This afternoon I found a really cool theory that I’d never read about before! Most of you have probably beat me to it, so I’m sorry if I’m a slowpoke, BUT it is pretty neat so I’ll bring it up anyway. 

Within Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, it is suggested that there are certain human needs that overshadow others. One of these, is food. Food is the first level in Maslow’s pyramid, meaning that this above all, is what our body will yearn and fight for. Two levels above that, is love. 

So here’s the question - 

You are trapped in small room. You will be there for one month, and you are completely alone - along with *the one person that you love the most. The only thing that you have is a supply of food that should feed one person for the length of the month. Meaning that one of you will have to endure a period of starvation until the time is up. What would this do to your relationship? Would you be the one to put yourself through starvation? If these needs, as Maslow put it, are embedded into us - would you be able to change their order? Or is it inevitable? Would basic instinct kick in, making you so desperately hungry that it would out shadow your feelings for that person?

On June 16th of 2008, one of the most disturbing examples of what sociologists call the Bystander Effect, took place on a country road-side in California. Twenty-seven-year-old Sergio Aguiar began to beat his two-year-old son, claiming that “he had to get the demons out”. He continued to do so, and eventually caught the attention of fellow drivers, who stopped their cars and called out to him - but never intervened. By the end of the night, a group of random bystanders, including a fire-chief, watched Aguiar stomp his son to death for about 45 minutes. 

Obviously, the Bystander Effect isn’t one of the human mind’s greatest productions. It continues to be a lesson that we never seem to learn from. The Aguiar case happened in 2008, but before that there was the Kitty Genovese case, and in recent years, a couple more. And it doesn’t always have to be as dramatic as that. You see the Bystander Effect everyday in heavily populated places like New York City, where people have been recorded to literally step over the bodies of homeless people. 

Why does this happen? Seeing something as shocking as a child being stomped should illicit dramatic responses, shouldn’t it? As it turns out, there are a couple of unfortunate loop holes in the human mind. One possible cause of the Bystander Effect, is our defense to over-stimulation. When you’re walking around a very big city, there are so many different things to pay attention to. There are people all around you, cars, noises, all kinds of lights, advertisements, etc. It’s a big competition for your attention; your brain would pretty much overload if it attempted to take it all in. So what ends up happening, is that you unknowingly create a bubble over yourself. You end up missing lots of little things, in order to keep your eye on the bigger picture. There is just too much information for you to process. 

Another possible explanation is social influence. When faced with a stressful situation, we subconsciously and very quickly take in the reactions of the people around us. If they are calm and passive, we mimic them. This dates back to primitive times when we depended on nonverbal cues like these to tell when danger was near. Social influence is an old habit that’s become destructive today. Most muggings, rapes, robberies, and assaults happen in public places - social influence is a possible reason that these happenings go uninterrupted.

You’ve heard it time and time again. The phrase that’s thrown around in pop songs,  films, and books - “Heartbreak”. Despite hearing it so often, however, it is generally understood that the phrase is only a metaphor. In truth, your heart is only a meaty, bloody, fairly unattractive muscle in your body. If it really were to “break”, it would be more of a collapse than anything, and the event would more than likely leave you dead. 

So where did the phrase come from, if it’s so far from the truth? If you have ever lost someone very important to you, be it a romantic partner or a beloved family member, you will recall a very crippling sense of disappointment, sadness, and surprise. At times these painful emotions seem to literally hurt, as if a part of you is really aching. You might think back to this experience and dismiss it - but in reality, emotional can manifest itself into physical pain. 

Studies have shown that there is a direct link in the brain between areas that react to physical pain, and areas that react to emotional distress. The same chunk of your brain that lights up when you stub your toe, is the same chunk that reacts when your wedding proposal is turned down. :(

So, if you are suffering from any kind of heartache, it is not completely unfair to use the word “heartbreak”. Pain has proven itself to be pain, whether you can see it or not. 

Claustrophobia is probably the most notorious phobia on the list. It’s an anxiety disorder that, according to Wikipedia, affects 5-7 percent of the entire world’s population! That’s pretty scary considering how many jobs there are that involve tight spaces, confined rooms, crowded areas, etc. How many people live in anxiety every day?

One common misconception about Claustrophobia is that it is a fear of location. Often times, you’ll hear people say things like, “I can’t stand tight spaces!”. In truth, it isn’t those tight spaces that they hate, it’s the thought of what might happen if they are for some reason trapped in that tight space. Claustrophobia, at it’s core, is a fear of suffocation & entrapment. And this is true for all Claustrophobic situations: huge crowds, locked rooms, elevators, etc. 

Like any other trait, Claustrophobia can be genetic. If Grandpa shudders at the sight of a tightly packed mob, odds are, you might too. Another factor that could lead to the development of Claustrophobia is events in your childhood. Having been locked in a closet by a mean older sibling, falling into a deep pool without knowing how to swim, becoming stuck between two large objects - basically any stressful, panic inducing event in your childhood that lead to the feeling of being entrapped/suffocating could possibly trigger a bad case of Claustrophobia.