Parents whose toddlers and children have developed an addiction to tablets, mobile phones or the Internet tell pretty much the same story. Once hooked on digital media any withdrawal comes at the price of their children becoming socially unavailable and throwing tantrums once separated from their new toys (Brandon, 2010). Alternatively children spend most of their time hypnotized in front of their irresistible magical screens and estrange from family life. The fact that digital media have the same psychological effects…
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On Aggression between Groups
A conceptual Postscriptum to ‘Is Thailand heading Towards a Failed Nation?’ Dear Readers, for the May Issue of ‘Live Encounters’ I have published an article with the title ‘Is Thailand heading Towards a Failed Nation?’ which can be found here. You can also locate it in the magazine’s PDF version. I found the topic exciting enough to add the post-scriptum below. Special thanks go to Mark Ulyseas for inviting me as an author. Ingroup favouritism and outgroup derogation (Brewer, 1999) are obvious…
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The Advent of Online Education (Part II)
The following entry has been inspired by my participation in ‘Effective Online Tutoring’ with Oxford University. Part I explored current trends in online education and its pedagogical implications. The second part explores the psychology behind online learning. A PDF-version of this post is available at The Advent of Online Education, Joana Stella Kompa – Part 2 1. An Introduction to Gilly Salmon’s 5-Stage Model 2. A Note on PBLonline: E-moderating versus e-tutoring 3. Typical Anxieties and…
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The Advent of Online Education (Part I)
The following entry has been inspired by my participation in ‘Effective Online Tutoring’ with Oxford University. Part I explores broadly the current trends in online education and its pedagogical implications. A PDF-version of this post is available at The Advent of Online Education – Part 1 1. Flipped Classrooms and Blended Learning: The Pragmatist’ Approach to Empower Learners 2. Graduate, Postgraduate & Professional Online Courses: Tutor-based Environments for Elites 3. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs): Educating…
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The Psychology of Eroding Middle Classes
picture above: scene from the documentary ‘American Winter’ (HBO, 2013) Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under the Clinton administration, professor at Berkeley and the Goldman School of Public Policy, impressed me with his informative and highly recommendable documentary titled ‘Inequality for All’ (Reich, 2013). Reich reconstructs meticulously how the decline of the American middle-class started end of the 70s with stagnating wages while general living costs such as costs for education, healthcare, housing and transport kept…
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Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): What it is and how it can be assessed
1. What is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)? OCD is a debilitating anxiety disorder comprising of mental obsessions of recurrent, persistent ideas, thoughts, images or impulses (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) followed by repetitive behavioral rituals, called compulsions, which can severely impair a person’s social and occupational functioning. In rare cases OCD can lead to suicide (Alonso et al. 2010). Suffers from OCD are plagued with continuously arising irrational beliefs and are occupied to reduce anxieties produced by these imaginations by performing likewise…
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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): What it is, how it can be treated and how treatment outcomes can be measured
The public is rarely confronted with sufferers from PTSD. The stories of Iraq war veterans returning back home as broken men unable to find their way back into ordinary life are among the best-known examples publicized in the media. PTSD however extends far beyond the effects of traumatizing war experiences – time to shed some light on the phenomenon. PTSD is a recognized mental disorder and develops after a terrifying event that has involved physical…
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Children of a Broken World – The Long Road to a Democratic Safe Haven
Democracy and wealth are the secret hopes on the wish-list of the neglected global child. All over the world people expect that with the advent of industrialization and the abandonment of dictatorships better and happier times will eventually unravel, but in reality this is hardly ever the case. Instead, corruption, social and political inequality, majoritism as the favoritism of self-declared elites and, most depressingly, the consolidation of these phenomena into a self-perpetuating dysfunctional global system…
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Thriving
Thriving expresses the experience of profound oneness of one’s identity and supportive environmental context. Thriving describes the immersion into a state of true being in which one finds his or her most inner calling fulfilled, when every day is a bonus and life feels superbly and intrinsically right. More than just a singular episodic experience, thriving entails development; to evolve towards the next higher level of engagement between the Self and developmental context (Benson & Scales,…
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Teratogenic Dangers: What Pregnant Women in Thailand should Know
Overview Teratogens are agents or factors that damage the prenatal cellular development of a fetus. Common teratogenes such as alcohol and nicotine (Arnett, 2012, p.70-71) are well-established. What is lesser known in the context of Thailand (and similarly developing nations) are teratogenic agents in seafood such as mercury or teratogenic factors such as iodine deficiency. Both pose significant educational problems in later life. Thai version (PDF): สิ่งที่หญิงไทยมีครรภ์ควรรู้-อันตรายจากสารที่มีผลต่อการเจริญเติบโตของตัวอ่อนหรือทารกในครรภ์ Teratogenic agent Mercury Many fish in some of Thailand’s favorite seafood…
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Joana Stella Kompa 
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