Search Results for: psychologists

The first International Telecommunications Society (ITS) webinar of 2026 is entitled, “How AI Changes Us”. The one-hour webinar will take place February 19 at 9:30am (Eastern).

What happens to the human mind when we begin sharing the world with new kinds of intelligence?

I have been supporting the ITS webinars for a number of years now. These free one-hour sessions present global experts to an audience around the globe for interesting insights and discussion of topical issues. The last session, held in mid-November, looked at “The Productivity Paradox and the Promise of Co-Intelligence”. February’s session will include a conversation discussing “Psychology, Morality, and Meaning in an Age of Intelligent Machines”, bringing psychology to the centre of the AI debate.

The presenters for the February event are two leading psychologists working at the intersection of human behaviour, trust, and artificial intelligence:

• Paul Bloom: Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto and author of numerous books, among them The Sweet Spot and Against Empathy. Professor Bloom is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost thinkers on moral psychology, meaning, and human motivation.
• Azim Shariff: Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia and Director of the Centre for Applied Moral Psychology. Professor Shariff is a global expert on morality, religion, and the ethics of emerging technologies, including AI.

Why do we trust some machines and fear others? Does AI change what we value and how we find meaning? How will children develop when they grow up with AI tutors and companions? What can moral psychology teach us about human-centric AI and alignment?

The webinar is scheduled for one hour, with 30 minutes dedicated to presentations and 30 minutes to question and answer.

This folks at ITS are saying “How AI Changes Us” is for anyone thinking seriously about AI, ethics, mental health, education, or the future of human flourishing in an age of intelligent machines.

Long time readers will recall that I come from a family of mental health professionals, so the theme of this upcoming webinar resonates with me. I hope to see you online on February 19.

And, please remember that Bell Let’s Talk day is coming up next week, January 21.

Do people have a BS blindspot? How many people think they are better at detecting misinformation than in reality?

Canadian psychologists, Shane Littrell (University of Toronto) and Jonathan Fugelsang (University of Waterloo) have been examining misinformation for a number of years. Last year, their paper in Thinking and Reasoning revealed a somewhat dangerous paradox. It seems the more confident we are in being able to distinguish between truth and misinformation, the more likely we are to be susceptible to false information: what they call the BS blindspot. Not only do the people worst at detecting misinformation think their abilities exceed reality, they also think they are better than most.

As I have been writing over the past few months (December’s “Creating more sophisticated content consumers”, and January’s “Dealing With disinformation”), we need to understand how to counter misinformation.

Littrell and Fuselsang have a new study released in Applied Cognitive Psychology [pdf, 4 MB] found “that asking people to reflect on why they find certain statements meaningful helps reduce receptivity to some types of misinformation but not others.”

It seems that much depends on the source of the information. The researchers found that claims from perceived experts can be largely immune to the kinds of interventions relying on reflective thinking.

In Illuminating human bias and our ability to be misled, Waterloo quotes Professor Fugelsang endorsing a long-term digital literacy strategy. “We need to teach misinformation awareness, healthy skepticism and encouraging reflective thinking early on in life — as early as elementary school.”

Is reflection the best medicine to treat an epidemic of misinformation? It depends. But, Littrell and Fugelsang suggest a reflective pause for anyone encountering information related to health, finance or politics, especially online.

We need to become more sophisticated consumers of content and information, to see past the BS blindspot. It needs to be considered a key component of improving our overall digital literacy.

Online disinhibition effect is a term used by psychologists to refer to the tendancy by some who hide behind online anonymity to be nasty without fear of repercussions.

In the early days of my blog, there was a piece called “4 degrees of impersonal communications” in which I wrote:

people say things in emails that they would never say to someone over the phone. And, over the phone (especially in a voice message), we seem willing to speak in ways that one would never consider saying face-to-face.

I will add that people say things in anonymous comments on blogs that add a further dimension. Perhaps it is a sign of the indifference associated with mass anonymity.

On Sunday mornings, one of my rituals is to watch CBS Sunday Morning. A few weeks ago, I saw the show rebroadcast a segment from last year that reminded me of my earlier blog post.

