How to Talk to Anyone (Junior Talker #5) by DeYtH Banger (you can read anyone TXT) 📖

The undergraduates in the study reported perceived parental over-intrusiveness with the Helicopter Parenting Scale (e.g., “My parent solves any problem or crisis I might have”) and the Psychological Control Scale (e.g., “My parent is a person who brings up my past mistakes when he/she criticizes me”). Students reported on their own levels of narcissism with a standard personalityinventory that assessed the two facets of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. All of the analyses were correlational, a fact that should be taken into account when interpreting the results, along with the fact that no parents were actually assessed.

Moving on to the findings, those correlations were fed through a statistical model that allowed Winner and Nicholson to arrive at some insights into the possible direction of relationships between parental behavior and child narcissism. In this model, PPC scores indeed proved to affect the relationship between overparenting and child narcissism, and slightly more so for the vulnerable rather than the grandiose narcissism scores. In other words, children whose narcissism reflects an attempt to deal with feelings of weakness and inferiority were more likely to be exposed to overly intrusive parents who tried to control them. Even so, the statistical results led the authors to maintain that they found general support for the overparenting-PPC-narcissism relationship rather than just for the impact of parenting style on vulnerable narcissism.

As the authors conclude, “The potential for parents to go too far in their desire to remain prominent and involved within their children’s lives appears to be linked to the development of narcissistic traits” (p. 3655). Again, we do not know what their parents were actually like, but the existence of this relationship suggests how narcissism can be passed on from generation to generation. Parents who dig around in the emotional lives of their children will produce children who may, in turn, feel that this is the best way to raise a child. The Winner and Nicholson study sheds light on one step in the process: the recollection by children of how their parents treat them.

It's also important to note that, as the authors suggest, those over-controlling parents actually use a great deal of warmth and affection as they pamper their children and give them everything, or more than everything, they need. In the process, their children feel they will be loved if they accede to their parent's wishes, further eroding their sense of autonomy.

To sum up, having narcissistic parents doesn’t doom people to becoming narcissists themselves. Being treated as a child doesn’t mean you have to be one forever once you recognize your own potential to be a grown-up.

The Long-Term Impact of Child Abuse:

In my psychotherapy practice, I work with adult women recovering from abuse including childhood emotional, physical, sexual abuse, and neglect. Many of these women are mothers seeking therapy out of a desire to protect their children from the abuses they themselves have experienced. My clients describe having difficulties caring for and meeting the needs of their children, and although they want to mother in more loving and appropriate ways, they express feelings of inadequacy in their mothering. They speak of an inability to feel spontaneous, to laugh and play, or to show affection to their children, and they grieve that their past experiences are impacting their ability to be effective mothers.

I also work with women who have made a conscious decision not to become mothers. Even though many of these women have stated that they love children, they have vowed not to have any. They say they do not believe that they are emotionally capable of being “a good mother” and that having a child would be a selfish act. They speak of being terrified of “messing up” or “screwing up” their children, and are fearful of passing down their pain to the next generation. They do not want to bring children into the world, only to have them experience the same hurts they had experienced when young. Finally, they express the fear that they may not be able to protect their children from abuse or keep them safe. This group of women mourn not having children and deeply feel the loss of not having a mothering experience during their lifetime.

Clients have stated that they felt the existence of emotional barriers that reduced their capacity to be loved and to express love in healthy ways. They felt overwhelmed and did not know how to set healthy boundaries, seeing themselves vacillating between being overly rigid and/or overly permissive with others. Even more important, they did not know how to protect themselves or their children. Some women talked about feeling numb or “zombie like.” Many felt they were minimally functioning and struggled with caring for their own basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter. Some women expressed feeling dead inside and unable to feel joy, to laugh or smile, or to feel positive for long enough to penetrate their numbed existence and to give life meaning.

For a child, feeling numb is a defense, used to cope with dysfunctional dynamics at home. Going emotionally numb helps to screen out the yelling, hurtful comments, scenes of domestic violence, abuse, and/or manage the experiences associated with poverty. Yet, for an adult, continuing to use defense mechanisms such as numbness, denial, and dissociation is unhealthy and interferes with day-to-day functioning.

On the first night of one sexual abuse survivor’s group, a woman said that her goal for therapy was to “feel something, to feel anything.” She did not care if it was sadness or fear or anger; she just wanted to feel. She was tired of her numbness, which she felt separated her from others and from the world. One mother in the group said her numbed state was impacting her ability to care for her children. She was unable to play, laugh, join in games, and be spontaneous or to hug and kiss her children without images of her own abuse coming to the surface.

