Here ’s how our visual system decides how cute a baby is
By Emma Young
What makes one baby seem cuter than another (parental bias aside)? Large and round eyes, a small nose and mouth, a high and protruding forehead, chubby cheeks and soft skin have all been associated with cuteness, not just in babies but puppies, kittens, dolls and Japanese anime and manga characters. But now a new paper in Emotion suggests that another factor has an impact: the “spatial frequency” of what we see.
Our visual system uses spatial frequencies to rapidly process variations in relative light and dark in an image. “Low” spatial frequencies convey coarse informa...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - June 10, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Babies Perception Source Type: blogs
Knowing about racial disparities in Covid outcomes reduces White Americans ’ concern and support for safety precautions
This study again showed that having more knowledge about racial disparities led to less concern about Covid. However, this effect seemed to be strongest for the group presented with information about the role of systemic issues in producing these disparities. Reduced concern in this group in turn led them to show less support for safety precautions. In essence, it seems as though the more the participants knew, the less they cared.
The authors speculate that explaining how Covid racial disparities are a product of enduring health inequalities affecting non-White communities may have made White participants feel that the...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - June 9, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Coronavirus Social Source Type: blogs
Season of birth is not related to risk of developing anxiety or depression
By Emily Reynolds
A new study has cast doubt on historic research suggesting that the season or month of someone’s birth is associated with an increased risk of certain mental health conditions.
The paper, published in Scientific Reports, looks at symptoms of anxiety and depression among more than 70,000 older adults in Europe. And it finds that there is no relationship between when they were born and the likelihood that they experience anxiety or depression.
A number of past studies have found a link between season of birth and mental health diagnoses: research has linked bipolar disorder and schizophrenia...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - June 8, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Developmental Mental health Source Type: blogs
Young children think that teachers who count out rewards are fairer that those who don ’t
By Matthew Warren
In just the first few years of life, children develop a strong sense of fairness. At 16 months old, toddlers will reward someone who has fairly distributed food or toys between two other people, for example. By two, they tend to share toys equally themselves.
A new study shows that children’s judgements of fairness also take into account the method by which resources have been allocated. Kids as young as four think that a teacher who has counted out cookies for a reward is fairer than one who gives that exact same reward without counting. The research, published in Cognition, suggests that when...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - June 6, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Developmental Source Type: blogs
Robot touch makes people feel good — especially when accompanied by robot small talk
By Matthew Warren
For many of us, the past two years have demonstrated how important the touch of others is to our emotional wellbeing — and how hard it is to go without it. But in the absence of physical contact from other humans, could robots provide an adequate substitute? Past work has found that robotic touch can elicit positive emotions in people — and now a new study in Scientific Reports finds that the effect is better when the robots talk at the same time.
Taishi Sawabe from Nara Institute of Science and Technology and colleagues tested the effects of robotic touch and speech on 31 Japanese volunt...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - May 31, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Emotion Technology Source Type: blogs
American politicians are becoming increasingly rude and disrespectful on Twitter
By Matthew Warren
If you’ve been on social media at all in the last decade, you may have noticed it becoming an increasingly toxic environment. Antisocial language is on the rise — but not only among the general public. An analysis of hundreds of thousands of tweets from US Members of Congress has found that the language in their posts has become more and more rude and disrespectful since 2009. And this seems to be because uncivil tweets are rewarded with more retweets and likes, a finding that highlights the perverse incentives driving the way we communicate with each other on social media.
The researchers,...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - May 30, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Political Twitter Source Type: blogs
Stigmatisation of yawning could be a strategy to avoid disease, study argues
By Matthew Warren
It’s really common to start yawning after seeing someone else do it. You might even be yawning right now, just reading about it. But we also instinctively know that there’s something a bit rude about yawning: we’re less likely to show this “yawn contagion” when we’re being watched, for instance. And even when we do yawn in the presence of others, we’ll often cover our mouth.
