Providentia

Dehumanizing Women

Psychopathy is associated with a variety of negative attitudes and behaviours towards women; however, the mechanisms that underlie these associations have yet to be fully examined. An article recently published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences examined dehumanization, a social-psychological construct, as a potential mechanism facilitating the association between sub-clinical psychopathy and negative attitudes towards women. Two online studies with all-male samples were conducted to examine whether dehumanization helps to explain the association between psychopathy and sexist and violent attitudes towards women. In Study 1 (n = 514), path analyses indicated that psychopathy was indirectly related to sexist and violent attitudes towards women through dehumanization. Study 2 (n = 265) replicated the findings of Study 1 regarding sexism. It also included a date rape analogue measure of violent attitudes and was able to expand on the findings of Study 1, though only for the interpersonal and affective components of psychopathy. These results may suggest that individuals high in psychopathic traits see women as sub-human, this dehumanizing appraisal may be facilitating attitudes and behaviours that are consistent with the idea that women are less than human and deserve to be treated as such. Results suggest that dehumanization may be an important mechanism for understanding, and potentially mitigating, the association between psychopathy and negative attitudes towards women. 

For the abstract

U.K. Woman "Starves to Death" Ten Years After Bariatric Surgery

When Kimberly Hall decided to have gastric bypass surgery in 2008, she saw it as a last-ditch effort in overcoming the obesity she feared would eventually kill her.   Instead, after ten years of struggling with the consequences of that fateful operation, she died on October 8, 2018 from heart failure as a result of malnutrition.   She was 44 years of age. 

An inquest into her death has recently ended with the coroner ruling that the bariatric operation was responsible despite there being no errors in the procedure itself.  The obesity that led to Hall undergoing the surgery was apparently linked to an eating disorder beginning at the age of 18 following a miscarriage.  After her weight reached 146 kilograms (322 lbs) and following numerous failures with other weight-loss methods, she underwent the gastric bypass despite misgivings by other members of her family.  Though the operation appeared to be successful, her weight plummeted over the following year and it soon became evident that something was seriously wrong.   

As her mother testified during the inquest.  "She loved the fact she lost so much weight but she could hardly eat anything. It would just be a couple of spoonfuls and then by that stage she had had enough and she was also often sick. ''As time went by she became more and more depressed, paranoid and worried about everything.  She was living on her own with her children and some days she was unable to get them off to school and would spend the day in bed.  She never managed to eat very much - although she loved food.  Over the last couple of years she was very frail and could hardly walk or get out of bed.''

Despite repeated hospitalizations and referrals to medical specialists, Hall showed no real improvement in her condition.   She was prone to stomach pains and low blood pressure which often required carers to come into her home to help her eat.   Her family doctor testified that he and the other medical professionals who saw her considered numerous diagnoses, including Crohn's disease, but none of the diagnoses seemed to apply.   As well, none of the various treatments she received, including psychotherapy, failed to make a difference. 

Both Hall and her family disputed doctors who suggested that she might have anorexia or some other eating disorder.   "It’s not that I don’t want to eat - I do but I can’t," she said. Her family doctor also agreed that her condition was likely due to the surgery rather than having any psychological cause.   

''I knew it was a drastic step, but I'd tried every diet under the sun without any success, so the idea of being able to make a lasting change was very appealing,"  she said, in a 2014 interview, describing how her condition was deteriorating.  I thought of myself running around in the park with the children, and was drawn to the idea. Now I've gone from being too fat to move to being weak and undernourished. I thought the operation would give me the life I'd dreamed of - but it turns out I couldn't have been more wrong. I could barely eat any food. Whatever I did manage to swallow made my stomach turn. I felt sick all the time.  I completely regret having the gastric bypass. I wish I'd never done it. It's just such a shame that I had to get to this point to realise that I was happier when I was overweight."  

In October, 2008, she was hospitalized and placed in intensive care.   Though her condition was stabilized and she was allowed to return home, Hall quickly went downhill and needed to be rehospitalized.  ''When we got back we went straight to the hospital where she was on 24 hours a day oxygen," her mother told the inquest. "She was a little breathless but able to hold a conversation.  At 1.30am we got a call from the hospital to say she had deteriorated and that we should go but she had died before the family where able to get there.''

In concluding the inquest, the coroner Matthew Cox said: ''Following the gastric bypass procedure Kimberley could hardly eat anything after a couple of mouthfuls and struggling with food retention.  We've have had little information about the operation itself as those who treated her are not here to give evidence. But there are risks as well as benefits to the procedure. Kimberly's problem with nutrition is a rare but recognised complication of the gastric bypass surgery.  Given the extent of the problems Kimberly went on to suffer,  she had problems with anxiety and depression and this exasperated the eating difficulties. It is clear to me the source of her problem was investigated thoroughly over the years.''

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The Judge in the Asylum

Well into the 20th century, family members of people with mental health problems had little choice but to place their loved ones in asylums.    And with little hope of their ever coming out again.   Despite the occasional success story, most patients were often forgotten by the outside world and simply left to vegetate.   Though some medications were already available (including early tranquilizers such as chloral hydrate), people in asylums received little real help.   While medical advances were being slowly made (along with horrendous innovations such as shock therapy and lobotomies), only the most remarkable patients managed to earn their release.  A few remarkable patients would write about their experiences in a way that provided the outside world with a rare glimpse into their illness as well as what they experienced in the asylums.

One of these patients was Daniel Paul Shreber...

