How important is it to feel like you belong?
t feeling socially connected can make you stupider and lead to an early death: When people’s sense of social connectedness is threatened, their ability to self-regulate suffers; for instance their IQ performance drops (Baumeister, Twenge, & Nuss, 2002). Feeling lonely predicts early death as much as major health risk behaviors like smoking (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008). Source: " Mere Belonging: The Power of Social Connections" from Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Join over 285,000 readers. Get a free weekly update…
1 min read
Can not talking about our problems cause physical health difficulties?
's very possible. Both childhood and more recent traumas not shared with others were correlated with health issues. Writing about these experiences improved immune system function and overall health: Results from a series of studies are summarized in support of a general theory of inhibition and psychosomatics. According to this view, to inhibit thoughts, feelings, or behaviors is associated with physiological work. In the short term, inhibition results in increased autonomic nervous system activity. Over time, inhibition serves as a…
2 minutes
This Is What Your Relationships Are Worth In Dollars:
ving a better social life can be worth as much as an additional $131,232 a year in terms of life satisfaction: There is substantial evidence in the psychology and sociology literature that social relationships promote happiness for the individual. Yet the size of their impacts remains largely unknown. This paper explores the use of shadow pricing method to estimate the monetary values of the satisfaction with life gained by an increase in the frequency of interaction with friends, relatives, and…
3 minutes
Why do grandmom’s cookies taste better than anyone else’s?
tentions change how we experience things. Kindness does soothe pain and increase pleasure. Via Eurekalert: A nurse's tender loving care really does ease the pain of a medical procedure, and grandma's cookies really do taste better, if we perceive them to be made with love - suggests newly published research by a University of Maryland psychologist. The findings have many real-world applications, including in medicine, relationships, parenting and business. "The way we read another persons intentions changes our physical experience…
1 min read
Which people are happiest?
ppiness doesn't change much with age: ...interviews with representative samples of people of all ages reveal that no time of life is notably happier or unhappier than others.... Source: "Who is happy?" from Psychological Science Men and women are about equal overall. Women show more highs and lows but the average comes out nearly the same: In the 1980's collaborative survey of 16 nations, 80% of men and 80% of women said that they were at least "fairly satisfied" with…
2 minutes
8 ways that money can buy happiness:
other paper from Harvard happiness expert Daniel Gilbert (author of the bestseller Stumbling on Happiness) spells out 8 ways we can spend our money to increase happiness: 1) "Buy more experiences and fewer material goods." This means more amusement parks and vacations. Fewer cars and new TV's: Asked which of the two purchases made them happier, fully 57% of respondents reported that they had derived greater happiness from their experiential purchase, while only 34% reported greater happiness from their material purchase.…
6 minutes
Why does TV make us unhappy?
the past, I've posted research showing that watching television makes us unhappy. A lot of TV lovers are probably confused as hell. Research consistently shows that what brings us the most happiness is family and friends. Television competes with them for our free time and acts as a (poor) substitute: This paper discusses the role of relational goods and television viewing for individual happiness. Using individual data from the World Values Survey, we find evidence of a positive effect…
3 minutes
What’s the best thing to have after a heart attack?
happy marriage. Married people were 2.5 times more likely to be alive 15 years after a coronary bypass. Happily married people were 3.2 times as likely to still be around: Objective: To examine the effects of marital status and marital satisfaction on survival after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). Methods: Participants were 225 people who had CABG between 1987 and 1990. Marital status at the time of surgery and marital satisfaction 1 year after surgery were used to predict…
2 minutes
