Day Two: Expectations And Realities - Getting To Grounded Work

Having seen on Day One that psychology could be applied successfully in organizations, today I want to look at a couple of the biggest movements in work psychology that arose out of work psychology rather than management thinking.

The first led to the OD movement, Organization Development began with action. Two types of action: Action Research and Action Learning. In a sentence both emphasize self-awareness as the key to organizations developing a strategic edge over the competition and to sustained growth and the strength to cope with change and when things go wrong.

Kurt Lewin [1890 - 1947]

Action Research was the child of one of the most brilliant minds ever in psychology, Kurt Lewin. Lewin was simply a brilliant mind, and a very good scientist. Many attribute the growth and impetus of social psychology and organizational psychology to him, and he influenced many outside of his specialist areas with his ideas and thinking.

The most famous example being his work on genidentity, also known as counterpart theory, that looks a the commonality between physics and biology to explain how objects arrive to be as they are - and whether they remain the same when the original materials are gone - for example, new cells in the human body, or the famous logic puzzle of the Ship of Thesus, where all parts of the ship are replaced - is it still the same ship? Fpr physicists these are important questions. It was no doubt this line of thought that seems to have turned Lewin from being a behavorist to a gestalt psychologist.

Behavorism initally looks very promising in psychology. It was, by far, the most influential movement in lab and experimental psychology in the early parts of the twentieth century, especially in America. Behavorism relies on scientific evidence, observation, and denies subjective experience. It you can’t produce the same result again it ain’t valid.

The only problem with this is that much of what psychology deals with: why do we think about things differently, what is the mind, why do we make decisions differently etc; are subjective.

Franz Brentano [1838 - 1917]

This gave rise to the Gestalt school in Berlin with its roots in Franz Brentano’s very influential lectures in Vienna from 1874 - 1895. Among Brentano’s circle that he is known to have directly influence include his most famous student Sigmund Freud, as well as the founder of anthroposophy Rudolph Steiner, the originator of the phemenology school, Edmund Husserl, which stated that all we know about the world is how our mind’s experience them, and the originator of the idea of the Gestalt, Christian von Ehrenfels. Bretano’s idea that the relation between the mind and the outside world is the relationship of the human condition was a hugely influential one.

Christian Von Ehrenfels [1859 - 1932]

Von Ehrenfels’ idea of the gestalt, along with Husserl phenomenology, found a champion of his cause in Max Wertheimer with is two of his colleagues Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka at the University of Frankfurt in 1912. Wertheimer began by looking at the phenomenon of human sight and light and kept wondering how we are able to piece together images from patterns rather than the whole.

Max Wertheimer [1880 - 1943]

These three went on to establish the Gestalt movement in Berlin. (Not to be confused with gestalt therapy also called empty chair therapy.) Wertheimer has read Ehrenfels’ work where the term gestalt (Literally: form) was coined to mean that sum of the whole is not only greater than its parts, but is also not simply put together in sequence, like say a computer, but rather arises organically from all directions. While juxtaposed to this, but in conjunction, structure does make up wholeness. It was influential thinking that and eventually would lead to cognitive psychology replacing behavorism..

In his own words:

“The basic thesis of gestalt theory might be formulated thus: there are contexts in which what is happening in the whole cannot be deduced from the characteristics of the separate pieces, but conversely; what happens to a part of the whole is, in clearcut cases, determined by the laws of the inner structure of its whole.”
Social Research, 11 (translation of lecture at the Kant Society, Berlin, 1924).

Gestalt was obviously a pretty useful way to think about how the mind and brain work. It was also a way to think about synergy and our social interactions in groups and organizations as surely the whole idea of the effect of an organization is to achieve something greater than the sum of the parts. It is also very sueful in problem solving as it asks who the parts relate to the whole, and how the whole relates to the parts; it also considers the gaps to be important

So back to Kurt Lewin.

Lewin had begun as a behavorist, but found in Gestalt what he had been missing: why groups work. He argued that group work should be better than it was, that group work should produce results, and that with self-awareness the group should get better and better at what they do.

