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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

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DATE:
January 02, 2024 at 09:00AM
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TITLE:
New research sheds light on parenthood’s impact on abortion views
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URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2024/01/new-research-sheds-light-on-parenthoods-impact-on-abortion-views-220424

<p>A 9-year-long study in New Zealand examined attitudes towards elective and traumatic abortion in the years before and after individuals became parents. The study revealed that over time, attitudes towards both types of abortion became increasingly positive. However, the increase in support for elective abortions slowed after participants became parents, while the support for traumatic abortions ceased to grow. The study was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-023-01408-3"><em>Sex Roles</em></a>.</p>
<p>Abortion is a contentious topic in many world countries. While many argue that the ability to choose to have an abortion is a human right, others believe that life begins at conception. Therefore, terminating a pregnancy is morally and ethically wrong as it involves taking a human life. The right to abortion has also been a topic of legal struggle for decades.</p>
<p>In the United States, <em>Roe v. Wade</em> was a landmark legal case that was decided by the Supreme Court in 1973. The case centered around a woman referred to as &#8220;Jane Roe,&#8221; a pseudonym used to protect her identity, who wanted to terminate her pregnancy but was unable to do so under Texas law. The Supreme Court&#8217;s ruling in <em>Roe v. Wade</em> established women&#8217;s constitutional right to have an abortion.</p>
<p>However, this ruling was reversed in 2022, allowing individual states to set their own abortion laws. In the reversal, the Supreme Court argued that this ruling needed to be overturned as it was &#8220;egregiously wrong,&#8221; the arguments &#8220;exceptionally weak&#8221; and so &#8220;damaging&#8221; that they amounted to &#8220;an abuse of judicial authority.&#8221;</p>
<p>Study author Eden V. Clarke and his colleagues wanted to examine whether the transition to parenthood changes individuals’ attitudes towards abortion. They differentiated between traumatic and elective abortion. A traumatic abortion refers to the termination of a pregnancy due to medical emergencies or complications, such as risks to the mother&#8217;s health or in cases of severe fetal anomalies. Elective abortion, on the other hand, is the intentional termination of a pregnancy for personal reasons, without the necessity of medical urgency or health-related issues.</p>
<p>The researchers noted that recent studies in the U.S. and New Zealand show an increasing positive attitude towards abortion in these populations. They hypothesized that support for abortion would gradually increase over the years, but this trend might shift upon individuals becoming parents. Parenthood introduces changes in social roles that could influence attitudes towards abortion.</p>
<p>Data for this analysis came from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values study, which began in 2009 with 6,518 registered voter participants. The study continued with yearly surveys of these participant until 2019. To counter participant dropout, new participants were recruited periodically, resulting in 42,684 participants by 2019.</p>
<p>The researchers analyzed data from 2011 and 2019, focusing on 1,266 individuals who became parents during the study. Of these, 34% were male, and 78% identified as New Zealand European, with an average age of 31 in 2011.</p>
<p>The study used data on the number of children participants had and their attitudes towards abortion (based on two items from the General Social Survey). Participants included in the analysis were those who had no children at one or more data collection points and later reported having one or more children.</p>
<p>Results indicated that the level of support for both types of abortion increased throughout the study. This trend mirrored the general increase in support for abortion in the broader population. While support for elective abortion continued to grow among parents, the rate of increase was only 75% of that observed before parenthood. Support for traumatic abortion increased before parenthood but ceased to grow after participants became parents. These findings were adjusted for participants&#8217; gender, age, and the year they became parents.</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>“Our results demonstrate that support for elective and traumatic abortion gradually increased in the year(s) before participants became parents,&#8221; the study authors concluded. “Following the transition to parenthood, however, the rate of change in support for elective abortion slowed, whereas the rate of change in support for traumatic abortion stabilized and became non-significant [stopped visibly increasing]. Our results thus suggest that the process of becoming a parent impacts the rate at which the same peoples’ support for reproductive rights changes over time, particularly in the case of traumatic abortion.”</p>
<p>The study sheds light on the impact of parenthood on attitudes towards abortion. However, it also has limitations that need to be considered. Notably, the study did not take into account various factors that could influence the attitude towards abortion such as political views or previous experiences with abortion. Additionally, both abortion attitude measures were single items. It is possible that studies utilizing more extensive attitude assessments and taking into account other relevant factors might produce a different view of this link.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-023-01408-3">Examining Changes in Abortion Attitudes Following the Transition to Parenthood</a>”, was authored by Eden V. Clarke, Chris G. Sibley, and Danny Osborne.</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
January 02, 2024 at 07:00AM
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TITLE:
The Curious Joy of Being Wrong
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URL:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-curious-joy-of-being-wrong/

<p>Cultivating intellectual humility can offer individual and social benefits, a psychologist explains</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

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DATE:
January 02, 2024 at 07:00AM
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TITLE:
Dark personality traits linked to support for doxxing behaviors
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URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2024/01/dark-personality-traits-linked-to-support-for-doxxing-behaviors-220422

<p>Researchers have discovered a significant connection between certain personality traits, namely Machiavellianism and psychopathy, and support for a specific type of online harassment known as &#8220;doxxing.&#8221; Their study, published in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886923003550"><em>Personality and Individual Differences</em></a>, found that individuals with high levels of these traits, coupled with lower empathy, are more likely to endorse doxxing behaviors, particularly those driven by pranks and bias.</p>
<p>Doxxing is a form of online harassment where personal and private information about an individual is publicly disclosed without their consent. Typically used as a means of revenge, intimidation, or public shaming, doxxing can include revealing someone&#8217;s real name, home address, workplace, phone number, financial information, or other personal details. This act can lead to significant psychological distress, physical danger, and social ramifications for the victim, and has become a concerning aspect of online interaction in the digital age.</p>
<p>The Dark Triad refers to a trio of negative personality traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. Machiavellianism is characterized by manipulation and a focus on self-interest and deception. Narcissism involves an inflated sense of self-importance, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy for others. Psychopathy is marked by impulsive behavior, a lack of remorse or empathy, and often antisocial behavior. These traits are commonly studied in psychological research due to their impact on interpersonal relationships and various social outcomes.</p>
<p>The motivation behind this study was to explore the relationship between Dark Triad personality traits and the likelihood of supporting or engaging in doxxing, an emergent and harmful form of online behavior. Recognizing that these negative personality traits have been linked to various forms of unethical and aggressive behaviors, the researchers aimed to investigate their influence in the context of online harassment.</p>
<p>&#8220;A student of mine, my co-author on this paper, was interested in exploring novel manifestations of cyberbullying,&#8221; said study author <a href="https://www.york.psu.edu/person/stephen-foster">Stephen Foster</a>, an assistant professor of social psychology at Penn State York.</p>
<p>&#8220;We were both really fascinated by that literature, which has so many cool little nuances in it, and we landed on doxxing as a very unique form of online harassment that seems to be emerging as a more common form of negative online behavior. The Dark Triad perspective was inspired by another paper of mine on these types of traits, which we figured might explain some of the motivations for these behaviors.&#8221;</p>
<p>The study involved 217 participants, with a near-equal gender split and an average age of 39. These individuals were recruited through Prolific, an online platform for data collection. Participants spent, on average, 2 to 2.5 hours online daily, with about two-thirds reporting familiarity with the concept of doxxing.</p>
<p>The Short Dark Triad scale was used to gauge levels of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. This 27-item questionnaire asked participants to rate statements that reflect manipulative behavior, sense of superiority, and callousness.</p>
<p>To understand support for doxxing, participants responded to questions about whether they thought doxxing was justified in scenarios of humiliation, pranks, or political bias. The study also measured empathy using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, focusing on empathic concern and perspective-taking. Additional data on gender, age, and time spent online were also collected.</p>
<p>The researchers found that Machiavellianism and psychopathy were positively correlated with support for doxxing in the contexts of pranks and political bias, but not in humiliation. These traits were also linked to lower levels of empathy. Narcissism, however, showed a negative association with support for doxxing in prank and bias contexts, which the researchers speculate could be due to the complex nature of narcissism that includes both grandiose and vulnerable components.</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>Path analytic models, controlling for age, gender, and online time, further supported these findings. The study indicated that the lack of empathy in individuals with high levels of Machiavellianism and psychopathy might be driving their support for certain types of doxxing behaviors. On the other hand, the nuanced role of narcissism suggests that the relationship between dark personality traits and online harassment is more complex than previously thought.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think one of the important pieces of this research is the fact that, although we were only measuring <em>support</em> for doxxing behaviors, everyone in our sample is of voting age and can ultimately influence the policies which might help to protect people against doxxing attacks,&#8221; Foster told PsyPost. &#8220;We know a little more now about how Dark Triad traits seem to facilitate support for certain doxxing behaviors because of lower levels of empathy.</p>
<p>&#8220;It is important for us to acknowledge that living human beings exist on the other side of our computer screens, and the impact of doxxing behaviors does not simply go away when people turn their computers off. One might consider if Dark Triad traits might also make people less likely to support policies which protect victims of doxxing as well.&#8221;</p>
<p>While these findings shed new light on the psychological underpinnings of support for online harassment, the study acknowledges certain limitations. The data was collected in the United States, which might not fully represent global attitudes towards doxxing. The researchers also noted that they focused on the support for doxxing rather than actual doxxing behavior, which may differ. Furthermore, the complexity of narcissism and its impact on empathy and doxxing behaviors suggests that future research should delve deeper into this relationship.</p>
<p>&#8220;As I noted previously, we are only measuring support for doxxing in this study &#8212; we really need a study which examines those who have actually engaged in doxxing behaviors to see if these effects hold in that population as well,&#8221; Foster said. &#8220;We also want to know more about adjacent behaviors like &#8216;swatting,&#8217; what I consider to be a more extreme behavior where the perpetrator convinces law enforcement that a really extreme crime is occurring at someone&#8217;s house and essentially lures them out there. In fact, a swatting event just occurred at a Florida senator&#8217;s house just a few days ago, and past swatting events have resulted in innocent civilians getting shot basically for the sake of a prank (such as the swatting event in Wichita in 2017 which resulted in the death of Andrew Finch).&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;A lot of personality research in this area may seem merely descriptive, as we are giving a profile of people who may engage in certain forms of online harassment,&#8221; Foster added. &#8220;This may subsequently convince people we cannot do much to prevent these individuals from engaging in doxxing behaviors. I would encourage people to consider that, alongside Dark Triad personality traits, we can also profile motivations and worldviews which might emerge from these types of traits.</p>
<p>&#8220;Interfering with these motivations/worldviews may help us to intervene and frame certain online behaviors in a way which makes them less appealing to those higher in Dark Triad traits. In this sense, interventions based around these personality findings are actually potentially feasible via certain messaging tactics. Of course, that type of research needs to be carefully conducted to substantiate potential approaches.&#8221;</p>
<p>The study, &#8220;<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2023.112432" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dark doxxing: How Dark Triad traits impact support for doxxing behaviors</a>&#8220;, was authored by Stephen Foster and Jasmine Cross.</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
January 02, 2024
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TITLE:
Self-Care A-Z: An ARC for Self-Care—Appreciate, Recognize, and Construct
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URL:
https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/self-care/arc-self-care-appreciate-recognize-construct/

We realized we’ve each used a similar pattern to make small, positive changes in our lives. As a self-care approach, it gives a structure that can be replicated. We named the pattern ARC. Appreciate, Recognize, Construct. Give it a try.
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

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DATE:
January 01, 2024 at 01:00PM
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TITLE:
Social jetlag is associated with worse cognitive performance in children with ADHD
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URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2024/01/social-jetlag-is-associated-with-worse-cognitive-performance-in-children-with-adhd-220411

<p>A study examining children with ADHD found that a greater discrepancy in sleep time between school nights and weekend nights, known as social jetlag, correlates with poorer cognitive functioning. Time spent in bed and sleep disturbances, however, did not show a relationship with cognitive performance. The study was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/10870547231204010"><em>the Journal of Attention Disorders</em></a>.</p>
<p>Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent patterns of inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity that interfere with daily functioning. It typically begins in childhood, but can continue into adolescence and adulthood. Common symptoms include difficulty staying focused on tasks, forgetfulness, impulsiveness, restlessness, and difficulty organizing and completing tasks. ADHD can have a significant impact on various aspects of life, including academic performance, work, and relationships.</p>
<p>Sleep disturbances are very common in children with ADHD. Studies on this topic report that between 40% and 70% of children with ADHD experience at least some form of sleep problems. Children with ADHD who also have sleep problems tend to have more severe symptoms of ADHD. They often suffer from other types of mental health issues as well, and are more likely to experience impairments in daily functioning. Additionally, drugs typically used to treat ADHD (e.g., Ritalin) tend to increase sleep disturbances.</p>
<p>Study author Xueqi Qu and her colleagues wanted to explore the sleep characteristics of children with ADHD and examine whether they are associated with their cognitive performance. They focused on time spent in bed, sleep disturbances, and social jetlag. The researchers hypothesized that less time in bed, more significant sleep disturbances, and higher social jetlag would correlate with poorer cognitive performance.</p>
<p>&#8220;Time in bed&#8221; refers to the duration a child spends in bed, from bedtime to waking up. Sleep disturbances include disruptions in normal sleep patterns, such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, waking too early, or experiencing restless or unsatisfying sleep. Social jetlag is the discrepancy in sleep timing between school nights and weekends.</p>
<p>The study involved 350 children diagnosed with ADHD, aged between 5 and 12. Of these participants, 71% were boys, and 74% had commercial medical insurance. Additionally, 56% were White.</p>
<p>Caregivers of the children completed questionnaires about sociodemographic data and the children&#8217;s sleep characteristics and rated them on various behavioral aspects. The children underwent assessments to measure cognitive functions, including working memory, attention, processing speed, visually-based reasoning, and language-based reasoning.</p>
<p>The results showed that children slept an average of 10 hours on school days, with individual sleep times varying from 6.5 to 12.5 hours. On weekends and free days, the average sleep time was 10.3 hours, ranging individually from 6.5 to 14 hours. Approximately half of the children experienced at least one type of sleep disturbance, with 10% having more than three disturbances. The most common disturbances included difficulty in falling asleep, waking up, and restlessness.</p>
<p>Sleep time and sleep disturbances were not associated with cognitive performance, but social jetlag was. Children with longer jetlag tended to have lower processing speed, visually-based reasoning, and language-based reasoning. The average social jetlag among the studied children was one hour.</p>
<p>&#8220;Social jetlag among children occurs due to the changes in rules and routines within households between school/weekdays and weekends,&#8221; the study authors concluded. &#8220;Parents naturally provide more freedom over the weekends when these demands are absent, opposed to during the week. When time in bed is increasingly different between weekends and weekdays, this can perturb the natural circadian rhythms, leading to poorer cognition and mental acuity.</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>&#8220;Our findings suggest keeping consistent routines for children with ADHD could improve learning and attention. From the perspective of school, delaying the school start times by up to an hour has been proven to be an effective approach to reduce social jetlag.&#8221;</p>
<p>The study sheds light on the link between sleep characteristics and cognitive performance. However, it should be noted that the design of the study does not allow any cause-and-effect conclusions to be derived from the data. As much as it is possible that social jetlag causes worse cognitive performance, it is also possible that there is a third factor responsible both for social jetlag and worse cognitive performance. This is not the only alternative possibility.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/10870547231204010">Association of Time in Bed, Social Jetlag, and Sleep Disturbances With Cognitive Performance in Children With ADHD</a>”, was authored by Xueqi Qu, Luther G. Kalb, Calliope Holingue, Darlynn M. Rojo-Wissar, Alison E. Pritchard, Adam P. Spira, Heather E. Volk, and Lisa A. Jacobson.</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
January 01, 2024 at 10:13AM
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TITLE:
Chief Justice Roberts Casts Wary Eye on Artificial Intelligence in the Courts
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URL:
http://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?from=rss_feed&id=176336&url=https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMieWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lm5wci5vcmcvMjAyNC8wMS8wMS8xMjIyMzc4NzY2L2NoaWVmLWp1c3RpY2Utcm9iZXJ0cy1jYXN0cy1hLXdhcnktZXllLW9uLWFydGlmaWNpYWwtaW50ZWxsaWdlbmNlLWluLXRoZS1jb3VydHPSAQA?oc=5

