Conspiracy Theories And Winter Wellbeing: The Week ’s Best Psychology Links

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web Displaying empathy towards others seems like an obvious virtue — but it can have a dark side, writes Richard Fisher at BBC Future. Empathising with a single, identifiable individual can divert time and money away from causes that could benefit many more people, for instance. And bad actors can harness our tendency to empathise with those who are similar to us in order to get us to act aggressively towards the out-group. We often think of punishment as a tool to exact revenge on those who have wronged us. But this can’t be the whole story, because we also punish those who haven’t directly caused harm, but who have not distributed resources fairly, write researchers Paul Deutchman and Katherine McAuliffe at The Conversation. The pair suggests that punishment was used by our ancestors not only to deter bad behaviour, but also to level the playing field . When there is stigma surrounding a disease, it can make it harder to bring it under control — and Covid-19 is no different. At Science, Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar examines the history of health-related stigma and its relationship with racism and prejudice, and looks at how stigma has hampered public health efforts during the current pandemic. A recent Pew survey of 20 countries around the world has found that, in general, people are pretty trusting of scientists. But the survey also revealed some interesting trends: ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Weekly links Source Type: blogs