In the segment, correspondent David Pogue spoke with professor Mary Aiken, a forensic cyber psychologist who shared four ways online conversations differ from in-person conversations:

• First, we can see each other in real life, looking at visual cues, reading body language.
• Second, online exchanges may not take place in real time, leading to the possibility that things are taken out of context or misinterpreted.
• Third, most online discussions are public, meaning that the impact of insults have the potential to be amplified, increasing the impact, the shame and the pain.
• Fourth, online anonymity means no repercussions for being mean, or hurtful.

“Add all this together and you get what psychologists call the online disinhibition effect.”

The segment refers to a report from Paladin Capital Group, “Towards a Safer Nation: The United States ‘Safety Tech’ Market” [pdf, 2.0MB].

A new sector, the online safety technology or ‘Safety Tech’ sector, which complements the existing cybersecurity industry is gaining prominence. This research report has found evidence of an emerging and thriving US Safety Tech sector that aims to deliver solutions to facilitate safer online experiences and protect people from psychological risks, criminal dangers and online harm. Importantly, Safety Tech innovations also have the capacity to protect people from the corrosive effects of misinformation, online harassment, discrimination, and extremism which increasingly threaten democracy and civil society.

What is the difference between cybersecurity and cyber safety? Binary; cybersecurity primarily focuses on protecting data, systems and networks; cyber safety or Safety Tech focuses on protecting people.

As the CBS correspondent says in the segment, “Never in the history of the internet has anyone’s mind been changed by being yelled at”.

As Canada’s Parliament considers legislation to address online harms, can technology help to address solutions? How do we separate the person from the idea?

This year, Bell Let’s Talk Day – the world’s biggest conversation about mental health – is taking place on January 26.

Bell’s commitment to support mental health is especially meaningful to me. Back in 2010, when Bell first announced its plans to support mental health initiatives, I wrote a post “Talking about unmentionables.” In that post, I observed that “I grew up on the grounds of a children’s psychiatric research institute in London, Ontario, the son of a child psychiatrist.” In a way, mental health is the family business. My father is a psychiatrist and two of my siblings are clinical psychologists. So you can understand why I am taking a little time to promote the day.

It’s pretty easy for everyone to show support, even if you aren’t a Bell customer, by using the “BellLetsTalk” hashtag on social media. Every call or text by Bell customers adds even more to Bell’s support of Canadian mental health programs.

On Bell Let’s Talk Day, Bell donates 5 cents to Canadian mental health programs for every applicable text, local or long distance call, tweet or TikTok video using #BellLetsTalk, every Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube view of the Bell Let’s Talk Day video, and every use of the Bell Let’s Talk Facebook frame or Snapchat lens.

Over the past 11 years, there have been 1.3 billion messages of support, generating $121,373,806.75 in total Bell funding. #BellLetsTalk has become the most-used Canadian hashtag of all time.

I support Bell Let’s Talk initiative without reservation, and I encourage you to do so as well.

Keep being there for your friends and colleagues, keep listening to them, and on January 26, click to Tweet a message with #BellLetsTalk .

I like to think of myself as a reasonably seasoned internet user, with a pretty long history of using technology to empower working from home. After all, thirty-five years ago, I had a dedicated 56kbps line connected to my Bell Labs issued, AT&T UNIX PC for remote work access. Before then, I had a Northern Telecom Displayphone for connectivity to almost nothing useful.

Today’s virtual presence capabilities are truly remarkable, but it is only in the last couple weeks that I have been able to fully appreciate the power of video calling as a relatively meaningful substitute for physical contact.

We had grandchildren born during the COVID-19 lockdowns, in distant locations. We have daily video chats with apps like WhatsApp or FaceTime that have let us see the babies and their slightly older siblings. Only recently were we able to travel to meet the not-so-new members of the family.

Our 15 month-old woke up from her nap to find grandparents reaching for her. We are grandparents who, up until then, she only knew from a small screen, but she was willing to be held by those familiar faces with comforting voices.

I’m sure developmental psychologists will conduct in-depth studies of the impact of virtual connectivity on familial bonding. My singular data point shows that there was a surprising level of recognition, despite 15 months of missing tactile and olfactory sensory contact.

Still, as good a substitute as video may be, it’s nothing like the physical reality of touching, holding and hugging.

I even missed the smells of a 15 month old, but suspect this is an area that is ripe for innovation.