Scientific Scarsdale Issue I: Inside the Mind of SHS

Risk It For the Kiss: Epstein-Barr Virus and Multiple Sclerosis p.4

The College Blues: Freshmen Take On Anxiety p.10

The Raisin-Brain of a Cereal Killer p.24

S CIENTIFIC

S CARSDALIAN COVER TBD

ISSUE I

SPRING 2022

EDITORIAL STAFF EDITORS IN CHIEF CINDY DEDIANOUS SIMONE GLAJCHEN CREATIVE DIRECTOR OLIVIA LIU NEWS EDITORS ROSE KINOSHITA JADEN TEPPER OPINION EDITOR MATTHEW BAROTZ FEATURE EDITOR IRENE LI ADVISOR DYLAN PRENDERGAST

TI FIC

The Official STEM Magazine of Scarsdale High School

SCI EN

At a glance...

2 Crossword Puzzle 4 Risk It For The Kiss: Epstein-Barr Virus and Multiple Sclerosis 5 Illuminating the Brain 6 Thawing Your Seasonal Depression 8 Why Are Kids Stressed?

9 Women in STEM: Perspectives on Gender Bias 10 The College Blues: Freshmen Take On Anxiety 12 Mental Health at SHS

SCA RS 20 Fictional Characters with Mental Illness 22 Our Dreams Under a Microscope 23 Ink Drops and Blots: Rorschach Tests 24 To Stand By Or To Stand Up: The Bystander Effect 26 Frequency Illusion: The Brain and its Bias

14 Reading Body Language

27 IQ Tests: Intelligence Quotient or Inane Quackery?

15 Our Working Memory is Squawk-ingly Poor

28 The Raisin-Brain of a Cereal Killer

16 How Personality Tests Work 18 The Real Reason You Procrastinate 19 Derstroying Your Mental Health

DA LIAN

ULTIMATE CROSSWORD Created By: Rose Kinoshita and Matthew Barotz

FIND THE ANSWERS ON

scientificscarsdalian.org

1. When 19 is 10011 (6) 4. The fifth month (3) 6. School transportation (3) 9. Celtic soothsayer (5) 12. Where you might find two peas (3) 13. For cooking or engines (3) 14. Automobile (3) 16. Opposite divided by hypotenuse (4) 17. Cofunction of #16-across (6) 18. Most common personality test (4) 19. In addition to (4) 21. Not under (4) 23. Baby carnivore (3) 24. Between vinyls and MP3s abbr. (3) 25. Hair clump (4) 27. Brain network (6) 28. Federal tax agency abbr. (3) 30. Everest guide (6) 34. Put underground (4) 35. Chimney deposit (4) 36. Night bird (3) 38. Corn unit (3) 39. *Name of the SHS science magazine (10) 42. Force unit (6) 45. Attention-grabbing (11) 47. Employ (4) 48. Carnage (4) 50. *Insect of our first environmental article (6) 52. Highest or lowest card (3) 53. Relevant Greek letter (7) 54. *Form of depression on page #6 (8) 56. Removed the top (6) 58. Test that’s more accurate than a rapid (3) 59. Cultural food (7) 63. Thin (4) 64. BTS song or mini twisted ladder (3) 66. Deceive (7) 67. Sole (3) 68. With XY (4) 70. Pronoun in texting (2) 72. Swoon (5) 74. Anagram of tea (3) 75. Fad (5) 76. Long term #81 across (7) 78. For each (3) 79. Tissue sac (4) 80. Rival (9) 81. Emotional or physical tension (6) 83. Longest working SHS physics teacher (7) 88. Nut most commonly found in pies (5) 90. Figurine (4) 93. Desperate (4) 95. A bar used to pry (5) 97. Grade 9 science (7) 98. Like 2, 8, or 946 (4) 99. Rock (5) 101. Video game or light circle (4) 102. Abbr. #84 down (3) 103. Who, what, when, where, why, and ___ (3) 104. Confidentiality agreement abbr. (3) 107. Not off (2) 108. Person who #7-down’s (4) 110. Cost (5) 112. Charged atoms (4) 114. Treble or bass (4) 116. Friend (3) 118. Take a break (4) 119. Boast (4) 121. One of the unalienable rights (4) 123. Soak something completely (8) 124. Thus far(3) 125. Narcissistic (11) 126. Word used to make something negative (3) 127. Needed to produce rotation (6) 128. To be in second person (3) 129. Protein found in blood hemo______ (6) 130. Instant (6)

Down:

CLUES

Across:

1. 007 (4) 2. Caesar’s death date, ___ of March (4) 3. Stretchy loop (10) 4. Absent military person abbr. (3) 5. Without exception (3) 7. Utilize (3) 8. Male equivalent of madam (3) 9. Erase (6) 10. ___ and flow (3) 11. Central points (4) 12. Photos (4) 14. Legal or tennis (5) 15. Decay (3) 20. Shock (4) 22. Extremely cold (6) 23. Copy (5) 26. Additional info abbr. (3) 27. Less than one (4) 29. Old-style (5) 30. Salt water mass (3) 31. Overactor (3) 32. *Magazine theme (10) 33. Antioxidant berry (4) 34. Experimental (4) 35. *See 39-across (11) 37. Cube root of 512 (5) 40. Weather for remote learning (9) 41. Blaze (4) 43. *“An Ode to ______” (6) 44. Unrefined mineral (3) 46. Featured in the chalk article (12) 49. Message sent with a click (5) 51. *The focus of the article on page #22 (6) 55. *Nickname for Science Research teacher (6) 57. Safety or bobby (3) 59. Use MLA formatting (4) 60. Target audience (5) 61. Game, ___, match (3) 62. Life-threatening episode abbr. (3) 64. Fox’s home (3) 65. Defeat with democracy (7) 66. Charted (6) 69. Lack vitality (8) 71. Bread grain (3) 73. Wide open (as a mouth) (5) 77. With diet or college (2) 79. *Author of the first published article and crossword enthusiast (5) 82. *Co-editor-in-chief or star American gymnast (6) 84. Not a street or road (6) 85. Permit (5) 86. Used to justify the means (3) 87. Harsh (6) 88. University with Einstein’s lab (9) 89. Coca-___ (4) 91. Rectangular? (6) 92. Large cats (5) 94. Celebrate (5) 95. Environmentally-friendly light bulb (3) 96. Swerve (4) 100. Pitch or attitude (4) 102. Comp-sci acronym (5) 105. Leave behind (6) 106. Delighted (6) 109. Wing ____ (4) 110. Planet? (5) 111. Heated (5) 112. Fury (3) 113. Breakfast grain (3) 115. Hail (4) 117. Elemental unit (4) 119. Farewell (3) 120. Period of existence in years (3) 122. Unwell (3) 125. Immediate help unit abbr. (2) *related to Scientific Scarsdalian

3

Risk It For The Kiss: Epstein-Barr Virus and Multiple Sclerosis Written By: Simone Glajchen | Designed By: Alison Jiang and Olivia Liu

"The kissing disease,” also known as mononucleosis, is an illness that most of us have heard of. The disease is transmitted through bodily fluids, most commonly saliva. It can spread from any form of saliva exchange: sharing a drink or food utensils, and of course, kissing. Mononucleosis is most commonly caused by Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), which is a human herpes virus that, following the initial infection period, remains dormant in the host’s body for their whole life.

EBV is so common that 95% of people contract it in their lifetime. Some symptoms of mononucleosis are fatigue, fever, swollen lymph nodes, and an enlarged spleen. Infection with the virus is unpleasant, but there are generally two main concerns: rupturing one’s spleen or developing certain types of cancers (both of these conditions are extremely rare). However, new research has revealed that the Epstein-Barr virus can have other grave consequences—it is associated with the debilitating neurodegenerative disease multiple sclerosis (MS). MS is a rare disease in which the immune system attacks the protective coating (myelin sheath) of nerves, affecting 2.8 million people worldwide. The degradation of myelin harms communication between the brain and the rest of the body, paralyzing many MS patients. Although there is no cure for MS, some experience periods of remission.