<div><p>Source: <a href="http://news.google.com/?ned=us&topic=m" rel="tag" target="_blank">Google News - Health</a></p>U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts on Sunday turned his focus to the promise, and shortcomings, of artificial intelligence in the federal courts. His remarks, made in an annual report, come just a few days after the latest instance of AI-generated fake legal citations made their way into official court records, in a case involving ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. &quot;Always a bad idea,&quot; Roberts wrote, noting that &quot;any use of AI requires caution and...</div><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><br /><a href="https://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?action=rssHomepage" target="_blank"><img title="Brought to you by Social Psychology Network" alt="Brought to you by SocialPsychology Network" src="https://www.socialpsychology.org/images/rss-footer-large.png" border="0" width="400" height="45" /></a><br><br>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

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DATE:
January 01, 2024 at 11:00AM
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TITLE:
Bystander blindspot? New research examines reactions to benevolent sexism in the workplace
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URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2024/01/bystander-blindspot-new-research-examines-reactions-to-benevolent-sexism-in-the-workplace-220407

<p>In a new study, researchers have uncovered significant differences in how bystanders perceive and respond to two forms of sexism in the workplace: benevolent and hostile sexism. This research highlights the nuanced challenges in recognizing and addressing sexism, particularly the subtler, often overlooked form of benevolent sexism. The findings have been published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-023-01431-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sex Roles</a></em>.</p>
<p>Hostile sexism and benevolent sexism represent two different manifestations of sexist attitudes and beliefs. Hostile sexism is the more overt and recognizable form. It is characterized by clear, negative stereotypes and antagonism toward women. Typically, hostile sexism manifests in actions and statements that openly degrade women, question their abilities, or treat them as inferior.</p>
<p>Benevolent sexism, on the other hand, is more insidious and can be harder to detect because it is often cloaked in what appears to be positive or protective language. It involves attitudes that seemingly place women on a pedestal but ultimately reinforce traditional gender roles and the idea of female dependency.</p>
<p>For example, a male colleague insisting on carrying heavy objects for a female colleague &#8220;because it&#8217;s too much for her&#8221; or suggesting that women are more suited to nurturing roles due to their &#8220;innate kindness&#8221; are instances of benevolent sexism. While these actions or comments might be intended or perceived as kind or chivalrous, they perpetuate stereotypes and the notion that women are less capable or independent.</p>
<p>Despite growing awareness and efforts to foster gender-inclusive environments, sexism remains a pervasive issue in workplaces. With over 20,000 complaints of sexism reported in 2020 in the United States alone, the researchers aimed to investigate the potential of bystander intervention as a means to address this issue. They sought to understand how bystanders perceive different forms of sexism and their willingness to intervene, an area that has seen limited research despite its potential impact.</p>
<p>&#8220;We were interested in this topic because people often have think sexism has to take the form of overtly negative beliefs about or behaviors toward women, but we know that benevolent sexism – this seemingly positive or protective form of sexism – also exists and does harm to those who experience and witness it,&#8221; said study author Lindsay Y. Dhanani, an assistant professor at Rutgers University.</p>
<p>&#8220;We therefore wanted to draw attention to this form of sexism and examine whether it is less likely to prompt positive bystander reactions that can help to alleviate the harm of sexism when it occurs. If so, this would tell us that organizations need to be really intentional about calling attention to benevolent sexism to enable bystanders to respond more positively.&#8221;</p>
<p>The research involved 527 full-time employees in the United States, who were recruited through an online panel. Participants were randomly assigned to read one of three vignettes depicting either benevolent sexism, hostile sexism, or a control scenario in a real estate office setting.</p>
<p>The sexism vignettes depicted a situation where a male employee suggests that he should handle an upcoming home sale instead of his female colleague. In the benevolent vignettes, he justifies his suggestion by implying that women struggle with assertiveness, which is necessary for sales negotiations. In the hostile sexism vignette, on the other hand, the male employee bluntly asserts that he does not believe women are capable of succeeding in sales roles. In the control vignette, the male employee suggests that he should take on the sale, simply because his female colleague negotiated the last one, implying a fair distribution of work.</p>
<p>After reading the scenarios, participants reported their perceptions and reactions. Specifically, they rated the extent to which they believed the depicted behavior was immoral, the level of moral anger they felt, and their willingness to intervene in the situation.</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>The researchers found that participants perceived hostile sexism as a greater moral violation than benevolent sexism. This difference also translated into feelings, with hostile sexism evoking more moral anger compared to benevolent sexism.</p>
<p>In other words, benevolent sexism, due to its seemingly positive guise, is less likely to be immediately recognized as a moral violation, and consequently, it does not elicit the same level of moral anger as hostile sexism does. This difference in perception and emotional reaction means that bystanders are less likely to feel compelled to intervene in cases of benevolent sexism.</p>
<p>&#8220;The main takeaway from our study is that benevolent sexism – this form of seemingly positive sexism that still causes harm and reinforces gender roles and hierarchies – is less likely to trigger bystander responses commonly associated with discrimination and harassment,&#8221; Dhanani told PsyPost. &#8220;That is, people who witness benevolent sexism are less likely to view it as a violation of moral norms and are less likely to experience anger in response, both of which are linked to important outcomes such as bystanders taking prosocial actions to intervene after harassment occurs. This means that when employees experience benevolent sexism, their coworkers are less likely to give them the support they need to lessen the harm of that experience.&#8221;</p>
<p>The study&#8217;s methodology and approach, however, come with certain limitations. The use of vignettes and self-reported measures may not fully capture the complexities and nuances of real-life sexism scenarios and bystander responses. Additionally, the research was conducted within the cultural context of the United States, which raises questions about the applicability of the findings in different cultural settings.</p>
<p>&#8220;One major caveat is that we used a vignette design to assess what people would do after they witnessed sexism at work,&#8221; Dhanani said. &#8220;Research still needs to be done in a more realistic setting to assess what people actually do in those situations. Research should also take a more intersectional approach because we know that the race of the woman being targeted might impact the way people respond as well.&#8221;</p>
<p>Looking ahead, the researchers suggest several directions for future research. They recommend studying how targets of sexism respond to different forms of sexism and how this influences bystander reactions. Additionally, exploring the impact of witnessing benevolent sexism on bystanders, and the potential costs or benefits of intervening, could provide deeper insights. The researchers also note the importance of conducting similar studies in varied cultural contexts to understand how cultural norms might influence bystander responses to sexism.</p>
<p>&#8220;Organizations should be vigilant against all forms of sexism, including those forms of sexism that don’t immediately meet people’s view of what sexism is,&#8221; Dhanani added. &#8220;Organizations are increasingly relying on bystander intervention as a way to mitigate workplace harassment, and those efforts will be limited to the extent that bystanders misdiagnose sexist behaviors as benign.&#8221;</p>
<p>The study, &#8220;<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-023-01431-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cloaked in Kindness: Bystander Responses to Witnessed Benevolent and Hostile Sexism</a>&#8220;, was authored by Taylor K. Hall and Lindsay Y. Dhanan.</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
January 01, 2024 at 09:00AM
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TITLE:
Empathy Is Exhausting. There Is a Better Way.
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URL:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/01/opinion/israel-war-empathy-pain.html

Feeling other people’s pain is not the best way to help them — or yourself.
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
January 01, 2024 at 09:00AM
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TITLE:
Confronting Illusions Can Help Heal Trauma
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URL:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/confronting-illusions-can-help-heal-trauma/

<p>Renowned physician Gabor Mat&eacute; ruminates on trauma and Jewishness at a time of conflict</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

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DATE:
January 01, 2024 at 09:00AM
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TITLE:
Scarcity of men leads women to prioritize lucrative careers over starting a family, study finds
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URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2024/01/scarcity-of-men-leads-women-to-prioritize-lucrative-careers-over-starting-a-family-study-finds-220409

<p>A series of four studies published in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027949"><em>Journal of Personality and Social Psychology </em></a>examined the role of sex ratio on women’s family planning and career choices, finding that when men become a rare commodity, women gravitate towards high-paying careers and postpone starting families.</p>
<p>In the late 12th century, a significant number of women in Northern Europe achieved economic parity with men, becoming independent entrepreneurs and forming labor unions. This shift was not due to government policy changes or social movements, but a demographic shift: a decrease in the ratio of men to women created a scarcity of marriageable men. This phenomenon is not unique to that era; modern research also suggests that sex ratio fluctuations can influence mating behavior and family life.</p>
<p>In a series of four studies encompassing archival data and experimental paradigms, Kristina Durante and colleagues investigated the role of sex ratios in shaping women’s career choices.</p>
<p>Study 1 examined the link between sex ratio and women’s career and family choices using data from the U.S. Census (for sex ratios), U.S. Department of Labor (for women’s 10 highest paying careers), and Centers for Disease Control (for maternal age at first birth and number of babies born per 1000 women). Sex ratio was determined by calculating the ratio of unmarried men to women between ages 15-44.</p>
<p>Study 2 recruited 89 undergraduate women from a public university wherein perceptions of sex-ratio were experimentally manipulated via photo arrays. Participants were assigned to one of three conditions: many women, many men, or equal numbers of each sex. Each photo array was presented for one second, and participants were asked to indicate how many men and women they saw in each. They viewed the array once again for 15 seconds, to check the accuracy of their prediction. This served as a manipulation check of the sex ratio (94% of participants were accurate).</p>
<p>In random order, participants responded to three questions assessing the importance of having a family (vs. career), spending quality time with future children (vs. having a satisfying job), having a happy and well-adjusted family (vs. reaching full career potential). A family-versus-career tradeoff index was calculated based on these responses.</p>
<p>Study 3 was designed to conceptually replicate Study 2 while utilizing a different sex ratio manipulation. Fifty-eight undergraduate women from a public university were randomly assigned to either the many women or many men condition. They read a short news article about male or female students on campus and responded to questions related to their future careers, mating market and job market. The first two questions were the same as those in Study 2.</p>
<p>An additional third question gauged participants’ desire to get married vs. get promoted. Participants also responded to questions assessing their perceptions of the mating market (e.g., “It will be difficult to find someone to marry”) and job market (“I will have to compete with others to get a good job”). From these responses, a mating market index and job market index were computed.</p>
<p>Study 4 examined individual differences in women’s mate value as a potential moderator of the effects of sex ratio on women’s desire for lucrative careers. A total of 87 undergraduate women participated in this research. Participants were once again assigned to either the many women or many men condition. They read one of two articles, supposedly sourced from the local newspaper. The article either highlighted that the sex ratios on nearby college campuses were female biased, or male biased.</p>
<p>Participants responded to conceptually identical questions gauging inclination to prioritize career vs. family. They also responded to questions about the importance of financial success in their future careers, with responses being combined for a desire for a high-paying career index. Participants also completed the Self-Perceived Mate Value Survey which assesses one’s perception of their desirability as a mate from the view of similar aged opposite sex others (e.g., “Members of the opposite sex notice me”). These responses were aggregated to form a mate value index.</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>Archival data from all 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., as well as a series of laboratory experiments, indicated that a scarcity of men leads women to seek more lucrative careers. The study observed a link between the decrease in the number of marriageable men and the increase in the percentage of women in high-paying jobs. Further, in environments with fewer men, women tended to have fewer children and at older ages. The experimental studies revealed that when women are exposed to cues suggesting a female-skewed sex ratio, their interest in pursuing careers over starting a family increases.</p>
<p>This effect was consistent regardless of whether the cues were visual, presented as photo arrays, or informational, presented as news articles. Importantly, the impact of sex ratio on women’s career choices was specifically mediated by changes in the mating market. A scarcity of men in the mating market makes it harder for women to find a desirable partner, which in turn influences their career aspirations. This effect is particularly pronounced in women who are less likely to secure a long-term investing partner.</p>
<p>A limitation to this research is that participants were female undergraduate students from American universities, with the majority having the option of pursuing high-paying careers. Women in more impoverished areas may not have this option, and thus seek out other strategies of securing paternal investment for their offspring.</p>
<p>Overall, this research suggests that the local sex ratio can significantly alter women’s psychology and behavior, pushing a substantial proportion of women towards lucrative careers, especially when the likelihood of securing a long-term partner is low.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027949">Sex ratio and women’s career choice: Does a scarcity of men lead women to choose briefcase over baby?</a>”, was authored by Kristina M. Durante, Vladas Griskevicius, Jeffry A. Simpson, Stephanie M. Cantu, and Joshua M. Tybur.</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
January 01, 2024 at 07:00AM
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TITLE:
Why Keeping a Streak Boosts Your Motivation
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URL:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-keeping-a-streak-boosts-your-motivation/

<p>A streak can motivate you to keep up with behaviors ranging from praying to running to sharing pictures on social media</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

.
DATE:
January 01, 2024 at 07:00AM
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TITLE:
Ideological obsession: Unraveling the psychological roots of radicalization
.
URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2024/01/ideological-obsession-unraveling-the-psychological-roots-of-radicalization-220401

<p>New research has found a significant relationship between obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms, obsessive passion for ideological beliefs, and radical intentions. The study, published in the journal <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.22124" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Aggressive Behavior</a></em>, suggests that the intensity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms could be a key factor in understanding why some individuals develop extreme, often violent, ideological beliefs.</p>
<p>The motivation behind this research was to deepen the understanding of what drives radicalization in individuals, a topic of growing importance in today&#8217;s global landscape. With the rise in extremist activities and ideologies, ranging from Islamist terrorism to populist movements in Western countries, unraveling the psychological processes behind these developments has become crucial. This understanding is vital for maintaining peace and security, as well as for developing effective interventions to prevent and counter violent extremism.</p>
<p>&#8220;My co-author Jocelyn Belanger discovered and coined &#8216;ideological obsession,'&#8221; explained first author <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HCoarrAAAAAJ&amp;hl=fr" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jais Adam-Troian</a>, an assistant professor at Heriot-Watt University Dubai and an external behavioral science consultant for <a href="https://bellegarde.co/en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bellegarde</a>. &#8220;The latest meta-analyses show it is the largest predictor of radical intentions. I pointed out to him that ideological obsession shares common features found in OCD. He agreed and we decided to test if ideological obsession and radical intentions were related to OCD symptoms.&#8221;</p>
<p>To explore these relationships, the researchers conducted a series of surveys from December 2021 to March 2022. The study targeted different ideological and religious groups, including environmental activists, Democrats, Republicans, and Muslims. The participants, all U.S. citizens, were chosen based on their self-identification with these groups during a pre-screening survey. A total of 1,120 individuals completed the relevant surveys, providing a substantial dataset for analysis.</p>
<p>The researchers employed a range of measures in their surveys to assess various psychological aspects. These included scales to measure participants&#8217; passion for their ideologies, distinguishing between harmonious passion (a balanced and controlled interest) and obsessive passion (an uncontrollable and overpowering interest).</p>
<p>The researchers also measured the commitment of participants to their ideologies, their support for both peaceful and violent activism, and the severity of their obsessive-compulsive symptoms using a specialized scale. Additionally, factors such as anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and adverse childhood experiences were included as supplementary variables in the study.</p>
<p>The findings were consistent across the different groups. There was a notable positive link between the severity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms and obsessive passion towards ideologies. Furthermore, both these factors were found to be predictors of radical intentions, suggesting a progression from obsessive-compulsive symptoms to obsessive passion, and subsequently to radical thoughts and behaviors. This pattern remained robust even after adjusting for other factors like anxiety and depression.</p>
<p>&#8220;The consistency of the findings and straightforward replication across all four samples,&#8221; Adam-Troian told PsyPost. &#8220;It is now obvious with hindsight but remember that when we started this project, most of the literature concluded that there was no reason to expect strong links between mental health and radical intentions.&#8221;</p>
<p>In a more detailed analysis using structural equation modeling, a statistical technique that helps understand complex relationships between variables, the researchers discovered that obsessive passion acts as a mediator. This means that obsessive-compulsive symptoms indirectly influenced radical intentions through obsessive passion. In other words, the intensity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms could lead to a more obsessive involvement in ideological beliefs, which in turn could lead to radical intentions.</p>
<p>&#8220;Radicalization, whether religious or political, may be the byproduct of OCD symptoms that revolve around ideology (instead of health, cleanliness or other common OCD themes),&#8221; Adam-Troian said. &#8220;At least that’s what we believe and these results are the first to provide some degree of evidence for this hypothesis. Much more research needs to be done though; this is just the first step.&#8221;</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>Despite these insightful findings, there are some limitations to note. Future studies could compare violent intentions among individuals with clinical and subclinical obsessive-compulsive disorder, or examine incarcerated terrorists and violent activists for OCD symptoms. Additionally, the researchers caution against overgeneralizing the findings beyond English-speaking Western countries, given that all the participants were from the U.S. population.</p>
<p>It is also important to note that the study does not suggest that individuals suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder inherently pose a greater security threat in terms of radicalization potential. Instead, it highlights that the severity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms is a risk factor for developing radical attitudes. An individual can exhibit symptoms of OCD without meeting the criteria for a clinical diagnosis. This distinction is crucial to avoid misunderstandings about the implications of the study.</p>
<p>&#8220;All our samples come from the United States, and we investigated subclinical forms of OCD measured with the the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms scale,&#8221; Adam-Troian explained. &#8220;Ideally, we should wait for other teams to replicate these findings in other countries with other ideological groups. More evidence could be provided from research designs comparing radical intentions between OCD and non-OCD populations.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;If these results hold, then we believe CBT protocols that are effective to treat OCD could be repurposed for applications in radicalization prevention and de-radicalization,&#8221; he added.</p>
<p>The study, &#8220;<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ab.22124" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8216;Consumed by creed&#8217;: Obsessive-compulsive symptoms underpin ideological obsession and support for political violence</a>&#8220;, was published November 14, 2023.</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 31, 2023 at 10:17AM
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TITLE:
"Making Waves" Washes Away Stigma Around Men's Mental Health Struggles
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URL:
http://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?from=rss_feed&id=176322&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-67800855?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