Born in Leipzig in 1842, Daniel Schreber was the third of five children.   His father, Daniel Gottlieb Moritz Schreber was a physician and an authority on raising children, particularly in terms of how they should be disciplined.    Moritz wrote more than thirty books highlighting the need for controlling the "crude nature" of children through discipline, order, cleanliness, correct posture, and muscle- building.   He also had a fanatical opposition to masturbation which he viewed as a vile practice that needed to be suppressed at all costs.   Moritz even developed a series of machines intended to correct posture and encourage right thinking.   One of these machines, the "coccyx miracle",  was designed to ensure that children remained upright at all times while sitting,   Other innovations prevented  prevents masturbation by extreme means.   To ensure that the lessons being taught were properly learned, children had their successes and failures reviewed in front of the entire family.   Physical punishments were used to reinforce the need for order and children were required to accept these punishments "without spite or discipline."

Despite his father's authoritarian ideals, it's still open to debate whether Daniel's early upbringing may have contributed to his later mental illness.   What little information there is on his early childhood comes from Daniel's own Memoirs as well as letters written by his sisters, all of which tended to downplay how they were raised by their parents.  In weighing the impact of Moritz' disciplinary practices had on his children, it should probably be pointed out that many of his five children later developed psychiatric problems later in life (including Daniel Paul).

The entire family was apparently rocked by Moritz' sudden death in 1861 although the greatest burden apparently fell on the oldest son, Daniel Gustav, who was already borderline psychotic (he would later commit suicide in 1877).   By the time of his father's death, Daniel Paul was  studying law and he would go on to establish himself as a lawyer and politician after passing the state bar exam.   A year after his brother's suicide, Daniel married Sabine Behr in 1878 and was appointed Landgerichtsdirektor (administrative director) of the District Court in Chemnitz.  Though he and Sabine never had children (only one of the five Schreber children ever did), his life seemed stable enough until he decided to run for public office during the Reichstag elections of 1884.  

Running as a candidate for the National Liberal party, it was his humiliating loss to a socialist, Bruno Geiser, that triggered Daniel's first nervous breakdown.    This led to a six-month hospitalization at the Psychiatric Hospital of Leipzig University where he was treated by the clinic director, Dr. Paul Flechsig.   As Daniel would later describe in his memoirs, his chief symptom at the time was severe hypochondria which, as he later noted in his Memoirs, faded "without any occurrences bordering on the supernatural."  

After his release from the clinic, he returned to his legal career and held a number of prominent judicial positions.  Aside from Sabine suffering a series of miscarriages which ended any hope of their having children of their own, Daniel's life seemed happy enough.   At least at first...

In 1893, Schreber was appointed to the Supreme Court of Appeals and he also began developing new psychiatric symptoms.   As he would later write:

During this time I had several dreams to which I did not then attribute any particular significance, and which I would even today disregard … had my experience in the meantime not made me think of the possibility at least of their being connected with the contact which had been made with me by divine nerves. I dreamt several times that my former nervous illness had returned…. Furthermore, one morning while still in bed (whether still half asleep or already awake I cannot remember), I had a feeling which, thinking about it later when fully awake, struck me as highly peculiar. It was the idea that it really must be rather pleasant to be a woman succumbing to intercourse.

Despite being disturbed by the possibility of his old problems returning, he still carried out his new duties.   And then the problems began. 

Along with insomnia, he also became aware of strange noises which kept him from sleeping.   Though he initially believed that a mouse in the walls was causing the noises, he eventually concluded that the sounds were "divine miracles."   The insomnia, as well as the noises he thought he was hearing, led him to believe that he was the target of a deliberate conspiracy intended to disturbed his sleep.  By November 9, the day before the anniversary of his father's death, he was disturbed enough by his thoughts of suicide to consult Flechsig.   He was then readmitted to Flechsig's clinic

Not only did his insomnia not improve but his suicidal thoughts became worse as well.   Of that time, he noted that, "I was completely ruled by the idea that there was nothing left for a human being for whom sleep could no longer be procured by all the means of medical art, but to take his life."   His condition became even worse after Sabine left on a four-day visit to her family home.   Not only was he convinced that he was the target of a conspiracy, but he suspected that Flechsig was involved.   He became convinced that "divine rays" were being focused on him by countless souls which were transforming him into a woman.   Along with fantasizing about having sex as a woman, he also interacted with voices only he could hear.  The voices were of people he knew, famous people he never met, animals, and various religious figures, all focusing on him and his special role in life. 

On June 29, 1894, Daniel Paul Schreber was transferred to the Royal Public Asylum at Sonnenstein.   During his stay, he was declared officially incompetent and Schreber submitted his own writ of appeal to the Supreme Court to reverse this decision.  It was also during this period that he began writing his Memoirs though he would not publish them until after his release in 1902.   Schreber's Memoirs would become a highly influential book in the history of psychiatry and psychoanalysis, largely due to the influence of Sigmund Freud.    

As for Schreber himself, his mental health remained rocky even after his release.  Despite a brief separation from his wife while he lived with his mother and sister, he and Sabine eventually moved into a house in Dresden.   They also adopted a teenage girl, Fridoline, in 1906.   It was Fridoline who would later report that Daniel was "more of a mother to me than my mother."    He stayed active in legal work (though his career as a judge had been ended by his hospitalization) and also managed to keep his psychotic symptoms under control.   Schreber was still prone to occasional shouting episodes and be was often bothered by hearing voices though he rarely talked about his symptoms with family members.   Despite these symptoms, he continued to read avidly, spent time with his wife and adopted daughter, played chess and the piano, and generally lived as well as he could.

In November 1907, Sabine Schreber suffered from a serious stroke and her husband's mental condition declined rapidly soon afterward.  He was hospitalized for the third and last time at a new state asylum near Liepzig.  Among the different symptoms reported in the available records on Shreber were "outbursts of laughter and screaming, periods of depressive stupor, suicidal gestures, poor sleep, and delusional ideas of his own decomposition and rotting."   He was also preoccupied with auditory hallucinations which he interpreted as being supernatural in origin.  Though his condition fluctuated, he never really recovered and died in the asylum on April 14, 1911.

