Most of us don ’ t have a desire for unlimited wealth
By Emily Reynolds
Do humans always want more, or are we sometimes just happy with our lot? This debate has long raged in multiple disciplines: economics, politics, and even philosophy. And whether an unlimited desire for more is inherent or a product of capitalism is equally hotly contested.
Paul G. Bain from the University of Bath and Renata Bongiorno from Bath Spa University explore this question in a new paper published in Nature Sustainability. They find that the assumption we always want more, no matter how much we have, may not be completely accurate: while some of us do have unlimited desire for wealth, they ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - July 5, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Money Source Type: blogs
Most of us don ’t have a desire for unlimited wealth
By Emily Reynolds
Do humans always want more, or are we sometimes just happy with our lot? This debate has long raged in multiple disciplines: economics, politics, and even philosophy. And whether an unlimited desire for more is inherent or a product of capitalism is equally hotly contested.
Paul G. Bain from the University of Bath and Renata Bongiorno from Bath Spa University explore this question in a new paper published in Nature Sustainability. They find that the assumption we always want more, no matter how much we have, may not be completely accurate: while some of us do have unlimited desire for wealth, they ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - July 5, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Money Source Type: blogs
Racial biases shape the way people interpret body poses
By Emma Young
People reliably interpret expansive poses — with the arms and legs spread and the head held high — as a signal of dominance, or power. But work to date on perceptions of body poses has focused on White targets, note the authors of a new paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition. As research shows that Black people are often stereotyped as aggressive, hostile and threatening, might an expansive pose lead others to perceive them as being more aggressive than a White person holding their body in exactly the same way?
Francine Karmali at the University of...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - July 4, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Social Source Type: blogs
People with no mind ’s eye have less vivid and detailed memories
By Matthew Warren
When we’re asked to imagine a scene or object, most of us are able to conjure up an image in our mind’s eye. But about 2-5% of the population can’t do this: they have a condition called aphantasia, and are unable to produce mental imagery at all.
Now a study published in Cognition has found that aphantasia can affect memory abilities too. The researchers report that aphantasics have less detailed and rich memories for events in their lives: a finding that not only reveals more about the condition, but also highlights the key role of mental imagery in memory generally.
Past work had sho...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - July 1, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Memory Perception Source Type: blogs
Daily skin-to-skin contact in weeks after birth linked to less crying and better sleep
By Emma Young
Few things are as stressful as listening to your baby crying — and excessive crying is clearly not good for the baby, either. Skin-to-skin contact is widely used in the first hours after a birth, with benefits for infants and parents. But, according to a new paper in Developmental Psychology, a daily hour of skin-to-skin contact for weeks afterwards is beneficial, too: it reduces crying and improves sleep.
Kelly Cooijmans at Radboud University, in the Netherlands, and her colleagues recruited Dutch healthy first-time mothers with full-term infants for their randomized controlled trial. On signing...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - June 30, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Babies Sleep and dreaming Source Type: blogs
Drinking coffee before shopping can lead to impulse buying
By Emily Reynolds
Those wanting to eat more healthily and save money are often advised not to go food shopping while hungry, the theory being that we make less prudent purchases when we’re more concerned with satisfying our immediate needs than thinking about long term goals. But how do other states of mind affect our purchases?
We’d probably not think anything of having a cup of coffee or a can of Coke before going shopping. But a new study, published in the Journal of Marketing, finds that caffeine may have a bigger impact than we think, with participants spending more and buying more things after a caffeinate...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - June 29, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Drugs Eating Source Type: blogs
Working memory training won ’ t make you more intelligent
By Emma Young
What can you do to make yourself smarter? All kinds of interventions have been designed and tried, mostly with little success. However, some studies have suggested that training working memory is effective. This has led to it becoming the most popular form of intelligence-training intervention, write the authors of new paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition.
There have been mixed results in this area though, and, the team argues, potential problems with the methodology of some previous studies, making it hard to draw firm conclusions. (For example, some of the t...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - June 28, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Educational Memory Source Type: blogs
Working memory training won ’t make you more intelligent
By Emma Young
What can you do to make yourself smarter? All kinds of interventions have been designed and tried, mostly with little success. However, some studies have suggested that training working memory is effective. This has led to it becoming the most popular form of intelligence-training intervention, write the authors of new paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition.
