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The psychology of stuff and things Christian Jarrett on our lifelong relationship with objects

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The psychology of stuff and things Christian Jarrett on our lifelong relationship with objects

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Social support following stroke Camilla Cookson and Joe Casey discuss psychological and functional outcomes

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society 586 President’s column; new Psychology Education Board Chair; Special Group for Independent Practitioners; Disaster, Crisis and Trauma Section; and more careers and appointments 596 we hear from Ian Gargan, Chartered Psychologist and new Chair of the Society’s Representative Council; from NHS to private practice; and working in the College of Policing

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THE ISSUE Many years ago, my best friend and I were so convinced that life was increasingly becoming about ‘stuff and things’ that we registered the internet domain name www.stuffandthings.com. Like many of my possessions – DVD boxsets I will never watch, books awaiting that elusive relaxing beach holiday, enough Lego to start a shop – this is now gathering dust. As Charlie Brooker has said, we live in a stuffa-lanche, and I want less.

Yet even in these austere times, many of us continue to accumulate goods, defining ourselves to varying extents by what we own. We use things to signal who we want to be and where we want to belong. They become our legacy. On p.560, our journalist Dr Christian Jarrett considers this lifelong relationship with objects.

If you’re a fan of shiny tech things, have you tried out The Psychologist on tablet, smartphone and Kindle yet? It’s available to Society members by logging in via www.tinyurl.com/yourpsych. It’s early days and development of our online presence remains in the pipeline, but good things come to those who wait!

Dr Jon Sutton

reviews the usual mix of books, TV, radio, exhibitions, radio and film

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new voices 610 beating the odds of addiction: Dana Smith with the latest in our series for budding writers (see www.bps.org.uk/newvoices for more information) looking back 612 understanding amnesia: is it time to forget HM? John P. Aggleton questions the value of the famous case study. one on one …with Pat Lindley

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Intuition and the typical woman ‘She works by intuition and feeling,’ wrote the US psychologist G. Stanley Hall of the typical woman; ‘fear, anger, pity, love, and most of the emotions have a wider range and greater intensity [than in men].’

That was in 1904. Fast forward more than a hundred years, what beliefs do modern-day Europeans still hold about the intuition of men and women? Gerd Gigerenzer and his colleagues surveyed 1016 men and women in Germany and 1002 in Spain to find out.

Overall, the participants didn’t see either sex as having more intuition than the other. But that’s because they held stereotypes about the intuitive strengths of the sexes in different domains.

In both Germany and Spain, the majority of participants believed that women’s intuitions are better when it comes to personal life. For instance, 63 per cent of Germans believed that women’s intuitions about choosing the right romantic partner are superior (and the figures were almost identical in Spain).

Gigerenzer’s team said there could be some validity to a related stereotype held by their participants: the idea that women are better at understanding other people’s intentions. After all, there is evidence, the researchers said, that women are better at recognising emotional displays than men.

In relation to intuitions in a ‘professional social context’, there was no overall sex-related stereotype about leadership intuition (this may also be an accurate reflection of fact, since studies show companies with more women in leadership positions do at least as well, if not better, than those with fewer women). Both countries showed a weak preference for believing that men have a better intuition for choosing a business partner and in politics.

Beliefs about intuitions in the last domain of ‘professional individual tasks’ were stronger and exposed the greatest differences between the countries. In Spain the majority of men and women believed that the sexes have equally good intuition for scientific discoveries; in contrast, in Germany only one third felt the same, with most people favouring men. This study can’t speak to cause and In the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology effect, but it’s notable that a greater percentage of scientists in Spain are female.

Participants in both countries also endorsed the stereotype that men have better intuition for dangerous situations, but this was almost entirely down to the beliefs held by men! In both countries, men and women further endorsed the stereotype that men have better intuition for investing in stocks. This actually flies in the face of research that has found women to be more effective at portfolio investment.

Across the whole study there was evidence of ingroup bias – men and women tended to attribute more credit to the intuition of their own sex.

Intriguingly, there was no difference in beliefs with age group. This led the researchers to suppose that people’s beliefs about the intuitive skills of the sexes is based on the current social context rather than the past. If the past had had more influence you’d expect older participants to endorse more traditional stereotypes.

Related to this, it was curious that gender stereotypes were more often endorsed in Germany even though this country has been a liberal democracy for longer than Spain and is said to value gender egalitarianism more strongly. The researchers said this may reflect the fact that Spain is catching up fast and may be even overtaking Germany. We already discussed Spain’s female advantage in science. Despite Germany having a female Chancellor, it’s also a fact that there is a larger percentage of female politicians in Spain.

All in all Gigerenzer and his team concluded their study shows ‘widespread stereotypes about men’s and women’s intuitions still exist even a century after the first president of the American Psychological Association made his infamous statement’.

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Exonerated but for ever tarnished?

In Legal and Criminological Psychology Wrongful convictions are disturbingly common. In the USA alone, over 1050 innocent people who were found guilty in court have subsequently been exonerated. A new study, the first to systematically study stigma towards convicted innocents, finds that the old adage is true – mud sticks.

Kimberley Clow and AmyMay Leach surveyed 86 psychology students in Canada about either ‘people who have been wrongfully convicted of a crime’; ‘people who have been convicted of a crime that they actually committed’; or ‘people in general’.

The students rated wrongfully convicted people in a similar way to offenders, including perceiving them as incompetent and cold, and having negative attitudes towards them. Although the students desired less social distance from the wrongly convicted compared with offenders, they preferred to have more distance from them than people in general. And while they expressed more pity for wrongly convicted people than offenders, this didn’t translate into greater support for giving them assistance such as job training or subsidised housing. In fact, the students were more in favour of giving monthly living expenses to people in general as opposed to the wrongly convicted.

‘A wrongly convicted individual should be viewed as any other non-convicted citizen,’

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said Clow and Leach. ‘Our findings, however, suggest that this does not occur… Wrongly convicted persons are not perceived as other citizens.’

