PsychNews

2 Personality Traits Linked To Longer Life (M)

Jeremy Dean — Thu, 23 Dec 2021 18:00:58 GMT

There are two psychological traits that help people resists the connection between stress and biological aging.

A Fascinating Sign Of High IQ

Jeremy Dean — Thu, 23 Dec 2021 16:00:32 GMT

People with high intelligence tend to have this quality.

The 12 Psychology Studies of Christmas

Jeremy Dean — Wed, 22 Dec 2021 17:10:46 GMT

How to have a happy Christmas according to psychology, the best type of chocolate, when gifts go wrong and more...

This Simple Technique Triples Weight Loss

Jeremy Dean — Wed, 22 Dec 2021 16:00:30 GMT

This vital weight loss technique is nothing to do with diet and exercise.

2 Simple Signs Of Vitamin B12 Deficiency

Jeremy Dean — Wed, 22 Dec 2021 15:00:47 GMT

Up to one-quarter of people may have a vitamin B12 deficiency.

Our Most Popular Posts Of 2021

BPS Research Digest — Wed, 22 Dec 2021 10:00:00 GMT

By Matthew Warren

This time last year, we wrote that Covid-19 had rendered 2020 a year like no other. Yet it quickly became clear that 2021 was going to be pretty similar, with the pandemic continuing to affect the day-to-day lives even of those of us who were lucky enough not to contract the virus. It’s not surprising, then, that much of our coverage this year has focused on the work of psychologists studying the effects of Covid-19 and lockdowns.

But the year also began with some hope: vaccines had just been approved, and were being rolled out across the world. Unfortunately, alongside this massive public health effort there was a proliferation of conspiracy theories and misinformation. So we’ve also focused on efforts to understand how false information spreads — and how to combat it.

For me, the year began with hope of another kind: on 1^st January I became a father. It’s no coincidence that a lot of my own posts this year have been about child development. And while I was off on parental leave, Research Digest welcomed Emma Barratt, whose fascinating articles covered everything from video games to hallucinations — and yes, Covid-19.

So it’s been a year of ups and downs — and this is reflected in our most popular posts of the year, which are as wide-ranging as ever…

10) Hand Gestures Help Students Mentally Organise New Information

Teachers might want to consider using more hand gestures in class, according to this study we covered in September. The researchers found that students were better at making inferences based on material they had just learned if their instructor had used “structure gestures”, which allocate spoken information to physical space. The team thinks this is because these gestures provide a scaffold that students can use to mentally organise information.

9) Belief In Conspiracy Theories Is Associated With Lower Levels Of Critical Thinking

This year’s vaccination drive was a huge public health undertaking — and one that inevitably attracted a small but vocal group of conspiracy theorists. This post from February looked at one factor associated with believing in conspiracy theories: reduced levels of critical thinking. Although the work is limited by its correlational design, it suggests that fostering critical thinking skills may help to protect people against conspiratorial thinking. And for practical advice on how to talk to loved ones who may have fallen for a conspiracy theory, check out our feature from July.

8) It Turns Out You Can Bullshit A Bullshitter After All

We all love a pithy saying — but they’re not always the most reliable sources of information about how the world works. This year, for instance, researchers found that it’s not true to say that “You can’t bullshit a bullshitter”. Using the delightfully-named “Bullshitting Frequency Scale” and “Bullshit Receptivity Scale”, the team found that people who bullshit out of a desire to impress or persuade others are also more susceptible to believing bullshit themselves. (See also “Money can’t buy happiness” — it’s a bit more complicated than that).

7) The Experience Of Being “Tolerated”, Rather Than Accepted, Leads To Lower Wellbeing Among Ethnic Minority Groups

Tolerance is often seen as a virtue — and yet, if you “tolerate” someone, you’re not exactly giving them a warm welcome. This study found that for people from ethnic minority backgrounds, the experience of being tolerated is actually closer to discrimination than it is to acceptance.

6) How To Cope With Failure, According To Psychology

Countless articles tell us how to set ourselves up for success and live our best lives. But it’s equally important — or perhaps more important — that we learn how to deal with the inevitable failures. So in March we highlighted five evidence-based tips for coping with failure.

5) Study Explores Personalities Of People With Adult Separation Anxiety, A “Neglected Clinical Syndrome”

Separation anxiety in children is a well-known phenomenon. But a paper we covered in October looked at how it manifests in adults — and whether it is related to any particular personality traits. The team found links between adult separation anxiety and a number of personality measures, including negative emotionality, absorption, and aggression.

4) Cats Like To Sit In Squares — Even Ones That Are Really Optical Illusions

A story about cats and optical illusions?! No wonder it was one of our most read of the year.

3) We Think Anger Is A Sign Of Guilt — But It May Actually Be A Better Sign Of Innocence

We tend to think that an accused person who makes an angry denial is more likely to be guilty than one who reacts calmly. And yet, this study showed, anger isn’t a good sign of guilt — in fact, it may be more likely that an angry person is innocent.

2) Ghosting Is More Acceptable To People With “Dark Triad” Traits

What kind of person thinks it’s OK to end a relationship by just disappearing? This study provided some clues, finding that people with Machiavellian and psychopathic traits are particularly likely to think that ghosting is acceptable.

1) The “Learning Styles” Myth Is Still Prevalent Among Educators — And It Shows No Sign of Going Away

I remember completing an exercise at school that taught me whether I was a “visual”, “auditory”, or “kinaesthetic” learner. The only issue? It’s simply not true that we each have a specific “learning style” that works best for us. And yet most educators continue to believe this myth. This paper reviewed existing work on the topic, finding that a whopping 89% of teachers or trainees across studies subscribed to the idea of learning styles.

That’s it from us for this year — we’ll see you back here in 2022!

Matthew Warren (@MattBWarren) is Editor of BPS Research Digest

How To Boost Your Mental Health In Only 10 Minutes (M)

Jeremy Dean — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 18:00:44 GMT

It boosts our ability to regulate our emotions, avoid temptations and control bad habits.

