Emotions // Current

Emoticons Have Cybersex

Led by Angry, the Emoticons tackle their latest challenge: adding meaning and... more

Super_Josh
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24 days ago
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14 comments

Dear Hero

Send a personal message to your hero. Check www.dearhero.com to see how.

SocialMedia8
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10 days ago
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7 reasons the 21st century is making you miserable

An awesome ramble about technology and human interaction in the 21st century.

lukewarmenthusiasm
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11 months ago
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15 comments

DO YOU FRIGGIN TWITTER???

i have been pressured by so many people i know to twitter like when i found myspace... more

estee_arie
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9 months ago
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0 comments

Facebook application calculates users' "Gross National Happiness"

Facebook has developed a new application, designed for calculating "Gross National... more

Skyscraper08
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1 month ago
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0 comments

You Know What? Celebs Have To Wait In Line For The Toilets Just Like We Do!

Celebrity culture can be such a hazy thing. They are human beings, but they are also... more

jrn
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3 months ago
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2 comments

Women cry for about 16 months of their lives

Researchers have found that from birth til about the age of 78, women will cry for... more

emmaboswood
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4 months ago
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3 comments

You Know You’re Rich When You Can Afford A Louis Vuitton Electric Chair (Such Sleek Shackles!)

jrn
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26 days ago
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0 comments

JCS Paranoia - what extreme solitude and separation do to the mind of a man in love with his family.

Anxiety, Fear, and Panic give way to the serenity of Peace when Lou is left alone for... more

julianscomedystop
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4 months ago
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14 comments

New Study Finds Men Able to Control Sexual Arousal Can Also Control Their Emotions

Is sex a state of mind? A recent study from the University of British Columbia finds that while most men can regulate their physical and mental sexual arousal to some degree, the men most able to do so are able to control their other emotions as well.

“We suspect that if an individual is good at regulating one type of emotional response, he/she is probably good at regulating other emotional responses,” says Jason Winters, the study’s research head. “This has never been shown before.”

The study employed 16 randomly ordered video clips. Eight were erotic, and eight were funny (specifically, the funny video clips featured the least sexy comedian the researchers could find: Mitch Hedberg). Participants were instructed to control their response to certain videos, and simply to watch the others. They then rated their arousal following each clip, and were hooked up to machines that measured their erections.

Researchers wanted to know: Could men control sexual arousal, fooling both themselves and others?

“I’m trained in forensic psychology, and the original plan was to do this study with sexual offenders,” Winters tells LiveScience. “However, I needed to first establish that there is range of sexual arousal regulation abilities in the general male population.”

Indeed, participants were, on average, able to regulate their physiological sexual arousal when told to do so; in fact, they showed a 25 percent reduction in erectile response. “This is consistent with success rates from previous, well-controlled [measuring-device] faking studies in which success rates range from 26 to 38 percent,” Winters writes in his study.

The range of regulation abilities had nothing to do with age, sexual experience, or sexual compulsivity. However, sexual excitation, inhibition, and desire were related to regulation success: Men who were more easily excited were, unsurprisingly, less able to regulate; guys who tended to be sexually inhibited because of performance issues were better able to stave off an erection.

Furthermore, the study found that the men who were best able to control their response to the pornographic videos were also able to control their response to Mitch Hedberg. But for those who had difficulty regulating, reverse psychology could be to blame.

“The finding that was most surprising was that some men became more sexually aroused when they tried to regulate their sexual arousal,” Winters says. “In other words, they responded more strongly (both physiologically and self-reported) during trials in which they attempted to regulate their arousal than trials during which they merely watched the stimuli. We attributed this increased response to anxiety — in this case, demand anxiety. It’s sort of like when you tell someone not to think of a white elephant; those [who] are most anxious during the task have the most trouble not thinking about the white elephant.”

The study’s findings could have significant implications.

“The next step is to do a similar study with sexual offenders,” Winters says. “I suspect that sexual offenders will generally be very poor regulators, and that poor regulation is one of the factors that contributes to their offending.”Is sex a state of mind? A recent study from the University of British Columbia finds... more

EmperorThan
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1 month ago
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4 comments

Why you're not happy

Happiness can be a paradox: The more you reach for it, the more it seems to slip... more

KefKef
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11 months ago
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28 comments

My Favourite Emotional Songs

Music is the greatest part of my life.I can never think myself without music.I like... more

Radamel
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10 months ago
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3 comments

Six reasons we have bad dreams

1. Anxiety and Stress
Anxiety and stress, often as the result of a traumatic life event, are sometimes the cause of nightmares and bad dreams. According to the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD), a major surgery or illness, grieving over the loss of a loved one, and suffering or witnessing an assault or major accident can trigger bad dreams and nightmares. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is also a common cause of recurrent nightmares.