Lewin began by looking at what stops us achieving our goals. He developed the idea and called it force field analysis. Asking what forces were stopping or helping us to go from our current state to our desired state helped groups to see the invisible problems more clearly - but identifying the problems alone wasn’t enough.

Lewin had the gumption to ask what about the people themselves? Aren’t we as often as not ourselves responsible for creating the force fields, for putting barriers in the way and making life difficult for the group?

Here, force field analysis helped, but the fact remained that though we see the fault in others easily we are slow to acknowledge it in ourselves.

The issue is not just how to tell someone what they need to do to change, or even get them to listen and understand that, the problem is to keep working with them effectively afterwards.

So Action Research.

Action research is a way of framing group work that allows people to create a learning environment, or in Lewin’s phrase a “community of practice”, it is both problem solving and a strategical tool that allows organizations to become more self-aware.

How does it work?

Well, it works on a learning loop. Loops are common in quality: plan, act, check, re-evaluate, we learn as we’re doing. They range from a simple plan-check-do cycle to more advanced cycles like Six Sigma and OODA loops. The latter helped fighter pilots to predict likely behavior of enemy pilots in Vietnam, six sigma developed by motorola reduces error to six parts or less in a million, handy in manufacturing.

Lewin coined the term feedback from electrical engineering to mean constructive criticism. More than that though action research is about building a non-judgemental culture in an organization where people genuinely listen to each other rather than simply pushing their viewpoint.

From the IDEAS site

Let us now cross the Atlantic to Britain.

And Reg Revans.

Reg Revans [1907 - 2003]

Revans was originally an astrophysicist studying with both Rutherford and Thompson at the Cavendish Laboratories at Cambridge University. I am lucky enough to have met those who knew Revans well, and the most common trait I have heard is that he was genuinely a humble man. He chose to leave his work in Cambridge to move instead to the Essex education board as he was convinced that he was an educator. He went on to beome the director of education between 1945-1950 of one of Britain’s largest employees: the National Coal Board.

While there he developed his ideas around Action Learning.

He developed a simple formula to express why people don’t succeed at work, and what they needed to do to remedy that:

L = P + Q

L is for learning. P = programmed knowledge (What we have been taught) and Q is for insightful questioning. So learning is a combination of knowledge and good questions. There are four major questions Who? Where? What? When? which should cover most aspects of the Q part of the equation.

Revans’ and Lewin’s point is entirely valid: we would rather damage our relationships in an organization rather than use some simple tools to acquire the wherewithal to learn how to genuinely learn and develop that organization effectively.

While it helps to have a practioner as an impartial facilitator the point is to find the heart and willingness to genuinely learn from each other. Management philosophy has picked up on this as we move more and more away from command and control structures to praticipative work.

Work psychology seeks to bring out the best in the organization, and Lewin and Revans both spent their lives dedicated to the idea that work should not be grey, crushing, or boring.

The other major point of the Action schools is that it moved work psychology into the workplace as a strategic tool to help individuals and companies develop strategies for excellence.

Day Three: Moving Beyond Humanistic Psychologies To The Modern Workplace

Day One: Re-Evaluating The Origins Of Work Psychology

Work psychology as discussed in the Course Introduction arose out of a need to accept that profitable work meant understanding how to get the most out of people at work.

This was not just about the relationship between people but also the relationship of people to an organization, and what working together means.

To see where to start we need to see how organizations arose, and where the work psychologist came from. Firstly, where it did not come from.