5 Foods And Drinks That Reduce Blood Pressure

Mina Dean — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 16:30:04 GMT

The foods and drink that lower blood pressure and prevent heart disease.

This Vitamin Reduces Inflammation Caused By COVID

Mina Dean — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 16:00:26 GMT

This vitamin reduces inflammation caused by the immune system in response to COVID-19.

A Tiring Sign Of Vitamin D Deficiency

Jeremy Dean — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 15:00:41 GMT

A walk of as little 20 minutes in the daylight is enough to provide sufficient levels of vitamin D.

Watching A Lecture Twice At Double Speed Can Benefit Learning Better Than Watching It Once At Normal Speed

BPS Research Digest — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 10:10:00 GMT

By Emma Young

Watching lecture videos is now a major part of many students’ university experience. Some say they prefer them to live lectures, as they can choose when to study. And, according to a survey of students at the University of California Los Angeles, at least, many students also take advantage of the fact that video playback can be sped up, so cutting the amount of time they spend on lectures. But what impact does sped-up viewing have on learning? The answer, according to a new paper in Applied Cognitive Psychology, is, within some limits, none. In fact, if used strategically, it can actually improve learning. However, what students think is going to be the best strategy isn’t actually what’s most beneficial, Dillon Murphy at UCLA and colleagues also report.

First, the team assigned 231 student participants to watch two YouTube videos (one on real estate appraisals and the other on the Roman Empire) at normal speed, 1.5x speed, 2x speed or 2.5x speed. They were told to watch the videos in full screen mode and not to pause them or take any notes. After each video, the students took comprehension tests, which were repeated a week later. The results were clear: the 1.5x and 2x groups did just as well on the tests as those who’d watched the videos at normal speed, both immediately afterwards and one week on. Only at 2.5x was learning impaired.

When the team surveyed a separate group of UCLA students, they found that a massive 85% usually watched pre-recorded lectures at faster than normal speed. However, 91% said they thought that normal speed or slightly faster (1.5x) would be better for learning than 2x or 2.5x. These new results certainly suggest that this isn’t right: double-time viewing was just as good as normal viewing. It seems, then, that as long as the material can still be accurately perceived and comprehended, it’s okay to speed up playback.

So, a student could just watch videos at 2x speed and halve their time spent on lectures….Or, according to the results of other studies reported in the paper, they could watch a video at 2x normal speed twice, and do better on a test than if they’d watched it once at normal speed. The timing mattered, though: only those who’d watched the 2x video for a second time immediately before a test, rather than right after the first viewing, got this advantage.

The team also explored whether watching the videos at different speeds on separate occasions — initially at normal speed but then at double time, or vice versa — might make a difference to test performance immediately afterwards or a week later. Though 76% of the participants in this study said they thought watching first at normal speed then rewatching at double time would be best for learning, the order actually made no difference to test results. “Thus, although students may prefer certain study schedules or techniques, there are instances where their beliefs about self-regulated learning do not enhance learning outcomes,” the team writes.

The results offer some guidance for students at US universities considering the optimal revision strategy. In a standard college course, a midterm exam might test on material contained in 10 hours’ of lecture videos. So a student might want to watch them in double time when they are released and then again in double time just before the exam. However, the team did only look at one-week delays between video watching and testing, so this would need to be explored in further research.

The researchers do also add a few caveats. While 2x viewing was fine for learning about the material in their studies — real estate appraisals and the Roman Empire — perhaps it might not work for more complex subject matter; again, only more research will tell.

But as so many students do report watching at faster than normal speeds anyway, this work is clearly helpful: it suggests that as long as it’s not more than 2x faster, it’s far from being a bad idea.

– Learning in double time: The effect of lecture video speed on immediate and delayed comprehension

Emma Young (@EmmaELYoung) is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

Two Emotional Skills That Are Blunted By Early Life Stress (M)

Jeremy Dean — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 18:00:12 GMT

One of the reasons that experiencing stress early in life is a major risk factor for depression.

How Chasing Happiness Can Make You Unhappy

Jeremy Dean — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 16:30:56 GMT

The ironic reason chasing happiness can make you feel worse.

Omicron Symptoms: 5 Obvious Signs Of The Latest COVID Variant

Jeremy Dean — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 15:30:45 GMT

So far Omicron symptoms have proved milder than those associated with the previously dominant Delta variant.

A Night-Time Sign of Vitamin B12 Deficiency

Jeremy Dean — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 15:00:19 GMT

Around one-quarter of people could have a deficiency in vitamin B12.

Fear Of Spiders May Have Its Evolutionary Roots In Aversion To Scorpions

BPS Research Digest — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 10:00:00 GMT

By Emma Young

“But they won’t hurt you! They eat bugs. They’re our friends!” I’ve tried telling my now-12-year-old all these things many times over the years, but his fear of spiders persists. It’s hardly a rare fear; an estimated 6% of the general population suffer from full-blown arachnophobia. The leading explanation is that our ancestors evolved to fear spiders, and this has been passed on to us. But there are a few problems with this, point out the authors of a new paper in Scientific Reports.

Firstly: only 0.5% of spider species are potentially dangerous to humans. Secondly: these species are mostly found not in Africa, where modern humans evolved, but rather Australia and South America, the two continents that have been most recently colonised by people. Given this, the idea of an evolved, generalised fear of spiders doesn’t seem that compelling. Daniel Frynta at Charles University, Prague, and colleagues had another idea: perhaps we evolved to fear not “essentially harmless” spiders but a dangerous close relative with a similar body body plan: scorpions — and our brains over-generalise, reacting to spiders in the same way. To investigate this, they ran a study that would have left my 12-year-old with nightmares for months…

The team collected together live specimens of 62 arthropod species: 15 spiders, 10 scorpions, 5 other arachnids (such as whip “spiders”), 10 cockroaches, 10 other “hemimetabolous insects” (a group that includes earwigs, stick insects and locusts), 6 myriapods (centipedes, millipedes and their relatives), 4 beetles and 2 crabs. Each of these animals was placed in a transparent box. These boxes were then lined up for inspection by 329 participants, who used 7-point scales to rate each on scales for fear, disgust and also beauty.

