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January 1, 2009
Visiting Family Warps Your Brain
A new study suggests that the human brain reacts on a more primitive level to other family members, found this article interesting since, like many people, I just spent a lot of time with the extended nuclear family over Christmas. It actually went very well, but probably this is because Jonathan and Catherine weren't there, so there were less people competing in "The Crying Game", as we call it. "The Crying Game" was actually a real board game that Jonathan made one year where the goal is to try to make other members in the family cry, by bringing up sensitive subjects that most family members have struggled for years, alone, and with expensive help, to suppress.
Molly and I described The Crying Game to Amy, and she was basically mortified and shocked that anyone could be so cruel. I tried to explain to her that we try to put the "fun" in "dysfunctional", as it were. Someone always ends up blubbering in the end anyway - that's why the game was created. May as well cut to the chase. In theory, the game could possibly cause people to become less thin-skinned, if you knew people were deliberately trying to "get your goat", whatever-the-hell that means.
But that's all theory and, in practice, I'm sure that Amy's right and that we're a truly collective basket case - a psychoanalyst's dream. But this study suggests that all families are constructed of the crooked timber of humanity, so this makes me feel somewhat better, for whatever it's worth.
Posted by Rob Kiser on January 1, 2009 at 10:49 AM
Comments
That article is insightful, but makes me wonder about its accuracy. The article says that we like people that look like us around, but do not find them sexually attractive. That doesn't explain the South, now does it?
Posted by: WE Coyote SG on January 2, 2009 at 12:42 PM
Possibly not. But I did like the part where it says family warps your brain, so it makes me feel better to know that I'm not the only one that regresses around family members.
Posted by: Rob Kiser on January 3, 2009 at 3:03 PM