Tag Archives: adult relationships

Adversity’s Silver Lining

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A little trauma actually strengthens your resilience.

A little trauma actually strengthens your resilience.

Mark D. Seery of the University at Buffalo published a paper on the psychological effects of adversity vs resilience. He concludes that a little adversity is actually good for you. But, how much is “too much” adversity depends on each person’s resilience. Many studies have shown that traumatic events can cause long-lasting psychological damage.

The common wisdom is “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” – which is not supported by scientific evidence. Quite the contrary, most evidence points to the opposite – that which doesn’t kill you makes you weaker, at least psychologically.

However, Seery contends that a little trauma actually strengthens your resilience – a bit like exercise traumatizes yet strengthens muscles. Just like in the case of strengthening muscles by traumatizing them (to build muscle, one must damage muscle cells a little), a few traumatizing events in one’s lifetime can strengthen their resilience after future traumas.

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Pattern Problems

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How quickly and accurately we recognize a pattern could mean the difference between death and survival 20,000 years ago.

How quickly and accurately we recognize a pattern could mean the difference between death and survival 20,000 years ago.

Patterns – it’s the stuff of life. We don’t perceive reality – we literally create it with our assumptions – based on our perception of patterns. We assume a pattern as soon as we “guess” that one exists. After that, we tend to “fill in the blanks” rather than test our hypothesis (our “guess”).

To illustrate my point, consider the following pattern:

1, 2, 3…

Can you predict the next number? Of course you can. You assume it is 4. That’s because you perceive a familiar pattern. But, what if it is not 4. What if it is 5 instead? Is the pattern broken? Maybe – unless you can perceive a new pattern, you will not be able to predict the next or the next number.

Prediction is how we survived on the plains 200,000 years ago when we were considered food by many of the then existing fauna. Correct predictions brought about survival. Incorrect predictions often brought about death. Over the course of millions of years of evolution, prediction has become so ingrained in humans as to make it invisible to us.

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A Worthwhile Conversation

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I'll be nice when it's fair!

I'll be nice when it's fair!

“If you act nice to them, people won’t take you seriously.”

“What the hell do I care?”

“But if it doesn’t help you, why do it?”

“Sometimes it helps me. But don’t you just like being nice to people?”

“Sometimes. But then if they’re not nice back I get mad.”

“Yeah; just skip that part. How often are you nice to people?”

“Not too often. I’m usually waiting for them to do something where they deserve me being nice.”

“Then that’s not being nice. That’s being fair.”

Conrad Cook, Mindlist
onewetsneaker.wordpress.com

The problem with “fairness” is that it’s always lopsided: “balanced” more toward the person doing the judging of such “fairness” – my grandchildren always judge something as fair if they get what they want – and not fair if they don’t get what they want. Being nice, on the other hand is just a simple frame of mind that says, in effect, “I’m a person I respect who does nice things for others just because I can.”

Happiness in Conversations

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My mother and I often engage in small talk - but it's code for "I love you."

My mother and I often engage in small talk – but it’s code for “I love you.”

Researchers investigated the difference between happy and unhappy people in the types of conversations they tend to have. Their conclusion – happy people tend to have more substantive conversations and less small talk than do unhappy people. In fact, the study showed the happiest participants had twice as many substantive conversations and one third as much small talk as the unhappiest participants.

“Just as self-disclosure can instill a sense of intimacy in a relationship, deep conversations may instill a sense of meaning in the interaction between partners,” say the researchers.

It’s okay to talk about the weather or basketball scores, but why do you talk about such things? Are you nervous or anxious or concerned about the person with whom you’re having a conversation? Then why not just come out with it instead? Well, for many of us, just “coming out with it” is uncomfortable and sometimes opens windows or doors into worlds of hurt and shame. So we “code” our conversations so as not to directly shake the tree, so to speak.

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Cooperation vs Competition

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Individuals preferred choosing cooperation over competition when given the optionPsychologists Nir Halevy, Gary Bornstein and Lilach Sagiv from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem have taken a step closer to our understanding of cooperation versus competition with a recent study exploring individual preferences for inter-group conflict or intra-group cohesiveness in humans.

They set up an experiment in which the participants had a clear choice to either contribute to the in-group without harming anyone, or actively choosing to damage the out-group.

Previous studies on the topic indicated that individuals would often choose to compete with any opposing group; however, the game used to measure those studies failed to give participants the option of leaving the other group alone. The only choices given participants in the previous studies were to keep all of the tokens or to give tokens to the in-group while subtracting tokens from the out-group. By adding the new option of keeping all money within the in-group, the psychologists allowed participants to strengthen their own group without damaging the other.

