Providentia

Trusting the Written Word

Children have many opportunities to learn from others through oral and written sources. Recent evidence suggests that early readers place more trust in written over oral testimony when learning names for unfamiliar objects. Across three studies recently published in the British Journal of Development Psychology, researchers examined whether the authority of print extends beyond mere naming to guide children's actions in the physical world. In Study 1, 3‐ to 6‐year‐olds received conflicting oral and print‐based advice from two puppets about how to operate a novel apparatus. Whereas pre‐readers were indiscriminate in their trust, early readers preferred to follow the print‐based advice. In Study 2, they replicated this finding, controlling for the amount of corroborating evidence presented by both sources, and the location of the print. In Study 3, they explored whether readers' preference for print‐based information was due to a global preference for external representations, or a more specific preference for text. Children were presented with conflicting instructions based on text versus a coloured circle. Whereas pre‐readers preferred to follow the colour circle, readers preferred to follow the text. Together, the results suggest that when children learn to read, they rapidly come to regard the written word as a particularly authoritative source of information about how to act in the world.

For the abstract

Child's Murder Reveals Desperate Plight of Single Mothers in Japan

When an unnamed single mother living in Yokohama decided to put in more hours working at the restaurant where she earned a meager income, she was left with the problem of who would care for her two children, aged three and one.   Though she lived with her father, he was too ill to care for the children himself and she was forced to leave her children in the care of 26-year old Yuji Motte, who she found through an online babysitting service.   Despite the 22-year old mother's reservations about Motte, including suspicious bruises on her 3-year old son's back after he had cared for her son previously, she had no real alternatives given the shortage of daycare facilities and her inability to afford another sitter  on short notice.  

After dropping off her children with Motte on March 15, she had no further contact for two days and eventually became alarmed enough to call the police.   The body of three-year-old Riku was found in Motte's apartment on March 17 although her other child was unharmed.   Motte was then charged with the boy's murder and abandonment of the body. 

In the months since Riku's death, the mother has been condemned by Japan's news media, politicians, and social media commenters, all denouncing her for using an Internet service to care for her children.     One local politician, Yutaro Tanaka, wrote in his blog: "How come it is acceptable for a mother to place her children who are still very young into the hands of a total stranger and have no qualms about it? This shouldn’t be allowed to happen.”   Tanaka, who admits to being childless and unmarried, has been an outspoken critic of single mothers who rely on "daytime concierges" to care or their children.

Despite the rage directed against the mother, few seem to be questioning  how a single woman with a monthly income of 50,000 yen (about $476)  can care for her children in a country without a comprehensive day care policy.   According to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development rankings, Japan is one of the worst countries for single mothers with more than forty-eight percent of households headed by a single mother falling below the poverty line. Even with public child support and help from families, the total income for a single-mother household is still well below the national average.

Part of the problem is the decline in intergenerational households as many single mothers must fend for themselves instead of living with their parents.   Prevailing attitudes about gender roles in Japan help contribute to the lack of support for women raising their children alone.   “Japanese society is built on the premise that the man is the breadwinner and the woman stays at home to raise the children and do the housework,” said Mari Osawa, a professor of sociology at the University of Tokyo. “This setup deepens the poverty of women in general and single-mother households.”

Another problem is that few fathers pay child support.  Though most divorce decisions award custody to mothers, they are usually uncontested with no provision being made to require the father to pay support.   Even when an agreement is reached, there are no guarantees that the father will maintain support payments for more than a few years.   In Japan, child support payments account for only three percent of all income of single mother households while in the United States, that figure is closer to 11.8 percent.  Though the Japan government provides monthly child support payments to single mothers depending on level of income, the mother in Yokohama was not receiving any formal child support at the time of her child's death.  “I had no idea whom I should turn to for help when I am in trouble,” she told local media. 

Despite the continuing controversy over Riku's death, there seem to be few concrete answers about how similar tragedies can be avoided in future.   In the meantime, single mothers find themselves more desperate than ever to find safe and affordable child care in a society that insists on turning them into scapegoats.