These results are only a tentative step towards greater understanding of this issue. It’s unsafe to generalise confidently from a student sample, and we haven’t learned much about why the participants stigmatised the wrongly convicted. It’s possible the students held a general belief that wrongly convicted people are likely to be guilty of other crimes, or they believed them morally contaminated by their time in prison.

Despite its limitations, the new study chimes with anecdotal evidence. Consider the case of the unfortunately named Kirk Bloodsworth. In 1993, after nearly nine years in prison, Bloodsworth was a free man thanks to DNA testing that showed he was not guilty of raping and killing a nine-yearold girl – the first time the scientific technique had been used in this way. Yet despite his release, Bloodsworth continued to be vilified, including having ‘child killer’ scrawled in dirt on his truck.

A preliminary psychology of ‘keeping it real’ In the Journal of Personality From Ancient Greek philosophy to humanistic psychology to modern-day rap songs, there’s a long tradition of espousing the benefits of being true to yourself or ‘keeping it real’. Despite this interest, a new study by Alison Lenton and colleagues is one of the first to investigate what being true to oneself actually feels like, how often it happens and in what circumstances.

Lenton and her colleagues began by surveying 104 participants (average age 35; 66 women) on the Amazon Mechanical Turk website that pays people for completing tasks online. The participants said they experienced a state of authenticity one to two times per week, and experienced inauthenticity nearly every two months. They were strongly motivated (5.8 on a scale of 1 to 7) to be their true selves and similarly motivated to avoid inauthenticity (5.2 on the same scale). The state of being true to oneself was different from the personality trait of being a ‘genuine person’ – people reported experiencing both

authenticity and inauthenticity regardless of their personality.

Hundreds of people were also recruited to write about either a time they had felt most true to themselves, or a time they felt like they were being fake. Experiences of selfauthenticity tended to involve fun, familiar places or people, close others, helping someone or being creative. They were also associated with ‘low arousal’ positive emotions like contentment and calmness, and the fulfilment of personal needs, especially self-esteem, relatedness to others and autonomy. ‘I was with my girlfriend and three best friends and we stayed there [at the millpond in Cambridge] late drinking, chilling out, and talking about our lives and childhoods,’ said one participant. ‘I was really happy at that moment in life and felt relaxed, honest, that nothing else mattered or would ever change.’

Episodes of inauthenticity, by contrast, were associated with difficult events, being

The material in this section is taken from the Society’s Research Digest blog at www.researchdigest.org.uk/blog, and is written by its editor Dr Christian Jarrett. Visit the blog for full coverage including references and links, additional current reports, an archive, comment and more.

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evaluated by others, demonstrating a lack of social competence, feeling isolated, failing one’s own standards and feeling ill.

The ‘signature’ emotion of being phoney was anxiety, and there was a sense of failing to fulfil any personal needs. ‘The buildings were completely unrecognisable as were the people,’ said one person of their first day at university. ‘I felt as though I was alone and had lost my sense of self.’

One particularly intriguing finding – participants describing a time they’d felt authentic, as opposed to phoney, tended to say the experience overlapped far more with their ideal self.

There’s an obvious contradiction here. If they were being themselves, how come they resembled their ideal self, which is likely to be influenced by social expectations?

One possibility is that what we really mean by ‘be true to yourself’ is ‘be the person you want to be’.

This recalls an intriguing study published in 2010 by William Fleeson and Joshua Wilt, in which people reported feeling more authentic when they were behaving in an extraverted, agreeable and open-minded way, regardless of whether this matched their own personality. Behaving this way usually means certain needs are being met, including closeness with others and being competent.

Another possibility, then, is that by ‘keeping it real’ we really mean – satisfy the basic human desire to connect with others and be a creative, good person.

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FEATURE

The psychology of stuff and things Christian Jarrett on our lifelong relationship with objects

a man’s Self is the sum total of all that he can call his William James (The Principles of Psychology, 1890)

tuff everywhere. Bags, books, clothes, cars, toys, jewellery, furniture, iPads. If we’re relatively affluent, we’ll consider a lot of it ours.

More than mere tools, luxuries or junk, our possessions become extensions of the self. We use them to signal to ourselves, and others, who we want to be and where we want to belong. And long after we’re gone, they become our legacy. Some might even say our essence lives on in what once we made or owned.

S

Childhood and adolescence

bibliography

Our relationship with stuff starts early.

The idea that we can own something, possess it as if a part of ourselves, is one that children grasp by the age of two. And by six, they exhibit the ‘endowment effect’, placing extra value on an object simply by virtue of it being, or having been, theirs.

Although children understand ownership from a very young age, they think about it in a more simplistic way than adults. A study by Ori Friedman and Karen Neary in 2008 showed that aged between two and four, kids make the assumption that whoever is first in possession of the object is the owner, regardless of whether they later give it away.

With ownership comes envy. When youngsters play with friends, they soon

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Belk, R.W. (1988). Possessions and the extended self. Journal of Consumer Research, 15, 139–168.

Belk, R.W. (2012). The extended self in a digital world. Manuscript submitted for publication.

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Carver, C.S. & Baird, E. (1998). The

discover other people’s toys they’d like to get their hands on. Or they experience the injustice of being forced to share what they had assumed was theirs alone. In his 1932 book The Moral Judgment of the Child, Jean Piaget observed that even babies express jealousy over objects, giving signs of ‘violent rage’ when a toy is taken from them and given to another.

When Batya Licht and her colleagues in 2008 filmed 22-month-olds playing with their peers in day-care, nearly a quarter of all sources of conflict were over possessions – where the ‘child either defended his or her objects from another child, or wanted to take an object from another child’.

Most children have an unusually intense relationship with a specific ‘attachment object’, usually a favourite blanket or a soft toy. In an intriguing study by Bruce Hood and Paul Bloom, the majority of three- to six-year-old children preferred to take home their original attachment object, as opposed to a duplicate made by a ‘copying machine’.

