Mathematical Mistakes And Social Sharks: The Week ’s Best Psychology Links

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web We really struggle to wrap our heads around the idea of exponential growth, writes David Robson at BBC Future. Instead, we tend to rely on our intuitions and think of growth as linear even when it is not — which could help to explain why many people underestimated the dangers of coronavirus spreading. Researchers say that politicians and the media should be doing more to try and highlight the exponential nature of transmission in an attempt to correct this mathematical bias. For a lot of the country, this week has been unpleasantly hot. And aside from the physical risks, heatwaves can have a variety of effects on our mental health, writes Harriet Ingle at The Conversation. To combat global problems like climate change, we need to alter our behaviour in ways that might come at a personal cost, even though they benefit the wider community. So how do you encourage people to adopt these prosocial attitudes? Making people feel guilty is not the answer, explains Claudia R Schnieder at Psyche. Her research has found that appealing to positive emotions, such as pride in doing the right thing, is more effective at encouraging pro-environmental and prosocial behaviours. Neuroscientists studying animals have traditionally examined how the brain responds to sensory information, or how patterns of brain activity directly relate to an animal’s behaviour. But now they’re beginning to look at something alt...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Weekly links Source Type: blogs