An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields
Susan Powell disappeared 20 months ago on a cold night in Utah. Her husband Josh has been the main focus of investigation and this is his first in depth interview. Can you spot the microexpression that occurs in this video? Any hot spots?
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Pet lovers across the world would attest to the health benefits of their furry friends. Dogs or cats are unconditionally loving, they would say.
Science has long agreed with pet lovers on the health benefits of having a pet. Many hospitals and homes for elders employ pets as companions to patients. They have been reported to help with depression and lower blood pressure rates. But is there really a universal health benefit to having a pet?
Professor of Psychology, Harold Herzog, from the Western Carolina University, claims there is not enough scientific evidence to support the claim that pets help people live happier, healthier, or longer lives.
Aps (Association for Psychological Science) reports that research shows conflicting data both in support of the health benefits of owning a pet and for negative reports that pet owners are not better off health wise.
Herzog argues, that the reason for these inconsistencies is that the studies suffer from methodological problems, such as small, homogenous samples, lack of appropriate control groups, and reliance on self-report to measure participants’ health and well being.
What are your thoughts on the health benefits of pets?
Herzog, author of Some we love, some we hate, some we eat: Why it’s so hard to think straight about animals, assures the public that he too is a pet lover. “I’m not trying to delineate the role of animals in human life…It’s entirely plausible that our pets really do provide medical and psychological benefits. We don’t know how strong that effect is, what types of people it works for, and what the underlying biological and psychological mechanisms might be.”
There is no doubt that animals are very important in many aspects of people’s lives. Herzog states that it is clear they serve a therapeutic function. Service dogs that help people with disabilities have provided ample and necessary help to those who otherwise might not receive it.
Do you think Herzog makes a good argument when he cites reliance on self-reports and small homogenous samples as the reason why some studies are not reliable?
Take a look at the video below for additional information on Herzog and his book.
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Related articles
Are pet owners healthier and happier? Maybe not (eurekalert.org)
Most people have heard the old adage, ‘laughter is the best medicine’. But could you truly enjoy a good laugh if it was at your own expense? Many of us think we could and want to but do we really have the sense of humor that allows us laugh at ourselves?
Ursula Beermann, from the University of California Berkeley, and Willibald Ruch, from the University of Zurich, studied 70 psychology students and gauged their ability to laugh at themselves.
However, this study was not all fun and games. Research has linked optimism and laughter to improved health. Understanding humor can be very important in one’s health and could shed light on conditions such as autism where the social skills required in recognizing jokes and the nuances used in certain jokes are lacking.
According to TIME Healthland, the study found that an individual’s ability to laugh at themselves had no bearing on how often they could laugh in response to the silly images of others. This implies that the ability to laugh at oneself is linked with our individual mood and personality.
Research Digest reports that Ekman’s Facial Action Coding System was used to decode the participant’s facial expressions looking for signs of true Duchenne smiles, which are symmetrical and involve creasing of the eye muscles.
80% of the participants flashed a genuine smile, but it was those that claimed to be able to laugh at themselves, and whose friends agreed with that statement, who displayed more frequent and intense smiling and laughter in response to silly images of themselves.
Therefore, being able to laugh at yourself is a distinct trait and linked to an upbeat personality. Participants who were able to laugh at themselves were more cheerful and less serious overall.
What are your thoughts on this study?
Can a good sense of humor be learned or is it completely inherent?