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Reports on the latest psychology research plus psych gossip and comment. Brought to you by the British Psychological Society.
BPS Research Digest
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- December 22, 2011
- 04:52 PM
- 95 views
How our collective memory of 1066 could be souring Anglo-French relations
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Anglo-Saxon troops confront the invaders
No doubt you've noticed that the Entente Cordiale has been looking a little strained lately. That's mostly due to contemporary European politics and economics. Isn't it? We can't blame 1066. Can we?
In fact, British attitudes towards the French today probably aren't helped by memories and myths surrounding the Norman Conquest. This may seem like an odd claim, but a timely and intriguing new study focuses on the Norman Conquest of B........ Read more »
Brownlie, S. (2011) Does memory of the distant past matter? Remediating the Norman Conquest. Memory Studies. DOI: 10.1177/1750698011426358
- December 19, 2011
- 05:02 AM
- 66 views
You're more likely to catch a yawn from a relative than a stranger
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Reading this blog post is likely to make you yawn. Not, hopefully, because it's boring, but rather because yawning is so contagious that even reading about it has been shown to provoke the behaviour. A popular theory for how yawns spread is that they automatically engage the empathy systems in our brains. Consistent with this, past research found that children with autism, some of whom have difficulty empathising, are immune to the contagious effects of yawns.
Now Ivan Norscia and E........ Read more »
Norscia, I., & Palagi, E. (2011) Yawn Contagion and Empathy in Homo sapiens. PLoS ONE, 6(12). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0028472
- December 15, 2011
- 07:08 AM
- 63 views
Questionable research practices are rife in psychology, survey suggests
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Update (15 Dec 2011): the uncorrected proofs of this article have now been released online (pdf).
Questionable research practices, including testing increasing numbers of participants until a result is found, are the "steroids of scientific competition, artificially enhancing performance". That's according to Leslie John and her colleagues who've found evidence that such practices are worryingly widespread among US psychologists. The results are currently in press at the journal Psychologi........ Read more »
Leslie John, George Loewentstein, & Drazen Prelec. (2012) Measuring the prevalence of questionable research practices with incentives for truth-telling. Psychological Science. info:/
- December 15, 2011
- 05:17 AM
- 61 views
Mention of the word "loving" doubles charitable donations
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
"Love begets love." Proverb
French researchers say that adding the text "donating=loving" to a charitable collection box almost doubled the amount of money they raised.
Nicolas Guéguen and Lubomir Lamy placed opaque collection boxes in 14 bakeries in Brittany for two weeks. All the boxes featured the following text in French: "Women students in business trying to organise a humanitarian action in Togo. We are relying on your support", together with a picture of a young African woman wi........ Read more »
Guéguen, N., & Lamy, L. (2011) The effect of the word “love” on compliance to a request for humanitarian aid: An evaluation in a field setting. Social Influence, 6(4), 249-258. DOI: 10.1080/15534510.2011.627771
- December 15, 2011
- 04:51 AM
- 88 views
Inverse zombies studied using anaesthesia
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Hospital medicine takes a pretty crude approach to consciousness. You're considered mentally AWOL if you don't respond to simple commands or physical prodding. But studies of post-operative patients have found that many of them recall having dreamt during anaesthesia. And in some disturbing cases they've even felt pain or heard the surgeons talking. This suggests that it's possible to be outwardly dead to the world, but conscious inside (locked-in patients and imaging studies of brain-inj........ Read more »
Noreika, V., Jylhänkangas, L., Móró, L., Valli, K., Kaskinoro, K., Aantaa, R., Scheinin, H., & Revonsuo, A. (2011) Consciousness lost and found: Subjective experiences in an unresponsive state. Brain and Cognition, 77(3), 327-334. DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2011.09.002
- December 13, 2011
- 10:33 AM
- 82 views
Do urban environments trigger a mindset that's focused on the bigger picture?
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
To focus on details or the whole? This is one of the major ways that people differ in their style of mental processing. Past research has shown that people on the autism spectrum tend to focus more on details. Other studies reveal cross-cultural differences. People from collectivist cultures like Japan show a bias for focusing more on the bigger picture, known as "global processing", whilst citizens in individualist cultures like Britain show a comparatively greater bias for detail or "local pro........ Read more »
Caparos, S., Ahmed, L., Bremner, A., de Fockert, J., Linnell, K., & Davidoff, J. (2012) Exposure to an urban environment alters the local bias of a remote culture. Cognition, 122(1), 80-85. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2011.08.013
- December 13, 2011
- 10:28 AM
- 74 views
Hearing about scientists' struggles helps inspire students and boosts their learning
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Newton worked hard and had an inquisitive nature
Science suffers from an image problem. Many students see the subject as too difficult and they think scientists are aloof boffins with big brains. A new study out of Taiwan tests the benefits of teaching high-school physics pupils about the struggles of eminent physicists - Galileo, Newton and Einstein.
