Cats and Depression

Some suggest that the first popular Internet memes starred cute cats with sayings like "I can has cheezburger?." So it was natural that I chose a cat as this blog's icon and not surprising that this week's meme features a cat:

The humor comes from relating typical cat behaviors to the very serious symptoms of human depression. Specifically the DSM-V includes "changes in sleep, appetite, and decreased interest in activities" as indicators of Major Depressive Disorder and Depressive Episodes in human beings.

On the other hand, there is an old adage that pets and their owners resemble each other. Maybe this trend applies not only to physical traits but also to psychological traits? We can ask the question: is their a relationship between cat ownership and depression?

On one hand we have research findings that lead us to believe that having a cat, or any pet, could be protective against depression. For example, McConnell, Brown, Shoda, Stayton, and Marton (2011) conducted an experiment to determine if pets can serve as social support and reduce the sting of rejection. In their somewhat disturbingly named paper, "Friends with benefits: on the positive consequences of pet ownership," they included a study of 97 undergraduate students, who were also pet owners (76 dogs, 20 cats, one horse). The participants either wrote a detailed report about a time that they were rejected (experimental condition) or what they had done earlier that day (control). Thus the experimental condition triggered feelings of rejection whereas the control condition did not; this was verified by participants' scores on a 17 question Social Needs Scale.

Next, the participants were either instructed to write about why they like their pets, why they like their best friends (human, that is), or to draw maps of their college campus. Past research demonstrated that thinking of your best friend serves as a reminder of social support, so the researchers were curious if thinking of a pet would have the same effect. Drawing a map was a neutral experience that would not be related to social support.

Indeed, when they completed a second check of their emotional states the participants who had felt rejected and then thought about their pets or best friends had rebounded and now felt that their social needs were satisfied. Although the difference did not reach statistical significance, the students who thought about their pets actually had a slightly higher emotional boost than the students who thought about their best friends!

Things were worse for the participants who had felt rejection and then drew maps of their campus: their social needs scores continued to plummet. Drawing the map was associated with feeling even more rejected as the study progressed! So if you are feeling low, thinking about your cat might make you feel better, but just thinking about random things to distract yourself might make you feel worse.

Before you start to believe that cats are the key to avoiding depression, these findings are tempered by an earlier study also found in the McConnell et al. (2011) article. When they compared 167 pet owners and 50 non-pet owners in the university community, the pet owners were slightly less lonely and had better self-esteem, but they did not differ significantly from the non-owners on actual measures of depression.

Another possibility is that the positive social support that cats provide may be undercut by a negative biological factor: Toxoplasma gondii. This protozoan can only complete its reproductive cycle inside a cat's digestive tract and can infect humans who have contact with cat poop that contaminates their food. A recent review by Hsu, Groer, and Beckie (2014) reports that 23% of the U.S. population shows no physical symptoms yet tests positive for this type of infection!

New T. gondii infections that are acquired during pregnancy can cause miscarriage, but an ongoing, undetected infection is associated with, "...mental and behavioral disorders such as schizophrenia, depression and suicide attempts" (p. 632). This is likely because the infection causes inflammation or cysts in the brain, and both could disrupt neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, and tryptophan. However, cat ownership is not considered to be a high risk factor for infection for most people: raw meat consumption or contamination from unwashed kitchen utensils are more common modes of infection.

So go ahead and hug your cat to thank your pet for the social support - but, to be safe, wash your hands well after cleaning out the litter box. For all of us, if you are not a cat and find yourself sleeping too much, eating too much or too little, and you have lost all motivation it is important that you seek treatment for depression.

Further reading:

You can access the McConnell et al. (2011) article at your local college library. A copy of the Hsu et al. (2014) article is available online.

Depression is a serious illness. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255) can help if you are feeling hopeless. Their website also has good information for people who would like to volunteer or donate to help others.

A really fun read for anyone who likes cats: a link to Shreve, K.R., & Udell, M.A.R. (2015). What's inside your cat's head? A review of cat (Felis Silvestris catus) cognition research past, present and future. Animal Cognition, in press.

