Science of the SpiritS


Magic Wand

Smiling Through the Tears: Study Shows How Tearjerkers Make People Happier


Science Daily
Mon, 26 Mar 2012 07:58 UTC
Image
© Unknown
People enjoy watching tragedy movies like Titanic because they deliver what may seem to be an unlikely benefit: tragedies actually make people happier in the short-term.

Researchers found that watching a tragedy movie caused people to think about their own close relationships, which in turn boosted their life happiness. The result was that what seems like a negative experience -- watching a sad story -- made people happier by bringing attention to some positive aspects in their own lives.

"Tragic stories often focus on themes of eternal love, and this leads viewers to think about their loved ones and count their blessings," said Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, lead author of the study and associate professor of communication at Ohio State University.

The key is the extent to which viewers thought about their own relationships as a result of watching the movie. The more they thought about their loved ones, the greater the increase in their happiness. Viewers who had self-centered thoughts concerning the movie -- such as "My life isn't as bad as the characters in this movie" -- did not see an increase in their happiness.
Read More...
Bulb

Chronic Stress Can Shrink Your Brain

David Ropeik
Psychology Today
Fri, 23 Mar 2012 16:55 UTC
Image
© Science photo libraryA healthy brain, as seen on an MRI scan. Research has shown stress can cause brain cells to warp.
This is your brain on stress.

Want something else to worry about? Worry about worrying too much. The evidence is building that chronically elevated stress shrinks your brain!

A study in press at the journal Biological Psychiatry asked 103 people about how often they had experienced stressful events, both recently and over the course of their lifetimes, as well as about their chronic ongoing stress, and then took functional magnetic resonance images of their brain. The more stress, the smaller the brain...in several particular cortical areas.
  • "Cumulative adversity (a combination of recent stressful events and the lifetime total of stressful events) was associated with smaller volume in medial prefrontal cortex (PFC), insular cortex, and subgenual anterior cingulate regions."
  • "Recent stressful life events were associated with smaller volume in two clusters: the medial PFC and the right insula."
  • "Life trauma (total stressful events over a lifetime) was associated with smaller volume in the medial PFC, anterior cingulate, and subgenual regions."
  • "The interaction of greater subjective chronic stress and greater cumulative stressful life events was associated with smaller volume in the orbitofrontal cortex, insula, and anterior and subgenual cingulate regions.
And what do all those cortical areas have in common? They are all associated with reasoning and decision making, emotion, and self-control. The researchers were careful to say that "...lower volumes do not necessarily equate to poorer functioning," adding "...it may be that regions of lower volume represent greater efficiency in functioning." In other words, smaller brains may not mean less competent brains.

Comment: For more information about how stress can be controlled and reduced with Breathing Exercises and Meditation check out the Éiriú Eolas - Irish Gaelic for "Growth of Knowledge" Program:
Éiriú Eolas Stress Control, Healing and Rejuvenation Program is the modern revival of an ancient breathing and meditation program which is being acclaimed around the world as THE TOOL that will help you to:
  • Relax from the stresses of everyday life
  • Gently work your way through past emotional and psychological trauma
  • Release repressed emotions and mental blockages
  • Rejuvenate and Detoxify your body and mind
Éiriú Eolas removes the barriers that stand between you and True Peace, Happiness, and ultimately a successful, fulfilling life.
To learn more about how Meditation Strengthens the Brain:

Brain Scans Reveal Why Meditation Works
Power of Meditation in Response to Stress
Meditation and Its Benefits

Read More...
Display

Facebook Leads To Narcissism, 'Shallow Relationships' New Study Claims


International Business Times
Wed, 21 Mar 2012 08:14 UTC
Image
© Unknown
How many friends do you have on Facebook? If the answer is a lot, a new study says you might be a narcissist.

Researchers at Western Illinois University found that the number of friends you have on Facebook directly correlates to how much of a "socially disruptive" narcissist you are.

