The Difference between a Psychopath and Sociopath

• Psychopathy and Sociopathy are both anti-social personality disorders. 
• Both are a result of an interaction between genetic predispositions and environmental factors 
• Psychopaths are born with temperamental differences e.g. impulsivity, fearlessness, risk-seeking behaviour and inability to internalise social norms 
• Sociopaths have are born with relatively normal temperaments; their personality disorder being more an effect of negative sociological factors e.g. parental neglect, delinquent peers, poverty, extremely low/high intelligence 
• In both cases, anti-social personality disorder results in extremely violent acts
• source 

Tumblr Content Analysis: Focus on Eating Disorders

A content analysis studies people indirectly by investigating the material they produce. It is a secondary research method used to measure the number of times a behaviour, concept, issue or event occurs within a form of media.

Tumblr is a popular website with young people which incorporates blogging and social networking. It allows users to post and repost multimedia in a simplistic ‘blog’ format. As a user of this website, I have noticed that issues concerning mental health in young people are common place.

As a starting point, I conducted a thematic analysis by scrolling down my ‘dashboard’ (similar to a homepage) and counting the frequency of certain themes. The following chart shows my results.

This analysis has many limitations. The biggest limitation is that the content of my ‘dashboard’ is controlled by who I decide to follow. Since I am interested in Music, the majority of the content of my ‘dashboard’ is music related, which is unsurprising due to the blogs I follow. There are a few points to be made from this initial stage. Firstly, Tumblr is a place where people express their ‘rights’ and ‘equality’ and share academic content, whilst also sharing content such as humorous posts, fashion or pictures of people. This makes it such a diverse and interesting website. Also, teenagers’ desire to interact with others is shown in the ‘requests for asks’, ‘compliments’ and ‘relatable post’ themes.

Even though I do not actively seek to follow the type of users who post a lot about mental health issues, this theme still appeared on my dashboard. This shows how abundant it is on Tumblr and this will be what I will investigate next.

The next stage for me is to search the ‘tagged’ posts. I have found in the past that there are many posts about the eating disorders Anorexia nervosa and Bulimia nervosa. I will search the ‘Anorexia’ and ‘Bulimia’ tags and record themes. The following chart shows my findings.

The most common theme is ‘struggle with the illness’. It seems that many people use Tumblr as an outlet to detail their issues in living with the illness and the hardships of their recovery. I think many people use this as a way of connecting with others sharing similar problems and offloading their problems in a diary style. The amount of positivity towards negative behaviour and idolisation or glamorisation of the illness is not shocking but is upsetting. These tags on Tumblr do not ‘sugar cote’ people’s feelings or tone them down. The way sufferers feel is displayed in a very honest, and often brutal, way which truly shows the mind-set of those with the illness. However, there are also a good amount of positive posts about recovery and encouraging others. Quite a few posts tagged under these eating disorder tags were in fact to do with self-harm, depression or suicide, rather than eating disorders directly. This shows how closely these issues are related.

I also looked at what the most common related tags were. I found that these included: recovery, eating disorders, ed, ana, mia, collarbones, skinny, thigh gap, perfect, angry, depression, lonely, crying, trigger warning, poetry, anxiety, mental health, panic, starving, cut, self harm, suicide, hurt, alone, binge, pro ana, pro mia

A lot of people blogging about eating disorders use the terms ‘ed’ (eating disorder), ‘ana’ (anorexia) and ‘mia’ (bulimia) to tag their posts. I feel that this creates a sense of community and exclusivity between those using this tag; almost as if it is more private and only to be used by those who really know about the illness and are suffering from it. Also, because it is predominantly young people tagging with this, abbreviations are common and expected. The ‘ana’ and ‘mia’ tags appear to have more positivity towards, and promotion of, negative behaviours than the more scientific ‘anorexia’ and ‘bulimia’ tags. This supports my theory that people using this tag really know what life is like to suffer from the illness. The ‘pro ana’ and ‘pro mia’ tags obviously have a lot of positivity towards the illness and are quite upsetting to look at.

A lot of pictures are tagged with phrases such as ‘thigh gap’ and ‘collarbones’. Among teenagers and young people, certain bodily features, such as having prominent collarbones or a gap between your thighs, seem to come into ‘fashion’ and become a very desirable feature all of a sudden. It is a strange phenomenon and usually includes a lot of controversy; people wish for these features and others argue about how these features should not be seen as desirable. There seems to be excitement and interest around the feature, in much the same way as new tastes in clothing or when the new iPhone is released. The internet and social networking fuels these ‘bodily fashions’ and tags such as these on Tumblr are largely responsible for this.

