It’s now been over two and a half years since I first started blogging for The Emotion Machine – and just recently I’ve passed over one million visitors.

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Our world is changing all of the time. It’s exciting. These changes create new space to explore and new opportunities for growth and improvement. Like everything else, our economic world is in a constant state of flux too. Businessmen and entrepreneurs are rowing down an endless stream of ideas and innovation. Their aims are not only to make money, but to improve the world in a way the relates to real people like you and me.

What does story-telling have to do with business if you aren’t an author? Well, a whole lot if you ask entrepreneur Michael Margolis. In his interview at Rise To The Top, Michael explains how every successful organization needs to have a narrative that captivates its community and fans. Marketing is no longer about mind tactics, manipulation, or persuasion, it is about telling a story that people can relate to and take part in. If you have a business, ask yourself, “What story does my business tell? What are the dynamics, the conflict, and the resolution?”

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1. Video Games Lead to Faster Decisions That Are No Less Accurate

“Cognitive scientists from the University of Rochester have discovered that playing action video games trains people to make the right decisions faster. The researchers found that video game players develop a heightened sensitivity to what is going on around them, and this benefit doesn’t just make them better at playing video games, but improves a wide variety of general skills that can help with everyday activities like multitasking, driving, reading small print, keeping track of friends in a crowd, and navigating around town.”

2. Contagious yawn ’caused by empathy’

“Researchers from the University of Connecticut observed 120 well developing children between the ages of one and six. The study showed that although babies yawn even before they leave the womb, the majority of children show no signs of succumbing to contagious yawning until they reach four years old.

In a second study they looked at 28 children between the ages of six and 15 with some form of autism. Autism is a developmental disorder which affects children’s social interaction causing them to be unable to form normal emotional ties with people around them. Scientists discovered that autistic children were less likely than typically developing children of the same age to yawn when someone else yawns.

The more severe a child’s autism the less likely he or she would yawn contagiously, the report published in the latest edition of the respected Child Development journal concluded.”

3. How culture can invert genetic risk

“Neuron Culture has a fantastic piece on how a long touted ‘depression gene’ turned out to reduce the risk of mood problems in people in East Asians and why we can’t always understand genetic effects on behaviour without understanding culture.

The piece riffs on the long-established finding that the short variant of the serotonin transporter or 5-HTTLPR gene is more common in people with depression, until psychologist Joan Chiao found that East Asians are more than twice as likely to have the gene but only have half the rate of mood problems.”

4. Do You Know When You’re Wrong? Gray Matter Shows Introspective Ability

“Introspection—or metacognition, self-awareness about one’s thinking—is a high-level mental process. ‘Accurate introspection requires discriminating correct decisions from incorrect ones, a capacity that varies substantially across individuals,’ researchers behind the new findings explained in their study.

For the study, researchers used simple visual stimuli to test 32 healthy subjects’ perception—and how confident they felt about their assessment of a geometric image. The tests were customized to each individual’s level of perceptual skill, in order to keep each subject’s accuracy score at 71 percent, so that the test was consistently difficult for all subjects…

Test subjects’ accuracy in assessing their own performance ‘was significantly correlated with gray-matter volume’ in the right anterior prefrontal cortex, the team wrote in their study report, published online September 16 in Science. Subjects with more accurate introspective assessments also tended to have denser connections between that area of gray matter and the axon-filled white matter that connected it.”

5. Autism’s First Child

“As new cases of autism have exploded in recent years—some form of the condition affects about one in 110 children today—efforts have multiplied to understand and accommodate the condition in childhood. But children with autism will become adults with autism, some 500,000 of them in this decade alone. What then? Meet Donald Gray Triplett, 77, of Forest, Mississippi. He was the first person ever diagnosed with autism. And his long, happy, surprising life may hold some answers.”

6. Placebo Effect Significantly Improves Women’s Sexual Satisfaction

“Many women with low sex drives reported greater sexual satisfaction after taking a placebo, according to new psychology research from The University of Texas at Austin and Baylor College of Medicine. The study was conducted by Cindy Meston, a clinical psychology professor at The University of Texas at Austin, and Andrea Bradford, a 2009 University of Texas at Austin graduate and postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. They found that opening a new line of communication about sex can have a positive effect in many women with low libidos.

The researchers examined data from a previous clinical trial that followed 200 women over a 12-week period. Fifty of those women, ages 35-55, were randomly chosen to receive a placebo instead of a drug treatment for low sexual arousal. None of the participants knew which treatment they were given. To measure the effect of the treatment, women were asked to rate symptoms of sexual dysfunction such as low sexual desire, low sexual arousal and problems with orgasm.

The findings, available online in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, show that on average, one in three of the women who took a placebo showed an overall improvement. Most of that improvement seemed to happen during the first four weeks.”