Not all nightmare triggers have to be traumatic, however. Everyday stressors, such as job or financial anxiety, or major life transitions such as moving or divorce, can also cause nightmares.

2. Spicy Foods
When and what we eat may affect our nighttime rest, if not our tendency toward bad dreams. A small study published in the International Journal of Psychophysiology had a group of healthy men eat spicy meals before bed on some evenings and compared their quality of sleep on nights where they had non-spiced meals. On the spicy nights, the subjects spent more time awake and had poorer quality sleep. The explanation is that spicy food can elevate body temperatures and thus disrupt sleep. This may also be the reason why some people report bad dreams when they eat too close to bedtime. Though few studies have looked at it, eating close to bedtime increases metabolism and brain activity and may prompt bad dreams or nightmares.

3. Fat Content of Food
Though far from conclusive, some research has indicated that the more high-fat food you consume during the day, the greater the chance that the amount and quality of your sleep may suffer. A small study published in 2007 in Psychological Reports found that the dreams of people who ate a high amount of organic food differed from those who ate “junk foods.” The authors hypothesize that certain foods may negatively influence dreaming.

4. Alcohol
Though alcohol is a depressant that will help you fall asleep in the short term, once its effects wear off, it can cause you to wake up prematurely. Excess consumption can also lead to nightmares and bad sleep; nightmares are also a common occurrence for those going through alcohol withdrawal.

5. Drugs
Some drugs, including antidepressants, barbiturates, and narcotics, can cause nightmares as a side effect. For instance, a 2008 study published in the journal Pyschopharmacology looked at ketamine, a drug used in anesthesia and recreationally, and found that compared with a placebo, ketamine use resulted in more dream unpleasantness and increased the incidence of bad dreams. Similarly, anyone who has traveled to a country where malaria is endemic may have taken Lariam and had some interesting nightmares associated with it. Nightmares usually cease once the drug is cleared from the system.

6. Illness
Illnesses that include fever, such as the flu, can often trigger nightmares. And other sleeping disorders, including apnea and narcolepsy, may also increase the incidence of bad dreams and nightmares.

While bad dreams and nightmares are considered normal responses in dealing with everyday experiences, the IASD recommends consultation with a therapist if they last in intensity and severity. But trying to eliminate these six factors first may be the best place to start in your quest to sweeten your dreams and chase the nighttime demons away.1. Anxiety and Stress Anxiety and stress, often as the result of a traumatic life... more

KefKef
added this
11 months ago
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23 comments

Emotions- are they for the birds?

A French newspaper ran these photos and the accompanying story ... be warned, it's a... more

nazbags
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10 months ago
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1 comment

A visit to an old friend

The little story of a visit to one of my old friends.

Radamel
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10 months ago
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0 comments

Real Soldiers Love Their Robot Brethren

"Human warriors have long spoken of the bonds forged in combat and of becoming a "band... more

DeliaTheArtist
added this
7 months ago
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26 comments

Human Facial Expressions Aren't Universal

"Facial expressions, Charles Darwin argued in "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals," are a universal window into emotion. But new research challenges that notion, showing that east Asian people struggle to recognise facial expressions that western Caucasians attribute to fear and disgust. By focusing on eyes and brows, Asians miss subtle cues conveyed via the mouth.

"We question the universality of these specific signals," says Rachael Jack, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Glasgow, UK, whose team analysed how 13 Caucasian and 13 east Asian men and women interpret a standardised set of facial expressions, thought to be racially neutral, which is used widely in research.

Caucasian volunteers had no problem distinguishing between expressions of surprise, fear, disgust and anger. Asians, however, frequently confused fear for surprise and disgust for anger, Jack's team found.

An eye-tracking tool and software indicated that while Caucasians tended to look at all parts of a face equally, Asians alternated their gaze between the left and right eyes.

Meanwhile, computer modelling of different facial expressions found that the mouth is a much better telltale of a particular emotion than eyes and brows. Relying solely on the eyes, the model found, creates ambiguity between fear and surprise, and also anger and disgust – reflecting the mistakes the east Asian volunteers made in the experiment.

Jack's results don't mean that people from east Asian countries are blind to facial expressions of fear and disgust, but that there may be a different way for these signals to be conveyed. "We need to find out what these signals look like in eastern cultures," she says.

East Asian cultures tend to frown on the display of negative emotions in public, Jack says. It's possible that east Asians have learned that by paying close attention to another person's eyes, they can spot facial giveaways of muzzled feelings of disgust or fear, she says.

Differences in the interpretation of facial expressions between Asians and Caucasians are almost certainly cultural, not genetic, Jack says. To see if people can switch strategies to suit different cultures, her team is studying children born in the UK to Chinese parents.""Facial expressions, Charles Darwin argued in "The Expression of the Emotions in Man... more