San Diego Comic Convention 2009

The convention was a bit of a madhouse; lots of people, long lines to get into many panels, thousands of people in the exhibition area. Several things stood out, though:

1. Despite the crowded conditions, people were remarkably well behaved. I didn't see or hear any fights break out, any rowdy behavior, or pushing/shoving/cutting in lines. I think that's remarkable, and think it says something about the type of people who are drawn to comic conventions. Despite the violence in some of the games, comics, tv shows and films featured at Comicon, at heart this passionate group of fans are generally friendly and law-abiding folks—at least in this context.

2. People had been camping out overnight outside the convention center in order to get in to see a clip of the upcoming film New Moon, the second installment of the Twilight series. Most of the people in line were female (no surprise, I suppose since that the big fan base for the film). Here's a photo of what the line looks like in the morning to get in to see such previews:

I did think that it was ironic that the same day that this New Moon clip was airing, there was a panel on “Wonder Women: Female Power Icons in Pop Culture,” with Sigourney Weaver and Eliza Dushku, among others. (As I've noted in an earlier blog entry, the protagonist of Twilight is anything but a strong female.) Yet here were hundreds of women camping out to get a glimpse of an extended trailer for the sequel—a story in which a young intelligent woman who has a lot going for her feels that her life is meaningless without her vampire boyfriend. Sigh….

3. My panel on "Is the Joker a Psychopath? You Decide!" was SRO and the audience and panelists seemed to enjoy it. The audience asked good questions (e.g, "Can psychopaths like the Joker be rehabilitated?" Answer: "not really") and the panelists gave their opinions on the Joker and his motivations. I hope to post some video of the panel next week.

Blackest Night/Green Lantern

Those comic fans who are following the Green Lantern/Blackest Night story might find this 3-part article about emotions and the different colored Lanterns:

"Interestingly, when you talk about the rainbow spectrum being used here, there is something about these negative emotions that is very intense," she said. "Intense greed is maybe a funny one in there, but intense fear and intense anger are very real. They really do narrow your focus cognitively. Even your awareness is limited. You're focused on what's right in front of you and less on the periphery. And that's true of your visual awareness and your perception, but it also guides your thinking. You're not really thinking at all – you're feeling.

"Hate swamps your emotional system. And that's true for fear as well, typically. It's not just specific to rage. But that's true of any intense emotions. They literally become overpowering," she said.

For the full articles (Parts 1-3) in Newsarama go to:

Part 1: http://www.newsarama.com/comics/090713-blackest-night-spectrum.html

Part 2:http://www.newsarama.com/comics/090714-EmotionalSpectrum2.html

Part 3: http://www.newsarama.com/comics/090715-blackest-night-specturm-3.html

Is the Joker a Psychopath? You Decide!

On Saturday morning, July 25, at the San Diego Comic Convention, I'll be joined by Jerry Robinson (co-creator of the Joker), Michael Uslan (Executive Producer of all Batman films), Steve Englehart (Batman comic book writer), and fellow psychologist Travis Langley to discuss whether the Joker is psychopath.

Hope to see you there!

Colbert and Top Down Processing

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

What follows is an abstract of a recent journal article; the article describes a study how a viewer's political affiliation affects how he or she interprets the politics of Stephen Colbert's persona on the Colbert show. What they describe it was psychologists refer to as top-down processing: mental processing that is influenced by your expectations, beliefs, and knowledge. 

More explanation after the abstract.

The Irony of Satire

Political Ideology and the Motivation to See What You Want to See in The Colbert Report

Heather L. LaMarre

The Ohio State University, HLaMarre@gmail.com

Kristen D. Landreville

The Ohio State University

Michael A. Beam

The Ohio State University

This study investigated biased message processing of political satire in The Colbert Report and the influence of political ideology on perceptions of Stephen Colbert. Results indicate that political ideology influences biased processing of ambiguouspolitical messages and source in late-night comedy. Using data from an experiment (N = 332), we found that individual-level political ideology significantly predicted perceptions of Colbert's political ideology. Additionally, there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements. Conservatism also significantlypredicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism. Finally, a post hoc analysis revealed that perceptions of Colbert's political opinions fully mediated the relationship between political ideology and individual-level opinion.

It appears that viewers--in particular, conservative viewers--expect that their political views will be shared by Colbert, and so they interpret his (mostly) straight-faced extremely conservative coverage of the news in ways that are consistent with their own beliefs. Even when confronted with evidence that Colbert's conservative views are a put-on (for instance when he laughs while delivering some of his more egregious comments), top-down processing will lead conservative viewers either to ignore those lapses, or to interpret them in some other way--a way that allows them to preserve their view of Colbert as one of them.

Dr Robin on the Radio: Talking about Real Life Superheroes

Real-life superheroes walk among us. Today I spoke with Gillian Findlay of the Canadian Broadcast Company about them.

You can listen to it by going to the link to the show, and scrolling to the bottom.

Look for: Part 3: Chapter Three ... The Rise of the Real Life Superhero

All of part three is interesting; I'm about halfway into part 3.

Here's a link to the real life superhero website.