Let’s get beauty out of the way first: species that got high disgust ratings tended to get low beauty ratings, but there was no link between beauty and fear ratings. In other words, we can find an arthropod both scary and beautiful.

For fear, the team noted that the taxa fell into distinct groups. The “chelicerates” (the spiders, scorpions and other arachnids) got relatively high average scores, followed by the myriapods (which were definitely less fear-inducing) and finally the insects and crustaceans.

For disgust, the pattern was similar to that for fear. Myriapods did get the highest average score, but it wasn’t far off the score for spiders. Again, the beetles and crabs got the lowest scores. Overall, the fear and disgust ratings were highly correlated.

Bigger species did tend to trigger stronger emotional reactions — they got higher fear, disgust and beauty scores. But the deepest statistical split in the fear-and-disgust ratings was between the chelicerates cluster (spiders/scorpions/other arachnids) and a cluster of insects-plus-crustaceans. “This supports the notion that chelicerates are perceived as one cohesive group distinct from other arthropods,” the team argues.

Unlike the vast majority of spiders, scorpions do post a genuine threat, killing an estimated 2,600 people every year. Scorpions are also an ancient group, and species with a venom tailored to mammals are native to Africa and the Middle East — so our distant ancestors and dangerous scorpions could have evolved side-by-side. “Fear of scorpions therefore seems to be better warranted than fear of spiders,” the team writes.

Of course, the data don’t show that people generalise an evolved fear/disgust of scorpions to spiders. As the team acknowledges, this is a big limitation of the study. But it’s a sensible way to interpret the data, they argue. And, compared with other theories about why so many people are so scared of spiders (over dogs, say), it does indeed seem more compelling.

– Emotions triggered by live arthropods shed light on spider phobia

Emma Young (@EmmaELYoung) is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

How Not Having Children Affects Your Happiness

Jeremy Dean — Sun, 19 Dec 2021 17:00:33 GMT

Are people who choose not to have children any less happy, or perhaps happier, than those who do have children?

COVID: The Vitamin That Boosts The Immune System

Mina Dean — Sun, 19 Dec 2021 16:00:08 GMT

"Food is our first medicine and the kitchen is our first pharmacy."

Omicron Symptoms: The Warning Signs To Look Out For

Mina Dean — Sun, 19 Dec 2021 15:00:45 GMT

Do Omicron symptoms look like a common cold?

A Simple Sign Of Vitamin D Deficiency

Jeremy Dean — Sun, 19 Dec 2021 13:00:45 GMT

Around 60% of people may have a vitamin D deficiency.

Depression: This Tiny Change to Diet Has Protective Effect (M)

Jeremy Dean — Sat, 18 Dec 2021 18:00:00 GMT

This small change to your diet could be enough to reduce the risk of depression.

The Most Effective Technique To Maintain Weight Loss

Jeremy Dean — Sat, 18 Dec 2021 14:00:42 GMT

Study tests if diet or exercise is better for maintaining weight loss.

Flow: What Happens In Your Brain When You Are In The Zone (M)

Jeremy Dean — Fri, 17 Dec 2021 18:00:02 GMT

In a flow state you feel even difficult tasks are effortless and an hour can pass in the blink of an eye.

2 Personality Traits That Indicate High IQ

Jeremy Dean — Fri, 17 Dec 2021 17:00:22 GMT

The personality traits that suggest you have higher intelligence.

The Common Drink That Doubles Weight Loss

Jeremy Dean — Fri, 17 Dec 2021 11:00:00 GMT

A glass or two each day can help to boost weight loss by 100 percent.

7 Weird Signs You Are A Really Creative Person (M)

Jeremy Dean — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 18:00:06 GMT

Being sarcastic, ignoring deadlines and these five other unusual things are all linked to higher creativity.

This Vitamin Deficiency Increases COVID-19 Risk

Jeremy Dean — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 14:00:25 GMT

Being low in the vitamin puts these workers at higher risk of catching COVID-19.

Oral History Study Explores What It’s Like To Receive An Autism Diagnosis Later In Life

BPS Research Digest — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 11:03:18 GMT

By guest blogger Dan Carney

A key development in autism research in the last twenty-odd years has been the use of less rigid methods such as interviews, fieldwork, and surveys, instead of those based on standardised measurements or other “laboratory-based” tasks. These looser approaches, in tandem with the increasing popularity of autobiographical writing by autistic people, have served to complement more traditional research by adding nuance and detail to understandings of the condition.

Now, a team from Australia led by Rozanna Lilley has used such an approach with a population underrepresented in autism research, namely late-diagnosed adults. The authors conducted oral history interviews with 26 autistic adults born before 1975 — thus growing up before the condition was widely known — and diagnosed when over the age of 35. Lilley and colleagues were interested in how participants’ sense of their own identity has changed over time, and how receiving a diagnosis may have impacted this.

The project involved the autistic community throughout. The research team included three late-diagnosed autistic adults, two of whom conducted the interviews. An autistic advisory group was also consulted at every stage. Interviews were semi-structured, meaning questions were prepared but adhered to loosely, to enable divergence and further exploration of anything arising. This allowed participants to tell their stories in their own way, and enhance their accounts with artefacts such as photographs or other personal objects.

Responses underwent thematic analysis, whereby content is inspected meticulously for any themes that repeatedly emerge. Four key themes relating to interviewees’ perception of self came out of this analysis. The first, “being different”, reflected the fact that participants felt a sense of difference from a young age. They reported both negative factors such as feeling marginalised or excluded, and more positive ones, such as heightened intelligence, curiosity, creativity, and sense of self-containment, or being in a “bubble”.

