Tag: psychology

Intelligent men exhibit stronger commitment and lower hostility in romantic relationships

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Men’s general intelligence is associated with better relationship investment and lower aversive behaviors, according to a study published in Personality and Individual Differences.

Past research shows that higher general intelligence (g) is associated with numerous positive life outcomes, such as academic success, better socioeconomic status, and lower likelihood of criminality. These studies also suggest that intelligence may play a role in romantic relationships. General intelligence has been linked to lower rates of divorce and higher chances of being married in mid-life, but the effects of intelligence on more nuanced relationship behaviors have not been as widely explored.

In their new study, Gavin S. Vance and colleagues examined how men’s intelligence related to behaviors such as partner-directed insults, sexual coercion, and relationship investment.

Their research builds on existing theories that intelligence could influence romantic relationship behaviors. Some past studies suggested that specific cognitive abilities, such as problem-solving and memory, can contribute to better conflict resolution between partners. For instance, people with strong working memory skills tend to recall their partner’s perspective during conflicts, helping to reduce the severity of relationship issues.

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Working memory can be cultivated and improved. Memory is important in Buddhist mindfulness practice as well as in Buddhist ethical practices. Memory skills greatly enhance FIML practice. Some people are fundamentally more talented mnemonically, but most people can very effectively improve interpersonal skills when working with a compatible partner. Mindfulness when applied to interpersonal communication improves not only memory and communication skills, but also our understanding of how we actually are operating in the world. In a nutshell, morality boils down to internal subjective integrity — active use of our working memories, Buddhist mindfulness, and FIML all contribute to a wise understanding of what we are and why good ethics are of fundamental importance to that. ABN

Depressed individuals mind-wander over twice as often, study finds

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A new study has found that individuals with major depressive disorder report mind wandering over twice as often as healthy adults. These individuals saw their mind wandering as more negative. Mind wandering was more frequent in depressed individuals who reported experiencing more negative and less positive moods. The research was published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Mind wandering is the spontaneous shift of attention away from a current task or external environment to internal thoughts or daydreams. It typically occurs when people are engaged in routine or low-demand activities. During mind wandering, people think about their past, future, or unrelated topics. Mind wandering can foster creativity and problem-solving, but frequent or excessive mind wandering has been linked to negative outcomes, including rumination and poor emotional regulation.

In individuals with depression, mind wandering tends to focus on negative thoughts, regrets, or worries, contributing to a persistently low mood and feelings of hopelessness. Studies suggest that people with depression experience more frequent and uncontrollable mind wandering, which can exacerbate symptoms. This tendency to ruminate increases cognitive load and interferes with concentration and productivity.

Study author Matthew S. Welhaf and his colleagues aimed to better understand the frequency of mind wandering in individuals with major depressive disorder in everyday life compared to healthy individuals. They also aimed to explore the content of mind wandering. Unlike most previous studies that relied on formal scales and assessments, this study applied an experience sampling design, having participants report their experiences several times per day.

The authors hypothesized that individuals with major depressive disorder would mind-wander more frequently, focusing more on the past. Additionally, they expected the frequency of mind wandering to be associated with negative moods.

Study participants included 106 adults, all native English speakers and up to 40 years old. Fifty-three were healthy controls with no history of mental health disorders, and the other 53 had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Participants with major depressive disorder were slightly older, with an average age of 28, compared to 25 years among the healthy participants. Approximately 70% of participants in both groups were women.

The study authors provided participants with a handheld electronic device with the Experience Sampling Program 4.0 installed. Over 7–8 days, participants were randomly prompted eight times a day (between 10:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m.) to report on their current experiences, amounting to a maximum of 56 prompts throughout the period. On average, participants completed around 43–44 prompts, with similar numbers in both groups.

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Megyn Kelly telling the truth about transgender madness

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Much like covid, this issue is top-down, coming from professional organizations and government. It is not only madness on the ground, it also has the very strong appearance of being an act of asymmetric warfare against the American people. Mass immigration also has this appearance, as do many other US policies or allowances like the opium massacre which has transmogrified into the Fentanyl massacre. I am resigned to us having an elite but not a dirty, smelly, vicious and nasty elite full of cabalistic shitheads and perverts. ABN

Identity as a vortex or tautology

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Our identities are fundamentally made up of semiotic matrices. That is to say, in part, that our identities have meaning; they mean something to us.

