Compassion Is Contagious
e ability of compassion felt toward one person to reduce punishment directed at another was examined. The use of a staged interaction in which one individual cheats to earn higher compensation than others resulted in heightened third-party punishment being directed at the cheater. However, among participants who were induced to feel compassion toward a separate individual, punishment of the cheater disappeared even though the cheater clearly intended to cheat and showed no remorse for doing so. Moreover, additional analyses revealed…
1 min read
Can buying generic products reduce your self-esteem?
ople purchase generic products in an attempt to reduce costs. In this article, we showed that using generic products primes a devalued sense of self-worth manifested by increasing the likelihood of lower self-evaluations. In Experiment 1, participants were randomly assigned to use generic or genuine computer peripherals to make personal vitas for an upcoming recruitment orientation. Those using generic peripherals expected to earn a lower salary per month than the participants using original peripherals. Experiment 2 showed that the effect…
1 min read
Another trick to make yourself happier:
lunteering constitutes one of the most important pro-social activities. Following Adam Smith, helping others is the way to higher individual well-being. This view contrasts with the selfish utility maximizer who avoids costs from helping others. The two rival views are studied empirically. We find robust evidence that volunteers are more satisfied with their life than non-volunteers. Causality is addressed taking advantage of a natural experiment: the collapse of East Germany and its infrastructure of volunteering. People who accidentally lost their…
1 min read
How to increase happiness and self-esteem
compassionate: The current study examined the effect of practicing compassion towards others over a 1 week period. Participants (N = 719) were recruited online, and were assigned to a compassionate action condition or a control condition which involved writing about an early memory. Multilevel modeling revealed that those in the compassionate action condition showed sustained gains in happiness (SHI; Seligman et al. in Am Psychol 60:410–421, 2005) and self-esteem (RSES; Rosenberg in Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1965)…
1 min read
Do Smokers Make More Money?
. Via Columbia University: The researchers’ primary interest was tracking wages after respondents started their first jobs, and they found a clear correlation between wage growth and smoking. Munasinghe and Sicherman found a 4.7 percent gap (after controlling for a range of family and individual characteristics) between smokers’ and nonsmokers’ first wages (what people were paid at their first full-time job). Though this result was consistent with many previous findings that smokers earn less than nonsmokers, earlier studies didn’t take…
1 min read
How to keep your mind strong as you age:
arn another language: In this study, the authors examined whether the number of languages a person speaks predicts performance on 2 cognitive-screening tests. Data were drawn from a representative sample of the oldest Israeli Jewish population (N = 814, M age = 83.0 years; SD = 5.4) that was interviewed first in 1989 and then twice more within the following 12 years. Cognitive state differed significantly among groups of self-reported bilingual, trilingual, and multilingual individuals at each of the 3…
2 minutes
When is crying cathartic?
e idea that crying is a cathartic experience, leading to relief from distress, has deep roots. However, empirical evidence for catharsis after crying is mixed. One explanation for the inconsistent results is that variations in the social context of the crying situation determine whether or not crying-related catharsis occurs. To evaluate the role of social context and other contextual features in crying-related catharsis, self-report data were collected on characteristics of the most recent crying episode and its effects on mood…
1 min read
This Is How Your Posture Affects How Powerful You Feel
ree experiments explored whether hierarchical role and body posture have independent or interactive effects on the main outcomes associated with power: action in behavior and abstraction in thought. Although past research has found that being in a powerful role and adopting an expansive body posture can each enhance a sense of power, two experiments showed that when individuals were placed in high- or low-power roles while adopting an expansive or constricted posture, only posture affected the implicit activation of power,…
1 min read
