By Benjamin Cheung
Imagine – you’re walking with a friend on the street when, suddenly, a wild spider appears! Your friend, who has arachnophobia, screams at the spider. It wasn’t very effective. The spider stands its ground, staring back at your friend, whose heart rate increases, palms get sweaty, and pupils dilate.
If you weren’t a psychology student, the story might end with either a callous laugh from you, or some empathetic comforting. Continue reading
By Samantha Yang
On the Friday evening of the last day of classes, many students were out celebrating and toasting the end of the term. But not us diligent Psychology 217 students.
By Ashley Whillans, University of British Columbia
Every day, we are confronted with choices about how to spend our money. Whether it’s thinking about picking up the tab at a group lunch or when a charity calls asking for a donation, we are faced with the decision to behave generously or not.
By Rowena Kong
Research has noted that there are sex differences in illness onset, outcome, and the type of symptoms experienced by schizophrenic males and females. Studies have shown that schizophrenia begins at an earlier age for men Continue reading
By Rowena Kong
In the realm of science, we ask questions to seek answers and in order to obtain answers, we go through the structured, systematic and sometimes considerably lengthy process of research planning, design, experiment implementation, data collection, analysis of results and further thought-generating discussions to arrive at a supported conclusion of our starting hypothesis. Continue reading
By Rowena Kong
Why do people cry? Sadness does not seem to be the only emotion which stimulates a person to shed tears. We cry when we listen to soothing music and loving words spoken to us. We may even cry when we are extremely overjoyed. In Vingerhoets and Bylsma (2015) review of human emotional crying, the authors listed both the negative and positive antecedents of adult crying and they included defeat, powerlessness, failure, justice and altruism. Continue reading
By Rowena Kong
Research has mostly focused on how various socioeconomic problems and health challenges can limit disadvantaged children’s creativity and success. For instance, the effect of socioeconomic status on academic achievement has been extensively examined. Continue reading
By Rowena Kong
The difference in rates of depression between East Asians and North Americans has long attracted research leading to explanations for such findings. According to a summary study by Weissman et al. (1996) which analyzed the rates of major depressive disorder in different countries based on community surveys, depression’s prevalence rate in Taiwan stood low at 1.5% for every 100 people while that of Korea was a close 2.9%. Continue reading
By Rowena Kong
Tylenol and caffeine: they are too common in our everyday life and language to be ignored. When physical symptoms call for our action, we reach for the bottle of Tylenol; to satisfy our cravings, we aim for the kitchen coffee-brewer or the nearest cafe. They are effective and have always been so. But are these remedial actions just about all that acetaminophen (the active ingredient in Tylenol) and caffeine can offer us? Continue reading
By Rowena Kong
Many unfortunate and unresponsive patients might never be able to show a hint of perception of their loved-ones’ faithful support by the bedside or the sight of their tears behind hopeful smiles. As such, the very existence of these patients’ level of consciousness and the accuracy of their clinical behavioural assessments have been debatable. Medical authorities and experts have come up with the category of disorders of consciousness to include conditions that impair one’s state of awareness. “Minimally conscious state” and “persistent vegetative state” are two categorizations that have attracted particular interest due to the difficulty inherent in their identification and diagnosis (Bernat, 2006). In the case of patients in a minimally conscious state, there remains a certainty in their behavioural exhibition of sense of self and of the environment (Giacino et al., 2002). As for the persistent vegetative state, the condition is more severe and impacts one’s full range of behavioural responses to sensory stimuli in terms of their sustainability, reproducibility, purposefulness and voluntary nature (The Multi-Society Task Force on PVS, 1994). Of particular significance is the fact that the vegetative patient exhibits a total loss of awareness of the self and the environment while other autonomic bodily functions are still preserved at variable degree.
By Rowena Kong
It would be difficult to imagine that anyone in this day and age is unfamiliar with Tylenol and its active ingredient, acetaminophen. Tylenol is the most popular over-the-counter pain-reliever drug, and it should undeniably be present at all times in our medicine cabinets. Some are even hesitant to travel without it in their handy luggage. Our lives would be ‘painful’ without its existence, as it is being the most accessible (and relatively affordable) reliever of our common suffering. For some, it can even be a necessity that enables them to lead a less tormented life. We pride ourselves in the fact that we would never be labelled as ‘addicts’ or ‘abusers’ with our frequent consumption of Tylenol. However, that naggy silent voice of conscience and a natural aversion to all things with the word ‘drug’ attached just bugs me each time I see a loved one popping the pills repeatedly, especially when they describe their aches as rather ‘mild’.
By Rowena Kong
“Dear Miss Summer,
I know you must have answered this common question a number of times, but personally I just can’t seem to get rid of this problem no matter how hard I try. I’ve been losing sleep for quite some time now – spending all night mind-wandering and staring at the clock until dawn. Although my work is not so much affected at present, I deeply fear that one day this huge sleep debt might ruin my life and career. Please help!
Sleep-Agonized
Dear Sleep-Agonized,
I can understand your problem. In spite of it being a common and recurrent problem today, insomnia happens to each person for different reasons and to varying degrees. What matters to Tom may not trouble Harry because every person is a unique individual. To address your question, it sounds like the sleeplessness has been going on for quite a while now. Allow me to say that it is usually not an easy task to tackle a problem once it has reached its climax because it takes a longer process of retrospection and analysis of what has occurred. However, I tried to pick up on your hints and perceived that there has been much going on for you in terms of thoughts, fears, and career. A conscientious person who highly values her work accomplishments would definitely feel vulnerable upon realizing that her circadian rhythms are off. Perhaps you should start considering this area to be of relevance to your ongoing struggle. Try not to be too hard on yourself when things fall short of your expectations and standards, when the report you produced does not receive positive feedback from your supervisor, or clients fail to appreciate you going the extra mile for them. One thing you should also think about is the level of guilt you have due to this sleep loss problem. Be aware that it is not your fault that this is happening. Lastly, I would encourage you to take some time off work to enjoy the world outside and the new season, and even to do more mind-wandering in a non-stressful and health-rejuvenating way, because you deserve it. That way, you can loosen the tight bonds of schedule-consciousness, which might have played a role in your insomnia…
All the best and take care,
Miss Summer”
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Alright, I confess – the above introduction is not an excerpt from a magazine advice column but was taken from a piece of fiction written by me and posted elsewhere. Nevertheless, it kindled an interest that caused me to start researching the topic of insomnia. I get the notion that the term, which describes sleep deprivation and its related problems, is so general and overused that its connotation is one of vagueness and ambiguity. When someone close to me recently complained of the problem, questions started popping up in my restless head of its causes and triggers, onset, duration; and, most of all, how the nature of her job might have exacerbated the condition.
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