Some teachers mislabel Black children as angry
Prospective teachers are more likely to misperceive Black children as angry compared with white children, according to research in Emotion. Researchers asked 178 prospective teachers, enrolled in education programs at U.S. universities and primarily white and female, to watch videos of the faces of 72 Black and white children ages 9 to 13. Each child expressed one of six emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise or disgust. While the prospective teachers were generally accurate at detecting the children’s emotions, they incorrectly labeled both Black boys and girls as angry more often than they did white boys and girls. The researchers also measured the prospective teachers’ levels of explicit and implicit bias against Black people. Higher levels of explicit and implicit bias did not affect the probability of labeling Black children as angry but were associated with a lower probability of labeling white children as angry. DOI: 10.1037/emo0000756opens in new window
Job autonomy
The level of autonomy employees feel at work, their workload and job demands, and the cognitive skills they have in dealing with those demands have strong links to their mental health, physical health, and mortality, suggests research in the Journal of Applied Psychology. Researchers analyzed data from 3,148 adults who participated in a nationally representative, 20-year-long study. They found that job demands were associated with an increase in the likelihood of death via poor mental health when job control or cognitive ability were low and a decrease in the likelihood of death via poor mental health when job control was high. DOI: 10.1037/apl0000501opens in new window
Sharing secrets
School-age children, but not preschoolers, understand that not keeping a friend’s secret can harm their friendship, according to research in Developmental Psychology. In one study, 51 preschoolers (ages 3 to 6) and 67 school-age children (ages 6 to 10) were introduced to three gender-matched cartoon character children: a main character, their friend and their classmate. The participants learned that the main character told a secret to either the friend or the classmate. The school-age group, but not the preschoolers, understood that the friend was likely to keep the secret, while the classmate might not, and that divulging the secret could damage the friendship. Similar results were found in two more studies with 203 preschoolers and 308 school-age children, which also showed that school-age children recognized that sharing a surprise or a fact (rather than a secret) would not have a negative impact on the friendship. DOI: 10.1037/dev0000960opens in new window
COVID-19’S mental health toll
The pandemic has strained the mental health of those infected, the health-care professionals treating them and the population as a whole, according to research in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. A systematic review identified 43 studies, mainly conducted in Asian countries, that measured mental health symptoms associated with COVID-19. Researchers found high levels of symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression among patients, with those who had preexisting disorders showing a worsening of symptoms. Health-care professionals experienced greater symptoms of anxiety and depression as well as poor sleep quality compared with before COVID-19, while members of the general public experienced greater anxiety and depression. However, the researchers noted that larger, more carefully designed studies were needed to fully understand the mental health impacts of the pandemic. DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.2020.05.048opens in new window
Expertise versus enthusiasm
Advisers with experience and expertise may sound good on paper, but in high-pressure moments people are more likely to choose advisers who are enthusiastic about them and their goals, suggests research in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Researchers conducted five online and in- person studies with 755 participants, including two studies in which participants either were applying to be contestants on the reality television singing competition “The Voice” or imagined they were on the show. They found that people picked advisers (or coaches) based on their expertise rather than the level of positivity they expressed for their potential advisees—even when the variance in the advisers’ expertise was small. But upon analyzing the actual decisions made by contestants on four seasons of “The Voice” and participants in other studies, the researchers found that they were more likely to select advisers who were highly enthusiastic toward them. DOI: 10.1037/xge0000756opens in new window
Black identity matters
Racial identity moderates the relationship between depressive symptoms and marital satisfaction in Black couples, according to research in the Journal of Family Psychology. Researchers analyzed longitudinal data about depressive symptoms, marital satisfaction and racial identity collected from 168 heterosexual U.S. Black couples between 2002 and 2004. Overall, depressive symptoms in either spouse predicted declines in marital satisfaction for both spouses one year later. However, wives’ depressive symptoms predicted declines in husbands’ marital satisfaction only when wives reported that their Black identity was more central to their self-concept. Husbands’ marital satisfaction was highest when wives did not have depressive symptoms and reported their Black identity was of central importance. DOI: 10.1037/fam0000573opens in new window
Playing parent
