Increase your motivation by sharing your goals
People are more committed to their goals when they share them with people they perceive as having higher status than themselves, according to research in the Journal of Applied Psychology. In one study, researchers surveyed 429 people online about their career goals and found that their commitment to attaining those goals was higher if they had told (or planned to tell) a higher-status individual about the goals. In another study, the researchers asked 171 undergraduate students at a university in the United States to complete a simple computer-based task. Then, after setting a goal for a second round of the same task, participants who had shared their goal with a higher-status lab assistant (a PhD student dressed in a suit) reported more commitment to achieving the goal—and performed better—than those who had told a lower-status assistant (a casually dressed community college student). Participants who shared their goal with the lower-status assistant performed no better than those who told no one about their goal. The researchers hypothesize that sharing a goal with someone whose opinion is valued makes it harder to abandon the goal.
DOI: 10.1037/apl0000441opens in new window
Big sisters boost language
Children who have older sisters have better language skills than those with older brothers, according to a study in Psychological Science. Researchers analyzed data from a French cohort study, which followed children and their mothers from before birth through age 11. The researchers assessed the language skills of 1,276 children in the study, including 547 who had older brothers or sisters, at ages 2, 3, and 5 to 6. On average, children who had older siblings had worse language skills than those who didn’t. However, children with older sisters had better language skills than those with older brothers. Further, the language skills of children with older sisters were no better or worse than those of children with no older siblings. No effects of the size of the age difference between siblings were observed.
DOI: 10.1177/0956797619861436opens in new window
City versus country
Growing up in an industrialized society may allow people to develop more risk tolerance and greater future orientation, according to research in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. In an initial study, researchers investigated Shuar children living in a forager-horticulturalist society in Amazonian Ecuador, as well as children from developed areas of India, Argentina and the United States. The researchers offered the children (ranging in age from 4 to 18 years, average age 10) a single piece of candy on the spot or up to five pieces if they waited until the next day. The Shuar children chose the single piece of candy that was available immediately more often than did the children from the other countries. Further, when offered a single candy or a 1 in 6 chance to receive up to five candies, the Shuar children were more risk averse than the other children, usually taking the sure bet of receiving a single candy. In a second study, the researchers compared the performance of Shuar children living in the forager-horticulturalist society with that of other Shuar children who lived closer to cities. The former group performed as did the Shuar children in the first study, while the latter group performed similarly to the children from the other countries. The researchers suggest that industrialization provides buffers—such as storable food and money—that enable future-oriented and risk-tolerant behaviors and that such buffers are less available in forager-horticulturalist societies.
DOI: 10.1037/xge0000675opens in new window
Race, school shootings and video games
School shootings are more likely to be blamed on violent video games when the perpetrators are white than when they are African American, suggests a study in Psychology of Popular Media Culture. Researchers analyzed 204,796 news articles about 204 mass shootings in the United States over 40 years and found that video games were 8.35 times more likely to be cited as a possible inciting factor when the shooter was white than when the shooter was African American. In another experiment with 169 college students (88% white), researchers found that participants who read a mock newspaper article about a school shooting with a photo of a white shooter were more likely to blame video games than those who saw the same article with a photo of an African American shooter.
DOI: 10.1037/ppm0000255opens in new window
Depression drives diseases
People who have greater genetic risk for major depressive disorder (MDD) are also at greater risk for at least 22 other conditions, including anxiety and sleep disorders as well as asthma, coronary heart disease and gastrointestinal disorders, according to a study in Molecular Psychiatry. Researchers analyzed data in the UK Biobank repository from 337,536 middle-aged and older participants from the United Kingdom. Their analysis of genetic and health data indicates that MDD has a causal influence on the development of the other conditions. The researchers say these findings point to the importance of early detection and treatment of MDD and of the need to consider comorbid conditions when treating patients with MDD.
DOI: 10.1038/s41380-019-0486-1opens in new window
What’s behind extreme partisanship?
Strongly held beliefs on both sides of the political spectrum are related to cognitive inflexibility, suggests a study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Researchers asked 743 U.S. citizens to complete neuropsychological tests measuring cognitive rigidity and flexibility. They found that participants who were extremely attached to either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party displayed greater mental rigidity on the cognitive test than those who were moderately or weakly attached to a political party. The team also found that self-described Independents displayed greater cognitive flexibility than Democrats and Republicans.
DOI: 10.1037/xge0000661opens in new window
Just be kind
Men and women around the globe put kindness at the top of the list when ranking the characteristics that they value most in a hypothetical ideal long-term partner, according to a study in the Journal of Personality. Researchers asked 2,477 college students from Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Norway, Singapore and the United Kingdom to allocate points to eight attributes in a potential partner: chastity, creativity, desire for children, humor, good financial prospects, kindness, physical attractiveness and religiosity. Universally, the most desired trait was kindness. After that, men favored physical attractiveness, while women favored good financial prospects. The least important characteristics across all countries were creativity, chastity and religiosity.