<div><p>Source: <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/default.stm" rel="tag" target="_blank">BBC News - UK News</a></p>For many people, it's not New Year's Day without a dip in the sea. It's a popular choice for those hoping to step into the new year with a fresh start. That's the philosophy of three young men in Northern Ireland who are aiming to turn the tide on issues concerning men's mental health. The three set up Making Waves&mdash;a group that wants to help men of all ages open up and break the stigma around mental struggles.</div><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><br /><a href="https://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?action=rssHomepage" target="_blank"><img title="Brought to you by Social Psychology Network" alt="Brought to you by SocialPsychology Network" src="https://www.socialpsychology.org/images/rss-footer-large.png" border="0" width="400" height="45" /></a><br><br>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 31, 2023 at 10:17AM
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TITLE:
The Next Frontier: Humanoid Robots in Space
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URL:
http://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?from=rss_feed&id=176318&url=https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiT2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmtzbC5jb20vYXJ0aWNsZS81MDgyOTE2Ny9odW1hbm9pZC1yb2JvdHMtaW4tc3BhY2UtdGhlLW5leHQtZnJvbnRpZXLSAQA?oc=5

<div><p>Source: <a href="http://news.google.com/?ned=us&topic=m" rel="tag" target="_blank">Google News - Health</a></p>Standing at 6-feet, 2-inches tall and weighing 300 pounds, NASA's humanoid robot Valkyrie is an imposing figure. Valkyrie, named after a female figure in Norse mythology and being tested at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, is designed to operate in &quot;degraded or damaged human-engineered environments,&quot; like areas hit by natural disasters, according to NASA. But robots like her could also one day operate in space.</div><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><br /><a href="https://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?action=rssHomepage" target="_blank"><img title="Brought to you by Social Psychology Network" alt="Brought to you by SocialPsychology Network" src="https://www.socialpsychology.org/images/rss-footer-large.png" border="0" width="400" height="45" /></a><br><br>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 31, 2023 at 10:16AM
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TITLE:
GPT-4 May Perpetuate Racial, Gender Biases in Clinical Decision Making
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URL:
http://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?from=rss_feed&id=176324&url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/12/231218150939.htm

<div><p>Source: <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/" rel="tag" target="_blank">Science Daily - Top Society</a></p>GPT-4, an artificial intelligence model, may be biased with respect to race and gender in clinical decision making, according to a study published in The Lancet Digital Health. The study assessed GPT-4's performance in four clinical domains: generating clinical vignettes, diagnostic reasoning, clinical plan generation, and subjective patient assessments. For example, GPT-4 exaggerated known racial and gender disparities in 89% of diseases.</div><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><br /><a href="https://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?action=rssHomepage" target="_blank"><img title="Brought to you by Social Psychology Network" alt="Brought to you by SocialPsychology Network" src="https://www.socialpsychology.org/images/rss-footer-large.png" border="0" width="400" height="45" /></a><br><br>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

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DATE:
December 31, 2023 at 11:00AM
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TITLE:
Depression linked to altered brain responses to different types of gestures, study finds
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URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2023/12/depression-linked-to-altered-brain-responses-to-different-types-of-gestures-study-finds-220391

<p>A new study has revealed that people with depression exhibit different brain activity when they observe gestures compared to people without depression. The study, published in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925492723001385"><em>Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging</em></a>, also found that the type and meaning of the gestures influenced the brain responses.</p>
<p>Gestures are movements of the arms and hands that convey information or emotions. They can be “instrumental” (giving instructions, e.g. pointing) or “expressive” (expressing inner emotions, e.g. clapping). Gestures can also have positive meaning (e.g. thumbs up), or negative meaning (e.g. raised middle finger).</p>
<p>Previous research has illustrated that people with depression, a common mental disorder that affects mood and social functioning, have biases when recognizing and interpreting gestures. However, little is known about how the brain processes gestures in depression, and which particular brain areas are important for this.</p>
<p>To address this gap, the research team led by Mathilde Sijtsma from the University of Glasgow recruited 12 individuals with depression (aged 33 years old on average) and 12 controls matched for age and biological gender.</p>
<p>Sijtsma and colleagues employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a technique that measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow. The fMRI machine scanned the participants’ brains while they viewed a screen that displayed short animations of stick figures performing different gestures, which were either instrumental or expressive, and either positive or negative.</p>
<p>These stick figures were composed of bright dots located at major joints joined together by lines, which allowed portrayal of human movement while minimizing distracting information such as facial expressions and body shape.</p>
<p>Upon analysis, the researchers found that individuals with depression had overall greater activity in the right claustrum, a brain region involved in integrating sensory, motor (movement), and emotional information, compared to the controls. This suggests that people with depression may require more effort and attention to process the different types of information when they perceive gestures.</p>
<p>Furthermore, viewing instrumental gestures was associated with greater activity in the left cuneus and left superior temporal gyrus, than perceiving expressive gestures. These brain areas are involved in visual processing and motion perception. Sijtsma and colleagues stipulate that this activation may be related to “self-preferential biases” as “instrumental gestures explicitly address an observer, while expressive gestures indicate [someone else’s emotional] state. People process self-relevant [information] in a preferential manner, suggesting that the instrumental gestures captured more attention”.</p>
<p>The researchers also found that perceiving negative gestures was associated with greater activity in the right precuneus and right lingual gyrus than perceiving positive gestures. Both structures have been found to be involved in gesture perception, and the study authors suggested that the increased activity could potentially be explained by a mental bias towards negative situations.</p>
<p>Finally, the researchers found that perceiving negative instrumental gestures was associated with greater activity in various brain regions than perceiving positive instrumental gestures, or expressive gestures (both positive and negative). Specifically, these brain regions were the right precuneus, right lingual gyrus, right paracentral lobule, left cingulate gyrus, right brainstem and left declive, and together these are associated with emotional and social processing, in addition to the perception of biological movement.</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>The study team explained this phenomenon, “for the [depressed] group these regions would activate particularly for negative instrumental gestures such as ‘No, you are wrong’, ‘Do not do that’, ‘What time do you call this?’ where there is the potential for an observer to subjectively feel scolded by the stick-figure animation. Such a subjective interpretation is not readily available for either the positive or negative expressive gestures or the positive instrumental gestures.”</p>
<p>The study has some limitations, such as the small sample size, varying medication use among the participants with depression, as well as the use of stick figures instead of full-light displays of gestures, which led to omission of some detail, e.g. hand and finger gestures.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925492723001385">Major Depression and the Perception of Affective Instrumental and Expressive Gestures: An fMRI Investigation</a>”, was authored by Mathilde Sijtsma, Dominic Marjoram, Helen L. Gallagher, Madeleine A. Grealy, David Brennan, Christopher Mathias, Jonathan Cavanagh, and Frank E. Pollick.</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 31, 2023 at 09:00AM
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TITLE:
When the World Feels Dark, Seek Out Delight
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URL:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/31/opinion/delights-connections-mood-health.html

Taking time to notice life’s small joys can improve your health and your outlook.
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

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DATE:
December 31, 2023 at 08:00AM
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TITLE:
Surprising link between brain connectivity and sleep duration revealed in new neuroscience research
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URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2023/12/surprising-link-between-brain-connectivity-and-sleep-duration-revealed-in-new-neuroscience-research-220386

<p>Scientists have discovered a significant link between the patterns of brain connectivity and the amount of sleep individuals get. Utilizing advanced imaging techniques, the research shows that the way different regions of the brain communicate can predict how long a person typically sleeps. This finding, published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.26488"><em>Human Brain Mapping</em></a>, opens new avenues in understanding the relationship between sleep and brain function.</p>
<p>Previous research has extensively documented how sleep bolsters memory, attention, and overall cognitive performance. However, what remained less explored was how sleep is related to the functional organization of the brain and impacts behavior. Recognizing this gap, researchers embarked on this study to investigate how sleep patterns are reflected in the brain&#8217;s functional connectivity &#8211; essentially how different regions of the brain communicate and coordinate with each other.</p>
<p>The research was conducted using two major datasets: the Human Connectome Project and the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study. These datasets included brain imaging and sleep data from over 11,000 participants, ranging from children to young adults.</p>
<p>&#8220;I’ve had a long-standing interest in sleep and in the brain networks that might influence how much we sleep. The Human Connectome Project and Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study datasets offered substantial sleep data alongside functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data that enabled us to better understand those networks,&#8221; explained study author Anurima Mummaneni, an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago and member of Monica D. Rosenberg&#8217;s <a href="https://cablab.uchicago.edu" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cognition, Attention, &amp; Brain Lab</a>.</p>
<p>The Human Connectome Project provided data from 1,206 young adults, aged 22 to 35, focusing on their self-reported sleep quality assessed through a questionnaire. The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study involved 11,875 individuals from age 9–10 to age 19–20, with a focus on their sleep duration measured objectively using Fitbit devices.</p>
<p>For both datasets, the researchers analyzed functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data, which provides a map of brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This enabled the researchers to examine functional connectivity patterns.</p>
<p>The researchers successfully identified specific patterns of brain connectivity that could predict an individual&#8217;s sleep duration. This predictive ability held true across different datasets and age groups, indicating a universal link between brain function and sleep duration.</p>
<p>The findings indicate &#8220;that the same or similar brain networks predict sleep duration in different people of different ages,&#8221; Mummaneni told PsyPost. &#8220;Sleep can be pretty variable across individuals, with different people needing to sleep less or more to function optimally. So it is really interesting to note that despite those idiosyncrasies, we&#8217;re able to see consistency in the brain networks that underlie longer and shorter durations of sleep, and general patterns emerge across fairly large participant samples.&#8221;</p>
<p>More specifically, the researchers found two distinct networks in the brain. These networks spanned various brain regions, including the cerebellum, motor cortices, and subcortical areas. The networks predictive of more sleep, or the &#8216;high-duration&#8217; networks, included connections between the cerebellum and motor cortices. Conversely, the &#8216;low-duration&#8217; networks, associated with less sleep, were more widespread and involved connections between the occipital lobes, motor cortices, and parietal regions.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the study also revealed that resting-state brain activity – the brain’s default mode when not engaged in specific tasks – was a better predictor of sleep duration than task-based brain activity. This finding challenges some preconceived notions about brain function, indicating that the brain&#8217;s resting state might hold more clues about our sleep patterns than previously thought.</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>Additionally, the study made an intriguing connection between predicted sleep duration and cognitive performance. The brain connectivity patterns associated with sleep also seemed to correlate with how well individuals performed on cognitive tasks, hinting at a deeper link between quality of sleep and cognitive abilities.</p>
<p>&#8220;I was surprised that sleep durations predicted by our models were correlated with participants’ actual working memory task accuracies in some datasets, even with the most conservative training parameters,&#8221; Mummaneni said. &#8220;In other words, in some cases when our brain-based models predicted that a person tended to get more sleep, that person also performed better on a working memory test. The connection between sleep and memory has been well-established in the field, but it was particularly interesting that our predictive models seemed to reflect those connections even when they were not trained to do so.&#8221;</p>
<p>Despite these significant findings, the study does have its limitations. Notably, the correlations between the predicted sleep duration and the actual sleep duration, while statistically significant, were modest. This indicates that while the models are theoretically meaningful, they do not provide highly precise predictions of individual sleep patterns.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the research is correlational in nature, meaning it does not establish a cause-and-effect relationship between brain connectivity and sleep duration. It&#8217;s unclear whether certain sleep patterns influence brain connectivity or vice versa, or if both are influenced by another factor such as stress or aging.</p>
<p>&#8220;Open questions remain about the causal associations between sleep and the functional brain networks we identified,&#8221; Mummaneni explained. &#8220;Does the amount of sleep someone gets impact these brain networks and/or do these networks affect sleep duration and quality? Do other factors, such as stress, influence both? I’m interested in exploring these questions in the future.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;In the future, it would also be interesting to ask whether brain networks that predict whether people tend to get more or less sleep remain consistent within individuals. For example, if you’re someone who tends to get and need 8 hours of sleep per night, do your sleep-related brain networks change when you pull an all-nighter, or are these brain network configurations relatively stable, reflecting your average amount of sleep over longer periods of time? That sleep duration could be predicted across demographically distinct datasets would suggest this would be the case, that sleep-related networks are consistent at least from late childhood through young adulthood.&#8221;</p>
<p>The study, &#8220;<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hbm.26488" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Functional brain connectivity predicts sleep duration in youth and adults</a>&#8220;, was authored by Anurima Mummaneni, Omid Kardan, Andrew J. Stier, Taylor A. Chamberlain, Alfred F. Chao, Marc G. Berman, and Monica D. Rosenberg.</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

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DATE:
December 31, 2023 at 07:00AM
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TITLE:
Gender and personality traits influence cryptocurrency investment decisions
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URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2023/12/gender-and-personality-traits-influence-cryptocurrency-investment-decisions-220388