A five-minute role-play session with a doll shortly before the birth of a couple’s first child predicted the quality of fathers’ later parenting skills, reports a study in the Journal of Family Psychology. Researchers videotaped 182 expectant U.S. fathers during the third trimester of their partners’ pregnancies as the men interacted with a doll they were told represented their baby. Trained observers rated the fathers’ parenting skills—including talking directly to their baby’s face, using baby talk and smiling and showing concern for the baby’s well-being. These ratings accurately predicted ratings of the fathers’ behaviors toward their babies at age 9 months, even after taking into account the baby’s temperament, the father’s personality traits and the quality of the father’s co-parenting relationship with the mother. DOI: 10.1037/fam0000753opens in new window
Workplace democracy
Attitudes about authority can be changed by experiences with participatory practices in the workplace, suggests research in Nature Communications. Researchers recruited 65 groups of Chinese factory workers (1,752 total workers) and asked half of them to attend six weekly 20-minute “participatory” meetings, where they freely discussed work experiences and weekly work goals. Control groups attended meetings run by supervisors, with no worker participation. Surveys conducted four weeks after the meetings ended indicated that workers in the participatory discussion groups had, overall, a less positive attitude toward authority than those in the control groups. Workers in the participatory groups were also less likely to believe in the just nature of the world, perceived more conflict between managers and workers in Chinese society and were more likely to participate in both politics and family life. A second study with 32 groups of U.S. academic administration staff (172 total staff members) largely replicated the first study’s findings. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16383-6opens in new window
Negativity and dementia risk
Persistently engaging in negative thinking may raise the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, suggests research in Alzheimer’s & Dementia. Researchers surveyed 360 adults in Canada and France over age 55 about how they typically think about negative experiences. The participants also completed measures of depression and anxiety symptoms and were assessed on their memory, attention, spatial cognition and language functions. The researchers had access to brain PET scans for 113 participants. The researchers found that more repetitive negative thinking was linked to greater declines in cognitive function and memory over four years, as well as increased amyloid and tau deposits. Depression and anxiety by themselves were associated with subsequent cognitive decline but not with amyloid or tau deposition. The researchers suggest that repetitive negative thinking may lead to increases in physiological stress, which in turn can facilitate amyloid and tau deposition. DOI: 10.1002/alz.12116opens in new window
Warnings may not work
Trigger warnings have little or no benefit in diminishing the impact of potentially disturbing material, according to research in Clinical Psychological Science. Researchers asked U.S. trauma survivors, including those with diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder, to read a series of potentially disturbing literary passages. Prior to reading, about half received trigger warnings, while the other half did not. The researchers found that the trigger warnings had little effect on participants’ self-reported anxiety after reading each passage, even when the passages were similar to the survivor’s trauma. However, results indicated that trigger warnings reinforced survivors’ ideas that their trauma was central to their lives. DOI: 10.1177/2167702620921341opens in new window
Lives of the rich and arrogant
People with wealth or higher status are more likely to think that those who disagree with them are incompetent or biased, even when their high status is the result of chance, suggests research in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Researchers analyzed the political opinions of 2,374 U.S. adults participating in a nationally representative survey. They found that people of higher socioeconomic status were more likely than those of lower status to describe members of the opposing political party as uninformed, irrational or biased. In a pair of follow-up studies with 775 participants, the researchers manipulated people’s sense of status through an investment game. Participants who were told their performances were above average were more likely to say that people who disagreed with their investment advice were incompetent or biased. The results held whether or not the participants were told that the game’s outcomes were entirely random. DOI: 10.1177/0146167220921043opens in new window
The brain 'fills in' peripheral vision
People have less awareness of color in their peripheral vision than they think, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers outfitted 178 participants with head-mounted virtual reality (VR) displays. Using an eye-tracking tool in the VR headset, the researchers pinpointed where the participants were looking and changed the visual environment so that only areas where the person was looking were in color. When the researchers removed color in the periphery, most people did not notice, suggesting that color awareness is limited to a small area around the center of their visual field and that the brain “fills in” color in the periphery. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1922294117opens in new window
Who hoards?
