Research Summaries:Do unto others or treat yourself? The effects of prosocial and self-focused behavior on psychological flourishing
Trick or Treat? Which would you choose? Perhaps, most of you, who celebrate Halloween, would prefer giving treats to the children. And we feel happy about that too! Intuitively we know that treating/ helping others, makes us even more happier than it makes the helped person.
Today’s research summary is from the journal emotion, and based on this paper by Lyubomirsky et al.
The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar may be awarded to those that show a pattern of going the extra mile to be nice, without being asked. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
There is a rich literature out there that shows that helping others makes us feel h...
Source: The Mouse Trap - July 10, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: altruism Research Summaries happiness kindness Source Type: podcasts
Research Summaries: A Room with a Viewpoint: Using Social Norms to Motivate Environmental Conservation in Hotels
Towels on a rack in a hotel room (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Don’ Panic. I know the title of this research article seems heavy, so keep your towel nearby as I try to walk you through this article from Cialdini et al in the Journal of Consumer Research.
Cialdini is famous for his book Influence and his work focuses around how to influence other people. One way to get people to do what you want, is to refer to social norms and thus use the power of peer pressure. For example, a toothpaste manufacturer may advertise that most people do use toothpaste and that too of their brand. Thus, a social norm is highligh...
Source: The Mouse Trap - July 6, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: Research Summaries influence persuasion Source Type: podcasts
Incompetent people are blind to their incompetence - 2007
I originally produced this podcast on why people who are incompetent do not know they are incompetent on August 15, 2007. At the time, I thought the research was very interesting and amusing. Now, with the state of our world, I think the podcast is very relevant and not so funny. The research was actually done in 1999. The researchers were Dr. David Duning and a then graduate student, named Justin Kruger. Interestingly, this concept has been called the Duning-Kruger effect! Below is the reference for the original article. In advance, I apologize for my voice- I must have been sick at the time I recorded the original podcas...
Source: The Shrink Is In - July 5, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: DrGurr Source Type: podcasts
Research Summaries: Productivity Orientation and the Consumption of Collectable Experiences
Today’s research summary is once again from the Journal of Consumer Research. You can read the original article here.
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In the last research summary we looked at the notion of extraordinary experiences, or experiences that are rare and infrequent, and found that young people prefer them to build their experiential CV. The authors of this article refine this concept to come up with a concept of collectible experiences: experiences that are rare and infrequent, as well as novel and extreme. An example may help clarify; while staying in an Ice hotel may always remain an extraordinary exp...
Source: The Mouse Trap - July 4, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: happiness Research Summaries Source Type: podcasts
Evolution of the 4 Emotion Dimensions
PAD is a popular dimensional theory of emotions, whereby all emotions can be classified on three dimensions: Pleasure (Pleasant- Unpleasant), Arousal (Ready-Relaxed), and Dominance (Control- Lack of control). To this model has been added a fourth dimension called Predictability (Ambiguous- Certain) (please see my earlier post for why this fourth dimension is relevant).
Manga emotions (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As an example, anger and fear are both unpleasant emotions, but angry person is in control (has high dominance) while a fearful person is not in control of the situation.
Similarly, both contentment and excitement are...
Source: The Mouse Trap - July 3, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: emotion happiness ABCD emotions evolution Source Type: podcasts
Research Summaries: Happiness from Ordinary and Extraordinary Experiences
Today’s research summary comes from another article in the Journal of Consumer Research.
Oxygen toxicity occurs when the lungs take in a higher than normal O 2 partial pressure, which can occur in deep scuba diving. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The big ideas:
It is well established that experiential purchases (like going on a vacation) lead to greater happiness than material purchases (like buying a car). However, not much is known about which types of experiences lead to greater happiness and for whom.
A dimension on which experiences reliably differ are whether they are ordinary, meaning common and frequent, or extra...
Source: The Mouse Trap - June 30, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: happiness Research Summaries Source Type: podcasts
Childhood IQ and cause of death
Findings from a range of prospective cohort studies based around the world indicate that higher intelligence in children is related to a lower risk of all cause mortality in adulthood - and now a new study, published on bmj.com, is trying to dig into that association further, with a whole population cohort and data on cause specific mortality.
Ian J Deary, professor of differential psychology at the University of Edinburgh and one of the authors of that study, joins us to discuss what this tells us, and what might be causing that association.
