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Category: Psychology

Researchers are trying to ‘inoculate’ people against misinformation

Researchers are trying to ‘inoculate’ people against misinformation

Science reports: As a young boy growing up in the Netherlands in the 1990s, Sander van der Linden learned that most of his mother’s relatives, who were Jewish, had been killed by the Nazis, in the grip of racist ideology. At school, he was confronted with antisemitic conspiracy theories still circulating in Europe. It all got him wondering about the power of propaganda and how people become convinced of falsehoods. Eventually, he would make studying those issues his career. As…

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Kama muta: the powerful emotion you didn’t know how to name

Kama muta: the powerful emotion you didn’t know how to name

David Robson writes: I am about 20 minutes into my conversation with the psychological anthropologist Alan Fiske when he starts talking about a lost kitten. “If you saw it outside, you would go pick it up and stop it getting run over by a truck, check if it’s hungry, and make sure it’s warm and safe,” he says. “Your heart goes out to it.” I’m not an ardent cat lover, and I don’t consider myself to be an especially soppy…

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Relying on AI could reshape your entire identity without you realizing

Relying on AI could reshape your entire identity without you realizing

Muriel Leuenberger writes: Your phone and its apps know a lot about you. Who you are talking to and spending time with, where you go, what music, games, and movies you like, how you look, which news articles you read, who you find attractive, what you buy with your credit card, and how many steps you take. This information is already being exploited to sell us products, services, or politicians. Online traces allow companies like Google or Facebook to infer…

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New research on political animosity reveals an ‘ominous’ trend

New research on political animosity reveals an ‘ominous’ trend

PsyPost reports: Usually, political tensions in the United States intensify as elections approach but return to pre-election levels once the elections pass. However, a new analysis of tens of thousands of interviews revealed that this did not happen after the 2022 elections. Individuals with more exposure to the campaign tended to be more polarized, and this sentiment endured after the elections. This trend held true for partisans on both sides of the political spectrum. The study, published in Science Advances,…

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Navigation strategies studied in a lab may not replicate in real life

Navigation strategies studied in a lab may not replicate in real life

Sujata Gupta writes: On a trip to Siberia in 2019, cognitive scientist Pablo Fernandez Velasco attended a raffle drawing with the region’s Evenki reindeer herders. Prizes included a soccer ball, tea, a portable radio, a GPS unit and other knickknacks. A herder in Velasco’s group won the GPS. “I thought [that] was one of the fancier prizes,” says Velasco, of the University of York in England. “He was crestfallen.” The herder, who had been eyeing the radio, had no use…

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Deny, attack, reverse – Trump has perfected the art of inverted victimhood

Deny, attack, reverse – Trump has perfected the art of inverted victimhood

Early this year (but just as applicable now as then) Sidney Blumenthal wrote: Time after time, with predictable regularity, never missing a beat, Donald Trump proclaims his innocence. He always denies that he has done anything wrong. The charge does not matter. He is blameless. But this is only the beginning of the pattern. Then, he attacks his accusers, or anyone involved in bringing him to account, usually of committing the identical offense of which he stands accused. But it…

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Mary Trump says Uncle Donald suffered ‘narcissistic injury’ in debate and won’t recover

Mary Trump says Uncle Donald suffered ‘narcissistic injury’ in debate and won’t recover

HuffPost reports: Mary Trump on Wednesday praised Vice President Kamala Harris for inflicting what she described as a “narcissistic injury” on her uncle, Donald Trump, during the opening minutes of Tuesday’s presidential debate. Democratic nominee Harris’ way of getting under her Republican opponent’s skin just made him “unravel,” the former president’s niece told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “He couldn’t recover and, honestly, he’s not going to,” she added. Harris “so brilliantly” gave both “substantive answers to questions to help the American…

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People tend to exaggerate the immorality of their political opponents

People tend to exaggerate the immorality of their political opponents

PsyPost reports: A series of eight studies conducted in the United States found that people generally tend to overestimate their political opponents’ willingness to accept basic moral wrongs. This tendency to exaggerate the immorality of political opponents was observed not only in discussions of hot political topics but also regarding fundamental moral values. Many people believe that the opposing political side finds blatant wrongs acceptable. The research was published in PNAS Nexus. Political animosity in the U.S. has been steadily…

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Do animals know that they will die?

