False beliefs

Negative attitudes or false beliefs about medications... 

Finally, attitudes about the power of certain drugs (drug myths and positive expectancies) can cause problems for some people. Usually these myths are completely false and not supported by research. Other myths may have some kernel of truth to them, but usually those beliefs do not tell the whole story about drug effects. Often, beliefs in these myths create misperceptions about the power of drug use that are difficult for professionals to intervene upon. Usually these myths proclaim the drug s ability to make a person more likeable and sociable, more physically powerful, more intellectually capable, more energetic, and more sexually potent and attractive. 

It may be okay to share your spiritual beliefs with a client if he or she asks. True or False ... 

Part of this internal work is letting go of the false belief that we really have a whole lot of control, and to stay focused in the moment, right here, without projecting into what might happen. To purely experience whatever happens as it happens, not before and not after. 

In contrast to the uncertainty with respect to monkeys, the situation in respect of great apes (or at least chimpanzees) is more clear cut. Chimpanzees emerged as the most frequent users of tactical deception in Byrne s (1995) analysis. In addition, evidence from experimental studies by Povinelli et al. (1990) and O Connell (1996) provide convincing evidence that these great apes at least do possess formal theory of mind. Children are not born with a theory of mind ability, but acquire it at about the age of 4 years (Astington 1994). Some individuals (whom we label autistic) never develop this ability (Leslie 1987, Happe 1994). O Connell (1996) devised a mechanical analogue of the standard false belief test which she applied to chimpanzees as well as normal children and autistic adults. Her results demonstrate rather clearly that chimps do better than autistic adults and about as well as 4-year-old children on the same test. In other words, chimps perform about as well as children who have just acquired basic theory of mind. 

The important point in the present context is that these cognitive abilities do not come for free. It is clear that high levels of intensionality are extremely difficult to cope with in computational terms. Kinderman et al. (in press), for example, tested normal adults with a series of tests similar to those used in standard ToM tests but which allowed for up to fifth order intensionality (as opposed to the conventional second order of standard ToM false belief tests). At the same time, subjects were also given tests of environmental causal relationships that required only memory of a sequence of events. Memory tests involved causal relationships of up to sixth orders of embeddness ( A caused B which caused C which. caused F ). Error rates on memory tasks varied fairly uniformly between 5-15% across the six levels of embeddness with no significant trends in contrast, error rates on the ToM tasks increased exponentially with order of embeddness (i.e. intensionality). 

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). In theory, distingnishing the obsessions and compnlsive ritnals of OCD from the delusions and behavioral peculiarities of schizophrenia shonld be straightforward. Usually, the OCD patient is aware of the excessive natnre of his/her obsessions and wishes to be rid of them. The delusional patient with schizophrenia is nnaware that these false beliefs are not based in reality and clings to them tenacionsly. However, a few OCD patients lose the insight that their obsessions are excessive. At this point, the distinction between obsession and delnsion often becomes blnrred. 

In addition to prominent and persistent hallucinations, delusions and delusional misidentifications occur in over half of DLB patients (Ballard and Oyebode, 1995 Ballard et al., 1999), more commonly than in AD (Ballard et al., 1999). These delusions are defined as persistent false unshakeable beliefs, which cannot be understood in terms of the individual s peer group or culture, and are generally of a paranoid nature. 

In 1759 Robert Dossie corrected the false belief that sal ammoniac was found in the earth in Oriental countries only where the caravans had rested. But I know it to be an undoubted fact, said he, that sal Ammoniacus is sublimed in a considerable quantity out of 1he chinks or cracks of the earth, in the Sulfiterra (solfatara), near Naples. . . and it is certain, as the salt so sublimed must be raised from vast caverns which lie deep in the earth, its origin cannot be ascribed to the urine... 

Delusions are false beliefs that the patient maintains in the face of incontrovertible, contradictory evidence. The schizophrenic patient usually has no insight that these beliefs are not real, but rather maintains a firm conviction in them. Schizophrenia is characterized by a variety of delusions, of which the persecutory type predominates. Other delusions often involve bizarre bodily changes. In contrast to delusional disorder, these delusions are not as well formed and occur in the context of other psychotic symptoms (e.g., hallucinations, negative symptoms). 

Delusions can be held throughout life despite considerable contradictory evidence, which is usually reinterpreted to coincide with one s false beliefs. They are usually highly systematized, interrelated by a common theme, and often encapsulated (i.e., a person s thinking remains unimpaired except for the systematized delusions, which depart markedly from reality). 

These delusions often take the form of a false belief that the patient possesses some great, unrecognized talent is the son or daughter of a famous person or actually is the famous person, whereas the true celebrity is an impostor. 

The term "psychosis" denotes a variety of mental disorders the presence of delusions (false beliefs), various types of hallucinations, usually auditory or visual, but sometimes tactile or olfactory, and grossly disorganized thinking in a clear sensorium. Schizophrenia is a particular kind of psychosis characterized mainly by a clear sensorium but a marked thinking disturbance. Psychosis is not unique to schizophrenia and is not present in all patients with schizophrenia at all times. 

That naifs indulge more in example 2 than in example 1 reflects how the youth environment can be problematic for naifs, who give in to large youthful temptations under the false belief that they will later quit. In example 2, in their youth, naifs (like sophisticates) would most like to hit in their youth and refrain thereafter. Since naifs do not foresee future self-control problems, they choose to follow this path in their youth but they end up never quitting and, therefore, suffer a lifetime of addiction. 

These observations merely hint at the nature of the distance that may separate self-deception and wishful thinking. Not only is there the fact that self-deception requires the agent to do something with the aim of changing his own views, while wishful thinking does not, but there is also a difference in how the content of the affective element is related to the belief it produces. In the case of the wishful thinker, what he comes to believe must be just what he wishes were the case. But while the self-deceiver may be motivated by a desire to believe what he wishes were the case there are many other possibilities. Indeed, it is hard to say what the relation must be between the motive someone has who deceives himself and the specific alteration in belief he works in himself. Of course the relation is not accidental it is not self-deception simply to do something intentionally with the consequence that one is deceived, for then a person would be self-deceived if he read and believed a false report in a newspaper. The self-deceiver must intend the deception. ... 

Psychiatric symptoms include hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that are not there) or delusions (false beliefs). Very few users remember their experience because of the associated memory loss. Individual variability in how the body handles these drugs, and an even greater variability in the composition of illegally produced drugs, makes it virtually impossible to control or anticipate how much brain function will shut down, and increases the risk of deadly overdose. 

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