Schreber's Memoirs would have numerous fans over the years but  it was the essay written by Sigmund Freud that would make Schreber internationally known.  Never having actually met Schreber,  Freud based his 1911 essay on Schreber's Memoirs.    Since the patient, along with with many members of his  family were still alive at the time the essay came out, Freud needed to be cautious in what he wrote.  More familiar with neurotics than psychotics, Freud was introduced to the Memoirs by his then-pupil Carl Jung.   In writing about Schreber, Freud hoped to make him a test case on his own theories about human libido and "the riddle of paranoia."    It would be his most detailed essay on psychosis and, not surprisingly, attempted to explain the psychosis developed by Schreber as a defense against the homosexual urges that he had for his therapist, Dr. Flechsig.   He focused on Schreber's sense of emasculation and his preoccupation with turning into a woman.   Freud identifed Flechsig as being at the root of this delusion and that it reflected Schreber's inability to handle his homosexual libido.  

While Freud's interpretation certainly had its critics, it  ensured that more people read Schreber's Memoirs and also inspired numerous books on Schreber, his Memoirs, and his psychotic symptoms.    For many Germans, Daniel Paul Schreber would be the most famous mental patient of the early 20th century.   Perhaps more importantly, given the countless mental patients who vanished into asylums never to be heard from again, patients such as Schreber  who managed to recover enough to write about their experiences ensured that mental patients weren't completely forgotten.   That someone as highly placed as Daniel Paul Schreber could develop mental illness helped  remind the rest of society of the need for better mental health care.  

That reminder would be quickly forgotten however, especially following the collapse of Weimar Germany.  This led to the rise of Nazism and the promotion of eugenic campaigns that condemned declared mental patients and other "hereditary defectives" such as people with physical and mental impairments.   Representing them as dregs of society who were squandering resources better spent on "healthy" Germans,  Aktion T4 was born to purge Germany of these problem patients.

Between 1940 and 1941, more than 13,000 people, most of whom were mental patients just like Schreber, were killed in gas chambers at the very institution where Schreber had been committed.  Though Aktion T4 would eventually be officially abolished, one of the few instances where popular pressure forced the Nazis to scrap plans for mass murder, it still quietly continued, often as part of the far greater Holocaust that followed.   For those patients who managed to survive, the horror would persist long after the end of World War II.

While improvements in the treatment of mental illness have largely reduced the role of the mental hospital in dealing with patients like Schreber, his Memoirs still provide a glimpse at the often-anonymous existence mental patients faced during the era.   They also represent a last look of life in mental hospitals before the horrors of World War I and II, not to mention Aktion T4, would transform patient life forever. 

Though putting a human face on mental illness is still important in combating the stigma that often surrounds mental illness worldwide, stories such as Schreber's are still far rarer than they need to be.  Still, despite the quiet pressure on many mental patients to remain silent about their illness remaining strong even today, more mental patients are describing what they are experiencing and being far more open about their symptoms.  

Daniel Paul Schreber's legacy lives on.  

The Sculptress in the Asylum

Camille Claudel was, without a doubt, one of the most brilliant artists of her generation.  And she paid the price for it.

Born in 1864 in Fere en Tardenois in the French province of Picardy, Camille was the second child of a middle-class family.   Although the family moved frequently during her childhood, Camille developed a passion for art at an early age and became an accomplished sculptor by the age of thirteen.     By 1881, she was training at the Academie Colarossi in Paris under the supervision of eminent sculptor, Alfred Boucher.  Whatever plans Camille had for her own future as an artist changed dramatically when she first met Auguste Rodin in 1883. 

It's hard to say for sure when the two of them became lovers but Camille was quickly established in Rodin's studio and began a professional and personal collaboration with him that would last for fourteen years.   Although they never lived together, Camille's relationship with Rodin alarmed her family (especially her mother who had never approved of Camille's artistic ambitions) and she was eventually forced to leave the family home as a result.   While Camille contributed greatly to Rodin's career as a sculptor (many of the pieces that Rodin supposedly produced during their years together were likely her work), the opposite was certainly not the case.   There are few surviving signed works produced by Camille during her years with Rodin despite it being the most fertile period of his artistic career.  

Auguste Rodin was unsupportive in other ways as well.   Details of their personal life together are limited but there is evidence to indicate that she became pregnant as many as five times.  Whether the pregnancies were terminated by abortion or the infants given up for adoption, the end result was the same.   Since Rodin was already living with Rose Beuret and showed no intention of ever leaving her,  marriage was out of the question and he certainly had no intention of being monogamous with Rose or Camille.    Throughout the years when he and Camille were lovers, there was a steady stream of models and other women fascinated by his growing fame as an artist.   At least one noted biographer described Auguste Rodin as a "serious collector of interesting women".

By 1898, Camille had terminated her relationship with Rodin, both personally and professionally (although there is some indication that the had stopped being lovers some time previously).    Working independently for the first time in her life was a major hardship for her.  Although the prosperous Rodin could afford to maintain three studios with a stable of artisans working under him, Camille Claudel had to struggle to pay her own bills.    The attitudes of the time towards independent women, especially women who actually worked for a living, needed to be faced as well.   Her unconventional lifestyle alienated her from her mother and sister (her father remained supportive, though).   Despite praise from most of the prominent critics of the time, Camille's artistic output remained slim.   The long years during which she had only produced art under Rodin's name worked against her and few patrons took an interest in her work.   While Rodin became increasingly rich and famous, Camille sank further into poverty.   Aside from a possible romance with composer Claude Debussy, there were no other men in Camille's life.

