Pets and Quarantine

I'm so thankful to have my sweet boy, Zeppelin, in my life. And when quarantine/shelter-in-place began, I was especially thankful to have him, because otherwise, I would have been completely alone. Unsurprisingly, a recent study found I'm not the only one to feel this way:

Animal shelters across the country are being completely cleared out as people seek out creature comfort. In fact, more than one in four 18-37-year-olds with pets got their new friend during quarantine.¹ Pets are bringing much-needed doses of positivity: two-thirds of Gen Z and Millennials living with pets agree their pet has helped them stay positive during this time.¹

Pets are not only showing up in homes—we are seeing them brighten up our feeds, too. Online conversation around pet adoption spiked in mid-March, up 50% from the weekly average.5 Whether they have a furry friend or not, 80% of Gen Z and Millennials say seeing animal content on social media makes them happy, and 74% agree that they find comfort in animal content on social media.¹ Additionally, pet-related hashtags such as #MeetMyPet, #PetRoutine, and #TreatYourPet have been trending on TikTok throughout the pandemic.

In fact, 68% of respondents said their pet helped them feel less alone, 65% said their pet helped them to "stay sane" during the pandemic, 54% believe having a pet has made them be healthier, and 39% said they'd been talking to their pet more during quarantine (guilty).

If you wish you had a four-legged friend during this difficult time, there are tons in need of a good home! I'm so glad this sweet guy is part of mine:

Creating Things

 Normally, this time of year, we'd be getting excited for my choir's new season and rehearsals to begin in early September. Sadly, with the pandemic, it's unlikely we'll be getting together then, and I'm not sure how long it will take before it's safe and people begin feeling comfortable gathering in such a way. So I've been seeking out ways to keep some creativity in my life.

I've started drawing again, something I haven't done in years. I'm a bit rusty but hey - practice practice, right? I started with some pretty flowers from my parents' backyard, in a combination of soft chalk pastels (my favorite medium) and colored pencil:

And my next project is going to be a self-portrait, something I've never done before. Some early work with pencil that I'll fill in soon (thinking again a combo of colored pencil and chalk pastels):

I also had some fun putting together a Lego Architecture set of Paris:

What mainly sparked this round of creativity was writing and recording an arrangement for my choir's virtual benefit. I had so much fun with that, I'm going to keep doing it! I'm planning to share that video soon, and have also started recording some other a cappella arrangements I plan on sharing. 

And lastly, because I needed to bring Zep into the fun too, I've finally set up an Instagram for him. If you're on the 'gram, you can follow him here: https://www.instagram.com/zeppelinblackdog/

Zoomies

Check out this adorable Zoom meeting:

Still having the company meetings online. pic.twitter.com/aR3LfuSdKl

— Andrew Cotter (@MrAndrewCotter) May 11, 2020

Updates

What a strange time we are living in. My CEO has closed our office and is having everyone working from home for at least the next two weeks. On top of that, we've learned that employees in my office building as well as a coworker have been exposed to COVID-19 (so far, none have tested positive). Since my parents are both over 70 and have health conditions that put them at greater risk for complications if they contract COVID, I'm back in Kansas City, working there and helping out by running errands and doing things around the house.

Plus I've got two of the best social distancing buddies on the planet:

Teddy, on the left (my parents' dog), is almost 11 and Zeppelin, on the right, just turned 2 yesterday! We celebrated with a drive to Kansas City, a new toy, and a yummy peanut butter treat he'll get later this evening.

I was invited to complete the 2020 Census, so I hopped online and filled it out. Surprisingly, all they asked me was gender (binary - male or female, with no options for other or even prefer not to say), birthdate, zip, race, and whether I rented or owned. Nothing about marital status, income level, sexual orientation... I expected a series of demographic questions, but what I ended up with took 2 minutes. So yeah, the Census is going to be a joke this year. Of course, I suspected this would be the case when I blogged about it previously (here, here and here). And Trump from the beginning has been problematic with data (see here) and his (lack of) response to COVID is likely also to keep the numbers artificially low and help his reelection odds. 