The second theme identified was “exploring identity”. Participants reported using role-playing to help them fit in; this is in keeping with studies which have shown that autistic people sometimes employ strategies involving “camouflaging” or “masking” the true self in order to conform to societal expectations. Some interviewees also highlighted the idea of self-reinvention as a way to escape these demands.

The third theme, “the suffering self”, concerned participants’ negative self-conceptions and feelings of turmoil. For some, there was a clear relationship between trauma, negative self-conceptions, and suffering. Reported traumatic events included severe bullying and childhood sexual abuse, with one participant describing how she blamed herself for the abuse she had endured. There is relatively little knowledge about how the impact of such events may be further complicated by being autistic, and this finding emphasises the need for more work in this area.

The final theme, “being Autistic”, centred around participants’ transformed sense of self following an autism diagnosis. This was overwhelmingly positive. Diagnosis provided an explanation for past challenges, enabled self-acceptance, and contributed to a greater sense of “self-authenticity”. That diagnosis was so key to participants’ sense of their own identity contradicts studies that suggest autistic people experience their autism as “separate” from, or at odds with, their “true” selves.

The authors also observe that participants’ level of self-awareness, and their ability to reflect on their changing self-identity over time, was impressive. This is at odds with the prevailing idea — frequently inferred from studies finding autistic people’s autobiographical accounts to be lacking — that autism involves a deficit in self-perception. This suggests that how studies collect autobiographical data from autistic people is important, with a looser approach enabling richer responses.

Although all interviewees had spent most of their lives in Australia, knowledge of autism in that country has developed roughly in parallel with the UK, with inclusion of the condition in the DSM-III in the 1980s prompting a diagnostic surge in both countries. However, one sample-related limitation — which the authors acknowledge — is that most participants were white, well educated, and middle class. Given the importance of context and experience in any study based on oral histories, it is debatable whether all findings would hold across different cultural and economic backgrounds. Secondly, the authors point out that research of this nature attracts individuals who identify positively with their diagnosis. Those who have a negative experience, or might not feel particularly affected, may thus be underrepresented. Future work should address these issues.

Nevertheless, this is a study that sheds light on both the changing perceptions of the self in autistic people and the positive aspects of an autism diagnosis. It also demonstrates that research that meets autistic people on their own terms, acknowledging that they have experience-based expertise and allowing them the freedom to construct detailed and nuanced accounts of these experiences, significantly adds to our understanding of the condition.

–‘A way to be me’: Autobiographical reflections of autistic adults diagnosed in mid-to-late adulthood.

Post written for BPS Research Digest by Dr. Dan Carney. Dan is a UK academic psychologist specialising in developmental disorders. He undertook his post-doctoral research fellowship at London South Bank University, and his published work has examined cognition, memory, and inner speech processes in Williams syndrome and Down syndrome, as well as savant skills in autism.

An Insomnia Treatment That Halves Depression Risk (M)

Jeremy Dean — Wed, 15 Dec 2021 18:00:13 GMT

Many people who develop insomnia also go on to experience depression.

Calls To Mental Health Helplines Increased Early In The Pandemic

BPS Research Digest — Wed, 15 Dec 2021 09:50:00 GMT

By Emily Reynolds

From early 2020, concerns were raised about the impact of the pandemic on mental health. The stresses of lockdown, social isolation, financial precarity, and widespread grief were all considered to be potential triggers for poor mental health, along with issues such as increased domestic violence.

A new study, published in Nature, looks at what helpline calls can reveal about mental health during this period. It finds an increase in calls to helplines during the early days of the pandemic, largely driven by fear, loneliness, and worries about physical health.

Marius Brülhart from the University of Lausanne and colleagues used data from both general crisis lines and specific suicide prevention lines, as well as those focusing on children, parents, and immigrants. Data was collected from January 2019 to the most recent available date in order to cover the period before and during the pandemic, with 8 million calls from 19 countries included in the dataset.

First, the team looked at call volumes, before zooming in on the conversational topics raised by callers. For each helpline, calls were categorised based on topic, including loneliness, fear, suicidality, addiction, violence, physical health, work situation, and relationships. Demographic data was collected here if possible, including marital status, living situation, and work situation. Government responses of helpline countries were also measured, including how stringent restrictions were and how much governments were supporting people financially.

The team found an increase in calls during the pandemic, in particular in the six weeks after the first outbreak. A significant increase began at week three and this peaked at week six, at which point the volume of calls exceeded pre-pandemic levels by 35%.

In terms of conversational topics, most pre-COVID calls were made because of relationship issues, loneliness, or anxiety; 61% of calls were from women and 63% placed by people between the ages of 30 and 60. However, during the pandemic, conversational topics shifted. The biggest increase in calls placed during the pandemic period were those related to fear — whether of COVID-19 itself or of the ramifications of lockdown.

Calls related to loneliness also increased, with other conversational topics coming up less frequently during the first wave of the pandemic. Compared to pre-COVID, callers were less likely to seek help for relationship issues, economic worries, and addiction, though there was no significant change in the percentage of calls related to suicidal ideation.

Demographically speaking, the increase in calls related to fear was driven almost entirely by those over the age of 30, which tracks with the increasing level of risk of contracting COVID with age. Women under the age of 30 were more likely to call because of violence than they were before the pandemic. But overall, the increase in call volume was driven by fears of the virus and of loneliness rather than by these other factors.

Many of these figures could be underestimates in terms of who was struggling and with what — during strict lockdowns, it may have been difficult for people to access helplines, particularly if they were subject to domestic violence or had no privacy in talking through their suicidal ideation. There will also have been many who didn’t call crisis lines but who were nonetheless experiencing distress. The results, therefore, do not contradict those other pieces of research that detected an increase in domestic violence.