Often they mean a great deal to us and from them we derive the semiotics of motivation, intention, life-plans, many of our central interests, and so on.

Identities have strong emotional components, to be sure, but our emotions are ambiguous or diffuse if they are not positioned on a semiotic matrix and focused or defined by that matrix.

Identity is usually tautological in that its components, interests, and associations tend always to lead back to a few central elements. Often these elements have been inculcated in us by training. Some, we learn on our own. These elements are our values and beliefs, and also how these values and beliefs are understood and pursued.

The semiotics of identity must mean something to the person identifying with them. In this sense, they are almost always tautological. I do what I do because that is how I learned how to do it, think it, feel it, perceive it.

Most people are more adept at moving the parts of language around than they are at moving semiotic elements around. When semiotics are unconscious, they act like a vortex pulling perception, emotion, and understanding always toward the center of the identity. I think this is another way to say, in the Buddhist sense, that the self is empty; that it has no “own being.”

We can pursue an understanding of an empty self through Buddhist thought and practice, but we will get better results more quickly if we add a practice that deals directly with the semiotics of our identities.

Since there is no book you can go to to look up how your unique semiotics of identity works, you have to see for yourself how it works. You can do much of this on your own, but eventually you will need a partner because there is no way you will be able to get an objective perspective on yourself acting alone.

FIML practice is the only way I know of to fully see into and through the semiotics of your “identity.” Beneath identity there is a sort of artesian well of pure, undefined consciousness. FIML helps us experience that well while keeping us from rushing back into the tautological matrix of identity or static self-definition and clinging to it.

FIML is able to do this because FIML is process. FIML itself has no definition, only a procedure. It is not a tautology because it has no semiotic boundaries.

first posted JULY 30, 2013

I wrote this ten years ago, before the rage of new identities was as hot as it is today. It provides a solid Buddhist view in modern terms of what an identity is and what its pitfalls can be, why all identities are fundamentally delusional. A point worth adding is you really do not need an identity. You can walk around all day long without ever thinking of your identity and you will be better for it. A persona or social thing we show others has some value when dealing with others but it is not an identity as described above or what you are in a deep sense. It is definitely not something to cling to. And it is not something to carve yourself up over. And it is absolutely not something to carve children up over. Clinging to a false self or tautological identity causes suffering; in fact, that is the cause of suffering as explained by the Buddha. Buddhist practice is all about not doing that, not clinging to a false self, a tautological identity, a delusion.

A word on what a persona or social thing is. It is a convenience in language and semiotics, a way of organizing speech and thought when dealing with others. That’s all it is. When we reify our personas or take them too seriously, we begin to delude ourselves and cause suffering through clinging and making bad decisions. ABN

Kill-Or-Be-Killed (KOBK) Game Theory explained

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KOBK game theory is primarily a military game theory. It covers the psychology, morality, aims, and methods of players who are involved in any sort of power struggle. Its main premise is that players in KOBK conflicts, by definition, do not know for certain how powerful they are vis-a-vis their adversaries or how powerful their adversaries are. Moreover they do not know for certain the aims, motivations, and/or methods of their adversaries.

These conditions force all adversaries to kill-or-be-killed. They must kill their adversary or be killed by them. Kill does not necessarily mean death. It just means to render their adversary provably powerless. Joe Biden was ousted as a presidential candidate against his will. In the KOBK sense, he was ‘killed’.

KOBK has useful explanatory application in interpersonal relations, group dynamics, history, politics, and geopolitics. It is always a primary factor in warfare.

Its usefulness can be seen in the world today. KOBK is the underlying motivator of US foreign policy. It is the underlying motivator of Israeli foreign policy. Understanding the deep KOBK imperatives of USA and Israel helps us also understand the deep KOBK imperatives acting on all other nations in the world.

Most of Europe has been ‘killed’ by USA which controls virtually all of it. Japan has been ‘killed’ by USA. To many, it seems Israel has ‘killed’ USA since all of our foreign policy serves Israel more than USA.

Most people can sense a KOBK underlayer in life but hardly ever go there. Divorces sometimes explode into KOBK battles. But most of the time most of us understand we are much better off getting along with others by practicing normal or ordinary human morality.

