Selfies aren’t just for narcissists
Narcissists don’t take more selfies than the rest of us, though they do take more selfies featuring only themselves, suggests research in Psychology of Popular Media. Researchers found that among 276 undergraduate students in the United States, there was no significant difference between how many selfies those scoring high in narcissism and those scoring low in narcissism reported taking over the previous week. Participants high in narcissism, however, were more likely to take selfies that featured only themselves. Participants both high and low in narcissism cited grandiose and exhibitionistic aspects of narcissism as motives for taking selfies. Female participants were much more likely to take selfies as part of a group, while men were more likely to take them alone. DOI: 10.1037/ppm0000272opens in new window
Parents’ divorce lowers oxytocin
Research in the Journal of Comparative Psychology indicates that children whose parents divorced go on to have lower levels of oxytocin as adults than those whose parents remained married. Researchers recruited 128 participants in the United States ages 18 to 62, 27% of whom reported their parents were divorced. The participants were, on average, 9 years old when their parents divorced. The researchers found that levels of oxytocin—a hormone linked to parenting, attachment, and anxiety—were substantially lower in participants whose childhood experience included their parents getting divorced. Those participants rated their parents as less caring and more indifferent, rated their fathers as more abusive, and reported being less confident, less comfortable with closeness, less secure in relationships, and having a less sensitive caregiving style than did the participants whose parents had not divorced. DOI: 10.1037/com0000248opens in new window
Ideology eclipses race, sex
Voters prejudiced against minorities and women will support candidates who most closely agree with their political ideologies, regardless of the candidates’ race or sex, suggests research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. A researcher analyzed data from six surveys about political beliefs and prejudice involving 44,836 participants in the United States. Four of the surveys were conducted since 2016, with two assessing how participants felt about real-life politicians and two others gauging opinions about hypothetical politicians. Another survey rated support for congressional and presidential candidates from 1972 through 2016. Across these five surveys, prejudiced participants were significantly more likely to support both real and hypothetical conservative candidates, with no regard to the candidates’ race or sex. A final survey examining anti-Muslim prejudice showed that prejudiced participants supported a hypothetical conservative candidate regardless of their religion, but to a lesser degree than in the other studies. DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000314opens in new window
Delaying race talks
Adults postpone discussions with their young children about race because they mistakenly believe the children are not yet capable of processing or understanding race, according to research in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. In the first of three studies, 728 adults indicated that conversations about race should begin when a child is about 5 years old, despite multiple lines of research indicating that children begin to become aware of race as infants. A second study with 1,193 U.S. adults found that participants who believed that capacities to process race developed later also believed that conversations about race should occur later, too. The results of these studies were not affected by the participants’ race, parental status, gender, education level, or experience with children. In a third study, when 442 U.S. adults were informed about children’s developmental abilities relating to race, they said adults should start talking about race when children are 4 years old. DOI: 10.1037/xge0000851opens in new window
Early trauma leads to poor health
A meta-analysis and systematic review in Psychological Bulletin indicate that early life experiences such as violence, poverty, and neglect are associated with accelerated biological aging. Researchers examined 79 studies, involving 119,263 participants in total. They considered two types of childhood adversity—threat-related (experiencing or witnessing violence) and deprivation-related (neglect by families or institutions)—and three aspects of biological aging—puberty onset, brain development, and cellular aging. They found that children who experienced threat-related adversity but not deprivation-related adversity reached puberty at an earlier age and showed accelerated cellular aging. Threat-related and deprivation-related adversity were both associated with cortical thinning but in different regions of the brain. The researchers note that these findings can help map pathways from specific early experiences to later health conditions and to characterize mechanisms underlying health disparities. DOI: 10.1037/bul0000270opens in new window
We prefer music from those like us
People may prefer the music of artists whose public personalities mirror their own personality traits, according to research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. In the first of three studies, researchers asked 6,279 online participants to indicate their preference for musical artists and to rate their own personality traits and estimate traits for several musicians and their fans. They found a link between an artist’s estimated personality traits and those of their fans. In the second study, the researchers identified 75,296 Facebook users who liked the pages of 50 top musicians, such as Bob Dylan and Taylor Swift, on the social networking site and also completed an assessment of their Big Five personality traits through the site. The researchers found a link between the average personality traits of the fans of each of the musicians and the public personality of each artist, as assessed using a machine-learning analysis of their song lyrics. The third study, with 4,902 online participants, showed that the personality match between listener and artist predicted musical preferences above and beyond matches in gender and age or the audio features of the music. DOI: 10.1037/pspp0000293opens in new window
Does vitamin D prevent depression?
