Browse Our Latest Psychology and Behavioral Science Journals
Psychological journals are peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journals that publish original work in some areas of psychology. The most common publications include cognitive, health and clinical psychology, applied, developmental, biological, social, experimental, and educational psychology, and psychoanalysis.
Behavioral Sciences
Abstract
Background and Aims
While many scholars have called attention to similarities between the earlier SSRI hype and the ongoing hype for psychedelic medications, the rhetoric of psychedelic hype is tinged with utopian and esoteric aspirations that have no parallel in the discourse surrounding SSRIs or other antidepressants. This utopian discourse provides insight into the ways that global tech elites are instrumentalizing both psychedelics and artificial intelligence (AI) as tools in a broader world-building project that justifies increasing material inequality. If realized, this project would undermine the use of both tools for prosocial and pro-environmental outcomes.
Methods
My argument develops through rhetorical analysis of the ways that industry leaders envision the future of medicalized psychedelics in their public communications. I draw on examples from media interviews, blog posts, podcasts, and press releases to underscore the persuasive strategies and ideological commitments that are driving the movement to transform psychedelics into pharmaceutical medications.
Results
Counterfactual efforts to improve mental health by increasing inequality are widespread in the psychedelics industry. These efforts have been propelled by an elitist worldview that is widely-held in Silicon Valley. The backbone of this worldview is the TESCREAL bundle of ideologies, which describes an interrelated cluster of belief systems: transhumanism, Extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, and longtermism.
Conclusions
This article demonstrates that TESCREALism is a driving force in major segments of the psychedelic pharmaceutical industry, where it is influencing the design of extractive systems that directly contradict the field's world-healing aspirations. These findings contribute to a developing subfield of critical psychedelic studies, which interrogates the political and economic implications of psychedelic medicalization.
Abstract
Background and Aims
Advocates of psychedelic medicine have positioned psychedelics as a novel therapeutic intervention that will solve the mental health crisis by liberating individuals from their entrenched habits and limiting beliefs. Despite claims for novelty, the psychedelics industry is engaging in the same profit-oriented approaches that contributed to poor clinical outcomes with SSRIs and other earlier pharmaceuticals, which threatens to undermine their purported clinical benefits.
Methods
We present evidence that the liberatory rhetoric of psychedelic medicalization promotes neoliberal, individualised treatments for distress, which distracts from collective efforts to address root causes of suffering through systemic change. Drawing examples from the psychedelics industry, we illustrate how the discourse of psychedelic medicalisation subjects socially-determined distress to psychotropic intervention through the mechanisms of depoliticisation, productivisation, pathologisation, commodification, and de-collectivisation.
Results
Rather than disrupting or subverting the psychopharmaceutical status quo, the psychedelic industry's current instantiation aligns with and upholds key facets of neoliberal ideology by adhering to the same facilitative mechanisms that scholars identified in the antidepressant industry. We identify these common mechanisms in examples unique to the psychedelics industry, including the search for psychedelic analogues and political lobbying to reschedule psychedelics.
Conclusion
We demonstrate how a neoliberal mental health paradigm that individualises and interiorizes mental distress cannot meaningfully resolve suffering with ubiquitous origins in the current sociopolitical environment, which is characterised by inequality, precarity, exploitation, and ecological collapse. As a result, psychedelics must decouple from neoliberal incentives, and demonstrate efficacy, if they are to facilitate durable improvements in well-being and prosocial outcomes.
A Morbid Kíváncsiság Skála magyar nyelvű változatának adaptációja
Adaptation of the Hungarian version of the Morbid Curiosity Scale: MCS validation
Háttér és célkitűzések
Az erőszakos, kellemetlen vagy halálhoz köthető tartalmak iránti érdeklődés a morbid kíváncsiság mértékével jellemezhető. Az ilyen tartalmak általában félelmet, undort, illetve elkerülő viselkedést váltanak ki, ugyanakkor egyes embereket a kiváltott arousal emelkedés miatt mégis vonzanak. A jelenség részletesebb feltárásával pontosabb képet kaphatunk arról, milyen tényezők játszanak szerepet olyan specifikus fóbiák esetén, ahol mind az undor, mind pedig a félelem releváns érzelmi reakció. A jelen tanulmány célja a Morbid Kíváncsiság Skála pszichometriai elemzése egy megfelelően nagy és az életkor szempontjából diverz magyar anyanyelvű mintán.