Henri Fayol [1841 - 1925]

Not surprisingly the Industrial Revolution gave rise to the need to organize the work force - and for that we need look no further than Henri Fayol - he might truly be called the father of modern management. His fourteen rules, published in 1917 as Administration Industrielle Ét Génerale while he was managing director of the Compagnie De Commentry Fourchambeau Decazeville mining company, are still relevant:

1. Specialization of labour. Specializing encourages continuous improvement in skills and the development of improvements in methods.
2. Authority. The right to give orders and the power to exact obedience.
3. Discipline. No slacking, bending of rules. The workers should be obedient and respectful of the organization.
4. Unity of command. Each employee has one and only one boss.
5. Unity of direction. A single mind generates a single plan and all play their part in that plan.
6. Subordination of Individual Interests. When at work, only work things should be pursued or thought about.
7. Remuneration. Employees receive fair payment for services, not what the company can get away with.
8. Centralization. Consolidation of management functions. Decisions are made from the top.
9. Chain of Superiors (line of authority). Formal chain of command running from top to bottom of the organization, like the military.
10. Order. All materials and personnel have a prescribed place, and they must remain there.
11. Equity. Equality of treatment (but not necessarily identical treatment).
12. Personnel Tenure. Limited turnover of personnel. Lifetime employment for good workers.
13. Initiative. Thinking out a plan and do what it takes to make it happen.
14. Esprit de corps. Harmony, cohesion among personnel. It’s a great source of strength in the organisation.

(Taken from Irwin Gray’s 1987 translation)

Fayol’s thinking when aligned with Max Weber’s bureaucracy and Fredrick Taylor’s scientific management gave all the impetus that was needed for classical management to thrive. However, it was noted to have drawbacks.

Why didn’t seem to make workers work harder simply because they wanted too?

And why was reward or punishment the only way to get them to work?

How could this new science from central Europe, psychology, with its emphasis on human behaviour, help?

Hugo Münsterberg [1863 - 1916]

One of the, if not the, psychologists who established the field of work psychology was Hugo Münsterberg. Münsterberg was noted for his scientific rigour, his keen mind, and an an emphasis on experimental psychology (That is psychological evidence garnered from experiments).

He not only worked at Harvard, but he was president of the American Psychological Association. (There is an excellent page from Muskigum College, OH; on him, that has been up since 1997, here.)

In 1913 he published in quick succession firstly a German version Psychologie und Wirlschaftsleben: Ein Beitrag zur angewandten Experimental-Psychologie (Leipzig: J.A. Barth) that he produced in English (And claimed from the off was not simply a translation but was adaptated to American culture) Psychology and Industrial Efficiency.

(Just to show life is stranger than imagination: the work is dedicated to one Harold F McCormick, then Chairman of The International Harvester Company, heir to the McCormick newspaper fortune, beneficiary of Chicago University, a man who had married the prototypical US tycoon John D Rockerfeller’s daughter, Edith, and then divorced said Edith to marry the notoriously bad opera singer, the truly marvelous Ganna Walksa, who married six times, including a Russian count, two millionaires, and the leading US Tibetan Buddhist scholar of the day. Orson Welles would later say that both Harold, along with other leading industrialists, and Gatta, in particular, were inspirational for the characters of Charles Foster Kane and Kane’s second wife, Susan Alexander, in his 1941 classic.)

Over twenty-four chapters, Münsterberg showed through experiments with electrical railway, telephone, and shipping workers that fitting the right person to the right job produced more satisfaction that F W Taylor’s scientific management, which has sought to find universal working conditions that would make work work for everyone.

The other major problem with Scientific Management he noted was that it was open to abuse: it could be used to not increase efficiency, but rather to increase work rates, and productivity in a machine like fashion (And he wasn’t half right either).

As a footnote: it wasn’t until 1966 that J W Brehm published his famous paper A Theory Of Psychological Reactance that the other major drawback to Scientific Management was fully noted.

Reactance is a cognitive bias (Why we think in certain ways, or act according to certain cognitive processes) that says humans naturally act opposite to what they believe will curtail their personal choices.

In Taylor’s defense he never meant Scientific Management to be abused, and did honestly believe that time and motion studies, and clocking in clocking out would improve work.

I actually remain a fan of Taylor’s writings, but not Taylorism. I believe that Taylor was right fundamentally right: it isn’t what we do that matters half as much as how we do it - and there are some universal rules that make work work. What makes others see us as professional will apply no matter what type of work we do: competence, composure, commitment etc; 

Münsterberg died in 1916 and would no doubt have appreciated the Hawthorne Experiments more than most. It is a tragedy that history concentrates more on Fredrick W Taylor and the Gilbreths than on Münsterburg.