As she grew older, Camille became increasingly unstable.  In 1905, she deliberately destroyed many of her statues and began disappearing for long periods of time.    She also developed acute paranoia and accused Rodin of conspiring against her and stealing her ideas.   While she was reasonably lucid when working on her art, Camille became a recluse and often neglected her personal hygiene.  She also became an animal hoarder and kept numerous cats in her tiny, unkempt studio.   With shutters firmly drawn to keep out sunlight, Camille's entire existence focused on her art and her cats.  This eccentric lifestyle (complete with erratic outbursts and suicide attempts) certainly alarmed her family although her father continued to support his wayward daughter.  Three days after her father died in 1913, Camille's brother Paul and her mother made arrangements to place her in the psychiatric hospital of Ville Evrard in Paris.   Two orderlies had to break into Camille's studio and drag her to the hospital by force. 

The reasons for committing Camille remain controversial although the spectacle she made of herself when she was hospitalized likely didn't help her cause.  While she was certainly mentally unstable (and possibly suffering from schizophrenia), independent women who refused to accept societal restrictions on sexuality were often committed to hospitals during that era on the grounds of insanity.    In Camille's case, she settled down quickly and even her doctors came to insist that she was well enough to be released.  Despite attempts at a family reconciliation, her mother  remained adamant that she be kept in the hospital. 

With the outbreak of World War I, female patients in Ville Evrard were moved to safer quarters in an asylum near Avignon.  The certificate admitting Camille to Montdevergues Asylum described her as suffering from a "systematic persecution delirium mostly based upon false interpretations and imagination".   Despite repeated attempts by Camille's doctors, the artistic community, and the press to have Camille released from hospital, her family refused to consider the possibility.   Her mother and sister also refused to visit her in hospital and actively discouraged others from visiting her as well.  After Camille's mother died in 1929,  her brother continued to act as her guardian and steadfastly refused to allow her release.

Over the years, visitors typically described Camille as being lucid and insisted on her release but Paul Claudel opposed them.  Although he visited her every few years, he always referred to her in the past tense whenever discussing her life or art with friends.  Camille Claudel [died on October 19, 1943 after spending three decades in the asylum.  Her family refused to claim the body and she was eventually buried in a communal grave in the Montfavet cemetery.  Only hospital staff attended the funeral service.  

Despite her long hospitalization, Camille's reputation as a brilliant artist remains secure.   While only ninety statues, paintings, and sketches survived her attempts at destroying them,  they show ample evidence of her artistic genius.  Paul Claudel, long notorious for his role in confining his sister, organized the first major exhibition of her work in 1951 and fascination with her complex life  has spurred the publication of various biographies over the years.     In 1988, a full-length biographical film of Camille Claudel's life was released starring Isabelle Adjani as Camille and Gerard Depardieu as Rodin.   Based on a biography by Paul Claudel's great-granddaughter,  the film transfers much of the blame for Camille's later breakdown on Rodin himself.  While feminists have criticized the film for downplaying the role that Camille's family played in the later tragedy of her life, it received numerous awards (including two Academy award nominations). 

Many of Camille Claudel's statues continue to be displayed at the Musee Rodin in Paris and traveling exhibitions have been held at numerous art galleries and museums around the world.   Rodin's various sculptures of Camille are on display as well.  Camille's artwork continues to fetch record prices at art auctions and she is regarded as being one of the greatest women artists of all time.  Camille Claudel will not be forgotten.

 

The "Separate But Equal" War

In 1951, when a group of thirteen parents  first filed a class-action suit against the Topeka, Kansas  Board of Education over the continuing use of racial segregation, it sparked a three-year legal battle culminating in the fateful Brown vs the Board of Education decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954.   By overturning the 1896 Plessy vs Ferguson decision, the Supreme Court established that the "Separate but Equal" provision permitting racial segregation in American schools represented a clear violation of the Fourteenth Amendment by perpetuating inferior education and treatment for children of African-American descent. 

The plaintiffs of the case, under the direction of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), had attempted to enrol their twenty children in nearby schools in the Topeka area.  When the enrolment was rejected with the children being referred to segregated schools (which, in many cases, involved children having to walk six blocks or more just to reach the necessary bus stop),  the plaintiffs (headed by Oliver Brown) were urged to file an action protesting the discrimination.  The resulting "Oliver Brown et al. v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas" trial represented a crucial test of the racial segregation policies that had polarized American society for decades.  It also provided a reunion of sorts for two very different psychologists:  Mamie Phipps Clark and Henry Garrett.

Born in 1917,  Mamie Phipps' childhood  in  racially segregated Hot Spring, Arkansas exposed her to the often deficient primary and secondary education that was considered normal for African-American children of that era.  Since her father was a  physician who had financed his own way through medical school and both of her parents were prominent members of the local African-American community, they instilled the value of hard work and dedication in their children.  Mamie Phipps enrolled at Howard University in 1934 and, while she had originally planned to study physics and mathematics, changed her major to psychology at the suggestion of her future husband, Kenneth Bancroft Clark. 

Along with her psychology studies, Mamie Phipps worked part-time in the psychology department as well as a summer internship with the office of prominent civil rights lawyer, William Houston.  Her work in dealing with the various cases challenging existing segregation legislation left a profound impression on her.  Enrolling as a psychology graduate student in 1938 (and marrying Kenneth Clark at about the same time), she began working with her then-husband  on research examining racial difference in pre-school children.   Her master's thesis,  The Development of Consciousness of  Self in Pre-School Negro Children, inspired her husband to work with her in submitting a joint research grant proposal to the Julius Rosenwald Foundation.  The resulting grant would fund their joint research for three years and also made it possible for Mamie Clark to enter Colombia University to study for her doctorate. 

