Take me on, please
According to a study in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, therapists may be less responsive to first-time appointment requests from those with stigmatized disorders, those requesting financial accommodations, and those of marginalized ethnic backgrounds. Researchers sent email requests for therapy appointments from simulated patients with a full range of different backgrounds (i.e., race, gender, diagnosis, and ability to pay) to 725 therapists in the United States. Overall, regardless of ethnic background, disorder, or financial status, 22% did not return prospective patient emails, 32% responded that they could not take on the patient, and 46% offered an appointment or the opportunity to discuss the matter further. Male providers were least responsive to African American and Latinx simulated patients and most responsive to White patients. In contrast, female providers had similar response rates to simulated patients regardless of the patient’s race or ethnicity. Both male and female providers were more responsive to simulated patients with depression than to simulated patients with schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder. Finally, all providers were more responsive to those who could pay the full fee than those requesting a sliding scale. DOI: 10.1037/cou0000624opens in new window
Education determines effect of brain changes
Research in the Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science suggests that the way in which alterations in the structure of the brain play a role in depression depends on people’s educational environment: Brain changes predict depression in those with adverse environmental experiences, while such changes may protect against depression in those with positive environmental experiences. Researchers used MRI to assess the thickness of 34 brain regions in 1,958 adults with major depressive disorder (MDD) and 2,291 controls. They found that thicker cortices in a variety of parietal, occipital, and frontal brain regions were more likely to predict MDD in participants with low educational attainment. For the most part, though, a thicker cortex was found to play a protective role against MDD in participants with high educational attainment. DOI: 10.1037/abn0000738opens in new window
Power poses
Striking a powerful pose makes people feel more confident—and maybe even behave more confidently—according to research in Psychological Bulletin. In a meta-analytic review, researchers analyzed data about the impact of body position on self-confidence, behavior in various tasks, and physiology from 88 studies with 9,779 participants. They found that compared with low-power poses (e.g., slumped posture), high-power poses (e.g., standing upright with arms raised) were linked to more positive reports of self-perception and, to a lesser extent, behaviors indicative of confidence, such as task persistence. However, they found no link between posture and levels of hormones such as testosterone and cortisol. They did not find any gender or age-related differences. DOI: 10.1037/bul0000356opens in new window
It might become true
People may be willing to excuse obviously false statements and even spread misinformation on social media if they believe those statements may become true in the future, according to research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Researchers conducted six online studies involving 3,607 participants to determine why some people find lies and misinformation acceptable. Participants in each study were shown various statements clearly labeled as false. Some were then asked to consider if the statements could one day become true. The researchers found that lies—such as false political statements, a friend’s embellished résumé, and misleading claims about household products—were less likely to be considered unethical by participants who believed they could later come true. If the lies also aligned with participants’ politics, those participants were more willing to share them on social media. DOI: 10.1037/pspa0000308opens in new window
Modesty breeds cooperation
People are less likely to cooperate with those who are wealthier and occupy a higher social status, prompting those at the top to downplay their elevated status to convince others to cooperate with them, suggests research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Across three online studies, 897 participants played cooperative games and imagined various social scenarios. Researchers found that participants were less likely to cooperate with partners who displayed wealth and high status compared with those who were more modest and more likely to select a modest partner when cooperation was helpful in winning the game. An additional three in-person studies with 1,946 participants in the United States showed that people refrained from signaling their own high status when it was strategically beneficial to appear cooperative. DOI: 10.1037/pspa0000303opens in new window
Wired for sound