The main problem with how most people think about morality is they fail to understand that powerful people do not have the luxury to practice ordinary human morality. Powerful people practice KOBK. They live in a world of alliances, armistices, truces, conspiracies, guarded cooperation and open warfare.

Consider the state of our world today. We are on the brink of WW3. BRICS has become a considerable alliance.

A very powerful and secret group is hiding somewhere inside USA, Europe and Israel, vying for world domination. We do not know exactly who they are.

But we can know them from their apparently ‘reckless’ or ‘incompetent’ behavior, which is anything but reckless or incompetent. It is KOBK behavior. They are vying for control of the planet.

This secret group did not make a mistake in Ukraine. Israel is not making a mistake in Gaza and beyond. The plandemic was not a mistake. Our public officials and ‘intellectuals’ are not all incompetent or mistaken. They are involved in KOBK warfare and will never stop until they have ‘killed’ all of their adversaries or been ‘killed’ by them.

And once either of those outcomes happens, it will still be a KOBK world.

FLASHBACK 2020: The science behind the covid masks was MIND-CONTROL

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Masks during covid were signs of compliance. They induced fear while distancing people from each other and from reason itself. Virtually all of ‘The Science’ during covid was mind-control through behavioral manipulation. Keeping six feet apart, arrows on the floor, staying inside out of the sun and fresh air, being arrested for going to the beach, etc — all of that was mind-control through controlling the body. When you do or don’t do something with your body, your mind will follow. Taking the vax was the ultimate irrational submission to authoritarian lies. ABN

Black-On-White Homicides: Sept. 2024

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Nelson Beckett, 90, was fatally shot during a Houston, TX carjacking.

21-year-old Kyliel Denzel Arceneaux was charged with capital murder.

The carjacking occurred at an independent living community.

Police responded to a call about an assault in progress involving a weapon. They found Beckett lying in the parking lot with gunshot wounds.

Beckett was transported to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

According to the preliminary investigation, a man assaulted Beckett, shot him, and then stole his vehicle and belongings. Police also revealed that the suspect ran over Beckett while fleeing the scene.

Arceneaux was arrested on Tuesday and charged with capital murder, two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and tampering with evidence.

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I dislike reading articles like this. And I dislike posting them. But sometimes we need to look at the particulars of the very high black-on-white crime rate. Leftist policies have done nothing but harm both black and white communities (and all others). Radical leftist ideals are sort of OK as imaginary goals but always lack realism and thus always fail. ABN

Tragic final words of doctor, 33, before he died by suicide – and his stark warning to hospitals everywhere

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A doctor who took his own life left a heartbreaking suicide note saying he had ‘run out of gas’ as he warned of the immense pressure medics are under.

Dr Will West was in the third year of his ophthalmology training at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington D.C.

His suicide at the age of 33 devastated his friends and family, as well as those he worked with.

The devoted doctor, who was nicknamed ‘Iron Will’ for his determination, said it was not one single event which had led to his death but highlighted the immense pressure of his residency which his family say prevented him seeking help.

‘To those who will be negatively affected by my actions, I’m so sorry. I have simply run out of gas and have nothing left to give,’ West wrote in the note obtained by the Washington Post.

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Reversive blockade: Ponerological Definition and as used by Psychopaths

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Reversive blockade: Emphatically insisting upon something which is the opposite of the truth, this blocks the average person’s mind from perceiving the truth. In accordance with the dictates of healthy common sense, he starts searching for meaning in the “golden mean” between the truth and its opposite, winding up with some satisfactory counterfeit. People who think like this do not realize that this was precisely the intent of the person who subjected them to this method. If such a statement is the opposite of a moral truth, at the same time, it simultaneously represents an extreme paramoralism, and bears its peculiar suggestiveness. We rarely see this method being used by normal people; even if raised by the people who abused it; they usually only indicate its results [on their thinking] in the shape of characteristic difficulties in apprehending reality properly. Use of this method can be included within the above-mentioned psychological knowledge developed by psychopaths concerning the weaknesses of human nature and the art of leading others into error. Where they are in rule, this method is used with virtuosity, and to an extent conterminous with their power.