Módszer
A kutatás során összesen 592 fő (442 nő, 150 férfi) töltötte ki a kérdőívcsomagot. A kitöltők átlagéletkora 34,2 év (SD: 10,64; terjedelem: 18–73 év). A Morbid Kíváncsiság Skála mellett a résztvevők a Szenzoros Élménykereséses Skálát és az Undorérzékenység Skálát töltötték ki. A Morbid Kíváncsiság Skála pszichometriai mutatóit klasszikus és modern tesztelméleti eljárásokkal is ellenőriztük.
Eredmények
A Morbid Kíváncsiság Skála megfelelő pszichometriai mutatókkal rendelkezik a vizsgált magyar mintán. A kérdőív tételei megfelelően diszkriminálnak a látens változó különböző szintjeivel rendelkező kitöltők között, és a kérdőív megbízhatóan mér az átlaghoz viszonyított kétszeres szórástartományban. A kérdőív összpontszáma és alskáláinak pontszámai pozitív irányú összefüggést mutattak a szenzoros élménykereséssel, míg az összpontszám, az Erőszak és a Test megsértése alksálák pedig az undorérzékenységgel mutattak negatív irányú kapcsolatot.
Következtetések
Mindent összevetve eredményeink alapján a Morbid Kíváncsiság Skála magyar mintán is megbízható és érvényes kérdőív. A kérdőív releváns eszköz lehet kellemetlen vagy undorító tartalmakhoz való viszonyulás mérésére, a megközelítő-elkerülő viselkedéses rendszer vizsgálatára; mind kutatások, mind pedig terápiák során utánkövetésre.
Psychedelics and critical theory
A response to Hauskeller's individualization and alienation in psychedelic psychotherapy
Abstract
In the monograph Philosophy and Psychedelics: Frameworks for Exceptional Experience, Hauskeller raises the important subject of individualization and alienation in psychedelic psychotherapy. Under the prevailing conditions of neoliberalism, Hauskeller contends that psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy appropriates Indigenous knowledges in an oppressive fashion, may be instrumentalised to the ends of productivity gain and symptom suppression, and may be utilised to mask societal systems of alienation. Whilst offering a valuable socio-political critique of psychedelics' clinical uptake, we suggest that Hauskeller's view does not adequately acknowledge the ways in which psychedelics offer a challenge to the Western reductive bio-medical understanding of healing and wellbeing. It is contended herein that Indigenous knowledges, in alliance with a range of emerging sciences, offer both an engagement with ethnomedicines in a less harmfully appropriative fashion, and a renewed understanding of the means by which psychedelics achieve therapeutic change. With this understanding, what becomes apparent are the potential ways in which psychedelic medical usage may produce positive feedback upon the oppressive systems in which we are embedded. That is, transpersonal experience through encounters with the ineffable may offer a revisioning of Western psychology and cognitive science. Indeed, if psychedelics are approached with an understanding of the actual means by which they produce therapeutic outcomes—changing mental representations of the self, or self-insight derived through non-ordinary states of consciousness—then psychedelic psychotherapy offers a reimagining of psychiatric nosology, challenging conventional understandings of both pathology and wellbeing through an overturning of specified and discrete deficit models of psychopathology. This may provide both a critique of the prevailing categories used to describe madness and an expansion of our understanding of the mind-body relation, as well as an increased recognition of positive psychology grounded in cross-cultural contemplative traditions. This provides an implicit challenge to the pharmaceutical industrial-complex and its profit motives; and the corresponding neoliberalist, globalising tendencies which Hauskeller seeks to address.
Abstract
Background and aims
Problematic Internet use (PIU) has become a global public health problem. It has been suggested that parenting style is associated with adolescent PIU. However, the evidence in favor of this view is mixed. Based on the PRISMA method, the present study employed three-level meta-analysis approach to investigate the relationship between these two variables and further explore potential moderators.
Methods
After a systematic search for published articles, 35 studies were included, reporting 171 effect sizes (N = 40,587).
Results
The results showed that positive parenting styles were significantly negatively related to PIU. This association was moderated by gender, age, publication year, and measurements of PIU, but was not by culture and measurements of parenting styles. Negative parenting styles were significantly positively related to PIU, which was moderated by publication year, culture, and sub-types of negative parenting, but not by gender, age, and measurements of both parenting styles and PIU. In addition, the correlation of PIU with negative parenting styles was stronger than that with positive parenting styles.
Discussion and Conclusions
The present results demonstrated that parenting styles, especially punitive parenting styles, should be attached to more important when treating adolescent PIU.