There has been a suspected connection between multiple sclerosis and the Epstein-Barr virus for years, and new research conducted at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School suggests that this hypothesis is true. Researchers used blood samples from about 10 million U.S. military members. 95% of those included in the study were positive for Epstein-Barr; 955 people included in the study (about 0.00955% of the total participants) became sick with MS. Science published the results in September: being positive for Epstein-Barr virus increased chances of developing multiple sclerosis 32fold. By comparison, smoking

increases the chances of contracting lung cancer 25fold. The study also concluded that other herpes viruses, such as cytomegalovirus, were not linked to higher rates of MS. But why is MS rare when EBV is so common?

Research shows that several factors such as EBV, smoking, and vitamin D deficiency must be present in order to significantly raise the risk of developing the illness. Don’t panic if you’ve had EBV—a very small percentage of those who have the virus become ill with MS! The discovery that MS is linked to EBV holds promise for the future of MS treatments. Advances in EBV treatments could significantly reduce the number of MS cases, as well as other rare cancers. Moderna is currently conducting a phase 1 trial of an mRNA vaccine for EBV. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease is also starting a phase 1 trial for an EBV vaccine in February. By eradicating EBV, we would be eliminating one of the driving factors of MS development.

Written By: Cindy DeDianous | Designed By: Cindy DeDianous

Mind control is real! With the flick of a switch, we have the power to turn the brain on and off. Cutting off your sense of smell, restoring blindness, reactivating lost memories—they’re all within the realm of possibility. No, this isn’t the plot synopsis for a dystopian sci-fi movie.

With a technique known as optogenetics, scientists are now doing the impossible.

In 2005, researchers at Stanford University capitalized on this connection. Using a virus, they altered the genetic code of a group of neurons to give them the ability to produce opsins.

When a specific wavelength of light was shone on the brain, only the neurons that had been genetically modified to be lightresponsive were activated or inhibited. This specificity is the key to optogenetics. Instead of activating entire cell populations, researchers could now target certain neurons or brain circuits and definitively link resulting changes in animal behavior to the cells' function.

Having a bad day? Think about your happiest memory. Did that improve your mood? According to researchers at MIT, one day, it might. They exposed mice to a pleasurable experience and used a light-sensitive protein to label the cells in the hippocampus that were storing the positive memory. The mice were then exposed to high-stress situations, prompting depression-like symptoms. A fiber-optic cable that emitted blue light was implanted into the mice's heads. When optogenetics was used to activate the positive memory, the mice temporarily experienced a drastic change in mood and behaved like mice who had never experienced depression!

The secret behind this technology can be found right in Scarsdale’s backyard: green algae. Photosynthetic organisms like algae use specialized proteins, called opsins, to locate areas with optimal light conditions for photosynthesis. When activated by light, opsins open channels in the cell membrane. As ions flow across, they generate a change in charge that alerts the algae to move toward the light. Remind you of anything? This movement of ions is similar to the process of depolarization, which causes neurons to fire.

Optogenetic ‘mind control’ is closer to reaching humans than you might think. Researchers at Sorbonne Université recently used a combination of optogenetics and tech-savvy goggles to return some characteristics of sight to a blind patient. When the goggles sense shifts in light intensity, they project the corresponding light pulses onto the retina optogenetically stimulate retinal ganglion cells, which play a vital role in image processing. The results were astounding: the patient was able to locate and count different objects!

Optogenetics almost seems too good to be true. But don’t worry, it’s not being used to brainwash me or you (yet). Instead, it’s prompting breakthrough after breakthrough and shedding light on the deepest secrets of our brain.

5

THAWING YOUR

SEASONAL DEPRESSION Written By: Rahm Bharara Designed By: Sophia Garcia and Olivia Liu

SAD Students Winter! You know what that means: hot chocolate, holidays, gifts, and of course, seasonal depression.

What is seasonal depression?

The formal name for seasonal depression is seasonal affective disorder (SAD), and it is defined as a type of depression that occurs at the same time every year, usually beginning in the autumn and continuing for several months, through winter.

In a given year, about 5% of the American population experiences some form of seasonal depression, and 80% of these people are women.

Regions further away from the equator have higher rates of seasonal depression, likely due to shorter, colder, and darker days during the winter. No surprise, the symptoms of SAD are quite similar to those of general depression and include mood changes, lethargy, and anxiety.

How has the Scarsdale environment affected/exacerbated your mental health?

“The constant pressure to accomplish things is quite detrimental to my mental health, especially during the winter months when the cold and darkness combine to create conditions that are almost impossible for me to maintain productivity in.”

--SHS student

The Science Behind SAD As sunlight lessens approaching the winter months, the brain generally produces less serotonin, an important neurotransmitter most commonly associated with regulating mood.

Having deficient levels of serotonin is linked to depression, worsened sleep, and a generally duller mood. Those specifically diagnosed with seasonal depression often contain a greater abundance of a certain serotonin transporter protein that serves to remove serotonin from the body.

As darkness further invades the afternoons and mornings, melatonin, a hormone with the purpose of regulating a person’s circadian rhythm, is produced at increased rates. While melatonin is essential for sleep and the regulation of a person’s internal clock, excess melatonin is linked to depressive moods and an interruption in a person’s sleep and wake rhythms.

What are the main pervasive thoughts you have throughout the fall/winter months?

“I can't go outside as much. I feel like crying all the time.”

--SHS student

Treatment There are a wide range of treatments for SAD, none of which are 100% successful. Phototherapy, or bright light therapy, is one of the most effective and involves being exposed to intense lights for up to four hours a day, which helps suppress the brain’s secretion of melatonin. Some patients also resort to antidepressants, which can mitigate symptoms but also cause unwanted effects. Unfortunately, many people do not recognize that they have SAD or do not feel comfortable going to a doctor, so their disorder is left untreated.

Do you personally experience a notable turning point in the spring where your mood lightens again?

“Definitely yes! My tutor noticed a very visible shift between the winter and spring. When I go outside and sit in the sun, I become much happier and more relaxed.”

-- SHS student Seasonal Depression at SHS Most diagnoses of seasonal depression are within the age group between adolescence and early adulthood, notably high school students.

We can see that students are already dealing with sleep deprivation, so a lack of Vitamin D in the winter only exacerbates moodiness and lethargy.

The extensive stressors and copious amounts of work not only damage a student’s sleep schedule, but also add to a student’s negative neuro-reactions to melatonin and serotonin.

Scarsdale is notorious for its reputation of an environment centered around competitiveness. This atmosphere often creates toxicity and a suboptimal atmosphere for students to cope with their stress and mental health, leading to worse symptoms.

What are some words you would use to describe your seasonal depression? “drowsy, deflating, defeating” “overwhelming, lonely, and numbing” “awful, soul-crushing” To those who deal with SAD, follow the advice of Jonna Jinton, a Youtuber who lives in Sweden and has to face almost complete darkness for six months every year:

Instead of trying to fight seasonal depression, we can try to appreciate the change in seasons.

A flower would never force itself to bloom during winter, so why should we?

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Why Are Kids Stressed?

Written By: Amanda Nudelman & Jessica Silvers Designed By: Claire Chou

Picture this: you are sitting in the Learning Commons with your friends during second lunch on a Wednesday afternoon, trying desperately to scarf down all of your food in the allotted twenty-five minutes, when you overhear two of your friends completely flipping out about their math test next period.

“I tried to cram all of last night. I’m so stressed out that I keep on forgetting all of the material.”

“Me too. We’re going to fail.”

This situation may sound familiar to many stressed Scarsdale students. These days, it's pretty common to see someone around you freaking out before a test, and these stress-induced frenzies may be a result of test anxiety.