Otherwise, things are quiet here. Schools are closed (mostly because they're on Spring Break, but they're likely going to stay closed even after that) so there's not much traffic, and we have plenty of food plus Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+. The dogs have no idea what's going on in the world, so they're pretty happy. I'm crunching away analyzing data for work and texting with friends, dreaming about spring and my garden, and taking inventory of my huge stack of books to read.

That's all for now! Hopefully more blog posts soon!

On Presidential Approval Ratings and Opinions on Conviction

New research from Gallup suggests that job approval of Trump is strongly correlated with opinions on whether he should be convicted in his impeachment proceedings, a relationship also observed during Clinton's impeachment proceedings:

Americans' support for the Senate convicting Clinton in 1999 was much lower than current support for convicting Donald Trump. Gallup's Jan. 22-24, 1999, survey (one of a number we conducted while Clinton was on trial) found 33% of Americans in favor of Clinton being found guilty and removed from office, while 64% were against. Our latest survey on Trump shows 46% in favor of his conviction.

In the 1999 survey, Clinton's job approval rating was 69%, much higher than Trump's current 44% approval. So, the lower support for Clinton's conviction went hand in glove with his approval rating: 64% were against conviction compared with his 69% approval rating, and 33% were in favor of conviction juxtaposed against a 29% disapproval rating.

One interesting observation from the survey is that people place a higher bar on conviction than they do disapproval of Trump's job performance:

As noted, Americans' views on the impeachment of President Trump largely correlate with their overall views of the job he is doing as president. There is, however, a slight but evident deviation from a 100% relationship between Trump approval and views on the desired impeachment verdict.

Just 4% of Americans who approve of the job Trump is doing as president say he should be convicted, while a modestly higher 15% of those who disapprove of Trump say he should be acquitted. Apparently, there is a slightly higher bar for conviction among those who don't like Trump than there is for acquittal among those who do like him (although both of these positions are very much in the minority).

Research also suggests that Trump's current approval rating is almost the highest it's been in his presidency, but is still a lackluster performance when compared to post-World War II presidents in general (who historically average 53 percent):

Enough about politics. Here's a cute puppy (mine)!

Updates

New year, new job, new blog post describing it all. On January 6, I started working as a Data Analyst at the American Board of Medical Specialties, which oversees certification and maintenance of certification activities for 24 Member Boards (such as the American Board of Dermatology, American Board of Nuclear Medicine, and so on).

The main part of my job will be doing analysis, research, and program evaluation of the CertLink program, which is a really cool online system that tests physician knowledge in their certification area, provides feedback and introduces new information to improve over time, and measures the relevance of items to their practice, so that their maintenance of certification assessments can become more targeted to the population and types of cases they encounter in their practice. We're hoping that this kind of system will become the future of medical specialty certification, so rather than taking a high stakes exam every 10 years, medical specialists can maintain their certifications through targeted, longitudinal assessment and continuing education. And we're hoping to show this approach works by tying it to long-term, quality of care outcomes, like prescribing patterns. I'll share more as I learn more about the company and my role, to the degree that I can based on data privacy. But I'm so excited to be involved with this, using my psychometrics and statistics skills for the data I'm working with, and my research/program evaluation skills to show (how) the system works. I also finally get to use my SQL knowledge as part of my job, and will be using my R and Python programming skills pretty regularly as well.

Zeppelin is adjusting well to me working again. He adores his dog walker, who he sees three times a week, and has made many new friends in the doggy daycare he attends twice a week. He also has a huge crush on Mona, who can be found at Uncharted Books, stopping to stare longingly at her every time we walk by the shop. As is the case with so many crushes, this love seems to be unrequited; Mona tolerates Zeppelin but doesn't like the way he drinks out of her water bowl when we stop in.

On the blogging front, I'm working on an analysis of the 88 books I read last year, and might even do some long-term analysis of my last few years of reading data. Stay tuned for that.

Meet Zeppelin!

I recently spent a couple weeks visiting my family. While there, my mom found a lost dog with no tags or collar. She brought him home and we set out to find his owners. The vet found no microchip and didn't recognize him. Walking the neighborhood, I found no one who knew him and he didn't act like he recognized anything. And I had no bites on posts in lost dog Facebook groups. The vet suspected (as do I) that he was dumped. So that's how I got a dog. Meet Zeppelin!

