The Psychology of...

What's in a name? Well, some researchers, principally Dr. John Gray, believe that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is some what of a misleading title for this ever increasing phenomenon. It's not that people with ADHD have an actual deficit in attention, like they have less of it than the average person, rather it's an issue with how that attention is allocated and Dr. Gray prefers to use a term that gets at the neurological underpinnings of ADHD which is low or inhibited dopamine functioning. image from www.bbrfoundation.org Dopamine is the main neurotransmitter for our brain's reward system which in turn dictates functions such as memory, motivation, focus, and interest. Simplified, whenever we feel pleasure it is because of dopamine. If our dopamine functioning is diminished (through causes I will mention later) then we begin to rely on more intense experiences to stimulate higher levels of dopamine production. Without those intense experiences (think ...

I'm finishing up Enlightenment Now by Canadian, Harvard Psychology Professor Steven Pinker and I came across a term with which I was unfamiliar. Here is my attempt to understand it by explaining it. If anyone out there who knows this idea better than I do, please add/revise my explanation. The benefits of simplicity are overlooked because of a bias bias . ie. Preference for more sophisticated models designed to avoid bias but may not lead to the most accurate prediction. When dealing with predictions, error occurs for two reasons, the first is due to bias , the inability of the model to represent certain patterns that are being observed. So if we're trying to predict how many men vs. women were going to apply for a job in engineering, our prediction model might be biased if we are only basing our prediction on past data, since today's women might be more likely to apply for engineering jobs than those of the past. The other type of error comes from variance, which is the ...

The stage has been set for years... Ideologically polarized media outlets editing interviews into patronizing and reductive sound bytes in order to appease the very advertisers who restrict their journalistic integrity... A post-tribal world whose borders have been redrawn across political and ideological orthodoxies. Echo chambers creating positive feedback loops that render good ideas fanatic and bad ideas unchecked. Healthy debate handicapped by motivated reasoning and inter-group loyalty signalling. A time when information, knowledge, and progress is more readily available and attainable than ever, yet we find ourselves buried deeper into our perspective teams living in parallel alternative universes. And out of this chaotic shouting match has arisen a set of new players, who challenge the existing machine, who are willing to enter the arena of debate and discuss difficult topics that strike fear into the hearts of mainstream advertisers. While they are ideologically di...

The feminist movement illustrated to me how men hurt society. - Men are almost entirely the perpetrators of sexual violence against women, girls, and boys. - Men commit violent crimes at much higher rates - Men are more likely to engage in riskier, dangerous behaviours at a high cost to society - Men and boys do worse in school and are not improving Mass shootings, sexual assault, and gang violence. Almost entirely male phenomena. I was drawn to the work of a guy named Jackson Katz. He gave a Ted Talk 5 or 6 years ago that highlighted the need for men to call out other men for the objectification of women. It was meant to empower men, to not be bystanders, to challenge the culture of "toxic masculinity". I started using his material in my work with men with some mixed success. Men in large part can admit these social problems are largely perpetrated by men and that men can and usually should be the ones to fight these issues. It was time for good men to stand up aga...

For today's episode found right here I got to sit down my cousin Braeden Crouse who played "Lonnie" in the ground breaking film "Indian Horse" based on the book by Richard Wagamese about the horrors of Canadian residential schools. Braeden talks about how he got the role as well as the various reactions to the film after his high school peers in Burns Lake, B.C. saw it. We then switch gears and talk Mixed Martial Arts. In particular we discuss UFC lightweight, Kajan Johnson who also hails from Burns Lake, and who also has a podcast called the Ragin' MMA Podcast http://raginmmapodcast.libsyn.com / and who went to high school in Prince George, as did I. We specifically touch on Kajan's episode in which he describes his upbringing and how at times he was not on the right side of the tracks so to speak. I share an altercation that I had with Kajan back in 2003 that was a near disaster. Thanks again to Braeden Crouse for joining me on the show and ge...

Episode three of my amateur podcast features Grade One teacher Erin Beekman who recommended to me the "Kwik Brain" podcast. We discuss speed reading and memory expert Jim Kwick's morning routine. You can find his podcast at the link here https://kwikbrain.com/podcast To listen to our podcast go to the google drive link here  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i1LEVIXqdLy6Qkgv9ozD0k5gs-vnTHQR/view?usp=sharing We discuss the suggestions that we have adopted and some that just seem like a gimmick. We touch on literacy and learning and how Kwik's suggestions could help anyone learn more efficiently. Please share, comment, and subscribe to this blog so you can be up to speed on every new podcast episode and blog post. Thanks for listening.

I have a bias. Well, I have many but I have one that may not be very popular. As a worldview I am skeptical and wary of Islam. I see a correlation between that ideology and heinous violence. This concerns me but there's something that keeps me from holding strongly to this belief and from converting this bias into adversarial action against Islam... and that is my personal interaction with Muslim people. Every single Muslim person I have ever met has been kind and humble. The Muslim students at my schools are bright and considerate and well, average. Sure they have problems, but they have them at the same rates as any other racial or religious demographic. My connections, albeit minimal, to the Islamic faith keep me from having a deep, unhealthy and unproductive bias, or at least it keeps that bias in check. It makes it difficult to paint the near 2 billion Muslims in the world with the stroke of "terrorist" or "misogynist" when virtually every real world ex...