BONUS: Imagine if your friends acted like cats and dogs...or watch it here and it will make you smile:

Your right prefrontal cortex is working SO well today!

A quick way to annoy a professor is to miss a class, come back the next day and ask this teacher, "Did I miss anything important?" Out of anger or to be funny your professor might smile and answer sarcastically, "Oh, NOOOOOO...we NEVER do anything IMPORTANT in here. All we did was waste our time so you didn't miss ANYTHING important."  If you understand that this is sarcasm you will a) understand that you did miss something important and b) your professor is probably annoyed with you.

On the other hand, if you don't understand that this is sarcasm you would believe that you did not miss anything important and also not catch that your professor is irritated by your question. This latter situation is frustrating for everyone involved and it is also the topic of today's memes:

Sarcasm is a form of irony that requires some sophisticated cognitive processes to understand it. Most children do not understand sarcasm until their pre-teen years (and then it is SO fun for the parents when their kids say sarcastic things to them) and people with autism struggle with this throughout their lives. We also see that people with Alzheimer's Disease and individuals with certain types of brain damage may not catch when something is said sarcastically.

Shamay-Tsoory, Tomer, and Aharon-Peretz (2005) conducted a neuroscience study to pinpoint locations in the brain that are associated with the understanding of sarcasm. They compared 17 healthy people to 41 people who had brain lesions in very specific areas. The lesions were mostly the result of head injuries but a few were due to tumors or stroke, but none of the affected individuals had problems with speech or "general intellectual functioning" (reasoning ability and verbal fluency).

All participants were tested on their abilities to identify emotions communicated by vocal tone and facial expression, to recognize mistakes in social situations (faux pas), and to interpret sarcasm. Reading people's emotions from their tones and facial expressions is a necessary part of understanding sarcastic statements in which those things conflict with the literal meaning of what is said. Recognizing when a person has committed a faux pas is considered to be a good test of Theory of Mind. Theory of Mind is the ability to understand what another person is thinking - a skill that is required to decode sarcasm. 

The sarcasm task consisted of four stories that were always told in two ways: one that depicted a sarcastic remark and one that depicted a literal remark. For example (Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2005, p. 300):

             Joe came to work, and instead of beginning to work, he sat down to rest. His boss 

             noticed his behavior and said, "Joe, don't work, too hard!"

            Joe came to work and immediately began to work. His boss noticed his behavior and

            said, "Joe, don't work, too hard!"

The participants listened to the stories and after each version they were asked comprehension questions ["Did Joe work hard (p. 300)?"] and questions to assess sarcasm understanding ["Did the manager believe that Joe worked hard (p. 300)?"].

Shamay-Tsoory et al. reported small but statistically significant results: specifically, the participants who had the worst problem understanding sarcasm tended to have lesions in their right side prefrontal cortices. This was especially true for participants whose lesions went into the ventromedial portions of this area. Participants whose lesions were located in the posterior part of their brains did not have problems understanding sarcasm: they scored the same as the healthy individuals.

The authors state that these findings make sense in relation to the functions of these locations. The entire prefrontal cortex is associated with understanding language pragmatics or the social aspects of language. The right prefrontal cortex in particular helps us to: decode the parts of language related to feelings; to understand the parts of language that are not literal; to recognize faux pas; and to "get it" when somebody is being funny. The ventromedial area adds to our experience of empathy: being able to feel the emotions of other people. These cognitive skills are necessary to understand that a speaker is saying one thing but trying to communicate another - often angry or humorous - message.

This relationship was further reinforced because the participants with right prefrontal lesions also struggled with Theory of Mind (problems recognizing faux pas) and emotion identification (problems matching tone and facial expression to particular feelings). In past research these two skills were required to understand sarcasm.

So the next time an adult (who does not have autism or brain damage) does not understand your sarcasm...

instead of getting annoyed you can smile and simply remark, "Your right prefrontal cortex is working SO well today."

Further Reading:

You can access a pdf of the Shamay-Tsoory et al. (2005) article here thanks to the American Psychological Association.

