Cloudfindings

Psychology Depicted in Fiction: Analyses of Psychological Profiles of Fictional Characters While not often intended by authors, many fictional characters depict accurately psychological phenotypes in line with a scientific understanding of them. This is because while not everyone is knowledgeable on psychology literature, humans develop internal models of how people's minds work and vary, and the degree to which someones intuitive understanding of personality variation aligns with empirical findings in psychology predicts their ability to understand and predict others mental states and behaviors, and social situations (Cloudfindings 2024a). Intuitive understanding of others minds relates to creativity - especially in creating narratives (Andersen 2022)(Crespi et al. 2016), suggesting that writers have a better intuitive understanding of psychology than the average person, thus reflecting that in how they write their characters, even if they are not aware they are depicting a trait ...

You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack: Sensation Seeking & Its Correlates Sensation Seeking in Different Populations  Sensation seeking is a psychological trait which reflects the degree to which individuals have a need for variety, novelty, and complex & intense sensations and experiences, and social & physical risk taking in pursuit of these experiences (Arnett 1993). Sensation seeking is elevated in storm chasers (Xu et al. 2012), scientists (Mian & Kay 2003), drug users (Pedersen 1991), people who enjoy horror movies (Edwards 1984), people who enjoy fire and fireworks (Perrin-Wallqvist & Norlander 2003)(Cheng et al. 2015), rock and hip hop musicians (Miller & Quigley 2011), criminals (Young 1990), people with unusual sexual interests (Dawson et al. 2019), entrepreneurs (Nicolaou et al. 2010), people who enjoy dark humor (Carretero-Dios & Ruch 2010), visual artists (Jashvaghani et al. 2012), people who engage in risky or casual sex (Charnigo et al...

Pharmacological Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders: State of the Art Treatment of mental disorders is complicated, and while there are drugs approved to treat psychiatric disorders, many of them are lacking in various ways, such as poor efficacy, side effects, dependence and abuse potential, lack of long term efficacy, etc. Treatments that are especially effective often have pharmacological targets that make them a risk for abuse and severe dependence, such as tramadol, an opioid agonist for depression (Bumpus 2020)(Barber 2011) and benzodiazepines for anxiety (Shader & Greenblatt 1993). In this post I look at drugs which have pharmacological effects making them promising treatments for psychiatric disorders with higher efficacy, lower side effects, and low/no dependence. The Problem of Downregulation A major obstacle in treating psychiatric disorders long term is that treatments which are effective in the short term lead to compensatory downregulation of the pharmacological target...

L ow Latent Inhibition as a Personality Trait: Relationships With Autistic Traits, Schizotypy, and Openness Low latent inhibition is a cognitive phenotype which has been demonstrated as being associated with openness and schizotypy, conferring cognitive benefits or mental disorder depending on factors such as intelligence (Peterson & Carson 2000)(Peterson et al. 2002)(Carson et al. 2003)(Gray et al. 2002)(Shrira & Tsakanikos 2009). High latent inhibition has also been shown to characterize autism, which like low latent inhibition can provide cognitive benefits but in opposite ways (Andersen 2022). Latent inhibition relates to how much information is filtered out from being processed based on its deemed relevance, where high latent inhibition promotes a focused cognitive style that ignores sensory and mental information relevant to the task, whereas low latent inhibition promotes an associative and distractible style where much more information is processed that is deemed not as...