Though vitamin D deficiencies have been associated with depression in late life, vitamin D3 supplements do not help prevent depression or improve mood, according to a study in JAMA. Researchers split 18,353 U.S. adults ages 50 years or older without depression into two groups. Half the participants received vitamin D3 supplements for an average of 5 years, and the other half received a matching placebo for the same duration. The researchers found no effect of the supplements on depression or mood. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2020.10224opens in new window
Contagious overconfidence
Overconfidence can be transmitted from one person to another, suggests research in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. In the first of six studies, researchers paired up 104 previously unacquainted U.S. undergraduates and asked them to guess the personality traits of 10 people from photographs. Afterward, each participant ranked how well they thought they performed relative to everyone else. Though partners were unaware of each other’s self-ranking, the researchers found that participants whose partner overestimated their own performance became more confident in their own ability. A second and third study, with 425 and 255 Canadian students, respectively, indicated that people can gain confidence just by observing someone acting overconfident or by working with someone who had previously worked with an overconfident person. Two additional studies, conducted online with 653 participants, showed that confidence effects can persist several trials (or several days) after initial exposure to overconfident individuals. A final study with 248 U.S. students indicated that transmission of overconfidence occurs only between individuals within the same in-group. DOI: 10.1037/xge0000787opens in new window
I’ll be fine, I’ve seen The Road Warrior
Fans of apocalyptic movies may be more resilient and better prepared to deal with the coronavirus pandemic than the rest of us, suggests research in Personality and Individual Differences. Researchers asked 310 U.S. participants in April 2020 about their preferences and viewing histories for movies in 10 different genres, including horror, postapocalyptic, comedy, and romance. They also assessed the participants’ personality traits and asked how prepared they felt during coronavirus shutdowns and what levels of anxiety, depression, irritability, and sleeplessness they had experienced. Participants exhibiting the trait of morbid curiosity and those who were horror movie fans reported being less distressed by the crisis than others. Fans of “prepper films”—where society collapses or aliens invade—reported being even more resilient and better prepared. The researchers hypothesize that such movies make aspects of the pandemic such as quarantine seem less unusual and give people a way to use their imaginations in a safe setting to rehearse coping strategies for scary situations. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2020.110397opens in new window
LSD boosts pain tolerance
A study in the Journal of Psychopharmacology indicates that microdoses of LSD may reduce the experience of pain. Researchers asked 24 students in the Netherlands to place their hands into frigid water for as long as they could tolerate it. Compared with a placebo, students who took 20 micrograms of LSD—a dose not high enough to induce hallucinations—could keep their hands in the cold water about 20% longer and had lower ratings of painfulness and unpleasantness. Smaller doses had little or no effect. The increased pain tolerance was comparable to that previously reported with traditional pain-management drugs such as oxycodone or morphine, which have higher risk of addiction and death by overdose. DOI: 10.1177/0269881120940937opens in new window
Jealousy may strengthen friendships
The jealousy that arises when a friendship feels threatened can lead to efforts to strengthen the friendship, suggests research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Over a series of 11 studies, researchers exposed 2,918 participants in the United States to hypothetical scenarios, online emotional experiences, and recalled real-world events. They found that friendship jealousy is uniquely evoked by third-party threats to friendships, not simply by the prospect of losing the friendship (for instance, by the friend moving away). They also found jealousy over friendships increases with the perceived value of the threatened friendship and is strongly dependent on cues that one is being replaced. Finally, the researchers demonstrated that friendship jealousy can motivate “friend guarding” behavior, such as committing to become a better friend, monopolizing the friend’s time, or inducing jealousy in the friend. The researchers note that further studies are needed to determine how successful such behaviors are in maintaining friendships. DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000311opens in new window
Social connection fights depression