A re-evaluation of his major contribution to modern HR is long overdue. His idea that if you find people who will love their work you will create a brilliant organization is very valid.

Then something happened that changed the way we think about people at work. At, in a fit of irony worthy of a Greek comedy, what began as an experiment to put people into artificially lit buildings and so make GE good pocket money in the proceedings, turned into one of the most important discoveries of work psychology

G Elton Mayo, F. J. Roethlisberger, and the Hawthorne experiments for General Electric, from fall of 1924 through to the spring of 1927, remain proof that if we approach science experimentation with an open mind we can truly contribute. The idea was originally a short study to see if brightness of light bulbs affected workers’ efficiency. Not suprisingly it was thought brighter bulbs brighter workers, dimmer bulbs dimmer workers.. The experiments were sponsored by the National Research Council of the National Association of Sciences in co-operation with The Illuminating Engineering Society’s Committee on Research.

The result was unexpected and could have been ignored in favour of the original premise, luckily Mayo had scruples, and a good solid scientific background in experimental psychology. His team and he discovered that giving the workers control over the light bulbs was way more effective way to get more work out of that individual than any increase in brightness, and in fact, under those circumstances, the wattage and luminosity of the bulb mattered not a jot. What he discovered is important: we want control, we want to be trusted to take control, we value being treated as adults, we want to be trusted to be allowed to have input and control over our environment.

Being a meticulous and good psychologist it took eight years in total, until 1932 for Mayo, and two further experiment designs (Involving relay assembly and bank wiring) to provide a set of data that showed that the right to individual determination in our choices creates cultural change in organisations. The conclusions, which deserve to be read slowly, wisely, and with an open heart, are here:

1. Work is a group activity.

2. The social world of the adult is primarily patterned about work activity.

3. The need for recognition, security and sense of belonging is more important in determining workers’ morale and productivity than the physical conditions under which he works.

4. A complaint is not necessarily an objective recital of facts; it is commonly a symptom manifesting disturbance of an individual’s status position.

5. The worker is a person whose attitudes and effectiveness are conditioned by social demands from both inside and outside the work plant.

6. Informal groups within the work plant exercise strong social controls over the work habits and attitudes of the individual worker.

7. The change from an established society in the home to an adaptive society in the work plant resulting from the use of new techniques tends continually to disrupt the social organization of a work plant and industry generally.

8. Group collaboration does not occur by accident; it must be planned and developed. If group collaboration is achieved the human relations within a work plant may reach a cohesion which resists the disrupting effects of adaptive society.

Not bad, eh?

Tomorrow we will look at how the social psychology movement created new thoughts about what work can be; but we will also look a the practical problems of work, and start to ask how work psychology can contribute to make work more than just a growing experience for the individual, it can also help companies to be strategically poised.

Day Two: Expectations And Realities - Getting To Grounded Work

“We work for 45 years, we work more than we are in any other relationship. You’ll see the people you work with more than you’ll see your children, partners, or anybody else. We work more than we sleep, eat, or any other human activity.

When we are 45 years old, we have worked for 20 years already, and yet we are only half-way through work with another 20 years ahead of us. How can we keep going? What gives us long-term motivation? What will keep us going? What will stop work being grey? Crushing? Boring?”

From “The Way of Intelegance” seminar introduction.

Hi, and welcome to the new course from Business Intelegant. Spread over 5 days (With an occassional break of a day or two when work gets busy for me), this course looks at some of the main types and tools used in one of the most interesting ways to answer that quote above: work psychology.

Work psychology, also called organizational psychology or I/O - Industrial / Organizational psychology is more than simply testing and evaluating candidates, or helping HR to design good job descriptions.

It’s even more than the strategic implementation of HR, the building and fostering of culture within organizations, and the research and practical tools and work design that aim to make work better.

It’s also been for a hundred years one of the most fertile grounds for reaping new ideas about what work can be - how work can help evolve new societies, how work can be creative, sustaining, and promote integrity and drive, rather than work as grey, boring, crushing and just plain yuk.

