Personality predicts self-isolation
People’s personality influences their likelihood of staying home during the pandemic, regardless of whether they live in a region undergoing a lockdown, suggests research in American Psychologist. Investigators surveyed 101,005 participants in 55 countries to find out whether they were staying at home because of the coronavirus between late March and early April 2020, a period when government policies on self-confinement varied among countries and changed rapidly over time. The researchers also assessed the participants on the Big Five personality traits: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness. They found that extraverts were least likely to follow official stay-at-home guidance, agreeable people tended to self-isolate when advised to do so, and people who were highly neurotic or open to experience decided to stay home more than usual even in the absence of stringent lockdowns. DOI: 10.1037/amp0000740opens in new window
People turning on, tuning in more often
LSD use in the United States increased by more than 50% from 2015 to 2018, with older adults and those with more education accounting for the largest increases, according to a study in Drug and Alcohol Dependence. Researchers analyzed a national survey on drug use that included 168,562 adults. They found that the prevalence of LSD use in the past year among the population age 18 and older increased from 0.55% in 2015 to 0.86% in 2018, an increase of 56%. Men, adults ages 18 to 25, and people making $20,000 to $50,000 per year remained the largest groups of LSD users by gender, age, and income. The biggest increase in LSD use was among adults ages 35 to 49. LSD use also increased for adults age 50 and above and for those ages 26 to 34 but decreased for adults ages 18 to 25. Among people with college degrees, use of LSD increased by more than 70%, while use declined among those without college degrees. DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2020.108071opens in new window
License to break bad
Research in the Journal of Applied Psychology suggests that leaders might feel more free to engage in unethical behavior following good behavior on the part of their subordinates. In the first of three studies of employees enrolled in an executive training program in Pakistan, researchers conducted an online survey of 141 participants. They found that the more a participant felt that their subordinates treated other employees well, the more “moral credit” the leader felt they had accrued. The second study, with 149 participants, revealed that this effect was especially prevalent when a leader was encouraged either to feel more responsible for their group’s success or to identify with their employees. A final field study involving 250 managers in the training program found that these leaders were more likely to behave badly (e.g., conduct personal business on company time) when they felt they had banked moral credit from their subordinates’ good behavior. DOI: 10.1037/apl0000839opens in new window
Blue-light protection may improve sleep
Wearing blue-light glasses just before sleeping can lead to improved sleep and better work performance the next day, according to research in the Journal of Applied Psychology. Across two studies, researchers collected data from 63 company managers and 67 call center representatives at a Brazilian financial firm. Participants were randomly chosen to test glasses that filtered blue light or placebo glasses that filtered no light. The researchers found that wearing blue-light-filtering glasses was associated with improved amount and quality of sleep that night and, on the next day, with enhanced work engagement, task performance, and organizational citizenship behavior, as well as reduced counterproductive work behavior. In general, the effects were stronger for participants who went to sleep later and awoke later. DOI: 10.1037/apl0000806opens in new window
The taste of conservatism
People with sensitive palates are more likely to be politically conservative, suggests research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Across three studies, researchers assessed the taste sensitivity of 1,147 participants in the United States and asked them about their political orientation. They found that higher taste sensitivity—indicated by a stronger experience of bitterness—was associated with greater political and social/cultural conservatism. In a fourth study with 490 participants, the researchers found that a higher density of taste buds on participants’ tongues, which is linked to taste sensitivity, was associated with greater social/ cultural conservatism but not economic conservatism. Results of this last study also indicated that those with higher taste sensitivity are more prone to experiencing disgust, which the authors suggest may lead to greater social/cultural conservatism as part of an effort to protect against perceived pathogens or contaminants. DOI: 10.1037/pspp0000365opens in new windowThe preschool advantage
A good deal of the advantage of attending preschool among low-income children is lost by the end of kindergarten, according to research in Developmental Psychology. Researchers studied 2,581 children from low-income families enrolled in kindergarten in the United States, about half of whom attended a preschool program. The researchers assessed the children on their academic skills (e.g., literacy and math), executive functioning (e.g., working memory, flexible thinking, and self-control), and socioemotional skills at the start of kindergarten and again in the spring. They found that preschool graduates entered kindergarten with stronger academic skills and executive functioning than those who did not attend preschool, though there was no difference in kindergarten teachers’ assessments of the two groups’ socioemotional skills. Both groups continued to make progress through kindergarten, but by spring the differences between them had shrunk by about half, primarily because the children who never attended preschool made larger gains as compared with their classmates with preschool experience. DOI: 10.1037/dev0001115opens in new window
Dreaming during COVID
According to a study in Dreaming, the COVID-19 pandemic is infusing some people’s dreams with negative emotions and even spurring dreams about the virus itself. Researchers surveyed 3,031 U.S. adults online in early May 2020 and found that people who had been strongly affected by the pandemic—such as those who had gotten sick or lost their job—were more likely to have greater recall of their dreams and to report more negative dreams and more pandemic-related dreams. These effects were most common in women and in people with more education. DOI: 10.1037/drm0000146opens in new window
Neighborhood impacts cognitive function
Children from poorer neighborhoods perform worse overall on a range of cognitive functions and have smaller volumes of key brain regions compared with children from wealthier neighborhoods, according to a study in JAMA Network Open. Researchers analyzed MRI and cognitive performance data from 11,875 9- and 10-year-old children in the United States who were enrolled in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, which focuses on how environmental and biological factors influence adolescent development. They found associations between neighborhood poverty and lower scores on verbal ability, reading skills, memory, and attention. They also found that the volumes of the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, areas known to be involved in various cognitive functions, were smaller in children living in high-poverty neighborhoods. These effects of the neighborhoods in which the children lived were independent of effects of their household socioeconomic status. DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.23774opens in new window