Using the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, the study measured 'self-promoting' and 'anti-social' behaviors of 292 participants, aged 18 to 65. "Self-promoting" Facebook behavior involved posting status updates and photos and "anti-social behaviors" included getting angry when friends didn't 'like' a status.

The higher the score on the Inventory the more narcissistic you were.

People who had high scores had more friends on Facebook and updated their newsfeed frequently, concluding that young people are becoming more narcissistic and are obsessed with self-image and shallow friendships.
Read More...
Magic Wand

Learning best when you rest: Sleeping after processing new info most effective, new study shows


University of Notre Dame
Fri, 23 Mar 2012 07:44 UTC
Image
© Science Photo Library
Nodding off in class may not be such a bad idea after all. New research from the University of Notre Dame shows that going to sleep shortly after learning new material is most beneficial for recall.

Titled "Memory for Semantically Related and Unrelated Declarative Information: The Benefit of Sleep, the Cost of Wake," the study was published March 22 in PLOS One.

Notre Dame Psychologist Jessica Payne and colleagues studied 207 students who habitually slept for at least six hours per night. Participants were randomly assigned to study declarative, semantically related or unrelated word pairs at 9:00 a.m. or 9:00 p.m., and returned for testing 30 minutes, 12 hours or 24 hours later. Declarative memory refers to the ability to consciously remember facts and events, and can be broken down into episodic memory (memory for events) and semantic memory (memory for facts about the world). People routinely use both types of memory every day - recalling where we parked today or learning how a colleague prefers to be addressed.
Read More...
Family

How Society Works: 8 Revealing Psychological Insights Into Our Social Behaviour


Spring.org.uk
Thu, 22 Mar 2012 10:25 UTC
Image
© Pryere
Would you post a letter dropped in the street, obey an order to electrocute another person, start a conversation with a familiar stranger or help a lost child?

Stanley Milgram was an American social psychologist who is most famous for his obedience experiments (see below), but he was fascinated by all aspects of social order, especially in the city.

Like me he wondered how city dwellers manage to live in such proximity to each other. He wondered at how orderly queues are and what happens when their delicate balance is challenged. And he wanted to see how interconnected people were in an age before Twitter and Facebook.

Here are eight pieces of his research which each provide insight into how society works.
Read More...
Health

How the mind really works: 10 counterintuitive psychology studies


PsyBlog
Thu, 22 Mar 2012 10:12 UTC
Image
© Corie Howell
Some critics say psychology is just common sense, that it only confirms things we already know about ourselves. Ironically this can be difficult to argue with because once people get some new information they tend to think it was obvious all along.

One way of battling this is to think about all the unexpected, surprising and plain weird findings that have popped out of psychology studies over the years. So here are ten of my favourite.

1. Cognitive dissonance

This is perhaps one of the weirdest and most unsettling findings in psychology. Cognitive dissonance is the idea that we find it hard to hold two contradictory beliefs, so we unconsciously adjust one to make it fit with the other.

In the classic study students found a boring task more interesting if they were paid less to take part. Our unconscious reasons like this: if I didn't do it for money, then I must have done it because it was interesting. As if by magic, a boring task becomes more interesting because otherwise I can't explain my behaviour.

The reason it's unsettling is that our minds are probably performing these sorts of rationalisations all the time, without our conscious knowledge. So how do we know what we really think?
Read More...
Attention

Military-Funded Brain Science Sparks Controversy

Charles Choi
InnovationNewsDaily
Tue, 20 Mar 2012 17:30 UTC
Future Soldiers
© U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research Design and Engineering Center in MassachusettsThe Future Soldier Initiative.

Brain research and associated advances such as brain-machine interfaces that are funded by the U.S. military and intelligence communities raise profound ethical concerns, caution researchers who cite the potentially lethal applications of such work and other consequences.

