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Category: Psychology

Compassion makes people happy

Compassion makes people happy

University of Mannheim: People who treat others with compassion often feel more at ease themselves. This is the key finding of a new study by Majlinda Zhuniq, Dr. Friedericke Winter, and Professor Corina Aguilar-Raab from the University of Mannheim. The study was recently published in the journal Scientific Reports. While the link between self-compassion and well-being is well established, this effect has hardly been researched with respect to compassion for others. In a meta-analysis, the research team analyzed data from…

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Research indicates a connection between wealth and selfishness

Research indicates a connection between wealth and selfishness

Steve Taylor writes: A few weeks ago, the millionaire Polish CEO Piotr Szczerek made headlines when he snatched a signed cap from a child at the American Open tennis tournament. A social media backlash followed, which threatened Szczerek’s business interests, prompting an apology. Is it strange that a wealthy businessman should behave with such apparent pettiness and meanness? In fact, research has found a clear link between wealth and unethical behaviour, including an increased tendency to cheat and steal. One…

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Massive new dream database reveals clues about consciousness during sleep

Massive new dream database reveals clues about consciousness during sleep

PsyPost reports: An international collaboration of scientists has created the largest-ever public database of brain activity recordings and accompanying dream reports. In a first analysis of this resource, the researchers confirmed that dreaming is not exclusive to the rapid eye movement stage of sleep, finding that when conscious experiences occur in deeper sleep, the brain exhibits patterns of activity that more closely resemble wakefulness. The study was published in the journal Nature Communications. For millennia, dreams have been a source…

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How to maintain good cognitive health at any age

How to maintain good cognitive health at any age

By Benjamin Boller, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) Is it an achievable goal to remain mentally sharp while aging, or is it a pipe dream? It’s entirely possible if you cultivate habits throughout your life that are beneficial to brain function. As a researcher in cognitive neuroscience and the neuropsychology of aging processes, I aim to shed light on the ways we can maintain good cognitive health while aging in light of recent scientific advances. This article is part…

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The psychology of trolling may start with a specific type of envy

The psychology of trolling may start with a specific type of envy

PsyPost reports: A new study reveals a psychological pathway that connects narcissistic personality traits with the tendency to engage in social media trolling. The research suggests this link is partially explained by a person’s feelings of malicious envy and their exposure to antisocial media content. The findings were published in the journal Behaviour & Information Technology. To understand the study, it helps to first understand the concepts involved. Narcissism is a personality trait characterized by a grandiose sense of self-importance,…

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Problematic social media use linked to loneliness and death anxiety

Problematic social media use linked to loneliness and death anxiety

PsyPost reports: A study of adult social media users in Italy suggested that loneliness and death anxiety might mediate the relationship between attachment anxiety and problematic social media use. The paper was published in Death Studies. Attachment anxiety is a form of insecure attachment characterized by fear of rejection and excessive need for closeness in relationships. People with attachment anxiety constantly worry that their partner does not love them enough or will eventually leave them. This persistent fear can lead…

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How to build your own memory palace

How to build your own memory palace

Lynne Kelly writes: How good is your memory? How effectively can you learn new information that you can reliably call upon? If you are like most people, you want to improve your memory. I know I did. My natural memory is pathetically poor, and I often felt hamstrung by my inability to recall dates, names, places, vocabulary. The inadequacy of my natural memory made me feel hemmed in and deeply frustrated: there was so much information just barely beyond my…

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Research suggests rich people tend to be more selfish – but why is that?

Research suggests rich people tend to be more selfish – but why is that?

