Can a walk improve your memory?
e key finding is that those students who went for a walk before the study period recalled 25 per cent more words correctly compared with students who sat still before the study period. You can read the rest of the post here. Source is the always excellent Christian Jarrett at BPS Research Digest. His new book is The Rough Guide to Psychology. Join over 180,000 readers. Get a free weekly update via email here. Related posts: A Navy SEAL Explains 8 Secrets To Grit And Resilience New…
1 min read
Do straight-A students live longer?
a the New York Times: The findings come from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, which has been following more than 10,000 people who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957. Those students who finished in the top 25 percent of their high school class were healthier, decades later, than the ones who finished in the bottom quarter. When they were all in their early 60s, those who had finished in the top quartile were, over all, half as likely to have experienced…
1 min read
Can taking a shower make you less moralistic?
eories of moral judgment have long emphasized reasoning and conscious thought while downplaying the role of intuitive and contextual influences. However, recent research has demonstrated that incidental feelings of disgust can influence moral judgments and make them more severe. This study involved two experiments demonstrating that the reverse effect can occur when the notion of physical purity is made salient, thus making moral judgments less severe. After having the cognitive concept of cleanliness activated (Experiment 1) or after physically cleansing…
1 min read
Is being a criminal hereditary?
idence is brought together to indicate that much criminality can be traced to environmental factors, but findings from family studies, twin studies, and adoption studies indicate that hereditary factors are also implicated in criminality. It is not a single genotype that provides the thrust toward crime, but a variety of phenotypical characteristics that are heritable in more or lesser degree. Such findings shall lead us to rethink our legal responsibility regarding criminals, their proper classification and treatment, and their responsibility…
1 min read
Are narcissists happier?
ung narcissists might be: Previous studies have noted that narcissists do, in some cases, experience benefits. The current study adds to this discussion by examining whether age might moderate the links between narcissism and a self-reported benefit (life satisfaction) and an observer-reported benefit (observer ratings of personality). In a sample of college students and their family members (N = 807), the authors demonstrate that narcissism positively correlates with life satisfaction for adolescents and emerging adults, but not for adult participants. In…
1 min read
Can others tell how sociable you are just by looking at the outside of your home?
evious research suggests that U.S. residents may use holiday decorations on their home's exterior to communicate friendliness and cohesiveness with neighbors. In the present research, we examine whether strangers (naive raters) can accurately identify the more friendly residents, and what aspects of the homes' exteriors contribute to their impressions. We also examine the possibility that residents who decorate for Christmas but who have few friends on the block may be using the decorations and other cues as a way of…
2 minutes
How is it that prayer helps you — even if you’re an atheist?
m not religious, so this is not an attempt to convert anyone. A few months ago I posted from an abstract showing that the act of prayer can be beneficial -- even if you don't believe. Why is that? A new study gives some good insight: Many individuals use prayer to manage negative emotions, but scholars know little about how prayer accomplishes this task. Using in-depth interview data from victims of intimate partner violence, I argue that prayer is an imaginary social support…
1 min read
Is there a way to trick yourself into exercising more?
o studies demonstrated that leading individuals to mentally reframe the time required for an exercise program (e.g., 2 hr per week) in terms of the equivalent daily amount (e.g., 17 min per day) reduced the perceived time commitment and increased people's willingness to try the program. Study 2 also identified a cognitive mechanism that mediated the effect of temporal framing on exercise intentions. Consistent with findings in other domains (Gourville, 1998), reframing exercise duration in daily units led participants to retrieve comparison activities…
1 min read
