Do emojis represent the whole gamut of human emotion?
By Matthew Warren
Emojis have become part of our everyday communication online, allowing us to succinctly communicate how we’re feeling in a way that written language cannot. Psychologists are even beginning to use emojis in research, to allow children or other participants to respond without the need for traditional questionnaires.
But is the library of emojis that is available to us truly representative of the range of emotions that we feel? A new study in Scientific Reports suggests that, broadly, it is — but that there are some important gaps too.
Many psychologists have moved away from the idea t...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - February 4, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Emotion Facebook Faces Twitter Source Type: blogs
We feel more disgusted by people who don ’t share our political views
By Emily Reynolds
Our politics play a significant role in the way we interact with others. We can be dismissive or intolerant of those with different politics to us — and research from 2020 even found that we prefer strangers who share our politics to actual friends who don’t.
New research, published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, finds that this dislike can go beyond mere intolerance: the team finds that we can even feel physical disgust towards members of political outgroups — with potential repercussions to how we treat our political rivals.
The first study took place in 2018, just a...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - February 3, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Emotion Political Source Type: blogs
We put more effort into avoiding losses than making gains
By Emma Young
The discovery that we care more about losses than equivalent gains has been hugely influential in behavioural economics. The idea was introduced back in 1979, in a paper by Dan Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Since then, it’s been demonstrated in a huge range of settings, and led to some effective interventions for everything from sales teams to students. Take this finding from 2016: when students are given maximum grade points at the start of the semester and then lose points according to their performance in exams and assignments, they do better in the end than students who start with zero points and must ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - February 2, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Decision making Source Type: blogs
Ask for help face-to-face, not via phone or email, if you want results
By Emily Reynolds
We probably all like to think of ourselves as generous, giving people, ready to provide friends and even strangers with favours when they need help. If we’re honest, however, that probably isn’t always the case — in fact, we’re more likely to agree to a favour when we think we might not have to follow through at all.
A new study in Social Psychological and Personality Science looks at another facet of favours — the most effective way of asking for them. The team finds that we don’t expect there to be much difference between asking for favours in text-based, video and face-to-face settin...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - February 1, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Social Source Type: blogs
Conversations with strangers remain enjoyable for much longer than we expect
By Emma Young
For such a social species, we are surprisingly bad at judging conversations. Now a new misapprehension can be added to the list: even after striking up a conversation with a stranger, we underestimate how much we’ll continue to enjoy it. There are potentially important implications, point out Michael Kardas at Northwestern University and colleagues: if we mistakenly avoid longer conversations, we could miss out not just on the chance to connect with someone, but even to gain a new friend.
In the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes, the team re...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - January 31, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Social Source Type: blogs
Researchers have identified a “hidden source of regret”: our tendency to overrate the choices we (almost) make
By Matthew Warren
We often feel regret when we learn that an opportunity we rejected has turned out really well. Think about that investment you didn’t make that has now shot up in value, for example, or the person you never asked out who is now living a happily married life.
But what happens when we never find out the outcome of that potential, rejected opportunity? If we don’t know what could have been, then it might seem like we shouldn’t feel much regret. But according to a new series of studies in Psychological Science by Daniel Feiler from Darmouth College and Johannes Müller-Trede from the University o...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - January 28, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Decision making Emotion Source Type: blogs
People who move a lot attach more importance to their romantic relationships
By Emily Reynolds
Moving house can have significant psychological effects — and not just because it’s stressful. Moving can create long-lasting memories, good and bad, while moving frequently is associated with lower academic achievement and poorer physical and mental health among children.
It’s this second experience — moving frequently — that a new study, published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, explores. Looking at “residential mobility” in the context of romantic relationships, the team finds that those who have moved away from their place of birth or who have fr...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - January 27, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Relationships Social Source Type: blogs
Episode 29: Why do people share false information — and what can we do about it?
This is Episode 29 of PsychCrunch, the podcast from the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest, sponsored by Routledge Psychology. Download here.
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/psychcrunch/20220124_PsychCrunch_Ep29_Mx3.mp3
Why do people share false information? In this episode, our presenters Ginny Smith and Jon Sutton explore the psychology of misinformation. They hear about the factors that make people more or less likely to share misinformation, discuss strategies to correct false information, and learn how to talk to someone who is promoting conspiracy theories.