 

Getting That Exercise Habit

What makes staying physically active so difficult as we grow older?

Despite medical warnings about the dangers of being inactive, especially for older people, making excuses seems more attractive than trying to stay fit.  For people over the age of fifty, failing to get a minimum of two to three hours a week can lead to a wide range of health problems including:

• reduced muscle mass, bone strength, endurance, and physical strength
• reduced balance and coordination
• loss of mobility and joint flexibility
• loss of cardiovascular function and reduced respiratory capacity
• increased body fat
• increased risk of serious illnesses such as Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and stroke 
• increased vulnerability to mood disorders such as depression and anxiety.

Far too many older people tend to view themselves as being too frail or weak to take part in a vigorous exercise program and often feel uncomfortable in health classes or gymnasiums that seem to cater to younger clients. While there are fitness classes oriented towards older adults, getting motivated to attend and resisting the temptation to drop out when things seem too difficult can be discouraging as well.  

To read more, check out my new Psychology Today blog post.

The Case of the Brooklyn Enigma (Part 2 of 2)

Continued from Part One

As a test of Mollie’s supposed psychic powers, Dr. Hammond issued a challenge in the New York Sun.  He would enclose a certified cheque for a large sum of money (at least $1000.00) in a single paper envelope and place it in Mollie’s bedroom.  While she would be allowed to touch the envelope, she would not be permitted to open it or examine it in any way.  If she could accurately describe the cheque, i.e., the amount, the date the signature and the bank from which it was drawn, Dr. Hammond would then donate the amount of the cheque to the charity of her choice or “otherwise dispose of it in accordance with her wishes”.    To ensure no cheating, the envelope would never pass out of the sight of the three validators- Dr. Hammond and two other members of the New York Neurological Society.    He also offered to publicly rethink the nature of modern science if he were proven wrong.   Mollie refused to take up Dr. Hammond’s challenge.  According to a New York Times interview with her friends, Mollie refused  to accept the challenge since she doubted the effectiveness of her powers in the presence of someone as “gross and materialistic” as Dr. Hammond.   

As for her claimed ability to go without food, there was even less enthusiasm to test that under controlled conditions given what had happened to Sarah Jacob.   While Dr. Hammond proposed another test to monitor her for thirty days under the watchful eyes of monitors from the Neurological Society (with the promised $1000.00 U.S. dollars as before), Mollie and her family never accepted this offer either.   Although he never met Mollie Fancher personally, Hammond insisted that she was a deliberate fraud (and that her fasting claims were due to “hysteria”).    Other doctors who dealt with “fasting girls” reported  similar suspicions, especially London physician Sir William Gull (who first coined the term “anorexia nervosa” in 1873).

Despite the suspicions of the medical community, Mollie Fancher had her defenders as well.   Professor Charles West, her former teacher,  insisted that she was a “medical anomaly”  and “a miracle”.  As far as he was concerned, the entire scientific community needed to know about her and he even proposed a  commission of some of the world’s leading scientists come to examine her claims.  Some of the names he suggested included John Tyndall,  Thomas Henry Huxley, and Louis Agassiz (he seemed unaware of the fact that Agassiz was already dead by that time).  West’s ambitious proposal  was rejected and a counter-proposal, that Mollie Fancher be formally evaluated by a panel of neurologists, was never accepted either.

All the controversy over Mollie’s case led to a vicious war of words.  According to William Hammond and his fellow neurologist, George Beard, Mollie Fancher was an outright fraud and her supporters were either gullible,  ignorant, or both.    In an interview with the New York Sun, George Beard  dismissed the physicians who had already assessed her by saying that “they are not experts and their testimony goes for naught”.   Charles West publicly denounced Hammond and Beard for insisting that only neurologists were actually qualified to evaluate Fancher asking “Do [physicians] know everything?  Have they universal knowledge?”