The ability to keep a beat has a genetic basis, according to research in Nature Human Behaviour. Researchers analyzed genetic variants of 606,825 individuals within the 23andMe database and asked participants whether they could clap in time to a musical beat. About 92% responded that they could. Different subsets of the participants engaged in follow-up experiments to measure beat-keeping, such as rhythm perception and tapping in time to the beat of a song. Participants who answered yes to the clapping-in-time question scored higher on the follow-up experiments. The researchers then conducted a large-scale genome-wide association study (GWAS) on the participants to identify genes associated with keeping time. They found 69 genes involved in beat synchronization that differed between those who could and could not keep a beat. Many of the variants were found to be in or near genes involved in neural function and early brain development. In addition, the researchers discovered that beat synchronization shares some of the same genetic architecture involved in biological rhythms such as walking, breathing, and circadian patterns. DOI: 10.1038/s41562-022-01359-xopens in new window
Send in the pros
A study in Science Advances suggests that dispatching mental health professionals instead of police officers in response to some 911 calls can have significant benefits. Researchers investigated the outcomes of a 6-month-long pilot program in Denver conducted in 2020 in which emergency dispatchers sent a mobile team consisting of one mental health specialist and one paramedic rather than police officers in response to calls involving low-risk infractions such as public intoxication, welfare checks, trespassing, and public disorder. The researchers found a 34% decrease in reports of such crimes during the 6-month trial and no increase in more serious crimes. They attribute the drop in reports to fewer citations handed out as well as potential repeat offenders receiving the help they needed. In addition, the direct costs of the mental health–dispatch approach were 4 times lower than the police-only approach. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abm2106opens in new window
Popularity trumps truth
When people are uncertain about a statement, they tend to believe it more when presented with evidence that others believe it, suggests research in Open Mind. Researchers asked 600 participants in the United States how certain they were about 30 statements of fact or fiction, including those about humans causing climate change, vaccines causing autism, and the U.S. government planning the 9/11 attacks. Next, the researchers told participants how many others believed or did not believe each of the 30 statements. Some of this data was manipulated to exceed participants’ initial estimate to see if making a belief seem more popular would influence people to change their minds. The researchers found that participants were more likely to agree or disagree with a statement about which they were initially uncertain after seeing evidence that the belief was more popular than they expected. DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00056opens in new window
Chores improve children’s skills
Children who regularly do household chores may perform better academically and have stronger problem-solving skills than those who don’t, according to research in Australian Occupational Therapy. Researchers surveyed parents and guardians of 207 children between the ages of 5 and 13 in Australia about the number of daily chores their children completed and their child’s executive function. Researchers found that children’s engagement in self-care chores (e.g., making themselves a meal) and family-care chores (e.g., making someone else a meal) predicted working memory and the ability to think before acting, after controlling for the influence of age, gender, and presence or absence of a disability. For families with a pet, there was no significant relationship between performing pet-care chores and the child’s executive function. DOI: 10.1111/1440-1630.12822opens in new window
Nightmares precede Parkinson’s
Research in eClinicalMedicine links frequent distressing dreams or nightmares with a two-times higher risk of developing Parkinson’s disease up to 5 years before diagnosis. A researcher surveyed 3,818 men ages 67 and older in the United States about their sleep quality. Over a mean follow-up period of 7.3 years, 91 of the men developed Parkinson’s. The researcher found that participants who experienced bad dreams at least once per week at the beginning of the study were twice as likely to develop the disease compared with those who did not. Most of the diagnoses occurred in the first 5 years of the study. Participants who experienced more nightmares during this period were more than 3 times as likely to eventually develop Parkinson’s. DOI: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2022.101474opens in new window
Substance misuse spikes after suicide attempt