Abstract
Introduction
It is not known how self-perception and self-recognition are influenced when one is highly self-focused under the influence of psilocybin. Here we examine self-reports of mirror self-recognition and self-perception during a psilocybin experience.
Methods
Reddit posts were examined in a systematic manner. Posts that were written by individuals that ingested psilocybin and subsequently looked in a mirror were examined. After both automatic and manual filtering, a total of 89 posts with 775 post excerpts were analyzed.
Results
It was found that it was rare to see one's own face as a different entity (e.g., an animal or other person) however people were equally likely to see themselves as they really are or distorted. People were significantly more positive than negative when perceiving their own face.
Discussion
We found wide variation in the perception of the own-face while under the influence of psilocybin. While generally positive, the self-face appears to be an experience that varies dramatically from person to person under the influence of psilocybin.
Abstract
Background and aims
Microdosing psychedelics refers to the practice of repeatedly ingesting doses that do not reach the threshold for perceptual alterations. This practice has gained attention from mass media, businesses, and the general public, as evidenced by the proliferation of online communities dedicated to it. In this contribution, we examine the content generated within the online community r/microdosing from its creation on October 16, 2013, until the day of data collection on October 31, 2020. Our aim is to examine the narratives reflected by users' contributions, specifically the compatibility or incompatibility of spiritual and scientific narratives.
Methods
In this contribution, we used text analysis techniques and examined the content generated within the online community r/microdosing from its creation on October 16, 2013, until the day of data collection on October 31, 2020.
Results
We clearly identified a topic that reflects a spirituality narrative as well as a topic that we coined as “neuro-cognition” and that reflects a scientific narrative. These topics were typically not present within the contributions of the same users, suggesting that the scientific and spiritual narratives are segregated within the r/subreddit community.
Conclusion
Our approach emphasizes the potential of text analytic techniques for uncovering the cultural repertoire surrounding a particular practice, in our case, the practice of microdosing psychedelics.
Negative mystical experiences
Why methods for determining mysticality of psychedelic experiences should not include measuring positivity of mood
Abstract
I propose that positive mood should not be among the criteria for determining when or if psychedelic experiences are mystical. My primary reasons are: 1) unlike rare proposed mystical criteria such as feelings of self-dissolution and time-transcendence, positive mood does not clearly separate mystical experiences from other emotionally powerful experiences like being in love; 2) other proposed mystical criteria can occur with non-positive moods; and 3) it is not true that framing all mystical experiences with only positive mood is more pragmatic.
Behavioral addictions in the ICD-11: An important debate that is anticipated to continue for some time
Commentary to the debate: “Behavioral addictions in the ICD-11”
Abstract
The Journal of Behavioral Addictions featured a debate on the topic of “behavioral addictions in ICD-11” in 2022. Three main debate papers were published and a total of eleven commentaries. One main topic of considerations in the three debate papers and in the majority of commentaries was compulsive sexual behavior disorder. The debate was balanced, collegial and conducted at a high scientific level. Although there are some disagreements regarding specific details, all authors consider more research on behavioral addictions as important. This scientific debate has been and continues to be enormously important to behavioral addiction research and clinical practice.
Abstract
Background and Aims
Problem gambling constitutes a public health concern associated with psychopathological comorbidity, substance use, and financial difficulties. Most individuals with gambling problems avoid counseling services due to perceived stigma and their preference for self-reliance. Treatment accessibility could be improved through web-based interventions.
Methods
We recruited 360 individuals with gambling problems and randomized them to a web-based intervention (n = 185) or an active control group consisting of a self-help manual for problem gambling (n = 175). The primary outcome was the number of days of gambling in the last 30 days. Secondary outcomes included money spent in the last 30 days, time gambling in the last 7 days, gambling-related problems, consumption of alcohol and cigarettes, and psychopathological comorbidity measured at posttreatment and 6-month follow-up.
Results
The primary outcome decreased significantly for both groups, with no significant difference between the groups. There were significant group × time interactions according to the Gambling Symptom Assessment Scale (F = 8.83, p <0 .001), the Problem Gambling Severity Index (F = 3.54, p = 0.030), for cigarettes smoked in the last 7 days (F = 26.68, p < 0.001), the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (F = 19.41, p <0 .001), and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (F = 41.09, p <0 .001) favoring the intervention group. We experienced an overall high dropout rate (76%).
Conclusions
Win Back Control seems to be an effective low-threshold treatment option for individuals with gambling problems that might otherwise be unapproachable for outpatient treatment services. Nevertheless, the high dropout rate should be considered when interpreting the study results, as they may have introduced a degree of variability.