By 1881, the debate over Mollie Fancher and other fasting girls was at its peak.   Despite a vigorous debate over how long someone like Mollie could go without food (including a public fast by a Minneapolis physician to prove that humans could survive far longer than conventional  medicine acknowledged),  the arguing failed to produce any real conclusions.   As anorexia nervosa slowly became an accepted diagnosis, Mollie Fancher and similar cases stopped being seen as marvels and were treated by mental health professionals instead. 

Mollie Fancher’s case was slowly forgotten except for a credulous 1894 book by one of her defenders, Abram H. Dailey,  titled, “Mollie Fancher, the Brooklyn enigma. An authentic statement of facts in the life of Mary J. Fancher”.   The book is made up of diary entries by her aunt, signed statements by her friends, and reprints of various newspaper articles written about her case.    Since the Dailey book failed to present any new evidence, only the true believers who credited her psychic powers were impressed.

Though she eventually began eating normally, Mollie Fancher remained bedridden for the rest of her life (since her muscles were too atrophied to allow her to walk).  She also continued experiencing epileptiform trances as well as her usual multiple personalities.   After her aunt’s death, she depended on paid attendants  but her cheerful invalid status didn’t prevent her from staying in contact with her various supporters.  Although she held a “Golden Jubilee” on February 3, 1916 to celebrate her fifty years of being bedridden, Mollie Fancher’s poor health took its toll and she died eight days later.   After a funeral attended by one hundred and fifty nine people, she was buried in Brooklyn’s Greenwood Cemetery.

While the case of Mollie Fancher is largely forgotten today, the controversy that she inspired represents an important early example of the clash between 19^th century science and spiritualism.   Throughout the 20^th century there have been other reported cases of inedia and “breatharianism” including Wiley Brooks, Therese Neumann, and Ram Bahadur Bomjon  but none of them ever attracted the serious scientific attention that Mollie Fancher did.    

To a large extent, the long battle by skeptical scientists to disprove Mollie ’s claims and her eventual fade into obscurity is an object lesson in how extraordinary claims can persist over time.   This case also represents an important milestone in the history of the skeptical movement and deserves closer study by modern skeptics dealing with their own “enigmas”.

 

US Foreign Aid and Terrorism

While it is commonly assumed that the United States uses foreign aid as an instrument to combat global terrorism, it is unclear whether it views terrorist threats to other countries, particularly its allies, with urgency. A new article in the Journal of Conflict Resolution shows that the relationship between transnational terrorism and foreign aid flows is strongly conditional on whether terrorist activity based in a potential recipient directly threatens the United States. Using data on terrorist attacks and casualties in potential recipient countries, the authors demonstrate that terrorist activity based within a state’s borders, which targets US interests is a strong determinant of both whether that state receives any aid and also how much aid it receives. In contrast, the presence of terrorism targeted at non-US interests, even if it targets formal allies of the United States, is generally unrelated to US aid allocation. These findings suggest that the United States' use of foreign aid to fight terrorism and political violence is narrowly tailored to assist countries that directly threaten its own security, rather than those of other countries, even its allies.

For the abstract.

"Emotional Damage" Cited in Lawsuit Over Phony Psychologist

A lawsuit filed against the Board of Education in Maryland's Montgomery County claims that a phony psychologist employed by the Board is responsible for leaving the 18-year-old plaintiff "emotionally  damaged."    According to his lawyer, Ronald Karp, the plaintiff, who has since identified himself as 18-year-old Brandon Hall, reported first meeting "Dr. David Flemmer" when he was eight years old and dealing with his parents' divorce.   Flemmer, whose real name was Duane Flemmer, had been employed by the Montgomery County Board of Education for over ten years based on bogus credentials.  According to Karp, Flemmer had counseled his client for two years and his testimony in court was instrumental in removing the boy from his mother's custody.  