He's a terrier mix between 1 and 2 years old and a total sweetheart. He's my little shadow, following me around since I first met him. His name is thanks to a comment from my mom. She was describing the dog to someone, in an effort to find his owner, and mentioned he was a black dog. I remembered the Led Zeppelin song, Black Dog, and thought Zeppelin was a cute name. It was also one of the few names I tried out that he responded to in some way. He's also sometimes known as "Zep," "Zeppie," and "Z-Man," as well as "little shadow."

He likes anything that squeaks, especially soft toys. His favorite is his monkey that I've started calling Van Gogh, because Zep chewed its left ear off.

He also likes anything ball-shaped and his rope for tug-of-war. Food likes include chicken, cheese, cucumbers, and blueberries. He adores people and other dogs; the only dog he isn't sure about yet is the one he sees in mirrors and other reflective surfaces (though I think he's learning that dog is him). He prefers to sleep on a blanket on the floor but every night and morning, he hops up on my bed with me for belly rubs, and only jumps down when he feels sufficiently petted. He knows "sit," "drop," and "leave it," and we're working on more. I can't take credit for all that, because he already knew "sit" when we found him.

We also play a game where I put his toys away in his box while he's sleeping, and he immediately wakes up and drags all of them out onto the floor in a span of about 30 seconds.

He loves to be sung to, and while he likes his namesake song, he also really likes music by female artists. He seems to especially like Taylor Swift.

Welcome Zeppelin!

Today's Links

I've got a long day ahead of me today, including a conference call this evening until around 7:30. But here are the links I have sitting open that I'll read/watch/do later:

• Google lets you "code a snowflake" with a click/drag interface; it's meant for kids, but I've already had some fun with it
• Tell me, dog, are you in show business? No? Then get off the stage: a service dog interrupts a performance of Cats
• Black Mirror, the amazing/disturbing British-American series, is back for a fourth season, and they've already released trailers for two episodes: Black Museum and Hang the DJ; Season 4 drops on Netflix on December 29
• And finally, every recipe writer sits on a throne of lies: cooking and caramelizing onions take waaay longer than they say

Dog is Love

It's no secret that dogs are man's best friend. And it's really no secret that they were bred for this purpose. The emergence of what we know as dogs happened through a process of wolf domestication, influenced by humans. What it comes down to is selective breeding - if the most friendly wolves (the ones most friendly to humans) start hanging around humans, and away from the rest of the pack, they're likely to only breed with each other and not the larger pack; keep repeating this process, involving the most friendly wolves and you end up with animals bred to be friendly with humans. In fact, dogs and humans evolved alongside each other, further strengthening the behavioral bond.

Back in 2015, there was a breakthrough in understanding how dogs emerged from wolves, when researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (led by Ya-Ping Zhang) and Peter Savolainen of the KTH-Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden sequenced the genome of 12 gray wolves, 27 dogs from breed indigenous to Asia and Africa (where dogs are suspected to have first emerged from wolves), and 19 other breeds from around the world. The dogs of Asia were the closest genetic match to wolves, providing evidence that this is where dogs as a species first emerged. They also found that, though humans began breeding dogs about 33,000 years ago, they didn't really spread outside of Asia until 15,000 years ago.

Just a few days ago, the world learned of another breakthrough in understanding the dog genome, this time explaining why it is that dogs are so sociable. It apparently relates to a gene that has been linked to Williams-Beuren syndrome in humans - a disorder characterized by hyper-sociability:

A new study shows that some of the same genes linked to the behavior of extremely social people can also make dogs friendlier. The result, published July 19 in Science Advances, suggests that dogs’ domestication may be the result of just a few genetic changes rather than hundreds or thousands of them.

“It is great to see initial genetic evidence supporting the self-domestication hypothesis or ‘survival of the friendliest,’” says evolutionary anthropologist Brian Hare of Duke University, who studies how dogs think and learn. “This is another piece of the puzzle suggesting that humans did not create dogs intentionally, but instead wolves that were friendliest toward humans were at an evolutionary advantage as our two species began to interact.”