The results offer a unique insight into people’s mental health over the period of the pandemic. Many people will have been experiencing distress; not all of them will meet thresholds to be assessed by mental health professionals, nor may even want to visit them in the first place. Helpline calls, therefore, could give greater access to feelings people found hard, painting a more accurate picture of how we experienced the pandemic.

– Mental health concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic as revealed by helpline calls

Emily Reynolds is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

Once A Meanie, Always A Meanie: Toddlers Are Harsh Judges Of Moral Character

BPS Research Digest — Tue, 14 Dec 2021 10:02:54 GMT

By guest blogger Sofia Deleniv

Over the past ten years, developmental psychologists have been astounded by the young age at which children appear to be aware of the moral qualities of others’ actions. At just four months, babies already react with surprise when others engage in unequal distribution of treats and resources. They also snub these unfair individuals in social interactions by the age of 24 months and expect others to do the same . Other forms of moral judgement may emerge even sooner: as early as 3 months of age, infants show distinct preferences for those who help, as opposed to hinder, others.

In thinking about these nascent moral judgements, researchers have become interested in figuring out their underlying mental “structure”. Do children’s moral rules operate like a loose “‘anthology”, where judgements passed on the basis of one principle have little effect on judgements on the basis of another? Or is there a deeper underpinning mental framework that gives rise to a multitude of connected moral expectations?

A recent study in PNAS by a duo of American researchers breaks new ground on this fascinating question. It reveals that toddlers are guided by a core mental representation of what it means to be a moral person (albeit with some potentially concerning caveats). Within this moral framework, a single faux pas risks entirely sweeping an individual from a child’s good books.

In their set of experiments, the researchers examined how 25-month-old toddlers reacted to a series of morally loaded social interactions staged during a puppet show. The toddlers were first introduced to two dog puppets before observing one of them subject the other to a harmful action that ranged from crumpling up their drawing to knocking down a toy tower they had made.

Next came the crucial question. Would the toddlers be surprised if the perpetrator engaged in an entirely different sort of moral transgression in another setting? To test this, the researchers staged a scenario in which the dog discovered two toys and decided how to divide this lucky find between two excited puppets. Children were randomly selected to see one of two possible endings to this story: a fair outcome, where each recipient got a toy, or an unfair one where the dog inexplicably snubbed one of the puppets and gave both toys to just one.

The researchers found that toddlers who viewed the fair outcome spent significantly more time gazing at the interaction. This observation — which developmental psychologists widely accept to indicate surprise — suggested that the children didn’t quite expect someone who acted as a bully to make fair decisions in a different context. The finding indicates that children judge others from a holistic perspective of what being moral really means. In their view, a single action that is at odds with one aspect of a “good” representation implies that the individual should be expected to violate other moral principles.

But there’s a catch — it turns out that seeing an individual mistreating someone else does not always cause children to expect them to behave immorally in the future. The researchers saw this when they repeated their experiment, except this time the toddlers first witnessed a dog puppet mistreating a rabbit (as opposed to a fellow dog) before watching the dog share out a pair of toys.

In this scenario, toddlers gazed longer when the dog went on to make an unequal sharing decision, suggesting that they still expected the puppet to be fair. Only when the researchers ensured that the dog engaged in three sequential acts of bullying towards the rabbit did the children’s gaze patterns suggest that they no longer expected it to act fairly in the next social interaction.

While this outcome is not entirely surprising (other studies have documented children expecting others to give their in-group members special treatment), the present study is the first to discover something profound about the way children make their moral judgements, flawed as they might be. That is, the moral principles that children use do not operate in arbitrary isolation. They stem from a core mental representation of what makes someone a moral person. Whether this representation is “hardwired” or amenable to changes through development, experience, and age is an exciting question for future research to address.

– Toddlers draw broad negative inferences from wrongdoers’ moral violations

Post written by Sofia Deleniv for the BPS Research Digest. Sofia is a policy advisor and science writer based in Toronto, Canada. Her written work has appeared in magazines such as New Scientist and Discover Magazine. She holds a BA in Experimental Psychology and a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Oxford, where she investigated how the brain processes sensations using a mix of electrophysiology and computer modelling. Ever enthusiastic about anything from genes and brains to social behaviours, Sofia’s Twitter feed features the occasional update on her written work and other exciting bits of science.

At Research Digest we’re proud to showcase the expertise and writing talent of our community. Click here for more about our guest posts.

We Mistake Information We’ve Googled For Our Own Knowledge

BPS Research Digest — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 10:15:00 GMT

By Emily Reynolds

In many ways, the internet has democratised knowledge, allowing people to access more information than they could possibly dream of reading. No matter where your interests lie, there is almost certainly something new to learn online.

But is this immediately accessible trove of information making us confused about what knowledge is ours and what is the internet’s? According to a new paper, it might be. Authored by Adrian F. Ward of University of Texas at Austin and published in PNAS, the series of eight studies finds that those searching online are sometimes unable to distinguish what knowledge belongs to them and what belongs to the internet — and that it could even cause unwarranted overconfidence in our future attempts to remember things.

In the first study, participants answered ten general knowledge questions, either by themselves or with the help of Google. They then completed measures of self-esteem in relation to memory, agreeing or disagreeing with statements on ability to remember (“I have a better memory than most people”), process (“I am smart”), and access (“When I don’t know the answer to a question, I know where to find it”) information.

Participants who used Google unsurprisingly answered significantly more questions correctly than those who relied on their memory — and they were, again unsurprisingly, more confident in their ability to access external knowledge. But, importantly, they were also significantly more confident in their own memory, suggesting that using Google or other search engines can make people feel more capable.

In another study, participants who completed the test with the help of Google predicted that they would perform better on a second test, during which they would have no access to any external knowledge at all, than those who hadn’t used Google. However, these participants didn’t perform any better in reality, suggesting that access to the internet can generate unwarranted confidence in knowledge and memory.

