On Research…

Get Happy!

A fair number of psychology researchers claim to study mental health. But when you really consider what they’re doing, it turns out their focus is the lack of mental health. For a self-guided tour, thumb through the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV, known as the DSM-IV. There is the definitive catalog of what can go wrong with the human psyche, from anxiety disorders to depression to paranoid personality disorder and beyond. Behind every entry in the DSM-IV is the work of many researchers.

Freud's Couch It’s entirely appropriate to focus on mental disorders. After all, counseling and clinical psychologists exist to treat people who are troubled, and who need help finding true mental health. But what about folks who are happy and well-adjusted? Can’t we learn anything from them?

Sigmund Freud At the American Psychological Association convention in Boston last week, it was clear that more and more researchers have turned their attention to people who aren’t troubled, but who are actually thriving. In fact, two Ohio State faculty members presented research at the APA meeting examining the well-adjusted among us.

Jennifer Cheavens, an assistant professor of psychology, presented her research on “hope therapy.” What excited her about hope therapy is that researchers are learning from people who are doing well in life, and using those lessons to develop therapies for those who are not doing as well.

On a completely different topic, Sara Staats, a professor emeritus of psychology, examined cheating among college students by studying students who don’t cheat. She found that students who scored high on measures of courage, empathy and honesty were less likely to report having cheated. She wants to learn from these students and design interventions that can reduce academic dishonesty.

This area of study has been labeled “positive psychology,” and there was plenty of that to be found in Boston. One discussion session was named the “APA Comedy Jam” with the subtitle “Laughter: The Most Positive Psychology.” Researchers also shared findings about how people who have experienced serious traumas can benefit from this approach. For example, one presentation reported “Positive Psychology Strategies for Promoting Resilience in Recovering Veterans.”

Oh, there was still plenty of talk about pathologies and disorders in Boston. But it’s good to know that psychology researchers are starting to learn from people who can’t find themselves on the pages of the DSM-IV.__Jeff Grabmeier

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Tags: Researchers, Science Communication, Science policy by earleholland
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When data makes you blue . . .

If I was seeking self-induced depression, I’d run to the latest report from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, turn to page 39 in Section 5 and wallow in self-pity.

Truthfully, that’s what I did and now life seems even bleaker than it did before.

The Scream by Edvard Munch Science writers are, by nature, science junkies. We know we’re geeks and we don’t mind it. We realize that our excitement over seemingly esoteric discoveries isn’t shared by the masses. We pay attention to the Nobels and the Lasker Awards like others follow the Yankees or the Braves.

In fact, our disenfranchisement as social outliers sets us apart from others. In essence, it makes us special.

Couple that attitude with the ongoing deficit in scientific literacy among Americans. NSF’s last edition (2006) of Science and Engineering Indicators painted a dismal picture of our national interest and/or knowledge in the sciences. While researchers rejoiced in the fact that scientific literacy has doubled in the US since 1979, it is still only 17 percent.

Or put another way, four out of five Americans are likely to give the wrong answer to a science question.

But back to page 39 . . .

If you scratch most journalists deep enough, they’ll admit they believe that if the public could just be informed effectively, it would make intelligent decisions and then we would have a more informed citizenry, and a better society. Ergo, the public needs good journalism.

But the public’s “wants” often differ from its “needs.” And that’s where the Pew study comes in. Its researchers surveyed more than 3,600 adults by telephone – both cellular and landline – and asked them a menu of questions to gauge how Americans viewed and used news. And part of their findings led to a ranking of “types of news (participants) followed very closely.”

Leading the 18 categories was weather news (makes sense, who wants to forget the umbrella on a rainy day) with 48 percent ranking that as most important for them to monitor. Crime, education, community, environment, politics and Washington news rounded out the top six interest categories.

But ranked 14th out of 18 categories was “science and technology” with only 13 percent of those surveyed saying they followed it closely. Adding salt to the wound was the four-percentage-point drop in importance science received in the last six years of similar surveys. Those who closely followed science were mostly male – 71 percent to 29 percent.

There’s only a little pleasure in knowing that, surprisingly, science outranked entertainment, culture and arts, celebrity news and travel in the polling.

Science journalists, and scientists as well, should take note of such surveys and think long and hard about why most people react to science as they do. The reasons are probably many but things can change. Those of us on this side of that divide need to do a better job of sharing our excitement in a way that’s contagious to the masses, rather than seeing the data and simply getting depressed.__Earle Holland

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Art vs. Science . . .

Sunday’s story in the Columbus Dispatch introducing Ohio State’s new “arts ambassador” raised a fundamental question in my mind, one of those philosophical quandaries that seemingly arise from nowhere and then plague your thoughts all day.

Fork in the road . . . “Why do we see art and science as being so very different?”

The Dispatch story explained how Karen Bell, a former dean of the College of Arts at OSU, is now the institution’s chief arts proponent, charged with reinforcing the fact that a vibrant city and state need a vibrant arts community. Bell’s probably the perfect person to fill that slot and remind us all that the arts sustain our humanity.

And in a community like Columbus, with OSU, Battelle, Chemical Abstracts and dozens of other research institutions, and scientists numbering in the thousands, appointing a similar ambassador for science seems unnecessary.

Most people innately understand the need for science at some level. Science brings us discoveries, advances and solutions to problems large and small. There’s a fundamental comfort, it seems, in the belief that science, somehow, can “fix” things, and therefore, it has value.

Art has value as well. In fact, I’d guess that if asked, a random sample of citizens would likely suggest that art – given its uniqueness in every piece – has a greater societal value than science. And most researchers would probably agree.

Science drives our curiosity and hope, but the arts feed our soul.

Why then is there so often a tug-of-war between the two? Too often we believe that people can either be inclined towards art or oriented towards science. Why do we have to choose? Why do we place the two on opposite ends of the spectrum?

Even in academic programs – including those labeled “arts and sciences” – we inevitably force students to choose between the two. While science students must take some introductory arts courses, and vice-versa, they’re routinely persuaded that a sprinkling of understanding of the opposite fields is sufficient.

In truth, the arts and the sciences feed on each other. Who’s to say which is better: da Vinci’s science or his art? Would he have accomplished as much if he had been forced to choose? Researchers have long recognized the mathematics of Mozart. And electronic musicians couldn’t function without physics.

As a people, we preferentially cling to our affinities and avoid our weaknesses. One person “can’t understand the science” while another is puzzled by what is labeled as “art.” Psychologists will tell us that this is natural, simply an effort to remain in our comfort zone. But I doubt that it helps us grow, either as individuals or a community.

When they doled out the artistic talent from my family’s gene pool, I wasn’t at the table. Instead, I suckled on science at an early age, and it has served me well. But one wonders what might have happened if one interest had been better balanced by the other.

Today’s world grows in complexity by the hour, fed largely by the increase in newly acquired knowledge, and science adds its massive share to that pile. Perhaps art is the context through which we will cope with this onslaught, a reminder that humanity cannot dine on one food alone if it is to survive.__Earle Holland

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