People Who Self-Harm May Be Compensating for Difficulty Interpreting Emotion

By Emma Young. The findings could help inspire new treatment approaches. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 4 years ago

Teens Define Themselves in Terms of Positive Traits; Adults More by Social Roles

By Christian Jarrett. This is the first systematic study of teenagers’ “self-images”. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 4 years ago

A Surprising New Way to Avoid Choking Under Pressure

By Christian Jarrett. The mental technique is called “incentive reappraisal” and it’s reflected in changed activity in a key brain structure. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 4 years ago

New Insights into Hikikomori – People Who Withdraw from Society for Years on End

By Emma Young. The most significant and strongest risk factor was a high level of interpersonal difficulties. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 4 years ago

Teenagers Define Themselves Mostly in Terms of Their Traits; Adults More in Ter

By Christian Jarrett. This is the first systematic study of teenagers’ “self-images”. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 4 years ago

Even People Without Mathematical Training Experience the “Beauty” of Maths

By Matthew Warren. The way we use our aesthetic intuitions could have important implications, the researchers say. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 4 years ago

Microdosing Psychedelics Can Be Beneficial, Not in the Way Most Users Expect

By Christian Jarrett. The researchers said their most surprising finding was the increase in users’ neuroticism. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 4 years ago

People Have a Hard-to-Explain Bias Against Experimental Testing of Policies

By Jesse Singal. We need more research to better understand the public’s concerns and how to respond to them. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 4 years ago

Taking Tiny Breaks Is Key to Learning New Skills

By Matthew Warren. The findings could be useful for situations like rehabilitative medicine. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 4 years ago

“Shooting the Messenger” is a Psychological Reality

By Matthew Warren. Delivering bad news is already a difficult task, and being seen as unlikable only adds to that struggle. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 4 years ago

Your Brain Stops Time When You Blink

By Emma Young. The study raises all kinds of fascinating questions for future research to investigate. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 4 years ago

There's Limited Evidence That Psychotherapy Changes the Body as Well as the Mind

By Tomasz Witkowski. Researchers analysed 51 trials involving over 5,000 participants. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 4 years ago

Growing Up with a Harsh Father Can Be Worse Than an Absent One

By Emma Young. The findings could inform interventions attempting to reduce risky sexual behaviour. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 4 years ago

Research Identifies a Novel Way to Beat Anxiety – Zapping the Vestibular System

By Emma Young. Many questions remain, such as – is the procedure 100 per cent safe? | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 4 years ago

A little discussed effect of therapy: it changes your personality

Just a few weeks of psychotherapy is associated with significant and lasting personality trait changes. By Christian Jarrett | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 4 years ago

Sleep Is a Key Reason Why Personality Traits Predict Longevity

By Christian Jarrett. People with certain personality characteristics are more likely to sleep too little, or too much, or to experience greater sleepiness during the day, and in turn this raises t… | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 4 years ago

Acquiring a Language Requires Learning 1.5 Megabytes of Data

By Emma Young. The work suggests the long-running focus on whether syntax is learned or innate has been misplaced. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

People’s sense of control is significantly reduced when they’re angry or afraid

By Matthew Warren. First study of its kind raises questions about the accountability of people going through extreme emotions. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Humans store about 1.5 megabytes of information during language acquisition

By Emma Young. The work suggests the long-running focus on whether syntax is learned or innate has been misplaced. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

The Ninja Brain: Humans Can Prioritise Meaningful Sounds Even While Asleep

By Matthew Warren. The brain’s engagement with the outside world during sleep is far more complex than we often recognise.  | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Why it’s important that employers let staff personalise their workspaces

The sparring mitt, yellow stitches spelling “SLUGGER” casually lying on the desk. The Mathlete trophy on a high shelf. A Ganesha statue, slightly chipped. Why do people bring these kind… | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Open-plan offices reduce face-to-face interactions

By Christian Jarrett As well as their cost-saving appeal, the rationale for large open-plan offices is that they are expected to act as a crucible for human chemistry, increasing face-to-face encou… | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Writing about chapters from your life can boost your self-esteem

By Christian Jarrett. It remains unclear exactly why the life-chapter task had the self-esteem benefits that it did. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