While her husband continued gathering research data, Mamie Clark plunged into her graduate work and raising their first child.   Despite being  the only African-American student in the Colombia graduate psychology program at the time, she would later report it to be a satisfying experience and denied any real racial issues affecting her studies.  It was at Colombia where she first met Henry Garrett and asked him to be her dissertation professor.  As a prominent statistician, former president of the American Psychological Association, and Chair of Psychology at Colombia, having Garrett as a mentor seemed an obvious choice.   The fact that the was also a eugenicist and a proponent of "race hygiene" did not appear to have any impact on his working relationship with her.  Mamie Clark graduated with her doctorate in 1943 after completing her research on identity in black  children.

Despite the meagre job opportunities available following her graduation, Mamie Clark and her husband established the Northside Center for Child Development in 1946.  From its humble beginning in a Harlem basement apartment, the Center provided a homelike environment for minority children to help supplement the practically nonexistent community resources available at the time.  Acting as director, Mamie Clark oversaw a range of services including remedial education, medical examinations, psychological counseling, and social work.  Given the stigma surrounding psychological services at the time, providing assessment and counseling was especially problematic.   Intelligence testing was particularly suspect given that minority children were being routinely assigned to the Class for Children of Retarded Mental Development (often with parental permission) based on their test results. Such placement typically marked children for life and they were rarely able to return to mainstream classes.   As part of the Center's mandate, the Clarks often reevaluated the intelligence of the "retarded" children and found significant discrepancies in how minority children were being assessed.

The Clarks also continued to do groundbreaking research exploring consciousness of skin colour in children three to seven years of age.  In one classic study,  the Clarks provided children with colouring books, crayons, and a series of objects to draw.  These objects also including a picture of a boy and a girl and the children were instructed to colour the children "the way you would like them to be".    Although light-skinned children coloured the drawings of children appropriately, a significant portion of children with medium to darker brown skin coloured the pictures as either caucasian or in a bizarre colour choice such as blue or yellow.   In reporting their results, the Clarks argued that the colour choice was "an indication of emotional anxiety and conflict in terms of their own skin . . . because they wanted to be white, they pretended to be".    A similar study involving dolls with different colours of skin showed that over one-half of the study children showed a preference for the white doll and rejected the doll with a darker skin.   When asked which doll they found to be ugly or pretty, the African American children frequently showed significant tense and evasive behaviour when questioned about their own racial identity and why they preferred the white doll. 

Armed with these research findings, Kenneth Clark led a prestigious group of social scientists in preparing an expert witness brief on the detrimental effects of racial segregation.  Titled, "The Effects of Segregation", the social science brief supplemented the legal brief presented by the NAACP's legal counsel and became one of the highpoints of the three-year Brown trial.  Given the political resistance to desegregation, the Clarks and their research (particularly their "Doll Study") came under attack by conservatives.   Most of the attacks were partisan in nature and southern politicains were especially outspoken about the use of psychological theories as a substitute for the legal process.  That didn't stop them from fielding their own scientific experts however, most notably Mamie Clark's old mentor, Henry Garret.  

After leaving  Colombia in 1955  to teach at the University of Virginia,   Garrett became well-known as a strong advocate of racial segregation.  As a prominent academic whose scientific work was frequently cited by  conservatives, he became well entrenched among Virginia's segregationists and was frequently courted by the conservative elements of the state legislature.  Since desegregation was already becoming a hot issue,  Garrett helped to bolster Senator Harry Byrd's  Massive Resistance policy designed to prevent forced desegregation of schools.    As a strong hereditarian, Garrett argued that segregated schooling was necessary given that minority children were typically inferior in intelligence to white children.  He even went so far as to say that school desegregation would lead to "total demoralization and then disorganization in that order".   His condemnation of what he termed "egalitarian bias" didn't sway the jurors in his favour.

Even after the Brown decision was handed down in 1954, critics condemned the use of psychological research in shaping legal policy.  One prominent legal scholar commented that the Brown decision was "caused by the testimony and opinion of scientists" and that civil rights legislation "should not rest on such flimsy foundation as some of the scientific demonstrations  in these records".  Prominent psychologists such as Bruno Bettleheim also weighed in on the issue and argued that there was no reliable evidence that racial segregation damaged the human personality.  The Clarks' research findings continued to be debated in universities and laboratories with the frequently embattled Clarks often being forced to defend their research findings against partisan critics. 

As for Henry Garrett, he continued to be active in supporting Massive Resistance legislation (which persisted well into the 1960s) as well as efforts to overturn the Brown decision.  He  became one of the prime movers for the International Association for the Advance of Ethnology and Eugenics, the Liberty Lobby, the Northern Front,  and also acted as a director of the Pioneer Fund.  Up until his death in 1973, he  continued to rail against the rejection of biological theories of intelligence and often placed the blame on "Jewish" organizations for promoting "egalitarian dogma".  The obvious racism of his views made him increasingly out of favour with other hereditarians although he is still widely cited in right-wing literature.

Both Mamie and Kenneth Clark continued with their research while Mamie Clark remained as director of the Northside Center until 1979.  By the time of her death in 1983, Mamie Clark had become a civil rights icon and, along with her husband (who died in 2005) accrued numerous honours and awards.  While basic problems with racial discrimination still persist today, Mamie and Kenneth Clark continue to be an inspiration and an example for future psychologists to follow. 

 

The Type D Personality in the Workplace

Cross-sectional studies suggest that Type D personality is a risk factor for work-related exhaustion and engagement, but longitudinal evidence is lacking. A 3-wave study recently published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences examined the longitudinal effects of Type D, taking into account existing job demands and resources, exhaustion, engagement, and neuroticism. Data were extracted from the LISS-panel, based on a random sample of the Dutch population. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted among respondents (N = 2273) who were employed during the 7-month study. Respondents worked in sectors varying from healthcare to industry. In the longitudinal analyses Type D personality was not a significant predictor for exhaustion/engagement over and above existing exhaustion/engagement, neuroticism, job demands and resources, in contrast to cross-sectional analyses. Job demands and resources explained a trivial proportion of variance of exhaustion and engagement in longitudinal analyses. Using the two elements of Type D personality (negative affectivity and social inhibition) did not change main findings. Existing exhaustion and engagement were significant and dominant predictors. We found no evidence to prove that Type D personality is relevant in the development of emotional exhaustion and engagement. Findings stress the necessity of longitudinal studies controlling for corresponding variables assessed earlier to prevent overestimations of effects. 