According to a study in JAMA Psychiatry, young women who attempted suicide had a significantly higher risk of developing sedative or hypnotic drug use disorders, plus a higher risk for subsequent hospitalization for substance use disorders. Researchers followed 122,234 females ages 8 to 19 years in Canada for up to 31 years. They found that 5,840 (4.8%) had attempted suicide, and 4,341 (3.6%) had developed a substance use disorder. Compared with the women who did not attempt suicide, those who did were at a 6-fold greater risk for hospitalization for a substance use disorder. Although risk remained elevated for up to 3 decades for all substances, suicide attempt was associated with a 67-fold higher risk of developing sedative or hypnotic drug use disorder for up to 5 years. Female youths with repeated suicide attempts or who attempted suicide by hanging or suffocation were at the greatest risk of subsequent substance use disorders. DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2022.1025opens in new window
Instagram offers support, doubt to new mothers
Instagram accounts devoted to parenting offer support to new mothers but also make them feel less competent, suggests research in Acta Psychologica. Researchers asked 270 mothers of children ages 0 to 6 years in Denmark who had visited a university-run account about child development how much time they spent on Instagram and what kind of accounts they followed. The researchers found that 85% followed “influencers” who post about their parenting experiences, 90% followed accounts by child development professionals, and 87% followed the university-run account. The mothers spent, on average, 1 hour per day on the platform. On average, 84% reported feeling supported by the different kinds of profiles, and they felt most supported by the professional accounts. Some reported that the profiles made them feel incompetent: 44% felt this way about the influencer accounts, 58% about the professional profiles, and 71% about the university-run account. Those who reported frequently comparing themselves with other parents were more likely to be negatively affected by each kind of profile, but they also felt more supported by the influencer profiles. DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103593opens in new window
Meds now, less drug use later
According to a study in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, treating pediatric mental illness with psychotropic medications lowered the children’s risk of developing later substance use disorders by about a third. Researchers examined 26 prior studies—21 focused on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), three on psychotic disorder, and two on major depressive disorder—that included more than 6 million individuals. They found that pharmacological treatments for the psychiatric disorders—particularly ADHD—before age 9 reduced the development of substance use disorder by about 30%–35%. DOI: 10.1089/cap.2022.0016opens in new window
Visual system changes precede autism
Infants diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at 24 months old had abnormalities in the brain’s visual processing areas at 6 months old, according to a study in The American Journal of Psychiatry. Researchers performed MRI brain scans at ages 6 months, 12 months, and 24 months on 384 children in the United States who are at high risk of autism because they have older siblings with ASD. Almost 25% of the infants in the study were diagnosed with autism at 24 months. Their brain scans revealed three brain abnormalities: differences in the size of an area involved in object recognition, the white matter structure of an area involved in orienting to visual stimuli, and the functional connectivity between visual regions. Such irregularities were present long before autism symptoms were detected. The extent of the alterations was associated with their older sibling’s autism severity. The researchers suggested that disruption in visual processing could interfere with how the infants interact with and learn from caregivers and their environment. These early disturbances could further affect brain development and play a role in ASD symptom strength. DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.21101002opens in new window
Do top performers give the best advice?
Not really. According to research in Psychological Science, the best performers don’t give better advice, but their advice sounds better because they tend to give more of it. In one study, 1,000 participants in the United States indicated that someone’s ability to play a word scramble game would be an indicator of how good their advice was. In another study, 78 participants played the word game, then advised 2,085 others on game play. In a third study, 298 participants rated the advice from the best of the 78 players as better than advice from the rest. In all of the studies, guidance from the best players was no more beneficial to the new players than guidance from lower-performing players. DOI: 10.1177/09567976211054089opens in new window.
