Category:
Psychology

Build your own hug machine

Hugmachine.org offers complete instructions on how to build your very own, low-cost hug machine. For those times when you need to feel the comforting press of two mattresses around you.

The Hug Machine was invented by Temple Grandin as a way to treat her autism. From Wikipedia:

The idea for the hug machine was devised during a visit to her aunt's Colorado ranch, where she noted the way cattle were vaccinated while confined in a squeeze chute, and how some of the cattle immediately calmed down after pressure was administered. She realized the deep pressure from the chute had a calming effect, and decided that might well settle down her own hypersensitivity. Whereas psychologists at her high school sought to confiscate her prototype hug machine, her science teacher encouraged her to determine just why it helped resolve her anxiety and sensory issues.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Apr 03, 2009 - Comments (7)
Category: Inventions, Psychology

The Westermarck Effect

The Westermarck Effect is a psychological phenomena named after Finnish anthropologist Edvard Westermarck. The effect is that (according to
Wikipedia): "when two people live in close domestic proximity during the first few years in the life of either one, both are desensitized to later close sexual attraction." Which is why most people don't get the hots for their sibling.

However, if siblings don't grow up together and only meet for the first time later in life, they may be intensely sexually attracted to each other. This is known as genetic sexual attraction, or GSA. Again, from Wikipedia:

Several factors may contribute to GSA. People commonly rank faces similar to their own as more attractive, trustworthy, etc. than average... Shared interests and personality traits are commonly considered desirable in a mate... In cases of parent-child attraction, the parent may recognize traits of their sometime mate in the child. Such reunions typically produce complex emotions in all involved.

Finally, there is the phenomena known as the Westermarck Trap, which occurs when two people who have grown up together (and thus are sexually desensitized to each other) are expected to marry each other, because of an arranged marriage. According to one theory, this is what the novel Frankenstein depicts:

Students of the Westermarck effect may be interested to know that this trap is depicted in the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, in which Victor Frankenstein is expected to marry a cousin reared with him. Instead, he creates a monster that persecutes him and murders his prospective bride before the marriage can be consummated. It is suggested that the plot owes something to Mary Shelley's own experience of the Westermarck effect, following a childhood in which she was reared with a stepbrother. Her own personal solution was not to create a monster but to elope with a married man (Percy Bysshe Shelley) at the age of 16.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Mar 30, 2009 - Comments (5)
Category: Literature, Books, Sexuality, Psychology

Why Tinfoil Hats Don’t Work

You might have seen the newspaper reports last fall about this experiment. Here's how it was done.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Mar 27, 2009 - Comments (4)
Category: Eccentrics, Science, Experiments, Psychology, Technology

Walking Zombie Syndrome

Do you feel dull and listless? Have you lost interest in everything? Do people describe you as "dead wood"? You may be suffering from Walking Zombie Syndrome. First described in the Journal of the Tennessee Medical Association, Dec 1979:

these individuals carry around with them in their unconscious mind a death suggestion, while on the conscious level they have no knowledge whatsoever of it. In fact, when told they believe themselves dead they deny it even though their symptoms and their behavior continually affirm the diagnosis of the Walking Zombie syndrome...

Walking Zombies are present on the streets of every city, and not a single practitioner will escape their complaints. Even though they may faithfully attempt work every day, they are for the most part nonproductive and often represent more of a liability than an asset to their employers, families and friends. Many are accident prone, and most Walking Zombies cost their company a great deal by chronic absenteeism.

Posted By: Alex - Thu Mar 26, 2009 - Comments (13)
Category: Death, Psychology

Otherkin

Otherkin is a name used to describe people who believe they are "something other than human." That something other might be an elf, angel, dragon, or vampire.

The Otherkin Wiki explores topics such as Differences from humans, Identifying your species, and, of course, the dreaded Wannabes who try to infiltrate the Otherkin community:
It's hard to detect wannabes...they can become enmeshed in the community and be quite active, or perhaps they eventually figure out that they were wrong and leave -- the realization is probably due to some type of disillusionment...
There is also some measure of fan-culture around some mythological archetypes -- such as Elves in the wake of the Lord of the Rings movies, Vampires after Buffy:TVS and so on. Due to the prevalence of these archetypes in popular media, the community does attract some people who "Wanna be" elves, vampires, etc. even though they know that they aren't. Some of them hang out for a while before realizing that we're by far an unromantic and rather boring community as a whole. They also probably leave disillusioned.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Mar 25, 2009 - Comments (8)
Category: Animals, Psychology

The Baiting Crowd

I believe that the social psychologist Leon Mann was one of the first to describe the phenomenon of the "baiting crowd." He did so in a 1981 article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology:

We assume that most people are concerned for the life and well-being of others. It comes as a surprise to learn that crowds gathered at the site of a suicide threat have been known to taunt and urge the victim to jump... In my examination of the baiting phenomenon, I searched all listings for suicides and suicide attempts in the New York Times Index for 1964-1979... The following extract from the New York Times for June 8, 1964, is an example of the data source:
A Puerto Rican handyman perched on a 10th floor ledge for an hour yesterday morning as many persons in a crowd of 500 on upper Broadway shouted at him in Spanish and English to jump. Even as cries of "Jump!" and "Brinca!" rang out, policemen pulled the man to safety from the narrow ledge at 3495 Broadway, the north-west corner of 143rd Street.