To the prospect of taking a copy, ‘the most common response was horror,’ says Nathalia Gjersoe, who helped run the studies. ‘A few very sweet and obedient children said okay but then burst into tears.’ Four of the children even refused for their attachment toy or object to be copied in the first place. That’s despite the fact they were happy enough to take a copy of an experimenter’s toy. It’s as if the children believed their special object had a unique essence, a form of magical

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Growing up in a material world: Age differences in materialism in children and adolescents. Journal of Consumer Research, 34(4), 480-493.

Cockrill, A. (2012). Does an iPod make you happy? An exploration of the

thinking that re-appears in adulthood in our treatment of heirlooms, celebrity memorabilia and artwork.

Some experts refer to children’s attachment objects as ‘transitional objects’ because it is believed they aid the transition to independence. Consistent with this, there’s evidence that children make less use of such objects if their mothers practise so-called ‘attachment parenting’, involving co-sleeping and feeding on cue (Green et al., 2004). There are also cross-cultural findings showing that fewer children have attachment objects in Tokyo, where children more often sleep in the same bed or bedroom with their parents, than in New York, where co-sleeping is less common (Hobara, 2003).

As children mature into teens, we see possessions starting to act as a crutch for the self. In 2007, Lan Chaplin and her colleagues interviewed participants aged between eight and 18 and found that ‘materialism’ (identified by choosing material goods in answer to ‘What makes me happy?’) peaked at middle adolescence, just when self-esteem tended to be lowest. In a follow-up, materialism was reduced in teens who were given flattering feedback from peers to boost their self-esteem. ‘Giving children or adolescents a sense of self-worth and accomplishment seems to be quite an effective antidote to the development of materialism,’ the researchers said (see box ‘Is materialism all bad?’).

Through adolescence, possessions increasingly reflect who people are, or at least how they would like to see themselves. In his seminal paper ‘Possessions and the extended self’ Russell Belk quotes from novelist Alison Lurie’s book The Language of Clothes, in which she observes: ‘…when adolescent girls exchange clothing they share not only friendship, but also identities – they become soulmates.’ Similarly, in interviews with teens, Ruthie Segev at Jerusalem College of Technology found evidence that selecting and buying gifts for their friends helps adolescents achieve

effects of iPod ownership on life satisfaction. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 11, 406–414.

Cova, B., Kozinets, R. & Shankar, A. (2007). Consumer tribes. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

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Derbaix, C. & Decrop, A. (2011). Colours and scarves: An ethnographic account of football fans and their paraphernalia. Leisure Studies, 30(3), 271–291.

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At home on the road? Can drivers’ relationships with their cars be associated with territoriality? Journal of Environmental Psychology, 27(3),

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a sense of identity independent from their parents, and that the mutual exchange of the same or similar gifts between friends helps them to create a feeling of overlapping identities.

In the transition from adolescence to adulthood, it’s the first car that often becomes the ultimate symbol of a person’s emerging identity. Interviews with car owners conducted by Graham Fraine and colleagues in 2007 found that young drivers, aged 18 to 25, were particularly likely to make the effort to personalise

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Is materialism all bad?

The prevailing view in psychology is that materialism is bad for our well-being. Research by Tim Kasser (at Knox College) and others has revealed an association between holding materialist values and being more depressed and selfish, and having poorer relationships. Kasser has previously called for a revolution in Western culture, shifting us from a thing-centred to a personcentred society. Other research by Leaf Van Boven, Thomas Gilovich and colleagues has shown that the purchase of experiences leaves people happier than buying material products.

In another study of theirs, materialistic people were liked less than people who appeared more interested in experiences.

How can we square this literature with the idea of things being part of our ‘extended selves’, a vital receptacle for our memories and identities? A clue comes from the theorising of a group led

by L.J. Shrum at the University of Texas at San Antonio. They propose that materialism isn’t bad per se, it depends on people’s buying motives. To the extent that acquisitions are motivated by intrinsic goals such as affiliation, belonging, pride and selfreward, they predict that materialism will improve well-being.

Even when it comes to signalling identity to others, they predict no adverse effects of materialism if the signal is true to the self.

‘We are not suggesting that materialism has no detrimental effects,’ says Shrum. ‘We are just arguing that it should not be considered wholly detrimental apriori, or by definition, but dependent on the underlying motives.’ He and others are planning research to test these ideas but there’s already some evidence they might be on to something. The 1998 paper ‘The American dream revisited: Is it what you want or why you want it that matters?’ showed that financial and material aspirations were linked to positive well-being when the motives underlying those aspirations were ‘self-determining’, for example based on the desire for fun or freedom (see also Srivastava et al., 2001).

their cars with stickers, unusual number plates and seat covers, as if marking out their territory. Earlier research conducted in the 1980s made the complementary finding that the more young men saw their cars as extensions of themselves, the more trouble they took to wash, wax and care for them (Bloch, 1982).

Adulthood As our lives unfold, our things embody our sense of self-hood and identity still

Hobara, M. (2003). Prevalence of transitional objects in young children in Tokyo and New York. Infant Mental Health Journal, 24(2), 174–191.

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further, becoming external receptacles for our memories, relationships and travels.

‘My house is not “just a thing,”’ wrote Karen Lollar in 2010. ‘The house is not merely a possession or a structure of unfeeling walls. It is an extension of my physical body and my sense of self that reflects who I was, am, and want to be.’