Movie Review: Must Read After My Death

I recently saw the documentary film, Must Reader After My Death. The film consists of audiotapes and home movie footage made by the Dews family in the 1960s. Director (and grandson of the Allis and Charley, the film's protagonists) Morgan Dews has stitched together a too-intimate look at the dissolution of a family—akin to the 1973 PBS series An American Family, but in less screen time.

Here's the story behind the film: The Dews family began dictating "letters" between the father (Charley) and the rest of the family (mother Allis and their four children: Anne, Chuck, Bruce, and Doug) when Charley moved to Australia for 4 months on business. They continued the audio letters and diaries upon his return home. It is these diaries and letters that tell the tale of the Dews family's escalating struggles (with no other narration): Parents with each other, children with their father, parents' anguish about their children. These tapes were then stored away and discovered by director Morgan Dews upon his grandmother Allis's death. Here's a trailer for the film.



Watching the film, I was struck by several elements:

1. When someone in a family is an alcoholic, it extracts a terrible cost from ALL members of the family. Although most people know this intellectually (and some know this first-hand), the role that alcohol plays in this family's problems is heart-wrenching to see.
   
2. How generally unproductive it is when people yell at each other. When families or couple come for psychotherapy, usually part of what a therapist will try to do is help members speak (and listen) to each other in more adaptive, constructive ways, so that they can understand each other's positions and find common goals, positions of compromise, and paths to resolution. Yelling and frequently interrupting each other makes it almost impossible to move a chronic problem toward a solution. (Granted, yelling can signal to the other person that you have strong feelings about something, but the content of what is yelled—rather than stated—often gets tuned out or responded to in anger.)
   
3. The havoc that unrecognized psychological disorders and problems can wreak. (That's not to say that once they're recognized all is well; at least, though, when a problem is named and identified, it's easier to take steps to remediate it or manage it.) For instance, the oldest son, Chuck, struggled academically for many years, much to the consternation for his parents and himself. It turns out that he had an undiagnosed learning disorder. 
   
4. How frustrating and demoralizing under-employment can be (as was certainly true of Allis and many women of that era). Underemployment refers to someone holding a job that is below the person's training or ability; underemployment may become even more common in the current economic climate, as folks who are laid off take jobs that are below the level of their previous job, because they need the work. Research indicates that being underchallenged at work brings its own stresses.
   

Although the film provided a lot of food for thought, I was frustrated by the combination of the lack of narration and the elliptical nature of some of the audio entries—family secrets alluded to but not made clear, problems mentioned but not explained.

If you're interested in watching the documentary online, the distributor has offered a complimentary pass to the first ten people who send me an email:Robin@DrRobinRosenberg.com. I'll forward your email addresses to the online distributor who will provide the pass to you.

Whedon's Dollhouse: Which Personality for Which Mission?

After watching the first episode of Joss Whedon's new television show, The Dollhouse, I was struck by the prominence of the concept of personality. If you haven't seen the episode—or don't know about the show—here's a summary from Wikipedia:

Eliza Dushku plays a young woman called Echo, a member of a group of people known as "Actives" or "Dolls." The Dolls have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas, including memory, muscle memory, skills, and language, for different assignments (referred to as engagements). The new persona is not an original creation, however, but an amalgam of different, existing personalities. The end result incorporates some of the flaws, not just the strengths, of the people used as templates. The Actives are then hired out for particular jobs -- crimes, fantasies, and the occasional good deed.

And here's a video summary of the show:


What really stood out for me was the show's psychological premise: Some personality traits work better than others in a given situation (and so the "dolls" or "actives" are programmed with traits that will best help them accomplish their missions). Of course, on one level, this premise is obvious; we know that certain types of people function better than others in a given situation. But the specifics of what makes a good fit are less clear. In a given situation, which type of personality is a better fit? Which is the best fit? (Or even, is there such a thing as a best fit?)

In The Dollhouse, the puppet masters know the answer to these questions—or at least they think they do. In real life, though, the questions aren't so easy to answer. Psychologists and people in the employment business have learned which skills or personality traits are associated with better job performance in a given type of job (click here for an example of such matching).

The current state of knowledge may be able to inform us about which skills are advantageous for an ongoing job, and might even be able to tell us what characteristics make for the best hostage negotiator—the job in question in the first episode of Dollhouse. But when a job is a one-shot occasion—a consulting gig, if you will—the situational factors can become more important. And those situational factors can be unpredictable, which makes it harder to identify the best fitting personality traits.

As research on personality shows, global personality traits don't predict behavior as well as very specific personality traits. So, for instance, someone who is "shy" and goes to a party with friends may become a wallflower at that party. Then again, maybe not. A prediction about a shy person's party behavior would be more accurate if we could assess shyness "when meeting new people at party where some friends are present." It may turn out that this "shy" person can be the life of the party when feeling secure, standing near a pal or two.

This line of research suggestions that when a "doll" goes out on a mission, the particulars of the situation will influence which specific personality traits would be the best fit. If the predictions about the upcoming situation in a mission are off the mark, the personality traits programmed into a doll—those thought to be most advantageous—can become handicaps or obstacles. This unexpectedly poor fit might make for interesting television viewing. We'll see whether that happens as the season evolves.