Mann identified five factors that contribute to the phenomenon: 1) the anonymity of being in a large crowd; 2) cover of darkness; 3) distance from the victim (but being close enough so that the person threatening suicide can still hear the cries urging him to jump); 4) duration of episode (people get bored and restless waiting too long); and 5) hot temperatures.

My theory is that people are okay until you gather them together into a crowd, at which point they transform into the lowest form of life imaginable.

Posted By: Alex - Sun Mar 01, 2009 - Comments (4)
Category: Death, Psychology

Are you autistic?

The Autism-Spectrum Quotient Test measures autistic traits in adults. The average score is 16. If you score 32 or higher, no one is saying you're definitely autistic, but you're probably not known for your sparkling social skills. I scored 22, so yeah, I'm on the antisocial side of the spectrum.

Posted By: Alex - Thu Jan 22, 2009 - Comments (19)
Category: Psychology

Sensation Seeking Scale

The Sensation Seeking Scale was developed by Prof. Marvin Zuckerman almost forty years ago. It measures four psychological tendencies: thrill and adventure seeking; experience seeking; disinhibition; and susceptibility to boredom.

"Thrill seekers" get a kick out of activities or sports that provide unusual sensations and experiences-- even if they involve risk. Motorcycle racing or water-skiing, for example, might appeal to this category of sensation seekers... "Experience seekers" enjoy novel experiences--say, travel to exotic locations, listening to unusual or exciting music, experimenting with drugs or living a "non-conformist" lifestyle... "Disinhibitors" are constantly searching for opportunities to lose their inhibitions at "wild" parties involving heavy drinking and sexual activities with strangers... Finally, sensation seekers are very easily bored by repetitious, predictable experiences and people, or by routine work assignments.

Take the test over at the BBC to find out how much (and what kind) of a sensation seeker you are.

I scored very high as an "experience seeker." Makes sense for someone who's addicted to weird.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Dec 15, 2008 - Comments (5)
Category: Quizzes, Psychology

Self-Embedding Disorder

Teenagers have discovered a new method of screwing themselves up. Cutting and poisoning themselves is no longer enough. The new fad is to deliberately embed objects in their flesh. Doctors report that they've removed a variety of embedded objects from the arms, hands, feet, ankles and necks of teenage girls. These objects include: needles, staples, wood, stone, glass, pencil lead, crayon, and an unfolded metal paper clip more than 6 inches long.

In cases of self-embedding disorder, objects are used to puncture the skin or are forced into a wound after cutting... At least two teens have disclosed instances of self-embedding, said Terry Ciszek, the hospital's director for outpatient services. Both girls had intentionally inserted pencils under their skin and then broke off the lead to keep it lodged there.

Goes without saying that the teenagers doing this have a lot of mental health issues. Link: Chicago Tribune

(I'm pretty sure someone forwarded us this link, but I can't remember who it was. Thank you, whoever you are!)

Posted By: Alex - Wed Dec 10, 2008 - Comments (4)
Category: Medicine, Psychology

The Hard-To-Get Woman

Why do women play hard to get? According to research recently conducted at the University of Bristol, it's so that "men can prove themselves more worthy than their rivals."

Here's how it works. The woman acts coy. The man acts eager and helpful. Eventually the woman decides, "I am going to have a child with this male." I assume she says this in a robotic voice.

The researchers hope their study "could eventually lead to a model that could work out the optimal amount of coyness for a woman to use in choosing a male."

I wrote about some similar research in Elephants on Acid. In 1973 researchers from the University of Wisconsin instructed a Nevada prostitute to play "hard to get," and then studied the reactions of her clients. Hard to get, in that context, meant that she didn't indicate to her clients whether she wanted to see them again. Client response was measured by the number of times the guy returned during the following month. The researchers concluded that men don't like women who play hard to get. Instead men like women who are easy for themselves but hard for everyone else to get. (Thanks, Sandy!)

Posted By: Alex - Tue Dec 09, 2008 - Comments (7)
Category: Science, Experiments, Psychology, Women

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Who We Are
Alex Boese
Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.

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