How much we see our things as an extension of ourselves may depend in part in how confident we feel about who we are. When Kimberly Morrison and Camille Johnson led European Americans

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‘Areas of the brain that are known to be Conspicuous consumption can also to feel uncertain about themselves involved in thinking about the self also convey status and importance outside using false feedback on a personality appear to be involved when we create of romantic contexts. A study at Tilburg questionnaire (telling them: ‘the associations between external things and University showed that people wearing consistency of your responses is not high ourselves through ownership,’ says Kim. a luxury branded shirt (Tommy Hilfiger enough to construct a clear picture of or Lacoste) were perceived as wealthier who you are’), they responded by rating and higher status (than people wearing their belongings as particularly selfa non-branded or non-luxury shirt); expressive – as saying something about Signals more successful at getting passers-by who they are. The same result didn’t As well as shoring up our sense of identity, to complete a questionnaire; more likely apply to Asian Americans or other US our possessions also allow us to signal to be given a job; and more successful at participants with a collectivist mentality, something about ourselves to other people. soliciting money for a charity (Nelissen perhaps because they are less concerned In a romantic context, there’s evidence for & Meijers, 2011). Crucially, these effects by threats to their sense of self. men using the purchase of showy items – were only present when it was clear than In a follow-up, those participants known as ‘conspicuous consumption’ – as the wearer of the luxury shirt actually scoring highly in individualism (as a display of status and availability to owned that shirt. ‘Insofar as luxury opposed to collectivism), who wrote women. A study led by Jill Sundie showed displays advertise nothing but wealth about an object that reflected their selfthis was specifically the case for men or possession in general, the ensuing concept, subsequently scored particularly interested in casual liaisons, and moreover, benefits, particularly financial ones, can high on a measure of self-certainty. It’s as that women interested in casual sex were … be considered perverse,’ the if reflecting on our things restores a attracted to these overt displays of costly researchers said. fragile ego. The results could help explain consumption.

Like a uniform, our some of the behaviour we associate possession of specific objects with a mid-life crisis, such as when and brands can also signal our the angst-ridden fifty-something membership of social groups, finds solace in a new Porsche. both to others and to A related line of research by Derek ourselves. The success of the Rucker and Adam Galinsky at the Apple brand has been Kellogg School of Management attributed in part to people’s showed that participants who felt desire to show that they powerless (induced by recalling a belong to a consumer tribe time when someone had control with connotations of over them) were more willing to pay ‘coolness’. Increasingly it for a silk tie and other high-status seems people will do whatever products. it takes, be that queuing for From a neural perspective, hours or paying premium this absorption of objects into selfprices, in demonstration of identity may be more than mere their brand loyalty and metaphor. In 2010, Kyungmi Kim membership. ‘Consumer and Marcia Johnson scanned culture theorists definitely participants’ brains as they allocated find a strengthening of the objects to a container marked as phenomenon,’ says Robert ‘mine’, imagining that they were Kozinets (York University, going to own them, or to a container Toronto), co-editor of marked with someone else’s name.

Consumer Tribes. ‘They tend Extra activity was observed in the to posit, with psychologists medial prefrontal cortex (MPC) in like Philip Cushman and response to the sight of ‘owned’ sociologists like Robert items, compared with control items Putnam, that as people find allocated to others. The same area of less satisfaction and MPC was activated when participants community in traditional rated how much various adjectives Fans described how important the wearing of their team sources like family, country described their own personality. colours was to their identity

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Conspicuous consumption versus utilitarian ideals: How different levels

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and religion, they turn instead to alternate sources in the marketplace.’

The use of possessions to convey group membership is most obvious when it comes to sports fans. Christian Derbaix and Alain Decrop explored this in interviews with 30 fans from major football teams across Belgium, France and Spain, some of whom owned dozens of items of club paraphernalia. The fans described how important the wearing of their team colours was to their identity, as a way to gain acceptance from other fans, and to their feeling part of the community.

‘Believe me’, said an RC Lens fan, ‘when I say that the one who doesn’t have his/her scarf looks a little bit silly ... [B]randishing the scarf means “I exhibit my club and raise it to the top… I’m just honouring it”. For me, the scarf means everything!’

Loss and disposal As our belongings accumulate, becoming more infused with our identities, so their preciousness increases. People whose things are destroyed in a disaster are traumatised, almost as if grieving the loss of their identities. Photographs from the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which struck the US East coast last year, show people standing bereft, staring in shock and bewilderment at all they’ve lost.

Reflecting on the fire that took her home, Lollar says it was like ‘a form of death’.

Alexandra Kovach, who also lost her home in a fire, wrote in The Washington Post in 2007: ‘It isn’t just a house. It’s not the contents, or the walls, but the true feeling of that home – and all that it represents.

Our homes are our foundations, retaining in their walls our memories and all the experiences that happen within them.’

Victims of burglaries and vandalism report feeling violated, the psychological impact of loss greater than the financial burden.

Yet there are many times when people wilfully dispose of things. This often happens at a key juncture, such as when leaving student life behind, moving home, or during divorce, and can be experienced as a chance for a new start. Old

of power shape consumer behavior.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(3), 549–555.

Schindler, R.M. & Holbrook, M.B. (2003).

Nostalgia for early experience as a determinant of consumer preferences. Psychology and Marketing, 20(4), 275–302.

Segev, R., Shoham, A. & Ruvio, A. (2012).

What does this gift say about me, you, and us? The role of adolescents’ gift

Hoarding There are people so reluctant to dispose of their belongings that it becomes a serious problem. In extreme cases, mountains of clutter accumulate posing a fire hazard and making free movement around the home impossible. In 2011 Channel 4 told the story of Richard Wallace, an extreme hoarder who had accumulated 60 tonnes of rubbish in his garden and whose kitchen was only accessible by crawling on all fours through a narrow tunnel of junk. Awareness of problematic hoarding is growing and ‘Hoarding Disorder’ will be included as a new condition in the next edition of US psychiatry’s diagnostic code, DSM-5, due for publication this year.

Part of the problem with making such a diagnosis is distinguishing hoarding from benign collecting. A British study published in 2012 compared a group of 29 people who met the proposed diagnostic criteria for hoarding disorder with 20 collectors (Nordsletten et al., 2012). Although both groups shared a reluctance to dispose of their belongings, the hoarders were less discriminate, more impulsive, and more extreme in their accumulations, all of which caused them problems with work and relationships. Hoarders were also more likely to have one or more other psychiatric diagnoses and to be taking psychiatric medication. Previous research suggests that hoarding behaviour is associated with a distinct way of thinking about possessions, including wanting to sustain control over them and feeling an exaggerated sense of responsibility for them (Steketee et al., 2003).

belongings are shed like a carapace, fostering the emergence of a new identity.