In the new study, [Bridgett] vonHoldt and colleagues compared the sociability of domestic dogs with that of wolves raised by humans. Dogs typically spent more time than wolves staring at and interacting with a human stranger nearby, showing the dogs were more social than the wolves. Analyzing the genetic blueprint of those dogs and wolves, along with DNA data of other wolves and dogs, showed variations in three genes associated with the social behaviors directed at humans: WBSCR17, GTF2I and GTF2IRD1. All three are tied to Williams-Beuren syndrome in humans.

The study is open access, so you can read the full-text here.

My Dystopian Nightmare

Via The Daily Parker, and as a follow-up to my 1984-themed post, The New Republic discusses the similarities and dissimilarities of Trump's presidency and the Hunger Games books series:

No one thinks the Trump administration will transform the U.S. into Panem, Suzanne Collins’s post-apocalyptic North America where a totalitarian government forces children to fight to the death on national television. Still, a number of Trump’s critics have noted some legitimate parallels between him and The Hunger Games since he launched his campaign.

Vox explained “How The Hunger Games anticipated Donald Trump’s rise,” the commonality being that “in our culture, a really strong, compelling narrative trumps everything, every time, no matter what side you’re on.” Jezebel declared that Trump’s victory tour was “Literally a Plotline From The Hunger Games.” And New York Times columnist Ross Douthat floated Sean Hannity as Trump’s own Caesar Flickerman, the flamboyant state television broadcaster played by Stanley Tucci.

The main message of the piece is that literary and film portrayals of totalitarianism are much more bold than actual authoritarianism, which is subtle, sometimes so subtle people don't even realize they're living under control. (I touched on this in my previous post, in which information control results in have nots who have no idea they're have nots.) In this scenario, people may notice problems but when they make comparisons to what they think totalitarianism looks like from media portrayals, they decide to just deal with it because things could be worse.

I'm getting a lot of messages from friends to just "wait and see" - friends, I might add who weren't nearly so reasonable after Obama won - and that Trump won't be able to make sweeping changes until later in his presidency. (At which time, it might be too late, but I digress.) Of course, a lot can (and does) happen in the president's first 100 days.

How Do You Measure a Year?

I was talking to someone about Rent yesterday, which of course got "Seasons of Love" stuck in my head:

Now it's in your head - you're welcome.

The song asks a question: How do you measure a year? What did I do this year? The song goes through many potential metrics. So I started thinking about the metrics that matter to me:

States visited: 7 (1 new)
Concerts in which I performed: 10
Cups of coffee: Too many to count, but conservative estimate of 2.5 per day = 912.5
Blog posts written: 311 (counting this one but not any I write between now and the end of the year)
Words written toward my novel: 64,134
Books read: 25
Number of times I've worn clothing that jingles: 9 (again, conservative estimate)
Beer pictures posted: 175
Puppy pictures posted on PNP: 1528

Next year, I resolve to visit more states, write more, and read more. Coffee and beer consumption will likely stay the same. I also want to pet more dogs - not that I've actually counted how many I've petted, but I'm sure petting all the dogs I can will improve my quality of life.

Coming soon: "Best of 2016," a post in which I go through the highlights of this year!

On Memory and Dogs

I've been a dog person pretty much my whole life. Growing up, we always had dogs and I can't wait to have a dog myself. Anyone who has had a dog has probably made more than one comment about their dog's memory. There are a variety of things your dog remembers: name, home, who you are, and so on. But when something negative happened in your dog's life, you probably also commented that s/he wouldn't remember it. But a new study suggests dogs may remember events after all.

As a quick recap, there are different kinds of memory. Semantic memory refers to knowledge and information; an example of a semantic memory for me is knowing the different kinds of memory. Episodic memory refers to events, things that have happened in your life; for me, an example would be remembering that I've written posts about memory before. The two are obviously connected, and influence each other. A memory of an event (episodic memory) may teach you a lesson or rule for living (semantic memory). And remembering that I've written posts about memory before (episodic memory) includes remembering the content of those posts (semantic memory).

