may have been more likely to misattribute negative feelings caused by seeing an unpleasant photo as relating to the paired face.

The team had predicted that interoceptive difficulty would interact with levels of inflammation to influence the impact of emotional cues on trustworthiness judgements. They did not find this.

But, their findings do suggest that increases in inflammation and also difficulties in perceiving bodily signals affect the extent to which emotion cues in the environment influence social perceptions.

These findings may help to explain why inflammation seems to lead people to withdraw from some types of social interactions — with strangers, for example — but not from interactions with people they view positively.

The study does have a number of limitations. The sample size was small, and the team used a self-report survey of interoceptive ability, rather than an objective measure. These alone could limit the validity and generalisability of the results. Participants were all young and mostly female, so not exactly representative of the general population; older individuals, those with chronic health conditions involving inflammation, and other demographics may or may not experience the same changes. This research should be viewed as a preliminary study in a field of research that certainly warrants more investigation.

Read the paper in full: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2023.05.011

SOURCE:

https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/inflammatory-response-may-influence-how-we-see-others(accessed 6.9.23)