Science of the SpiritS


Sherlock

Happiness is overrated: It's better to be right says study

Karen Kaplan
LA Times
Tue, 17 Dec 2013 15:48 UTC
Image
© Beth Nakamura / The Oregonian The secret to a happy relationship? It's not simply a matter of one partner agreeing with the other all the time, researchers say.
It is better to be right than to be happy - at least for one husband on the cutting edge of science.

As part of an unusual experiment, the husband was instructed to "agree with his wife's every opinion and request without complaint," and to continue doing so "even if he believed the female participant was wrong," according to a report on the research that was published Tuesday by the British Medical Journal.

The husband and wife were helping a trio of doctors test their theory that pride and stubbornness get in the way of good mental health. In their own medical practices in New Zealand, they had observed patients leading "unnecessarily stressful lives by wanting to be right rather than happy." If these patients could just let go of the need to prove to others that they were right, would greater happiness be the result?

Enter the intrepid husband. Based on the assumption that men would rather be happy than be right, he was told to agree with his wife in all cases. However, based on the assumption that women would rather be right than be happy, the doctors decided not to tell the wife why her husband was suddenly so agreeable.

Both spouses were asked to rate their quality of life on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the happiest) at the start of the experiment and again on Day 6. It's not clear how long the experiment was intended to last, but it came to an abrupt halt on Day 12.
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People

Residents of poorer nations find greater meaning in life

Anna Mikulak
Association for Psychological Science
Wed, 18 Dec 2013 14:41 UTC
While residents of wealthy nations tend to have greater life satisfaction, new research shows that those living in poorer nations report having greater meaning in life.

These findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggest that meaning in life may be higher in poorer nations as a result of greater religiosity. As countries become richer, religion becomes less central to people's lives and they lose a sense of meaning in life.

"Thus far, the wealth of nations has been almost always associated with longevity, health, happiness, or life satisfaction," explains psychological scientist Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Virginia. "Given that meaning in life is an important aspect of overall well-being, we wanted to look more carefully at differential patterns, correlates, and predictors for meaning in life."

Oishi and colleague Ed Diener of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign investigated life satisfaction, meaning, and well-being by examining data from the 2007 Gallup World Poll, a large-scale survey of over 140,000 participants from 132 countries. In addition to answering a basic life satisfaction question, participants were asked: "Do you feel your life has an important purpose or meaning?" and "Is religion an important part of your daily life?"

The data revealed some unexpected trends:
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Health

High levels of maternal care has life-long impact on vulnerability to stress, study says


Science Daily
Thu, 12 Dec 2013 11:41 UTC
A new study shows that high levels of maternal care during the early post-natal period in rodents can reduce the sensitivity of the offspring to stressful events during adulthood. Maternal care is shown to chemically modify and thereby re-program genes that control stress responses making them less likely to be activated. The findings have important implications for understanding early environment influences on stress-related disorders.

Comment: Improving one's ability to cope with stressful situations can already be achieved by regular practice with the breathing and meditation program Éiriú Eolas. Learn more about the many benefits of Éiriú Eolas here.

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Bulb

Do patients in a vegetative state recognize loved ones?


Source
Mon, 16 Dec 2013 15:59 UTC
Image
© Unknown
TAU researchers find unresponsive patients' brains may recognize photographs of their family and friends.

Patients in a vegetative state are awake, breathe on their own, and seem to go in and out of sleep. But they do not respond to what is happening around them and exhibit no signs of conscious awareness. With communication impossible, friends and family are left wondering if the patients even know they are there.

Now, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Dr. Haggai Sharon and Dr. Yotam Pasternak of Tel Aviv University'sFunctional Brain Center and Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center have shown that the brains of patients in a vegetative state emotionally react to photographs of people they know personally as though they recognize them.

"We showed that patients in a vegetative state can react differently to different stimuli in the environment depending on their emotional value," said Dr. Sharon. "It's not a generic thing; it's personal and autobiographical. We engaged the person, the individual, inside the patient."
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Snakes in Suits

Are psychopaths better in bed?

The Ferret
The Watchtower of Destruction
Wed, 11 Dec 2013 10:06 UTC
couples feet in bed
© unknown
So this was startling: On a list called "10 Signs Your Man (or Woman) Is A Psychopath," #5 was "Great Sex." "Those who have been with a psychopath often say it's the best thing they've ever experienced," I was informed. "A psychopath goes out of his way to please you."

It's the old stereotype: bad boys are better in the sack. Those nice boys just don't put gravy on your biscuit, honey.