<p>A study in Norway has found that less than 1 in 10 Norwegians are willing to invest in cryptocurrencies. However, the likelihood of investing is more than double in men compared to women. Additionally, those open to investing in cryptocurrency tend to exhibit lower levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness, but higher levels of openness to experience and financial overconfidence. The study was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21921"><em>Psychology &amp; Marketing</em></a>.</p>
<p>Cryptocurrencies, also known as crypto, are digital or virtual currencies secured by cryptography. These currencies are decentralized and operate on blockchain technology—a distributed ledger that records all transactions across a computer network. Bitcoin, created in 2009 by an individual or group under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, is among the most well-known cryptocurrencies.</p>
<p>Cryptocurrencies enable peer-to-peer transactions without the need for intermediaries like banks, making them a potentially disruptive force in the financial world. They offer benefits such as increased security, transparency, and lower transaction fees compared to traditional financial systems. However, they also come with risks, including price volatility and regulatory concerns. Cryptocurrencies have gained popularity as both an investment asset and a means of conducting online transactions. Their use continues to evolve and expand in various industries.</p>
<p>&#8220;We wanted to understand the profile of crypto consumers and potential gender differences in this domain based on a representative sample of the general population instead of relying on the common approach to solely recruit convenience samples from online panels or universities,&#8221; said study author Tobias Otterbring, a professor of marketing at the University of Agder.</p>
<p>&#8220;Moreover, we sought to go beyond the practice of only studying the direct link between consumer gender and crypto investment decisions, with men typically being more prone to invest in cryptocurrencies than women. Instead, we tested for several plausible psychological mechanisms that might explain such gender differences. Specifically, we used measures from two distinct streams of literature, namely personality psychology and economics, to capture the Big Five personality traits and consumers’ financial overconfidence.&#8221;</p>
<p>Otterbring and his colleagues conducted two studies.</p>
<p>In the first study, 126 Scandinavian adults, ranging in age from 18 to 70, were recruited through the online platform Prolific. The participants were provided with definitions of the Big Five personality traits and were asked to assess whether individuals with higher or lower levels of each trait would be more or less likely to invest in cryptocurrencies, compared to those with opposite trait levels. The same question was posed regarding gender. Participants also shared their demographic information and their intentions or current status regarding cryptocurrency investment.</p>
<p>The second study aimed to validate the conceptual model derived from the first study by comparing the lay beliefs about psychological factors and cryptocurrency investment from the first study with actual observations in a larger Norwegian sample. This study involved 1,741 Norwegian adults, with an average age of 52 years, including 815 females.</p>
<p>In this survey, participants were questioned about their views on investing in cryptocurrencies as a viable investment option and their ownership of other types of investments. The survey also included assessments of financial literacy (via a 25-item scale), subjective financial literacy, financial overconfidence (determined by comparing financial literacy assessments with subjective financial literacy), financial self-efficacy (using a 6-item scale), and the Big Five personality traits, measured through the Ten-Item Personality Inventory.</p>
<p>Financial self-efficacy refers to an individual&#8217;s belief in their own ability to manage and control their financial affairs and decisions effectively. The Big Five Personality traits include neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>The first study&#8217;s findings indicated that participants believed males, as well as individuals with higher levels of financial overconfidence and self-efficacy, were more likely to invest in cryptocurrencies. They also perceived that those less agreeable, less conscientious, less emotionally stable (i.e., having higher levels of neuroticism), more extraverted, and more open to experience would have a greater inclination towards cryptocurrency investment.</p>
<p>The results from the second study revealed that men scored higher on financial self-efficacy. Women were more financially overconfident compared to men, but the difference was small. &#8220;We got one unexpected result in terms of financial overconfidence, in which prior literature indicates that men tend to be more overconfident than women. In our case, however, we found the opposite: female consumers were more financially overconfident than their male counterparts,&#8221; Otterbring said.</p>
<p>The researchers found that 12.5% of males, compared to only 5.6% of females, regarded cryptocurrencies as a relevant investment alternative. Individuals who were more financially overconfident, less agreeable, less conscientious, and more open to experience were likelier to view cryptocurrencies as a viable investment option.</p>
<p>&#8220;In our main study, we found that less than 1 in 10 consumers from a nationally representative sample of Norwegian consumers were willing to invest in crypto, although men were more than twice as likely to consider such investments,&#8221; Otterbring told PsyPost. &#8220;We also found that less agreeable and less conscientious, but more open and more financially overconfident consumers were increasingly inclined to consider crypto investments. Finally, we found that our obtained gender differences, at least in part, could be explained by gender differences in financial overconfidence, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.&#8221;</p>
<p>The study sheds light on the links between attitudes towards investment in cryptocurrencies, gender and personality. However, it also has limitations that need to be taken into account.</p>
<p>&#8220;As our study was restricted to a Norwegian context, with Norway being one of the most gender equal countries in the world, it is unclear whether similar findings will emerge in less gender egalitarian countries,&#8221; Otterbring explained. &#8220;It should also be noted that we used a cross-sectional survey approach, which means that we cannot explicitly draw causal inferences based on our results.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;In addition, we focused on mean differences between men and women in personality traits, financial overconfidence, and crypto investment intentions. However, several studies suggest that gender differences are much more pronounced at the tails of the distribution. In other words, even if researchers would only find a small mean difference between men and women, such a gender difference might still be substantial at the distribution extremes.&#8221;</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21921">Crypto cravings: Gender differences in crypto investment intentions and the mediating roles of financial overconfidence and personality</a>”, was authored by Ellen Katrine Nyhus, Darius‐Aurel Frank, Michał Krzysztof Król, and Tobias Otterbring.</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 30, 2023 at 04:09AM
.
TITLE:
Judge Blocks Enforcement of Iowa's "Don't Say Gay"' Law in Classrooms
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URL:
http://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?from=rss_feed&id=176311&url=https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2023/12/30/iowa-judge-blocks-dont-say-gay-bill-schools/4831703956084/

<div><p>Source: <a href="http://www.upi.com/Health_News/" rel="tag" target="_blank">United Press International - Health News</a></p>A U.S. federal judge has granted a temporary injunction blocking Iowa officials from enforcing a new state law aiming to remove books discussing gender identity or sexuality from classrooms. U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of Iowa Stephen Locher ruled Friday that aspects of Senate File 496 were too broad, enjoining state officials from enforcing them when they were set to come into law on January 1.</div><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><br /><a href="https://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?action=rssHomepage" target="_blank"><img title="Brought to you by Social Psychology Network" alt="Brought to you by SocialPsychology Network" src="https://www.socialpsychology.org/images/rss-footer-large.png" border="0" width="400" height="45" /></a><br><br>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

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DATE:
December 30, 2023 at 01:00PM
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TITLE:
Omega-3 supplements show promise in enhancing depression treatment in adolescents
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URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2023/12/omega-3-supplements-show-promise-in-enhancing-depression-treatment-in-adolescents-220376

<p>An open-label study involving Chinese adolescents with depression compared the effects of treating depressive symptoms using the antidepressant Paxil alone to those of a combination of Paxil and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid supplements. The results indicated that the group receiving omega-3 supplements exhibited more significant improvements in depressive symptoms, cognitive function, and memory than the group treated solely with Paxil. The study was published in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2023.104525"><em>Journal of Affective Disorders</em></a>.</p>
<p>Omega-3 short-chain fatty acids are a subgroup of essential polyunsaturated fatty acids that offer several health benefits. They are known for their anti-inflammatory properties, which can help reduce the risk of chronic inflammatory conditions such as cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and certain autoimmune disorders. The most common omega-3 short-chain fatty acid, alpha-linolenic acid, may play a role in maintaining heart health by lowering blood pressure, reducing triglycerides, and improving cholesterol profiles.</p>
<p>Omega-3 short chain fatty acids are associated with improved cognitive function and may help support brain health, potentially reducing the risk of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer&#8217;s. While the human body can convert alpha-linolenic acid into other short-chain fatty acids, such as eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), alpha-linolenic acid itself is an essential nutrient. This means that the body cannot produce it and needs to obtain it through diet.</p>
<p>Recent studies have shown that EPA and DHA might help improve symptoms of depression. There is reason to believe that these short-chain fatty acids affect systems in the brain that are responsible for the development of depression. Also, studies indicate that patients with depression have reduced levels of omega-3 acids in their cell membranes. This reduction is more pronounced in individuals with more severe depression symptoms.</p>
<p>With this in mind, study author Shuhui Li and his colleagues set out to examine whether adding omega-3 short-chain fatty acids (as supplements) to a regular treatment for depression might improve the effectiveness of the treatment. They conducted an open-label study on a group of 71 adolescents diagnosed with depression who were taking Paxil as their primary antidepressant medication.</p>
<p>Paxil is a brand name for the antidepressant drug paroxetine. It is classified as a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor and is commonly prescribed to treat depression, but also generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and certain other mental health disorders. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, including paroxetine, are a class of psychiatric medications that work by increasing the levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter, in the brain to help alleviate symptoms of mental health disorders.</p>
<p>Study participants were recruited at the Fourth People’s Hospital of Wuhu, Wuhu city, Anhui province, in China between November 2020 and January 2022. They were randomly assigned to either a group that would take Paxil alone or an omega-3 supplement derived from fish oil in addition to Paxil. These treatments lasted for 12 weeks. Study authors conducted follow-up assessments every 4 weeks.</p>
<p>The dose of Paxil was 20 mg per day. The dose of omega-3 supplement was 3 capsules per day (2700mg). Of these, 1941 mg was eicosapentaenoic acid, while 759 mg were docosahexaenoic acid. The dose was created in line with the guidelines of the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research for omega-3 supplementation in the treatment of depression.</p>
<p>During the study, the researchers tracked the severity of participants’ depressive symptoms (the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale), cognitive function (the Montreal Cognitive Assessment), and memory (the Wechsler Memory Scale).</p>
<p>Results showed that depressive symptoms improved in both groups in each follow-up visit compared to the start of the study. However, the improvement was much stronger in the group that was taking omega-3 supplements compared to the group that was taking Paxil alone. The complete withdrawal of depressive symptoms (remission) was more frequent in the group taking omega-3 supplements. Cognitive function and memory also improved in both groups, but the omega-3 supplement group showed stronger improvement.</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>&#8220;This study revealed that omega-3 supplementation alleviated depressive symptoms in adolescents with mild to moderate depression, broadening our understanding of omega-3 supplementation as an adjuvant treatment for depression in adolescents. In addition, the current study provided novel evidence that omega-3 supplementation improved cognitive function and memory,&#8221; study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study makes an important contribution to the scientific understanding of the effects of omega-3 short chain fatty acids intake on symptoms of depression. However, it should be noted that this was an open-label study. This means that participants knew which treatment they were undergoing. This could have produced bias. A study using a placebo group might not produce equal results.</p>
<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2023.104525">Omega-3 supplementation improves depressive symptoms, cognitive e function and niacin skin flushing response in adolescent depression: A randomized controlled clinical trial</a>”, was authored by Shuhui Li, Rulan Li, Xiaowen Hu, Yue Zhang, Dandan Wang, Yan Gao, Jinfeng Wang, Qian Wang, Chuanfu Song, Shucai Huang, En Zhang, Juan Zhang, Zhong Xia, and Chunling Wan.</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

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DATE:
December 30, 2023 at 11:00AM
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TITLE:
Contrary to popular belief, party identification remained remarkably stable amid Trump’s rise
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URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2023/12/contrary-to-popular-belief-party-identification-remained-remarkably-stable-amid-trumps-rise-220368

<p>New research provides evidence that party identification in the United States remains remarkably stable over short periods, even in the face of political turbulence, such as the transition from the Obama to the Trump administration. The findings, published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09825-y"><em>Political Behavior</em></a>, indicate that the pace at which people shift their party loyalties has remained surprisingly consistent over the past several decades.</p>
<p>The motivation behind the study was influenced by the dramatic changes within the major political parties in the United States. On the Republican side, the advent of Donald Trump marked a pivotal shift. His presidency brought about profound changes in the party&#8217;s platform, characterized by a more pugnacious and nativist approach, which contrasted sharply with traditional political conventions.</p>
<p>Simultaneously, the Democratic Party experienced its own evolution, particularly with the rise of its progressive wing. The presidential bids of figures like Bernie Sanders in 2016 and the emergence of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018 highlighted this shift. Consequently, there was a growing perception, especially among white citizens, that the Democratic Party was moving progressively further to the left, especially on economic issues.</p>
<p>One key question was whether the recent tumult in party politics, marked by these transformations, was leading voters to reassess their alignments with these parties. Was the rapidly evolving political landscape causing a hastening in the pace of change in party identities?</p>
<p>&#8220;The stability of party identification (relative to what scholars of public opinion have long termed &#8216;short-term forces&#8217; such as recessions or scandals) has long been a cornerstone of theories of public opinion,&#8221; said study author <a href="http://www.donaldgreen.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald P. Green</a>, the J.W. Burgess Professor of Political Science at Columbia University.</p>
<p>&#8220;The central argument of my co-authored book &#8216;<a href="https://amzn.to/48gPbjW" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Partisan Hearts and Minds</a>&#8216; is that party identification tends to change very gradually over the course of one&#8217;s adult life, despite the vicissitudes of party politics. In that sense, party attachments are more likely social identities (e.g., religious attachments or sports team affiliations).&#8221;</p>
<p>For their study, the researchers analyzed data from three multi-wave panel surveys: the Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics survey, the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group survey, and The American Panel Survey. Each survey employed nationally representative sampling procedures to recruit thousands of U.S. participants. Together, these surveys encompassed a period from November 2011 to October 2020, providing a rich longitudinal perspective.</p>
<p>At the heart of the study was the measure of party identification, which was done using a seven-point scale. This scale, adapted from the American National Election Study (ANES), allowed the researchers to gauge the strength and nature of political affiliations among participants. It was not just a matter of identifying as a Democrat or Republican; the scale also captured nuances such as whether individuals considered themselves strong or not very strong affiliates of their chosen party.</p>
<p>The frequency with which party identification was measured varied across the surveys. The Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics panel measured party identification on nine occasions, the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group six times, and The American Panel Survey twenty-four times.</p>
<p>One of the key findings was the remarkable stability of party identification in the short term. The data showed that, from one survey wave to the next, there was very little change in how individuals identified politically. The percentage of new variance in partisanship was found to be relatively small, ranging between 2% and 20%. This suggests that despite the dynamic nature of political events and the heated political climate, most Americans maintained consistent political affiliations.</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>Despite the substantial changes in the social, political, and technological landscape over the past several decades, the pace of change in partisan identification from 2011 to 2020 was found to be quite similar to that observed in panel surveys dating back to the 1950s.</p>
<p>&#8220;Much has been said in the popular press about the change that Donald Trump&#8217;s candidacy/presidency has wrought on the Republican Party and party politics more generally,&#8221; Green told PsyPost. &#8220;One might infer that nowadays Americans are thinking differently about the parties and their connection to them, which in turn would imply that party attachments are more unstable over time than they were in the pre-Trump era. Our paper says no: to our surprise, party attachments are about as stable as they have been in panel surveys dating back to the 1950s.&#8221;</p>
<p>Contrasting with the short-term stability, the study also highlighted a different picture over the longer term. When examining political identities over the span of several years, the data revealed more significant shifts. This longer-term fluidity suggests that while individuals may hold firm to their political beliefs and party affiliations in the short run, these affiliations are subject to change over a longer period. The study projected that these small, incremental changes in party identification could accumulate over a person&#8217;s lifetime, leading to more substantial shifts in their political allegiance.</p>
<p>&#8220;The fact that party identities tend to change gradually over time does not mean that they do not change at all,&#8221; Green explained. &#8220;Gradual changes can become meaningful over the span of decades. The point is not that party identities are unchangeable but rather that they rarely change abruptly in response to current conditions.&#8221;</p>
<p>The study, &#8220;<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-022-09825-y" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Partisan Stability During Turbulent Times: Evidence from Three American Panel Surveys</a>&#8220;, was authored by Donald P. Green and Paul Platzman.</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

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DATE:
December 30, 2023 at 09:00AM
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TITLE:
Psychopathic men have more children, study finds
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URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2023/12/psychopathic-men-have-more-children-study-finds-220372

<p>A new study examined the link between psychopathic traits and number of children in a community sample of men and women, finding that prototypical psychopathy was associated with having more children among men, but not women. This research was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000343"><em>Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences</em></a>.</p>
<p>Research on psychopathy from an evolutionary perspective suggests it may be a strategy for higher offspring production at the cost of lower parental investment, but findings are inconsistent. Men with pronounced psychopathic traits often have more children, yet some studies point to fewer offspring in such individuals, particularly among non-criminal adults and women.</p>
<p>Psychopathy, characterized by traits such as manipulativeness and callousness, can manifest to varying degrees across genders and social contexts. The present study examined the relationship between psychopathic traits and offspring count in a general population of both men and women.</p>
<p>Researchers Kristopher Brazil and Anthony Volk recruited 253 young men and 243 young women ages 24 to 35 to complete an online survey. Participants provided demographic information, including age, relationship status, and income. Additionally, they indicated the number of children they had, with response options ranging from zero to three or more children.</p>
<p>The participants also completed a short form of the Self-Report Psychopathy measure, which consists of 29 items rated on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). This measure assesses psychopathy across multiple dimensions, encompassing <em>interpersonal traits</em> (e.g., “I have pretended to be someone else in order to get something”), <em>affective characteristics</em> (e.g., “I never feel guilty over hurting others”), <em>lifestyle tendencies</em> (e.g., “I enjoy doing wild things”), and <em>antisocial behaviors</em> (e.g., “I have broken into a building or vehicle in order to steal something or vandalize”).</p>
<p>First, Brazil and Volk observed that having a partner was associated with higher income for both men and women, and number of children was correlated with men’s (but not women’s) income. Relationship status and age emerged as predictors for number of children in both genders.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the researchers noted that among women, only the antisocial facet of psychopathy was associated with number of children. In contrast, when it came to men, number of children was associated with the interpersonal, affective, and antisocial facets of psychopathy. Notably, the lifestyle facet did not exhibit any significant association with number of children for either men or women. Furthermore, in men, the presence of prototypical psychopathy was linked to number of children. Women’s likelihood of having more children was primarily influenced by their relationship status and age.</p>
<p>A limitation to the current study is that the researchers did not differentiate between biological and step children. Previous research has indicated that psychopathic men involved in the justice system may be more inclined to form relationships with women who already have children; thus, this would be an important consideration for future research.</p>
<p>Brazil and Volk concluded, “Our findings call for more research on the possible links between psychopathic traits and indices of adaptive outcomes in community as well as justice-involved and high-risk populations of men and women.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000343">Psychopathic Traits and Number of Children in Community Men and Women</a>”, was authored by Kristopher J. Brazil and Anthony A. Volk.</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

