A Costly Pastime

Today, the average college student spends about $900 on alcohol every single year. NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS! Look around your college campus. You see alcohol all around. It isn’t an uncommon object. Knowing the prevalence of alcohol on college campuses, Abby L. Goldstein and Gordon L. Flett decided to run a study on college aged students, comparing males and females, determining the motives of alcohol consumption and whether or not this motive would connect to future consequences.

Goldstein and Flett began by hypothesizing, “coping motivated drinkers would be more frequent binge drinkers and would have more alco-hol problems than enhancement motivated and noninternally motivated drinkers, but alcohol use (i.e.,quantity) would not differ between those motivated to drink for mood enhancement versus coping reasons.” Basically, they think that people who drink to forget their problems will binge drink (drinking a lot of alcohol in a short amount of time) more often and have alcohol problems (alcoholism) later in life while those who drink for fun or socially will not have these negative consequences. However, they do think that the amount of alcohol consumed will be the same.

To test their hypothesis, they conducted a study on 230 college freshman, who had all drunk in the past year. They recorded gender, the drinking motives of the students, their personality trait, as well as how much they drank. All of these things were measured using two questionnaires, one given within the first 6 weeks of college and the second 3 months later. Each of the surveys recorded different information.

Looking at their results, Goldstein and Flett saw that gender made a difference in the results. Males drank more to cope, also drinking more in general. Males, also binge drinking more than female, saw a larger consequence of alcohol related problems. (Goldstein and Flett found a high correlation between binge drinking and alcohol related problems.) A higher percent of people said that their reasons for drinking were social and influenced by others, which we see on our college campuses.

From this study, Goldstein and Flett merely found correlations between the motivation for drinking and gender with the extent and reasons for alcohol consumption. They also linked alcohol related problems in the future with binge drinking. Through their experiment, they have shown students how alcohol consumption is affected by certain qualities and how it will affect students in the future. Now, if only their results could find a way to save us students the 900 dollars we spend every year.

Don't Get Depressed, Get Sad

When you were 10, your parents divorced. At the end of elementary school, your best friends moved away. Your dog died two summers ago. Now, you have so much work that you hardly get out, and you rarely see your friends. Those are heavy experiences to go through in life, however they did not all happen at once. Going through any of them will make a person sad, but they will get over it with time. Sadness is not the same thing as depression, but according to Allen Leventhal it can become depression. In his 2008 report, Leventhal describes how sadness transforms into depression when people develop avoidance behaviors.

Sadness is a natural emotion that all humans experience upon losing something or someone. The death of a relative or a pet, a move to a new city or state, and the canceling of a favorite TV show can all be classified as loss, whether you have lost a loved one, some close friends, or a source of laughter. Loss connotes sadness wherein a person’s behavior is subject to change. They could have trouble sleeping, become lethargic, lose their appetite, or find it hard to concentrate. People can remain sad for days, weeks, or even months, at which point we say they are in grief. After a point, it becomes necessary to get over sadness though. It is an issue of survival to ameliorate your mind’s negative state and resume your normal behavior. The time limit is what differentiates sadness from depression. Sadness is natural, whereas depression is disruptive, unnatural, and recurring.

Someone who is sad will generally change their behavior to avoid doing things that remind them of what they have lost. If you and your best friend loved playing video games together, and then he moved away, you might stop playing video games because it reminds of you how sad you are that he is gone. This change in behavior is known as avoidance behavior. Sometimes it is a good thing. Earning poor marks on a test because you went out partying instead of studying for a few more hours may prompt you to concentrate harder on your studies and budget your time more wisely. Avoidance behavior can also be a bad thing when it transforms a person’s sadness into depression. The example given by Leventhal is a middle-aged man whose only social contact is his mother. They enjoyed reading and discussing books with each other, but after she died he stopped reading and spent more time working. Soon he was overworked, isolated, and diagnosed with depression. By avoiding reminders of loss, people forget that those things also brought them joy before sadness, and they deny themselves positive reinforcers for their normal behaviors. That is how sadness becomes depression.

Leventhal’s findings have implications for the field of diagnostic psychology. Many psychologists today prescribe anti-depressants to people who are merely sad, not depressed. The DSM-IV, a psychologists handbook, does not differentiate between the two. Sadness and depression have similar symptoms, but without taking into account the time effect for sadness, it can be diagnosed as depression instead. The consequences of these misdiagnoses are that sad people are subjected to the side effects of medication while experiencing no improvement in their condition. Leventhal believes that therapeutic sessions are much more effective in treating depressed, and even sad, patients. By talking regularly with patients, psychologists would be able to pinpoint avoidance behaviors and then correct them, thus providing more effective treatment than a pill ever could. Leventhal was able to help the aforementioned patient start reading books again and even convinced him to join a book club where he met a woman. The power of the pill is mighty in this day and age, but closer examination reveals that people helping people is more effective than popping pills might ever hope to be.