In the film Fight Club, the troubled character Tyler Durden sees the conflagration of his flat as liberating.

‘It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything,’ he says.

Another time for a symbolic clear-out occurs when parents throw out the baby clothes and toys belonging to their children. Based on in-depth interviews with 13 mothers, Barbara Phillips and Trina Sego distinguished between

giving in managing their impressions among their peers. Psychology & Marketing, 29(10), 752–764.

Shrum, L.J., Wong, N., Arif, F. et al. (2012).

Reconceptualizing materialism as identity goal pursuits: Functions, processes, and consequences. Journal of Business Research. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2012.08.010 Srivastava, A., Locke, E.A. & Bartol, K.M. (2001). Money and subjective well-

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

‘keepers’ and ‘discarders’ (preferring these terms to the labels ‘packrat’, ‘hoarder’ and ‘purger’ that others have used). Keepers struggled to dispose of their children’s belongings because of their emotional meaning, and they often employed delaying tactics to keep things as long as possible (see ‘Hoarding’). Discarders, by contrast, felt weaker ties to their children’s things. Intriguingly, both groups experienced guilt around their decisions – keepers because they felt a cultural pressure to be organised, and

being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(6), 959–971.

Steketee, G., Frost, R.O. & Kyrios, M. (2003). Cognitive aspects of compulsive hoarding. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 27(4), 463–479.

Sundie, J.M., Kenrick, D.T., Griskevicius, V. et al. (2011). Peacocks, Porsches, and Thorstein Veblen: Conspicuous consumption as a sexual signaling system. Journal of Personality and

Social Psychology, 100(4), 664–680.

Van Boven, L., Campbell, M.C. & Gilovich, T. (2010). Stigmatizing materialism: On stereotypes and impressions of materialistic and experiential pursuits. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36(4), 551–563.

Van Boven, L. & Gilovich, T. (2003). To do or to have? That is the question.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(6), 1193–1202.

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discarders because they felt there was an expectation for mothers to protect and preserve their children’s identities.

Later life and beyond Older people don’t just form bonds with their specific belongings, they seem to have an affection for brands from their youth too. Usually this manifests in a taste for music, books, films and other entertainment from yesteryear, but the same has been shown for fashions and hairstyles, it has been hinted at for perfumes, and in a study published in 2003 by Robert Schindler and Morris Holbrook, it was found that it also extends to the car.

Dozens of participants aged 16 to 92 rated their preference for the appearance of 80 cars, ranging from the 1915 Dodge Model 30-35 to the 1994 Chrysler Concorde. Among men, but not women, there was a clear preference for cars that dated from the participants’ youth (peaking around Older people don’t just form bonds with their specific belongings, they seem to have an age 26). This was particularly the case affection for brands from their youth too for men who were more nostalgic and After a person dies, many of their who believed that things were better in cultivate an online identity with a carefully most meaningful possessions become the old days. What other examples might constructed homepage. We no longer have family heirlooms, seen by those left there be? ‘Children of both sexes tend to to purchase an item to associate ourselves behind as for ever containing the lost have strong feelings about foods they with it, we can simply tell the world via person’s essence. This idea is also seen like as they grow up,’ says Schindler.

Twitter or Facebook about our preferences. in the behaviours that follow the death ‘Although we haven’t studied food, The self has become extended, almost of a celebrity. In a process that Belk calls I would expect both men and women to literally, into technology, with Google ‘sacralisation’, possessions owned by have a lifetime fondness for foods they acting like a memory prosthetic. In short, a deceased star can acquire astonishing enjoyed during their youth.’ our relationship with our things, value overnight, both sentimental and As with human relationships, the possessions and brands remains as monetary. This is often true even for attachments to our things deepen with important as ever, it’s just the nature of exceedingly mundane items such as the passage of time. Elderly people are the relationship is changing.

President Kennedy’s tape measure, often surrounded by possessions that Researchers and people in general auctioned for $48,875 in 1996. A study have followed them through good times are gradually adjusting. The psychology

by George Newman and colleagues in and bad, across continents and back. In of our stuff is becoming more inter2011 provided a clue about the beliefs 2000, Linda Price at the University of disciplinary, with new generations underlying these effects. They showed Arizona and her colleagues interviewed building on the established research that people place more value on celebrity80 older people about their decisions conducted by consumer psychologists. owned items, the more physical contact regarding these ‘special possessions’.

For her thesis completed this year at the the celebrity had with the object, as if A common theme was the way cherished University of North Carolina at Chapel their essence somehow contaminated the objects come to represent particular Hill, Amber Cushing – an information item through use. A related phenomenon memories. ‘I can look at anything [in this scientist – interviewed people aged 18 is seen in consumer behaviour after house] and remember special occasions,’ to 67, finding that the younger a creative star dies, with the mass recalled Diane, aged 70. ‘It’s almost like participants readily saw their digital consumption of their music, books or a history of our life.’ possessions as extensions of themselves, films or other associated items. Consider These possessions can be a particular much as older generations see their how Steve Jobs death in 2011 was comfort for older people who have to physical things. followed by mass demand for tops in leave their homes and enter supervised Twenty-five years after he published his trademark black turtle-neck style. residential care. In interviews with 20 his seminal work on objects and the such people in New Zealand, Jane Kroger ‘extended self’, Russell Belk has composed and Vivienne Adair reported that an update: ‘The extended self in a digital cherished possessions often provided world,’ currently under review. ‘The The future a vital link to memories, relationships possibilities for self extensions have never Our relationship with our stuff is in the and former selves, helping foster a sense been so extensive,’ he says. midst of great change. Dusty music and of continuity. ‘I love having this plate to literary collections are being rehoused in keep me company,’ one woman, aged 86, the digital cloud. Where once we said of a ceramic plate that reminded her expressed our identity through fashion I Dr Christian Jarrett is The Psychologist’s of her mother. preferences and props, today we can staff journalist. chrber@bps.org.uk

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Research. Digested.