.
DATE:
December 30, 2023 at 07:00AM
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TITLE:
New study highlights the psychological power of minimal social interactions
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URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2023/12/new-study-highlights-the-psychological-power-of-minimal-social-interactions-220370

<p>New research suggests that even the simplest forms of social interaction, like greeting or thanking someone, can significantly boost our life satisfaction. The findings, published in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/19485506231209793"><em>Social Psychological and Personality Science</em></a>, highlight the often-overlooked value of everyday, minimal social interactions.</p>
<p>The motivation behind this study stemmed from decades of scientific research on the impact of close relationships, like family and friends, on psychological well-being. However, interactions with acquaintances and strangers – the people we might casually greet on our morning walk, thank a bus driver, or exchange a few words with at the supermarket – had not been as thoroughly explored. This gap in understanding prompted researchers to investigate whether these minimal interactions could be just as crucial to our overall happiness as the deeper connections we share with close ones.</p>
<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been involved in relationship research for almost ten years but I focused solely on close relationships until recently,&#8221; said study author <a href="https://sites.google.com/view/esraascigil" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Esra Aşçıgil</a>, a postdoctoral researcher at Sabanci University in Istanbul. &#8220;It was the pandemic that made me realize how much the people outside of our close social circle mattered for our well-being.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Many of us were sheltering in place with our families and tried to keep in touch with close others, but our minimal social interactions were mostly gone. I know I missed saying good morning to the bus driver and making small talk with people I don&#8217;t know well by the coffee machine at work. This was a big motivation for me to join some great researchers, my coauthors in this study, in studying brief interactions with strangers and weak ties.&#8221;</p>
<p>To investigate this, the researchers employed two distinct groups of participants. The first group, referred to as Sample A, consisted of 3,266 adults from Turkey, gathered through face-to-face interviews by KONDA, a leading public opinion research company. This sample was representative of the Turkish population, covering all 12 regions of the country.</p>
<p>The second group, Sample B, was much larger, with 60,141 adult participants. This group was primarily composed of individuals from the United Kingdom, but also included English-speaking participants from various other countries. The data for Sample B was collected via an anonymous online questionnaire as part of <a href="https://www.sussex.ac.uk/research/centres/kindness/research/thekindnesstest" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Kindness Test</a>, a project conducted by the University of Sussex in partnership with the British Broadcasting Corporation.</p>
<p>Participants in the study were asked to report on different types of social interactions. In the Turkish sample, the focus was on &#8216;weak-tie&#8217; interactions &#8211; those casual exchanges with acquaintances. Participants rated how often they engaged in greeting, thanking, or initiating conversations with people they knew but weren&#8217;t close to. In both samples, participants were also asked about their interactions with complete strangers, specifically how many social conversations they had started in the past week.</p>
<p>To understand the broader social context of participants, the study also included measures of relational mobility, gauging the ease with which people in their environment meet and establish new relationships. Life satisfaction was assessed through a straightforward question in both samples, asking participants to rate their overall satisfaction with life.</p>
<p>In Sample A, individuals who frequently greeted, thanked, or conversed with acquaintances reported greater life satisfaction. This correlation was also observed in Sample B, where participants who engaged in more conversations with strangers also indicated higher life satisfaction. To further strengthen these findings, the researchers used an instrumental variable analysis, a sophisticated statistical method that suggested these associations were not just correlations, but likely causal.</p>
<p>&#8220;Everyday life involves numerous opportunities to interact with strangers and people we don&#8217;t know well,&#8221; Aşçıgil told PsyPost. &#8220;We can greet and thank the cashier at the grocery store, we can start a conversation with the person sitting next to us on the bus, and so on. Our findings suggest that interactions like these can increase our life satisfaction.&#8221;</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>Interestingly, the research found that these minimal interactions had a positive effect on life satisfaction across both Western and non-Western cultural contexts. This suggests that the benefits of simple social interactions are universal, transcending cultural boundaries. The effect was even more pronounced among English-speaking participants, hinting at possible cultural differences in how social interactions are valued and experienced.</p>
<p>&#8220;One of the main questions we wanted to address in this research was whether <em>very</em> brief social interactions, such as simply saying hello or thank you to people we don&#8217;t know well, could contribute to well-being,&#8221; Aşçıgil said. &#8220;On the one hand, there was some prior research suggesting that only deeper interactions (e.g., a conversation where one self-discloses) could contribute to well-being. On the other hand, there was some other prior research suggesting that even very brief interactions with strangers could make people feel more connected to others. We were pleased to find that greeting and thanking contributed to well-being in a large nationally-representative sample.&#8221;</p>
<p>While the study&#8217;s results are compelling, it&#8217;s important to note its limitations. The reliance on self-reports for measuring social interactions could lead to recall bias, where participants might not accurately remember or report their interactions. Furthermore, the study did not directly measure the quality of close relationships, which are known to significantly impact well-being. Future research could explore this aspect more deeply, perhaps using direct measures of relationship quality to understand how close and minimal interactions interplay to affect our overall happiness.</p>
<p>The study also points towards potential directions for future research. One intriguing area could be to investigate how these findings apply to other non-Western countries, especially those not represented in the current study. Additionally, future studies could look into how to effectively track every momentary interaction to reduce recall bias, although this might be challenging in large-scale or nationally representative samples.</p>
<p>&#8220;Although we had two samples from two different cultural contexts (one from Turkey, and the other mostly from the UK), whether our findings would generalize to other countries remains an open question,&#8221; Aşçıgil explained. &#8220;We hope to conduct more cross-cultural studies in this topic in the future.&#8221;</p>
<p>The study, &#8220;<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/19485506231209793" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Minimal Social Interactions and Life Satisfaction: The Role of Greeting, Thanking, and Conversing</a>&#8220;, was authored by Esra Ascigil, Gul Gunaydin, Emre Selcuk, Gillian M. Sandstrom, and Erdal Aydin.</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 29, 2023 at 02:06AM
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TITLE:
South Africa Opens U.N. Court Case Accusing Israel of Genocide in Gaza
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URL:
http://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?from=rss_feed&id=176283&url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-gaza-palestinians-south-africa-world-court-1.7071110?cmp=rss

<div><p>Source: <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/" rel="tag" target="_blank">Canadian Broadcasting Company - Top Stories News</a></p>South Africa launched a case on Friday at the United Nations' top court, accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and asking the court to order Israel to halt its attacks. Israel swiftly rejected the filing &quot;with disgust.&quot; South Africa's submission to the International Court of Justice alleges that &quot;acts and omissions by Israel ... are genocidal in character&quot; and committed with the intent &quot;to destroy Palestinians in Gaza.&quot;</div><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><br /><a href="https://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?action=rssHomepage" target="_blank"><img title="Brought to you by Social Psychology Network" alt="Brought to you by SocialPsychology Network" src="https://www.socialpsychology.org/images/rss-footer-large.png" border="0" width="400" height="45" /></a><br><br>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

.
DATE:
December 29, 2023 at 01:00PM
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TITLE:
The surprising connection between sarcasm and perspective-taking
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URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2023/12/the-surprising-connection-between-sarcasm-and-perspective-taking-215230

<p>In a world where communication is often nuanced and layered with different meanings, a recent scientific review has shed light on an intriguing aspect of human interaction: sarcasm. The review, published in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352250X23001549"><em>Current Opinion in Psychology</em></a>, delves into the complex nature of sarcasm, exploring its potential to either clarify or confuse a speaker&#8217;s intentions.</p>
<p>The researchers embarked on this review to unravel the tightrope that sarcasm walks between being humorous and offensive. Their primary objective was to understand if sarcasm could be more than just a witty remark; specifically, they wanted to know if it helps or hinders the process of perspective-taking—the ability to see things from another person&#8217;s viewpoint.</p>
<p>&#8220;Sarcasm is used in a wide range of social interactions across cultures and over centuries. Many people enjoy it. I am interested in whether it actually helps communicate a speaker&#8217;s viewpoint and increase the recipients&#8217; understanding,&#8221; explained lead author <a href="https://www.insead.edu/faculty/li-huang" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Li Huang</a>, an associate professor of organizational behaviour at INSEAD.</p>
<p>Sarcasm, a form of verbal irony often used to express disapproval, has been a part of human communication for centuries, with its roots tracing back to the Bible and Ancient Greece. Despite its widespread use, the clarity it provides in understanding a speaker&#8217;s true intent remains a subject of debate.</p>
<p>The new review highlights two contrasting aspects: On one hand, sarcasm, by deviating from literal truthfulness, can create confusion and obscure the speaker’s perspective. On the other hand, it&#8217;s often quickly understood, even without vocal cues or the chance to re-read statements, suggesting it might enhance clarity.</p>
<p>The researchers point out several communicative and social functions of sarcasm, including criticism, amusement, and emotional control. Interestingly, the &#8216;tinge hypothesis&#8217; suggests that sarcasm, by muting the intended meaning, makes criticisms appear less harsh, thereby maintaining politeness and preserving relationships.</p>
<p>Moreover, the review introduces the &#8216;SHARP&#8217; model (Sarcasm Helps Activate Recipient Perspective-taking), proposing two mechanisms—deliberate processing and open-mindedness—through which sarcasm might enhance perspective-taking. Deliberate processing involves a cognitive effort to shift from one’s own viewpoint to consider another’s perspective. Sarcasm, by presenting a contrast between stated and intended meanings, may trigger this process.</p>
<p>The review also suggests that sarcasm could foster perspective-taking by promoting a form of open-mindedness rooted in relationship maintenance. It argues that when sarcasm alludes to a target&#8217;s beliefs or expectations, it may invite the recipient to reciprocate with their open-mindedness, enhancing their ability to see the world from the speaker&#8217;s viewpoint.</p>
<p>&#8220;The theoretical and empirical work in the last couple of decades indicate that, for a variety of reasons, sarcasm can provide the cognitive readiness and the motivational drive that enable recipients to see the world from the speaker&#8217;s viewpoint,&#8221; Huang told PsyPost.</p>
<p>&#8220;For example, sarcasm often involves a contradiction between its stated meaning and its intended meaning. Because it is more difficult to process than its literal equivalent, it can also be processed more deliberately by recipients, which helps them adjust away from their egocentric perspective, and better understand the speaker’s perspective. Additionally, because sarcasm often conveys disapproval, it can trigger guilt or embarrassment in recipients, which has also been shown to increase their ability to take others’ perspective.&#8221;</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>As an example, the researchers noted <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddIwSkXqFU8">a 2023 Ford commercial</a> celebrating women&#8217;s history month.</p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Despite these findings, the review acknowledges that not all sarcasm is beneficial for perspective-taking. Factors such as the speaker&#8217;s tone, the recipient&#8217;s ability to decipher sarcasm, and the nature of their relationship play significant roles in determining the outcome. Overly critical sarcasm, for instance, can backfire, leading to close-mindedness rather than open-mindedness.</p>
<p>&#8220;Sarcasm is likely to decrease perspective taking under certain conditions as well,&#8221; Huang said. &#8220;For example, when sarcasm is overly critical of the recipients, it can induce anger (as opposed to guilt or embarrassment), which has been shown to decrease a person’s ability to see others’ viewpoint. Similarly, the recipient’s ability to decipher sarcasm can also determine whether they can benefit from its effect on perspective-taking.&#8221;</p>
<p>The researchers call for further studies to explore the conditions under which sarcasm most effectively promotes perspective-taking. They suggest examining recipient traits like guilt-proneness and aspects of the speaker-recipient relationship, such as mutual trust, to better understand the dynamic interplay of these factors.</p>
<p>The study, &#8220;<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2023.101709">SHARP wit: Why receiving sarcasm improves perspective-taking</a>&#8220;, was authored by Li Huang and Adam D. Galinsky.</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 29, 2023 at 11:11AM
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TITLE:
How to Tweak New Year's Resolutions for Success
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URL:
http://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?from=rss_feed&id=176269&url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-years-resolutions-experts-skip-tweak-for-success/

<div><p>Source: <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/us/" rel="tag" target="_blank">CBS News - U.S. News</a></p>The new year is almost here, which means people are starting to focus on their New Year's resolutions, despite research suggesting these annual vows of self-improvement only work a fraction of the time. So, how can we boost the odds of success? Experts suggest several ways to tweak resolutions. For example, instead of aiming to lose a certain number of pounds&mdash;which is an all-or-nothing approach&mdash;set a daily goal to do 20 minutes of physical...</div><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><br /><a href="https://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?action=rssHomepage" target="_blank"><img title="Brought to you by Social Psychology Network" alt="Brought to you by SocialPsychology Network" src="https://www.socialpsychology.org/images/rss-footer-large.png" border="0" width="400" height="45" /></a><br><br>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 29, 2023 at 11:11AM
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TITLE:
UK Police Record Rise in Religious Hate Crimes After Hamas Attack
.
URL:
http://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?from=rss_feed&id=176256&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67836607?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

<div><p>Source: <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/" rel="tag" target="_blank">BBC News - Top Headlines</a></p>Antisemitic hate crimes rose sharply in the month after Hamas attacked Israel, figures from some of the United Kingdoms largest police forces suggest. Some forces also recorded a rise in Islamophobic offenses, although the picture is more mixed. The Community Safety Trust, a Jewish charity, has called the figures &quot;shocking.&quot; Likewise, campaigners against anti-Muslim abuse have described them as &quot;deeply worrying.&quot;</div><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><br /><a href="https://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?action=rssHomepage" target="_blank"><img title="Brought to you by Social Psychology Network" alt="Brought to you by SocialPsychology Network" src="https://www.socialpsychology.org/images/rss-footer-large.png" border="0" width="400" height="45" /></a><br><br>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 29, 2023 at 11:10AM
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TITLE:
In Much of Africa, Catholic Same-Sex Couples See No Blessings Soon
.
URL:
http://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?from=rss_feed&id=176264&url=https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2023-12-29/in-nigeria-and-much-of-africa-catholic-same-sex-couples-see-no-blessings-soon

<div><p>Source: <a href="http://www.usnews.com/" rel="tag" target="_blank">U.S. News and World Report</a></p>Nigerian Catholic couple Jane and Lucy have little hope their local parish church will bless their same-sex union anytime soon, as conservative priests across Africa choose to ignore a landmark Vatican ruling allowing such blessings. The pope has pushed back against this opposition, but in many African countries&mdash;such as the continent's most populous one, Nigeria&mdash;even having a same-sex relationship is outlawed and often punishable by long...</div><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><br /><a href="https://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?action=rssHomepage" target="_blank"><img title="Brought to you by Social Psychology Network" alt="Brought to you by SocialPsychology Network" src="https://www.socialpsychology.org/images/rss-footer-large.png" border="0" width="400" height="45" /></a><br><br>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

.
DATE:
December 29, 2023 at 11:00AM
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TITLE:
New study investigates psychological correlates of emoji use and preference
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URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2023/12/new-study-investigates-psychological-correlates-of-emoji-use-and-preference-215244