"Once you can walk into a courtroom and look the judge in the eye and say, 'I am Dr. David Flemmer and I am a Montgomery County Schools psychologist,' you have instant credibility and you can create havoc for all kinds of people,"  Karp told local media.    The judge presiding over the custody case specifically cited the psychologist's testimony in the 2006 decision.  

Flemmer's masquerade only came to light when he eventually applied for a job with an unnamed employer in North Dakota.  It was when the new employer contacted the Maryland Board of Professional Counselors and Therapists that an investigation was launched.  In their findings, the board concluded that Flemmer, "created a fraudulent psychology license using an expired license number and forged signatures of real persons who had previously served as board members for the Board of Psychology."   His claims of being a "faculty associate" of the Johns Hopkins School of Education are spurious as well. 

Flemmer committed suicide shortly after being exposed and losing his license in 2012   Though the Board of Education reported that Flemmer had stopped working for them in 2010, Ronald Karp filed the lawsuit on behalf of his client citing negligence on the part of the Board of Education.  Flemmer''s estate is also being sued.   The lawsuit is claiming damages for fraud, infliction of emotional distress, and negligent hiring, retention, and supervision.

"If it comes out that the Montgomery County Schools system never notified any parent about the fact that this man was a fraud when he lost his license in 2012, if that comes out, we don't know how many kids are out there, how many parents out there were counseled by this man," Karp said.   "It’s difficult to believe they actually checked out any of his credentials,”

A spokesperson for the Board of Education has confirmed that Flemmer worked for them from 1998 to 2010 but could not provide a list of the schools where he had worked.    They are also refusing to discuss ongoing legal issues with the media but insist that Flemmer had the needed license to be a school psychologist.

For more information.

 

 

 

 

Are Drone Operators Experiencing Burnout?

With the launch of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Iraqi Freedom (OIF), drones have become a vital part of the U.S. military's operations in different parts of the world. Controlled either by onboard computers or remote operated by operators on the ground, drones can provide reconnaissance, surveillance, or even attack targets on the ground during high-risk missions. As military operations expand around the world, the need for drone operators has become more critical than ever.

But what are the psychological costs of operating drones? The increasing need for drone missions as they continue to be a vital part of U.S. military operations has placed greater strain on ground-based operators. Along with a significant increase in total hours spent operating drones, the need for round-the-clock shifts, and the virtual exposure to the combat experienced by personnel on the ground.

Along with the drone pilots, that can include the sensor operators, support crews, and mission specialists who are also involved in ensuring mission success. Drone crews also have a strange dual role since they spend immersed in the drone operation while juggling the daily responsibilities of normal life. Much like police officers, firefighters, and paramedics, managing this kind of dual existence can take its toll over time. All of which can increase the likelihood of occupational burnout.

To read more, check out my new Huffington Post piece.

Can Anger in Infants Predict Later Problems?

How does your baby handle anger?

Research studies suggest that young children responding with excessive anger to blocked goals (such as taking away a favourite toy) can help identify whether they might be at risk for later problems such as delinquency.   According to one recent study, infants as young as two months  can show anger though"temper tantrums" often become more common as children enter their "terrible twos."   

Still, there are enormous diffferences seen in young children when it comes to temperment issues such as anger, fear, separation anxiety, and how attached infants are to their mothers.  Children experiencing many stressful situations early in life (such as abuse, being part of a family in crisis, or being neglected) have more difficulty controlling anger because their normal emotional development has been disrupted.

A new  research study published in the journal Developmental Psychology examined anger issues in infants and how their relationship with their parents can help prevent later problems from developing.   The team of researchers led by Rebecca J. Brooker of Montana State University and Richard J. Davidson of the University of Wisconsin - Madison examined hundreds of infants in two laboratory sessions when the infants were six and twelve months of age.   The parents of the infants also completed questionnaires measuring life stress and behaviour problems in their infants over time.

To read more, check out my new Psychology Today blog post.