Test anxiety involves feeling incredibly anxious before a test, so much so that academic performance is hindered.

Although a little bit of stress before any important exam is completely normal, too much can negatively impact test performance and mental health. Some symptoms of test anxiety include dizziness, headaches, and heart palpitations before a test, or having your mind go blank during a test. .

There are plenty of ways to mitigate the effects of test anxiety. The Mayo Clinic suggests using study time effectively, not cramming for quizzes or tests, and creating a study routine. It is overwhelming to try to study every single detail, so focus on the big concepts to make sure you understand the overarching material on a test. Minor actions such as sitting up straighter, closing one’s eyes, or breathing slowly can help someone destress during a test. Even thinking to yourself ‘nobody’s perfect (in the words of Hannah Montana) and ‘do your best’ can reduce anxiety.

Test anxiety is very prevalent in the Scarsdale community and in the wider world of high school students. A fear of failing is one of the biggest causes of test anxiety here at Scarsdale. Acknowledging that test anxiety is prevalent in our community is crucial to alleviating the pressure under which Scarsdale students struggle. Daniel Hochberg ‘23 believes that the change can begin with Scarsdale teachers, who can be “more upfront about what will be on the test instead of leaving it up to chance.” Eliminating a degree of surprise from an already stressful situation can serve to reduce students’ test anxiety. Solutions should be considered from the top-down, from the school administration down to students experiencing anxiety.

Tests can trigger anxious emotional responses and harm one’s ability to stay calm and alert. Test anxiety is most often caused by a fear of failure, unpreparedness, or a history of poor performance on previous tests. Additionally, a fear of how friends and parents will react to a bad test score can increase test anxiety However, anyone suffering from test anxiety is definitely not alone. The American Test Anxiety Association reports that in high schools and colleges, 16-20% of students report high test anxiety, and another 18% of students report moderate test anxiety. The competitive, high-pressure Scarsdale environment can contribute to the development of test anxiety in high school students.

Stress spreads quickly. Typically, one person who is stressed about a test tells another person about their worries, who tells another, and another, and another. Soon, an entire class has fallen victim to a stress domino effect.

We asked Halle Jakubowicz ‘23 about her experience with test anxiety in Scarsdale and she said, “Before tests, it becomes hard to focus in class and be in the moment because I am so consumed by the thought of the test and not being well enough prepared. I have noticed that the way everyone deals with the stress is different and talking about the material or what everyone has done to prepare makes it worse.” Meritxell Sainz Barrionuevo ‘23 added, “Everyone is very anxious before tests as a whole which contributes to an environment of anxiety, especially during testing week.”

Women

in STEM:

Perspectives on Gender Bias Written By: Matthew Barotz and Simone Glajchen Designed By: Olivia Liu Ms. Yokana, the sole female teacher in the design and engineering department at Scarsdale High School, has felt the burden of being a woman in a male-dominated field her whole life. As a child, she loved working with her dad, a mechanical engineer, on soldering and woodworking projects. However, when she decided to major in engineering, she was told that “girls don’t do that.” Since then, society has seemingly turned a new leaf, with Twitter feeds and New York Times articles filled with buzzwords like “Women in STEM” and “girl-boss”. The topic has become so widely discussed that it no longer feels like an issue. Has gender inequality in STEM actually dissipated, or is it just masquerading itself in different ways than it was 30 years ago?

Statistics reveal that gender inequality in STEM is still quite prevalent. A 2021 UNESCO report found that only 28% of engineering graduates are women, with an even greater gap existing in developed countries such as the US (20.4%) and Japan (14.0%). STEM faculties are also horribly unbalanced — a 2014 study found that women make up only 15.7% of engineering faculty. The proportion of research published by women has grown substantially from 12% since 1960, but it has only reached a peak of 35%, never coming close to true equality.

While these numbers are striking, for Scarsdale graduate and Columbia biomedical engineering student Emma Glajchen, gender inequality hasn’t been a significant obstacle to her education. Although “only about 15% of [her] professors throughout college have been female”, having predominantly male instructors hasn’t negatively impacted her learning. None of her professors have treated her differently, and they have all been “extremely kind and supportive.” Columbia itself is unusual in that its engineering student body is evenly split, but attracting female researchers and professors has been a challenge— especially because of the small number of women to receive doctorate degrees in science from previous generations.

The progress in gender inequality in STEM specialties has been experienced at SHS too. Ms. Yokana remembers that when the STEM department first started, boys would tend to choose courses like computer science or electrical

engineering, while girls would gravitate towards designbased classes. However, in the six years since its founding, she says that “many young women are now being empowered” to pursue their passions, even if they are greatly outnumbered by men.

Alexandra Simon ’23 spoke about her experience as the only girl in her robotics class, and she explains that “[aside from] when certain stereotypical boy jokes are made, it’s been really fun working with my classmates and we do have a really great environment.” Her comments differ from what many people believe: that male-dominated groups create negative environments for girls to thrive in. Instead, she says that she hasn’t felt excluded in class and isn’t treated differently because of her gender.

Now, this is not to say that gender inequality has completely disappeared in Scarsdale either. Girls are still heavily underrepresented in many STEM electives, with some robotics and app design classes having no girls this year. And students are not the only ones affected. Ms. Yokana recalls that when the design lab was being built, her opinion was ignored by the architects, despite being the resident “makerspace expert”. Despite the progress that has been achieved, there is still much work to be done in Scarsdale to make girls in STEM truly equal.

Luckily, there are a plethora of programs designed to encourage young women to pursue STEM careers. The Girls Who Code Club, for example, teaches Scarsdale high school’s female students the basics of computer science.

The GEMS club also introduces girls to science from a young age, performing science experiments—such as harvesting strawberry DNA and making chromatography butterflies —with girls at Scarsdale elementary schools.

SHS and the global community at large are making important strides toward achieving gender equality in STEM specialties, something the world needs. Ms. Yokana says it perfectly: “[what is] so important about design and engineering is that you need different perspectives. You need different voices.”

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THE COLLEGE BLUES: FRESHMEN TAKE ON ANXIETY Written By: Yuval Cherki

Designed By: Alison Jiang

You have just moved into your dorm. You unpack your new furniture, getting ready for the new academic year with the exhilaration of a new chapter motivating you forward.

You are in college, away from your hometown gossipers and busybodies, and your old school spirit begins to dwindle into a collection of name-brand sweatshirts that exert newfound college pride. You have made it, and it looks like it was worth all the effort.

But just as you begin to feel the relief of independence wash over your body, an overwhelming wave of loneliness drowns the excitement of your new environment. For the first time in your life, you are truly alone: left to fend for yourself in this new academic sphere. With nowhere to turn, you descend into darkness, resorting to any means necessary to remedy your misery: the beginning of a never-ending cycle of bad decisions.

Anxiety and depression are relentless disorders that plague learning environments in modern society. College is the first time many kids spend time away from their parents, and that sense of independence, combined with rigorous coursework, can become severely damaging to a student’s mental health. According to Noam Cherki, a Scarsdale High School alumni currently in his junior year at Duke University, “there are more pressures to figure out different aspects of your life and create a life for yourself without the support system that you have when living at home to support yourself.”

Jessica Robbins, a recent graduate from Rochester University, also shared her personal college experiences. She said, “I think the main shift I noticed in myself and my friends was an increase in social anxiety. Most people grow up in the same place for many years and are used to the same friends, people, and social dynamics, but then you got to college, and it’s like BOOM new group of people, okay go make friends.”

Jessica and Noam were not alone in their struggles. In 2020, it was determined that over half of the students in Boston Uni ver sity screened positive for anxiety and/or depression. In addition, ove r 83% of students in the same study declared the ir damaged mental state had caused a clear adverse effect on their aca demic performance. Howe ver, long-term physiological disorders hav e also arisen as mental hea lth statuses have dropped. Per a survey con ducted on over 274 establ ish ments, there has been an 88% consensus on the spike of self-injury, eat ing disorders, sexual misconduct, substance abu se, and learning disabilitie s ove r the past five years.

