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Niceness Is at Least Partly in the Genes
What makes some people give blood and bake casseroles for their neighbors, while others mutter about taxes from behind closed blinds? A new paper published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science finds that part of the answer—but not all—may be in their genes. The hormones oxytocin and vasopressin are thought to affect how people behave toward each other. For example, lab tests have found that people play nicer in economic games after having oxytocin squirted up their nose. “This is an attempt to take this into the real world a little bit,” says Michael Poulin, of the University at Buffalo.
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Empathy may be negated by political party
United Press International: People may lack empathy for those who are hungry or cold if they perceive them to be of another political party, U.S. researchers said. Study co-authors Ed O'Brien and Phoebe C. Ellsworth, both of the University of Michigan, and colleagues approached people who were waiting for a bus in winter in Ann Arbor, Mich. Each was given a short story to read about a person who went hiking in winter but got lost with no food, water or extra clothes. In one version of the story, the hiker was a left-wing, pro-gay rights Democrat, while in another it was a Republican proponent of traditional marriage. Read the whole story: United Press International
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Professional Help: 5 Strategies for Creative Problem Solving
The Atlantic: If you're stuck trying to solve a problem, try the obscure. "There's a classic obstacle to innovation called functional fixedness, which is the tendency to fixate on the common use of an object or its parts," says University of Massachusetts researcher Anthony McCaffrey. "It hinders people from solving problems." This week on Professional Help, McCaffrey explains the "generic parts technique" he developed to combat this common design dilemma and shares insights based on his analysis of 1,001 historically creative inventions from his recently published paper in Psychological Science. Think beyond an object's common function.
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Are Two Heads Really Better Than One?
Forbes: Group thinking has been a popular topic in behavioral research for a long time, particularly so in the last couple of decades. The judgment of one person can be called into question for a hundred different reasons – everything from preexisting beliefs to confirmation bias and beyond. But if you add another mind to the mix, then theoretically a buffer against some of those biases has been introduced, and better judgments should result. Or so the theory goes.
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Essere materialisti rende depressi
La Stampa: La domanda è sempre la solita: i soldi fanno la felicità? E la risposta non sempre è la solita, tanto che, alla fine, non si è mai capito per davvero. Ma se i soldi sono la felicità di qualcuno e la rovina per qualcun altro, secondo uno studio l’essere focalizzato sul materialismo è invece un fattore di depressione, asocialità ed egoismo. Avere dunque in testa i beni materiali, il possedere sempre di più, lo scalare le classi sociali ha un impatto sulla salute mentale e, secondo gli scienziati, anche sulla salute dell’ambiente.
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The Psychological Science of Relationships – News Brief
Association for Psychological Science 202-293-9300 (April 16, 2012) -- Our relationships with others are an essential part of everyday life, but that doesn’t mean that understanding and getting along with other people is easy. Here is some of the latest research on the mechanisms that drive our social interactions from the journal Psychological Science. ********** You Give Me the Chills: Embodied Reactions to Inappropriate Amounts of Behavioral Mimicry Lead author: N. Pontus Leander - University of Groningen – [email protected] – in press There are some people who just give us ‘the chills,’ even though they seem perfectly polite and pleasant.