Stress+Exhaustion=Anorexic?

In the United States, 11 million people fight the life and death battle with eating disorders, like anorexia, bulimia, and binge-eating. Generally, society places a huge amount of emphasis on physical appearance. Many people believe that by achieving an ideal weight and shape they will achieve social acceptance. Striving for “attractiveness”, combined with college related stressors, like living away from home and having a mountain of school work, can have devastating effects. A recent study done at the University of Georgia investigated how eating disorders, psychological flexibility, and poor psychological outcomes were related in college students. The study is detailed in the article “Disordered Eating-Related Cognition and Psychological Flexibility as Predictors of Psychological Health Among College Students”.

Eating disorders are linked to distress, functional impairment, and negative psychological outcomes, like depression and anxiety. Even though eating disorders are a significant predictor, they do not necessarily lead to greater psychological distress. Research findings reported in the article suggest that psychological suffering is related to how people deal with dysfunctional private events. Dysfunctional private events are individual, and involve feeling negative emotions, or having self-defeating thoughts. The way a person relates to these events is known as their psychological flexibility. Basically, psychological flexibility is the behavioral pattern of experiencing private events without trying to judge, evaluate, avoid, fix, or change them, while also engaging in other activities. If a person has a high psychological flexibility then they can experience seemingly “negative” thoughts and feelings as mental events, without judgment or avoidance. A person with low psychological flexibility is likely to act along with negative thoughts they experience. An example indicated in the article is that someone who thinks of themselves as ugly or fat may avoid social gatherings to escape the fear of not being accepted. A person with high psychological flexibility is less likely to act along with this thought, because they know it is just a mental thought, not an undeniable truth. If a person has high psychological flexibility, then they are less likely to experience negative psychological problems, like depression, anxiety, self-harm, or substance use.

Thereby the purpose of the study performed at the University of Georgia was to investigate how people respond to private events (their psychological flexibility), and determine how and if psychological flexibility is linked to eating disorders and poor psychological outcomes. Poor psychological outcomes include psychological ill-health and emotional distress. In the study, participants filled out a 24 item self report questionnaire to assess cognitions related to eating disorders. Cognitions associated with eating disorders include the fear of weight gain, the importance of being thin and socially attractive, and low self esteem based on weight gain. The study found that cognitions related to eating disorders were in fact linked to general psychological ill-health and emotional distress. Results revealed that both eating disorder cognitions and psychological flexibility were significant predictors of general psychological ill-health and emotional distress in stressful interpersonal environments, like college.

Ultimately, suffering from a great amount of stress and exhaustion doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to acquire an eating disorder. As found in this study, a crucial factor in developing an eating disorder or another symptom of psychological ill health, is your psychological flexibility. In essence, a person with high psychological flexibility is able to deal with stressful events and thoughts, without acting negatively. A person with low psychological flexibility has a harder time dealing with low self-esteem and stressful events, and is more likely to develop an eating disorder, depression, or anxiety.

“Here Comes the Plane…”

An infant’s mealtime is typically another chore. The pimply big brother whines about his poor grade in Algebra, the mother-in-law who is incapable of living by herself is questioning which pills she’s supposed to take today, and the boss is calling to give you more spreadsheets to fill out before tomorrow. The infant begins to pout. You try to feed him, but he closes his mouth and turns away. “Here comes the plane…” Access denied. You check his diaper; it’s clean. You check under the table to see if the new puppy is snapping at his toes again; nothing. What, then, is the matter? A team of psychologists from the journal Behavior Modification believes they’ve begun to uncover the answer.

The article, entitled “Descriptive Analysis of Pediatric Food Refusal: The Structure of Parental Attention,” argues that the behavior of the parent feeding the infant has a marked effect on the whether or not the infant cooperates. In the daily droning duration of our lives, it is sometimes easy to take a crying, snot-dripping, babbling baby for granted. We, either consciously or unconsciously, conclude that since he doesn’t understand much yet, how we behave around him hardly makes a difference. He can sit on our lap and watch a rated R film and it’ll all go over his head. We can let a cuss word slip and he’ll continue playing with his building blocks. But as it turns out, our behavior, at least when it comes to convincing our young children to open his mouth for a spoon full of green baby food, does matter.