Read the full open access study:
http://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2708 (Source: The BMJ Podcast)
Source: The BMJ Podcast - June 29, 2017 Category: General Medicine Authors: BMJ Group Source Type: podcasts
Research Summaries: Costs and Benefits of Consuming
I am toying around with a new idea of providing research summaries for a few select articles that I read and find interesting. Do let me know if you find them useful. The idea is that one could read the research summary to get a good idea about the paper and then decide to dig deeper into the original source if one’s interest has been piqued sufficiently. The research summaries would be short and neither a substitute for the original article nor a copy n paste of the abstract.
So here is the first of the research summaries. The paper is Costs and Benefits of Consuming by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and you can read it he...
Source: The Mouse Trap - June 29, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: Research Summaries consumerism happiness Maslow's hierarchy of needs Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Source Type: podcasts
Goals and Depression
Striving towards meaningful goals is good for your well-being; even just having goals by themselves are indicative of well-being. This is an established dogma of positive psychology, so how can one argue that goals may be at the root of the experience called depression.
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A framework that aims to throw some light on this is the dual-process Tenacious Goal Pursuit (TGP) and Flexible Goal Adjustment (FGA) theory as proposed by Brandstatdter and colleagues.
As per this framework, we all strive towards goals, but only goals that are meaningful (say goals which align with our self-identity) and attai...
Source: The Mouse Trap - May 24, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: depression ABCD ABCD mdoel goals mania personality Source Type: podcasts
Emotions and Personality: Take 8
I am currently reading ‘Emotions in the practice of psychotherapy‘ by Robert Plutchik and have been finding it a good read. In it Plutchik elaborates on his famous psycho-evolutionary theory of emotions that led to the circumplex and the Plutchik wheel of emotions. Basically, Plutchik argues that emotions can be classified on three dimensions- intensity, similarity and polarity (complementarity) and if one were to focus on similarity and polarity one can find eight basic or primary emotions, with other emotions either being a blend of the primary emotions or differing in intensity.
Cover via Amazon
An example w...
Source: The Mouse Trap - May 18, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: emotion personality ABCD ABCD model emotions personality disorders Plutchik Source Type: podcasts
The Stages of Moral Development
I have alluded to Kohlberg’s stage theory of Moral Development a few times in this blog, but never devoted an entire post exclusively to that; time to rectify that. For those not familiar with the Kohlberg model, I suggest that they read up an excellent description here.
Morality Play (novel) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
To recap, Kohlberg argues, that we go through three levels (and two stages within each level) as we advance on our path of moral development. He arrived to this conclusion, among other things, based on a long-term study of 58 young men over a span of two decades. The stage of moral development was asse...
Source: The Mouse Trap - May 17, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: moral sense ABCD ABCD model kohlberg moral development Morality stages Source Type: podcasts
Podcast: When good lions go bad, listening to meteor crashes, and how humans learn to change the world
This week, meteors’ hiss may come from radio waves, pigeons that build on the wings of those that came before, and a potential answer to the century-old mystery of what turned two lions into people eaters with Online News Editor David Grimm.
Elise Amel joins Julia Rosen to discuss the role of evolution and psychology in humans’ ability to overcome norms and change the world, as part of a special issue on conservation this week in Science.
Listen to previous podcasts.
Download the show transcript
Transcripts courtesy Scribie.com
[Image: bjdlzx/iStockphoto; Music: Jeffrey Cook] (Source: Science Magazine Podcast)
Source: Science Magazine Podcast - April 20, 2017 Category: Science Authors: Science Magazine Source Type: podcasts
"Watching the world through a clear fog" - recognising depersonalisation and derealisation
Transient symptoms of depersonalisation and derealisation - feeling detached from the world, and feeling as if you are watching events at a remove - are common. However for some, persistent symptoms can make the disorder extremely distressing.
In this podcast, Kate Adlington is joined by Elaine Hunter, consultant clinical psychologist, Anthony... (Source: The BMJ Podcast)
Source: The BMJ Podcast - March 31, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: BMJ talk medicine Source Type: podcasts
”Watching the world through a clear fog” - recognising depersonalisation and derealisation
Transient symptoms of depersonalisation and derealisation - feeling detached from the world, and feeling as if you are watching events at a remove - are common. However for some, persistent symptoms can make the disorder extremely distressing.
In this podcast, Kate Adlington is joined by Elaine Hunter, consultant clinical psychologist, Anthony David, professor of cognitive neuropsychiatry, and by Jane Charlton and Fiona Godlee - who have both experienced depersonalisation/derealisation over a number of years.
Read the full education article:
http://www.bmj.com/content/356/bmj.j745 (Source: The BMJ Podcast)
Source: The BMJ Podcast - March 31, 2017 Category: General Medicine Authors: BMJ Group Source Type: podcasts