The British Psychological Society’s free Research Digest Blog, email, Twitter and Facebook

www.researchdigest.org.uk/blog ‘Easy to access and free, and a mine of useful information for my work: what more could I want?

I only wish I’d found this years ago!’

Dr Jennifer Wild, Consultant Clinical Psychologist & Senior Lecturer, Institute of Psychiatry ‘The selection of papers suits my eclectic mind perfectly, and the quality and clarity of the synopses is uniformly excellent.’

Professor Guy Claxton, University of Bristol

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LOOKING BACK

Understanding amnesia – Is it time to forget HM? 55 years since the famous amnesic’s case was first described, John P. Aggleton questions its value when debating the neuroanatomical basis of memory

he amnesic HM is the most famous single-case in neuropsychology, and possibly the best known case in all of psychology. Over one hundred studies have been published involving HM, and when he died in 2008 it was worldwide news. Interest in Henry Molaison (as we then discovered) was so high that when his brain was sectioned the procedure was filmed for the internet, prompting, among other things, a stage play. Ironically, HM always remained unaware of his fame (Corkin, 2002). The question posed here is whether it is time for us to reciprocate – should we forget HM? Almost every introduction into the neural basis of memory describes how in 1953 the surgeon William Scoville removed tissue in both medial temporal lobes of HM’s brain in an attempt to treat his epilepsy. Immediately thereafter, HM displayed severe anterograde amnesia – a failure to retain new day-to-day events – which remained throughout the rest of his life. This catastrophic outcome ensured that HM’s surgery was not repeated, so making him unique.

As has been often described, HM showed preserved IQ despite his loss of long-term memory. He also showed preserved short-term memory (e.g. immediate memory span) and a good knowledge of past factual information. (episodic memory). Subsequent research revealed his spared ability to learn new perceptual-motor skills, e.g. mirror drawing (Corkin, 2002), discoveries that helped to establish emerging distinctions

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Episodic memory, amnesia and the hippocampal anterior thalamic axis.

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between explicit and implicit learning.

Much of the impact of HM arises, however, from Scoville’s surgery and how that inadvertently established the importance of the hippocampus for learning and memory.

Given this impact it seems churlish to question the legacy of HM Indeed, it must be made clear that this article is not a criticism of research on HM (which has consistently been of an exceptional level and deservedly praised); rather it concerns how key elements of this hugely influential body of research have been more generally interpreted and reported.

Does hippocampal pathology cause anterograde amnesia?

The Russian neurologist Bekhterev is often credited as the first person to signal the involvement of the hippocampus in memory. Bekhterev’s research was, however, suppressed after his death, quite probably on the orders of Stalin who may have had Bekhterev killed (Lerner et al., 2005). It is, however, indisputable that Scoville and Milner (1957) drew new attention to the importance of the hippocampal formation for long-term memory, and did so in a way that profoundly altered neuroscience.

It is because HM is regarded as unique that his case has had such influence, yet in their landmark paper, Scoville and Milner (1957) described eight cases in addition to HM who received bilateral removal of tissue in the medial temporal

554–561.

Brown, M.W., Warburton, E.C. & Aggleton, J.P. (2010). Recognition memory: Material, processes, and substrates. Hippocampus, 20, 1228–1244.

Corkin, S. (2002). What’s new with the amnesic patient H.M.? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 3, 153–160.

Corkin, S., Amaral, D.G., Gonzalez, R.G. et al. (1997). H.M.’s medial temporal

lobes. Along with HM, one other case had the most ‘radical’ surgery, intended to remove the full extent of the hippocampus. In six of the remaining cases the surgery was more restricted as it was intended to reach only the front of the hippocampus or only midway through the structure. Within this group of patients, HM was unique as his was the only surgery for the relief of epilepsy. The other patients received psychosurgical treatments intended to relieve schizophrenia (n = 7) or bipolar depression (n = 1). The failure of Scoville’s surgeries to reduce these psychiatric symptoms inevitably posed problems for their cognitive assessments, and the formal testing of three of these schizophrenic cases was incomplete.

Added problems would have arisen from the fact that schizophrenia is itself associated with appreciable memory loss.

Despite these issues, several features of the original study on HM seem to create a compelling case for the importance of the hippocampus. Most critically, comparisons among all nine patients revealed that severe memory deficits were only seen after radical resections involving most of the hippocampus. Unfortunately, the real extent of the surgeries could only be subsequently determined for HM, for whom there is structural MRI data (Corkin et al., 1997). We are, therefore, reliant on Scoville’s surgical notes for the other eight patients. In fact, we now know that Scoville failed to remove the caudal 2cm of HM’s hippocampus, despite his intention to do so (Figure 1). (More precise information will become available when HM’s post-mortem findings are published.) It is, therefore, not unreasonable to suppose that there were inconsistencies between the intended and actual extent of tissue removal in these other eight cases.

There are additional concerns.

Scoville’s surgeries approached the medial temporal lobe from its front (i.e. via the temporal pole), an inevitable consequence of which was the removal of tissue in

lobe lesion: Findings from magnetic resonance imaging. Journal of Neuroscience, 17, 3964–3979.

Diana, R.A., Yonelinas, A.P. & Ranganath, C. (2007). Imaging recollection and familiarity in the medial temporal lobe: a three-component model.

Trends in Cognitive Science, 11, 379–386.

Lerner, V., Margolin, J. & Witztum, E. (2005). Vladamir Bekhterev: His life,

his work and the mystery of his death. History of Psychiatry, 16, 217–227.