Problem is, that didn't really fit with the psychopaths I'd seen in action. Some of them were stellar in bed, almost addictively so. Yet others were really great at the "sweeping women off their feet" part, but turned out to be mediocre or unresponsive in the sack, caring more for their own needs than their partner's. They got by because they manipulated their partners into wanting to please them, but there's a difference between that and actually being good betwixt someone's nethers.
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People

True story: Not everyone lies frequently

John Paul Gutierrez
International Communication Association
Fri, 13 Dec 2013 13:11 UTC
Does everybody lie? We are taught that this is common sense and that most people tell little white lies. But perhaps this isn't true. A recent paper published in Human Communication Research found that many people are honest most of the time, that many are honest about their lying, and that some lie a lot.

Rony Halevy, Bruno Verschuere (University of Amsterdam), and Shaul Shalvi (Ben-Gurion University), surveyed 527 people to find out how often they had lied over the past 24 hours. 41% of the respondents indicated that they had not lied at all, whereas just 5% turned out to be accountable for 40% of all of the lies told.

To find out whether the respondents were honest about the frequency of their lying, they were invited to take part in an additional lab test. They were asked to roll dice and received a sum of money depending on the number they reported having rolled. Because the researchers were unable to see the actual numbers rolled, participants were free to cheat and report higher numbers. Participants who had already admitted to lying more frequently also had higher winnings in this dice test, indicating that participants, who said they lie often, did indeed lie often. Statistically, their scores were so implausible that they are likely to have lied about the numbers they rolled, rather enjoying a series of lucky rolls.
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Family

Research conclusive that spanking children is detrimental as it promotes antisocial behaviour and slows mental development

Jeremy Dean
PsyBlog
Sat, 14 Dec 2013 00:00 UTC
children
90% of studies on spanking agree that it’s bad for children.

A new book which includes research on over 7,000 US families plus data from 32 different countries, has found that spanking is ultimately detrimental to children.

The book, by Professor Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire and colleagues, finds that four decades of research is heavily against the use of spanking for children (Straus et al., 2013; The primordial violence: spanking children, psychological development, violence, and crime).

While it may work to correct their behaviour, it doesn't have any advantages over other methods, and also has significant disadvantages.

Professor Straus explained:
"Research shows that spanking corrects misbehavior. But it also shows that spanking does not work better than other modes of correction, such as time out, explaining, and depriving a child of privileges. Moreover, the research clearly shows that the gains from spanking come at a big cost."
According to the research, more than 90% of the studies agree that spanking is not good for children
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Chalkboard

No math gene: Learning mathematics takes practice

Hermandur Sigmundsson
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Fri, 13 Dec 2013 14:56 UTC
Practice, not innate skill, makes for good mathematicians.

New research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim could have an effect on how math is taught.

If you want to be really good at all types of math, you need to practice them all. You can't trust your innate natural talent to do most of the job for you.

This might seem obvious to some, but it goes against the traditional view that if you are good at math, it is a skill that you are simply born with.

Professor Hermundur Sigmundsson at Department of Psychology is one of three researchers involved in the project. The results have been published in Psychological Reports.

The numbers

The researchers tested the math skills of 70 Norwegian fifth graders, aged 10.5 years on average. Their results suggest that it is important to practice every single kind of math subject to be good at all of them, and that these skills aren't something you are born with.

"We found support for a task specificity hypothesis. You become good at exactly what you practice," Sigmundsson says.
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Calendar

Harmless fun? Horoscopes may be bad for you, study suggests

Amy Willis
The Telegraph,UK
Wed, 11 Dec 2013 13:51 UTC
Horoscopes may be bad for you as negative readings promote self-indulgent behaviour as people attempt to escape their fate, scientists find

Image
© Alamy
Star signs

Star signs Photo: Alamy
Astrology may seem like harmless fun - but a new study suggests following your star sign could be bad for you.

Consumers who read their horoscope daily were found to be more likely to exhibit impulsive or indulgent behaviour when their zodiac was negative, the research suggested.

This is because reading a poor outcome in your star sign makes you more susceptible to temptation, it is believed.

The study, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, showed that those who believed their fate could change were more prone to erratic decision-making following bad news in their zodiac.

It has long been thought that reading your star sign can improve mood and encourage people to undertake selfless activities.

However, scientists at the University of South Carolina and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, found the opposite effect.

A number of participants were presented with unfavourable star sign readings and asked to choose between either going to a party or cleaning their home
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Info

Fear makes scary scents stronger

Stephanie Pappas
LiveScience
Thu, 12 Dec 2013 13:00 UTC
Brain's Smell Center
© Marley Kass and Michelle RosenthalAn image of the mouse neural response to odors (color) in the brain's smell center, known as the olfactory bulb.
The nose may really "know" when it comes to danger, according to a new study that found that odors associated with electric shocks in mice trigger a sensory-cell reaction much stronger than for non-fearful odors.

The finding was surprising, said study researcher John McGann, a neuroscientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey. The sensory neurons are at the very beginning of the circuit that enables the perception of smell, far outside of conscious control, and yet they "learn" to tune into scary smells.

"The effects of learning can happen not just on behavior, but on sensory processing," McGann told LiveScience.
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