Socially contagious self-harm
Nonsuicidal self-injury behaviors such as cutting may be contagious among teenagers, according to a study in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. Researchers analyzed survey responses about self‐injurious behaviors and mental disorders collected from 1,483 Canadian teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17. They found that those who reported having a friend who had hurt themselves without the intention to die were 2 to 3 times more likely to also report having done the same, having thought about suicide, and having attempted suicide. These effects remained after taking socioeconomic and mental health factors into account. DOI: 10.1111/acps.13229opens in new window
Infants at risk
Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and/or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) after age 1 visit doctors and hospitals more often in their first year of life than children without the disorders, according to a study in Scientific Reports. Researchers examined 10 years of electronic health records of 29,929 patients in the United States. For children who were later found to have one or both conditions, their births were followed by longer hospital stays compared with children without the conditions. Children later diagnosed with ASD and ADHD also received greater amounts of hospital-based and outpatient medical care in their first year than children without these conditions. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-74458-2opens in new window
Cognitive performance peaks at 35
An analysis in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of 1.6 million chess moves indicates that at least certain forms of cognitive performance peak at about age 35. Investigators studied the performance of 4,294 chess players, 20 of whom were world champions, over more than 24,000 professional chess matches held from 1890 to 2014. Expert chess performance draws on a variety of perceptual, memory, and problem-solving skills. The researchers compared all the moves made by each player over the course of their career against optimal moves suggested by a computerized chess engine. They found that, on average, the chance of picking optimal moves increased rapidly until age 20, after which improvement slowed until peaking at age 35. Most players’ performance plateaued for approximately 10 more years before beginning to decline. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2006653117opens in new window
Mental health disorders and COVID mortality
Older adults with mental health disorders have up to twice the risk of dying from severe COVID-19 than those without such disorders, suggests a study in JAMA Network Open. Researchers analyzed data from 1,685 adults in the United States ages 47 to 83 who were hospitalized for COVID-19 between Feb. 15 and April 25, 2020, and followed them up to May 27. The researchers found that 36% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients previously diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder died within 2 weeks of admission, and 45% died within 4 weeks. In comparison, among those patients without a prior psychiatric diagnosis, 15% died within 2 weeks and 32% died within 4 weeks. This difference held even after controlling for demographic characteristics and other medical conditions. DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.23282opens in new window
Poor sleep prevents thought suppression
Sleep deprivation impairs people’s ability to push away unwanted or unpleasant thoughts, suggests research in Clinical Psychological Science. Researchers had 59 participants in the United Kingdom learn associations of each of 48 faces with a photograph of either an emotionally negative scene (e.g., a gunshot wound) or a neutral scene (e.g., a waterfall). The following morning, the participants—about half of whom were fully sleep-deprived—were shown the faces and asked to suppress thoughts related to the scenes with which they were paired. Compared with participants who slept, the sleep-deprived participants were about 50% more likely to have trouble suppressing unwanted thoughts of both the emotionally negative and neutral scenes, as measured by subjective ratings, skin conductance recordings, and heart rate variability. While both groups showed improvement over the course of the session in suppressing thoughts, those participants who had slept improved more than those who had not. DOI: 10.1177/2167702620951511opens in new window
CBD for OCD
A preliminary study in the Journal of Affective Disorders suggests that cannabis may be a useful treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). A sample of 87 participants who self-identified as having OCD entered information about their OCD symptoms and cannabis use into a smartphone app over a period of 31 months. Smoking cannabis was associated with a reduction in the severity of compulsions by 60%, of intrusive thoughts by 49%, and of anxiety by 52%. Higher doses and cannabis with higher concentrations of CBD—or cannabidiol, an active ingredient of cannabis—were linked to greater reductions in compulsions. As participants continued to use cannabis over time, the reductions in intrusive thoughts became smaller, suggesting that tolerance to the drug was developing. The authors note that additional research with a broader range of participants and a comparison group is required to confirm these results. DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2020.09.124opens in new window
Hard labor linked to dementia
Workers whose jobs involve a high degree of physical labor are at greater risk of developing dementia than those with more sedentary jobs, according to a study in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports. Researchers analyzed questionnaire data on occupational physical activity and leisure-time physical activity collected in 1970 and 1971 from 4,721 male participants in Denmark. These participants were 40 to 59 years old at the time and information on their health was followed through 2016. The researchers found that participants with jobs that were more physically intensive were about 50% more likely to develop dementia than those in other types of jobs, after adjusting for demographic and other health factors. By contrast, participants who engaged in high levels of leisure-time physical activity were no more likely to develop dementia than those who had lower levels of such activity. DOI: 10.1111/sms.13846opens in new window
Playmates and aggression
Children are more likely to engage in pretend play with aggressive themes, such as imaginary fighting, when playing with children perceived as more hotheaded, suggests research in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology. Researchers video-recorded 52 pairs of Chinese children ages 7 to 10 playing with a toy for 20 minutes and coded the children’s behavior for aggressiveness. They found that a child was more likely to engage in aggressive play when paired with another child who, on a separate occasion, was rated by peers as more prone to expressing anger. The child’s own proneness to anger, as perceived by peers, was not associated with their likeliness to engage in aggressive play. No influence was observed of peers on the likelihood of play with nonaggressive negative themes, such as imaginary illness. However, boys were overall more likely than girls to engage in play involving either aggressive or nonaggressive negative themes. DOI: 10.1111/bjdp.12352opens in new window
