Ѱesting Deep Waters of Love

Preface to the following poem:
I was flipping through pages of my Psychological Testing textbook and was amused by the ability of the author to present real life events in terms of variables and quantities which he felt made sense after psychologists had done so.
I thought I'd try that on myself and penned my thoughts down in an attempt to make sense out of what seemed incoherent at the time.
(Simply to realise later on that I had only succeeded in putting those thoughts in a more complicated manner! )

Here it goes:

What is it that you're questioning?
Is it the validity of my feelings for you?
Or the norms I've set to be able to call it love?

Do you believe in the reliability of oral response?
Or is it my deception technique that you're really testing?

Somewhere along the scale I set for you, a discrepancy within the scores has arisen.
Do I look for the causal agents?
Or should I simply regard it as an insignificant error?

True, my sample for love has not been large & the norms I've set could do with a revision.

But honey, if you're doubtful about the reliability of 'us' lasting forever,
Then your future is doomed,
As there are no true predictors when it comes to love!

Media has a Profound Influence on the Human Psyche

My mother, who’s a gynaecologist, recently came across a patient who complained of severe kicking by the fetus in her womb. Perplexed, as all investigations reported normal,she started cross questioning the couple. She found out that the patient’s husband was fond of watching wrestling matches on tv and would often ask her to sit with him and watch the same. My mother advised her against this, and she reported after a week with a dramatic relief in the frequency and force of the kicking.

The example which i just gave, only establishes the profound influence that media has on the human psyche, such that, it even affects an unborn human child!

Every day, billions are bombarded by an ever-growing number of in-your -face ads, which tell us what we should have. It suddenly becomes impossible to live without that plasma screen TV and that sleek, shiny new car that promises every luxury.

The result: a stressed out urban adult, at the verge of a burnout.

When was the last time you read a magazine that did not have an article on weight loss? Can’t remember? Even the thin bipasha basu has endorsed sugar free sugar. Does she know the image she’s projecting to thousands of adolescent girls- just use this, and u’ll have the perfectly toned celeb body u dream about. Instead of targeting diabetics and obese ppl, these ads only mislead the masses.

The result is in front of us- a society filled with unsure, insecure teenage girls who are victim of eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. The media fails to tackle the problem of obesity delicately, and equates increase in body mass with decrease in self esteem, aggravating psychological problems.

And yet, some people ask if media influences the human psyche?

Of course, it has also proven to be a boon.

It was a powerful tool in facilitating India’s independence movement as it united the masses. Research has found that media exposure influenced masses in afro-Asian countries to bring about economic and political development during their transition from a traditional to a modern society.

Apart from politics, it has also alleviated the standard of living in rural areas, as awareness paves way for development and literacy. And what better example can I give of media promoting literacy in recent times, other than the famous teach India campaign started by the times of India.

Without a doubt, media does have an influence on human psyche. It is important for us, as a society, to regulate the power that media holds and not let it mislead the masses. We also have to be vigilant and prudent, and not believe all that we see and read. We can let the media educate us, and save ourselves and the earth, or we can become paranoid victims .the choice can be ours to make, only if we accept the fact that indeed, media does alter our choices, perceptions and decisions.                                                 

Normality is a Myth

Hmm..normality..what is normal? I guess it’s something that the majority decides. It probably is strategic and logical, or maybe its simply a byproduct of how most of us do things. a search for utopia in the realms of reality,perhaps?

I believe  ‘normal’ is ever-changing and evolving. Look at the world before and after the suffragette movement. It was considered normal to deny a woman the right to vote in the 1600s but one cannot think of doing the same in the 21st century.

Social norms are set to distinguish the acceptable normal behavior from the abnormal one. But the same set of norms can suffer from culture bias and lose their absolute stand. For example, Carla bruni kissing Nicolas sarkozy in public is well accepted in the west but the same act performed by mr. and mrs. Manmohan in our country would not go down well with the public.

As I sit in my statistical psychology class everyday, I’m made to belive that a normal distribution exists and well, if the data in front of me reads otherwise, then I’m taught ways to transform it to make it ‘near-normal’.

Are we humans, as a species,obsessed with a search for a normal in everything?

I ask this question because I recently came across Dean Hamer’s view on the god gene, where he talks about how we inherit a set of genes that predispose us towards spiritual experiences.

Similarly, are we genetically predisposed to demarcate boundaries for normalcy? Does our DNA code for putting  normal limits in every statistical index and behavior we come across?

If that’s the case, then I believe that we are at the brink of extinction, for Darwin’s principle spoke only about how, the more different we are, the better our chances are of surviving as a species.

I feel that limiting our quests to understand nature and beings by clinging to this baseline, is a gross mistake.  This mistake might not lead to extinction of our species but it might hinder the development and deeper understanding of psychology.