Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults

> Correlation does not equal causation. Variation in genetics in a group can realistically be a factor as well. Three probable possibilities here: Only environment, Only genetics, both genetics and environment. Common sense says it's both genetics and environment.

Common sense says nothing about the weight of these factors nor does it say anything about “genetics” being archetypally delineated by race. Genetics for sure plays a role in intelligence.

You are appealing to non cognizance as a premise to support your biases. But that’s… dumb.

You are welcome to point to specific studies if you wish but the general consensus is that there is no statistical evidence of what you’re claiming to be obvious.

Most studies that attempt to normalize against socio cultural features recognize that it’s basically impossible to do. That’s why the best available premise is that since we broadly observe huge gains in population intelligence based on economic development within racial groups; it is most likely that economic and cultural differences occupy the lions share of any observable difference between racial groups currently as they’re all in different places.

>> Yes, but this means existing studies can't be relied on…

> Exactly my point with this line of thinking: It’s used to argue that you can’t rely on any studies, therefore it becomes a free license to reject everything and inject your own desired conclusions.

The "therefore" section of your comment is your own interpretation, not the reality of a society steered by science. It's why uneducated people believe in Bigfoot. We can't disprove Bigfoot, therefore he exists. It makes a certain kind of pre-modern sense, but it fails to take scientific discipline into account.

I'm tempted to call it the Avi Loeb version of cosmology -- we can't disprove the alien provenance of a small distant glowing object, therefore it's an alien craft. And Loeb has a Harvard position on his side -- for those who believe in scientific authority.

When confronted by this kind of thinking, I'm reminded of Richard Feynman's remark: "Science is the organized skepticism in the reliability of expert opinion."

And finally, it's why psychology has the reputation it does -- many psychologists have no hesitation about leaping ahead of the evidence.

You're right. Not only did the first paper not imply causation, they literally did not even consider it. They didn't consider that fulfilling our most critical and primal instinct, in an activity that [generally] creates psycho-emotional bonds like no other, might have positive psychological benefits. Does not not strike you as odd?

There's a practical issue with social science. Very near to 100% of researchers (from the US at least) share a common ideology, frequently to a fairly radical degree, and it regularly leaks into their research. You can even see this in the abstract of the paper. They show data indicating that parents have dramatically lower rates of mental illness than the general population and their conclusion? "Serious psychological distress is fairly prevalent among parenting adults." So for these sort of papers, I generally find their discussion and conclusions quite irrelevant, but the data is generally sound, so long as it's not overtly cherry picked.

I'd also add that the fact that positive psychological effects (in the second study) were not observed in childless couples seems to largely falsify the hypothesis that the psychological benefits of parenting were simply an observation of people with psychological issues being unable to have children in the first place.

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And yeah, having a child can be terrifying at times. My youngest recently went through roseola and we spent days in the hospital with him after his fever briefly spiked just under 107F/41.6C. That is sheer terror - holding your child who's running so hot that he's literally uncomfortable to hold against your body. Yet they have also changed my life, worldview, and overall psychological state in an unbelievably positive way on the whole, and I would (and do) wholeheartedly recommend them to any and every person who can provide a reasonably stable household with two loving parents.

Chicken, egg, or correlation without causation?

[and/]or, a contributing factor to the rightward shift of Western society?

The kids call it brainrot for a reason.