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It's not easy deciding what to believe in the torrent of information on psychological studies and syndromes. I just read two PT contributions that really impressed me in the way they challenged research. I wanted to point them out because the common theme is not obvious from their titles.
In Are Happy Guys A Turn-Off, Malkin explains that the happy guys had to fake happiness for the photos used in the experiment. Since the human mind is good at detecting false facial expressions, that is the likely cause of the turn-off. I was thrilled that he mentioned this. So many studies use contrived images and contrived choices to support sweeping conclusions about the state of humanity. The over-generalizing often comes from journalists rather than researchers, but the researchers feed into it to get buzz for their work. I like to see people question these studies the way Malkin did.
In When Experts Who Want to Be Rich and Famous Stray, Schnarch explores the use of new syndromes to excuse bad behavior. Such syndromes might emerge from good-faith efforts to help people, and sometimes they do help. But the down-side risks of diverting resources and reinforcing bad behavior are well described in this piece. Says Schnarch, You don't catch "fears of abandonment" or "codependency" from your family-you catch these from therapists who think up and then adopt these entities as if they were "real."
My own pet peeve is research that misrepresents animals as "caring nurturers" (to quote Al Franken from Saturday Night Live). Such research fits the fantasy that nature was a utopia before civilization ruined everything. Researchers can "prove" this by throwing out all the trials that don't prove it. More in my posts on The Myth of Animal Altruism and Self-interest Drives Animals to Dominate or Submit.