Scientists and thinkers like Kurt Lewin, Elton Mayo, Reg Revans, Rensis Likert, Chris Agyris, Peter Senge, Margaret Wheatley, and Otto Scharmer. We will talk about the theories that have driven the field in leadership, organization development, and new thinking and look at theories like Action Research, Action Learning, Organization Development, Force Field Analysis, 360° Feedback, Emotional Intelligence, Theory U, to names a few, and hopefully they’ll all be done is an Intelegant fashion -which aims for simple, intelligent, elegant approaches.

We will also look at work psychology as a academic and practical scientific discipline. It is only a slight exaggeration to say if ts human and works then it has been the subject of a paper: from induction to entrepreneurial leadership, to the interaction of work and family, to promotion, discipline, and reward, onto retirement and beyond all aspects of human behaviour at work is constantly under study.

Above all work psychology is about helping us to make work a better experience through a clearer understanding of the what work is. Ideally work should be a good experience - and a profitable one, for sure - and one that feeds and nourishes the other parts of our lives without dominating it.

I believe the more we learn about work the better work becomes. It doesn’t matter what you work with, the basic tenets that make all work workable, and the job a success, nearly always apply.

I hope you will join me on this journey and that work becomes more interesting - no matter what your aims are - as a result.

Occasionally it’s fun just to see what’s happening out there.

How I’d missed JoVE defeats me. Especially as it began up since December 2006.

It is a site dedicated to science at a pretty deep level using only video reports. All free and available from what I can see.

I, of course, really like the neuroscience section, but there is a good selection of all aspects of biology and immunology and is peer reviewed and definitely one of the better vBlogging science sites.

The link for the neuroscience section is

http://www.jove.com/index/browse.stp?Tag=Neuroscience

Warmly recommended.

Day Five: Conclusions and Optimism: A Biology Of Stress?

Over the course we’ve looked at the biology of stress: how the HPA axis releases hormones, how cortisol affects us, how neurotransmitters influence out behaviour and so on.

In wrapping up, I want to ask two questions: does an understanding of the biology and neuroscience of stress help? And, if we understand the biology of stress can we understand or begin to define a biology of success.

The first question is more complex than it initally appears. Yes, the more we understand the more we can have control, both physiologically and psychologically - one of the cornerstones of cognitive psychology is how we think about an isuue tends to be how we experience it - and understanding the physical effects of stress may help us to feel more in control. But does it help us control what makes us stressed? The little irritations, the pointed conversations, how we react when time is at a premium, or we are criticized unfairly and so on. This is a fair question. Obviously pharmaceuticals like Alprazolom - well-known commercially as Xanax and Nirvam - and Fluoxetine Hydrochloride - or Prozac marketed as Zoloft, Celexa, Luvox, and Paxil are one way to go, and can be very beneficial, but better, for most mild cases, would be a real understanding of what well-being entails.

Well-being is all looking after ourselves well: diet, exercise, unplugging our world, and learning to thrive, to be optimistic, rather than struggling to survive all are proven now to have a real impact on stress. When we consider that stress is a major contributory factor in both atherosclerosis, ischemic, and chronic obstructive heart disease, cerebrovascular (stroke), neoplams (cancer), and may have an influence on Alzheimer’s (Though this is not fully understood yet), the idea of well-being should not be dismissed lightly.

The second question is a fascinating one: the more we concentrate on what makes us ill, can we reverse that, and say what makes us and keeps us well. And morever, is there a biology of success?

As Richard Lazarus pointed out in 1974 not all stress is bad. Eustress, as he called it, is the feeling of achievement that we get when we succeed depsite the odds - when we fufill our ambitions. The Praeger Handbook On Stress And Coping which he edited with Alan Monat and Getchen Reevy is still considered the standard work on the subject. One clue to a biology if stress is better coping, but is t possible to talk about definite biology?

