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Study: Forcing a Smile Genuinely Decreases Stress
The Atlantic: PROBLEM: Happiness makes us smile, but can smiling make us happy? Even if it's a fake smile, because your mouth is propped open by chopsticks? There's the standard smile, which remains located in the muscles surrounding the mouth, and the genuine (or Duchenne) smile, which spreads to the eyes and, at least anecdotally, both looks and feels warmer and more natural. Does one work better than the other? METHODOLOGY: In an experiment that was smile-worthy in its own right, researchers used chopsticks to manipulate the facial muscles of their 169 participants into a neutral expression, a standard smile, or a Duchenne smile.
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The Case for Lying to Yourself
The Wall Street Journal: Lying to yourself—or self-deception, as psychologists call it—can actually have benefits. And nearly everybody does it, based on a growing body of research using new experimental techniques. Self-deception isn't just lying or faking, but is deeper and more complicated, says Del Paulhus, psychology professor at University of British Columbia and author of a widely used scale to measure self-deceptive tendencies. It involves strong psychological forces that keep us from acknowledging a threatening truth about ourselves, he says.
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Dualisten leben ungesünder (Dualists live less healthy)
ORF Austria: Viele Menschen, ob sie sich dessen bewusst sind oder nicht, sind Dualisten: Sie sehen den Geist und den Körper als zwei eigenständige Einheiten an. Forscher zeigen nun, welche Einflüsse derartige Einstellungen auf das alltägliche Verhalten haben. Das in breiten Kreisen der Gesellschaft geltende Motto, wonach in einem gesunden Körper auch ein gesunder Geist wohne, scheint Dualisten weniger anzusprechen. Matthias Forstmann, Pascal Burgmer und Thomas Mussweiler von der Universität Köln konnten nachweisen, dass unsere Vorstellungen über den Zusammenhang von Körper und Geist entscheidende Auswirkungen darauf haben, ob wir uns eher gesundheitsförderlich verhalten oder nicht.
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The Science of Choosing Compassion
Huffington Post: As I walk down bustling Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I often pass homeless people who ask me for spare change. Sometimes I let myself feel compassion for these individuals. But other times I don't want to get emotionally involved, so I look away and keep walking. Maybe you've had a similar experience. Pondering such experiences has led me to systematically explore the factors that influence when people feel compassion for others. The upshot of my research: You can choose to feel more compassion than you might think. There are many cases when we don't feel compassion for others.
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Smiling ‘is good for the heart’
The Telegraph: Researchers found smiling can reduce stress levels and low the heart rate while performing difficult tasks. Writing in Psychological Science, the authors tell how they studied the effects of different types of smiling in difficult situations. Tara Kraft, of the University of Kansas, said: "Age old adages, such as 'grin and bear it' have suggested smiling to be not only an important nonverbal indicator of happiness but also wishfully promotes smiling as a panacea for life's stressful events.
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Thinking About Giving, Not Receiving, Motivates People to Help Others
We’re often told to ‘count our blessings’ and be grateful for what we have. Research suggests that thinking about what we’ve given, rather than what we’ve received, can lead us to be more helpful toward others.