Mishkin, M. (1978). Memory in monkeys severely impaired by combined but not by separate removal of amygdala and hippocampus. Nature, 273, 297–298.

Murray, E.A. & Mishkin, M. (1998). Object recognition and location memory in monkeys with excitotoxic lesions of

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Subsequent comparisons using other front of the hippocampus. This tissue cases with more localised hippocampal included most of the amygdala and damage (Spiers et al., 2001) have, in fact, pyriform cortex. The surgeries also often supported the principal insights produced variable amounts of tissue loss drawn from HM as these later cases also in other regions adjacent to the suffered clear losses of long-term memory hippocampus (the ‘parahippocampal that contrasted with spared semantic region’, which includes the entorhinal and knowledge acquired prior to the amnesia. perirhinal cortices – see Figure 1). There That said, HM’s amnesia appears is no shortage of evidence that additional appreciably denser than that in cases damage to these adjacent areas can with more circumscribed hippocampal exacerbate memory deficits (Aggleton & Brown, 1999; Diana et al., 2007). A closely related issue concerns the consequences of any white matter damage in HM as the surgical technique used by Scoville would have destroyed both white and grey matter. White matter damage is potentially very important as it might disrupt the functions of sites far removed from the hippocampus.

While MRI data (Corkin et al., 1997) indicate that Scoville probably spared the tract immediately lateral to the hippocampus (the temporal stem), he would have removed fibres linking the temporal pole with the frontal lobe.

Other tract damage in HM would almost certainly include those temporal stem fibres that leave the temporal lobe by passing directly through the lateral and dorsal amygdala.

Figure 1. HM’s surgery and the medial temporal lobe. The Studies with monkeys have upper level shows views of the underside of a brain (with shown that cutting these fibres the cerebellum removed). The brain on the left indicates adds to cognitive impairments the intended extent of the medial temporal surgery in HM in tasks such as recognition (region in brown). The dashed line shows approximately memory (Bachevalier et al., how far back Scoville’s surgery actually went according to 1985). It can, therefore, be MRI evidence, leaving an area of potential sparing in the seen that HM did not suffer posterior hippocampus. The solid line shows the level of selective hippocampal loss and the coronal sections in the lower part of the figure. The that damage to adjacent areas coronal section on the left indicates the suspected area of is very likely to have tissue loss in HM, which clearly extends well into the contributed to his memory parahippocampal region. problems. As a consequence damage. While there are several possible HM does not confirm that hippocampal explanations for this difference, including cell loss is either ‘necessary’ or ‘sufficient’ the extent of hippocampal damage in for temporal lobe amnesia.

the amygdala and hippocampus.

Journal of Neuroscience, 18, 6568–6582.

Scoville, W.B. & Milner, B. (1957). Loss of recent memory after bilateral hippocampal lesions. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 20, 11–21.

Spiers, H.J., Maguire, E.A. & Burgess, N. (2001). Hippocampal amnesia.

Neurocase 7, 357–382.

Squire, L.R., Wixted, J.T. & Clark, R.E. (2007). Recognition memory and the medial temporal lobe: A new perspective. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 8, 872–883.

Tsivilis, D., Vann, S.D., Denby, C., et al.

(2008). A disproportionate role for the fornix and mammillary bodies in recall versus recognition memory.

Nature Neuroscience, 11, 834–842.

Vann, S.D. (2010) Re-evaluating the role of

read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk

HM, it remains highly likely that the combination of additional white matter damage and the loss of tissue in structures adjacent to the hippocampus (e.g. the amygdala) added to his memory problems. Finally, his long-term use of anti-epileptic drugs may have caused cerebellar atrophy (Corkin, 2002).

Consequently there are numerous reasons why the amnesia in HM may have been particularly dense, and these reasons reflect more than just hippocampal cell loss.

Hierarchical models of medial temporal lobe function Consult almost any neuropsychological text and there will be a figure highlighting those medial temporal lobe connections most strongly linked to memory. This figure almost always comprises a series of connected boxes, with the hippocampus placed at the top (Figure 2, overleaf). Such figures inevitably convey a hierarchy with the hippocampus overseeing all other medial temporal lobe memory functions.

Although such depictions of medial temporal lobe anatomy were not created by research on HM, the persistent emphasis on hippocampal dysfunction in HM has surely reinforced and maintained this hierarchical view of medial temporal function. This perspective is all the more understandable when it is appreciated that the dominant model of medial temporal lobe memory systems has been one in which other temporal lobe structures are primarily critical for the ingress and egress of information to and from the medial temporal lobe, but it is the hippocampus that orchestrates this information (Squire et al., 2007; Wixted & Squire, 2011). This influential view of medial temporal lobe organisation now looks increasingly untenable.

the mammillary bodies in memory.

Neuropsychologia, 48, 2316–2327.

Vann, S.D. & Aggleton, J.P. (2004).The mammillary bodies – two memory systems in one? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 5, 35–44.

Wixted, J.T. & Squire, L.R. (2011). The medial temporal lobe and the attributes of memory. Trends in Cognitive Science, 15, 210–217.

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impairments have become fused.

The pivotal issue is the extent to The problem with conflating these which other temporal lobe structures impairments is beautifully highlighted by have memory functions independent of a pair of experiments with monkeys that the hippocampus. Much of this debate originally centred on the relative importance of the hippocampus and the parahippocampal region for recognition memory (the ability to detect when an event is repeated). One highly influential model supposes that the hippocampus is equally important for both recall and recognition, consistent with its position at the top of an anatomical hierarchy (Squire et al., 2007; Wixted & Squire, 2011). This model assumes that damage immediately beyond the hippocampus produces more of the same dysfunction, reflecting this sharing of Figure 2. Potentially misleading hierarchical diagram functions. This concept is very portraying the interconnections between the pertinent because it directly hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, perirhinal cortex, and implies that any extraparahippocampal cortex. The cortical regions at the hippocampal damage in HM bottom provide sensory information to the region. The disrupted processes that thickness of the arrows reflects the strength of the primarily depend on the various connections. hippocampus, and so do not sought to replicate the combined materially affect his core status as amygdala plus hippocampal surgery in a hippocampal amnesic.

