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Low on Self-Control? Surrounding Yourself With Strong-Willed Friends May Help
Research suggests that people with low self-control prefer and depend on people with high self-control, possibly as a way to make up for the skills they themselves lack.
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Reframing Stress: Stage Fright Can Be Your Friend
Scientists find that simply encouraging people to reframe the signs of stress before public speaking was a surprisingly effective way of handling stage fright.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science. Common DNA Markers Can Account for More Than Half of the Genetic Influence on Cognitive Abilities Robert Plomin, Claire M. A. Haworth, Emma L. Meaburn, Thomas S. Price, Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium, and Oliver S. P. Davis Although past research has shown that cognitive ability is heritable, it has proved difficult for genome-wide association studies to identify the genetic variants that account for this heritability.
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Body Representation Differs in Children and Adults
Children’s sense of having and owning a body differs from that of adults, indicating that our sense of physical self develops over time, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Many of our senses -- vision, touch, and body orientation -- come together to inform our perception of having and owning a body. Psychological scientist Dorothy Cowie of Goldsmiths, University of London and colleagues hypothesized that there might be age differences in how these processes come together.
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Negative Emotions in Response to Daily Stress Take a Toll on Long-Term Mental Health
Our emotional responses to the stresses of daily life may predict our long-term mental health, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Psychological scientist Susan Charles of the University of California, Irvine and colleagues conducted the study in order to answer a long-standing question: Do daily emotional experiences add up to make the straw that breaks the camel’s back, or do these experiences make us stronger and provide an inoculation against later distress?
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Can Meditation Make You a More Compassionate Person?
Scientists have mostly focused on the benefits of meditation for the brain and the body, but research suggests that meditation may also have impacts on interpersonal harmony and compassion.