Rapid advances in neuroscience made over the last decade have many dual-use applications of both military and civilian interest. Researchers who receive military funding - with the U.S. Department of Defense spending more than $350 million on neuroscience in 2011 - may not fully realize how dangerous their work might be, say scientists in an essay published online today (March 20) in the open-access journal PLoS Biology.

For instance, a brain-computer interface was used by a monkey to remotely control a walking robot in 2007. However, such interfaces could help people operate weapons, robotic exoskeletons, killer drones and other machines while sheltered from the reality of combat and its deadly consequences, said bioethicist Jonathan Moreno at the University of Pennsylvania, author of Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense (Dana Press, 2006).

"The question about brain-machine interfaces is whether we are continuing to lower the bar for conflict," Moreno told InnovationNewsDaily. "Certainly there are people in the armed forces and in policy who find the distancing of war fighters from combat disconcerting."
Read More...
Info

Insight Into a Shocking Therapy for Depression

Elizabeth Norton
Science Now
Mon, 19 Mar 2012 15:00 UTC
Brain Scans
© J. S. Perrin, et al., PNAS Early Edition (March 2012)Toning down internal chatter. Imaging scans show decreases in brain connectivity before (orange) and after (blue) treatment with ECT.

Since the 1930s, doctors have been jolting the brains of depressed patients with electricity to relieve their symptoms. The treatment, known as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), works, but it can cause memory loss and confusion and lead to difficulty forming new memories. Today, physicians generally limit it to patients who are severely ill, including those at risk for suicide. Now, a brain-imaging study highlights the part of the brain most affected, perhaps pointing to safer, less-invasive ways to achieve the same results.

Depression may be caused by an overactive brain, says physicist and neuroscientist Christian Schwarzbauer of the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom. "There may be so much internal communication that the brain becomes preoccupied with itself, less able to process information coming in from the outside world," he says, noting that studies have found that people with depression have heightened connectivity among brain networks involved in paying attention, monitoring internal and external cues, remembering the past, and controlling emotions.

In a 2010 study, psychiatrist Yvette Sheline and colleagues at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, found that these overactive networks converged on a common point in a region called the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex. This common point, dubbed the dorsal nexus, may "hot wire" the brain networks together in a way that leads to depression, the authors hypothesized.
Read More...
Heart - Black

Abuse in Childhood Common Among Alcohol Addicts, Study Finds

Shari Roan
LAtimes.com
Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:13 UTC
Image
© Stefano Paltera / For The TimesIn a survey of 196 men and women being treated for alcohol dependence, almost one-quarter of men and one-third of women reported a history of childhood physical abuse.
Abuse in childhood appears to be a particularly strong risk factor for developing alcohol addiction later in life, researchers reported Thursday.

Alcohol dependence is linked to many risk factors - including genetics, drinking in adolescence and having other mental health disorders. A history of physical, sexual or emotional abuse in childhood is known to be another risk factor. The new study, however, shows how strong this link could be.

Researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse surveyed 196 men and women who were inpatients being treated for alcohol dependence. Almost one-quarter of men and 33% of women reported a history of childhood physical abuse while rates of sexual abuse were 12% for men and 49% for women.
Read More...
Info

Are Some Brains Better at Learning Languages?

Emily Sohn
Discovery News
Mon, 19 Mar 2012 09:13 UTC
Language Studies
© iStockPhotoSome brains may be better than others at learning languages.

In his spare time, an otherwise ordinary 16-year old boy from New York taught himself Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Swahili, and a dozen other languages, the New York Times reported last week.

And even though it's not entirely clear how close to fluent Timothy Doner is in any of his studied languages, the high school sophomore -- along with other polyglots like him -- are certainly different from most Americans, who speak one or maybe two languages.

That raises the question: Is there something unique about certain brains, which allows some people to speak and understand so many more languages than the rest of us?

The answer, experts say, seems to be yes, no and it's complicated. For some people, genes may prime the brain to be good at language learning, according to some new research. And studies are just starting to pinpoint a few brain regions that are extra-large or extra-efficient in people who excel at languages.
Read More...