To prove this, the team of psychologist incorporated the good ole fashioned scientific method. They hypothesized that perhaps paying more attention to an infant during mealtime would make for more appropriate feeding behavior. Next, they designed an experiment using twenty-five volunteer mothers and their infants. Mothers displayed various forms of parental attention during mealtime. Some never made eye contact; some smiled and focused their attention completely on feeding. Occurrences of appropriate and inappropriate mealtime behaviors were then recorded in response to these differing maternal feeding behaviors. Once the data was collected, the team was able to cross-examine the observations and attempt to determine any significant increases or decreases in infant cooperativeness resulting from the mothers’ behaviors.

The results showed that increasing maternal attention was frequently followed by temporary decreases in inappropriate mealtime behavior and increases in bite acceptance. Moreover, various forms of maternal attention resulted in statistically significant changes in child behavior, which supported the clinical utility of the data. Of course, follow up experiments will need to be done to ensure that all variables are accounted for, but these results yield remarkably consistent input.

So no, it’s not because the green-pea pudding tastes bad, per say. At least part of the problem, so it appears, is the chore-like mentality with which the infant is being fed. The noise and scatter-brained distractions are too much for him to handle, and maybe a little tender loving care would calm him down.

The Media and Self-Esteem: A Dangerous Combination

Insecure persons beware: media exposure acts as a stimulus in our brain to trigger body-related schemas. Even if you feel completely comfortable with your appearance and don’t have an eating disorder, this article proves that there is some effect on your mood and personal satisfaction. Essentially, as would be expected, when someone sees a beautiful fit babe on the cover of a magazine, they don’t necessarily feel grand about themselves. This is the idea that the article from the Behavior Modification Journal jumped off of when they came up with their experiment to test how the media influences a person’s body image.

As proven at the end of this experiment, like it or not, the media influences the feelings you have toward your own appearance. Look around you and the American beauty ideals are plastered all over billboards, magazines, and tv. Personal body image comes from the combination of a variety of sources though. This article notes how perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral feelings all interact together and influence your personal body image. All in all, social comparison tends to result in body dissatisfaction, leading to things like eating disorders.

For this experiment, researchers decided to test the influence that appearance-related tv commercials have on 50 subjects: 25 with eating disorders and 25 without. After watching both commercials that emphasized attractiveness such as for swimsuits or cosmetics as well as neutral commercials such as for toilet paper, there was a significant change in the feelings of the patients with eating disorders. After watching the appearance-emphasizing commercials, they rated themselves as being heavier, having a more negative mood, and also reported a heightened desire to go on a diet. The patients without eating disorders didn’t express as strong of symptoms by any means, but they were still affected. This proves the researcher’s hypothesis that exposure to beauty-related items would increase thoughts of one’s own shape, weight, and eating behavior.

According to this website, we are assailed with 400-600 advertisements per day, one in eleven with a direct message about beauty. Now that just can’t be healthy for our little psyches. But if you think about it, these advertisements aren’t necessarily negative or mean. I have yet to see a commercial that says “you are fat and ugly, buy our product and your life will be happier!” The key to our lowered self esteem post-viewing has to do with one’s already present “low self-esteem, an inability to cope with their own emotions and stress, and many underlying issues.” This explains why in the experiment people with eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, and compulsive overeating were more severely affected by the advertisements. This is due to the fact that generally eating disorders come in conjunction with the low self-esteem and other underlying issues mentioned before that react with the positive beauty image to trigger a self-esteem lowering reaction.

So while some of us (such as myself) may be looking at those models thinking, “hand that girl a cheeseburger!” almost all are affected by this social ideal. It somehow creeps back into our subconscious and ties many thoughts back into our dissatisfaction with our own appearance. Those with eating disorders tend to take it a little harder, but it seems this experiment proves that none of us can escape the wrath of the media.

Priorities: Carbon Emissions vs. Developing Technologies

According to this article by the Telegraph, every time a cow farts, it contributes negatively to climate change. Flatulence produced by livestock account for at least half of all animal-produced greenhouse gases. Although this example concerns methane, carbon dioxide ranks as the most commonly discussed greenhouse gas. Carbon dioxide emissions come from all sorts of sources, not just cars and factories. Needless to say, the fact that carbon dioxide causes climate change (and we produce this CO2 in almost everything we do) creates a problem. This Nature article argues that in order to reverse climate change, we shouldn't worry so much about current carbon emissions as we should about producing new, carbon-reducing technologies. On the other hand, I feel that it is necessary to produce new technologies in conjunction with reducing our current carbon emissions at the same time in order to truly reverse climate change.