A blogpost from the Gottman Institute: sarcasm might be fun when you are joking and having a good time, but if you are sarcastic when arguing with your partner this may predict the end of your relationship.

National Geographic Channel's "Brain Games" offers an online, interactive experience of the brain and language.

Apparently you can gossip about babies and the elderly.

We have all been in a noisy situation - the school cafeteria, a party, waiting for a meeting to start - when in the middle of your conversation with one person, you suddenly hear your name mentioned by somebody across the room. Maybe you looked like this when it happened:

The first part of this scenario describes the "cocktail party effect": it is really amazing that we can use selective listening to tune out background voices and concentrate on our conversation. This effect was first studied by Cherry (1953) who found that this sort of listening is easier when the voices appear to be located in different places like you would experience in social situations. In the laboratory this could be mimicked by a dichotic listening task: while wearing headphones, the background conversation would be heard in one ear while the participant is asked to focus on a voice heard in their other ear. If, instead, all voices come from the same location this becomes much more difficult. The laboratory equivalent would be having all voices streamed into both sides of headphones.

The second part of the scenario and this week's meme illustrate later work done by Moray in 1959. Usually in dichotic listening tasks the participants are pretty good at repeating what they are instructed to listen to and are barely aware of what is being streamed into the other ear. Moray found an exception to this: many people are able to notice when their names are mentioned in the background speech that they have been instructed to ignore. Later research suggests that this is particularly true of people who are easily distracted and have poor working memories.

Some modern studies show us when the response to our name may develop and when this response may decline. To start, Newman (2005) performed a series of studies to determine the age at which babies start to pick out their names from background speech. Babies sat on their parents' laps and listened to a recording of three women speaking: throughout the entire recording one voice read passages from books; at the same time babies would hear a second voice saying their individual names alternating with a third voice saying similar names. This recording came out of a loudspeaker next to a red light that would go on when names were mentioned: so the red light served as the single "source" of the voices. Newman could tell if the babies were noticing a name if they looked at the red light when it was layered over the book passage.

She found that babies as young as five months showed some ability to pick out their names. This was because they looked at the light slightly longer when their names were overlaid, but only when their names were 10 decibels louder than the words from the book passage. Newman then demonstrated that it is around age one that young children no longer require their names to be that much louder than background speech to notice them. So this ability appears to develop in the first year of life, then is further honed up to adult ability.

Switching to the other end of the lifespan, Naveh-Benjamin, Maddox, Kilb, Thomas, Fine, Chen, and Cowan (2014) performed a series of studies comparing young adults to senior citizens on a dichotic listening task. Both age-groups were instructed to listen to the words streamed into one ear and to ignore that background words that were streamed into the other ear. (Although I doubt that any of them looked as cool wearing their headphones as Ruth Flowers did DJ'ing at age 72).

Naveh-Benjamin et al. wondered if older adults, who usually have poorer working memories due to aging, would perform like young adults who have poor working memories? Specifically: would they be more likely to notice when their names are mentioned in background speech that they are told to ignore? The results were surprising: in several variations of the study senior citizens were consistently less likely than poor-memory young adults to notice their names in these background words. In fact, they noticed their names less than even the high-memory young adults! This trend was not influenced by the older participants' individual working memory abilities, which ear the background speech was streamed into, or how quickly any of the words were paced.

Even more striking was the finding that the seniors showed very little notice of their names even when the task was changed so that they were instructed to listen to the recording that contained their names and ignore the speech streaming into the other ear! No wonder the title of this research article is, "Older adults do not notice their names..."!

Taken together, these studies suggest that our tendency to tune out or tune in is related to a number of cognitive processes. Newman suggested that infants may develop these abilities as their understanding of speech as a tool and their ability to selectively listen increase. Naveh-Benjamin et al. emphasized that they cannot determine what caused their results but they wagered that dichotic listening tasks require more brain power from older adults to concentrate on one thing and ignore another. So this extra "effort" may have produced their results. Clearly further research is required.

On a lighter note, if you are at a noisy party and gossiping about a person who is across the room - you are probably not going to get caught if that person is a baby or a senior citizen! But hopefully you will have more tact than Jerry and Elaine on "Seinfeld".

