Extras

Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut:

More clues to successful ageing from the study of "super-agers" (previous Digest post on Super-Agers).

Does Posting Facebook Status Updates Increase or Decrease Loneliness?

Being men with eating disorders: Perspectives of male eating disorder service-users

Improving multi-tasking ability through action video games

Modifying Memory: Selectively Enhancing and Updating Personal Memories for a Museum Tour by Reactivating Them

The effects of news stories on the stigma of mental illness.

The home advantage in individual sports: An augmented review

Dr. Phil and Psychology Today as Self-Help Treatments of Mental Illness: A Content Analysis of Popular Psychology Programming.

Perspective Taking With Future Humans Improves Environmental Engagement

Women more likely to share their number with a handsome stranger when it's sunny.

The desire for healthy limb amputation: structural brain correlates and clinical features of xenomelia.

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Post compiled by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.

Extras

Eye-catching studies that I didn't get a chance to report on in full:

After parents "friended" their undergrad children on Facebook, there was no adverse effect on privacy but there was less conflict in their relationship

"Existing evidence does not support strong causal claims about the unique importance of pretend play for development"

"Why do girls freak out?" new study on an adolescent in-patient unit.

Violence is less common in YouTube content compared with TV; & where it exists, consequences are more realistic.

Contrary to previous reports, parents say they're happier than non-parents.

Placing a zillion on a number line.

"In this review, we examine the consensus and controversy in the study of fibre pathway connectivity for language"

Participants were willing to terminate the unattractive woman more frequently than the moderate or extremely attractive women.

Feel the fear but carry on anyway; acceptance-based therapy for fear of public speaking.

"The implication is that using punitive measures to control persistent offenders is unlikely to be effective in an identifiable group of juvenile offenders."

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Post compiled by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.

Extras

Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut:

A psychopath, a narcissist & a Machiavellian enter a room, who was perceived more favourably?

What is the most interesting part of the brain? (open access)

"Spending time on others increases one’s feeling of time affluence"

"Individuals can perceive suicidality from facial appearance with accuracy"

"Male sexual victimisation by women should be taken as seriously as that of women by men"

Brown-eyed men perceived as more trustworthy, mainly because of their rounder face-shape (see also)

Restless Legs Syndrome: a qualitative analysis of psychosocial suffering

Children's and parents' stereotypical views of scientists could put the children off science

About half the benefit of popular "z-drugs" for insomnia is due to the placebo effect

"Medical training is not an optimal environment for the psychological health of medical students"

Mediterranean diet associated with experiencing more positive/ fewer negative moods (cross-sectional study)

Police uniform colour makes no difference to aggression by, or against, police
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Post compiled by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.

Extras

Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut:

Sex differences in eye movement patterns. Believe it or not, when looking at a woman, women apparently scan the whole body, men focus more on the face!

"Among participants who were older than 60 years, loneliness was a predictor of functional decline and death."

"a primary reason why men eat meat: It makes them feel like real men"

A Bayesian account of ‘hysteria’ (open access article)

You are what you tweet: Personality expression and perception on Twitter

Evidence for prejudice against people with acne. "In terms of personality, the photographs in the 'clear' condition were given higher scores for potential friendship, attractiveness and overall positive personality features than the photographs in the 'acne' condition."

You know how, when they're talking, some people end every sentence like it's a question? It's called uptalk. A gameshow study found: "The more successful a man is, the less likely he is to use uptalk; the more successful a woman is, the more likely she is to use uptalk."

The cerebral cortex of Albert Einstein: a description and preliminary analysis of unpublished photographs (open access article)

Are elder siblings helpers or competitors?

Chimps and orangutans have mid-life crises too.

"cell phone conversations were rated significantly ruder than conversations between two audible speakers"

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Post compiled by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.

Extras

Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut:

The pursuit of happiness can be lonely.

Working memory training does not improve intelligence in healthy young adults.

The anti-Mozart effect? Fast and loud background music [by Mozart] disrupts reading comprehension.

Good for creativity: "simple external tasks that allow the mind to wander".

Posing with your partner in your Facebook pic is a sign that you're happy in that relationship.

Effect of weather on pedestrians "A 5°C increase in temp was associated with a 14% increase in pedestrians".

Anti-anxiety drug Lorazepam increases people's ruthlessness in moral-personal dilemmas.

Even 3-yr-olds won't show you much sympathy if you're making a fuss about nothing.

Reflections on being a memory expert on the witness stand.

Dogs evaluate humans on the basis of direct experiences only.
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Post compiled by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.

Extras

10 Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut:

Huge new study examines links between mental illness and creativity.