7. When Marketing Stinks

“Olfactory marketing has been used for years, and usually the objective is to use appealing scents and create a positive branding message. Not always, though – one politician is conducting a campaign that, well, stinks. Carl Paladino, the Republican nominee for governor of New York State, has sent out a mailing that smells like garbage.

The mailer shows pictures of seven Democratic office holders from the Empire State, six of whom have been investigated. Two of the Democrats have already resigned. The theme of the mailer is, ‘Something STINKS in Albany!’”

8. Measuring Preference for Multitasking

“A new study led by Elizabeth Poposki, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology in the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, may help employers identify employees who enjoy multitasking and are less inclined to quit jobs involving multitasking. The study presents a new tool developed to measure preference for multitasking, information which may be of interest to bosses who tire of repeatedly hiring and training new employees.

A growing number of individuals must multitask at work and positions requiring a significant amount of multitasking typically have high turnover. Even positions which in the past did not require multitasking may now do so as staff reductions require remaining workers to pick up additional assignments. Technological innovations (e.g., e-mail) also create frequent interruptions. How workers feel about multitasking may influence their job satisfaction and the likelihood that they will quit, important factors in hiring and placement decisions.”

10. Dog with symptoms of unilateral neglect

For those who don’t know: unilateral neglect is a “neuropsychological condition in which, after damage to one hemisphere of the brain, a deficit in attention to and awareness of one side of space is observed.” As you can see in the video, the dog only eats half of its bowl and then walks away thinking it is finished.

1. Habits of the Heart: Life History and Developmental Neuroendocrinology of Emotion Regulation by Carol Worthman, Emory University

In this lecture Worthman shows that human health and behavior are dependent on both nature and nurture by design. Our genes, evolution, culture, and parenting all play causal roles in the development of social intelligence, emotions, and health. In only 45 minutes she crams a lot of information and research, which can get a little sophisticated at times, but is all-in-all very interesting and well worth the watch.

2. General-purpose Brain Circuits Used To Solve Major Moral Decisions

“Amitai Shenhav and Joshua D. Greene of Harvard’s Department of Psychology present the findings this week in the journal Neuron.

‘It seems that our capacity for complex, life-and-death decisions depends on brain structures that originally evolved for making more basic, self-interested decisions about things like obtaining calories,’ says Shenhav, a doctoral student in psychology at Harvard. ‘Many of the brain regions we find to be active in major moral decisions have been shown to perform similar functions when people and animals make commonplace decisions about ordinary goods such as money and food.’

Some researchers have argued that moral judgments are produced by a ‘moral faculty’ in the brain, but Shenhav and Greene’s work indicates that at least some moral decisions rely on general mechanisms also used by the brain in evaluating other kinds of choices.”

3. The secret history of psychedelic psychiatry

“The secret history of psychedelic psychiatry began in the early 1950s, about 10 years after Albert Hofmann discovered the hallucinogenic properties of LSD, and lasted until 1970. It was uncovered by medical historian Erika Dyck, who examined the archives from Canadian mental health researchers and conducted interviews with some of the psychiatrists, patients and nurses involved in the early LSD trials. Dyck’s work shows early LSD experimentation in a new light, as a fruitful branch of mainstream psychiatric research: it redefined alcoholism as a disease that could be cured and played a role in the psychopharmacological revolution which radically transformed psychiatry. But, despite some encouraging results, it was cut short prematurely.”

4. Nicholas Carr: Surfing our way to stupid

“Digital communications technologies are very compelling and provide us with a lot of benefits. And the way the web supplies information in small, simultaneous bits appeals to something very primitive in our minds. Early in our evolutionary history we were rewarded for our ability to quickly shift attention and learn as much as we could about our surroundings. Later, especially with printed books, we learned to focus our attention. Today, the internet is leading us back to a more distracted, scattered, skimming and scanning mode of thought and away from attentive, contemplative thought.

Some people would argue that having access to lots of information, being able to juggle lots of things simultaneously and collaborate broadly and quickly with lots of people is the ideal way to use the mind. I disagree. Paying attention leads to deep modes of thought. It’s the way we transfer working memory to long-term memory; it seems to activate a lot of the mental processes that give rise to conceptual thinking, critical thinking, and even creativity. The ability to filter out distractions and interruptions and to engage in solitary contemplative thought is essential to gaining the full potential of our minds.”

5. Maslow, Emotion, and a Hierarchy of Service

“It helps to distinguish between [customer] service as ‘technical delivery’ and [customer] service as ‘fantastic experience.’ And the distinction reminds me of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which suggests that people have different levels of needs which need to be met — and needs at the bottom of the hierarchy must be fulfilled before needs higher up can truly be met.

