A recent paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology sheds light on a fact that I’m intimately familiar with. People underestimate how much help others are willing to provide them.
We expect others to say no when they’re much more likely to say yes. Why is this?
The authors of the paper carried out six studies to answer that question. The first three studies found that participants frequently underestimated how likely people were to answer yes to a direct request for help. The following two studies involved manipulating the perspective of participants so as to elicit the underestimation effect. In other words, the researchers were able to manipulate their participants into being more pessimistic. That’s a good skill to have if you’re a misanthrope.
Which brings me to the last study they carried out. That’s the one that caught my attention. The researchers discovered, while exploring the source of this pessimistic bias, that help-seekers were unlikely to focus on the social cost of rejection, the price people pay when they turn others down.
Rejection has a price. That’s something worth emphasizing. People, in most cases, don’t relish the thought of saying no to others, because saying no can carry some unpleasant consequences. Now, there are many variables to keep in mind. Context is key. However, it’s a good rule of thumb. Saying yes is often easier than saying no.
What’s fascinating about the last study is that the researchers have, in this instance, reduced the act of helping others to a benefit-cost ratio. People don’t help each other because they’re intrinsically good, they help each other because the price of saying no is higher than the price of saying yes.
Self-interest is what motivates people, not altruism.
For cynics, this research is soup for the soul. It points out, albeit unwittingly, that people are not angels. They’re selfish, and their selfishness makes them less likely to turn you down when you ask them for help.
Many people who suffer from depression have a hard time asking for help from others; one of the reasons is that they assume people either don’t want to help or are incapable of helping. In both cases, they are most likely right in their assessment. People are often incapable and unwilling, but they’ll try to help anyways if you ask them to. Not because they’re good, but because they’re selfish.
Understanding this opens up a new world of possibilities. If you lower your standards, and accept the fact that people are, for the most part, terribly savage and uncaring, you can start milking them for what little good they’re capable of offering you.
And a little good can go a long way. People might not care about you, and they might not be capable of understanding where you come from, but they can do little things which can improve the quality of your life.
Ask for help if you need some. It’s a win-win proposition. You’ll either get some help, or you’ll make someone feel bad for having to turn you down.
New study links stress hormone gene to poor response to Celexa
Filed Under Medication, Overcome Depression | Jul 16, MDT 12:17 pm
The Mayo Clinic recently released a study on how variations in SLC6A4, the serotonin transporter gene, altered the way patients responded to the anti-depressant Celexa. A new study published in Biological Psychiatry shows how variations in FKBP5, a gene that has influence over a class of stress hormones known as glucocorticoids, also alters how patients responded to Celexa (otherwise known as citalopram).
The FKBP5 gene has been linked to dissociative symptoms in traumatized children, and childhood maltreatment has been linked to poor responses to anti-depressant treatment. A relationship exists between this gene, childhood abuse, and resistance to certain anti-depressant treatments. Scientists now have the task of figuring that relationship out.
The pharmacogenetic field is growing fast, and new studies are coming out every day that flesh out how genetic differences account in part for the different responses people have to the medications they take.
In the near future, doctors will only prescribe drugs once they have a thorough understanding of the genetic profile of their patient.
An Unquiet Mind: Personal Reflections on Manic-Depressive Illness
Filed Under Personal Stories | Jul 15, MDT 12:53 pm
This is a video of Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison discussing her battle with mania and depression. She gave this speech while on a book tour for her memoir “An Unquiet Mind“.
It’s not often that you hear a psychiatrist talk about their own struggles with a mental illness; often times, as Dr. Jamison attests to in the following video, psychiatrists can diagnose an illness, they can offer drugs for it, but they rarely understand what it feels like to have it.
I remember meeting one psychiatrist who was, to put it bluntly, incapable of empathy. This inability made her more of a menace to her patients than an instrument for their recovery. I do think that doctors who share a deeper understanding of their patients are more likely to be able to offer them real and lasting help.
Dr. Jamison covers a fair amount of territory in this video, from her experiences with lithium to her travels to Saturn.
Therapy roulette and the rise of pharmacogenetics
Filed Under Overcome Depression | Jul 14, MDT 8:26 pm
The Mayo Clinic recently released a study suggesting variations in the serotonin transporter gene might account for the different reactions people have to the anti-depressant Celexa.
I’m citing the study emphasize how there isn’t a single cure for depression. Different people have different responses to different treatments.The Mayo Clinic study shows how genetic factors can play a role in deciding how people react to medication. It’s not a stretch to imagine that genetic factors also contribute to how likely people are to respond to psychological interventions. Cognitive behavioral therapy, for example, is more likely to work for some people than for others.
The field of pharmacogenetics is dedicated to matching people with medication that fits their genetic profile. It’s currently in it’s infancy, so it’ll be years before people can really benefit from it. For now, pharmaceutical interventions for depression are something
of a crapshoot.
It’s the same with psychological interventions. Genetic profiling could make the job of practicing psychologists much easier, and the lives of their patients much more fulfilling. Unfortunately the social sciences have had a history of refuting the relationship between genes and human behavior. This antagonism has retarded the growth of gene-based psychological therapies. Thankfully, the older generation of psychologists, the ones who came of age in the sixties, are starting to retire. This is fantastic, because they’re being replaced by a generation that’s much more comfortable with the roles genes play in regulating human behavior.
We can look forward to a future where depression will no longer control people, because our medical professionals will be much more in control of the human condition. For the time being, we will have to make do with a less than adequate medical reality. That means some of us will have to play mental roulette, and test a variety of therapies before finding the one that works.
“Life Is Suffering” is the first of Buddhism’s four noble truths.
I’m not sure about the other three, but that first one? I can’t argue with it.
Life means pain and fear, anger and hopelessness, stress and anxiety, loss and misery. It means having to deal with a world that isn’t fair; a world where bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people. A world where the most violent are rewarded, and the most peaceful are punished.
Suffering is part and parcel of the human condition. The good we experience comes at the price of the evil we have to endure. It’s not all gloom, however. Though our weaknesses outnumber our strengths, and our ability to do good is outclassed by our capacity for evil, there is hope for a better future.
In order to realize this hope, we have to own our imperfections, and accept the imperfections of the world around us. For this reason, I started Mister Misery to chronicle my quest to prosper in a wicked world. A world that is, more often than not, something of an embarrassment. The Universe is rather amazing. As far as we know, we’re the only creatures capable of appreciating the fact that we exist, and yet we spend most of our time running away from ourselves.
We’ll never cure ourselves of our imperfections, or the world of the things which ail it, unless we find the truth to face our pain head on.
This site is a destination point for anyone looking to understand what it means to be depressed, stressed, and anxious, and how they can overcome those states. I’ll be sharing some of the latest research as it’s made available, and providing links to excellent resources across the web. Occasionally, I’ll also offer a few of my own darker and more cynical observations about coping with depression.
Visit often and frequently, and don’t forget to subscribe to Mister Misery’s RSS feed.
- The Posts of 2008
- In 2009, I resolve to be…
- A diet of happy thoughts
- Misery Around The Web
- Daily meditation stops wandering thoughts
- Quackery, Pseudoscience, and You.
- Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)
- Personal Stories and Interviews, a round-up
- The Power of Posture
- Beating Seasonal Affective Disorder
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