The Case of the Brooklyn Enigma (Part One of Two)

Throughout the late 19^th century, she was known as "America's Most Famous Invalid" and "The Brooklyn Enigma."    Though skeptics denounced her as a fraud, spiritualists and curiosity seekers still came in droves to see the bedridden woman whose paranormal claims hreatened to upturn many of the most firmly-held beliefs about the limits of human endurance and the laws of physics themselves.  

Born Mary Fancher in 1848, she was the eldest of five children and her early childhood in Attleboro, Massachusetts seemed uneventful  enough despite her mother’s unexpected death.   After Mary's family moved to Brooklyn, New York and her father established himself as a prominent merchant,  the woman who be known to the world as Mollie Fancher found her life even further disrupted by her father’s remarriage and the deaths of two of her younger siblings.   Although her  unmarried aunt moved  in to their Brooklyn home to establish herself as a surrogate mother for the surviving children, Mollie’s life would never be the same.   Even though she was fairly popular due to her good looks and pleasant manner, everything seemed to change when Mollie’s health began failing at the age of sixteen.    The actual symptoms are still unclear although available information suggests what we would now call anorexia nervosa and/or bulimia (both diagnoses were unknown at the time).  Along with nervous indigestion, Mollie Fancher experienced frequent fainting spells and she wasted away due to lack of eating    

Despite her doctor diagnosing Mollie’s problem as indigestion and recommending that she take up horse riding for exercise,  these medical problems were aggravated further by two  accidents in 1864.  Shortly after a relatively minor horse riding accident, she was  injured after falling off a streetcar and being dragged for a full block before anyone noticed.  Although she had been engaged to be married at the time, Mollie’s injuries and the need for a lengthy recuperation forced her to cancel her wedding plans.  Whatever the proper diagnosis, Mollie Fancher invalid status would keep her bedridden for the next fifty-one years of her life.   

Along with her inability to keep down food, Mollie showed a range of bizarre medical symptoms, including blindness, deafness, and the claimed loss of all of her remaining senses (likely conversion disorder).  Desperate for an answer, her father brought in a range of medical practitioners which, given the state of 19^th century medicine, included homeopaths (who tried to force pills and tonics down Mollie’s throat), and hydropaths (who treated her with cold baths as well as freezing her spine with ice).    Not only did Mollie fail to improve but the extreme medical treatments almost certainly made her condition worse.

While her medical condition was considered a family matter at first, everything changed with a lengthy article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on June 7, 1866.  Describing Mollie as “A Remarkable Case”,  the article also reported that she had gone for “seven weeks without food” as a result of  “nervous prostration” .  Since other cases of “fasting girls” were already being reported in the medical literature both in the United States and Great Britain, the reporter writing the article was quick to suggest that Mollie’s case was part of a nationwide trend in girls suffering  from “overstimulation” (as opposed to the usual Victorian diagnosis of “hysteria”).    

Mollie’s case made her a media celebrity, not only for being a “fasting girl”, but also for the mysterious “powers” her condition supposedly gave her.  By her early twenties, she was making fantastic claims of being a mystic and clairvoyant who could somehow “see without use of eyes” and hear despite her apparent deafness.   Various stories spread about her miraculous ability to tell the exact time by passing her hand over a watch or reading a book by rubbing the cover (a psychic gift I wouldn’t mind myself, come to think of it).   

Along with her bizarre medical symptoms (including strange contortions of her arms and legs), she was also one of the first recorded cases of multiple personality disorder (now known as dissociative identity disorder) with alternate personalities known as “Rosebud”, “Pearl” and “Ruby”.    Her friends and family members learned to identify the original personality as “Sunbeam” to distinguish her from her other selves.

According to Mollie’s own claims, she could read sealed letters placed under her pillow and predict when her own front doorbell would ring.  Along with her psychic skills, she often went into trances and reported visiting her mother and other deceased people in Heaven.    The Eagle article described these various claims with no attempt at skepticism and suggested that Mollie Fancher was “what would be termed spirituelle”. 