Fear, not selfishness, appeared to drive the hoarding of toilet paper during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to research in PLOS ONE. Researchers recruited 996 adults from Germany, the United States and 20 other countries to complete an online personality inventory from March 23 to 29. The inventory tapped six personality domains: emotionality, conscientiousness, honesty-humility, extraversion, agreeableness and openness to experience. Participants also reported on their quarantine behaviors, perceptions of COVID-19 as a threat and how often they shopped for toilet paper. The results indicate that people who felt more threatened by COVID-19 stockpiled more toilet paper. In addition, higher emotionality was associated with greater perceived threat of COVID-19, thereby indirectly increasing stockpiling behavior. Higher degrees of conscientiousness were also associated with greater toilet paper stockpiling. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0234232opens in new window
Head injuries and depression
People who’ve had traumatic brain injury (TBI) or repetitive head impacts can have difficulties with depression and cognitive function years or decades later, suggests research in Neurology. Researchers analyzed data from 13,323 people ages 40 and older who participated in an online neurological health registry. About 55% reported having had a previous TBI, and about 5% reported having previous repetitive head impacts through sports, abuse or military service. TBI and repetitive head impacts were each associated with later depression and cognitive limitations, with the greatest effects observed in participants with a history of both TBI and repetitive head impacts. TBI that had involved a loss of consciousness was associated with more severe effects than TBI without such loss. DOI: 10.1212 WNL.0000000000010040opens in new window
Lowering the bar
The more options people consider over time, the lower their standards become, suggests research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers examined online participants’ decision-making strategies across three studies. In the first two, 301 participants were instructed to try to buy the least expensive airline ticket. They were shown sequences of 10 offers, in which prices fluctuated while the departure date got closer and closer. In the third study, 95 participants were asked to select the best price on products such as groceries or kitchen appliances. Across the three studies, participants’ behavior followed a “linear threshold model,” such that the price they were willing to pay increased linearly with the number of options they had seen. Their behavior was inconsistent with other proposed models, including those that predict optimal decision-making. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2002312117opens in new window
Nudging better behaviors
The more people understand how and why “nudges” are put in place, the more they accept their use, according to research in Behavioural Public Policy. Researchers presented 1,715 participants with examples of behavioral interventions used by the government and the private sector and asked them to assess their acceptability on several dimensions, including their effectiveness, how easy it was to identify how the intervention works and the party implementing the intervention. They found that in judging whether a nudge is acceptable, people weigh effectiveness and knowing how an intervention works as more important than who is implementing it. Further, participants found nudges related to health to be more acceptable than those related to personal finance. DOI: 10.1017/bpp.2020.6opens in new window
Who should intervene?
Older children and adults think authorities should step in to thwart negative social behavior, while younger children think that that’s everyone’s duty, according to research in Cognition. In two studies involving 232 4- to 7-year-olds and 76 adults, researchers presented participants with a scenario in which an authority figure (a parent or teacher) and another person witnessed teasing. Both groups were then asked how obligated and how likely each witness was to intervene. Children and adults thought the authority figure was obligated to stop the teasing, but only younger children thought ordinary people also shared that obligation. Both older and younger children and the adults also expected authority figures to intervene, but only younger children expected that those not in positions of authority would do so. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104215opens in new window
fMRI isn't reliable
While fMRI methods provide insights into the functioning of the average human brain, they lack sufficient reliability to be used to identify stable individual differences or diagnose mental disorders, according to a paper in Psychological Science. Researchers analyzed results from 90 studies—involving 1,008 participants—and other ongoing projects in which participants performed a task while their brain activity was measured with fMRI and then were retested weeks to years later on the same task. Overall test-retest reliability was poor, such that individual participants frequently did not show the same pattern of brain activation at both points in time. DOI: 10.1177/0956797620916786opens in new window
The ideal partner
Women and men can have unrealistic beliefs about the types of bodies members of the opposite sex prefer, suggests research in the British Journal of Psychology. Researchers surveyed 99 female and 70 male white heterosexuals in the United Kingdom, ages 17 to 26, using an interactive mobile phone app that depicted different bodies varying in fat percentage and body mass index (faces were not shown). Participants were presented with same-sex body images and asked to adjust the images to reflect what a heterosexual opposite-sex individual would find most attractive. They were also presented with opposite-sex body images and adjusted the images to reflect their own preference in partners. In this sample, women overestimated men’s preferences for thinness and men overestimated women’s preferences for muscularity. These discrepancies were more exaggerated for imagined short‐term relationships than long‐term relationships. DOI: 10.1111/bjop.12451opens in new window
Defined by race or gender?
Black women as a group are more often lumped in with Black men than with women as a whole, suggests research in Translational Issues in Psychological Science. In an online study, researchers asked 1,063 people whether 41 positive or negative stereotypical characteristics described different races or genders. Some participants were asked about stereotypes regarding just men and women or just Black people and white people, while others were asked about a combination of race and gender. The typical Black woman was found to be more similar to the typical Black man than the typical white woman was to the typical white man. On the other hand, the typical Black woman was found to be quite distinct from the typical woman, whereas the typical white woman was found to be incredibly similar to the typical woman. The researchers suggest this lack of distinction from Black men may result in antiracist and feminist movements failing to sufficiently advocate for Black women. DOI: 10.1037/tps0000256opens in new window