These process are not fully understood: yes, we understand about the reward pathways and the limbic system and it’s effects on us: when we are successful our bodies do learn new behaviours. More interestingly, the basal ganglia, which lies at the hinend of the brain and is one of the brain organ’s responsible for memory formation, together with the orbital frontal cortex produce a combination of signals that indicate behaviour we like and dislike. Dr Edmund Rolls of Oxford University did excellent research in this area in the 1980s.

Our brains are wired to react to environmental stimuli in a chemical fashion, yet more and more eivdence, from Quantum effects in neurons, to the effects of positivity and clarity in thought are showing empirically in fMRI and QEEG (Quantitive electroencephalography - measuring brain waves) that the effort required to change ingrained habits pays off. Depressingly, studies consistenly show that, on average, only one in nine people after a heart attack will adopt a halthier lifestyle - it seems old habits, literally, die hard. And that success and healthy living have to be incalculated into us at an early age.

I have say, from my own experience, Sweden as a whole is good at this. There is an expectation that people do not eat junk food, do take exercise, and generally health has a marked priority.

I hope that this course has been beneficial and I hope as the Decade of the Mind, launched in 2007, continues we will learn far more about how to undo the harmful effects of stress.

Day Four: Neurotransmitters and Cognitive Strategies

So far we have looked at the biology of stress. The hormones, and physical effects of stress. On day three we looked at emotions. Today we will look a tthe neuroscience of motivation and some tools associated with cognitive psychology that are beneficial.

I remember one of the biggest surprises for me when I began learning about the brain was that there is a physical center of motivation in the brain. While this now seems entirely logical, I had imagined it was all psychological, if the will and I wanted to then I would motivate myself.

Not so.

We need to start with an overview of neurotransmitters.

Neurotransmitters are the chemical powerhouse of the brain. Made from amino acids synthesized from the proteins found in food intake. The two crucial amino acids are tryptophan and tyrosine. Tryptophan helps us feel calm, tyrosine helps us feel alert. Converted into neurotransmitters, they enable the brain’s neurons to fire. Different neurotransmitters perform different tasks. Though some 100 neurotransmitters have been identified, for our purposes we will focus on the four most common ones.

The first we’ll look at is the one most affected by stress: dopamine. Dopamine is responsible for us feeling active , lively, having a good immune response to disease, sexual arousal, and helps us face up to, and feel prepared for challenges. It is also responsible for a feeling of reward, and finally and significantly, it is, in part responsible, for addictive behaviour when it comes to drugs and alcohol. Without dopamine not only do we feel physically sluggish, we also start to lose attentiveness. Diet plays a crucial part in all neurotransmitters’ synthesis. Dopamine likes fresh fruit, and dislikes alcohol, and caffeine.

The second: serotonin. Serotonin makes us feel calm, promotes normal sleep, keeps blood pressure normal, promotes learning, and helps memory. Lack of serotonin disrupts sleep, makes us aggressive, and can lead to obssesive-compulsive eating disorders. Serotonin is the tryptophan neurotransmitter. Foods that help include brown rice and cottage cheese, as well as meat, and cheeses.

Thrirdly, norepephrine. Also called norandrenalin. Synthesized from tyrosine it is the brain’s andrenaline, and helps us feel alert. It plays an important part in memory. Foods that help include fruits and nuts, especially bananas, alsmonds, and pumpkin and sesame seeds.

And fourthly, acetylcholine. Acetylcholine (ACh) is essential for memory. It is not made from amino acids but from choline. Choline, discovered by Andreas Strecker in 1864, is an organic compound, noramlly classified with the vitamin B group. ACh is essential for brain plasticity - the ability to adapt, grow, and change, and helps the brain concentrate. Supplements of vitamin B5, C, and phosphstidyl choline all help ACh.

Obviously, one of the most under-rated keys to reducing stress is a good diet. This couple with exercise, and good cognitive strategies dramatically help us to reduce stress.

This brings us to cognitive strategies. I want in particular to look at Appreciative Inquiry (AI).

AI and Appreciative systems are used in organization development to find the positive values of the organization. Essentially it asks “What do we do well?”, rather than focusing on mistakes. Handled well it is a very powerful lever to produce real change in organizations.