For the abstract

One Suicide Every Second According to WHO Report

"Despite progress, one person still dies every 40 seconds from suicide.  Every death is a tragedy for family, friends and colleagues. Yet suicides are preventable. We call on all countries to incorporate proven suicide prevention strategies into national health and education programmes in a sustainable way.”  Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Health Organization Director-General

While noting progress in the five years since the publication of the first WHO global report on suicide,  only thirty-eight countries currently have a national suicide prevention strategy in place to prevent deaths.  Though suicide rates vary widely between countries, the global age-standardized suicide rate was 10.5 per 100,000 in 2016.   Suicide rates appear highest in high-income countries although seventy-nine percent of all suicides occur in middle- to low-income countries.   Men are also three times as likely to commit suicide as women in high-income countries even though the gender disparity is more equal in poorer countries.

Suicide remains the second leading cause of death among young people aged 15-29 years (road injury is the leading cause).   For girls in the 15-19 age range, only pregnancy-related medical conditions causes more deaths annually than suicide.  For boys in that age range, suicide is the third leading cause of death (after road injury and interpersonal violence).  Popular methods for committing suicide are hanging, pesticide self-poisoning, and using firearms and government programs have reported success in preventing death by restricting access to firearms and pesticides.

Given the toxicity of most pesticides used worldwide, they remain a popular choice due to their effectiveness and the lack of adequate medical services in many places.   This means that deliberate suicide attempts are often fatal whether or not self-poisoners intended to kill themselves.   In a report recently released by the WHO titled  Preventing suicide: a resource for pesticide registrars and regulators, numerous research studies have demonstrated prohibiting the use of highly hazardous pesticides can lead to reductions in national suicide rates.

In Sri Lank, for example, government bans on pesticides have led to a 70% fall in suicides and an estimated 93 000 lives saved between 1995 and 2015.   Paraquat remains a particularly popular choice for suicide in many parts of Asia and accounted for most suicide deaths in the Republic of Korea during the 2000s.   Since the Korean government imposed a ban on paraquat in 2011-2012, the rate of suicide deaths from pesticide poisoning has dropped by half between 2011 and 2013.

Even as progress is being made, tracking suicide rates remains a major problem in many countries.  Only 80 of the 183 WHO Member States provide reliable data concerning suicide rates, largely due to the lack of a strong medical infrastructure as well as the stigma that continues to surround suicide worldwide.  

Aided by international partners such as World Federation for Mental Health, the International Association for Suicide Prevention and United for Global Mental Health, the WHO launched the 40 Seconds of Action Campaign which culminated on October 10 which is World Mental Health Day.   By working together to help prevent suicide, the WHO and its supporters are hoping for a better future for everyone.

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Executing Lena Baker

GEORGIA CHAIR CLAIMS FIRST WOMAN VICTIM

(March 6, 1945)

Reidsville, Georgia (UP)  Tatnall State Prison's electric chair claimed its first woman victim yesterday when Lena Baker, negro mother of three children, paid with her life for slaying a Cuthbert, Ga. white man.   Warden A.C. Aderhold said the Baker woman went to the chair calmly but protesting that the killing was in self-defense.   

In a recent unsuccessful plea to the state board of pardons, Lena Baker said she shot E.B. Knight, a grist-mill operator, after he threatened her life when she attempted to leave his mill and go home to her children.   Defense counsel told the board that the woman had been Knight's "slave woman"  for two years prior to the killing.  The board declined to set aside the death verdict.   

Aderhold said Lena Baker was the first woman to die in the electric chair since its installation by the state in 1924.   

Aside from a few Southern newspapers, the news story shown above got little attention and was quickly forgotten even in Georgia where the execution took place.    When 44.-year-old Lena Baker put a bullet through the head of her 67-year old employer, Ernest Knight, on April 30, 1944, her claim to shooting him in self-defense was largely overlooked and her conviction seemed a foregone conclusion in racially segregated Georgia.

So, who was Lena Baker and how did a mother of three end up dying in the electric chair?   According to most accounts, Lena Baker had been born in 1901 to a family of sharecroppers in southwest Georgia.   Given the lack of opportunities in her life, she quickly became dissatisfied and decided to head north to one of the larger cities.    Nothing much is known about her aside from a conviction in 1920 for "running a lewd house" though the exact circumstances, not to mention whether she was actually guilty, is open to debate.  In any event, she spent ten months in prison and was never in trouble with the law again until her arrest for murder.

What is known about Lena Baker was that, by 1941 when she was encountered Ernest Knight, she was forty years of age, the mother of three children, and living with her mother in Cuthbert Georgia.    Having already worked as a maid, she likely thought nothing about being hired by Ernest Knight's son to take care of his invalid father.  The 65-year-old Knight was largely housebound due to a broken leg and Lena was reportedly thrilled at what she saw as a steady job that could support her family.   

Though she was basically hired as a nursemaid for the recovering Knight, the relationship soon became much more than that.   Whether out of desperation to keep the job or out of genuine feeling for her employer, it soon became evident to everyone that Lena had become Ernest's "wife" in everything but name.   Given the very real racial intolerance of that era, any suggestion of interracial sex was viewed as a major scandal.  Not only did neighbours call in the sheriff to investigate, but Ernest's son, Eugene, did everything possible to separate the two of them.  He insisted that his father move to Florida, something that he had hoped would end Ernest's relationship with Lena.   