There is only weak evidence that mirror neurons underlie human empathy

By Christian Jarrett. After nearly two decades of research, our understanding of the neural basis of empathy, and especially the role played by mirror neurons, remains far from complete. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Researchers announce a test of the “Light Triad” traits

By Christian Jarrett. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Smartphone Addiction Associated with Impaired Decision-Making

By Emma Young. The research involved established neuropsychological tests and measures of skin conductance. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Avoidant Personality Disorder: “Safe When Alone, yet Lost in Their Aloneness”

By Christian Jarrett. The findings could prove useful for therapists working with clients diagnosed with avoidant personality disorder. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Differences Between the USA and Japan in How Emotions Influence Health

By Emma Young. Cultural attitudes to what is and is not a desirable emotional state, and related behaviours, can influence health, and deserve more attention. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

An Area of Psychology Where Most of the Results Do Replicate

By Christian Jarrett. Of 78 previously published trait-outcome associations, around 87 per cent successfully replicated. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Study on Trump’s Personality and Finds He Is an “Outlier Among the Outliers”

By Christian Jarrett. Even when compared against other populist leaders, Trump came out as having the lowest scores of all on agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional stability, and the highe… | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Children’s Denial That Improbable Events Are Possible

By Christian Jarrett. Prompting children to consider events in far away lands helps them to be more open-minded. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

New Findings: Cortical Blindness Eliminates the Risk of Developing Schizophrenia

By Emma Young. Not a single case of schizophrenia has ever been reported in someone who is cortically blind. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

People struggle to be logical about arguments that contradict their politics

By Jesse Singal. People should dispense themselves of the notion that when they sit down to reason a problem through carefully, the act of doing so automatically shields them from the effects of po… | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Immediately Re-Watching Lecture Videos Doesn’t Benefit Learning

By Christian Jarrett. Study time would be better spent testing yourself after the first viewing. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Teenagers’ Lack of Insight into Their Abilities Hampers Career Advice

By Christian Jarrett. Teen participants took mental and emotional tests and then estimated their own and their peers’ abilities. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Some perfectly healthy people can't remember their own lives

Psychologists in Canada think they’ve identified an entirely new memory syndrome in healthy people characterised by a specific inability to re-live their past. This may sound like a form of a… | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Study identifies mental strategies you can use to overcome aversive challenges

By Christian Jarrett. Trait self-control and effective strategy use may represent two separate routes to greater persistence. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

It Seem Like Food Is Everywhere, Especially If You’re Overweight

By Stacy Lu. One way of reducing responsiveness to food cues may be to try to interrupt the flow of food thoughts. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Researchers FoundAn Area of the Dog Brain Dedicated to Processing Human Faces

By Christian Jarrett. The special human-canine relationship is reflected in the workings of the dog brain. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Now John Bargh’s Famous Hot-Coffee Study Has Failed to Replicate

By Jesse Singal. The replication attempts involved participant samples triple the size of the original research. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

The optimum exercise intensity, type and duration for boosting mood

By Christian Jarrett. Perhaps the most important lesson from this review is that we need more research into how different types and intensities of exercise affect our mood. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Psychology’s favourite tool for measuring implicit bias is mired in controversy

By Jesse Singal. A new review aims to move on from past controversies but experts can’t even agree on what they’re arguing about. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

It’s increasingly difficult for sceptics to explain away failed replications

By Jesse Singal. The Many Labs 2 project managed to successfully replicate only half of 28 previously published significant effects. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

There is no “right thing” to say when you want to be supportive

By Christian Jarrett. Your mere presence and sympathy are likely to be enough, the researchers said. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

All treatment approaches for depression had failed, but then they adopted a pet

By Christian Jarrett. The companionship and responsibilities involved in looking after a pet may help combat depression. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Social psychologists impeded by ideological aversion to evolutionary psychology

By Christian Jarrett. Part of the problem may be the lack of evolutionary science in many psychology degree courses. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

Drawing information can help you remember it better than writing it down

By Emma Young. It didn’t matter how good the drawings were for the memory benefits to manifest. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago

People watching themselves touching a filthy bedpan reduced OCD symptoms

By Emma Young. “My hands [felt] clean after using the app” said one participant. | Continue reading

@digest.bps.org.uk | 5 years ago