In a further experiment, a new condition was introduced in which participants were asked to write down their own answers before searching online. Compared to participants who used Google as normal, these participants were significantly less confident in their own memory and less likely to assume they would know the answers in future, suggesting this extra step had prevented mistakes usually made when we search online.

Next, an experiment looked at how knowledge attribution changes based on the difficulty of questions, with participants randomly assigned to answer easy, medium or hard questions with or without Google. Once again, those who answered moderately difficult questions were significantly more confident in their knowledge after using Google than after answering questions on their own, and also believed they were smarter and had a better memory, and that they would do well in the future without the help of a search engine. However, using Google had no effect for people answering easy questions, and only affected predictions about future performance for people answering hard questions. The team suggests we know with more certainty whether or not we know the answers to easy or hard questions, while those of medium difficulty are harder to gauge.

In a final study, participants again answered general knowledge questions using both their memory and Google or Wikipedia; those in the Wikipedia condition were sent a direct link to the relevant information. After a short break, participants were shown the same questions again plus extra, new questions, and were again asked whether or not they had answered it from their own internal knowledge, the internet, or whether it was new. Participants who used Google were far more likely to misattribute external knowledge to internal knowledge, as they had in previous studies, than those who had used Wikipedia. This suggests that people experience the accessing of information differently via search than they do from a more formal repository of information.

Overall, the studies don’t suggest particularly good things about our grasp on our own knowledge and memory. On a basic level, this may not be too much of an issue — most of the time we can still access the internet when we need to look something up. But these distortions may cause us to learn less effectively when we do come across new knowledge that we need to keep hold of, assuming we already know it rather than seeing it as novel information worth hanging onto.

The team proposes this merging of human and online knowledge might not be such a bad thing, anyway: “perhaps this union will give rise to an ‘Intermind’ — a cognitive entity that is more and greater than the sum of its parts”. This Intermind is probably a few years away yet — but it might at least ease some of the guilt the next time you use your phone to sneak a look at a pub quiz answer.

– People mistake the internet’s knowledge for their own

Emily Reynolds is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

Football And Fast Food: The Week’s Best Psychology Links

BPS Research Digest — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 12:31:00 GMT

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

A group of researchers has sent an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, asking that Meta — the company formerly known as Facebook — be more transparent about internal research into how its platforms affect the mental health of young people. The signatories also want the company to make its data available to external researchers for study, and set up an independent trust to oversee work on mental health, Nicole Westman reports at The Verge.

Why do professional footballers sometimes choke during penalty shootouts? Louise Ellis has conducted research to simulate that high pressure environment, and explains the findings at The Conversation.

Social media could also be changing our relationship with food, writes Jessica Brown at BBC Future. We’re more likely to engage with photos of fast food, for instance, which may not only lead us to consume unhealthy foods ourselves, but also encourage others to post more images of the same for maximum engagement. However, as Brown writes, it’s a complicated situation as there are many factors beyond social media that influence our food-related decision making.

Waking up in that strange period between wakefulness and sleep can do wonders for our creativity. That’s according to a study in which participants had to complete a task which required some creative problem solving. Those who were given the chance to nap — but who were interrupted at that crucial phase — were ultimately much more likely to solve the problem than those who remained awake, reports Sofia Moutinho at Science.

Long work hours are bad for our physical and mental health — but they’re also bad for the health of our communities, writes Anna North at Vox. A lack of free time and pressure to always be productive can lead to social isolation and less participation in communal activities like volunteering.

Language is traditionally thought to be “arbitrary”: that is, there is no relation between the sound of a word and its meaning. But a recent study found that people were able to communicate concepts remarkably well using only sounds. The findings suggest that — early in the evolution of language at least — sounds may have represented meaning after all, explains Marcus Perlman at Psyche.

Do trigger warnings work? The evidence is ambiguous, writes James Greig at i-D — and we need to make sure that the politicisation of trigger warnings doesn’t get in the way of evaluating that evidence.

Compiled by Matthew Warren (@MattBWarren), Editor of BPS Research Digest

Want To Boost Your Wellbeing In 2022? Here’s What The Research Says

BPS Research Digest — Thu, 09 Dec 2021 12:08:08 GMT

By Emma Young

It’s natural to start a new year with plans to make this one better than the last. But if you are thinking about how to boost your wellbeing, it’s worth knowing that some “good” ways of living have dark sides, too…

Happiness

People who are happy — who enjoy “hedonistic wellbeing” — experience plenty of positive emotions and are generally pretty satisfied with life. If this sounds like something worth aiming for, then a word of caution: there’s plenty of evidence that striving to be happier can backfire. The authors of an influential review article published in Perspectives on Psychological Science back in 2011 concluded that while some of the strategies recommended for boosting happiness — such as taking time in the day to reflect on what you are grateful for — are far from bad in themselves, if you expect that they will make you feel noticeably happier, but find that they don’t, you can be left worse off than when you started. More recently, Aekyoung Kim and Sam Maglio from Rutgers concluded that people who pursue happiness can end up feeling that the time in the day to do what’s needed to achieve this is vanishing — which makes them more unhappy.

Two of the lessons from research in this area: don’t start out with high expectations of how much happier you might become, and don’t feel that you should be devoting a lot of time to becoming happier. You might also want to look beyond happiness…

“Meaning”

Happiness is one dimension of wellbeing. But there’s also “eudaimonia” — the feeling that your life has meaning, and that you are reaching your potential.

No end of studies have highlighted the importance of meaning. In 2019, for example, Andrew Steptoe and Daisy Fancourt at UCL published a study in PNAS finding that people who felt more strongly that the things they did in their life were worthwhile — in other words, that their lives had meaning — were better off in all kinds of ways: socially, physically and emotionally. However, a recent study by David Lane and Eugene Mathes in Personality and Individual Differences revealed that there can be downsides to meaning, too. The team’s study of university students found that those who perceived education and relationships as being meaningful reported more positive emotion — but also a greater fear of failure. “These findings suggest that meaning in life may be associated with not only happiness, but also stress because of the worry over losing the meaningful experience,” the researchers write.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t pursue meaningful experiences, of course. But it does suggest that it’s sensible to prepare for the possibility that doing so may cause you some anxiety, as well. Still, that might not be a bad thing…

What is a good life, anyway?