Instead, Lena moved to Florida as well though she soon reconsidered and returned to Georgia. As for Ernest, he returned to his home town as well though their relationship remained as taboo as ever.  Eugene Knight made repeated threats against Lena ordering her to stay away from his father and, when this failed, he became physically abusive as well.   As he would later testify during Lena's murder trial, "I took her and beat her until I did just leave life in her" (nobody batted an eye during the trial over this candid admission).   

Lena quickly got the message and returned to her mother's house to live, apparently determined to end her relationship with Ernest.   As she testified however, Ernest refused to accept that the relationship was over.  In her statement describing the events that led up to the shooting, Lena reported that Ernest came to her mother's house on April 29 and ordered her to go to his millhouse where they could be alone together.   While Lena was apprehensive, she agreed to this after he gave her money for whiskey.

While at the mill, Ernest reportedly locked her in while he went to church (it was Sunday morning).   When she complained that he was keeping her from her children, she said that Ernest replied, "Damn you, I mean to make you do what I tell you to do or I'll kill you."   After keeping her in the mill all day, he later returned with dinner and another bottle of whiskey.   She tried to escape after he unlocked the door but he pulled out a pistol to threaten her.  According to Lena, she and Ernest "got to tussling" before she managed to get the pistol away from him.  When he reached for an iron bar to use as a weapon, she shot him through the head.  "I believe he would have killed me if I had not done what I did "  she told the court.  

Despite reporting the shooting to the police as self-defense, Lena was promptly charged with murder.   By all accounts, police hardly even bothered to investigate her claim of self-defense despite Knight's reputation for being an abusive alcoholic.  While there had been no question that Knight had been drinking that night, police found no trace of the iron bar that Knight had allegedly been reaching for and instead focused on the "improper relationship" between the African-American Baker and her white employer.  The prevailing theory was that she had shot Ernest while he was trying to escape from her given that she had his gun.

During Lena's trial,  her court-appointed defense attorney didn't call a single witness and the all-white jury had no hesitation about finding her guilty.   The trial, verdict, and subsequent sentencing all took place on a single day.   While there was ample precedent to change her charge to voluntary manslaughter (which wasn't a capital offense), her lawyer and the rest of the court simply didn't bother. 

After all, she was  an African-American women who had killed a white man and there seemed little real chance of any other verdict.   Even though her defense attorney went so far as to file an appeal, he then dropped her case completely.    A month later, the court dismissed this appeal and ruled that, since she had failed to find a new lawyer (despite being penniless), Lena was making "no effort or attempt to prosecute" her appeal.   From that point on,  she received no more reprieves and her execution date was set for March 5, 1945.

According to prison officials, her last words before being led to the electric chair were:  "What I done, I done in self-defense or I would have been killed myself, where I was I could not overcome it.  I am ready to meet my God."    Following the execution, she was buried in an unmarked grave at the Mount Vernon Missionary Baptist Church cemetery in Cuthbert and would be forgotten for decades.

But that changed in 1998 when members of Lena's congregation finally arranged for a simple headstone to be placed on her grave.   This sparked a renewed interest in Lena Baker's story including coverage in various newspapers.   In 2003, Lena's family launched an active campaign to have her pardoned, something that many people in the Cuthbert area had difficulty with due to fears of "stirring up trouble."  Still, the Georgia Parole Board awarded her a pardon in 2005.  While not declaring her innocent of the crime, the Board concluded that the circumstances of her conviction, including her one-day trial, "was a grievous error, as this case called out for mercy."   The proclamation announcing the pardon was read out at a family gathering at Lena's grave.  

Lena Baker's story didn't end there, however.   In 2008, a movie titled, "Hope and Redemption: the Lena Baker Story" premiered at the Atlanta Film Festival.  Based on a 2001 book by Lena Bond Phillips, the film was written, directed, and produced by TV veteran Ralph Wilcox and starred Tichina Arnold in the title role.   Though details of the case were changed in the movie (Ernest Knight was renamed Elliot Arthur in the film to avoid potential lawsuits), the film generated critical praise and a sold-out premiere in Atlanta.  It was also shown at the Cannes Film Festival later that year.  

In an 2009 interview with the Atlanta Constitution, Ralph Wilcox described his film as "a movie that should resonate with everyone."   Though he recognized that Lena Baker's story would help stir up old racial tensions in parts of Georgia, he also insisted that "healing begins when we feel the pain.  Once you've dealt with the anger and the guilt, then you can start to move on.  This is one chapter of a long and painful history in America.  If it's painful, that's a good thing."  

While other women have been executed in the United States since 1945, Lena Baker's story continues to resonate.   In an era of rising racial tensions and mistrust, the tragic circumstances of her case continue to serve as a warning about allowing hatred to override basic principles such as justice and mercy.

A Tale of Two Books

Since 1258 when Pope Alexander IV first called for the prosecution of witches as heretics, the Church wholeheartedly accepted its role in stamping out witchcraft across Europe. Despite growing Protestant opposition to the persecutions, the Inquisition persisted in the arrest and prosecution of those suspected of witchcraft (usually women). Despite papal bulls and official Church pronouncements, there continued to be active dissent over how witches could be properly identified. It was only in the 15th century, when Heinrich Kramer first wrote what would later be known as the Malleus Maleficarum (the Witches' Hammer), that a true handbook for witch hunters became available. Kramer had been an active witch hunter in Austria whose anti-witch activities had been actively suppressed by the local bishop. Along with his colleague James Spenger, Kramer later arranged for a papal bull in 1484 to support the Malleus and their own witch-hunting efforts.