When I facilitate a sexual abuse survivor’s group, on the first night we meet, the women introduce themselves and I ask the question, "How did the sexual abuse impact your life?” Participants are asked to brainstorm words that best describe how they believe the child sexual abuse has affected them. The list is always quite long and for many women, this is the first time they have had an opportunity to speak about and reveal long-held secrets while in an atmosphere of understanding and acceptance. Below is a list of words and phrases generated by group members that describes and captures the ways in which child sexual abuse has impacted their adult lives:

low self-esteem - self-hatred - problems with intimacy mistrustful - uncomfortable in their bodies - worthless - uncomfortable being visible - emotionally needy - anxiety - problems with boundaries - depression - alcohol addiction - drug addiction - problems with anger - fearful - unlovable - dirty - damaged goods - easily irritated - problems with setting limits - unprotected - gullible - people pleasers - put others first - fearful of authority - intimidated easily - socially awkward  

My clients chose to go into therapy because they were struggling from the consequences and symptoms associated with the long-term impact of abuse. They believed that their past had followed them into their current lives and was negatively impacting their ability to function in their families, friendships, and work environments. The women wanted to break negative behaviors, thought patterns, and defenses that at one time had helped them manage the dysfunction and violence they experienced as children but no longer worked for them as adults. Many of my clients endured their child abuse alone and as adults they are reaching out for support in order to heal.

The Unconscious Mind Perpetuates "Us vs. Them" Bias

Noninvasive brain stimulation sheds light on implicit bias.

Note: "Outsider" - Thats' what I call this studies (non-invasive)

A new review of noninvasive brainstimulation (NBS) by Harvard researchers offers fresh clues about specific brain regions that may be associated with holding stereotypical “implicit bias” towards members of outside groups beneath the level of conscious awareness. The paper, “Studying Implicit Social Cognition with Noninvasive Brain Stimulation,” was recently published online ahead of print in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

In a statement, the researchers said: “The tendency to be suspicious of people we perceive as strangers or 'not like us' probably evolved early in our ancestry, when small groups of humans competed against each other for precious resources like food and water.” Their review sheds light on the neurobiology of “us vs. them” stereotypes and could lead to new behavioral interventions designed to minimize the divisiveness of implicit bias.  

In 1998, “Project Implicit” was founded by a trio of social psychological scientists that included Tony Greenwald, who is currently a professor of psychology at University of Washington; Mahzarin Banaji of Harvard University's Psychology Department; and Brian Nosek, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, who is also co-founder and director of the Center for Open Science.

Project Implicit is a non-profit organization that brings together a collaborative network of researchers from around the globe to investigate “implicit social cognition,” which refers to the thoughts and feelings we have towards others that tend to occur on an unconscious level beyond the realm of conscious awareness and cognitive control. The primary goal of this organization is to educate the public about hidden biases and to provide an online “virtual laboratory” for collecting data about implicit social cognition.

One of the primary tools used by the group is called an “Implicit Association Test” (IAT). These tests measure unconscious “not like us” attitudes that people are often unwilling or unable to consciously self-report when filling out a questionnaire due to political correctness and the subliminal nature of these biases, respectively.

Oftentimes, implicit bias occurs so far under the radar of explicit awareness that your conscious mind may not even “know” you unconsciously hold a negative stereotype. As an example, you might firmly believe in your rational, conscious mind that women and men are equally qualified to be airline pilots. Then out-of-the-blue one day, you find yourself on a plane with two female pilots and no men in the cockpit. Suddenly, you have a gut feeling of panic and realize in this split-second of unease that you'd actually feel more comfortable if a man was flying the plane. This type of gender-based implicit bias is typical when women have careers in male-dominated professions. 

Modulation of the Prefrontal Cortex May Influence the Expression of Implicit Stereotypes

The latest multidisciplinary review on NBS and implicit social cognition was conducted by lead author Maddalena Marini, formerly a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, along with Project Implicit co-founder Banaji and senior author Alvaro Pascual-Leone of the Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation at Harvard's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC).

"Unlike traditional brain imaging techniques, noninvasive brain stimulation can directly impact brain activity and provide powerful evidence that specific brain regions are linked to specific social behaviors—in this case, we applied it to attitudes and stereotypes towards groups that vary in social characteristics, such as race and ethnicity," Pascual-Leone said in a statement. "Modulating the brain activity in these regions can yield insights relevant to our modern, more diverse societies—in which our primitive group allegiances can be in conflict even with one's own standards of equal opportunity, fairness, and justice."

Their review suggests that the anterior temporal lobe may be a central player involved in how the brain creates implicit bias by linking stereotypical attributes to a category of people. This review also found that processing implicit attitudes (e.g., religious beliefs) activates the inferior parietal lobe. Previous research has found this brain area to be involved in theory of mind (e.g., putting yourself in someone else's shoes) and making moral decisions. Notably, the review of NBS and implicit social cognition concludes: "Modulation of the medial prefrontal cortex can change the expression of implicit stereotypes and attitudes by operating on its control and regulation mechanisms."

I have a personal, anecdotal example of implicit bias and "us vs. them" stereotyping. I know from first-hand experience as a gay man and “Ironman” triathlete that onlookers and fellow competitors were often consciously and unconsciously surprised that I wasn’t straight. The prevalence of "sissy boy" stereotypes was especially apparent when I beat a hyper-masculine heterosexual in a grueling "balls-to-the-wall" triathlon. Based on the conclusions by Marini et al., it seems that the anterior temporal lobe might play a subliminal role in the implicit assumption by some people that “gay men are sissies.”