Why does yawning carry this stigma? The obvious explanation is that yawning indicates that we are tired or bored, and we might not want to make others feel like they are the source of that boredom (even if they ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - May 26, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Cognition Health Source Type: blogs
People prone to mind-wandering are better at shifting between tasks
By Emma Young
Letting your mind wander while you’re meant to be working on a task doesn’t sound like a particularly good idea. Indeed, psychologists have viewed mind-wandering in this context as a failing — specifically, a failure of executive control to maintain focus. Evidence that mind-wandering worsens performance on tasks that tap into working memory, for example, supports this idea. However, the full picture is not so neat…
Though older adults generally have poorer executive control than younger people, they tend to report less mind wandering. And some studies that required young adults to switch betwe...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - May 25, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Cognition Source Type: blogs
Job-seekers prefer to work for more diverse companies
By Emily Reynolds
Diversity at work has become a bigger and bigger focus — and not just for employers. Employees are increasingly interested in the issue, with 69% of millennials and Gen Z-ers saying they would be much more likely to work for an employer for more than five years if it had a diverse workforce.
A new study finds that job seekers are even willing to explore jobs with lower salaries when companies are more diverse. It finds that sharing information about diversity makes job postings more attractive to job seekers, even when pay is lower.
To conduct the study, the team partnered with an online j...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - May 24, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Occupational Source Type: blogs
Hallucinations are surprisingly common and varied experiences
By Emma Young
Many mentally well people experience hallucinations. An estimated 6 – 15% of us hear, see, feel or even smell things that aren’t real. But there has been little research into what those hallucinations are like — and how they might differ from those experienced by people with psychosis. Now Mascha M.J. Linszen at Utrecht University and her colleagues report the results of a large study of more than 10,000 people aged 14 to 88. The work, published in Schizophrenia, throws up a few surprises among a host of interesting findings.
The team’s online survey was open to anyone aged over 14 who ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - May 20, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Perception Source Type: blogs
Parenting Instagram accounts can make mothers feel supported, but also less competent
By Emily Reynolds
Adjusting to parenting can be difficult for many new parents — particularly when it comes to judging their own competence or knowing whether or not they are doing the “right” thing. Subsequently, many new parents seek advice: from peers, family members, friends, and, increasingly, from social media.
A new study, published in Acta Psychologica, explores the impact of parenting-related Instagram accounts on mothers. It finds a mixed experience: while mothers can feel supported by a community of fellow parents, they can also feel less competent when comparing themselves to others.
...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - May 18, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Babies Media Social Source Type: blogs
We tend to see our political opponents as stupid rather than evil
By Emily Reynolds
If we have strong political leanings, it’s likely that we’ll have similarly strong feelings about our opponents. We might think they’re misguided or stupid; we might consider them self-serving and selfish; or, worst of all, we may believe they’re actually evil.
A new study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin explores this question: do we think our opponents are evil or just stupid? While the common understanding is that liberals see conservatives as evil and conservatives see liberals as stupid, the team finds that whatever our political affiliation, we’re more likely ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - May 17, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Political Social Source Type: blogs
Top performers don ’t always provide the best advice
This study affirmed the existence of a belief that many people clearly already have. But it was an important first step in the team’s investigation.
Next, a fresh group of participants played six rounds of Word Scramble. The team noticed that the players did get better over time. This certainly suggests that performing well on this game requires some skill, which might in theory be trained by good advice. The players then wrote down some advice for future participants, and also rated the quality of their own advice, and how helpful they expected it to be.
The analysis showed that the best performers believed that t...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - May 16, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: leadership Social Source Type: blogs
Episode 30: The psychology of superstitions
This is Episode 30 of PsychCrunch, the podcast from the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest, sponsored by Routledge Psychology. Download here.
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/psychcrunch/20220505_PsychCrunch_Ep30_Mx1.mp3
From carefully avoiding cracks in the pavement to saluting every magpie that you meet, superstitious behaviour is really common. But why do we have superstitions? Where do they come from? And are they helpful or harmful?
To find out, our presenter Ginny Smith talks to Stuart Vyse, former professor of psychology at Connecticut College and author of Believing in Magic: T...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - May 13, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Podcast Thought Source Type: blogs
A religious upbringing strengthens children ’s belief in divine miracles, but not magic
By Emily Reynolds
Children are exposed to all kinds of stories, fact and fiction. Books about figures such as Rosa Parks or Jesse Owens teach young people about history, while novels are populated with colourful characters like Harry Potter or Bilbo Baggins. Religious figures often represent a middle ground, both real and fantastical. So how do children differentiate between fantasy and real life figures — and how does religious teaching affect the way they make these kinds of distinctions?
A new study, published in Memory & Cognition, finds that a religious upbringing leads kids to judge religious stories as ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - May 12, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Developmental Religion Source Type: blogs