"Too close for comfort, or too far to care? Finding humor in distant tragedies and close mishaps."

People rated narcissism as a less "dark" trait than Machiavellianism or psychopathy.

Do nappies (diapers) interfere with babies learning to walk?

Doing bad but looking good - How dark personalities are adept at making themselves look attractive.

Why humans are (sometimes) less rational than other animals.

People can approximate a person's extraversion, dominance and neuroticism based on just their body odour.

Mixing an energy drink with an alcoholic drink increases motivation for more alcohol in students.

"Participation in Mass Gatherings Can Benefit Well-Being" A longitudinal study at the Hindu Magh Mela festival.

People prefer more southern routes when travelling, and it's not because the terrain is flatter.

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Post written by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.

Extras

10 Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut:

A case of maths synaesthesia (seeing formulas as geometric shapes).

In a new survey, females spent more time on Facebook, had more FB friends, and were more likely than men to use their profile pics for impression management.

It backfires when students sacrifice sleep time for extra study.

Another form of the Macbeth effect - students unfamiliar with video games were more attracted to hygiene products after playing a violent game.

Signing at the start of a form, rather than at the end, boosts people's honesty.

Gossiping in the office catalyses friendships, but don't over do it.

A possible explanation for why we enjoy watching sad films?

Taller football referees were better able to keep control of the game.

There are fewer gender differences in mate preferences in countries where there is greater gender equality.

Is pretend play really as important for children's development as everyone usually claims?

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Post compiled by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.

Extras

Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut:

"Study 3 extends these results ... and demonstrates how men experiencing natural hair loss may improve their interpersonal standing by shaving"

Robots with long hair assumed to be less suited to engineering and lifting tasks.

Smiling as a signal of low status? Smaller athletes and models for cheap clothing smile more than bigger athletes and models for exclusive clothing (pdf).

"our findings show that human behavior in life-and-death situations is best captured by the expression “every man for himself.”"

When mentally tired, people are more resistant to corny chat-up lines, but less resistant to subtle approaches.

Preservation of musical memory in an amnesic professional cellist.

Even mild mental illness linked with reduced longevity.

What's it like to be diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia?

Behavioral and neuroanatomical investigation of Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory.

Participants were fairly good [at finding their parked car]. "Only 14% made a substantial detour, most of them women".

Reconceptualizing Obedience Within the Milgram Paradigm as Identification-Based Followership.

Do antidepressants change personality?-A five-year observational study

The readiness potential is not the neural correlate of the decision to move, a new study claims (pdf). The finding challenges the usual interpretation of Benjamin Libet's 1980 classic study, that the conscious decision to move comes after the neural activity causing a movement.

The most influential people on Facebook are themselves less susceptible to influence.

Choking Under the Pressure of a Positive Stereotype: Gender Identification and Self-Consciousness Moderate Men's Math Test Performance.

"owners of dog breeds widely considered to be “aggressive” harbour more psychotic tendencies"

Gentlemen Patrons Give More Tips to Waitresses With Red Clothes

"Thus, from an early age, humans seem to have genuine concern for the welfare of others"

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Post compiled by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.

Extras

Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut:

People like their bosses to have high emotional intelligence, even more than high IQ. Also: "participants favoured young, male bosses and old, female bosses over old, male bosses and young, female bosses."

Using psychology to improve Powerpoint presentations (open access).

"Sustained violent video game play was significantly related to steeper increases in adolescents' trajectory of aggressive behavior over time"

Percepts to recollections: insights about memory functioning from single neuron recordings in the human brain (open access).

Can people tell whether abstract art is hanging the right way up or not?

Watching the Biggest Loser diet TV show risks increasing obesity stigma.

Using horses as an animal model of human depression.

We prefer product packaging that's rounded rather than straight-edged.

Anger really is linked with the colour red in our minds.

Younger people prefer "saving the best for last" more than older people.

Is low self-esteem a risk-factor for depression?
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Post compiled by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.

Extras

Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut:

People look younger when they smile.

Narcissism comes in three different flavours - vulnerable, grandiose and aggressive.

We eat more when different food types are presented on a plate separately, rather than mixed in together.

"The findings challenge society's presumption that male teachers have better relationships with boys than women teachers".

7-month-olds chunk items in memory.

What do Americans mean when they describe someone as "cool"?

Cognitive training increases openness to experience in older adults.

Having autistic traits is associated with having reduced belief in God.

"The personalities of nations that are geographical neighbours are more similar than those that are far apart"

Young Korean men with finger ratios indicative of more pre-natal testosterone exposure (short second digit relative to fourth digit) are more likely to choose the marine corps for their military service.
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Post compiled by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.