Further Reading:

The Newman (2005) and the Naveh-Benjamin et al. (2014) articles can be accessed at your local college library.

Here is a great article on the neuroscience behind the cocktail party effect by Golumbic et al. (2014).

 A "Psychology Today" blog post by Liane Davey on ending the negative gossip habit.

Parenting: Free-range tigers in helicopters?

Throughout June we addressed the four styles that psychologists most often use to classify parents: Authoritative (the best); Authoritarian; Permissive; and Indifferent-Uninvolved (the worst). However, an Internet search reveals that many memes feature controversial styles of parenting whose names are less academic - it seems that everyone is an "expert." So how could so-called Free-range, Tiger, and Helicopter parents relate to psychology's four types?

Free-range parents advocate allowing children to spend time alone: both in the home and outdoors. These parents may equip their children with bracelets that read, "I'm not lost, I'm a free-range kid." The argument behind this parenting is that the risk of kidnapping and molestation has declined but parents' fear of those things has increased resulting in children being constantly supervised by adults. Free-range children are supposed to benefit by having unsupervised time to explore their world and by having to negotiate arguments with other children or other dilemmas on their own.

In the best possible case the Free-range parent could be Authoritative. They would be very loving toward their children but balance that love with age-appropriate rules and consequences. In this case the children would have very clear rules about when and where they could go, their expected behavior when they are out on their own, and an understanding of what age-appropriate and fair consequences would occur if they broke those rules. This would produce a situation where the child is only granted the freedom that he or she can handle based on age and individual maturity. This would also mean that the child is given guidelines for what is acceptable behavior and has had past practice thinking through moral and other types of dilemmas with the parents. Indeed Authoritative parenting teaches age-appropriate independence.

On the other hand, it is also possible that Free-range parents could be Permissive or Indifferent-Uninvolved. A Permissive parent is very loving but has very few rules or consequences for their children. One criticism of Free-range parents is that their children cause problems to property or fight with kids - but when confronted by other parents the children either do not care or state that their parents have said that they do not need to listen to other adults. Children raised by Permissive parents may have bad behavior and also struggle when confronted by situations that include rules.

In the worst-case scenario, Free-range parents could be Indifferent-Uninvolved, meaning that the parents have such little interest in the children that they don't express love to them and they don't bother giving them rules or consequences. Controversy has occurred when concerned neighbors have called the police when they saw Free-range children by themselves. To an outside observer it may be very difficult to tell the difference between a child who is granted more freedom than is the norm and a child who is neglected by his or her parents. Neglected children suffer a host of psychological and developmental problems including substance abuse and trouble with the law.

Another type of parent that seems legendary on the Internet is the so-called Tiger Mother. This type of parenting was highlighted by Amy Chua who suggested that Asian (and certain other immigrant) parents will produce more successful and productive children because they relentlessly push academic and extracurricular activities. Chua is critical of Western parenting's focus on protecting children's self-esteem and of the Western concept that an individual child's likes and dislikes need to be considered.

In relation to psychology, a Tiger parent would most likely be considered to be Authoritarian. This means that the parent does not express a lot of love to the children (even if they feel a lot of love for them) and primarily interacts with them by controlling their behavior through rules better suited to older children and consequences that are harsh. Children parented this way may have low self-esteem and  feel resentful and angry which leads to sneaky, bad behavior when the parent is not around. They may also struggle as adults when they do not have that parent around to tell them what to do.

Recently, there has been a lot of hype about a final type of parent: the Helicopter parent. Features on this topic tend to focus on stories from college professors or administrators who fear that today's young adults are too close to their parents and cannot make any decisions without phoning or texting them. The parents are also criticized for treating their college students as if they were elementary students: even I have been contacted by parents wanting to discuss their adult children's work in my college classes! These news reports about college students usually go on to generalize that parents with small children should not be "too involved," they should not "hover" because children need unsupervised time to work things out on their own, and that they should "allow their kids to fail" - all to prevent them from growing into these adults who cause consternation at university.