So what solutions can be provided to those struggling with loneliness and mental health issues?

On the brighter side of the ong oin g mental health struggle, Sarah Ketchen Lip ton, a mental health resear che r at Boston University, shared “We [me ntal health researchers] kno w me nta l health stigma is going down… Peo ple are being more open, hav ing mo re dialogue about it, and we can better identify that people are stru ggling.” Counseling centers and mental health programs are becoming mo re necessary as time goes on, and as a pleasant surprise, many kids take adv antage of these resources to better thems elves.

"Having a therapist helped, and so did generally having people to talk to,” said Gal Cherki, Scarsdale alumni and current student at Rochester University, when asked about his solution to mental health issues. He added, “A lot of people just refuse to take care of themselves because they feel like they don’t have time to. However, you can always make the time, even if it means stopping doing something you want to do. You have to be proactive about your mental health, no one is going to fix it for you.”

Relying on outreach programs and counseling is only one step to achieving a higher standard of life for college students. Real progress in adjusting to college life comes through learning how to take care of oneself in this uncharted environment. Noam also shared, “the easiest thing to forget is to take care of your body with sleep, exercise, and food. Figuring out that stuff is a big step, and then learning how to take pressure off of yourself and think rationally about things is important.”

College and high school experiences are extraordinarily different. After going through ACTs, SATs, college applications, and the moving process, actual college life can seem intimidating, especially to freshmen dealing with their new environments. However, the most important thing to remember is that struggle is normal, and that taking care of oneself and reaching out for help whenever needed is pivotal to avoiding the spiral into unhealthy habits. It takes time to adjust, but once a happy medium is found, the experiences earned in college can last a lifetime.

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Mental Health at SHS We asked students to anonymously describe their mental health experience at SHS. Written By: Anushka Kumar | Designed By: Olivia Liu

"While Scarsdale has provided me with an incredible education, amazing memories, and even better friends, it has equally led to depression, an eating disorder, and an array of other mental health and self esteem problems."

"The school’s biggest flaw isn’t its rigor or competitive nature but rather its horrible attempt at masking it. The school “preaches” inclusion and mindfulness so much that when students are overworked socially and academically, they feel invalidated."

"...breaks people..."

"SHS is an environment that breaks people so they never want to move back and yet puts them in a bubble so that they feel like they have to. "

"... [we] feel invalidated."

"SHS is an environment where the students are hyper focused on grades and packing their transcripts which provides for a breeding ground for mental health issues."

"Students at SHS have a shared belief that academic validation determines your self worth, as well as an exclusive social climate that leaves people feeling isolated and alone."

"...a breeding ground for mental health issues."

"Detrimental health habits ... are normalized."

"It is the status quo to compromise your wellness for academic success. "

"Scarsdale High School creates an environment so subtly toxic that most students aren’t even aware of how unhealthy their experience is until after they graduate. Detrimental health habits such as sleeping very little and barely eating are normalized."

"While there are a plethora of mental health issues at SHS, I feel that it is unfair to blame the faculty as the majority of teachers and staff are taking whatever steps they can to reduce stress and connect students with appropriate resources.

The root of the issue lies in the toxic environment that unfortunately cannot be solved by administrative policies."

"The root of the issue lies in the toxic environment..."

"The toxicity at Scarsdale makes Bronx Science look like preschool."

"...an inherent competition among students..."

"The college process has created an inherent competition among students, and it prevents them from truly building a community and enjoying themselves in high school."

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Written By: Stephanie Liu and Chloe Ji Designed by: Sophia Garcia

Mind reading, but not really...

Your crush just glanced at you from the corner of their eye. But what does this mean? Do they perhaps like you back, or was that just a look of disgust? If only there were a way to tell what they were thinking...

Luckily for you, there is: reading their body language!

A total of 60% of how we communicate is through subconscious body language, such as eye movement, nodding, or gesturing, while only 7% are actual words spoken. Thus, next time you have a conversation, pay special attention to their mannerisms and gestures to more clearly understand what your peer is saying. Make sure to pay attention to the number of times someone blinks

when speaking to you as well.

Frequent blinking can indicate stress, however when accompanied by the touching of the face, these blinks can also indicate lying. Glancing at certain things is also an essential way of telling whether or not someone is interested or not. Glancing at a person usually means that they are interested in talking to them.

People often nod when they are listening to the person they are speaking with. The speed at which someone nods can also reveal some thoughts they are having.

Slow nodding typically means that the person is interested in what you are saying and wants to hear more. Fast nodding can show restlessness. This probably means that they want a chance to talk.

The direction the head is tilting can also signal attention, interest, confusion, or disagreement.

A rather unexpected form of communication is the position of the feet. Similar to head tilting, the direction that feet are pointing can also show interest. If their feet are pointed towards you, the person wants to engage in conversation with you. If they are pointed elsewhere, they probably would rather focus on that instead. This is not the most reliable thing to watch out for, but it can still provide some useful hints.

You may not be able to know what exactly the other person is thinking, however, you can tell a lot by paying attention to someone’s body language.

Written By: Jaden Tepper | Designed By: Claire Chou

Calling someone a “bird brain” is a rather malicious insult, but as it turns out, it may be true that some human brain processes are just as weak as birds: namely, working memory. Working memory is the brain’s way of retaining information temporarily. It allows you to remember numbers between one calculation and the following or the next words you are planning to write. Also, working memory is a crucial step in the process of storing long-term memory.

However, working memory is limited. Try this. Remember the following shapes and colors: a red square, a green triangle, a purple square, and a cyan circle. We’ll come back to those later.

changed. This test is based purely on working memory. The stronger the participant's short-term memory, the more likely they remembered the shapes and determined which one changed.

In December 2021, a study by Lukas Alexander Hahn and his colleagues researched how bad our working memories are. Using a puzzle that was usually used to test primates, the participant would look at a screen, upon which some colored squares would appear. After a moment, the squares disappeared. Then after one second of a black screen, the same squares reappeared, but with one alteration: one square had a different color. The participant had to determine which

Going back to those shapes, can you name the second shape and its color? If so, good job, but it was probably rather difficult. Many other brain processes are significantly elevated above those of birds, but we know that working memory isn’t one of them. This study doesn’t prove that birds think exactly equivalent to us.

However, these findings can give important insights into the evolutionary process that formed all species as well as our brains, and next time someone calls you a “bird brain,” just keep in mind that they are too!

What makes this study special is that they didn’t use the test on humans or monkeys, but rather birds. They found that birds have roughly an equivalent capacity of working memory as humans! “Bird brain” isn’t seeming like a silly little insult now, is it? Specifically, they found that the mean maximum capacity of a bird’s short-term memory occurs when storing 4 items: strikingly similar to the human average of about 5 items.

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HOW PERSONALITY TESTS WORK Written By: Andre Couto

Personality is often described as the attributes one possesses and their unique reaction to stimuli that defines a person. While this may sound simple, the reality is far more complex. How personality develops is disputed among psychologists, and scientists aren’t yet sure what causes personality to change. Despite the complexities of personality, scientists have been trying to understand and classify personality for over 2,000 years. That desire has led to the modern personality test.

The Origin of Personality Tests The beginning of modern personality tests can be tied to World War I to attempt to predict the likelihood that a soldier would develop “shell shock”. Robert Woodworth created the “Psychoneurotic Inventory” to predict recruits’ susceptibility to shell shock, a psychological illness with various symptoms caused by exposure to warfare, which was believed to afflict people who were “weak-minded”.

The test was a series of yes-no questions meant to assess the mental fortitude of the subjects. The Psychoneurotic Inventory began by asking the recruit if they felt “well and strong,” and around 100 questions followed, attempting to discern the mental state of the recruit. Many of the following tests focused on negative emotionality, the way individuals experience negative emotions.

