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Gli spazi verdi in città fanno bene all’umore (The green spaces in the city do good for your mood)
La Stampa: Parchi, giardini, e spazi verdi nelle aree urbane migliorano considerevolmente la qualità della vita delle persone che vivono in città. Lo afferma uno studio dell’università di Exeter, pubblicato sul Journal of Psychological Science. La ricerca si è basata sui dati relativi a 5,000 famiglie e 10.000 adulti seguiti per 17 anni - fra 1991 e 2008 - nei loro trasferimenti in giro per il Regno Unito, ai quali è stato chiesto di riferire delle loro condizioni psicologiche per valutare “gli effetti degli spazi verdi”. I ricercatori hanno rilevato che vivere circondati da alberi, prati e fiorellini produce un effetto significativamente positivo.
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Why people believe in conspiracy theories
Salon: We’ve written before about the historical and social aspects of conspiracy theories, but wanted to learn more about the psychology of people who believe, for instance, that the Boston Marathon bombing was a government “false flag” operation. Psychological forces like motivated reasoning have long been associated with conspiracy thinking, but scientists are learning more every year. For instance, a British study published last year found that people who believe one conspiracy theory are prone to believe many, even ones that are completely contradictory.
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Why using a mobile phone can be contagious
The Telegraph: Researchers concluded that a person was twice as likely to talk on a mobile, or check for messages, if a companion did the same. The University of Michigan study discovered that checking a phone created an “alternative outlet” for a person's attention. It also found that females were more likely to use their mobile than men because it was more “integrated into the daily lives of women”. Scientists suggested the study’s findings, published in the Human Ethology Bulletin journal, could be linked to “social exclusion”, in which a human feels the need not be left feeling “out of the loop”.
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Poker Players’ Arms Give Away Their Hands
Scientific American: A good “poker face” can hide the quality of your cards. But your arms might still be giving away your hands. That’s the finding of a study to come out in the journal Psychological Science. [Michael L. Slepian et al., Quality of Professional Players’ Poker Hands is Perceived Accurately from Arm Motions] Volunteers watched videos of the World Series of Poker. The videos were edited so the subjects saw one of three different views of the players: the poker players’ entire bodies from the table up, or just the players’ faces or just the players’ arms pushing chips into the pot. Read the whole story: Scientific American
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A Cognitive Earthquake: Who’s Really In Need?
In January 2000, an earthquake shook China’s mountainous Yunnan province. It was a moderate earthquake and killed only seven, but it leveled more than 40,000 homes and injured thousands of residents. According to the World Health Organization, as many as 1.8 million were affected by the disaster, and in need of shelter, medical attention or other aid. A couple years later, an earthquake hit the Iranian city of Bam, a tourist center once famous as a Silk Road trading post. This disaster took the lives of almost 27,000 and affected another 270,000. Every natural disaster, whatever the WHO tallies, is tragic for somebody, and the world’s citizens always respond in humanitarian ways.
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Can Tylenol Dissolve Feelings of Dread?
TIME: Thinking about death, fearing the unknown and worrying about the future aren’t traditionally considered sources of physical pain, but they may be susceptible to the same pain-killing treatments. So Daniel Randles, a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia and his colleagues decided to see if the interaction ran deeper. Perhaps, they thought, the pain-processing region in the brain reacts to many types of unexpected, potentially negative events. After all, both pain and social rejection involve unpredictable and distressing events that could lead to behavioral changes to avoid those situations in the future. Uncertainty also tends to increase both types of pain.