DOI: 10.1111/jopy.12514opens in new window
Look on the bright side
Optimistic people may live 15% longer than pessimists, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers analyzed questionnaire data from two longitudinal studies in the United States: one with 69,744 women and another with 1,429 men. After controlling for health conditions, diet, exercise and demographic characteristics, the researchers found the most optimistic women (the top 25%) lived an average of 14.9% longer than their least optimistic peers (the bottom 25%). The most optimistic men lived 10.9% longer than their least optimistic peers, on average. The researchers suggest an optimistic mindset may reduce stress and promote healthy behaviors.
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1900712116opens in new window
Virtuous cycle
People’s self-esteem and the quality of their relationships are closely intertwined, according to a meta-analysis in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. In an effort to resolve inconsistencies in previous evidence, researchers examined 53 longitudinal studies with 47,676 participants from 10 countries, published between 1992 and 2016, that examined the effect of social relationships on selfesteem, and vice versa, over time. The researchers found that the quality of social relationships (including social support and social acceptance) influenced levels of self-esteem in people across ages 4 to 76. They also found effects of the same size in the reverse direction. Further work is needed to determine whether the effects of relationships accumulate over the life span or whether certain relationships become particularly important at certain ages, according to the researchers.
DOI: 10.1037/pspp0000265opens in new window
Broadening the spectrum
The sizes of group differences between people diagnosed with autism and those without autism have decreased on various measures over the past two decades, according to a study in JAMA Psychiatry. Researchers reviewed 11 meta-analyses published between 1966 and 2019, with data drawn from 27,723 individuals from around the world. Overall, the meta-analyses covered data on five psychosocial dimensions (emotion recognition, theory of mind, cognitive flexibility, planning and inhibition) and two neurological dimensions (event-related potentials and brain volume). On all dimensions, group differences between individuals with and without autism have declined since about the year 2000. The researchers suggest that this shift is due to changes in diagnostic criteria and practices during this period. By contrast, in a similar study of schizophrenia, the researchers found no changes in the sizes of group differences between those with and without the condition over the last several decades.
DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.1956opens in new window
Social media stress
When social networking sites cause stress among their users, some users log off, but others engage in more social networking activities to cope with the stress, according to a study in Information Systems Journal. Researchers surveyed 444 Facebook users in the European Union about their social networking habits. They found that users engaged in two general strategies when the use of the platform caused stress: While some users distracted themselves with activities outside of social media use, others switched to other activities within Facebook such as chatting with friends or scanning news feeds. This switching strategy was more prevalent among those users who used the site more regularly.
DOI: 10.1111/isj.12253opens in new window
Keeping it real
Using politically incorrect speech can make a political candidate seem more authentic, but only when the target of such speech is not a group to which the listener is sympathetic, suggests a study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Across several experiments with 1,022 online participants, researchers found that using politically incorrect language (such as referring to undocumented immigrants as “illegals”) made a communicator appear authentic among self-identified moderate conservatives but cold among self-identified moderate liberals. However, in a fourth experiment with 801 online participants, these effects were reversed when conservatives felt sympathy toward the group targeted with politically incorrect language, such as poor whites who were called “white trash.”
DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000206opens in new window
How did you meet?
Heterosexual couples are now more likely to have met their romantic partneropens in new windows online than through personal connections, according to research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In a pair of surveys of 5,421 heterosexual couples in the United States, 2% of those who met in 1995 found one another on the internet. That number rose to 5% of those who met in 2000 and to 20% of those who met in 2010. The most recent numbers, from 2017, indicate that 39% of couples met online, while 38% met through friends, co-workers or family (with others meeting at bars, school, church, etc.).
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1908630116opens in new window
Time-outs are ok
Using time-outs to discipline children does not harm them or their relationships with their parents, suggests a study in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics. Researchers analyzed longitudinal data from 1,387 U.S. children enrolled in Head Start programs. The data revealed that by the time a child reached age 3, 28% of parents had employed the time-out strategy. The researchers used parent questionnaires, in-lab observations and videotaped interactions when the children were 3, in pre-kindergarten and in fifth grade to assess their mental health, social skills and feelings about their parents. They found no differences in levels of anxiety and depression, self-control, rule-breaking or child negativity toward their parents between children whose parents used time-outs and children whose parents did not. In contrast, children whose parents used physical punishment were more aggressive than children whose parents did not.
DOI: 10.1097/DBP.0000000000000725opens in new window
The pill, teens and depression
Women who used oral contraceptive pills as teenagers are at increased risk of depression in early adulthood, according to a study in The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Researchers analyzed data from a population-representative survey of 1,236 women (ages 20 to 39, mean age of 29) in the United States and controlled for factors that have previously been proposed to explain the relationship between oral contraceptive use and depression risk. These include age of onset of menstruation, age of first sexual intercourse and current oral contraceptive use. The researchers found that women who self-reported first using oral contraceptives as teenagers had a 1.7 times higher likelihood of clinical depression in adulthood than women who started using oral contraceptives as adults. Women who had used oral contraceptives as teens were three times more likely to be clinically depressed than women who had never used them.
DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.13115opens in new window
A window into Alzheimer’s risk
The magnitude of pupil dilation during a memory task—a marker of cognitive effort—is associated with increased genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease, suggests a study in Neurobiology of Aging. In previously published work, researchers reported that adults with mild cognitive impairment, often a precursor to Alzheimer’s, displayed greater pupil dilation during a memory task than cognitively normal individuals. In a new study with 539 cognitively normal men, the same researchers found that those showing greater pupil dilation while performing the memory task were more likely to have genes linked to increased Alzheimer’s risk. The researchers suggest that measurement of pupil dilation could serve as a low-cost, noninvasive screening method for early identification of people at increased genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease.
DOI: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2019.09.001opens in new window
Coming off opioids
Patients who discontinued their use of opioids for pain management were more likely to die of an overdose in subsequent years than were patients who continued to take prescription opioids, according to a study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Researchers investigated a cohort of 572 patients (average age 55) with chronic pain enrolled in an opioid registry of a primary care clinic in Washington state. Chronic opioid therapy was discontinued by 344 patients. During the five-year study period, 119 registry patients died, 21 of whom were definitive or possible drug overdoses. Of those 21 overdose deaths, 17 were patients who had discontinued opioid therapy at the clinic (but may have obtained opioids elsewhere) and four were patients who had continued to receive opioid therapy at the clinic. The researchers suggest that multimodal pain management and treatment of opioid use disorder may be needed to help wean patients off opioids successfully.
DOI: 10.1007/s11606-019-05301-2opens in new window
Social media and mental health
Adolescents who spend more than three hours per day on social media are more likely to report high levels of mental health and behavioral problems than adolescents who spend less or no time on social media, according to a study in JAMA Psychiatry. Researchers recruited a nationally representative sample of 6,595 U.S. adolescents ages 12 to 15 for the study, which was conducted from 2013 to 2016. The researchers asked the participants how much time they spent on social media: Fewer than 17% of adolescents reported not using social media at all, while 20% reported using social media three or more hours per day. In a second wave of the study a year later, participants self-reported a variety of symptoms. The researchers found that those adolescents who reported spending more than three hours per day on social media in the first wave showed an increased likelihood of reporting anxiety, depression, aggression and defiance, among other symptoms, in the second wave.
DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.2325opens in new window
Overwhelmed parent, at-risk child
Parents who are experiencing burnout may have thoughts of escaping their families and an increased risk of neglect and violence toward their children, suggests research in Clinical Psychological Science. In one study, researchers asked 557 French-speaking parents in Europe to complete three online surveys, spaced about six months apart, assessing their level of burnout, escape ideation, the degree to which they neglected their children’s needs and their tendency to engage in verbal, psychological or physical violence, including slapping and spanking. The researchers found strong associations between burnout and each of the three variables—escape ideation, parental neglect and parental violence—at each of the three time points. A second study assessing 822 parents in the United Kingdom yielded similar results.
DOI: 10.1177/2167702619858430opens in new window
There’s no ‘gay gene’
The largest genetic study of sexual orientation to date revealed that multiple gene loci are associated with same-sex sexual behavior. Among them are five gene loci that each show statistically significant associations on their own with same-sex sexual behavior. The genome-wide association study, published in Science, was conducted with 493,001 participants from the United States, the United Kingdom and Sweden. In the aggregate, the entire set of identified gene loci accounted for between 8% and 25% of the variance in female and male same-sex sexual behavior. As noted by the researchers, the study indicates that genetic testing by itself cannot be used to reliably predict whether a person will engage in same-sex sexual behavior.
DOI: 10.1126/science.aat7693opens in new window
Neatly wrapped
When recipients open a gift, they generally like it less when the giver has wrapped it neatly as opposed to sloppily, according to a study in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. Researchers in the United States presented 180 students with either a desirable gift (a mug emblazoned with the logo of their favorite basketball team) or an undesirable gift (a mug with a rival team logo), wrapped either sloppily or neatly. They found that recipients set higher expectations for neatly wrapped gifts, making it harder for the gifts to meet expectations and thus resulting in disappointment once they were unwrapped. In contrast, recipients had low expectations for sloppily wrapped gifts, and so they were happy when the gifts exceeded those expectations. However, in another online experiment with 261 participants imagining receiving a hypothetical gift, the researchers found that when the gift-giver was an acquaintance instead of a friend, wrapping neatness was used as a cue about the status of the ambiguous relationship, rather than the quality of the gift—so in this case, tidy wrapping led recipients to like the gift more.
DOI: 10.1002/jcpy.1140opens in new window