Research into what makes some people feel that theirs is a “good life” tends to focus on happiness and meaning. But last year, US-based psychologists Shigehiro Oshi and Erin Westgate argued that we’ve been missing a crucial third dimension: “psychological richness”. A psychologically rich life is characterised by plenty of interesting and perspective-changing experiences. These need not be uniformly positive experiences. At their worst, they may even be traumatic at the time. When the researchers asked participants from nine different countries which type of life they would go for if they could only choose one, most chose “happy”, and “meaningful” came second, but there was a “substantial minority” of participants — ranging from 7% in Singapore to 17% in Germany — who said they would opt for a psychologically rich life above a happy or a meaningful one. For this group, at least, this most defines a “good life” for them. And anyone wanting to pursue this type of life should be prepared for difficulties, as well as great times, along the way.

Mental calm
Maybe you’re starting to wonder whether it would be better to set aside the grand pursuit of a good life, and aim for something else instead. Like feeling calmer, perhaps?

Mindfulness is often promoted as a way to achieve this. Indeed, there are plenty of studies finding that mindfulness can help even with mental health problems. However, as we first reported back in 2015, and later explored in episode 15 of our PsychCrunch podcast in 2019, there are also reasons to be cautious. Mindfulness is not risk-free. For example, it doesn’t necessarily foster empathy and can even make narcissists worse, and while there is some work finding that it can improve decision-making, say, there’s also research concluding that it increases people’s susceptibility to false memories.

Perhaps it was inevitable that something once so incredibly popular should experience a backlash. But if you haven’t tried mindfulness training before and are considering it for 2022, it’s worth knowing about the potential downsides, too.

If all fails…

If you do set yourself some goals for 2022, and find that you don’t quite achieve your hoped-for levels of happiness, meaning, psychological richness, calmness — or even “just” eating more healthily and exercising more — there is a way to mitigate the anxiety that might result. Earlier this year, we looked at the latest research on how best to cope with failure. The key recommendations included:

Be kind to yourself
Resist socially prescribed perfectionism
Don’t worry too much if you were over-confident — and wrong
Try not to take evidence of failure too personally

In fact, if you are looking for some evidence-based ways of going about boosting your wellbeing in 2022, maybe this is the place to start. Because all of us, at some point, set ourselves goals that we don’t quite meet. One option is to stop setting goals. Another is to learn how to cope when not all work out — so you can reap the benefits of those that do.

Emma Young (@EmmaELYoung) is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

Conservatives Are More Likely To Share Fake News — But Only If They Are Low In Conscientiousness

BPS Research Digest — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 10:10:00 GMT

By Emma Young

Why do people share fake news? All kinds of studies have looked into what encourages it, and which personal attributes play a role. As the authors of a new paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General point out, multiple studies have found that political conservatives are relatively more likely to disseminate false news than those on the political left. However, their new work finds that this is an over-simplification — that the link is “largely driven” by conservatives who are also low in conscientiousness. This is an important finding for a few reasons. On the upside, it’s a far less politically polarising message. On the downside, this group does not seem to be receptive to the main identified way of stopping fake news from spreading.

Asher Lawson and Hemant Kakkar at Duke University ran eight online studies on a total of 4,642 US-based participants. In the first, the participants were given 12 reputable and 12 fake news COVID-19 stories from websites. Participants who identified as conservative were, as expected, more likely to say that they would share fake stories. However, further analysis revealed that this was true for conservatives who were low in conscientiousness, but not for those who were high in conscientiousness (highly conscientious people are those who are more diligent and better at controlling impulses). A second study found the same pattern of results for political stories unrelated to Covid-19.

Earlier research has found that giving guidance on the likely veracity of a news article helps to stop the spread of fake news. Indeed, this has been highlighted as a potentially important way to counter its spread. So, would adding fact-checker tags, indicating that the content had been verified or was disputed, reduce the sharing of fake news by low conscientious conservatives? A third study found that it did not. The low conscientious conservatives were more likely to share fake news that aligned with, and so furthered, their own interests. It didn’t seem to matter whether they believed it to be true or not.

This conclusion was supported by the results of an even stronger intervention. When participants in a fresh study indicated they would share a fake news story, they were given an explicit warning that the content was probably false, and asked if they would still like to share. While conservatives were overall less likely than liberals to change their mind, this was especially true for low conscientiousness conservatives.

Based on the results of earlier work, the pair wondered whether this group might have a stronger “need for chaos” — a greater desire for anarchy — and that this might drive the effect. They ran yet further studies to investigate, and concluded that this does indeed seem to be the case. Other personality traits, level of trust in the mainstream media, attitudes towards Covid-19, age, gender and time spent on social media were all taken into account in their analyses.

Overall, when it came to the spreading of fake news, “disparities in sharing behaviour were nearly exclusively driven by low conscientiousness respondents”, with an “indiscriminate desire for chaos”, the pair writes. “To curtail the spread of misinformation, policymakers should focus on low conscientious conservatives.”

As low conscientious conservatives don’t seem to care whether a story that aligns with their beliefs and interests is true or not, it could be that interventions will need to target conscientiousness itself, rather than simply explaining that a story is fake, the pair writes. How to go about that is another matter entirely. But given the disastrous effects of the spreading of fake news on everything from public health to voter decisions, it’s surely vital that efforts are made to find out.

– Of pandemics, politics, and personality: The role of conscientiousness and political ideology in the sharing of fake news.