It is also clear that, among the eating disorder tags are tags for other disorders, with depression being a common one. This provides some evidence of the links between these mental health disorders and shows that, for many people, they are not suffering from one illness but a cocktail of many disorders. For many, this is a terrifying, destructive and sometimes fatal mix.  

Many posts are also tagged with ‘trigger warning’. This is used when the post may trigger relapse or upset in others suffering from the disorder. This is an empathetic feature and shows that many people feel that they should stick together and help others’ recovery, or at least prevent them from getting worse.

Overall, I found this content analysis upsetting but enlightening. Tumblr is a place where mental health issues are on display and where people seek refuge and a place to talk about their experiences. I should note that when you search a ‘tag’ of this nature a message from Tumblr appears which says ‘if you or someone you know is dealing with an eating disorder, self harm issues, or suicidal thoughts, please visit our Counselling & Prevention Resources page for a list of services available to help.’ I find this very positive and I like the fact that Tumblr are not only identifying that mental health is such a common theme on their website, but also taking action to help support those suffering.

Volunteering with Children

During July 2013, I completed four days volunteering at ‘Oceans of Fun’ private day nursery. This experience allowed me to interact with, and observe, children from six months to five years old. I chose to work with children because I am fascinated by their behaviour and development. The main aim of this voluntary work was to enhance my study of Psychology; I will go on to detail some interesting observations that I made (with a hint of basic analysis).

Babies (6 months – 2 years)

Having never really had much interaction with babies, I found this to be a very novel experience. Babies are messier than I thought; I guess they don’t have the cognitive ability to care if there’s snot all over their face.

Children of this age seem to develop very quickly – I was told that one boy had gone from not being able to walk or talk to being able to do both within three months. Some of the older children were able to identify their own body parts and understood the concept of colours while the younger ones had not even said their first word. However, knowledge of colours was not yet very advanced and one boy was telling me everything I pointed to was ‘yellow’.

Ideas of gender were not developed at this age. Little boys would happily play with female bracelets without considering that they were items typically ‘for girls’. According to Kohlberg’s Gender Development Theory, these children would be just beginning to form ideas of gender. Some of the older would enter the Gender Identity Stage, in which they can label themselves as male or female.

The babies’ relationships with each other were limited. They seemed aware of others but did not possess the cognitive ability to de-centre and appreciate the world from another’s point of view. They would not consider the feelings of others and they were not very good at sharing toys. They would be just as happy playing alone as when other children were present. However, there were examples of when one of the older boys would show affection towards one of the younger ones by hugging and kissing him.

Children of this age seemed to form attachments quickly. Within less than half an hour of my arrival, one boy was sat on my knee, squashing my face with his hand. He was very entertained by our game involving a ball and ramp, in which he would delightedly clap his hands and say ‘ball’. However, these attachments that the children formed with me did not seem permanent or sustained. After lunch break, many appeared to had forgotten me and certainly when returning a week later they did not recognise me.

I enjoyed working with children of such a young age. I discovered that they like to climb, be mischievous, touch shiny things (including my braces!), and that they fall over a lot!

Toddlers (2 years – 3 years)

There was obvious advancement in the toddlers when compared with the babies. They addressed each other by name, their communication and interaction had developed, they had learnt colours and they had  deeper understandings of consequences and of the world around them.

One toddler appeared to have an issue with attachment. Every morning when his mother left him, he would throw a terrible tantrum, which involved screaming and kicking in a very violent manor. This same child had issues when being put down to nap, he cried a lot and refused to sleep.

The children understood the concept of being ‘cross’ at each other, showing that their relationships and friendships had developed with age. However, they were still entertained by simple things, for example, while playing outside, a truck pulled up and their excitement was uncontrollable - they ran to the fence to stare and wave at it. Unlike the pre-schoolers they did not need imaginary games to keep them occupied; they were perfectly content digging in a sandpit or moving water around in buckets.

Pre-school & Early Years (3 years – 5 years)

These children were able to speak and communicate relatively coherently. They had formed stronger relationships with each other – they would play games together, talk and respond. They would also respond more readily to the adults and showed greater understanding of commands, such as ‘tidy up’. They knew ABCs and other basic songs. They understood colours and enjoyed matching the colours of their plastic cups to the colours of their clothing.

As far as their language development was concerned, they had not developed ideas of pragmatics. They would talk without considering whether others had relevant context. For example, they would say “my mummy…” as if the receiver knew their mother personally, and “you know in the lion king when…” without stopping to ask whether the receiver had watched the film. This showed they made assumptions that, because they understood the context, others did too.