Personality Tests Today Today, personality testing is a multi-billion dollar industry; used by individuals, schools, and even companies. If you have taken a personality test, you likely took the Myers-Briggs test, developed in 1942 by Katherine Cook Briggs. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or MBTI, is the most common personality test. It is a questionnaire that categorizes people’s personalities into

Designed By: Sophia Garcia

16 personality types based on four spectra, including extroversion versus introversion. There are roughly 90 questions on the Myers-Briggs test that focus on positive emotions rather than negative ones. Another test commonly used in the workplace is the Big Five Model. The Big Five Model, also known as the Five-Factor Model, is a theory that suggests personality boils down to five key traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism. Similar to the Myers-Briggs test, the Big Five personality test is a questionnaire that aims to rank individuals on a scale for each of the five personality traits.

Do Personality Tests Matter?

As more and more studies are published, showing that personality tests are relatively ineffective in predicting people’s potential to succeed in a job, it becomes increasingly worrying that companies trust these fickle tests to decide whom to hire, or that schools are using them to tell students potential careers that fit their personality.

One study showed that 50% of participants who took the Myers-Briggs test 5 weeks later got a different outcome. This discrepancy can even be observed in the tests. Furthermore, it can be incredibly difficult to objectively judge oneself. As test makers have observed, when a participant is given the same question they had earlier in the test, it is not uncommon for the participant to change their answer.

Does this mean you shouldn’t take one? If you’re just taking a personality test for fun, there is no harm in filling one out, and can even help you better understand yourself. Just remember to view your results with a grain of salt.

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The Real Reason You Procrastinate Written By: Halle Jakubowicz Designed By: Claire Chou

Procrastination is a heavily discussed topic; especially at SHS, it is rare to go through a week without hearing this word. A kid in your math class has probably exclaimed, “I didn’t start the homework until 11:00 last night!” But have you ever heard someone explaining what procrastination is, why it happens, or what to do about preventing it? The real definition of procrastination is delaying doing something until a later time, often past the deadline.

We are fully aware of the self-harm inflicted by procrastination, but we do it anyway. It seems illogical, but procrastination is used as a protection method. Procrastination typically results from failing to manage one’s emotions. When attempting to complete tasks related to school or other activities that bring about self-doubt, low self-esteem, anxiety, or insecurity, procrastination can be used as a protective mechanism to shift your focus onto a less stressful task. However, in the long run, procrastination enhances these negative feelings.

By doing this, we are only associating these tasks with those emotions and causing more procrastination in the future. Procrastination is an endless cycle because it causes more stress and worsens the situation. By procrastinating, you are creating more anxiety around such tasks and further postponing completing the tasks. The false sense of immediate relief provided by procrastination ends up causing this action to become a habit.

Another reason why we procrastinate is that we view ourselves as someone else in the future.

Looking at procrastination in this way creates the sense that we are leaving the task for someone else to deal with our problems. Even though we know that the person who will have to deal with them will be us, it is more important to control the negative emotions at the time and curb those feelings rather than removing additional stress for our future selves.

After reading all of this, you are probably wondering how you can stop this vicious cycle of procrastination and remove stress from your life? Well, just understanding the roots of procrastination allows you to dig deep and think about where your own procrastination comes from. Understanding the sources of your procrastination will help you overcome the emotions that are causing you to procrastinate.

However, just understanding where your procrastination comes from is only the beginning. A good way to curb procrastination is to break the task into a smaller set of clear, more attainable, less stressful goals. These goals should be achievable because trying to do something that is impossible or too hard will further the cycle of procrastination. For example, you can try to study 15 to 20 minutes every night for a week or more before a test, so that you have a head start of better understanding of the material, instead of leaving it all until the last minute.

Once you have created goals, you have to make a concrete plan on how to accomplish such goals, like going over past homework assignments one night, reviewing class notes another night, taking practice tests, or writing short drafts, which you then successively review and edit. And then, from there, it is only a matter of implementing your plan. When carrying out the course of action, it is essential to modify your goals and take note of what works and what doesn’t.

Once you have started procrastinating, it is hard to stop. But hopefully, after understanding more about where your procrastination comes from, and what you can do to help address the issues causing your procrastination, you should be able to set realistic attainable goals and break free from this cycle of procrastination. You may need to push yourself to keep a regimen and follow your plan, but once accomplished, it will be easier the next time because you succeeded once, and you will recognize it will be better for you in the long run.

DERstroying

YOUR MENTAL HEALTH Written By: Rick Yang and Spencer Goh Designed By: Alison Jiang

Competing in sports is a healthy and fun activity for people of all ages. After all, the benefits of exercise that come along with participating in sports promote a positive attitude and a healthy mind and body. You might not normally think that athletes are prone to mental health issues, but in reality, the stress and performance anxiety of playing a sport can sometimes be overwhelming.

Mental health problems in sports are not rare. In fact, even famous athletes such as Naomi Osaka, a star tennis player, and Simone Biles, a decorated Olympic gymnast, have sat out of major competitions due to mental health concerns. According to the nonprofit "Athletes for Hope," 35% of professional athletes have a mental health crisis during their career. Moreover, a survey found that around one-third of college athletes are struggling with symptoms of anxiety, such as difficulties with sleep, one-quarter are feeling a perpetual sense of loss, and one-tenth have reported feeling so miserable that it makes their daily functioning strenuous.

Athletes are constantly under intense pressure from fans to do well in competitions, which could result in performance anxiety: the fear that one’s ability to perform during a game is inadequate. They may worry about failing before the game begins, resulting in humiliation, rejection, and possibly panic attacks. Typical athletes’ careers are relatively short compared to other professions, so there is added pressure to accomplish as much as they can during their sports career.

This lack of mental health in sports is extremely problematic; our current society is immensely focused on physical wellbeing, but consistently fails to recognize that mental wellbeing is just as—if not more—important than physical health.

How can these devastating problems be addressed?

Fortunately, for athletes suffering from more serious causes of mental health-related difficulties, there are many licensed mental health counselors that offer services to aid athletes in building healthier mindsets and overcoming stress. But solutions like this cost money, and there are many simpler methods that are equally effective.

These issues regarding mental health must be a priority among all athletes. There must exist an open conversation where people can share their experiences with others to understand that they are not alone. For younger athletes, parents should teach their children to embrace vulnerability, prioritize mental recovery, and ask for support when needed. Every athlete should have their voice heard by someone, whether it be their teammate, coach, friend, sibling, or parent. Every athlete needs to train themselves not to disregard their issues, as the risk of not addressing these issues increases exponentially in the long run.

Unfortunately, mental health struggles are very real and dangerous to professional athletes. Although these problems can be traumatic, there are many ways to treat them. Most importantly, everyone, not just athletes, needs to pay close attention to their mental wellbeing to prevent a mental health crisis.

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Fictional Characters With Mental Illness Written By: Rose Kinoshita | Designed By: Alison Jiang and Olivia Liu

Avatar: The Last Airbender Azula, a firebending prodigy and the daughter of the ruling Fire Lord, fights relentlessly to eliminate her older brother Zuko in competition for obtaining the throne. In the final episodes of the series, we see Azula exhibiting schizophrenic tendencies. Her paranoia increases, causing her to have auditory and visual hallucinations of her mother. However, the visions of her mother are highly contradictory to the way Azula remembered her. The emotional turmoil resulting from the conflicting visions causes Azula’s downfall, eventually landing her in a psychiatric ward.

Princess Azula

DC Comics

Harley Quinn

Originally, Dr. Harleen Quinzel was a psychiatrist for the maximum-security prison Arkham Asylum.

However, she transforms herself into the volatile Harley Quinn, a partner to the psychotic Joker. Although there are many iterations of her character, the one commonality is that Harley Quinn’s descent into villainy begins with a psychotic disorder, in which the Joker is the primary, or the aggressor & inducer, while Quinn is the induced, being heavily influenced by his delusions or criminal grandeur.