Over the course of three computer-based lessons during one week, 88 low-achieving students were taught not just about the relevant theories dev........ Read more »
Hong, H., & Lin-Siegler, X. (2011) How learning about scientists' struggles influences students' interest and learning in physics. Journal of Educational Psychology. DOI: 10.1037/a0026224
- December 9, 2011
- 03:30 AM
- 82 views
What your choice of best ever footballer says about human memory
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Cruijff - the best ever player?
Ask a friend to name the best ever footballer and they're likely to pick someone who was mid-career when they (your friend) was aged around 17. That's according to a new investigation into the "reminiscence bump". This term describes the fact that when you ask people to name the most memorable events in their lives, they tend to refer to things that happened to them in their teens and early twenties. Recently it's been shown that a similar effect occurs when you........ Read more »
Janssen, S., Rubin, D., & Conway, M. (2011) The reminiscence bump in the temporal distribution of the best football players of all time: Pelé, Cruijff or Maradona?. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1-14. DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2011.606372
- December 5, 2011
- 03:30 AM
- 65 views
The brain basis of "unrealistic optimism"
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Life is a little like going for a walk in the rain. Sooner or later you're going to get wet - be that in the form of bad health, unrequited love or job redundancy. It's remarkable that we ever venture out. We do so sheltered under the umbrella of "unrealistic optimism". Depressed people aside, the rest of us underestimate the likelihood that bad things will happen to us and overestimate the likelihood of good outcomes. Asked to imagine positive scenarios, we do so with greater vividness and........ Read more »
Sharot, T., Korn, C., & Dolan, R. (2011) How unrealistic optimism is maintained in the face of reality. Nature Neuroscience, 14(11), 1475-1479. DOI: 10.1038/nn.2949
- December 2, 2011
- 05:54 AM
- 78 views
The taste for competition peaks at age 50
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
No wonder parents' races at school sports days are such fraught affairs. A new study finds that far from us mellowing as we age, our inclination for competition increases through life, peaking around the age of 50.
Prior to their data collection, Ulrich Mayr and his colleagues had several reasons for expecting that preference to compete would peak in youth and fade thereafter. They cited reductions in testosterone with age; the documented shift with age to a more prosocial orientation (older p........ Read more »
Mayr, U., Wozniak, D., Davidson, C., Kuhns, D., & Harbaugh, W. (2011) Competitiveness across the life span: The feisty fifties. Psychology and Aging. DOI: 10.1037/a0025655
- November 29, 2011
- 04:26 AM
- 78 views
How to make the ceiling of your room seem higher
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
If you've ever witnessed would-be buyers looking around a house, you'll have noticed their observations about each room are usually limited to: "hmm, it's a good size" or "hmm, it's rather small". Little wonder then that home-improvers are so often fixated on making their rooms appear as spacious as possible. Design lore will tell them that to do so, they should paint their ceilings as light as possible, and in particular make the ceiling lighter than the walls. This contrast between ceilings an........ Read more »
Oberfeld, D., Hecht, H., & Gamer, M. (2010) Surface lightness influences perceived room height. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63(10), 1999-2011. DOI: 10.1080/17470211003646161
- November 28, 2011
- 04:21 AM
- 80 views
Recovering patients describe their battles with an "anorexia voice"
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
People with anorexia find comfort in their illness at first, but then it becomes over-powering and they end up battling for control of their own minds. That's according to Sarah Williams and Marie Reid, who conducted an online focus group and email interviews with 14 people recovering from anorexia nervosa, aged 21 to 50 and including two men.
A consistent theme to emerge was that anorexia at first provided a sense of control and identity. The participants recalled enjoying striving for perfect........ Read more »
Williams, S., & Reid, M. (2011) ‘It's like there are two people in my head’: A phenomenological exploration of anorexia nervosa and its relationship to the self. Psychology , 1-18. DOI: 10.1080/08870446.2011.595488
- November 22, 2011
- 05:44 AM
- 67 views
The "multiple reflection error" - yet another way that we misunderstand mirrors
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
On her trolley! Janine, the mannequin
Considering the ubiquity of mirrors in everyday life, it's amazing how confused we are about them. For example, many of us are oblivious to the small size of our heads as they appear reflected in the mirror. A new study by Rebecca Lawson has provided a compelling demonstration of the "multiple reflection error" - yet another striking way that we misunderstand mirrors.
Imagine you're at the entrance to a narrow corridor and further down, several feet away,........ Read more »
Lawson, R. (2012) Mirrors, mirrors on the wall…the ubiquitous multiple reflection error. Cognition, 122(1), 1-11. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2011.07.001
- August 26, 2011
- 05:16 AM
- 425 views
Prolific gossipers are disliked and seen as weak
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Gossip might be the social glue that binds us, but prolific proponents of tittle-tattle should beware - gossipers are perceived not just as unlikeable but also as lacking social influence.
