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Diamond Jubilee: Why The ‘Right Kind Of Patriotism’ Benefits Health
Huffington Post: Ignore those twinges of cynicism and embrace your inner patriot this weekend, as studies regularly show that nationalism makes people happy. However, how happy you feel also depends on what you’re taking pride in, noted researchers earlier this year. In a report for Psychological Science, Matthew Wright, a political scientist at American University, and Tim Reeskens, a sociologist from Catholic University in Belgium found that more national pride correlated with greater personal wellbeing. But they also noticed that those individuals who connected nationalism with respect for a country’s institutions and values, rather than race or religion, were the most content.
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Looks Overshadow Reputation When Deciding Who To Trust
LiveScience: When faced with a decision of who to trust with money, people will often choose the face that looks the most trustworthy, shunning those who they deem look sketchy. Interestingly, a new study shows that the person's track record doesn't impact this choice — people will still choose the most trustworthy face, even if they are told that the owner of that face has a bad reputation. "The temptation to judge strangers by their faces is hard to resist.
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The Healthy Poor: Demystifying John Henry
The Huffington Post: John Henry is one of the big men of American folklore, a former slave and "steel drivin' man" who helped pioneer the American frontier in the 19th century. According to legend, John Henry was a man of extraordinary physical prowess who wielded a sledge hammer to clear the way for the nation's expanding railroads. He was also a man of extraordinary determination. When the railroad owner threatened to replace men and their muscles with a new steam-driven hammer, John Henry challenged owner and machine to a contest of strength. He won, but lost, dying of exhaustion. That's the John Henry story most Americans know.
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Borderline Personality Pathology and Sleep Problems in Later Middle-Age
Borderline personality pathology includes symptoms such as intense anger and mood swings, stormy relationships, impulsivity, and stress-related disassociation. Previous research shows that borderline pathology and sleep problems are associated with each other; they are also associated with depression. Josh Oltmanns, who presented his research at the 24th APS Annual Convention, in Chicago, used a study to examine whether borderline personality disorder and sleep problems are related to each other independently of depressive symptoms. Oltmanns works in the St. Louis Personality and Aging Network (SPAN Study) lab at Washington University in St. Louis.
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Training People to Inhibit Movements Can Reduce Risk-Taking
New research from psychological scientists at the Universities of Exeter and Cardiff shows that people can be trained to become less impulsive, resulting in less risk-taking during gambling. The research could pave the way for new treatments for people with addictions to gambling, drugs or alcohol as well as impulse-control disorders, such as ADHD. Recently published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, the study assessed whether asking people to stop making simple movements while in a simulated gambling situation affected how risky or cautious they were when betting.
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History of Non-Suicidal Self-Injury and Emotion Regulation Problems
Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is the deliberate damage of body tissue without a conscious desire to commit suicide. This behavior most frequently functions to regulate negative emotions (Favazza, 1998; Klonsky & Glenn, 2009; Laye-Gindhu, & Schonert-Reichl, 2005; Swanell et al., 2008, Whitlock, Eckenrode, & Silverman, 2006). The purpose of the present study was to examine differences between individuals who have engaged in relatively few episodes of NSSI and individuals who have engaged in a greater number of lifetime NSSI episodes. Specifically, we hypothesized greater problems in emotion regulation among individuals with more lifetime episodes of NSSI.