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This concept reversive blockade deserves some real thought. It is fundamental to mass mind-control. Ponerology is ‘the study of evil’. Mind-control is a major weapon of evil political systems and their top actors and toadies. Claiming mass illegal immigration into USA is good for the country is an example of reversive blockade; you can feel your mind trying to make sense of that statement, even in the light of knowing you are paying for it and there is no money for citizens in Lahaina or Appalachia after recent disasters, which themselves appear to have been caused by ponerologists. ABN

MASSACHUSETTES: Ballot Question 4 on ‘natural psychedelic therapy’

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Question 4 is a citizen-led ballot question supported by military veterans, doctors, caregivers, and others who are affected by our mental health crisis. The measure will create a carefully regulated therapeutic program for adults to access natural psychedelic medicines that show promise for treating serious mental health conditions.

Under Question 4, natural psychedelic medicine therapy will be administered under the supervision and guidance of a trained, licensed professional at regulated therapy centers. Retail sales of psychedelic medicines will not be permitted.

Voting Yes on Question 4 will give veterans, patients with end-of-life distress, and people who are suffering access to this life-saving mental health tool.

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I support this and do not believe it violates the Fifth Precept. Moreover, psychedelics can valuably be used for more than just ‘serious mental health conditions’. They can also be life-enhancing for people who may not be aware there is more to the mind than the drudgery of being ‘normal’. It is not the job of government to tell citizens which plants they can grow and use. Laws against them are counterproductive due to denying citizens valuable experiences while also exposing them to dangerous substances fraudulently sold as natural psychedelics. For Buddhists, soma and psychedelics were widely available in the Buddha’s day and he never said a word against them. ABN

Philosophical psychology

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Are your thought patterns valid? Are your premises true? Is your mind sound?

Buddhism further asks are your mental states wholesome? Are they conducive to enlightenment, wisdom, freedom from delusion?

There are many things we can do while alone to clean up our thought processes. And there are some things we can only do with the help of another person.

Only another person can tell us if our premises, thoughts, and conclusions (however tentative) about them are true, valid, and sound.

Buddhism has a concept of a “spiritual friend,” a “good friend,” a noble friend,” or an “admirable friend.” All of these terms are translations of the Pali Kalyāṇa-mittatā, which is well-explained at that link. (Chinese 善知識). That link is well-worth reading in full.

From the link above and from many years of working with Buddhist literature and people, my sense is that a Buddhist “good friend” is someone who is to be admired and emulated. They are similar to what we mean today by mentors or “good role models.”

I deeply respect the concept of a Buddhist good friend, but find it lacks what I consider the preeminent virtue of philosophical psychology—real-time honesty based on a teachable technique.

Indeed, I cannot find anything anywhere in world philosophy, religion, or literature that provides a teachable technique for attaining real-time honesty with another person.

I also do not quite understand how this could be.

For many centuries human beings have thought about life but no one has come up with a technique like FIML?

How can that be?

I do not see a technique like FIML anywhere in the history of human philosophy nor anywhere in modern psychology.

The importance of a “good friend” who does FIML with you cannot be overemphasized because it is only through such a friend that you can discover where your premises about them are right or wrong, where your thoughts about them are valid or not, and through those discoveries where your mind itself is arranged soundly or not.

first posted MAY 30, 2017

UPDATE 12/14/23: Buddhists can and should make Buddhist practice their own, update or improve the practice with new ideas that are sound, valid, and true. This is a very positive and excellent side of Buddhism, which itself is not written in stone. Buddhism is preeminently a mind-to-mind teaching. It does not depend on ancient texts or the absolute interpretation of words. It depends on fulsome understanding of the deep truths at the core of all Buddhist thinking—impermanence, emptiness, and nirvana. Anything that is consonant with those three truths and conforms to Buddhist morals is good Buddhism. Anything that contradicts those three truths and/or Buddhist morals is not Buddhism.

The Buddha encouraged teaching the Dharma in people’s native languages. He discouraged writing his teachings down because he did not want them to become sacred texts that people worship rather than understand. FIML practice is an efficient, detailed, sound, and accurate way for “good friends” to deeply share mind-to-mind communion/communication with each other. In this sense, it is excellent Buddhist practice. FIML has no other teaching than how to communicate really well with a good friend. FIML does not tell you what to think or believe. Anyone can do it. ABN