Many theologians actually opposed the book at first since they viewed Kramer's methods as being unethical and illegal. Although Kramer was denounced by the Inquisition in 1490, his public lectures and widespread popularity of his handbook led to its formal acceptance. We can probably thank Johannes Gutenberg for the popularity of the Malleus since the invention of movable type made the book widely available across Europe. Between 1487 and 1520 alone, it was reprinted thirteen times and the anti-witch persecutions began in earnest.

The Witches' Hammer is divided into three sections: the first section addresses the "mistaken" belief that witchcraft didn't exist. Kramer and Spenger were emphatic in linking witchcraft to sexuality (primarily female sexuality). Since women were more "concerned with things of the flesh than men" and "all witchcraft comes from carnal lust", women were especially susceptible to the Devil's temptations. The second section deals with the powers that witches possess and how they recruit others to join them in their forbidden practices. Witches gained their power by signing their souls to Satan and their actions automatically made them blasphemers who betrayed God. The final section deals with the procedures to be following in "proving" witches and their punishment. Kramer and Spenger laid out a careful description of methods of questioning suspected witches (including different forms of torture), gathering evidence against witches, and the formal charges to be used.

The book provides a thorough guide to the psychological intimidation tactics used against accused witches. Not only did the book recommend telling witches about the tortures they would face if they didn't confess freely, but also promising worse tortures as the questioning continued. As Kramer and Spenger wrote, "And, while he is being tortured, he [the witch]- must be questioned on the articles of accusation, and this frequently and persistently, beginning with the lighter charges-for he will more readily confess the lighter than the heavier. And, while this is being done, the notary must write down everything in his record of the trial--how the prisoner is tortured, on what points he is questioned, and how he answers." Any evidence obtained through torture was perfectly valid and judges were also permitted to lie to the accused by promising them leniency if they confessed. The authors also instructed jailers to stay with the accused witch at all times, otherwise "she will be visited by the Devil and tempted into suicide."

And now we come to the other book...

Reginald Scot was no Heinrich Kramer. Born in 1538, there is very little known about his life except that he came from an old English family and enjoyed caring for his  beloved hop gardens (he also wrote a book on hop farming). While he seemed like an unlikely rebel against the witch mania that gripped Europe, Scot was moved to act when fourteen women in a nearby village were tried for witchcraft in 1582. After researching how evidence was gathered and used against accused witches, Scot eventually published his findings in 1584 as The Discoverie of Witchcraft. Due to the book's controversial nature, Scot was forced to publish it himself.In his book, Scot argued against the existence of witches and and denounced the prosecution of suspected witches as irrational and "contrary to Christian doctrine".  He also raised the novel suggestion that anyone claiming to be a witch was actually deluded and needed to be "guided in their religious faith" rather than executed.

Scot railed against the Malleus Maleficarum and "witch hunters" in general, stating that "because it may appear unto the world what treacherous and faithless dealings, what extreme and intolerable tyranny, what gross and foolish absurdities, what unnatural and uncivil discourtesy, what cankered and spiteful malice, what outrageous and barbarous cruelty… what abominable and devilish inventions, and what flat and plain knavery is practiced against these old women, I will set down the whole order of the Inquisition, to the everlasting, inexcusable, and apparent shame of all witch-mongers”. What made Discoverie even more remarkable was that Scot also denounced various popular superstitions including astrology, divination, charms, and witches' sabbats.He even provided a description of "harmless" conjuring tricks that were often linked with witchcraft. Not only did this make his book one of the first true classics of skepticism, but Scot is also credited with one of the earliest known treatises on stage magic.

It should hardly be surprising that the leading theologians and demonologists of Scot's time denounced his book.  Unfortunately,his greatest critic was King James VI of Scotland (later King James I of England). A Protestant convert who took witchcraft very seriously, the King's reign in Scotland was marked by some of the worst witch hunts in British history (James had personally authorized the use of torture and burnings in dealing with witches). His Royal Displeasure with Reginald Scot's book was all too apparent and, when he became King of England in 1603, James ordered all copies to be burned. It was just as well that Reginald Scot died in 1599 since he likely would have been prosecuted as well. Only a few copies survived King James' purge although the Discoverie would be heavily plagiarized in later centuries.

With critics like Scot being effectively silenced, the Malleus Maleficarum would be the primary reference for witch hunters and judges alike in dealing with accused witches for more than two centuries after it was published. Between 1480 and 1700, an estimated 40,000 (some historians put the number much higher) of convicted witches and heretics (mostly women) were executed across Europe and its various colonies. While it's easy to regard the witch trials as being a thing of the past, episodes of witch hysteria continue to occur around the world. 

The witch hunters aren't out of business yet.

Where Are We Going With Human Augmentation?

Human augmentation is a field of research that aims to enhance human abilities through medicine or technology. This has historically been achieved by consuming chemical substances that improve a selected ability or by installing implants which require medical operations. Both of these methods of augmentation can be invasive. Augmented abilities have also been achieved with external tools, such as eyeglasses, binoculars, microscopes or highly sensitive microphones. Lately, augmented reality and multimodal interaction technologies have enabled non-invasive ways to augment human. In a new article published in the journal International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, we first discuss the field and related terms. We provide relevant definitions based on the present understanding of the field. This is followed by a summary of existing work in augmented senses, action, and cognition. Our contribution to the future includes a model for wearable augmentation. In addition, we present a call for research to realize this vision. Then, we discuss future human abilities. Wearable technologies may act as mediators for human augmentation, in the same manner as eyeglasses once revolutionized human vision. Non-invasive and easy-to-use wearable extensions will enable lengthening the active life for aging citizens or supporting the full inclusion of people with special needs in society, but there are also potential problems. Therefore, we conclude by discussing ethical and societal issues: privacy, social manipulation, autonomy and side effects, accessibility, safety and balance, and unpredictable future. 

For the abstract