Blue Spaces And Whale Wisdom: The Week ’s Best Psychology Links

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web Thinking of your sadness as a person — à la the Pixar movie Inside Out — can make you feel less sad. That’s according to a recent study which highlights the benefits of putting some distance between yourself and your emotions, reports Elle Hunt at The Guardian — though the strategy can backfire when it comes to positive emotions like happiness. We’ve previously written about the psychological benefits of spending time in green spaces — but what about “blue” spaces? At Undark, Jenny Roe looks at the — admittedly limited — research into the potential for water bodies to also boost our well-being. “Many researchers say they now see social priming not so much as a way to sway people’s unconscious behaviour, but as an object lesson in how shaky statistical methods fooled scientists into publishing irreproducible results.” At Nature, Tom Chivers takes stock of the embattled field of social priming, and asks where it can go from here. Our grandparents pass on all kinds of wisdom and knowledge to us — and in that respect, killer whales may not be that different.  Researchers have found that killer whales have better survival rates when their grandmas are around, reports Eva Frederick at Science, probably because the older whales have superior knowledge about where to forage for food. As the days get colder and darker, many of us long for a lie-in. So why don’t we just c...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Weekly links Source Type: blogs