Strengthening social connections may be among the most effective ways to prevent depression, according to a study in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Investigators used analytic methods drawn from genomics to assess data from 118,378 UK Biobank participants, age 40 and above, on 106 modifiable factors that were potentially associated with incidence of depression. They conducted analyses both of the entire sample and of those participants considered at risk for depression because of genetic factors or traumatic life events. For those factors showing associations with incidence of depression, they conducted further analyses to determine whether the associations were causal and, if so, in what direction. Among the factors showing associations were exercise, sleep duration, belonging to a sports team, napping during the day, and media use. However, the clearest evidence of a factor that can causally reduce the incidence of depression was the tendency to confide in others. The researchers pointed out that some psychological factors, such as use of coping mechanisms, were not included in the data set. DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.19111158opens in new window
Wild West mentality
A study in Nature Human Behaviour suggests a correlation between an environment’s topography and the temperament of the people who live there. Researchers analyzed links between the results of an online personality test completed by 3,387,014 U.S. residents and the geological features of 37,227 U.S. ZIP codes. They found that participants living in mountainous areas scored lower on agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness but higher on openness to experience. Not all mountainous areas had the same impact, though. The link between living in a mountainous area and level of openness to experience was 10 times greater for residents of western ranges than those of eastern ranges. DOI: 10.1038/s41562-020-0930-xopens in new window
Placebos prove powerful
Even when people know they are taking a placebo, it can affect brain mechanisms underlying emotional distress, according to research in Nature Communications. In an initial study, researchers split 62 participants in the United States into two groups. Individuals in both groups were shown a series of images, including emotionally disturbing ones. Those in the “nondeceptive placebo” group first read about placebo effects. The researchers then asked them to inhale a saline solution nasal spray, which they were told contained no active ingredients but would help reduce their negative feelings about the emotional images if they believed it would. Participants in the control group inhaled the same saline solution spray but were told only that the spray would improve the clarity of the physiological readings the researchers were recording. The researchers found that participants in the nondeceptive placebo group reported lower levels of emotional distress than those in the control group. In a follow-up study with 218 participants, those in the nondeceptive placebo group showed a pattern of reduced electrical brain activity consistent with lower levels of distress in response to emotional events. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17654-yopens in new window
Staying motivated
Getting and staying motivated may be related to the ratio of the levels of the neurotransmitters glutamine and glutamate in the nucleus accumbens area of the brain, according to research in Neuropsychopharmacology. Researchers had 27 Swiss men perform 80 trials of a demanding hand-grip task with monetary incentives. They also scanned the men’s nucleus accumbens using a brain-imaging technique called proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy to measure the levels of various neurotransmitters. The researchers found that the ratio of glutamine to glutamate levels in the nucleus accumbens was associated with the ability of the men to maintain their performance over the course of the session. They also found that competition with other participants boosted performance, particularly for participants with low glutamine-to-glutamate ratios. DOI: 10.1038/s41386-020-0760-6opens in new window
PTSD and dementia
People with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are more likely than others to develop dementia later in life, according to research in The British Journal of Psychiatry. Researchers performed a meta-analysis of 13 longitudinal studies that followed a total of 1,693,678 participants for as long as 17 years. In the general population, those with PTSD were about twice as likely as those without PTSD to go on to have dementia. However, veterans with PTSD showed a somewhat lower increase in risk for dementia—about 1.6 times—than veterans without PTSD. As veterans are more likely to receive treatment for PTSD compared with the general population, this lower increase in risk suggests that treating PTSD may help prevent or delay dementia. DOI: 10.1192/bjp.2020.150opens in new window
Gender dysphoria in youth
Older youth who have gender dysphoria and seek gender-affirming medical care may have greater mental health problems than their younger counterparts, according to a study in Pediatrics. Researchers examined the initial visit records of 300 youth ages 10 to 17 who sought gender-affirming medical care at a Canadian clinic. Such care may include hormone blockers, hormones, or both. Overall, 78% of the youth reported at least one mental health problem. The researchers found that those ages 15 to 17 were more likely than those ages 10 to 14 to have diagnoses of depression (46% versus 30%) and to have self-harmed (40% versus 28%), considered suicide (52% versus 40%), attempted suicide (17% versus 9%), and used psychoactive medications (36% versus 23%). Analyses indicate that more advanced pubertal development, rather than age itself, may account for many of the differences between the older and younger groups. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2019-3600opens in new window