HM. When the tissue was removed using Other models have challenged Scoville’s surgical approach the monkeys this view. One class of model supposes were very severely impaired on object that while the hippocampus is vital for recognition memory (Mishkin, 1978). recognition memory based on the explicit When the same targets were removed by recall of past experiences, adjacent injecting a chemical that kills neurons but regions including the perirhinal cortex are spares white matter, the animals were independently important for recognition unimpaired on object recognition based on the feeling of familiarity (Murray & Mishkin, 1998). This (Aggleton & Brown, 1999; Diana et al., contrasting pair of findings underlines the 2007). These ‘dual-process’ models significance of dysfunction in HM beyond predict that amnesics with pathology the hippocampus, and its likely restricted to the hippocampus will have contribution to recognition memory. disproportionate deficits in recall, as recognition can be partially supported by familiarity. Such cases do exist (Brown et Looking beyond the al., 2010). In addition, there is much evidence that the parahippocampal region hippocampus has cognitive functions independent of One legacy of HM is that he reinforced the hippocampus (Diana et al., 2007). the notion of different brain structures With regard to HM, he repeatedly with different roles in processing failed to recognise near-neighbours and information, so supporting a modular friends who became acquainted with him approach to memory. A related legacy is after his surgery. HM was impaired on that the hippocampus has become the both verbal and non-verbal recognition, keystone for research into long-term and for both yes-no and forced-choice memory. One consequence is that tasks (Corkin, 2002). Consequently, there research into neurological disorders seems little reason to suppose that HM associated with memory loss, including showed a relative sparing of recognition dementias, remains dominated by memory. Unfortunately HM’s amnesia is hippocampal analyses, despite the so strongly identified as being potential significance of other areas fundamentally hippocampal, and his within the temporal lobe. deficits for recall and recognition so Damage beyond the temporal lobe widely described, that these two can also cause anterograde amnesia. In

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fact the first convincing evidence that damage to a specific brain site can cause amnesia concerns the mammillary bodies (the most posterior part of the hypothalamus), not the hippocampus (Vann & Aggleton, 2004). Remarkable clinical cases, such as BJ who had a snooker cue forced up his nose, damaging the base of this brain, have also specifically implicated the mammillary bodies (see Vann & Aggleton, 2004). Likewise, a largescale study of memory after tumors in the middle of the brain has highlighted the importance of the mammillary bodies (Tsivilis et al., 2008).

A number of other sites have been also implicated in amnesia (e.g. the anterior thalamic nuclei, parataenial thalamic nucleus, medial dorsal thalamic nucleus, retrosplenial cortex), and the fact that many of these structures are directly interconnected with the hippocampus has been given great significance. The assumption has typically been that these other regions are of secondary importance, and that the primary memory influences begin and end with the hippocampus. While such models are anatomically plausible, they have an inherent weakness if they fail to explain why the hippocampus might benefit from such a return circuit. The answer is surely that these other structures provide new information critical for temporal lobe function.

Indeed, recent research shows that it might be more insightful to see these other sites as primarily upstream, not downstream, from the hippocampus (Vann, 2010), i.e. reversing the traditional viewpoint. Such findings again emphasise the need to move to a more balanced view of memory substrates.

In many respects, HM remains the prototypical amnesic. (In fact, it could be argued that HM came to define what is now meant by the term amnesic.) There is little doubt that HM was unique, but that uniqueness is a double-edged sword given the multitude of special factors that may have influenced his memory performance. It feels almost sacrilegious to criticise the impact of HM, especially given the quality of the associated research. Nevertheless, the resultant narrow focus on the hippocampus for memory and memory disorders could well have excessively biased our thinking, with far-reaching, unwitting consequences.

I John P. Aggleton is in the School of Psychology, Cardiff University aggleton@cf.ac.uk

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august 2013

Annual Conference 2014 Our themes for the conference are: l Psychology and war l The psychology of family, parenting and caring l The psychologist as expert l New directions in human neuroscience Call for submissions opens:

1 August www.bps.org.uk/ac2014 ‘The conference allows you to keep up to date with the latest research, network with individuals from all over the world, and feel part of a strong community’

7-9 May 2014 International Conference Centre, Birmingham ‘big picture’ pull-out www.thepsychologist.org.uk

i

BIG PICTURE

The words ‘such tender years’ were taken from a letter within a certificate for a three-year-old boy at the time of his admission to a lunatic asylum, as a ‘person of unsound mind’. It’s also the title of a new book covering the admission of over 100 under 14-year-olds to lunatic asylums in Leicestershire many decades ago. More than 20 of the youngsters were aged six years and under.

Images courtesy of the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester The book’s author, Diane Lockley, has written and Rutland, with commentary by Diane Lockley for The Psychologist about life in Leicestershire’s first lunatic asylum (see ‘Looking back’, June 2012: tinyurl.com/houseofcure). She has been scouring inevitably draw any reader closer to the young patients. the medical records, which outline the detailed diagnosis – It is questionable as to whether any of the youngsters were both clinical and mental – which took place at the time of prepared for the studio camera session, as at times the entry. ‘Line after line of individual case book entries gave cropped hairstyles and the uniformity of the clothing led to clear insights into the various patterns of treatment,’ she them already having a rather institutionalised appearance. says. ‘Warm relationships with both staff and fellow patients A couple appear to be delighted to be posing in front of helped to make the new environment a form of home from a camera, whereas others look alarmed and much more home. Everything was generally done to ensure that time apprehensive.’ within the walls was as well spent as possible.’

Such Tender Years is available from the University of From the turn of the century, the admissions usually Leicester bookshop (see tinyurl.com/tenderyear). included a photograph. Lockley says that ‘the images

Such tender years

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