The Psych Student

The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer’s is online in pdf format. It combines more than 30 years of research into authoritarianist regimes, doctrines and thier fans. I’m bookmarking it here because I’m both a fan of online publishing and interested in the topic, so am hoping to give it a look-see soon.

Boingboing says “It’s a fascinating explanation of how the minds of this subset of the population works- or in some cases, fails to: how they are able to assiduously apply double standards, fail to notice inconsistencies in their beliefs, justify abominable behavior, etc. Somehow, knowing that these people really, truly, can’t reason in the same way the majority of us can makes them a little less irksome, if not less frightening.”

I don’t know if I’d go that far, but some of Altemeyer’s research beckens a deeper look.

“The studies explain so much about these people. Yes, the research shows they are very aggressive, but why are they so hostile? Yes, experiments show they are almost totally uninfluenced by reasoning and evidence, but why are they so dogmatic? Yes, studies show the Religious Right has more than its fair share of hypocrites, from top to bottom; but why are they two-faced, and how come one face never notices the other? Yes, their leaders can give the flimsiest of excuses and even outright lies about things they’ve done wrong, but why do the rank-and-file believe them? What happens when authoritarian followers find the authoritarian leaders they crave and start marching together?” – Bob Altemeyer

Possibly somewhat off topic here, but this short animation which summarizes chapter one of the book Imagining the Tenth Dimension by Rob Bryanton is a great exercise in perception. Bryanton narrates your journey from a single point in the first dimension up through all possible infinities and beyond and ends up giving you a brief moment of zen as you actually think you might get what string theory is all about. A great ride through a roller coaster of a thought experiment.

If all celebrities are really just narcassists what does that say about the rest of us who pore over the tabloid stories about them?

Back in days of old I remember watching Love Lines on MTV with Dr. Drew and Adam Carolla. Teens used to call in with sex and/or drug questions, Adam would use them as comic fodder for ridicule and then Dr. Drew would kick in with some sage pop-psych advice in the course of a few minutes. Did it help these kids? Who the heck knows. But it was good watching to keep up with the the state of teen angst. That was a long time ago. I sort of thought Dr. Drew’s 15 minutes were up.

Not so, as it turns out. According to this story at Wired, Pinsky is back with a new book which asserts that:

1) Most all celebrities are suffer from narcissistic personality disorders even before they becomefamous;
2) Hollywood, the press and basically you and I encourage them to become even more mentally unbalanced by the attention we collectively heap on them;
3) All this irresponsible behavior becomes normalized in society and replicated by other budding narcissists who post similar drunken, drugged or sexed-up antics on their Youtube videos and Bebo profiles. Read the rest of this entry »