8 posts · 1,954 views
I’m a Professor at SCC in the Psychology program and adviser for the Secular Student Association. Teaching might be my third career and the least expected. I had spent five years in IT at a hospital and worked towards becoming an animal researcher before discovering that I love teaching.
Somatopsychic
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Mitch's Blog
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- April 28, 2013
- 09:00 AM
- 59 views
Science Sunday: Gut Reaction
by Mitchell Harden in Mitch's Blog
I recently read a 2006 paper titled "Visceral Influences on Risk-Taking Behavior." In spite of it's problems this paper uses some great language. Take for example this opening paragraph from the introduction:"People often do things that they almost immediately regret. Would-be dieters succumb to the lure of forsworn foods, only to curse their weak wills once their hunger (or the food) is gone. Unfaithful spouses live wracked with guilt after an impulsive sexual dalliance, only to repeat the cycl........ Read more »
Ditto, P., Pizarro, D., Epstein, E., Jacobson, J., & MacDonald, T. (2006) Visceral influences on risk-taking behavior. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 19(2), 99-113. DOI: 10.1002/bdm.520
- April 21, 2013
- 09:00 AM
- 89 views
Science Sunday: The ontogeny of behaviour in the albino rat
by Mitchell Harden in Mitch's Blog
Every Sunday, I'd like to post a review of an interesting peer-reviewed science article. To kick things off I'm picking an old favorite, originally posted in 1964! It is certainly well cited, Google Scholar lists the citation count at 452! Indeed this paper was a "Citation Classic" in Current Contents in 1981. At the time the lead author Robert Bolles, was still living and stated:"I have always believed in the idea that experimenters should look at their animals...the human eyeball is........ Read more »
Bolles, R., & Woods, P. (1964) The ontogeny of behaviour in the albino rat. Animal Behaviour, 12(4), 427-441. DOI: 10.1016/0003-3472(64)90062-4
- March 7, 2013
- 10:51 AM
- 133 views
Researching Diviner's Sage
by Mitchell Harden in Mitch's Blog
As I mentioned before I worked in a rat lab, and over the next few weeks I'd like to write a bit about some of the research I did as a graduate student at UMSL. I spent my time depressing rats and treating some of them with novel plant-derived compounds (some poor rats just got depressed and given placebo). Before I can tell you more about my project I'd like to share with you some of the work that influenced me. "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants ." -- Is........ Read more »
Willmore-Fordham CB, Krall DM, McCurdy CR, & Kinder DH. (2007) The hallucinogen derived from Salvia divinorum, salvinorin A, has kappa-opioid agonist discriminative stimulus effects in rats. Neuropharmacology, 53(4), 481-6. PMID: 17681558
- March 7, 2013
- 10:49 AM
- 164 views
The Science Behind Todd Akin's Gaffe
by Mitchell Harden in Mitch's Blog
Recently Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) made a very bad gaffe. It is pretty serious and you might have already heard about it. The quote in question as made during an interview with KTVI on Sunday was:“If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down."Now a lot of people have been very upset about the phrasing of "legitimate rape" and rightfully so (you can already buy "illegitimate rapist" T-shirts). But that's not what I want to write about. I want to talk about........ Read more »
Jonathan A. Gottschall, & Tiffani A. Gottschall. (2003) Are per-incident rape-pregnancy rates higher than per-incident consensual pregnancy rates?. Human Nature, 14(1), 1-20. DOI: 10.1007/s12110-003-1014-0
Tarín JJ, Hamatani T, & Cano A. (2010) Acute stress may induce ovulation in women. Reproductive biology and endocrinology : RB, 53. PMID: 20504303
Wilcox AJ, Dunson DB, Weinberg CR, Trussell J, & Baird DD. (2001) Likelihood of conception with a single act of intercourse: providing benchmark rates for assessment of post-coital contraceptives. Contraception, 63(4), 211-5. PMID: 11376648
- July 27, 2012
- 11:58 AM
- 385 views
Cell Phone Anxiety: Extended Edition
by Mitchell Harden in Mitch's Blog
Yesterday I posted some research about cell phone anxiety. You may have noticed that while I referenced a science journal article I didn't talk much about the results. Indeed, the only results I listed were descriptive (basic counting that describes a behavior) and qualitative (as opposed to quantitative). This is because of some fundamental flaws with the data as described in the article. So for those of you interested in such things here is the extended review enumerating three big problems I ........ Read more »
Dorothy Skierkowski. (2012) To text or not to text? The importance of text messaging among college-aged youth. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(2), 744-756. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2011.11.023
- July 26, 2012
- 01:54 PM
- 434 views
Cell Phone Anxiety
by Mitchell Harden in Mitch's Blog
Earlier I wrote about cell phone rudeness in the classroom. In that post I mentioned that asking students to go without cell phones is like asking them to go without friends. That statement generated a lot of interest from faculty and students int he comments, on facebook, and in person so I thought I would share a little bit of research that backs up my statement.In a recently published article (see below for reference) Dorothy Skierkowski and Rebecca Wood tracked college-aged youth's anxiety ........ Read more »
Dorothy Skierkowski. (2012) To text or not to text? The importance of text messaging among college-aged youth. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(2), 744-756. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2011.11.023
- September 8, 2009
- 12:59 PM
- 633 views
Evaluating media reports of science
by Mitchell Harden in Mitch's Blog
I was recently linked to this post from PETA's blog from June of 2008. This is a great classroom exercise in evaluating media reports.1. Meat increases the risk of breast cancer. A 2007 study of 35,000 women published in the British Journal of Cancer found that women who ate meat were far more likely to develop breast cancer than women who consumed none. Will Jessica's next t-shirt will say, "Real Girls Smoke 3 Packs a Day"?The referenced study reports: "... risk of breast cancer to increase wit........ Read more »
Taylor, E., Burley, V., Greenwood, D., & Cade, J. (2007) Meat consumption and risk of breast cancer in the UK Women's Cohort Study. British Journal of Cancer, 96(7), 1139-1146. DOI: 10.1038/sj.bjc.6603689
Kabat, G., Cross, A., Park, Y., Schatzkin, A., Hollenbeck, A., Rohan, T., & Sinha, R. (2009) Meat intake and meat preparation in relation to risk of postmenopausal breast cancer in the NIH-AARP diet and health study. International Journal of Cancer, 124(10), 2430-2435. DOI: 10.1002/ijc.24203
- November 30, 1999
- 12:00 AM
- 57 views
a little bit of unpredictable stress everyday
by Mitchell Harden in Mitch's Blog
That is the recipe for depression. Chronic Mild Stress (CMS). Or at least it is the recipe I used to depress rats. As I mentioned earlier I worked with rats to research the mood-effects of Salvia. One important piece of this research was the idea that a depressed brain is different than a healthy brain and may respond differently to drug exposure. So in order to apply that in rats, I needed a way to create depressed rats. For me, that meant using CMS.
... Read more »
Katz, R. (1982) Animal model of depression: Pharmacological sensitivity of a hedonic deficit. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, 16(6), 965-968. DOI: 10.1016/0091-3057(82)90053-3
Willner, P. (2005) Chronic Mild Stress (CMS) Revisited: Consistency and Behavioural-Neurobiological Concordance in the Effects of CMS. Neuropsychobiology, 52(2), 90-110. DOI: 10.1159/000087097
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