Ironically, while the flourishing Spiritualist movement of the time happily embraced her case as proof of their claims, Mollie herself never cared for the Spiritualist label.  She insisted on staying true to her Methodist roots and regarded herself as  “an earnest Christian”.   She also denied being a spirit medium and publicly feared “being classed in any manner with clairvoyants or second sight seers or spiritualists” .   Although there were any number of female mediums who offered psychic services to the public, Mollie refused to be paid for her readings.

By the 1870s, Mollie Fancher had become a national celebrity, both for her  food abstinence and her supposed psychic powers.   Thousands of people came to her home at 160 Gates Avenue in  Brooklyn hoping to catch sight of the “Brooklyn Enigma”.   During one six-month period,  her recorded food intake was four teaspoons of milk punch, two teaspoons of wine, one small banana and a piece of a cracker.   Ever since the “Welsh Fasting Girl”, Sarah Jacob, starved to death in a London hospital in 1869, doctors became less inclined to allow female patients to go without food.  As a result,  her doctors took extreme measures including forced-feedings.   Despite theseefforts however, Mollie failed to return to eating normally.   According to one New York Sun article, “she refused food when offered to her saying it made her sick” .    

Mollie also developed a bizarre paralysis which left her completely confined to her bed with one arm being completely immobilized and her left hand clenched shut.   She also experienced strange episodes in which she became completely comatose for weeks at a time.  Following one episode in 1875 which lasted for one month, she reported being unable to remember anything that had happened for the previous nine years.

Not surprisingly, Mollie’s celebrity status drew in hucksters eager to exploit her  fame .  While she still turned down money for her readings (and an offer from P.T. Barnum to have her go on tour with his circus), she did agree to endorse a line of prosthetic aids and also sold elaborate wax flowers that she made by hand in her second floor bedroom.    A Harvard professor even developed a special knife for her handicrafts which she could hold in her clenched left hand.   Numerous visitors came just to see “The Brooklyn Enigma” and to marvel at how she was able to work on her wax flowers and crocheting despite her paralysis.    These handicrafts were available for sale to any visitor who wanted “some memento of their visit”.

Mollie’s flamboyant claims of being able to live without food and to overcome the limits of her body were especially irritating to those medical specialists who were increasingly skeptical of her “illness”.  One of her most outspoken critics was Dr. William Hammond,  former Surgeon General of the United States and founder of the New York Neurological Society.   Upset over the media preoccupation with “fasting girls”, including Mollie Fancher, Dr. Hammond wrote that it was “strange to say the ability to live on the Eucharist and to resist starvation by diabolical power, died out in the middle ages and was replaced by ‘fasting girls’ who will continue to amuse us with their vagaries”.

As the battle lines were drawn, testing Mollie Fancher's claims became more important than ever.

To be continued.

 

What We Can Do to Slow Down the Growing Suicide Rate in Alaska

While I was growing up in a small village of about 250 people, I was abused by my father, my friends, and my older brother....My friends didn't want to hear what I went through. I didn't have anyone to talk to. I didn't trust anyone, even myself. I know what kids in Alaska are going through..

In a special commentary which was recently published in the Journal of Rural Mental Health, Senator Mark Begich shared the story of "Anna", a young girl from rural Alaska who had written about how she struggled with suicide and depression. A former mayor of Anchorage, Senator Begich is currently waging a tough reelection campaign as well as championing the Mental Health First Aid Act to expand mental health training across the country.

The need for this legislation is especially apparent in rural Alaska. According to the most recent statistics, suicide rates outside Alaska's main cities are four times the national average and among the highest in the world. In 2010 alone, the number of suicide in Alaska's Kuskokwim prompted state and local officials to mount an emergency response. Despite their efforts however, suicide rates in rural Alaska are still high. Though nationwide suicide rates tends to highest in people over eighty, it is the 20-29 year age group that seems most prone to suicide in Alaska.

To read more, check out my new contribution to The Huffington Post.