Our guests, in order of ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - January 26, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Facebook Podcast Social Twitter Source Type: blogs
How to master the art of conversation, according to psychology
By Emma Young
Every time we catch up with a friend, we share the stories of our lives, from the mundane to the profound. Swapping stories — and especially secrets — helps to create friendships in the first place. Now new research is providing some intriguing insights into how to get that process going, and keep it going — on how best to handle conversations, to turn acquaintances or even strangers into new friends, and new friends into life-long confidantes.
Do talk to strangers…
Back in 2014, a pair of psychologists published a now classic study of Chicago commuters, which found that although our...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - January 25, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Feature Social Source Type: blogs
Highlighting refugees ’ resilience can boost their confidence and engagement at university
By Emma Young
Refugees face all kinds of obstacles to settling well into a new country. One is the “stigmatised identity” of refugees as being weak, unskilled victims, write Christina Bauer at the Free University of Berlin and colleagues in a new paper in Psychological Science. So the team designed a simple intervention to reframe that identity as one characterised instead by perseverance and the ability to cope with adversity. When they tested it with refugees who were studying online, they found that it increased their engagement with their course — which in theory could make for greater future universi...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - January 24, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Educational Source Type: blogs
People on the extreme left and right are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories
By Matthew Warren
Belief in conspiracy theories has been linked to various factors, including low levels of critical thinking, a need to feel special, and even a yearning for excitement and thrills. But how does political ideology come into it? Some studies suggest that there is a straightforward association, in which people with more extreme right-wing views are more prone to conspiracy theories. But other work has found a “U-shaped” relationship, where conspiratorial thinking is more common among people on the extremes of both the right and left compared to those with more moderate views.
The latter finding ha...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - January 21, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Political Source Type: blogs
Children ’s books still feature more male than female protagonists
By Emily Reynolds
There are many fields in which women are underrepresented: in certain areas of education and academia, in politics, and in senior leadership roles. Efforts have been made across sectors to improve this representation, as we’ve particularly covered in the case of STEM.
Unequal representation may start before the workplace or university, however — even before school. Exploring children’s literature, a new study in PLOS One from researchers at Princeton and Emory universities finds an overrepresentation of male protagonists in children’s books, potentially reinforcing damaging societal expecta...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - January 20, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Developmental Gender Reading Source Type: blogs
Coffee can ’t fix all the cognitive impairments caused by a bad night’s sleep
In this study, the participants had to keep track of where they were in a seven-step screen-based task. The participants were initially trained in how to complete the steps correctly, in the right order, and then expected to remember this information. Every so often, they were interrupted part-way through a sequence and asked to complete another brief task. They then went back to the original task. To resume correctly, and complete the steps in the right order, they had to remember where they’d broken off. The researchers counted the number of mistakes that they made.
After this, some participants were sent home to sl...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - January 19, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Drugs Sleep and dreaming Source Type: blogs
Can memes help people cope with pandemic-induced anxiety?
By Emily Reynolds
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on our collective mental health, from its effects on the experience of postnatal depression among new mothers to the ongoing impact of post-Covid brain fog. Research has also looked at what might remedy some of these negative effects — engaging in meaningful activity, for example, or making changes in our lives to feel more in control.
Umair Akram and colleagues explore another potential technique in their paper in Scientific Reports —looking at memes. They find that pandemic-related memes could provide one coping mechanism for people experiencing anx...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - January 18, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Coronavirus Media Mental health Source Type: blogs
Conflicting health information can compromise our attention
By Emily Reynolds
We get our information about health from many sources. Sometimes we seek advice from doctors or other medical professionals; sometimes we talk to friends or family; we read newspapers and watch TV; and we diagnose ourselves with rare and alarming afflictions with the help of the internet.
In some ways, this variety offers a democratisation of knowledge, a way for more of us to understand what’s going on with our health. But what happens when this information contradicts itself? This is the subject of a new study from a team at Rutgers University, published in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine.
...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - January 17, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Cognition Decision making Health Source Type: blogs