Do animals know that they will die?

Ross Andersen writes: Moni the chimpanzee was still new to the Dutch zoo when she lost her baby. The keepers hadn’t even known that she was pregnant. Neither did Zoë Goldsborough, a graduate student who had spent months jotting down every social interaction that occurred among the chimps, from nine to five, four days a week, for a study on jealousy. One chilly midwinter morning, Goldsborough found Moni sitting by herself on a high tree stump in the center of…

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Biden and his backers are falling for the sunk cost fallacy

Biden and his backers are falling for the sunk cost fallacy

Chitra Ragavan writes: Joe Biden’s self-inflicted electoral crisis is a classic case study in the “sunk cost fallacy.” As Vice President Kamala Harris and party leaders pour resources into the president’s flailing campaign, the argument that Biden is the only one who can defeat Donald Trump in November and “protect democracy” is increasingly falling on electoral and donor deaf ears. Coined in 1980 by economist Richard Thaler, the sunk-cost fallacy describes a cognitive bias that leads people to double down…

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Unhappy lives linked to recent rise of right-wing populism in Europe

Unhappy lives linked to recent rise of right-wing populism in Europe

PsyPost reports: A recent study published in the American Behavioral Scientist has shed light on the link between life dissatisfaction and the rise of right-wing populist movements in Europe. By analyzing survey data from 14 countries collected between 2012 and 2018, researchers found that individuals who are dissatisfied with their lives are more likely to hold negative views on immigration and distrust political institutions, which in turn increases their likelihood of supporting right-wing populist parties. The researchers aimed to understand…

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How a ‘dominance’ mindset encourages leaders to put others at risk

How a ‘dominance’ mindset encourages leaders to put others at risk

Hemant Kakkar and Garrett L Brady write: In the aftermath of the 2008 financial debacle, a term that was once confined to economic textbooks found its way into the public discourse: ‘moral hazard’. The term describes the inclination toward risky decision-making in circumstances where someone else – not the decision-maker – bears most of the costs. In the case of the financial crash, taxpayers ended up involuntarily bankrolling a bailout of the institutions whose reckless gambles precipitated the catastrophe. It’s…

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A love for thinking brings benefits way beyond school and work

A love for thinking brings benefits way beyond school and work

Josephine Zerna writes: What is it that draws you to an article about a topic like psychology? Why not just mindlessly scroll through the feeds on your phone instead, or stare out the window? Perhaps it’s because you enjoy cognitive effort – which means you would likely score high on a trait called ‘need for cognition’. In everyday life, people can often choose how hard they want to flex their mental muscles. You might make that choice without even knowing…

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What we gain by recognizing the role of chance in life

What we gain by recognizing the role of chance in life

Mark R Rank writes: Your luck, they say, can turn around. All you need to do is work a little harder. As a saying often attributed to the Roman philosopher Seneca goes: ‘Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.’ A similar proverb is dated to the 16th century: ‘Diligence is the mother of good luck.’ And even the French chemist Louis Pasteur echoed the idea when he declared in 1854 that ‘chance only favours the mind which is prepared’….

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Gratitude robustly predicts reduced loneliness, comprehensive study shows

Gratitude robustly predicts reduced loneliness, comprehensive study shows

PsyPost reports: A recent study published in the journal Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being has provided new insights into the relationship between gratitude and loneliness. The meta-analysis, which synthesized data from 26 studies, found a moderate inverse association between gratitude and loneliness. In other words, individuals who tend to feel more gratitude also tend to experience less loneliness. Loneliness is a pervasive and distressing emotional experience that can lead to a host of negative outcomes, including depression, cardiovascular problems, and…

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Why do Republicans stick with Trump? New study explores the role of white nationalism

Why do Republicans stick with Trump? New study explores the role of white nationalism

PsyPost reports: A new study explores why many Americans, particularly Republican voters, continue to support former President Donald Trump despite serious charges against him. Researchers found that white nationalism and political views play crucial roles in shaping public attitudes towards these charges. The study, published in The British Journal of Criminology, sheds light on the interplay between racial attitudes and political allegiances in contemporary America. The attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, by Trump supporters resulted in…

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