The researchers examined episodic memory in 17 dogs using an unexpected recall task. If you know you're going to be expected to recall something, you "memorize" it, meaning committing it to semantic memory (also referred to as explicit encoding - you stored it because you know you'll need it later). But if you don't expect that you'll have to recall the information, when you are suddenly asked to recall it, you'll draw on your episodic memory (also referred to as incidental encoding - you stored it even though you didn't expect to need it). They tested this same phenomenon in dogs using a "Do As I Do" task:

Dogs were first trained to imitate human actions on command. Next, they were trained to perform a simple training exercise (lying down), irrespective of the previously demonstrated action. This way, we substituted their expectation to be required to imitate with the expectation to be required to lie down. We then tested whether dogs recalled the demonstrated actions by unexpectedly giving them the command to imitate, instead of lying down.

They found that dogs were able to imitate even when the command was unexpected, though their success rate decreased with longer recall periods (such as asking a dog to remember something from an hour ago - this is a test of memory decay, the loss of a memory as time since the event increases). So they were less able to imitate after a 1 hour delay, but some still could imitate.

Dogs may not be able to hold memories as long as humans can, but these results suggest that dogs can hold episodic memories: "To our knowledge, this is the first time that a non-human species shows evidence of being able to recall complex events (i.e., others’ actions) without motor practicing on them during the retention interval—thus relying on a mental representation of the action that has been formed during incidental encoding, as assessed by an unexpected test."

"Okay," you say, "my dog can remember events. So what?" George Dvorsky, over at Gizmodo, interviewed the study researchers, where they discuss that episodic memory is connected to self-awareness:

As noted, episodic memory has been linked to self-awareness, which is the ability to see oneself as an entity that’s separate and different from others. “So far no test has been successfully applied to study self-awareness in dogs,” Fugazza told Gizmodo. “We believe that our study brought us one step closer to be able to address this question.”

Gallup to the Rescue

In reference to my comment the other day on Trump's approval rating, Gallup has already come to the rescue with some results. The surprising news is that Trump's approval rating has increased since the election. (Really? Really really? Even after this? Or this? Um, okay...)

But his approval rating is still lower than other presidents-elect:

Donald Trump's favorable rating has improved from 34% to 42% after his election as president. While a majority in the U.S. still have an unfavorable view of him, his image is the best it has been since March 2011 when 43% viewed him positively.

The last three presidents-elect had much higher favorable ratings at comparable time periods than Trump currently does. Then President-elect Barack Obama had the highest favorable rating, 68%, in November 2008. Fifty-nine percent of Americans viewed George W. Bush positively just after the Supreme Court effectively decided the 2000 election in his favor in December of that year. Bill Clinton's favorable ratings were also just shy of 60% after he won the 1992 election.

Trump's ratings lag behind those of other presidents-elect in large part because Democrats' views of him are much worse than the opposition party's supporters' ratings have been in the past. Whereas 10% of Democrats view Trump favorably, 25% of Republicans had a positive opinion of Clinton, 31% of Democrats had a positive opinion of Bush and 35% of Republicans viewed Obama favorably.

In other news, if you want to throw up in your mouth a bit read a real-world example of asymmetric insight (where a person believes his/her ingroup knows more about the issue than the outgroup and knows more about the outgroup than the outgroup itself), read this.

Relatedly, I'm planning to keep PNP going...

With Liberty and Justice For All

One of my favorite topics in social psychology is justice, or rather, how individuals determine whether something is just or fair. I did one of my candidacy exams in grad school on justice, citing work on, for instance, belief in a just world and Norman Finkel's contribution of commonsense justice. The various justice frameworks certainly influence how I perceive interactions with others, and I often remind myself of these different approaches anytime the phrase "not fair" enters my mind.

As I mentioned in a previous post, there are 2-3 overarching frameworks (depending on who you ask): distributive justice (which deals with the different types of distributions of outcomes believed to be fair), procedural justice (which states that, as long as the process is fair, the outcome is believed to be fair), and (the potential third) interactional justice (which is sort of an extension of procedural justice, with some attention to distribution of outcomes). Of these, procedural justice is arguably what most political processes are based upon. By clearly delineating the process through which decisions (such as elections) are made, and by ensuring those procedures are followed, we can be confident that the outcome of that process is just.