Anti-vax memes boost vax intention
A study in Computers in Human Behavior indicates that exposure to sarcastic memes about anti-vaxxers increased people’s intention to receive a potential Covid-19 vaccine, an effect that weakened when the vaccine actually became available. Across two sets of online studies conducted in the United Kingdom before (between August 2020 and October 2020) and immediately after the first effective vaccine was publicly announced (November 2020), researchers briefly exposed 1,584 participants to humorous vaccination memes, many of which satirized anti-vaxxers. They found that the memes boosted the participants’ intention to receive a vaccination against Covid-19. These intention-boosting effects, however, weakened once a Covid-19 vaccine became a reality. The researchers suggest the funny memes bypassed the typical defense processes of vaccine-hesitant participants, but that such memes only shifted intentions related to decisions that had not been fully considered. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2022.107218opens in new window
Stimulation and schizophrenia
Noninvasive brain stimulation of a section of the prefrontal cortex can greatly reduce negative symptom severity for patients with schizophrenia, according to a study in JAMA Psychiatry. Researchers analyzed the results of 48 studies with 2,211 participants with schizophrenia that examined the efficacy of several kinds of excitatory noninvasive brain stimulation directed toward the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. They found that compared with sham stimulation, the noninvasive brain stimulation techniques were associated with significantly larger reductions in negative symptoms. They also found that the stimulation was well tolerated. DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2022.1513opens in new window
Socially useful topics pique curiosity
Research in Cognition suggests that people are more curious about scientific topics deemed “socially useful.” In the first of three studies, researchers presented 296 online participants with Reddit posts about 100 scientific issues. They found a strong link between ratings of the topics’ usefulness and the participants’ curiosity. In the second study, researchers presented 240 online participants with two scientific articles about fruit fly research, one touting the potential medical benefits of the research and one that did not list any useful applications. Participants reported being more curious about the topic and actively sought more information after reading the article highlighting the experiment’s medical benefits. In the third study with 203 online participants, researchers found that simply presenting interesting facts with no evidence of usefulness to humans or society does not induce curiosity, even if those facts were surprising and informative. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105193opens in new window
Nouveau riche less sympathetic
Newly rich people may be less sensitive to the challenges inherent in being poor than those born into wealth, suggests research in Social Psychological and Personality Science. In the first two of five studies, researchers surveyed 736 participants in the United States and found that they rated those who became rich more positively than those born rich. The participants also expected the newly rich to be more supportive of the poor and social welfare. In two additional studies, the researchers surveyed 1,032 relatively wealthy individuals in the United States (with annual incomes over $80,000 in one study and over $142,501 in another). They found that participants who became rich thought it was easier to improve one’s socioeconomic status than participants who were born rich, a belief that a final study with 492 online participants indicated is associated with reduced sympathy toward the poor. DOI: 10.1177/19485506221098921opens in new window
Not so multidisciplinary
A study in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications reveals that a smaller-than-expected percentage of psychology research is actually multidisciplinary. Researchers examined citations within articles published between 2008 and 2018 listed in the Social Sciences Citation Index database of the Web of Science under the subject category of “Psychology, Multidisciplinary.” They found that about 25% of the articles cited had been published in other multidisciplinary-psychology journals, about 50% had been published in psychology journals in other subfields, and only about 25% had been published in journals in different disciplines. This distribution of citations remained fairly consistent across the years examined. DOI: 10.1057/s41599-022-01175-8opens in new window
Oxytocin seeds cooperation
Research in the Journal of Neuroscience suggests that oxytocin plays a role in cooperation within social networks by increasing levels of trust and norm enforcement. In three studies, 870 participants in China were embedded in artificial social networks and made repeated decisions in a series of virtual trust games. In each network, participants with the most connections were given intranasal oxytocin or a placebo. In one game, the most connected (and therefore most influential) members received money from peripheral members and set a threshold for the minimum offer they would accept. When the influential members received oxytocin, cooperation spread through the network across many rounds of the game. In another game, oxytocin increased the trust influential members had in peripheral members but also boosted their willingness to punish peripheral members for uncooperative behavior. These results indicate cooperation from influential group members spreads to the rest of the group, likely through increased enforcement of social norms. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2303-21.2022opens in new window
Sexual identity and stress
Young women experience increased psychological distress when straying from heterosexual norms, suggests a study in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. Researchers analyzed longitudinal data from 11,527 women in Australia born between 1989 and 1995. The participants reported their sexual identity in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2017 (when participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 28). They also completed assessments of general psychological distress and indicated how stressed they felt over the past 12 months about their relationships with family members, romantic partners, and friends. Researchers found that psychological distress was elevated when these women did not conform to the heterosexual norm and lowered when they did conform. They also found that stress about personal relationships mediated the association between sexual identity changes and psychological distress. In addition, women who questioned their identity at multiple assessment points reported greater psychological distress in the final assessment than women who were never unsure. The researchers called for increased support for those questioning their sexual identity or changing their identity from heterosexual norms. DOI: 10.1177/00221465221086335opens in new window