M ixing AI and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) can be applied in a coaching model. CBT asks “Why do you think and act they way you do?”

Challenging ourselves to say “How can we do more of what we do well?” is powerful. Complementing the positive psychology of Seligman, and developed by David Cooperider, AI asked a fundamentally important question “Why do we focus our energies on what goes wrong, rather than what is right?”

We might well ask the same in medicine: how do we develop the good habits that produce a healthier brain and body.

Final Day: Conclusions And A Strategy For Stress

From Medical News Today

Using imaging technology for the first time to investigate the phenomenon, US researchers have revealed what goes on in the brain when we scratch, giving new clues about why the behaviour brings relief and is hard to stop.

The study is the work of researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina, and is published in the 31st January early online issue of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.

Lead author and dermatologist specializing in itch-related conditions, Dr Gil Yosipovitch said:

“It’s important to understand the mechanism of relief so we can develop more effective treatments.”

“For some people, itch is a chronic condition that affects overall health,” explained Yosipovitch.

He and his colleagues wrote that imaging studies had looked at how the brain reacts to pruritis or itching conditions, but not what happens when the behavioural response, scratching, is going on.

The researchers recruited 13 healthy participants to undergo functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of scan where you can see different areas of the brain light up when the volunteer is doing different things, for instance when using limbs, thinking or talking.

A small brush was used to scratch participants on the lower leg for 30 seconds, then stopped for 30 seconds, then started again, and so on, for five minutes altogether.

The researchers found, to their surprise, that during the 30 seconds of scratching time, parts of the brain normally active when aversive emotions and memories are experienced, became significantly less active.

The parts of the brain showing reduced activity during scratching were the anterior cingulate cortex, which is linked with aversion to unpleasant sensory stimuli, and the posterior cingulate cortex, which is associated with memory. Lowest activity in these areas coincided with times when the participants felt the scratching to be most intense.

Yosipovitch said:

“We know scratching is pleasurable, but we haven’t known why. It’s possible that scratching may suppress the emotional components of itch and bring about its relief.”

He said sometime patients find intense scratching, sometimes so hard that the skin bleeds, is the only way to relieve chronic itching.

“This is the first real scientific evidence showing that itch may be inhibited by scratching,” said Yosipovitch.

He was keen to point out that scratching is not recommended because it damages the skin, but it is important to find out what is going on when people feel relief from scratching so new treatments can be developed, such as drugs that target the relevant part of the brain to produce the same effect.

As well as finding that some parts of the brain became less active during scratching, Yosipovitch and colleagues found that other parts became more active. This included activtation of both sides of the secondary somatosensory cortex, which is involved in pain, and the prefrontal cortex, which is linked to compulsive behaviour.

Other parts of the brain that also became bilaterally more active during scratching were the insular cortex, the inferior parietal lobe, and the cerebellum.

The activation of the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with compulsive behaviour, might explain the compulsive nature of scratching behaviour - the urge to keep on scratching, said the researchers.

There is one limitation to the study which could be significant, and that is the scratching was not done when itch was present. The scientists are carrying on with the research to see if they get the same results with chronic itch. They suggested that:

“Future studies that investigate the central effects of scratching in chronic itch conditions will be of high clinical relevance.”

The researchers said it was important to find new treatments because moderate to severe itch bothers many people, for instance anyone with eczema, which in American alone affects 30 million people.

Another group that will benefit from new treatments are over 40 per cent of kidney dialysis patients, who have a 17 per cent higher risk of dying, probably because of lack of sleep, if they have itch.

“The Brain Processing of Scratching.”
Gil Yosipovitch, Yozo Ishiuji, Tejesh S Patel, Maria Isabel Hicks, Yoshitetsu Oshiro, Robert A Kraft, Erica Winnicki and Robert C Coghill.
J Invest Dermatol advance online publication, January 31, 2008.
Doi:10.1038/jid.2008.3

The Abstract is available here.

It’s Friday. For those following the Business Intelegant five day course, days four and five will appear on the site after the weekend.

Have a great weekend and I look forward to seeing you all next week.