Emma Young (@EmmaELYoung) is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT): Everything You Need to Know

childpsych — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 17:16:12 GMT

Parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT) is an evidence-based treatment that aims to promote healthy child development and help improve the parent-child relationship through interaction. PCIT is beneficial for children with behavioral issues as it can help reduce these problems. Also, this family-oriented therapy can help parents or caregivers develop more effective parenting strategies. What is Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)? PCIT approach is grounded in attachment theory and social learning theory. Sheila Eyberg developed it in the 1970s. She integrated behavioral therapy and play therapy techniques by developing a novel theory and structure, today known as PCIT. Nowadays, her approach is one of

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What to do when your 12-18 years old teenager is out of control? 5 useful strategies for parents

childpsych — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 17:54:18 GMT

The teenage years are a challenge for the whole family. Categorized by hormones, wildly changing emotions, and high drama, it’s common for a parent-child relationship to start to diminish quickly with conflict rising easily. Even for a child who had an otherwise happy and normal childhood, they can become out-of-control teenagers in the blink of an eye. Preserve your relationship with your 12-18 years old teen while saving your sanity with these strategies for bringing your wayward teenager back under your control. 1. Show trust first As a parent, you want your teenager to trust you. However, in order to

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Is 6-11 years old child out of control? 5 simple steps for parents

childpsych — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 00:59:33 GMT

The elementary childhood years between six and eleven are filled with both excitement and stress. Well beyond the chubby cheeks and toddling steps of their younger years, elementary-aged children have the verbal and physical skills to be independent in many ways. However, their energy and lack of social skills often also mean that they start to spiral into serious behavioral struggles. Having an elementary child who is out of control can seriously impact a parent’s ability to care for their kids – or just to keep their own sanity! To reign your 6-11 years old out-of-control child back down to

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Is 2-5 years old toddler out of control? 5 helpful ways for parents

childpsych — Mon, 13 Sep 2021 00:47:34 GMT

Toddlerhood, or the ages between 2 and 5 years old, is a notoriously difficult time of life. As children start to gain some greater skills with their language, mobility, and adaptive skills, they try to further assert their independence by rebelling against their parents. This can result in a lot of frustration for both parents and toddlers as power struggles and tantrums rise to the forefront of the relationship. However, there are plenty of ways parents can try to manage their out-of-control 2-5 years old children to reign in their troubling behavior and turn toddlerhood into a magical stage of

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Sleep Disorders Quiz for Children (2 to 18 years old)

childpsych — Wed, 08 Sep 2021 17:27:21 GMT

Does my child have a sleep disorder? Does my child have sleep apnea? Is my child having night terrors? If you suspect your child may be experiencing sleep problems, you might find it helpful to take this free sleep disorders quiz. The test may help you to decide if you need to seek a formal sleep disorder diagnosis or not for your child. What to Expect from our Sleep Disorders Quiz for Children Insomnia, snoring and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), night terrors, nightmares are common sleep problems in children and adolescents. The BEARS questionnaire is a useful pediatric tool in

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Bipolar Quiz for Children & Teens (12 to 17 years old)

childpsych — Thu, 19 Aug 2021 23:32:22 GMT

Does my child have bipolar disorder? Is my child bipolar? If you see suspicious signs of bipolar on your child, you might find it helpful to take this free bipolar quiz. The test may help you to decide if you need to seek a formal bipolar diagnosis or not for your child. What to Expect from our Bipolar Quiz for Children & Teens Bipolar disorder is more likely to be diagnosed in older children and teenagers, but children of any age such as 1-3 years old toddlers can experience it as well. Studies show that about 4% of people under

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Autism Quiz for Teens (12 to 15 years old)

childpsych — Sat, 14 Aug 2021 23:49:49 GMT

Does my teen have autism? How to know if a 12-15 years old teenager has autism? If you suspect that your adolescent has signs of autism, you can take our free online autism quiz to find out. Autism Signs in Teens Autism Spectrum Disorder is a vast spectrum, which has high-functioning and low-functioning levels. While children on the lower levels of function are easier to diagnose, children on the higher levels tend to make it through a lot of their life without ever getting a diagnosis. This is because high functioning people can be independent and learn behavioral, social, and

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Autism Quiz for Preschoolers & Children (4 to 11 years old)

childpsych — Sat, 14 Aug 2021 22:12:04 GMT

Does my kid have autism? How to know if a 4-11 years old child has autism? If you suspect that your boy or girl has the symptoms of autism, our online autism quiz may help you to find out. Autism Signs in Preschoolers & Children Autism can be diagnosed at a very young age, but most parents are unaware of it, therefore it goes unnoticed completely. Typical symptoms of autistic behaviors are brushed aside as shyness and lack of social skills. Their symptoms become more noticeable later, during their 4-5 years old preschooler or 6-11 years old mid-childhood. It’s by

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Autism Quiz for Toddlers (1 to 3 years old)

childpsych — Tue, 10 Aug 2021 23:51:16 GMT

Does my baby have the signs of autism? Does my toddler have autism? If you suspect that there are signs of ADHD in your 1-3 years old child, you can take our free Autism quiz to find out. Autism Signs in 1-3 Years Old Toddlers In some children, Autism symptoms are displayed in the first few months of life. Other toddlers don’t display symptoms until the age of two. The following list highlights some common signs that 1-3 years old toddlers may have autistic tendencies: Avoid eye contact when speaking or interacting with others Don’t show interest in socializing with

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ADHD Quiz for Toddlers, Preschoolers & Children (5 to 9 years old)

childpsych — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 01:22:30 GMT

Is my toddler ADHD? Does my preschooler have ADHD? How to know if a younger child has ADHD? If you suspect that your child has ADHD, you may check early signs of ADHD in toddlers or use our free ADHD quiz as anecdotal evidence, and investigate further. Early ADHD signs checklist for toddlers Many children with symptoms of ADHD can be diagnosed as young as age 4. For younger children like 2-3 years old toddlers, it may be hard to know whether they would meet these criteria. Sometimes, a development problem may lead to a wrong diagnosis of ADHD. For

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