The current election cycle has had an underlying subtheme of justice since the very beginning, especially with regard to a certain political candidate. Earlier this year, a New York Times article discussed Trump as the Anti-PC Vote; that is, he appeals to people who believe that political correctness is hurting America, forcing the majority to submit to the will of the minority. Trump gives his supporters (which polls suggest are predominantly men) an outlet for their "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore" feelings and a perceived opportunity to take back their country. Trump heightens these feelings, through in-group/out-group tactics - othering and scapegoating - paradoxically blaming minority groups for their own suffering while also blaming them for making the majority group suffer. I say paradoxically because in order to do both, they have to be both powerless and powerful.

But one part of Trump's rhetoric is especially related to the concept of justice: he has stated on multiple occasions that he will only trust the outcome of the election if he wins:

As Trump has fallen in the polls, he has said that the electoral system is rigged against him and that rampant voter fraud could rob him of votes, even though documented cases of such fraud are rare. Trump said Thursday that undocumented immigrants are illegally voting in elections, even though only U.S. citizens are allowed to register to vote, and that Democrats are voting on behalf of people who have died, even though most jurisdictions regularly update their voter rolls.

“This is having nothing to do with me but having to do with the future of our country,” Trump said. “We have to have fairness.”

This is a frightening notion - not just because the thought of a Trump presidency scares the sh*t out of me. He is making a mockery of our system, inciting further division and uproar among his supporters, that will carry long past Election Day. He is giving his followers license to distrust any process that doesn't deliver the outcome they want, promoting circular reasoning over critical thinking skills. And he is furthering sexism by insinuating that the only way a woman could win the presidency (or really any contest against a man) is by cheating.

Of the different justice frameworks, Trump's seems most like distributive justice. In distributive justice, there are three distribution rules that can be applied: equality, in which each party receives an equal share; equity (also sometimes known as merit), where an individual party’s share is based on the amount of input from that party; and need, where share is based on whether the party has a deficit or has been slighted in some other distribution. Trump's approach, however, does not fall cleanly in one of these rules. It's sort of equity/merit, where his estimation of input is subjective and egocentric, but also a perversion of need, because he's convinced himself (and his followers) that the system is rigged and his win will reverse some of that. And who has rigged the system?

"I think that the media and the Clintons and Obama have all rigged the system and they're trying to make us all believe that she's the winner."

So, among others, they are Obama (his stand-in for scapegoating the entire African-American community) and Clinton (his stand-in for scapegoating women). In fact, the news that Clinton would win if only women voted led many of Trump's followers to proclaim we should "repeal the 19th amendment." Yes, it seems his idea (and his followers' idea) of making America great again is taking it back to a time when only white men could vote.

This is not fairness or justice; this is a mockery of the concept. This is not how someone worthy of being our leader determines justice; this is how a child does it.

Politicians Can Be Classy

During one of the craziest election cycles I've been witness to, it's refreshing to see this letter, which Former President George H.W. Bush left for incoming President Bill Clinton:

Here is a man who, even though he lost, recognized the gravity of the position in which President Clinton would find himself, and told a man he disagreed with politically that he was rooting for him. It's evidence that you don't have to agree with someone to be kind.

In Case You Missed the First Debate

This is... not it. But you'll (probably) laugh more and cringe less:

Let's Hear It For the VPs

Let's face it: even if you could name all of the presidents (and there are likely few who can), you would find even fewer people who could name all of the vice presidents. In fact, there are people who probably couldn't name one. So Buzzfeed sought to rectify that, in the best way possible. They've listed all 47 vice presidents, ranked by hotness. You're welcome.

Diagnosing Presidential Candidates

Being a psychologist, I've had many people speak to me about Trump and his potential psychological diagnoses. Though I remind people I'm a social psychologist (focused on studying behavior and not trained in therapy or diagnosis), I also know that trained clinical psychologists and other mental health professionals are also hesitant to offer their opinions on Trump's mental health. Psychiatrist Mark Goldenberg shares why:

I’m not supposed to answer that question. To underline that point, the American Psychiatric Assn. issued a statement this month reminding its physician members, myself included, to avoid psychoanalyzing the presidential candidates.

That ethical standard has been in place for decades. In 1964, thousands of psychiatrists, in response to a magazine survey, openly questioned then-GOP nominee Barry Goldwater’s fitness for White House duty. Several psychiatrists offered specific diagnoses. The fact that so many psychiatrists were willing to casually diagnose a person they'd never met embarrassed the profession and led to the codification of the so-called Goldwater Rule — no professional opinions on people we have not personally examined.

