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Want to Ace That Test? Cheer Up!
Studying for a stressful exam can sometimes put us in a bad mood. The last thing we want to do is put on a happy face, but research suggests cheerfulness may help us perform better. A study published in Psychological Science found that being in a positive mood can improve performance on certain cognitive tasks. Volunteers were asked to watch a YouTube video that was found to elicit either a positive, neutral, or negative mood; then they completed learning tasks on a computer. Volunteers who were in a positive mood performed better at tasks that involved selecting rules and testing hypotheses than the volunteers who were put in a neutral or negative mood.
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I Know You Can – So I Believe I Can
Do you ever get unusually anxious before taking a test? Do you ever choke and blank-out during a test? If so, research suggests you try thinking about a competent person before you take the test. You’ll perform better than you think you will. A study published in Psychological Science found that people who have test anxiety perform better on a test when they are primed with competency before taking it. Volunteers were measured on their test anxiety, and were placed in either a competency prime group or a control group.
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How to Ace Your Test
When it comes to predicting how well we’ll remember something in the future, research suggests we’re not so great at it. A study in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science found that our predictions of our future memory are biased by how we feel when processing the information to be learned. In a series of experiments, volunteers were asked to study some word items and predict how well they would recall them later. Some were told they would get another chance (or four) to study them while some were told this was it. In addition, the words either showed up in large or small fonts.
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Psychological Science Behind Stress
Feeling a little stressed out? Whether it’s impending final exams, a business presentation, family troubles or just your daily commute stress consumes many of us. Check out this video about the human stress response featuring Robert Sapolsky, Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University. As we've evolved, the human stress response has saved our lives. Today, we turn on the same life-saving physical reaction to cope with intense, ongoing stressors - and we can't seem to turn it off. Sapolsky reveals just how dangerous prolonged exposure to stress can be in clips from the National Geographic documentary, "Stress: Portrait of a Killer."
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Torture – Too Severe for Empathy
An interrogation practice is classified as torture when it inflicts severe physical or mental pain. But the people who determine what defines severity aren’t experiencing that pain so they underestimate it. A study in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science found support for the empathy gap, a psychological phenomenon in which people in one emotional state cannot appreciate or predict the state of another who is distressed and in pain. To someone who is full, starvation doesn’t seem that bad.
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Play, Parents, and Children’s Stress
Like mother like daughter…unfortunately this may also apply to depression. A study published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science found that children whose mothers had been depressed at some point and whose parents were hostile when playing with them had higher stress. Experimenters measured three-year-old children on how upset they became by stressful situations (e.g. a stranger approaching to talk to them, giving them a toy box with keys that don’t fit in the lock, or giving them an empty box wrapped up like a present). Half an hour later, the experimenter measured the children’s cortisol levels, a stress hormone.