Sally Farley made her finding after asking 128 participants (mostly female students) to imagine someone they knew, who either did or didn't gossip a lot, and to rate that person for likeability and social influence, plus there were 21 other distracter items. To further conceal the true aims of the study, the ........ Read more »
Farley, S. (2011) Is gossip power? The inverse relationships between gossip, power, and likability. European Journal of Social Psychology, 41(5), 574-579. DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.821
- August 24, 2011
- 05:42 AM
- 336 views
Investigating the personality of companies
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
When we think about other people, we do so in terms that can be boiled down to five discrete personality dimensions: extraversion, introversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness and agreeableness (known as the Big Five factors). A new study suggests that a similar process is at work in our perception of companies and corporations. Google and Apple have personalities too, it seems.
Philipp Otto, Nick Chater and Henry Stott quizzed thousands of people about their perception of hundreds of ........ Read more »
Otto, P., Chater, N., & Stott, H. (2011) The psychological representation of corporate ‘personality’. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25(4), 605-614. DOI: 10.1002/acp.1729
- August 22, 2011
- 06:44 AM
- 418 views
The woman misdiagnosed with Alzheimer's, and how we can all be affected by the suggestion that we have psychological problems
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Psychologists in the Netherlands have documented the case of a 58-year-old woman who was misdiagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. The would-be patient consulted a neurologist at a stressful time in her life, in the knowledge that her mother had had the illness. A brain scan indicated reduced activity at the front of her brain ("hypofrontality"), and the neurologist also estimated her performance on a test of cognitive impairment as poor (though no formal test was conducted). On this basis he diagn........ Read more »
Merckelbach, H., Jelicic, M., & Jonker, C. (2011) Planting a misdiagnosis of Alzheimer's disease in a person's mind. Acta Neuropsychiatrica. DOI: 10.1111/j.1601-5215.2011.00586.x
- August 18, 2011
- 06:22 AM
- 346 views
Empathy breeds altruism, unless a person feels they have low status. A brain-scan study with a lesson for riot-hit England
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
In a defining image of the recent English riots, a man helped an injured youngster to his feet while an accomplice stole from the same victim's bag. This sheer lack of empathy on the part of the perpetrators has shaken observers to their core. How could humans display such a lack of altruism toward their fellow man?
A possible clue comes from a new brain imaging study that has examined links between the neural correlates of empathy, an act of altruism, and participants' subjective sense of thei........ Read more »
Ma, Y., Wang, C., & Han, S. (2011) Neural responses to perceived pain in others predict real-life monetary donations in different socioeconomic contexts. NeuroImage, 57(3), 1273-1280. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.05.003
- August 16, 2011
- 04:52 AM
- 382 views
Take vitamin pill, eat cake. How supplements can encourage unhealthy behaviour
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Have you ever had that feeling, after an energetic gym session, or perhaps a long walk, that you've earned the right to a mountainous slice of cake, or to lounge lazily in front of the telly? Psychologists call these licensing effects and a new study has documented a similar phenomenon following the simple act of taking a vitamin pill. The researchers say the finding could help explain why the explosive rise in the consumption of dietary supplements (approximately half the US population tak........ Read more »
Chiou, W., Yang, C., & Wan, C. (2011) Ironic Effects of Dietary Supplementation: Illusory Invulnerability Created by Taking Dietary Supplements Licenses Health-Risk Behaviors. Psychological Science. DOI: 10.1177/0956797611416253
- August 15, 2011
- 07:47 AM
- 412 views
Fantasy-prone children struggle to apply lessons from fantasy stories
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Part of being human is the ability to imagine other worlds, to fantasise. It's a vital talent that underlies many others, including planning, lying and problem-solving. But we need to be able to keep fantasy distinct from reality - a lesson I learnt at a young(ish) age when I dived off the sofa head-first, attempting to imitate Superman.
To be fair to my younger self, you'd think the notion of fantasy worlds would be confusing for young children. Yet many studies have shown children are often p........ Read more »
Richert, R., & Smith, E. (2011) Preschoolers’ Quarantining of Fantasy Stories. Child Development, 82(4), 1106-1119. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01603.x
- August 11, 2011
- 06:39 AM
- 427 views
It doesn't always pay to be pretty
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
The beautiful people have it all, or so we're usually told. According to research, they're seen as friendlier, more intelligent, and they earn more. But a pair of new journal articles tells a different story, outlining some contexts in which being pretty doesn't pay.
Maria Agthe and her team had 400 students appraise one of four job candidates based on his or her CV, with their photo attached.
... Read more »
Agthe, M., Sporrle, M., & Maner, J. (2011) Does Being Attractive Always Help? Positive and Negative Effects of Attractiveness on Social Decision Making. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(8), 1042-1054. DOI: 10.1177/0146167211410355
PHILLIPS, A., & HRANEK, C. (2011) Is beauty a gift or a curse? The influence of an offender's physical attractiveness on forgiveness. Personal Relationships. DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-6811.2011.01370.x
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