Sherlock Holmes Although Sherlock Holmes, a proficient detective, claims to be a high-functioning sociopath, it is significantly more likely that he has Asperger’s Syndrome, which is on the autism spectrum. Those who have Asperger’s are more likely to be highly observant and often hyper focus on an interest, both traits contributing to the success of Holmes’ career, evident in his picturesque memory. Of the personality traits he is most known for, Asperger’s often causes difficulty communicating and empathizing, causing others to view Sherlock as cold or uncaring.

Sherloc k Holmes

The Hunger Games After being forced to kill other teenagers and losing various friends, Katniss Everdeen, a two-time victor of the Hunger Games, suffers from PTSD. She is plagued by vivid flashbacks, recurring nightmares, and hypervigilance. She has strong negative reactions to otherwise regular objects, including the smell of roses, that persist even past the end of the competitions. Additionally, Katniss suffers from survivor’s guilt, with her visions containing her lost friends, especially present during her eulogies immediately following the games.

Katniss Everdeen

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

/ l l y k e Dr. J de Mr. Hy

Dr. Jekyll, a renowned scientist, descends into the darker aspects of science when he decides to invent a serum that transforms himself into an evil alter-ego, Mr. Hyde.

Unfortunately, Jekyll soon began transforming without the aid of the serum, thereby developing split personality disorder, clinically known as dissociative identity disorder. Key symptoms of DID seen in the character of Dr. Jekyll include distinct shifts in personality along with the inability of one persona to control the other.

Grey’s Anatomy Dr. Andrew DeLuca, an attending general surgeon, appeared regularly on Grey’s Anatomy from seasons 11 to 17 and is officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder during the 16th season. The show introduces him as he experiences a depressive episode and low levels of motivation, however, he soon becomes manic, working quickly, sleeping little, and struggling to control his thoughts. As time passes, he goes longer without an official diagnosis. Eventually, DeLuca has a breakdown, and he finally realizes that he needs psychological treatment. With treatment, he is able to work regularly once again.

Andrew DeLuca

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Our Dreams Under the Microscope Written By: Neha Nayakkar Designed By: Sophia Garcia and Olivia Liu

When I was a child, I remember being chased through New York City by a guy in a gray suit. While running down the street with a briefcase stuffed with cash, I abruptly woke up. It was just a dream. If we lived in ancient times, my dream would be interpreted as illustrating my worry of losing independence. Occasionally, people believed that dreams were a reference to future omens. It wasn’t until Sigmund Freud created his Interpretation of Dreams in the late 19th century that we began to question the existence of dreams.

Dreams are essentially motion pictures that the mind creates while people are asleep. Those dreams occur during a stage in our sleep cycle called REM, or Rapid Eye Movement. There are two cycles of sleep: non-REM sleep and REM sleep. Though they sound the same, non-REM sleep is essential for the growth of the body and brain.

During this type of sleep, many things occur. First, your muscles start to relax, and your brain activity starts to decrease. Then your body temperature decreases as your body prepares to enter deeper sleep. Typically, during this stage of sleep tissues are repaired, and the immune system is strengthened. REM sleep works differently.

REM sleep happens around an hour after people go to sleep, commonly accompanied by vivid images, or dreams. During REM, you have increased brain activity, which explains why people get such vivid dreams.

The amount of REM sleep that you have often is related to the amount of sleep you get on a given night.

Typically, 7-8 hours of sleep equates to 90-minute long REM cycles. REM may not seem as important as non-REM, but its effects on the brain are significant. The brain needs REM sleep to help stimulate memory function and cognitive skills. These discoveries about how dreams occur are recent, however, Sigmund Freud proposed a different idea as to how dreams work.

Whether it is a good dream or a nightmare, dreams carry significance in neurological function that scientists still ponder today. Freud, an Austrian neurologist and the first psychoanalyst, tried to understand the reasoning behind dreams using psychoanalysis.

Through psychoanalysis, he was able to decipher three main components of the mind that influence dreams: the id, ego, and superego. Freud categorized the id as the most primitive part of the mind that only thinks about satisfying one’s needs. For example, consider a person that wants to get candy from a candy shop, but they have no money. If they act solely in accordance with the id, the person would still take the candy and not consider it stealing. Contrarily, the superego is a component that is concerned with morals and self-values, similar to a conscience. With the superego, if the person wanted candy that they couldn't afford, they would not take it because they understand that it is morally incorrect.

The id and the superego are connected; the id overpowers your superego, however, when acting on the id's desires, the person would feel shame and regret for their actions. The ego acts as a mediator between the two -- it acts as the rational part of our mind. If the person wanted candy and the superego was at odds with the id, the ego would propose a compromise of acquiring money and buying the candy. This allows for desires to be resolved without illegal behaviors.

When patients met with him about their dreams, Freud would have them elaborate. With the information collected, he would try to relieve patients of their symptoms, which he called ‘free association’. Freud’s work would later help psychology fields discover what dreams were and how they were associated with one's brain.

Ink Drops and Blots: Rorschach Tests Written By: Emily Attar Designed By: Claire Chou

Have you ever seen a splotch of ink on a piece of paper and thought it looked something like a tiger or a duck? Rorschach tests, or inkblots, began as a children’s game called Klecksography, where kids used ink as a way of playing charades. Eventually, they became a way to test people’s brains and determine their mental states.

Hermann Rorschach, the creator of these diagnostic inkblots and an avid player of klecksography as a child, experimented on many people with these tests. He noticed that different people saw different shapes from the same inkblots, and hypothesized that a person's sanity could be measured by analyzing what they see in a given image. He researched this hypothesis for a few years and published his research to the public in 1921.

Then, he used the new tests to diagnose psychiatric patients at Herisau Hospital.

Patients were asked to state what they had seen in a series of inkblot pictures. Many schizophrenic patients saw very different things in the tests compared to regular patients, an example of how this test effectively displays differences in mental states.

The questions that initially came out of these tests were captivating. However, Rorschach did not live much longer after sharing his discoveries, and would not be able to continue experimenting. Although a few others tried to push the test’s abilities farther, inkblot diagnoses were later discarded and seen as biased.

They were shunned by the scientific community, despite being said to have potential in 1993. These tests didn’t turn out to be the best diagnostic test for psychology, but they are still fun to take! Try your hand at some below:

WHAT DO YOU SEE?

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To Stand By Or To Stand Up: The Bystander Effect Written By: Jean Sung Designed By: Olivia Liu

If you’ve ever read Wonder by R.J. Palacio, you’ll know about the difference between upstanders and bystanders. Jack Will befriends and stands up for Auggie, who is bullied for his abnormal facial features, making him an upstander: an upstander speaks up against bullying and takes action when witnessing an emergency. On the other hand, a bystander observes an incident that appears to be a crisis in which a victim requires help but does not take part. In middle school, we could justify our inaction: after all, what was the worst that could have happened if we didn’t stop an insensitive bully? Well, the same justification cannot hold for an adult who witnesses a gruesome murder, as shown by the case of Catherine “Kitty” Genovese.

Kitty Genovese was killed in 1963 by Winston Mosely in her apartment located in Kew Gardens, Queens. What distinguished this murder from the hundreds of others that took place that same year was not its gruesome nature, but the 38 eye-witnesses who supposedly watched the half-hour stabbing of Genovese without ever helping or calling the police. As the public began attributing this inaction to the apathy of the apartment residents, psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley began searching for an alternative explanation behind the negligence of the bystanders and formulated the bystander effect.

The bystander effect is the phenomenon that occurs when the presence of other bystanders impedes an individual from intervening in an emergency, suggesting that one is more likely to help when they feel that there are very few other witnesses. So what causes this phenomenon? According to Latané and Darley, the bystander effect originates mainly from pluralistic ignorance and the diffusion of responsibility.

