Mom, relax please

Is there a relation between stressed moms and bullied kids? Apparently there is according to a study developed by a group of psychologists from Warwick University. Now, there is a long run between a stressed mother and a bullied kid, so we need to take a look to the relation that those scientists are making.

According to the study, mothers who suffer stressful situations such as violence, economic difficulties, alcoholism, drug abuse, etc. produce great amounts of neurohormones that are sent to the woman’s blood stream and consequently affect directly to the development of the fetus’ stress response system. Thus, this future child will be more likely to handle stressful situations in a clumsy way, which will probably assure him/her being bullied by its pairs.

Reactions such as crying, running away or clear manifestations of anxiety are features that are triggered by a poor stress response system: kids who behave this way are almost always bullies favorite’s victims, and in adulthood they are psychologists and psychiatrist’s regular patients. Indeed, many adults who were bullied in their childhood present mental health issues, which make this situation circular because probably those adults are going to model for their children awkward reactions to stressful situations 

Considering this study, we ought to think if there is in any way considered by society a mother’s mental health during pregnancy, and how her circumstances affect the developing child.

Don't yell at me, dad! I may be unhealthy when adult...

Spaking children seems to be a past-century thing ;however, there are parents that still think that the best way to make children behave well and be obedient is through violent punishment – yelling, spaking, slaping,  etc— 

However, the consequences of this sort of violence can be much more serious that thought. A recent study conducted by psychologists from Plymouth University's School of Psychology suggests that the stress caused in childhood by this sort of violence could lead to serious health issues later in life. 

250 healthy adults, 150 adults with asthma, 150 with heart disease, and 150 with cancer,  all of them from Saudi Arabia, were asked questions about their infancy and if they had been victims of physical or verbal abuse.

The results showed that people with heart disease were 20% more likely to have suffered from physical and/or verbal abuse when children, those with asthma were 60% more likely, and the ones with cancer were 70% more likely, compared to the adults who were healthy.

Although the results are quite clear and push us to believe that indeed violence in infancy had a strong influence in these ill people, there are experts such us Dr Andrea Danese, Clinical Lecturer in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, who claim that this study is not 100% trustable since the evidence is based on testimonies of sick grown-ups, who may be more likely to report and unhappy infancy.

Furthermore, Prof David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor Of The Public Understanding Of Risk at the University of Cambridge, said: “I would be very cautious about over-interpreting these results. For example, the healthy group are taken from administrators and nurses at the hospital treating the patients, and so are likely to differ in many ways from the ill people. The controls reported less beating and insulting as children, so maybe not being beaten encourages people to enter a caring profession, rather than protecting them from disease?”

To read The Telegraph's piece of news on this study, click here. 

To read the paper "The Impact of Violence on Children" by Dr Joy D. Osofsky, click here. 

Do you support the thesis that violence in early childhood could lead to the diseases mentioned? Or, do you think that the results of the study are being over-interpreted?

   

Is it possible to smell emotions?

According to a recent study carried out by researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, it is possible for people to smell emotions such as fear or disgust through excreted chemical signals. Smelling those chemosignals (a type of pheromone) provokes the same kind of emotional response: smelling disgust provokes facial expressions indicative of disgust, for example.

The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, consisted of male participants who had to watch movies that either induced feelings of fear or disgust. Two days before watching the movie, the participants were asked to be very careful about smell contamination, which means that they could not eat smelly foods, smoke, drink alcohol, or use detergents.

After the male participants watched the fear-or-disgust-inducing movies, the researchers gathered samples of sweat from them. Then, researches gathered two groups of female participants to do a visual task while being exposed to the men’s sweat samples. As they—the female participants—did the task, their facial expressions and eye movements were monitored.

What were the results? Researchers found that the women’s facial expressions were indicative of the kind of sweat sample they smelled. In other words, when one group smelled the sweat gathered from men watching the fear-inducing movie, they produced facial expressions indicative of fear, and when the other group smelled the sweat from the men who watched the disgust-inducing movie, they produced facial expressions indicative of disgust.

Another recent study had already shown that it is possible to smell the emotions of other people. This study, conducted by researchers at Rice University and presented in The Association for Psychological Science in 2010, found that people in close romantic relationships are able to smell emotions such as fear and happiness in each other.

According to Denise Chen, a psychologist at Rice University, familiarity with a partner enhances detection of emotional cues in that person’s smell.

Many people claim to have a sensitive nose. Are you one of them? Can you “smell” your close ones’ emotions?

Why is he robot-like? Oh, he is a scientist...

Probably the stereotype of bright, genius people,  who are not empathetic at all, such as Sheldon Cooper, could have a scientific explanation.  According to a study conducted by researchers from CWRU and WUSTL, human beings may not be able to be analytic and empathetic at the same time. 

  45 healthy college students were shown randomly several written and video problems requiring them to think about how others may feel, and problems which required physics to resolve, while their brain activity was recorded by a magnetic resonance imager.

The findings revealed that when facing questions related to social issues, the students’ brain areas associated with empathy and social skills were activated, whereas the analytical areas were deactivated. On the other hand, when the students faced physics questions, the brain areas associated with analysis were activated, and the social networks deactivated.

"Empathetic and analytic thinking are, at least to some extent, mutually exclusive in the brain" concluded Anthony Jack, lead author of the study. Disabilities such autism, or mental disorders such as schizophrenia could be better understood. 

However, critics have already arisen. Some people claim that it is not possible to affirm that one network completely suppresses the other just because it appears so in the brain scans; in other words, brain scanning experiments should not be overvalued and seen as the only way of knowing how the brain works. Actually, philosophy could play an important role too.

Furthermore, it is said that this study attempts to solve the “explanatory gap”, which according to Jack, it corresponds to "the disconnect between experiential understanding and scientific understanding.”

 Do you think that this study really solves the concept of "explanatory gap"? Is the physiological evidence enough to explain a phenomenon like this one?

Is Transsexualism a mental disorder?

According to the World Health Organization, it is. People who are not satisfied with the sex they were born and feel they should have the opposite sex are diagnosed  by psychologists with Gender Identity Disorder (GID).

The American Psychiatric Association defines a mental disorder as “...a health condition characterized by significant dysfunction in an individual’s cognitions, emotions, or behaviors that reflects a disturbance in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning.”  Nevertheless, latest medical studies on brain structures of transsexual people could prove that these persons have the brain structures of the opposite sex; in other words, their brain structure corresponds to the sex they feel identified with.

Furthermore, in 2008, a group of Australian researchers found a genetic difference related to the androgen receptor gene in male-to-female transsexuals that could provoke debility in testosterone signals.

These studies indicate that Transsexualism is not actually a mental illness, since there are physical aspects involved.

Actually, a petition made by a female-to-male transsexual called Maxwell Zachs at Change.org asking for declassifying Transsexualism as a mental disorder from the World Health Organization has been signed by more than 42.000 people.  It is part of an International campaign in which Trans people claim that they are not sick, they are just people who were born in a different body, and that the classification of Transsexualism as a mental disorder just contributes to discrimination.

Here's the link to the full petition of Maxwell Zachs: http://www.change.org/petitions/world-health-organisation-who-we-are-trans-not-sick

Do you consider that Transsexualism is a mental disorder? What do you think about Maxwell Zachs's petition?