Dr. Goldenberg recognizes the Goldwater Rule is problematic, for a few reasons. First, the Goldwater Rule may stop professionals from offering diagnoses, but doesn't stop non-psychiatrists/psychologists from diagnosing. This results in a great deal of misinformation and misused terminology. He also suggests that not offering his opinion on Trump's mental health "feels like an abdication of moral responsibility." But he goes on to offer some great arguments about why professionals should continue to avoid diagnosing Trump, and why such diagnoses don't really matter anyway:

Casually and pejoratively tossing around psychiatric labels to describe unusual or distasteful behavior is stigmatizing to those who are suffering with mental disorders. Calling Trump, say, a narcissist, does not adequately explain his toxic behavior or exemplify the condition. I know and treat plenty of people with narcissism, and none of them publicly incite violence or malign entire ethnic groups.

Trump should never be president, but not because he may or may not have a mental disorder. He shouldn't be president because he disparages women, denigrates Mexicans and Muslims and mocks the disabled. He shouldn't be president because he demonizes the media and impugns those who challenge him. He shouldn't be president because he insinuates that his rivals might be assassinated and advocates the commission of war crimes. He shouldn't be president because he rejects science and demonstrates a remarkable lack of knowledge or interest when it comes to foreign and domestic policy.

As a psychiatrist, I don’t have a public opinion on Trump. As a citizen, I certainly do.

So perhaps, when it comes to diagnosing, it's best to let sleeping dogs lie.

Trumped Up Politics

As I've mentioned before, I try to avoid being political online. I see no issue with declaring a stance on important issues, like ensuring strong funding for scientific research, but shy away from sharing my opinion in partisan politics. That being said, I have not tried to hide my opinion on Trump, whose candidacy frightens me. And my thoughts about what he would be like as president range from launching Twitter assaults on anyone who dares criticize him to committing war crimes (if he did, in fact, follow through on past comments that to fight terrorism, you have to go after their families).

Fortunately, I'm not the only one frightened by the prospect of Trump winning the election. And even people and organizations that generally back Republicans are endorsing other candidates. For instance, the Cincinnati Enquirer, which has traditionally backed GOP candidates, just endorsed Hillary Clinton:

The Enquirer has supported Republicans for president for almost a century – a tradition this editorial board doesn’t take lightly. But this is not a traditional race, and these are not traditional times. Our country needs calm, thoughtful leadership to deal with the challenges we face at home and abroad. We need a leader who will bring out the best in all Americans, not the worst. That’s why there is only one choice when we elect a president in November: Hillary Clinton.

The compliments of Clinton are, unfortunately, sometimes backhanded in this editorial. For instance, this is how they start the editorial:

Presidential elections should be about who’s the best candidate, not who’s the least flawed. Unfortunately, that’s not the case this year.

They call Clinton arrogant and unwilling to admit wrongdoing. Never mind the fact that Trump will say something horrible, then deny he ever said it, even when people show him videos or tweets as evidence. But they do offer some genuine praise of Clinton, calling her competent and inclusive, with strong diplomatic skills. This endorsement could be big for Clinton, considering Ohio is a battleground state.

Need a break from politics? I've created the Puppies Not Politics page on Facebook, where I share puppy pictures for each political post I see - head on over to for more adorable puppies!

His Name May Ring a Bell

I talk a lot about behavior and conditioning on this blog, so it's surprising that this is the first time I've recognized this big day in the history of psychology:

Happy birthday, Ivan Pavlov!

Pavlov was born on this day in 1849. Though Pavlov's research on classical conditioning has had a tremendous influence on the field of psychology, he was actually a physiologist, interested in studying digestion. His research is a great example of the importance of serendipity - fortunate accidents - in the advancement of science.

In honor of Pavlov's big day, I'm going to do something I don't do very often - share a video of myself. Several years ago, when I was still a grad student and adjunct faculty member at Loyola, I was invited by a colleague to submit an educational video for his YouTube series (which, sadly, didn't take off), in which I spoke about classical conditioning. Enjoy!