There have been mixed results in this area though, and, the team argues, potential problems with the methodology of some previous studies, making it hard to draw firm conclusions. (For example, some of the t...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - June 28, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Educational Memory Source Type: blogs
National narcissists are more willing to conspire against their fellow citizens
By Emma Young
Narcissists feel that they are exceptional, and don’t get the recognition they deserve. But narcissistic beliefs can apply to a group, too. Feeling that your nation, religion, organisation, or political party is superior but under-appreciated is known as “collective narcissism“. And now a team led by Mikey Biddlestone at the University of Cambridge reports that collective narcissists are more willing to conspire against other members of their own group.
The team’s paper, in the British Journal of Psychology, reports studies on people from Poland, the UK, and the US. In the first s...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - June 27, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Political Social Source Type: blogs
Fans of horror movies are just as kind and compassionate as everyone else
By Matthew Warren
What kind of person wants to watch a movie where a boatload of people gets gruesomely cut in half by a wire, or where a man saws off his own foot to escape the sadistic games of a serial killer? You’d have to be pretty coldhearted and cruel to enjoy that kind of thing, right?
That’s certainly how horror fans have historically been portrayed, at least by some commentators. But a new study finds no evidence for this stereotype. Fans of horror films are just as kind and compassionate as everyone else, according to the preprint published on PsyArXiv — and in some respects may be more so.
...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - June 24, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Media Personality Social Source Type: blogs
We don ’ t trust extraverts more than introverts
By Emily Reynolds
When you think of an extravert, what personality traits come to mind? Sociability? Fun? While we often make positive judgments about extraversion, the picture is more complex, with negative traits also projected onto extraverts. Some research suggests that extraverts are seen as poorer listeners, for example.
A new study, published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, looks specifically at how much people trust those who are extraverted. The team finds that agreeableness, not extraversion, is the key to gaining trust in social situations.
In the first study, participants w...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - June 23, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Personality Social Source Type: blogs
We don ’t trust extraverts more than introverts
By Emily Reynolds
When you think of an extravert, what personality traits come to mind? Sociability? Fun? While we often make positive judgments about extraversion, the picture is more complex, with negative traits also projected onto extraverts. Some research suggests that extraverts are seen as poorer listeners, for example.
A new study, published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, looks specifically at how much people trust those who are extraverted. The team finds that agreeableness, not extraversion, is the key to gaining trust in social situations.
In the first study, participants w...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - June 23, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Personality Social Source Type: blogs
Merely expecting to feel stressed has a negative effect on our mood
By Emily Reynolds
Elections can be stressful. Research has looked into the distress of Americans when Trump was elected, and elections have also been linked to an increase in anxiety and stress, and poorer sleep quality. Most of this research, however, has looked at what happens after an election result, not before.
A new study takes a different look, asking how the approach of an election result can impact people’s mental health. Writing in the International Journal of Psychology, a team from North Carolina State University finds that simply anticipating election stress has a negative effect on our mood.
...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - June 22, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Emotion Political Source Type: blogs
Religious people are less likely to avoid reminders of human mortality
By Emma Young
Do you know how far you’d have to walk to get from the central railway station in Wuhan, China to the nearest cemeteries? I’ll tell you: an average of just over 25 kilometres. For Berlin, the figure is less than 5. “Chinese tourists are surprised by unexpectedly running into cemeteries when visiting cities in Europe,” write the authors of a new paper in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. “They are curious when seeing how close to a graveyard people live and spend their leisure time there because these are rarely encountered in China.”
In fact, when the team plotted the mean walking...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - June 21, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Religion Source Type: blogs
Showing off your status and wealth makes you seem less co-operative
By Emma Young
People who can afford luxury goods tend to buy them, and to show them off. “This is unsurprising given the myriad social benefits associated with being perceived as well-off and high status,” note the authors of a new study, led by Shalena Srna at the University of Michigan. But in some situations, there might be downsides to conspicuous consumption. After all, as the team writes: “it conveys a boastful self-interest, which is incompatible, in people’s minds, with pro-sociality”.
So what happens when — as is so often the case — it’s in our interests to work with others? Given the opp...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - June 13, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Money Social Source Type: blogs