<p>A study published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00332941231220304"><em>Psychological Reports</em></a> explored the relationship between emoji use and mental health, personality, and prosociality.</p>
<p>Emojis have a valuable role in written communication, adding emotional depth, facilitating better understanding, and aiding in emotional perception. Emojis have been found to activate brain regions responsible for processing emotions. They also have an impact on how messages are received, serving to either soften instructions or emphasize meanings.</p>
<p>During the pandemic, electronic communication, including the use of emojis, became more widespread. Emojis can effectively convey emotional states, making it easier for individuals to share their feelings. Research has shown that specific emojis, such as sad faces, can indicate depressive symptoms and reflect the emotions of the user. However, the effectiveness of emojis can vary depending on the severity of mental health issues, and individuals with severe emotional disorders may not interpret them accurately.</p>
<p>Furthermore, emojis have been linked to fostering prosocial behavior online. They enable individuals to express approval and support, which are essential components of positive online interactions. Interestingly, certain personality traits, such as agreeableness and extraversion, are associated with the frequent use of positive emojis, while emotional stability tends to predict the use of negative emojis. This suggests that an individual’s personality can influence their emoji preferences.</p>
<p>In this work, Janine Carroll examined the association between mental health, personality, prosocial behavior, and emoji use. A total of 222 participants, recruited from the University of Chester and Prolific Academic, participated in this research. Participants completed measures of anxiety and depression, prosocial behavior, <a href="https://www.psypost.org/2023/06/new-research-examines-the-link-between-big-5-personality-traits-and-resistance-to-oppositional-political-content-166028">Big 5 personality</a> traits, and various aspects of emoji usage, including frequency, motivation, attitudes, and preferences (e.g., positive and negative emojis).</p>
<p>The results of the study revealed that prosocial behavior was associated with all aspects of emoji usage, encompassing frequency, motivation, and attitudes.Among the personality traits, only agreeableness showed a significant correlation with the frequency of emoji use. Prosocial behavior, extraversion, and agreeableness were predictive of a preference for positive emojis.</p>
<p>Extraversion, conscientiousness, and emotional stability (low neuroticism) were linked to a lower preference for negative emojis. However, individuals reporting poorer general mental health tended to prefer negative emojis.</p>
<p>This study highlights the complexity of emoji use in digital communication, suggesting that individual differences, such as personality and mental health, play an important role in how and why people use emojis.</p>
<p>A limitation Carroll noted is that due to technical errors, the usability of many participants’ data for the emoji use measure was compromised. However, this did not affect statistical power.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00332941231220304">The Role of Prosocial Behaviour, Personality and General Mental Health in Predicting Emoji Use and Preference</a>”, was authored by Janine Carroll.</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

.
DATE:
December 29, 2023 at 09:00AM
.
TITLE:
Infants’ brainwaves reveal they can distinguish helpful and harmful actions at just 5 months old
.
URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2023/12/infants-brainwaves-reveal-they-can-distinguish-helpful-and-harmful-actions-at-just-5-months-old-215229

<p>New research provides evidence that infants as young as five months old can differentiate between helpful and harmful behaviors. The study, published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2023.2245597" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Social Neuroscience</a></em>, used brainwave monitoring to observe how babies&#8217; brains react to prosocial (helpful) and antisocial (harmful) actions. This research provides new insights into the early development of social cognition and moral evaluation in infants.</p>
<p>The motivation for this study stems from a long-standing curiosity in the scientific community about the roots of moral behavior and cognition. Previous research has shown that from a very young age, infants pay more attention to certain social cues, such as attractive faces and emotional expressions. Additionally, studies have indicated that infants can distinguish between positive and negative behaviors toward others.</p>
<p>However, the neural basis of these early moral evaluations in infants has remained largely unexplored. The researchers aimed to fill this gap by investigating how the infant brain processes and responds to prosocial and antisocial actions.</p>
<p>&#8220;The understanding of the roots and early development of moral cognition has been a &#8216;hot&#8217; and highly debated topic within the developmental cognitive neurosciences for the past 20 years,&#8221; said study author Elena Nava, an associate professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca and member of the <a href="https://bicoccababylab.wixsite.com/mindevlab/home-eng" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bicocca Child &amp; Baby Lab</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;Indeed, understanding whether human beings are inclined to moral thinking opens a window into how we become moral animals, if we ever become such, and the experiences that promote prosocial vs antisocial behaviour.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;In particular, in this study we were interested in the neural correlates of early moral cognition, as evidence of neurophysiological underpinnings are very much lacking in infants on this specific topic. There are a few reasons why studying the neural correlates of moral cognition (and in general of all cognition!) is important: first, it can add substance to the notion that babies are equipped with a primitive sense of morality. Second, it suggests that babies already possess brain circuits to encode complex cognitive information.&#8221;</p>
<p>To conduct this study, the researchers recruited 24 healthy, full-term infants aged five to six months. These infants were selected from a larger group, with others excluded due to factors like fussiness or issues with brainwave data. The study consisted of two phases: a familiarization phase and a test phase.</p>
<p>In the familiarization phase, infants watched short videos featuring puppets engaging in either helpful (prosocial) or hindering (antisocial) actions. The test phase involved showing the infants still frames from these videos, simulating the unfolding of the actions. During both phases, the infants&#8217; brainwaves were monitored using an electroencephalography (EEG) cap, providing data on their neural responses to the stimuli.</p>
<p>During the familiarization phase, there was no significant difference in how long the infants watched prosocial versus antisocial videos, indicating equal initial interest in both types of actions. However, the brain activity data painted a more complex picture. The researchers focused on specific patterns of brain activity known as event-related potentials (ERPs), which are brain responses to specific sensory, cognitive, or motor events. They found that the infants&#8217; brains responded differently to prosocial and antisocial scenes in several ways.</p>
<p>One significant finding was related to a brain response called the N290, which showed greater amplitude, or stronger brain response, to prosocial scenes, such as a puppet helping another puppet. This suggests that infants may inherently find helpful actions more engaging or meaningful. Another brain response, called the Nc, was greater in amplitude for antisocial actions, like a puppet hindering another. This could mean that negative actions attract more attention in infants, possibly due to their more arousing or discomforting nature. Additionally, a late brain response called the LPP was greater in response to prosocial scenes, indicating deeper processing of these positive social interactions.</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>&#8220;Babies start very early in life to develop a sense of morality, that helps them discriminate between those who behave &#8216;nicely&#8217; vs others who behave &#8216;badly.&#8217; While it is difficult to determine whether this discrimination also corresponds to a moral judgment, our data reveal that by age 5 months, the baby’s brain is able to detect and discriminate actions that qualify individuals as acting morally or immorally,&#8221; Nava told PsyPost.</p>
<p>The study also explored the relationship between infants&#8217; temperament and their brain responses. Intriguingly, higher scores in &#8216;effortful control&#8217; &#8211; a temperamental trait related to self-regulation &#8211; were associated with an increased neural bias towards antisocial interactions. This finding suggests that temperament may play a role in how infants process social interactions.</p>
<p>However, when it came to the manual choice task, where infants were given a choice between a prosocial and an antisocial puppet, no significant preference was found. This lack of preference contrasts with some previous studies and raises questions about the consistency of infants&#8217; behavioral responses to moral scenarios.</p>
<p>&#8220;We were disappointed by the mismatch between behavior and neural data,&#8221; Nava said. &#8220;We were expecting babies to also prefer the prosocial over the antisocial individual, as assessed using a manual choice, and to correlate with the neural finding. However, that was not the case, as we did not find any difference between prosocial and antisocial individual (on a behavioral level).&#8221;</p>
<p>While the study sheds light on the early development of moral cognition in infants, it is not without limitations. One major challenge in studies involving infants is the high rate of data exclusion due to factors like movement or fussiness. This was also the case in this study, where a significant number of the initially tested infants had to be excluded. Additionally, the limited number of trials each infant could participate in before losing attention might have affected the depth of the findings. Future research might benefit from shorter, more engaging stimuli that could hold infants&#8217; attention for longer, allowing for more comprehensive data collection.</p>
<p>&#8220;There are so many questions that still need conclusive answers,&#8221; Nava said. &#8220;For me, two questions/interests would be worth investigating: first, the role of individual differences in promoting moral cognition; second, more longitudinal studies to establish whether early sensitivity to moral cognition predicts higher moral behavior later in childhood.&#8221;</p>
<p>The study, &#8220;<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17470919.2023.2245597">Neural signatures to prosocial and antisocial interactions in young infants</a>&#8220;, was authored by Victoria Licht, Margaret Addabbo, Elena Nava, and Chiara Turati.</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

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DATE:
December 29, 2023 at 08:00AM
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TITLE:
Norwegian study reveals weakening link between education and cognitive ability
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URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2023/12/norwegian-study-reveals-weakening-link-between-education-and-cognitive-ability-215239

<p>A study conducted in Norway, using administrative register data spanning over four decades, explored the relationship between educational attainment and cognitive ability in men. The results indicated that the association between educational attainment and cognitive ability was weakening in the younger generations of Norwegians. The study was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-44605-6"><em>Scientific Reports</em></a>.</p>
<p>Educational attainment refers to the level of formal education a person has completed, such as high school, college, or advanced degrees. It typically has a profound impact on one&#8217;s career prospects and socioeconomic status. Cognitive ability, on the other hand, encompasses a range of mental skills and capabilities, including problem-solving, memory, reasoning, and critical thinking. Good cognitive ability is generally considered to be a prerequisite for educational success, but the relationship might not be so straightforward.</p>
<p>In previous centuries, education was often the privilege of individuals from wealthy and powerful families. However, modern societies tend to work hard on making educational opportunities available to everyone. In that way, universal systems of education, those accessible to everyone should be lifting talented youths out of their own origin social class. Educational opportunities would, in this way, depend on individual (cognitive) ability rather than parental wealth and power. As a consequence, the strength of the link between educational attainment and abilities, primarily cognitive abilities would strengthen as education becomes more widely accessible. But is this really the case?</p>
<p>Study author Arno Van Hootegem and his colleagues wanted to examine how the link between educational attainment and cognitive ability changed over time. To do this, they examined the Norwegian administrative register that covers the whole population and linked scores from a cognitive ability test used at military conscription for men to different measures of individual educational qualifications.</p>
<p>They analyzed data of males born between 1950 and 1991. During this period the Norwegian educational system underwent substantial democratization as the Norwegian welfare state expanded. The educational system was publicly funded and broadly accessible, greatly reducing the differences between social classes in the accessibility of education. Compulsory primary education increased to 9 years in this period and higher secondary education became a universal right. The state also started offering stipends and loans to anyone who enrolled in tertiary education.</p>
<p>The study utilized standardized cognitive ability scores (stanine scores) derived from tests that included arithmetic, word similarities, and mental manipulation of figures. Educational attainment was evaluated in four distinct ways: the number of schooling years by age 30, two statistical measures of earnings related to specific educational credentials, and a statistical measure representing a continuum of observed education. The earnings-based measurements utilized annual earnings data.</p>
<p>Results showed that across generations, the correlation between cognitive ability and all four measures of educational attainment has been declining. While there was a strong correspondence between educational attainment and cognitive ability in men born in the 1950s, predicting educational attainment based on cognitive ability in individuals born in 1990 proved to be more challenging.</p>
<p>&#8220;The correlation remains moderate to strong in recent cohorts and cognitive ability remains coupled to educational attainment, but the clear trend indicates that educational attainment is weakening over time as a signal of cognitive ability,&#8221; the study authors concluded. &#8220;This observation together with the finding that we already find a very high correlation between educational attainment and cognitive ability for birth cohorts prior to educational reforms and the democratization of education, goes counter to the hypothesis that educational attainment increasingly aligns with individual level ability as educational opportunities are broadened. Essentially, it questions the presumed evolution from ascription to achievement as the guiding principle of success in post-industrial societies.&#8221;</p>
<p>“An alternative, potentially more plausible explanation for our findings, is the nature of the changing educational and labor market. Education might have become substantially less selective, as educational expansions may have made it generally easier to attain longer education, regardless of cognitive ability.”</p>
<p>The study sheds light on the temporal changes in the link between education and ability in Norway. However, it also has limitations that need to be taken into account. Notably, the cognitive test used at conscription remained unchanged since the early 1950s. It is possible that assessments it provided became less valid with newer generations creating lower correlations. Additionally, the data were available for Norwegian men only. Results on Norwegian women might not be the same.</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-44605-6">Correlation between cognitive ability and educational attainment weakens over birth cohorts</a>”, was authored by Arno Van Hootegem, Ole Røgeberg, Bernt Bratsberg, and Torkild Hovde Lyngstad.</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

.
DATE:
December 28, 2023 at 01:00PM
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TITLE:
Women with younger male partners might have more fulfilling relationships than women with same-age partners
.
URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2023/12/women-with-younger-male-partners-might-have-more-fulfilling-relationships-than-women-with-same-age-partners-215223

<p>A small study in the United Kingdom compared emotional intelligence, sexual self-efficacy, and subjective happiness of women who had same age male partners and women whose male partners were 7-10 years younger than them. The results indicated that women with younger male partners scored higher in all three aspects, suggesting that their romantic relationships might be more fulfilling. The research was published <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14681994.2023.2280561"><em>in Sexual and Relationship Therapy</em></a>.</p>
<p>Traditional views on romantic relationships dictate that men should be of the same age or older than their female partners. This practice is associated with the idea that maturity and financial stability of the male partner are prerequisites for a romantic relationship. If the male partner cannot provide for his partner and the family, he is traditionally considered to be undeserving of having a relationship. On the other hand, the primary expectation for women is to be capable of childbearing, implying that they should be young and healthy. These expectations collectively lead to the prevailing norm that men should be older than their female counterparts.</p>
<p>In contrast to this, modern societies increasingly see romantic pairs in which the female partner is older than the male. The situation where there is a substantial age difference between romantic partners is referred to as age-hypogamy. Age-hypogamy relationships in general tend to raise eyebrows. However, while societies are relatively tolerant of relationships between older men and younger women, they tend to view women who date younger men much more critically.</p>
<p>Study authors Marilyn Thomas and her colleagues conducted this study to gain a deeper understanding of women who date significantly younger men, comparing them to women with partners of similar ages. They focused on evaluating these women&#8217;s sexual self-efficacy, emotional intelligence, and subjective happiness.</p>
<p>Sexual self-efficacy is the belief in one&#8217;s ability to effectively navigate and engage in sexual activities, contributing to sexual confidence and satisfaction. Emotional intelligence refers to the capacity to recognize, understand, and manage one&#8217;s own emotions and the emotions of others, fostering better interpersonal relationships and communication. Subjective happiness is an individual&#8217;s personal perception of their own well-being and life satisfaction, which can vary from person to person and is not solely dependent on external factors. Studies have shown that individuals who exhibit these three traits tend to have more fulfilling romantic relationships.</p>
<p>The study involved 17 women in age-hypogamous relationships, i.e., with significantly younger male partners, and 7 women with same-age partners, aged between 25 and 57 years. The majority (12) were from the UK, primarily London, with others from the U.S., Belgium, and Germany.</p>
<p>Participants completed an online survey that included assessments of sexual self-efficacy (using the SSE questionnaire), emotional intelligence (through the Schutte Self Report E.I. Test), subjective happiness (via a 4-item instrument), and age-related dating preferences (using the “Cougar” Age Hypogamy and Age Homogamy Questionnaire, e.g., “Younger men are more sexually attractive to me than men in my age group or older”).</p>
<p>The results showed that women in relationships with younger men scored higher in all three evaluated psychological characteristics. They reported greater subjective happiness, enhanced emotional intelligence, and better sexual self-efficacy.</p>
<p>&#8220;We found that &#8216;Cougars&#8217; [women dating substantially younger men] had higher scores among these measures than women in age-matched dating groups. Since [sexual self-efficacy, emotional intelligence, and subjective happiness] are associated with fulfilling intimate relationships, this study questions the preconceived notion that women in relationships with younger men are any less fulfilling or successful than those in similar relationships,&#8221; the study authors concluded.</p>
<p>The study makes an intriguing contribution to the scientific understanding of age-hypogamy relationships. However, it should be noted that the sample of this study was very small and consisted of women from very different countries. It is possible and quite likely that findings would not be the same in larger samples and those more representative of the general population.</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>The paper, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14681994.2023.2280561">Age-hypogamy, emotional intelligence, sexual self-efficacy, and subjective happiness associations</a>”, was authored by Marilyn Thomas, Samantha Banbury, Joanne Lusher, and Chris Chandler.</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 28, 2023 at 09:23AM
.
TITLE:
Two Kinds of Therapy Work Equally Well Against Fibromyalgia
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URL:
http://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?from=rss_feed&id=176249&url=https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2023-12-28/two-kinds-of-talk-therapy-work-equally-well-against-fibromyalgia

<div><p>Source: <a href="http://www.usnews.com/" rel="tag" target="_blank">U.S. News and World Report</a></p>Two treatments are equally effective in treating fibromyalgia&mdash;a disorder involving chronic pain throughout the body&mdash;according to a new study in the journal Pain. Swedish researchers compared traditional cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to a form of CBT that exposes patients to situations and activities associated with pain, anxiety, or other symptoms. Traditional CBT helped 59% of patients, and exposure-based CBT helped 60%&mdash;nearly...</div><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><br /><a href="https://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?action=rssHomepage" target="_blank"><img title="Brought to you by Social Psychology Network" alt="Brought to you by SocialPsychology Network" src="https://www.socialpsychology.org/images/rss-footer-large.png" border="0" width="400" height="45" /></a><br><br>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 28, 2023 at 09:22AM
.
TITLE:
Nikki Haley, When Asked, Again Omits Slavery As Cause of Civil War
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URL:
http://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?from=rss_feed&id=176240&url=https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/nikki-haley-asked-caused-civil-war-leaves-slavery-105957241