It is possible that Helicopter parents are Permissive parents: they are very loving but do not attempt to set limits on their children's behavior; instead they act as if they want to be the kids' friends. In this scenario, the parent has always focused on keeping the child happy - maybe doing their homework for them or assuming that any behavior problems at school are silly things made up by the teachers (their "angel" can do no wrong). As their children become young adults, these parents continue to fail at having age-appropriate expectations for them, so they coddle their college students and intrude into their affairs. Again, Permissive parenting is associated with children who have problems.

On the other hand, if we only consider parents with young children and adolescents, what seems like Helicopter parenting may actually be good, Authoritative parenting. Authoritative parents are very loving toward their children but they have age- and individual- appropriate expectations for their behavior. Average children can have large individual differences, for example, some five-year-olds can be dropped off at a birthday party and have a wonderful time while other five-year-olds still need a parent to stay throughout the party to function. There are also children with hidden struggles such as anxiety or Sensory Processing Disorder:  parents of these children may appear to be hovering or "Hoovering" (vacuuming up any potential problems in the situation) when in fact they are doing what their individual children need to be successful in that situation.

By definition, an Authoritative parent is interested in teaching age-appropriate independence, including how to think through moral dilemmas about behavior. So by definition, an Authoritative parent would not do their children's homework and would not expect their child to avoid failure. Likewise, an Authoritative parent would not intervene in a young adult's life the way that is portrayed in stories about Helicopter parents. Moreover, they would not need to because they have equipped their now grown child to deal with things on their own.

These three pop culture parenting styles bring us back to what we know is associated with the best outcomes for children: lots of expression of love and affection combined with age-appropriate and fair discipline that teaches kids to reason their way through questions of right and wrong. Some Free-range parents and some of who may appear to be Helicopter parents are likely this sort of Authoritative parent.

These pop culture parenting styles also can remind us of what is associated with problems for children. Clearly children who do not receive a lot of love and who are always left to figure out right and wrong on their own will have problems: it is possible that some Free-range parenting may fall into this Indifferent-Uninvolved style. Likewise, we know that parents who just want to be their kids' friends - they are very loving but set very few rules for their children's behavior - are also associated with kids who struggle. It could be that some Free-range parents and the stereotypical Helicopter parent would fit this Permissive profile. Finally, children who are constantly controlled by stern parents who expect too much of them also demonstrate problems. We would expect that Tiger parents may be examples of this Authoritarian category.

Another concern is that parents read about these pop culture styles and stop doing the things we know are good for their children because they don't want to be judged. Taken together the message from Free-range and Helicopter parenting seems to be, "Don't get involved in your child's life; don't help your child." On the other hand the message from Tiger parenting is, "Your child is not an individual, all children can be shaped into adults with high-paying, prestigious jobs if you are involved in all of their choices and control their choices." Not only are those messages conflicting, they get the idea of Involvement wrong.

In psychology, Involvement is not just spending quality time with your children, it is also really knowing who your child is as an individual: their likes/dislikes; their abilities/struggles; and the people and experiences that make up their daily lives. High Involvement is associated with the best outcomes for children and it is usually seen along side of good levels of Warmth and Control.  For example, Authoritative parenting is high in Warmth:  parents who freely expresses love to and try to remain positive with their children are going to be involved in their lives.  Authoritative parenting is medium in Control: to have age- and individual appropriate rules parents need to really know their children, which is high Involvement. Another part of medium Control is having fair, age-appropriate consequences if a rule is broken - to know that a rule has been broken and to know that the punishment is fair the parent has to be involved with their children. Part of this involvement includes dialoguing with older kids and teens about the rules which teaches them to think through moral dilemmas on their own; this is very different than expecting children to mindlessly obey authority figures.

It may not have a trendy name, but Authoritative parenting is the way to go.

Further Reading:

An article in The Atlantic magazine: The real problem with helicopter parents: there aren't enough of them.

WebMD has advice for knowing when your child is ready to stay home alone or to babysit younger children.

The American Psychological Association published a press release: Reducing academic pressure may help children succeed.