Extras

Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut:

Sounds like a good result for geeks - "A curious personality was linked to a wide range of adaptive behaviors including tolerance of anxiety and uncertainty, positive emotional expressiveness, initiation of humor and playfulness, unconventional thinking, and a non-defensive, non-critical attitude"

Fusing eastern principles with the essence of cognitive behavioural therapy, dialectical behaviour therapy could be an exciting new treatment for people with emotional difficulties - a new study tested its effectiveness in an NHS trial.

Just when you finished painting all your walls blue, along comes this study: "we demonstrated that a brief glimpse of green prior to a creativity task enhances creative performance"

Study of texting whilst walking finds that texters walk more cautiously, but they bump into door frames just as much as non-texters. My question - why were the non-texters bumping into things?

Apparently, focusing on your goals will increase your intention to pursue them, but reduce your persistence. Trouble is, deliberately not thinking about your goals will probably make you think about them more. So just don't think, okay!

A Review of Facebook Research in the Social Sciences.

Hmm, interesting - a prosopagnosic (who has trouble processing faces) performed like normal when averaging identity or emotion across a crowd of faces.

How attachment varies through the lifespan.

Thinking about Arabs and Muslims makes Americans shoot faster.

Prince Charles won't like this one - Exposure to organic foods makes us less altruistic.

Maybe we can cancel out the effects and paint some big eyes on the walls of organic food shops. The presence of eyes led participants to put rubbish in the correct bins.

When we're at war, we prefer our leaders to be older.
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Post compiled by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.

Extras

Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut:

A replication of the finding that positive psychology exercises boost happiness.

The first documented case of congenital amusia in childhood.

The idea of the "hot-hand" in sports is that after hitting the target twice or more, a player is more likely to hit their target again. Previous studies, many conducted in the context of basketball, have suggested that there's no such phenomenon, but a new paper says that the hot hand exists in volleyball: "coaches and playmakers are able to detect it, and playmakers tend to use it 'adaptively,' which results in more hits for a team."

We have a bias for fearing high-speed threats, even if their chance of happening is low.

How the brain "talks over" boring quotes.

Some so-called "dark-side" personality traits are associated with work success.

A study into students' tendency to mind-wander and links with academic success and working memory.


When Prisoners Take Over the Prison, A Social Psychology of Resistance.

Useful review paper: "Training the brain: Fact and fad in cognitive and behavioural remediation".

When do people actually prefer to have lower status?

Testing the limits of the rubber hand illusion.

It's a phrase that's used a lot in psychology, but what exactly is "theory of mind"?

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Post compiled by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.

Extras

Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut:


"People with easier-to-pronounce surnames occupy higher status positions in law firms"

Congenitally blind humans can discern the emotional state of dog barks, even if they've never owned a dog.

More evidence of the benefits of viewing and making art for people with dementia.

The assumptions we make about sporty people: "Both team and individual sport athletes were perceived as being less lazy, more competitive, and healthier than non-participants by both males and females."

Cheesy lyrics are grounded in science: Your love lifts me higher! The energizing quality of secure relationships.

Who do we gossip about at work? A social network analysis.

Men feel more powerful if they have tenuous links with a powerful person.

Distinguishing science from pseudoscience in school psychology.

Visual illusion can boost putting performance by making the hole look bigger.

More materialistic, less civic minded, less concerned for others - charting generational changes in young adults'  life goals from 1966 to 2009.

The eye movements that underlie the rotating snakes illusion.

Conservatives are happier than liberals, but why?

"Our findings suggest that due to their expertise, architects were able to encode and detect building stimuli at a lower neural cost".

Men are attracted to women in red because they perceive them to be sexually receptive.

Women are more receptive to male advances when the smell of pastries or coffee is in the air. 

Does the weather really affect tipping?

Psychoanalysis and the brain – why did Freud abandon neuroscience?

After recalling a time they've been naughty, people judge the room they're in to be darker. Does anyone know - has Jeremy Hunt been turning all the lights on lately?
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Post compiled by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.

Extras

Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut:

People dream about approaching things more than they dream about running away from them.

When getting angry is smart: Emotional preferences and emotional intelligence.

Towards the “Baby Connectome”: Mapping the Structural Connectivity of the Newborn Brain.

A brief history of social scientists’ attempts to measure passionate love.

This is the first report of tool-using behaviour in a wild brown bear.

On keeping your enemies close: Powerful leaders seek proximity to ingroup power threats.