<div><p>Source: <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/" rel="tag" target="_blank">ABC News - Politics</a></p>Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was asked Wednesday by a New Hampshire voter about the reason for the Civil War, and she didn't mention slavery in her response&mdash;leading the voter to say he was &quot;astonished&quot; by her omission. Haley has been pressed on the war's origins before. In a 2010 interview, she described the war as between two sides fighting for &quot;tradition&quot; and &quot;change&quot; and said the Confederate flag was &quot;not something that is...</div><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><br /><a href="https://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?action=rssHomepage" target="_blank"><img title="Brought to you by Social Psychology Network" alt="Brought to you by SocialPsychology Network" src="https://www.socialpsychology.org/images/rss-footer-large.png" border="0" width="400" height="45" /></a><br><br>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

.
DATE:
December 28, 2023 at 09:00AM
.
TITLE:
Trigger warnings do not work, according to recent meta-analysis
.
URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2023/12/trigger-warnings-do-not-work-according-to-recent-meta-analysis-215219

<p>Trigger warnings are statements designed to forewarn viewers about potentially distressing content. A recent meta-analysis of 12 studies concluded trigger warnings have no effect on emotional responding to negative material or educational outcomes. This research was published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026231186625"><em>Clinical Psychological Science</em></a>.</p>
<p>While some advocate for trigger warnings as a way to emotionally prepare or shield individuals from unwanted content, critics argue they might exacerbate negative reactions or promote avoidance behaviors. The debate has led to empirical studies examining the impact of trigger warnings on emotional reactions, material avoidance, anticipatory emotions, and educational outcomes.</p>
<p>Originally appearing in early internet feminist forums to flag content about trauma, the use of trigger warnings has expanded to various contexts including university classrooms and media, with a broadened scope of experiences warranting warnings. Most studies suggest that trigger warnings have minimal impact on emotional response or material comprehension, with some indication of increased anticipatory anxiety.</p>
<p>Victoria Bridgland and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis to examine the efficacy of trigger warning. To be included in the meta-analysis, research had to include the provision of a warning to participants, measurement of psychological or behavioral responses, and a warning <em>intended</em> to alert participants about content that might trigger memories or emotions related to past experiences.</p>
<p>Excluded were general audience warnings like PG-13 ratings. Studies also needed to present results that allowed for the calculation of a standardized mean difference between a test condition with a warning and a control condition without one. The meta-analytic search strategy involved databases like PsycINFO, MEDLINE, PubMed, ProQuest, and Web of Science, and the search yielded 407 records, eventually narrowed down to 12 studies.</p>
<p>The researchers found that trigger warnings have no significant impact on response affect, avoidance, or comprehension of material. However, trigger warnings consistently increase anticipatory anxiety. This suggests that while warnings might initially affect emotions, this effect dissipates upon exposure to the actual content. The anticipation period likely does not involve effective emotional preparation, as indicated by limited use of coping strategies among individuals.</p>
<p>Further, trigger warnings do not seem to increase avoidance of material. Instead, they may even enhance engagement, possibly due to a “forbidden fruit” effect. Trigger warnings do not enhance learning or comprehension. On the contrary, they might increase anxiety about attending classes, contradicting claims that they create a safer learning environment.</p>
<p>Overall, the current research indicates that trigger warnings are not effective and might only induce a short-term increase in negative anticipatory emotions.</p>
<p>The authors write, “Although many questions warrant further investigation, trigger warnings should not be used as a mental-health tool.”</p>
<p>The meta-analysis, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026231186625">A Meta-Analysis of the Efficacy of Trigger Warnings, Content Warnings, and Content Notes</a>”, was authored by Victoria M. E. Bridgland. Payton J. Jones, and Benjamin W. Bellet.</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 28, 2023 at 08:30AM
.
TITLE:
2023's Mind-Bending Revelations in the Brain Sciences
.
URL:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/2023s-mind-bending-revelations-in-the-brain-sciences/

<p>This year the explosion of interest in AI had a profound impact on how experts in the fields of neuroscience and psychology think about biological intelligence and learning</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

.
DATE:
December 28, 2023 at 07:00AM
.
TITLE:
Spanking predicts lower cognitive skills in children, study finds
.
URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2023/12/spanking-predicts-lower-cognitive-skills-in-children-study-finds-215214

<p>Spanking is associated with lower levels of executive functioning, such as inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility, in children, according to a new study that analyzed longitudinal data from more than 12,000 children. The findings, published in <em><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213423004623" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Child Abuse &amp; Neglect</a></em>, suggests that even infrequent spanking can have adverse effects on a child&#8217;s cognitive development.</p>
<p>Spanking, a common form of discipline in many households, has long been <a href="https://www.psypost.org/2022/04/can-spanking-a-child-ever-have-beneficial-results-63011" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a subject of debate</a>. Researchers embarked on this study to understand its impact on children&#8217;s cognitive development, particularly on executive functions like attention, decision-making, and behavior control.</p>
<p>Previous studies had established <a href="https://www.psypost.org/2021/04/childhood-spanking-is-linked-to-adverse-physical-psychological-and-behavioral-outcomes-in-adolescence-60508" target="_blank" rel="noopener">links between spanking and behavioral issues</a>, but its effect on cognitive skills, especially in early childhood, remained unclear. This study aimed to fill this gap in research, considering the widespread prevalence of spanking and its potential long-term effects on child development.</p>
<p>&#8220;As a sociologist, I have always been interested in the sources of inequalities. When I began teaching a course called Sociology of Child Welfare, I started to see how experiencing violence in childhood can impact individuals even in later life and how condoning violence as a form of discipline may contribute to a variety of social issues,&#8221; said study author Jeehye Kang, an associate professor at Old Dominion University.</p>
<p>&#8220;I also began to see how my experience of violence at home and school in childhood has influenced me, so this topic feels important to me. For this study, I was happy to learn more about the links between spanking and children’s cognitive development, in collaboration with the clinical psychologist Dr. Rodriguez.&#8221;</p>
<p>The study analyzed data from <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/ecls/">the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study</a>, which tracked around 18,170 children from kindergarten through elementary school. Focusing on a subset of approximately 12,800 children aged 5-6, researchers examined the impact of spanking on three key areas of executive functioning: inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory.</p>
<p>Inhibitory control was assessed through teacher reports using the Children&#8217;s Behavior Questionnaire. Cognitive flexibility was measured directly through the Dimensional Change Card Sort task, where children sorted cards by different rules. Working memory was evaluated using the Numbers Reversed subtest of the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities, which required children to repeat number sequences in reverse order.</p>
<p>The independent variable, spanking, was reported by primary caregivers, predominantly mothers, who indicated how often they spanked their child in the past week. To address potential biases, the researchers used a method called entropy balancing. This statistical technique reweighted the comparison group to align with the spanked group, ensuring that any differences observed were due to spanking and not other factors.</p>
<p>Before matching for biases, children who were spanked showed lower levels of inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory. However, after the matching process, the link between spanking and lower working memory disappeared, suggesting that this association in previous studies might have been influenced by other factors.</p>
<p>&#8220;We found no association between spanking and children’s working memory, another critical component of executive functioning,&#8221; Kang explained. &#8220;The null finding was at odds with previous research. However, we used a large, nationally representative sample, rigorous matching design, and highly controlled modeling, all of which strengthened causal inferences to these relationships. Thus, this inconsistency could stem from the rigorous matching process applied in our study relative to prior research.&#8221;</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>Notably, however, the adverse effects of spanking on inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility persisted even after matching. This indicates that spanking, even when infrequent, can negatively impact these cognitive skills essential for learning and behavior regulation. Surprisingly, the study found no moderation effects based on child gender, race/ethnicity of the primary caregiver, or the level of parental warmth. This suggests that the negative impacts of spanking are consistent across different demographics and family contexts.</p>
<p>&#8220;It may have been less known that spanking can impact children’s cognitive development,&#8221; Kang told PsyPost. &#8220;We found that exposure to spanking at age 5 was negatively related to children’s ability to deliberately regulate action (called inhibitory control) and adaptively shift between tasks (called cognitive flexibility) at age 6, irrespective of child gender, race, and parental warmth.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;In particular, the association persisted even with infrequent spanking for inhibitory control. Given that children’s executive functioning is essential to socio-emotional and academic school readiness, which in turn relates to future income, health, and criminal conviction, this study provides public implications.&#8221;</p>
<p>While the study provides valuable insights, it has its limitations. One significant concern is the potential influence of unobserved factors, like community violence exposure, that were not included in the analysis. These factors could have a bearing on both the likelihood of a child being spanked and their cognitive development.</p>
<p>Looking ahead, researchers suggest exploring the severity, chronicity, and methods of spanking to understand its varied effects on children&#8217;s cognitive development. They also recommend using direct assessments for inhibitory control and incorporating data from both parents to gain a more comprehensive understanding.</p>
<p>In her previous work, Kang found that <a href="https://www.psypost.org/2023/01/longitudinal-study-of-kindergarteners-suggests-spanking-is-harmful-for-childrens-social-competence-67034" target="_blank" rel="noopener">children who were spanked</a> tended to have higher externalizing behavior, lower self-control, and lower interpersonal skills compared to children who had never been spanked. The findings indicated that even infrequent spanking negatively impacted children&#8217;s social development. She <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0885200622000400" target="_blank" rel="noopener">has also found</a> that spanking is associated with lower reading and math scores.</p>
<p>&#8220;The significant links between spanking and both inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility were consistent with previous research about the effects of child maltreatment,&#8221; Kang told PsyPost. &#8220;Although spanking is a milder stressor compared to child maltreatment, it still appears to impair impulse restraint and prepotent responses in children. The public should be aware of the neurobiological, social, emotional, and cognitive harm associated with spanking. Parents should be assisted with effective positive parenting strategies, so they do not resort to spanking.&#8221;</p>
<p>The study, &#8220;<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2023.106474">Spanking and executive functioning in US children: A longitudinal analysis on a matched sample</a>&#8220;, was authored by Jeehye Kang and Christina M. Rodriguez.</p>
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psychbot , 6 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 28, 2023 at 06:45AM
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TITLE:
Zapping the Vagus Nerve Could Relieve Some Long COVID Symptoms
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URL:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/zapping-the-vagus-nerve-could-relieve-some-long-covid-symptoms/

<p>Ongoing research shows electrical vagus nerve stimulators could relieve some long COVID symptoms. But are the expensive devices worth the price?</p>
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psychbot , 7 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 27, 2023 at 12:34AM
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TITLE:
Marijuana Use Increasingly Linked to Addiction and Psychosis
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URL:
http://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?from=rss_feed&id=176226&url=https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2023-12-27/marijuana-use-increasingly-linked-to-addiction-psychosis

<div><p>Source: <a href="http://www.usnews.com/" rel="tag" target="_blank">U.S. News and World Report</a></p>A rising tide of cannabis-related mental health problems is resulting from the widespread legalization of recreational weed in the U.S., warns a review in the New England Journal of Medicine. Nearly one in five Americans aged 12 and older used marijuana in 2021, and more than 16 million meet the criteria for cannabis use disorder. Further, nearly half of those with cannabis use disorder have another psychiatric condition like anxiety,...</div><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><br /><a href="https://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?action=rssHomepage" target="_blank"><img title="Brought to you by Social Psychology Network" alt="Brought to you by SocialPsychology Network" src="https://www.socialpsychology.org/images/rss-footer-large.png" border="0" width="400" height="45" /></a><br><br>
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psychbot , 7 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 27, 2023 at 12:34AM
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TITLE:
Panic and Possibility: What Workers Learned About AI This Year
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URL:
http://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?from=rss_feed&id=176229&url=https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiaWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmJiYy5jb20vd29ya2xpZmUvYXJ0aWNsZS8yMDIzMTIxOS1wYW5pYy1hbmQtcG9zc2liaWxpdHktd2hhdC13b3JrZXJzLWxlYXJuZWQtYWJvdXQtYWktaW4tMjAyM9IBAA?oc=5

<div><p>Source: <a href="http://news.google.com/?ned=us&topic=m" rel="tag" target="_blank">Google News - Health</a></p>It has been just more than a year since OpenAI launched its chatbot, ChatGPT, yet artificial intelligence has already changed how we work and become part of daily routines by saving time on administrative tasks such as basic writing, information retrieval, and optimizing value. In short, AI has gone from feeling like an abstract idea to a familiar tool that can streamline workflows and generate new ideas. But not everyone has welcomed the...</div><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><br /><a href="https://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?action=rssHomepage" target="_blank"><img title="Brought to you by Social Psychology Network" alt="Brought to you by SocialPsychology Network" src="https://www.socialpsychology.org/images/rss-footer-large.png" border="0" width="400" height="45" /></a><br><br>
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psychbot , 7 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 27, 2023 at 12:34AM
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TITLE:
Chess Players Criticize New Rules Limiting Transgender Competitors
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URL:
http://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?from=rss_feed&id=176222&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/67127168?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

<div><p>Source: <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/" rel="tag" target="_blank">BBC News - Top Headlines</a></p>The governing bodies of several sports have banned transgender women from female competition, ostensibly on the grounds of safety and physical advantage, but when the International Chess Federation (Fide) banned trans women from female-only events, the Why has this happened? It's a complicated picture involving Russia, anonymous complaints and the sport's lone top-level trans female player.</div><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><br /><a href="https://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?action=rssHomepage" target="_blank"><img title="Brought to you by Social Psychology Network" alt="Brought to you by SocialPsychology Network" src="https://www.socialpsychology.org/images/rss-footer-large.png" border="0" width="400" height="45" /></a><br><br>
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psychbot , 7 months ago to psychology

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DATE:
December 27, 2023 at 07:00AM
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TITLE:
Musical synchronization emerges spontaneously and enhances social connectedness
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URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2023/12/musical-synchronization-emerges-spontaneously-and-enhances-social-connectedness-215178