North Monaco/Shutterstock By Steve Taylor, Leeds Beckett University From Disney’s Scrooge McDuck and Cruella de Vil to DC Comics’ Lex Luthor to and Mr Burns in the Simpsons, there are plenty of examples of wealthy people using their money and power in evil ways. But is there any truth to the stereotype that rich people are mean? There are many rich people who act benevolently, including philanthropists who give a lot of their money away. However, research in psychology has…

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Most daily actions are habitual, not the result of conscious choices

Most daily actions are habitual, not the result of conscious choices

University of Surrey: Habit, not conscious choice, drives most of our actions, according to new research from the University of Surrey, University of South Carolina and Central Queensland University. The research, published in Psychology & Health, found that two-thirds of our daily behaviours are initiated “on autopilot”, out of habit. Habits are actions that we are automatically prompted to do when we encounter everyday settings, due to associations that we have learned between those settings and our usual responses to…

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The struggle for attention in an age of distractions

The struggle for attention in an age of distractions

Nathan Heller writes: On a subway train not long ago, I had the familiar, unsettling experience of standing behind a fellow-passenger and watching everything that she was doing on her phone. It was a crowded car, rush hour, with the dim but unwarm lighting of the oldest New York City trains. The stranger’s phone was bright, and as I looked on she scrolled through a waterfall of videos that other people had filmed in their homes. She watched one for…

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Intellectual humility is linked to less political and religious polarization across the board

Intellectual humility is linked to less political and religious polarization across the board

PsyPost reports: A new study published in The Journal of Positive Psychology indicates that people who score higher in intellectual humility tend to show less political and religious polarization — regardless of whether they are Republican, Democrat, Christian, or atheist. This link held across different measures, including both self-reported attitudes and behavioral indicators of hostility toward ideological outgroups, and often remained significant even after accounting for the strength of a person’s beliefs. Intellectual humility refers to the recognition that one’s…

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How letting your mind wander can make it sharper

How letting your mind wander can make it sharper

The brain needs time off, too. baranq/ Shutterstock By Anna Kenyon, University of Lancashire Every day, we’re faced with constant opportunities for stimulation. With 24/7 access to news feeds, emails and social media, many of us find ourselves scrolling endlessly, chasing our next hit of dopamine. But these habits are fuelling our stress – and our brains are begging for a break. What our brains really need is some much needed time off from concentrating. By not consciously focusing on…

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Conservatives who find empathy troublesome

Conservatives who find empathy troublesome

Elizabeth Bruenig writes: Five years ago, Elon Musk told Joe Rogan during a podcast taping that “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit.” By that time, the idea that people in the West are too concerned with the pain of others to adequately advocate for their own best interests was already a well-established conservative idea. Instead of thinking and acting rationally, the theory goes, they’re moved to make emotional decisions that compromise their well-being and that…

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Our crisis, not of loneliness, but of people becoming invisible

Our crisis, not of loneliness, but of people becoming invisible

Allison J Pugh writes: Paul was a gig worker in the San Francisco Bay Area. Formerly a project manager in tech until several companies in a row laid him off, he started working entirely for platforms like Lyft, Uber and TaskRabbit. He managed to eke out a living, but the jobs posed a different problem. ‘Honestly, a lot of times, I go out and the person doesn’t even know my name, even though I introduced myself as Paul,’ he told…

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Perceived social breakdown fuels desire for authoritarian leaders, new study shows

Perceived social breakdown fuels desire for authoritarian leaders, new study shows

PsyPost reports: When people perceive society as falling apart, they may become more receptive to authoritarian leaders—those who promise order, control, and certainty. That’s the conclusion of a new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which provides the first causal evidence linking the perception of societal breakdown, or “anomie,” to support for authoritarianism. According to the researchers, this link is explained by a sequential process: anomie leads people to feel politically powerless, which then creates political…

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Bodily awareness guides morality, new neuroscience study suggests

Bodily awareness guides morality, new neuroscience study suggests

PsyPost reports: A new study published in The Journal of Neuroscience suggests that people who are more attuned to their internal bodily sensations are also more likely to make moral decisions that align with the values of the broader group. The researchers found that individuals with greater interoceptive awareness—how accurately they can perceive their own bodily signals—tended to choose responses in moral dilemmas that matched the majority’s preferences. Brain imaging revealed that this connection may be supported by resting-state activity…

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