The points of view I had been reading suggested that a similar hierarchy exists when it comes to meeting consumer needs and motivations with customer service. There are different levels of service which companies may provide, but the ones at the bottom of the service hierarchy need to be delivered before the ones higher up can be meaningful and have impact.”

5. Steven Pinker – The Genius of Charles Darwin: The Uncut Interviews

This is a fascinating uncut dialogue between evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker. They cover a wide-range of topics from a Darwinian perspective, including emotions, language, phobias, and music, as well as public misconceptions regarding evolutionary theory.

6. A Model for Psychosis

“The incidence of psychotic disorders varies greatly across places and demographic groups, as do symptoms, course, and treatment response across individuals. High rates of schizophrenia in large cities, and among immigrants, cannabis users, and traumatised individuals reflect the causal influence of environmental exposures. This, in combination with progress in the area of molecular genetics, has generated interest in more complicated models of schizophrenia aetiology that explicitly posit gene-environment interactions. “

7. Brain Enters And Leaves States Of Induced Unconsciousness Via Different Processes

“Researchers observed that once a group of animal subjects underwent a transition from wakefulness to anesthetic-induced unconsciousness, the subjects exhibited resistance to the return of the wakeful state. Based on their findings, the authors propose a fundamental and biologically conserved state, which they call neural inertia, a tendency of the CNS to resist transitions between consciousness and unconsciousness.

‘The findings from this study may provide insights into the regulation of sleep as well as states in which return of consciousness is pathologically impaired such as some types of coma,’ said Kelz. ‘This line of research may one day help us to develop novel anesthetic drugs and targeted therapies for patients who have different forms of sleep disorders or who have the potential to awaken from coma but remain stuck in comatose states for months or years.’ “

Although I certainly haven’t forgotten about my personal blog here, lately a lot of my energy has been going into my political blog, which I currently share with 8 contributors (and hopefully 10 by the end of the summer!). Over the past couple of months I’ve noticed some advantages and disadvantages to having a multi-authored blog. I thought I would touch on some of these points today.

+ More content.

Naturally, two workers can produce more than one, and three can produce more than two, and so on. This is especially true if each product being produced is particular to the efforts of one mind (aka, not in an “assembly line”-like fashion, where if one person dozes, the whole structure of production is ruined). Instead, I can spend a whole month not writing anything, but, instead, two other authors may write a couple articles each month – and the blog still appears to be “active” (a sign loyal readers are going to want to see).

- Less quality control.

Unless you are very stringent about what content gets published, or you are a part of a very homogenized group of writers, there are going to be areas of disagreement between you and other contributors. This can be a bit frustrating when an idea you typically don’t endorse gets published on a blog you would rather more represent you.

+ Diversity and dialogue.

Looking on the bright side of the last point, varying opinions can also lead to diversity and a healthy dialogue. Diversity is, in many ways, the defining attribute of evolution, and it is no different for competing species as it is for competing viewpoints. The other blog I write for, Libertarian Minds, is filled with different kinds of thinkers (Constitutionalists, Objectivists, Anarchists, Atheists, Deists, Theists), and in my opinion these differences add new dimensions to our discussions on politics, society, culture, and morality. They make us all smarter and more well-rounded – and more tolerant.

- Sharing of benefits/revenue

For some blogs this may just mean competing for page views, while for others this may mean distributing revenue among writers. This means the more contributors you have, the less money you will each get paid.

+ More heads marketing

Despite the last point, having more writers may also mean having more traffic streams. Writers A and B may be active users on Reddit, while Writers C and D spend more time advertising on Facebook. Everyone will also have different groups of friends, family, and coworkers to show the site too. This means more opportunities for eyeballs on your blog.

- Greater potential for conflict

On one side of the coin, humans are often good at cooperating and working together. On the other side, they can also get caught up in pissing contests and foul-mouthed exchanges. Fortunately at Libertarian Minds all the writers seem to get along and interact respectfully (knock on wood), but there is often a greater potential for conflict as you add more passionate thinkers to the equation. Some conflicts, of course, can be good, and lead to further cohesion – other conflicts, however, can cause permanent divides (especially if one person feels they are being ostracized from the rest).

+ Sense of community.

As with any group project, a sense of community is beneficial. It means individuals feel they have a responsibility to others – to provide good content and make the blog into as good of a blog as possible. We always see professional athletes talk about their team as if it is a “family,” the same can be true for teams of bloggers. Relationships build and build over time.

CONCLUSION

Really this was just a brief brainstorm on the pluses and minuses of writing for a multi-authored blog, and I think I did a pretty comprehensive job. I am very pleased with my experience so far, and I think the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages (which is a big reason why Libertarian Minds has so far received a good amount of traffic, considering its young age). I am really excited to see where it takes all of us in the near future.