Children of these ages were able to understand the concept of pain. For example, a girl told me that she didn’t want her ears pierced because it would hurt. Previously, the children were unable to understand painful consequences; they would not consider that by climbing on a table they may fall and hurt themselves, or, by throwing an object they may hurt someone else. However, even pre-school children did not consider the pain of falling over when running in excitement. Their excitement and impatience outweighed their fears of pain, which maybe explains why children of this age are so often falling and grazing their knees (I speak from experience of many trips to the school staff room with blood running down my leg on to my frilly white socks!). 

Children of this age had developed ideas of gender. Girls said that nail polish and lipstick were not for boys, showing they were gathering ideas and stereotypes, allowing them to make sense of the world around them. However, girls still enjoyed books about cars and boys showed some interest in brushing hair (however, they preferred games in which they pretended to shoot each other). According to Gender Schema Theory, these children would be starting to develop their gender schemas and using them to determine what activities and objects were appropriate for them and others of their sex. Some of the older children had more developed ideas of gender which seemed to have a bigger impact on them. For example, one girl was sat alone outside, not playing with others because she was upset about wearing a ‘boys’ coat’. Despite this, children will still engage in play with others of the opposite genders. Children were not yet segregating into same sex groups and forming rivalries with the opposite sex, as can be observed in schools.

As expected, imaginary games were common. Girls would enjoy playing with dolls and performing ‘family’ style re-enactments. This can be explained by Social Learning Theory: the children will have observed and imitated role models in their environments.  Also, children seemed to be showing imitation of role models e.g. their parents, in other ways. For example, they would repeat things that had been said to them and pretend to answer phones. The children liked it when I would draw pictures for them and they attempted to copy them.

At this age, children were not very good at concentrating and their attention could not be held on one thing for sustained periods. They had lots of energy and were very excitable. They were fascinated by the nursery’s butterfly chrysalises and were very excited when we took them to the pet shop to buy some goldfish, which, comically, they named Rosie, Freddie and John!

These children, like the younger ones, formed quick relationships, for example, after less than one hour a girl had decided I was her best friend. These relationships lasted longer than with the babies; the girl remembered our friendship throughout the day. Children would call many others their ‘best friends’. This shows that having closeness to another is important to them and that they form quick attachments. It also shows some form of competitiveness, in that the children feel the need to label others with ‘best friend’, thus not allowing other children to have the same, exclusive, relationship with that child.

While watching girls playing on a rope swing, I observed that the more fun an activity or object is, the less likely the children will share it and consider others’ feelings. On another occasion, I noticed that one girl was being bossy and controlling over her male friend and was telling him what to do. However, he complied to this and didn’t seem to mind. A group of children made up stories about us all being part of a happy family e.g. I was the mummy, they were the brothers and sisters. This shows that children desire a happy and nurturing home environment and they seek it in others they feel comfortable with.

The children understood ideas of different ages i.e. the pre-schoolers understood ‘early years’ children were older. This shows they are able to think beyond themselves and their immediate situation. They also understood ideas of growing up, moving on to school and not returning to nursery. However, a lot of these ideas seemed like they had been rehearsed and repeated from what their parents had told them.

I very much enjoyed working with these children. I discovered what it was like to be used as a climbing frame and to be the subject of hair dressing from four year olds. Also, I got the chance to play in a ball pit for the first time in 10 years! This was a very rewarding, interesting and enlightening experience. 

Phobias Photography

After studies phobias and obsessions in AS Psychology I decided that I wanted to base my Photography AS project on the subject.
Take a look at my images! Flickr

My 'Brain Matters' poster

Brain Matters - The University of Nottingham

This was a great event to be involved in! It took place during March 2013 and details can be found here
I contributed to the event by entering the poster competition. My poster is entitled 'Unlocking Hidden Voices' and I will post a picture of it. It was inspired by a BBC Panorama episode called 'The Mind Reader: Unlocking My Voice'. It was about a group of severely brain injured patients, many diagnosed as vegetative. New brain imaging technology was being used to help these patients communicate via MRI scans by answering questions in their minds. I found this program very moving and I used the information for further research and for my poster. 

Although I didn't win anything I really enjoyed making the poster and the research fascinates me. 

Hello!

I'm new to this website and this is my first post!
Welcome to my psychology blog!
I am starting Psychology A Level in September 2013 and I am hoping to study it at university, starting September 2014. I recently received my AS exam results and I achieved 197/200 in AS Psychology (so obviously I am over the moon!) 
Anyway, I wanted to create a blog about this subject because I just can't shut up about it! :)