Can an anger face also be scared? Malleability of facial expressions.

Republicans prefer leaders who they think look like a stereotypical republican: "Political Facial Stereotypes Predict Candidate Electoral Success Among Right-Leaning Voters"

What do music preferences reveal about personality? - a study with young Germans.

Rethinking the Emotional Brain.

Failing the Future: Three Unsuccessful Attempts to Replicate Bem's ‘Retroactive Facilitation of Recall’ Effect.

Seeing pics of high-calorie foods heightened the pleasure derived from a neutral taste. 

"arousal is a fundamental mechanism mediating the effect of emotion on time perception ... " but it's not the whole story.
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Post compiled by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.

Extras

Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut:

The last chocolate tastes the best.

Men with beards are judged to be higher status, more aggressive, but less attractive.

Taking the beta-blocker propranolol associated with reduced implicit racism.

People who are kind to themselves are more caring and supportive of their romantic partners.

Violence among female stalkers.

Mental fatigue makes us more sensitive to serious transgressions but actually less sensitive to minor ones.

The map in your head faces north. 

You look as good as you feel. Exercise benefits people's body image even when their weight/shape hasn't changed.

How impulsive tendencies and attitudes interact with self-control to predict time spent watching porn. 

If you're slow at the traffic lights, you're likely to get honked earlier if you're in a red car.

Suffering childhood maltreatment is associated with having reduced volume in parts of the hippocampus.

Food deprivation sensitizes pain perception. The finding has implications for emotional disturbances associated with eating disorders.

Surely snack companies will resist this: occasional differently coloured crisps in a tube of crisps was found to reduce consumption - presumably because they provide a marker of how much you've eaten.

Public skepticism of psychology: Why many people perceive the study of human behavior as unscientific.

We forage through our semantic memories like animals forage for food.

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 Post compiled by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.

Extras

Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut:

Cultural differences in athlete attributions for success and failure: The sports pages revisited.

"Jointly, the two studies show an overlap in the content of convicted rapists’ talk and the contents of contemporary lads’ mags ... "

American psych textbooks ignore Russian psychologists.

Becoming an expert in the layout of London's streets (i.e. learning The Knowledge) enlarges the posterior  of the hippocampus.

Home teams still enjoy an advantage even when the stadium is empty.

Learning Words through Listening to Hip-Hop.

Are systemizing and autistic traits related to talent and interest in mathematics and engineering? Testing some of the central claims of the empathizing–systemizing theory.

Insights into psychopathy garnered from brain imaging.

"... our results suggest that self-motion perception and numerical cognition can mutually influence each other."

50 years of pupillometry in psychology - the measurement of the diameter of the pupil and factors that influence it.

The joy of seeing your football team win lasts longer than the pain caused by seeing them lose.

Why individuals in larger teams perform worse.

Humble people are more helpful.

Small scale study finds generalised benefit of brain training games for the elderly.

You're more likely to regret making a material purchase (than an experiential purchase), and more likely to regret NOT making an experiential purchase.

People with high status perceive the applause after their performance as louder and more favourable.

EEG of a man's brain whilst he met with imaginary friends.
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Post compiled by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.

Extras

Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut:

How many neurons do you REALLY have? Some dogmas of quantitative neuroscience.

Smiley faces are perceived to be brighter, literally.

Don't tell Sarkozy - people in power overestimate their own height.

Neural correlates of body-size overestimation in eating disorder patients.

Adopting a star-shaped power posture boosts pain tolerance, as does interacting with someone else who's in a submissive posture.

Brain regions with mirror properties: A meta-analysis of 125 human fMRI studies.

The religion paradox: If religion makes people happy, why are so many dropping out?

Depressed participants made better decisions than healthy controls and those recovering from depression.

Hey Benton! Benton! How dogs know when communication is intended for them.

Men who view pornography are significantly less likely to intervene as a bystander (in potential rape situations).

Participants performed better on cognitive and sensor-motor tasks when partnered with a person they knew was homosexual, as compared with participants partnered with someone whose sexual orientation they didn't know.

Creativity has a dark side - people who are more creative tend to be more dishonest.

Do nice guys and gals really finish last?  Links between agreeableness and income.

Media hype about neuro-enhancing drugs.

Unhappy moods trigger mind-wandering about the past.

"Torture at Yale": Milgram misrepresented (a) the extent of his debriefing procedures, (b) the risk posed by the experiment, and (c) the harm done to his participants.

Google Calendar as a memory rehab aid for brain damaged patients.

Can brain activity when viewing a picture of your mother be used as a test for depression?

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Post compiled by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.