The author argues that in order to reduce climate change, developmental technologies need to take priority over setting carbon-emission-reducing goals. Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t carbon emissions what are causing all of this madness in the first place? I thought it seemed a little odd that they had this idea that we could go on continuing to pollute the atmosphere and emit billions of tons of carbon into it. No biggie, whatevs. I’m not saying I don’t understand the importance of inventing new, greener technologies, because I definitely do. What I am saying is that while we are off in the science labs developing these miracle workers, we can’t just completely disregard the fact that we are emitting more carbon every minute.

This article actually even discourages reducing CO2 emissions or implementing a carbon tax because it could stifle economic growth. Okay, that’s a relief. So while the sea levels are rising, the food chain falling apart, and pollution inhibits us from breathing it will be okay because we are economically prosperous! Money has zero influence if you don’t even have an earth to spend it in.

The Nature article actually does admit that “stabilizing the climate is a huge technological challenge and the solutions of ready-to-deploy, scalable low-carbon technologies is far from being a reality.” Ah, there’s the rub. That‘s the first thing that came to my mind. It took, what, one hundred years to perfect the hybrid? Yep, the first electric car was invented in 1898. And look how many people are driving hybrid 112 years later. A very, very small percentage. What I think this Nature article lacked was the realization that although we might invent amazing, climate-change-reversing technologies, you still have to factor in the number of years it would take to invent, produce, and FULLY implement this revolutionary technology. People don’t like change, and they aren’t going to budge so easily. So when the article recommended that we just continue emitting CO2 until 2050 and THEN start decreasing output, I knew that was not such a hot plan.

It occurred to me that although we may produce technologies to decrease our current output of carbon, we might not be able to invent anything that reduces the carbon levels already put into the atmosphere by yours truly. Those kajillions of tons dumped there between now and 2050 could possibly remain right where they are. According to this article, if we adopt a “business as usual” approach to carbon emissions, they could double by 2050. In the 90’s we were emitting over 30 billion tons, imagine how much we are now. And now imagine that number doubled. Woah dang. But, on the other hand, according to this article, if we halve our carbon emissions by 2050 global warming could possibly be stabilized. Isn't that the goal here?

We all understand that technological change is vital, but it is important to make an effort now as well instead of continuing on this carbon-producing spree. We are doing irreparable damage already. It could be too late by the time our revolutionary technology rolls around.

Teetering On Edge

Around 8 years ago, an unprecedented occurrence took place; the sea engulfed an island - the island of Lohachara. The rising water levels, due to global warming, interrupted the life of many, leaving them homeless with no possessions. Also in dealing with global warming, the average concentration of CO2 in the air in 2008 was approximately 388.57 ppm, and scientists predict an increase to 970ppm by 2100. Looking at both situations, which one makes you want to do something about global warming? Personally, islands disappearing sounds like a big problem. Not knowing what ppms are, the rise in their number says nothing to a non-science person like myself. This disappearance of Lohachara demonstrates a tipping point, a large, devastating occurrence. Indeed tipping point play a vital role in drawing attention to and eliciting a response from the general public concerning global warming.

A tipping point is the big, drastic change caused by small, gradual changes. So, let's apply the tipping point concept to global warming. Atmospheric changes, the earth's heat, and weather patterns cause massive changes to our planet. Several prevalent tipping points concerning global warming exist, including the shrinking rainforest. By 2200 the lush rainforest climate will disappear from half the biome if global warming continues at the present rate. Also, melting ice caps have dumped fresh water into the ocean, disrupting ocean water circulation and causing more severe hurricanes. Finally, the melting Greenland ice sheet will eventually cause sea level to rise around twenty feet, emerging coastal cities with water.

As you see, tipping points draw attention. Who can ignore a half missing rainforest, intense hurricanes, or cities covered with water? Tipping points are vital to drawing awareness to global warming and encouraging the public to do something about it. A recent survey reported the concern for global warming at an all time low with about only 50% of Americans worried about it. Also reported: 57% of people even believe global warming is occurring and only 47% believe that humans are a cause.

Some people say reliance on tipping points is bad; however, these tipping points elicit a response. The consequences of global warming demonstrated by tipping points could change public opinion concerning global warming. If it weren’t for tangible, severe effects, the common public would not know about global warming. Sure, scientists would have the knowledge; they monitor the numbers. However, these numbers mean nothing to your “Average Joe.” These tipping points, effects of global warming, act as physical proof of global warming’s existence. These tipping points call for something to be done – for a change.

We can all be in agreement that global warming hurts our planet. We’ve seen the brutal consequences of burning too many fossil fuels and sending pollutants into our atmosphere. Tipping points have “pointed” the way for us to see the harmful results of global warming. Now, the question beckons us– what will we do about it? Will we watch as the rainforest diminishes? Or, will we look for solutions to the problem and halt global warming in its steps?