Pluralistic Ignorance I’m sure you’ve had this experience at least once in your life: you’re in class, listening to your teacher go on and on about whatever, debating whether to raise your hand to ask what anything they are talking about means. You look around to see no other hands raised and look down, embarrassed that only you are confused. The class ends with your question unasked and unanswered, and you leave the room just as puzzled as you were before. What you don’t know is that many other students are thinking the same thing! Everyone is confused and wants to ask the same question, but does not in order to avoid judgment from their peers, who they think all perfectly understand the material.

In this situation, you and your classmates are victims of pluralistic ignorance: the majority of the group internally believes one thing, but no one takes action after mistakenly concluding that everyone else believes the opposite.

It is human nature to look to others to decide what to do in an ambiguous situation, as shown by Darley and Latané in their “smoke room experiment.” Aiming to study the reactions of their subjects to a supposed emergency, researchers placed the participants into a room and instructed them to answer a questionnaire as smoke slowly filled the room. Participants in the first room, who were alone, were much quicker in reporting the smoke than those in room 2. Whereas 75% of participants took action in room 1, only 10% of the second room subjects, who were each placed into a room with two actors who acted indifferent the whole experiment, reported the smoke. As Darley and Latané hypothesized, a subject was more likely to interpret the smoke as an indicator of an emergency and get help when alone. Because we don’t trust our own judgment, we often adopt the behavior of those around us: when other witnesses treat the situation as an emergency, we also help the victim immediately, but when others seem indifferent, we assume that we are misinterpreting the situation and don’t intervene.

Diffusion of Responsibility According to witness reports of Genovese’s murder, the bystanders were unable to see each other clearly and could not have relied on each other to decide how to react to the situation. The bystander effect observed in this case thus did not stem as much from pluralistic ignorance as from the diffusion of responsibility, which proposes that an individual feels less responsible to help as the number of witnesses increases. When witnessing an emergency, an individual’s first step is typically to divide the responsibility to intervene by the number of bystanders. Therefore, mathematically, one’s feeling of personal responsibility will inevitably decrease in larger groups. After concluding that the moral duty to help is not solely on themselves, the individual assumes that one of the many other bystanders in the group will help instead and disregards the victim, failing to realize that everyone else is going through the same process. Because everyone pushes off the responsibility to step in, no one helps the victim, and the victim, such as Kitty Genovese, faces horrible consequences that may lead to death.

Latané and Darley’s famous “seizure experiment” helped support the speculated role of diffusion of responsibility on the inaction of witnesses. In this experiment, researchers told 72 university students that they were participating in a discussion about college life, although they were discreetly organizing a fake emergency. Each participant, placed in a separate room, talked to the other “participants” using microphones and speakers, unaware that the voices they were “talking” to had been prerecorded. To create the simulation of an emergency, one of the voices mimicked that of a person experiencing a seizure. Results showed that different numbers of supposed “participants” in the group discussion created vast differences in the time it took for a study subject to ask for help. Out of the subjects who believed that they were in a one-to-one conversation with the person experiencing the seizure, 85% reacted quickly and left to ask for help. On the other hand, only 31% of the participants in the second condition, who believed that there were four other bystanders, attempted to help the victim. Because even those that did not respond were concerned for the victim, Darley and Latané concluded that indifference or apathy did not cause inaction, contrary to popular belief. Individuals simply push away the duty to help a victim when there are many other bystanders around, causing the bystander inaction that inevitably leads to the victim’s demise.

Criticisms Over the years, the bystander effect has become one of the most studied social-psychological phenomenons and is a staple in nearly all American psychology textbooks. However, ever since authors and journalists such as Jim Rasenberger and Rachel Manning revealed various errors in the original tale of the Genovese murder, the famous phenomenon has been challenged by many. Contrary to the large number of 38 witnesses assumed to have witnessed Mosely stabbing Genovese, in reality, there were very few people who actually saw the crime. Genovese was attacked two times by Mosely. She was first attacked outside her apartment building with a hunting knife until Rober Mozer shouted from his window to stop Mosely; while she was heavily wounded, Genovese at this point had been alive. However, because the fatal second attack took place in a secluded hallway inside her apartment, even those who had witnessed the first attack

could not have definitively realized that there was a horrific murder taking place right under their noses.

As the newly made corrections to the murder of Kitty Genovese weakened Latané and Darley’s argument about the effect of the number of bystanders on the odds of an individual helping a witness, many began to find flaws in the assessment of the bystander effect. Some argue that bystander inaction could result not from the increased number of other witnesses, but from one’s fear of offering unwanted help or one’s concern over being misunderstood as the perpetrator and facing the unjustified consequences. Many witnesses also misinterpreted the situation as a mere “lover’s quarrel” rather than a vicious assault, which again brings to question the main reason for their inaction in Genovese’s murder.

We will never find out whether the bystander effect described by Darley and Latané was truly the driving force of the neglect seen in Kitty Genovese’s murder. However, it is undeniable that the phenomenon can apply to various situations that we see in everyday life. Truthfully, I cannot say that I have never fallen prey to the bystander effect: when I’m in the bustling streets of Manhattan, I do not give a dollar to every homeless man I see on the streets, as there are just too many of them. Looking back, I realize that I justify my inaction as I walk past by thinking that there are plenty of others with more money than me who can help these underprivileged people. It’s just our nature to push off the responsibility of intervening in an emergency to others. So sure, perhaps the inaction seen in the Genovese murder was not only caused by a large number of witnesses. Maybe the idea of “safety in numbers” is not a myth after all. Regardless, the bystander effect and its two factors, pluralistic ignorance and diffusion of responsibility, can teach us how to act in an emergency. Ignore the urge to look to others and take responsibility when you have any inkling that you are witnessing an emergency: the worst consequence if you misunderstood the situation may be a feeling of embarrassment for a couple of minutes. If you are not, however, and you help the victim immediately, you can save a life and avoid being eaten away by the harrowing guilt you would have felt if you had allowed the victim to die.

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Frequency Illusion: The Brain and its Bias Written By: Vivian Zweig | Designed By: Alison Jiang

A pair of trendy shoes on display in a department store catches your attention. It’s love at first sight; you snatch them up and stroll to the front of the store to make your purchase. Smiling, you walk outside and glance at the shoes other people are wearing. Your eyes are drawn to a woman lounging on a chair. She’s wearing the same pair that you just bought! Surprised, you look around and see a boy strutting past — he’s wearing them too! Even the baby being pushed around in a stroller has a miniature pair laced on their feet. Why does it seem like everyone has swapped their shoes for the pair sitting in your bag? This is the Baader-Meinhof Illusion, also known as frequency bias, hard at work.

When you become aware of something new and intriguing, your brain begins to look for it in the surrounding environment. This process is called selective attention.

Moreover, when subconsciously searching your surroundings, you are more likely to find what you are unintentionally looking for. Noticing the object of interest more often leads you to believe that it is more present than it is. Hence, the reason why everyone seemed to change their shoes after you bought the same pair.

This selective attention and confirmation bias can be demonstrated through a simple experiment: think of a piano and envision one in your mind. Now that you’re thinking of a piano, I’d like you to take a look at the picture and find the cat.

The chances are that you saw the piano first, even though it makes you slower to find what you’re looking for. Although the memory item (the piano) is irrelevant to your search task, it captured your attention. Your recognition of it first is an illustration of unconscious influence on your attention. This phenomenon is similar to what’s happening in the Baader Meinhof Illusion; something in your mind draws your attention to an object that you wouldn’t normally notice.

Hopefully, the illusion of the stolen shoe has been made more clear. Nobody changed their shoes to try and gaslight you; it’s just the brain’s way of absorbing new information!

So the next time you make a new purchase and are immediately bombarded with appearances of the same item, there will be no need to be confused.