<p>Researchers have discovered a significant link between musical synchronization and social connectedness. Analyzing the behavior of university students engaged in impromptu music-making, the study found that individuals who synchronized their musical rhythms felt a stronger sense of connection with their peers, highlighting music&#8217;s unique role in fostering social cohesion. The findings have been published in <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/03057356231207049" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Psychology of Music</a></em>.</p>
<p>Previous studies have indicated that music can establish and maintain social bonds, but the mechanics of how this happens were still shrouded in mystery. This study aimed to uncover the link between the physical act of making music together – specifically, synchronizing rhythms – and the feeling of being connected to others.</p>
<p>&#8220;I am interested in how being &#8216;in sync&#8217; with other people through the experience of music-making and other forms of artistic expression supports a general feeling of connectedness to others, which in turn may support people&#8217;s well-being,&#8221; said study author Warren Mansell, a professor of mental health at Curtin University and director of the <a href="https://www.ledbyexperience.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LEx Mental Health Research Group</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;There is good evidence that synchrony is involved in a range of everyday activities, yet the research in this area had either set a tempo for people to play to, or allowed people to communicate when performing which means they could have told each other to play in sync rather than the synchrony emerging purely through the interface of music.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;I wanted to find out whether people spontaneously synchronise without any external rhythm or social communication, and whether this is linked to a sense of connectedness with the other people performing in the room.&#8221;</p>
<p>The study was conducted with 49 university students, aged 18 to 25, who participated in a music-making task. To measure the sense of connectedness, the researchers employed the Sense of Connectedness Instrument, a 20-item scale assessing social connectedness, and a single-item connectedness scale for real-time assessment during the music session. Happiness levels were also measured before and after the session to gauge any emotional changes.</p>
<p>Participants, grouped into trios or duos, were given MIDI piano keyboards modified to produce percussion sounds, minimizing the influence of musical skill differences. During a 10-minute session, they were instructed to play their instruments and rate their feelings of connectedness every minute, without communicating or looking at each other.</p>
<p>The researchers found a significant positive correlation between the time participants synchronized their playing and their sense of connectedness. In simpler terms, the better the students were at playing in time with each other, the closer they felt to their fellow group members. This finding held true even when considering how well the participants knew each other before the study, suggesting that the act of making music together was a key factor in enhancing social bonding.</p>
<p>&#8220;People who spontaneously play in time with each other feel a greater sense of connectedness with one another,&#8221; Mansell told PsyPost. &#8220;There seems to be a basic need to experience being &#8216;in sync&#8217; with other people because it emerged naturally within a few minutes within over half of the groups of two or three people we recruited.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Drumming together in small groups, like in this study, is one way to achieve a sense of connectedness. It is likely that finding ways to get &#8216;in sync&#8217; with people through art, music, sport, conversation, and other hobbies and activities may be a key ingredient of good well-being.&#8221;</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>Interestingly, the study did not find a significant change in overall happiness levels before and after the music-making session. This suggests that while group music-making might enhance feelings of social connectedness, it doesn&#8217;t necessarily impact general mood or happiness in the short term.</p>
<p>An innovative aspect of this study was how synchronization was assessed. In addition to an expert&#8217;s subjective analysis of the recorded music sessions, a new machine learning method was developed to objectively measure the degree of synchronization.</p>
<p>&#8220;It was very hard to find a measure of the amount of synchrony between different people&#8217;s rhythms,&#8221; Mansell said. &#8220;None of the published algorithms (e.g. entropy; total time between different player&#8217;s notes) we found were actually a measure of synchrony of rhythms, and so we used subjective judgments by a musician. We also trialled a generative machine learning method &#8211; based on quantizing in electronic music production &#8211; that worked in some cases and that we plan to refine.&#8221;</p>
<p>Quantization in music refers to the process of aligning musical notes to a predefined grid, typically based on a specific time interval or rhythmic pattern. This is a concept frequently used in digital music production.</p>
<p>&#8220;This study has led us to understand that the synchrony of music or rhythm is not only about the quantization of music such as beats or notes to a grid or specific time divisions,&#8221; explained co-author Tauseef Gulrez. &#8220;This is a concept which is commonly used in digital music production to ensure that musical elements are precisely synchronized.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;We tried many available rhythm quantization libraries but none worked. In our case, our quantization of music (MIDI files) involved unsupervised machine learning mechanisms while snapping the onset to a machine learned cluster of timing, which is basically based on a specific musical subdivision, such as quarter, sixth or eighth notes. This process helps to create a more structured and precise rhythm and capture synchrony. (The full code is available at <a href="https://github.com/PCT-Models/Music_synchrony">https://github.com/PCT-Models/Music_synchrony</a>).&#8221;</p>
<p>Like any piece of research, this study is not without its limitations. While a musically trained expert listened to and evaluated the synchronicity of the music, this method still leaves room for subjective interpretation. The synchronicity measure using machine learning, while objective, is still in its early stages and requires further development and validation.</p>
<p>&#8220;We need to identify a more reliable measure of synchrony, and this may help us to model the &#8216;perceived collective rhythm&#8217; that emerges in musical improvisation, but also in other group activities,&#8221; Mansell said. &#8220;We also want to find out how each person&#8217;s biological rhythms (e.g. breathing, heart rate, brain waves) may, or may not, be involved in this synchrony.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;There is definitely a need to incorporate skeletal hand movements (gestures) using computer vision and physiological signals heart beat to better realize the synchrony and musical rhythms,&#8221; Gulrez added.</p>
<p>The study paves the way for further exploration into how music can be effectively used in therapeutic settings, especially in music therapy.</p>
<p>&#8220;We hope to go deeper in future research to try to understand the rhythms that govern the integration of sensory information within consciousness, and how finding activities with other people who are &#8216;in sync&#8217; with oneself may be one of a number of &#8216;catalysts&#8217; that support recovery from mental health problems,&#8221; Mansell added.</p>
<p>The study, &#8220;<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03057356231207049" target="_blank" rel="noopener">What is the relationship between spontaneous interpersonal synchronization and feeling of connectedness? A study of small groups of students using MIDI percussion instruments</a>&#8220;, was authored by Deimantė Kavaliauskaitė, Tauseef Gulrez, and Warren Mansell.</p>
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psychbot , 7 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 26, 2023 at 10:26AM
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TITLE:
Many Americans Resolve to Boost Their Mental Health in 2024
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URL:
http://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?from=rss_feed&id=176205&url=https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2023-12-26/many-americans-are-resolving-to-boost-their-mental-health-in-2024

<div><p>Source: <a href="http://www.usnews.com/" rel="tag" target="_blank">U.S. News and World Report</a></p>Three-quarters of Americans plan to start 2024 with a resolution to be more healthy, including 28% who want to focus on improving their mental health, a new survey has found. These folks plan to exercise more (67%), meditate (49%), keep a diary (26%), or see a therapist (35%), according to the results of the American Psychiatric Association's Healthy Minds poll. Other resolutions include cutting back on social media (31%) and using a mental...</div><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><br /><a href="https://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?action=rssHomepage" target="_blank"><img title="Brought to you by Social Psychology Network" alt="Brought to you by SocialPsychology Network" src="https://www.socialpsychology.org/images/rss-footer-large.png" border="0" width="400" height="45" /></a><br><br>
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psychbot , 7 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 26, 2023 at 10:26AM
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TITLE:
Meet Oscar, an AI Recycling System Helping Governments Go Green
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URL:
http://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?from=rss_feed&id=176201&url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/artificial-intelligence-recycling-government-1.7069063?cmp=rss

<div><p>Source: <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/" rel="tag" target="_blank">Canadian Broadcasting Company - Top Stories News</a></p>Standing in the middle of a cafeteria at Global Affairs, Soren Antosz was testing Oscar, a new, high-tech tool popping up in Canadian government buildings. Antosz holds up a paper napkin. That's compostable, flashes the message on Oscar's screen. Next is a plastic bottle. Oscar tells him to empty the liquid then drop it into the recycling section. With a bit of a smile, Antosz holds up his cellphone. &quot;Put it back in your pocket,&quot; Oscar jokes.</div><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><br /><a href="https://www.socialpsychology.org/client/redirect.php?action=rssHomepage" target="_blank"><img title="Brought to you by Social Psychology Network" alt="Brought to you by SocialPsychology Network" src="https://www.socialpsychology.org/images/rss-footer-large.png" border="0" width="400" height="45" /></a><br><br>
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psychbot , 7 months ago to psychology

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DATE:
December 26, 2023 at 01:00PM
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TITLE:
Psilocybin shows promise for treating eating disorders, but more controlled research is needed
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URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2023/12/psilocybin-shows-promise-for-treating-eating-disorders-but-more-controlled-research-is-needed-215187

<p class="legacy">Psychedelic research has surged in recent years, sparking enthusiasm among clinicians, investors and the general public. Clinical trials are indicating transformative outcomes for people struggling with <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.800072">mental illnesses</a> like depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and end-of-life anxiety.</p>
<p>Recently, the spotlight is turning to eating disorders (ED), a group of severe and difficult-to-treat conditions. A survey revealed that <a href="https://doi.org/10.31083/j.jin2003059">70 per cent of people view psychedelic medicine as a promising avenue for EDs</a>, and numerous reports depict positive results.</p>
<p>Media platforms abound with compelling personal stories, from online articles to Netflix documentaries, Reddit threads, TikTok videos and YouTube clips. But the critical question remains: does the scientific evidence align with the hype?</p>
<p>As a doctoral student in the field of neuropsychiatry with a personal interest in EDs, I delved into the literature to assess the evidence for <a href="https://doi.org/10.47626/2237-6089-2022-0597">psilocybin-assisted therapy in ED treatment</a>.</p>
<h2>Long-term management of EDs</h2>
<p>EDs have the highest mortality rate among psychiatric disorders and their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2021.07.014">prevalence</a> is on the rise. Treatment usually involves a combination of medication and therapy, but avoidance, drop-out and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-13-282">resistance</a> are all too frequent. Many patients go untreated or endure symptoms for life. Overall, we lack treatment options that yield long-term improvements.</p>
<p>While the causes of EDs are diverse, patients often exhibit alterations in brain connectivity and serotonin signalling. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.00043">These changes</a> affect regions involved in body image, mood, appetite and reward, resulting in “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-016-0331-3">cognitive inflexibility</a>.”</p>
<p>This manifests as rigid thought patterns like religious calorie counting, restrained emotions and punishing exercise regimens, among other ED behaviours. Cognitive inflexibility may also be the culprit for treatment resistance itself.</p>
<h2>Underlying mechanisms</h2>
<p>It seems that standard treatments do not address the full range of mechanisms underlying EDs. Unlike conventional talk therapy led by therapists, psilocybin therapy uses the psychedelic experience to alter brain activity and foster cognitive flexibility.</p>
<p>Psilocybin, a naturally occurring plant alkaloid found in the Psilocybe genus of mushrooms, was first introduced to western medicine by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41429-020-0311-8">Indigenous communities</a> in the 1950s. It increases serotonin signalling while reducing the activity of brain networks linked to rigid thinking patterns. These changes are thought to enhance body image, reward processing and relax beliefs, ultimately <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/acps.13249">catalyzing the therapeutic process</a>. But does clinical evidence support this? Well, somewhat.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amp.2021.08.004">case study</a> described a woman with treatment-resistant anorexia nervosa who, after two doses of psilocybin, experienced immediate mood enhancement, increased insight into the root of her symptoms and long-term weight resolution.</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>Another study found that a single dose of psilocybin was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-023-02455-9">safe and tolerable in women with anorexia nervosa</a>, reducing their body image concerns.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/00004714-199604000-00011">another report</a>, an individual with body dysmorphia responded well to both fluoxetine and psilocybin treatment, but was treatment-resistant to other medications.</p>
<p>Theoretical evidence suggests a role for psilocybin in treating <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinthera.2020.10.014">binge eating</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/7854_2021_279">compulsive overeating</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/bs11060080">food addiction</a>, while also improving symptoms of depression and trauma. However, despite these exciting prospects, numerous limitations temper the results.</p>
<h2>Challenges with conducting research</h2>
<p>The gold standard of evidence for any intervention is the <a href="https://www.unicef-irc.org/KM/IE/impact_7.php">randomized controlled trial (RCT)</a>, where participants are randomly assigned to an intervention or control group, ideally without knowing which they were assigned. The idea is to reduce the impact of individual differences and expectancy bias to truly see if an intervention is effective or not.</p>
<p>However, for psychedelic RCTs, it can be difficult to properly blind participants — hallucinations are a bit of a dead giveaway.</p>
<p>Many studies feature small sample sizes lacking diversity, which limits real-world applicability. While psilocybin has a good safety profile, participants are highly vulnerable during psychedelic experiences. The experience is often ineffable and different for everyone, making the process of informed consent ethically challenging.</p>
<p>It is also crucial to acknowledge “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/02698811221133461">excessive enthusiasm</a>” in the field, where researchers’ and participants’ personal use of psychedelics may introduce bias. Among other limitations, we need to be aware of how this impacts the results portrayed in the media.</p>
<h2>Patient safety</h2>
<p>Over-emphasizing the therapeutic actions of psilocybin or selectively presenting positive results may cause more harm than good. Due to legal restrictions, some patients source psilocybin illegally, without proper safety protocols or medical supervision. While this may reflect a health-care system failure, a proper mindset and environment are vital for a safe and productive session.</p>
<p>The therapeutic actions of psilocybin extend beyond the psychedelic experience; integration with a therapist is key to applying the benefits. Narratives suggesting a single psilocybin experience as a cure-all are dangerous.</p>
<p>Lastly, we need to consider how the financial hype surrounding psilocybin could inflate costs, limiting access to the individuals who need it most.</p>
<p>While excitement about psilocybin-assisted therapy is justified, cautious optimism is essential. We still need to determine the optimal therapeutic framework for EDs and how this can be effectively and ethically provided at large.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img decoding="async" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216800/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/psilocybin-shows-promise-for-treating-eating-disorders-but-more-controlled-research-is-needed-216800">original article</a>.</em></p>
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NYU Information for Practice puts out 400-500 good quality health-related research posts per week but its too much for many people, so that bot is limited to just subscribers. You can read it or subscribe at @PsychResearchBot
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Since 1991 The National Psychologist has focused on keeping practicing psychologists current with news, information and items of interest. Check them out for more free articles, resources, and subscription information: https://www.nationalpsychologist.com
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psychbot , 7 months ago to psychology

.
DATE:
December 26, 2023 at 12:00PM
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TITLE:
Negative wealth shock linked to increased risk of dementia in older adults
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URL:
https://www.psypost.org/2023/12/negative-wealth-shock-linked-to-increased-risk-of-dementia-in-older-adults-215174

<p>Researchers have found a significant link between severe financial loss and an increased risk of cognitive decline and dementia among older adults in the United States. This large-scale study, focusing on adults over 50, suggests that experiencing a major financial setback could accelerate cognitive aging. The findings are published in <a href="https://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?doi=10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.49258"><em>JAMA Network Open</em></a>.</p>
<p>With over 50 million individuals worldwide diagnosed with dementia in 2019, and projections suggesting a tripling of this number by 2050, understanding the potential risk factors for dementia is more crucial than ever. Prior research has indicated that socioeconomic factors, including wealth and income, play a significant role in the onset and progression of dementia.</p>
<p>However, the specific impact of sudden and significant financial loss, known as negative wealth shock, had not been thoroughly investigated. This study aimed to fill that gap, providing insights into how financial stress affects cognitive health and dementia risk.</p>
<p>Conducted using data from <a href="https://hrs.isr.umich.edu/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Health and Retirement Study</a>, a long-standing project tracking various aspects of the lives of U.S. residents over 50, this study involved 8,082 participants. The average age of participants was 63.7 years, with an almost equal distribution between men and women. The majority of the participants were White, with a smaller proportion being Black and other races.</p>
<p>The researchers assessed the participants&#8217; wealth status, including assets and debts, and defined negative wealth shock as a loss of 75% or more in total wealth between two consecutive interviews. Cognitive function was measured using a modified Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status, which involves tests like immediate and delayed recall, serial subtraction, and counting backward. Dementia cases were identified based on these cognitive scores.</p>
<p>The researchers found that individuals who experienced a negative wealth shock had a higher likelihood of cognitive decline and developing dementia compared to those who maintained stable financial status. This correlation was particularly pronounced in individuals under the age of 65 and among White participants, indicating that age and race may play roles in how financial stress impacts cognitive health.</p>
<p>The risk of developing dementia was also higher in the negative wealth shock and asset poverty groups. Additionally, the study&#8217;s sensitivity analysis, which accounted for genetic factors and varying definitions of negative wealth shock, supported the consistency of these findings.</p>
<p>Overall, this study underscores the potential impact of financial health on cognitive well-being, particularly highlighting the implications of sudden financial losses. It suggests that financial stability and support may be important factors in dementia prevention strategies, especially for those who are middle-aged or older. These insights add a crucial dimension to our understanding of dementia risk factors, pointing to the intersection of economic and health-related challenges faced by aging populations.</p>
<p>Future research is needed to confirm these findings and to explore potential intervention strategies. Further studies could focus on understanding the specific causes of negative wealth shock and their direct impact on cognitive health. Investigating the mechanisms through which financial stress affects the brain and exploring ways to mitigate these effects could also be valuable areas of research.</p>
<p>&#8220;The findings of this cohort study suggest that an experience of negative wealth shock was associated with accelerated cognitive decline and elevated risks of dementia among the middle-aged and older US adults. The negative wealth shock–associated dementia risks were more apparent among White participants and those who were younger. Further prospective and interventional studies are warranted to confirm our findings,&#8221; the researchers concluded.</p><div class="addrop-wrap" data-id="64749"><p style="text-align: center;">
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<p>The study, &#8220;<a href="https://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?doi=10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.49258" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Negative Wealth Shock and Cognitive Decline and Dementia in Middle-Aged and Older US Adults</a>&#8220;, was authored by Liulu Pan, Bin Gao, Junpeng Zhu, and Jing Guo.</p>
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psychbot , 7 months ago to psychology

Psychology News Robot
DATE:
December 26, 2023 at 11:09AM
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TITLE:
Counseling Today’s 15 most-read articles of 2023
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URL:
https://ct.counseling.org/2023/12/counseling-todays-15-most-read-articles-of-2023/

<p>Some of our most-read stories in 2023. </p>
<p>The post <a href="https://ct.counseling.org/2023/12/counseling-todays-15-most-read-articles-of-2023/">Counseling Today’s 15 most-read articles of 2023</a> appeared first on <a href="https://ct.counseling.org">Counseling Today</a>.</p>

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