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Gay And Heterosexual Couples Enjoy Equal Levels Of Commitment And Relationship Satisfaction

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Two studies on the quality of adult relationships and healthy developments featured in the January issue of Developmental Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association show that same-sex couples are just as committed in their romantic relationships as heterosexual couples. The findings dispute the stereotype that couples in same-sex relationships are not as committed as their heterosexual counterparts and are therefore not as psychologically healthy.

The first study examined whether committed same-sex couples differ from engaged and married opposite-sex couples in how well they interacted and how satisfied they were with their partners. Evidence has shown that positive interactions improve the quality of relationships in ways that foster healthy adult development.

Results showed that same-sex relationships were similar to those of opposite-sex couples in many ways. All had positive views of their relationships but those in the more committed relationships (gay and straight) resolved conflict better than the heterosexual dating couples. And lesbian couples worked together especially harmoniously during the laboratory tasks.

The notion that committed same-sex relationships are “atypical, psychologically immature, or malevolent contexts of development was not supported by our findings,” said lead author Glenn I. Roisman, PhD. “Compared with married individuals, committed gay males and lesbians were not less satisfied with their relationships.” Continue reading →

Step One to Reestablishing Trust

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What can you do once you've broken trust with another?

What can you do once you've broken trust with another?

Okay, you’ve done something that has broken trust with another. It happens often in human societies. Nobody is immune to beaches of trust. If you are the offender, and it matters to you that you regain trust, you may as well get to it right away – no need to waste time waiting for the other person to just trust you again as if time will heal it over – although sometimes that works, too, but only if you do enough trustworthy things (and even then, the other person may be viewing your trustworthiness through a broken trust filter, so your actions may all go for naught anyway).

A paper out of USC describes several studies in which researchers investigated loss and regain of trust. Specifically, they wanted to discover what if anything might speed up the process of trust rebuilding. Their “discovery” is illuminating and presents some useful ideas for reestablishing trust after it has been broken.

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Parallel Trauma

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Teenagers tend to pick up the "vibes" of their friends more strongly than do younger children or adults.

Teenagers tend to pick up the “vibes” of their friends more strongly than do younger children or adults.

It is a well-studied and known phenomenon – teenagers pick up the “vibes” of their friends more strongly than do younger children or adults. During adolescence, we bond very closely to friends. We pick up on their hurts and joys, sharing them in a much more psychologically intimate way than at other times in our lives.

I believe we may also pick up our friends’ traumas and make them our own. More than once have I worked with a client reporting childhood, teen, or young adult trauma that later turned out to be “ghosts” – imaginings based on a friend’s childhood trauma introduced to the shared sensitivities of an intimate group of young friends.

In other words – a false memory. Still, a memory with all the power and influence of a real trauma. And I, as the clinician, treated the symptoms of that trauma as though the original trauma belonged to my client. My client “owned” it, so why not treat it as thought it belonged to my client? Made sense to me. The mind is unable to differentiate between real and imagined when it comes to trauma.

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Nadine’s Regrets

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nadine_stair.jpgMy thanks to John Phillips for this little jewel.

“If I had my life to live over again, I’d dare to make more mistakes next time. I’d relax. I’d limber up. I’d be sillier than I’ve been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances, I would take more trips, I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would, perhaps, have more actual troubles but fewer imaginary ones. You see, I’m one of those people who was sensible and sane, hour after hour, day after day.

Oh, I’ve had my moments. If I had it to do over again, I’d have more of them. In fact, I’d try to have nothing else- just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I’ve been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot-water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute. If I could do it again, I would travel lighter than I have.

If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances, I would ride more merry-go-rounds, I would pick daisies.” –Nadine Stair at age 89

Personal Power

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How the actor behaved influenced the behavior of the other participants in the game.

How the actor behaved influenced the behavior of the other participants in the game.

A rather interesting experiment was conducted some years ago in which an actor played the part of a contestant in a betting game with unwitting participants. Participants knew they were involved with an experiment but had no idea what the experiment was.

Each participant was introduced to the actor as though the actor was another participant. The participant and actor were to compete in a betting card game in which all winnings would be given to the winner.

Bets would be placed up to a maximum level for each “hand” played – the game was played one card at a time – face down – the larger card wins each hand. Neither participant could see the other’s card until after all bets were made.

The interesting part was in how each participant reacted to the actor.

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