IQ TESTS: INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT OR INANE QUACKERY? Written By: Peter He | Designed By: Claire Chou

We all know what an IQ test is. It's not surprising that most of us have taken these infamous “Intelligence Quotient” tests. But do these tests actually express the intelligence of an individual? Well, much like the uncertainty associated with college-entrance exams like the SAT or ACT, the scientific basis of IQ tests is quite complicated.

Essentially, there’s no method to summarize someone’s intelligence with a single number. Multiple different tests are required to accurately assess general knowledge.

From a logical standpoint, it seems to make sense that someone with higher intelligence would be better at performing tasks that require thinking. Thus, a test designed to assess performance on a series of logicbased tasks should provide an accurate gauge of someone’s intelligence, right? Well, as it turns out, that is not the case. A 2012 study by the University of Western Ontario concluded that no single test can accurately measure a person’s general intelligence. With a pool of over 100,000 participants, the team conducting the study found there are at least three distinct components of someone’s “intelligence”: short-term memory, reasoning, and verbal comprehension.

Another problem with IQ tests lies in their execution.

Due to the nature of the tasks presented in a test, someone’s IQ score can change based on factors such as whether they’re motivated, know certain “strategies,” or fully understand the task. For example, if an IQ test is given in English to someone that has a non-native understanding of English, misinterpretation is a possibility. Different cultural and social ideologies often result in different methods of completing similar tasks.

So when an IQ test (or any test as a matter of fact) is administered favoring one method, no one can truly say that it was an accurate measure of someone’s ability.

In the end, despite the questionable authenticity of IQ tests, they can still serve as fun brain teasers to learn from. Why not try some of the ones listed below?

1. A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

2. If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?

3. In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?

4. Where is the pool at Scarsdale High School? a. The ceiling of the fourth floor b. The teacher’s lounge. c. The bathroom that was vandalized earlier this year was secretly renovated d. Principal Bonamo’s office.

5. Which four-letter word can be attached to the beginning of the following words to form five longer words?

- AGE - WIDTH - IT - STAND - WAGON 6. What letter should appear next in this sequence?

LKJH 7. What number should replace the question mark?

Answers are on the last page.

9 6 5 8

2 4 7 8

1 2 3 6

8 4 5 ?

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The Raisin-Brain of a Cereal Killer Written By: Bryan Shi and Sebastian Verelli Designed by: Claire Chou

As a child, Robert Ressler rushed to the cinema every weekend to watch the latest episode of his favorite films. These “serial adventures” never left the audience satisfied, often ending in cliffhangers so that viewers would return the following week. A few decades later, Robert Ressler — now an FBI agent — was lecturing at a British police academy when he was suddenly reminded of the short films of his childhood. Ressler had overheard a description of a chain of crimes, one followed by another, including burglaries, robberies, and murders. Drawing inspiration from the “serial adventures” of his childhood, Ressler gave birth to the term “serial killer.” Much like episodic films, serial killers’ crimes unfolded piece by piece, leaving an inconclusive ending after each killing.

What is a serial killer?

You probably have heard of famous serial killers.

Dahmer, Bundy, Gacy, and Geines terrorized American society for decades. But what actually earns a person the title of a serial killer? A serial killer commits several murders in a series, typically over an extended period of time. Many experts consider a serial killer when they have committed three or more murders, with considerable time between each murder. Serial killers differ from mass murderers in that they commit murders over time, whereas mass murderers commit all their murders in a one-time event.

Reid Melloy, a forensic expert from the University of California, developed a system of categorizing the different types of killers: affective killers and predatory killers. Predatory killers are regulated, controlled, and generally lack basic emotional capacity. They have tendencies to plan their attacks and generally attack strangers. These “predatory” killers are more likely to fall into the further subset of serial murderers. Killers who were categorized as “affective” were more likely to be driven by emotion, and their crimes were more likely to be directed towards a person they knew.

Psychological breakdown

What motivates a serial killer to act? This question has always puzzled criminal psychologists and the general public, but we still do not seem to have an answer due to the many factors that need to be considered. Contrary to popular belief, most serial killers are not insane. A more common trait of serial killers is psychopathy or sociopathy, describing a lack of empathy or emotion. However, psychopathy is incredibly difficult to recognize, especially since many individuals fall on a scale of psychopathic tendencies rather than being concretely diagnosed.

Even so, not all serial killers are associated with psychopathy or sociopathy. Some have been diagnosed with psychological disorders such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Many also suffered from childhood abuse or family issues.

Psychopathy alone does not answer the question of why serial killers commit murder or how they became that way. As psychology develops new hypotheses to what makes a serial killer, the vast spectrum of traits observed makes it increasingly difficult to determine exactly why or how a serial killer acts. Peter Vronsky, an expert on the psychopathology of serial killers, stated that “we seem to know less about serial killers now than we thought we did 20 years ago.” As of now, our most accurate theory is that psychopathy leads serial killers to act due to a lack of empathy and antisocial tendencies.

Serial killers are somewhat average when you separate them from their crimes. Contrary to popular media, serial killers have average IQs. A spectrum exists where some have extremely low IQs, while others could score into MENSA. Scientific understanding of genetics has also played a role in the factors that may create a serial killer. Antisocial personality disorder, a mental health disorder that may be hereditary, is a trait present amongst many serial killers.

Neuroscience’s role in understanding serial killers

To delve deeper into serial killer psychology, we can turn to the field of neuroscience for some insight. A 1999 study compared the brain activity of 41 murderers to a control group. While presented with a visual task designed to engage various regions of the brain, PET scans of the two groups revealed a surprising difference in brain activity.

The murderers engaged little to none of their prefrontal cortex, the region of the brain responsible for complex decision-making. Both of the groups showed similar activity in their visual cortex. The lack of engagement in the prefrontal cortex is believed to factor into a predisposition to violence since it gives control to evolutionarily older areas. Damage to the prefrontal cortex has been associated with emotional outbursts, increased risk-taking, and argumentative behavior -- all of which have been associated with violent crime. At a social and personality level, damage to the prefrontal cortex may hinder self-control and the ability to formulate non-confrontational solutions.

A brain scan of a control brain (right) and murderer (left). The prefrontal cortex, located at the top of both images, is activated in the control brain but not the murderer’s.

Why are we fascinated with serial killers?

Serial killers are a mainstay of American culture. Despite committing their crimes decades ago, killers like David Berkowitz and Richard Ramirez influence music, films, and TV... Fascination with serial killers is especially peculiar because of the gruesome nature of their crimes. It seems that the reason we are so engrossed in the lives of these deeply distrubed individuals is because of their incomprehensible nature. In a recent poll, 11 out of 13 Scarsdale High School students indicated that they had an interest in learning about or watching content related to serial killers. To the vast majority of the population, the mind of a serial killer is impossible to understand, which makes their crimes ever more intriguing. Serial killer crimes are often exotic, differing from our common understanding of a criminal, and thus attracting public attention. The average populace experiences a wide range of emotions, joy, sadness, excitement, remorse; meanwhile, serial killers are emotionally stunted or incapable. The “guilty” pleasure comes in trying to understand and rationalize the heinous actions of the most macabre to walk amongst us.

1. $0.05, as $0.05 + $1.05 = $1.10 2. 5 minutes. Each machine takes 5 minutes to make a widget, therefore 100 machines would still take 5 minutes to make 100 widgets.

3. 47 Days. Since the patch doubles every day, the lake must be halfway covered the day before it is fully covered, meaning it would take 47 days.

4. We don’t really know the answer to this one…

5. BAND (BANDAGE, BANDWIDTH, BANDIT, BANDSTAND, BANDWAGON) 6. G, it’s the sequence letters on the third line of a QWERTY keyboard (from bottom-up) from right to left.

7. 4: Multiply the first two numbers to get the next two numbers in a row. 8 x 8 = 64

Note: Questions were taken from a mixture of the Mensa website and the CRT (Cognitive reflection test).

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