Here’s How The Online Status Indicators In Apps Influence Our Behaviour

By Emily Reynolds

In basic terms, online status indicators convey availability: whether someone is on or offline, or when they last logged into a particular app. But if you’ve ever anxiously awaited a response from a prospective partner or suspected your friend might be ignoring you, you’ll be painfully aware of just how much weight that indicator can actually hold.

Now a new study has found that many users are not only aware of all that online status indicators can convey, but also change their behaviour accordingly. The research is due to be published in the Proceedings of the 2020 ACM conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Previous research has already shown that such indicators can inadvertently reveal a lot about our lives: one 2014 study found that online status on WhatsApp was enough to identify daily routines, unusual messaging patterns, or even who users were talking to.

To investigate this further, Camille Cobb and her team recruited 200 participants to answer questions about their experiences with online status indicators. First, participants were presented with a list of 38 apps and asked to select those they use at least once a week. They were then asked a series of questions to gauge their familiarity with the design of status indicators and knowledge of how to control their visibility in apps.

Finally, participants were asked questions about their own experiences adjusting their visibility online (“is there anyone who would notice if you were offline for longer than usual?” or “have you ever changed your behaviour because you didn’t want to appear online?”) and behaviour towards others (“have you ever been surprised to notice that someone was online?” or “have you ever opened an app specifically to check if someone was online?”).

Use of apps with online status indicators was hugely common: 99% of participants reported regular use of at least one app with the feature, with Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger the most widely used.

Many participants wanted to control their online status, and had changed behaviour in order to do so: 23% had changed settings, 37% had avoided opening an app or quickly signed out to avoid a specific person, and three participants deleted an app from their phone altogether so that they didn’t appear “online”. This behaviour was usually aimed at a specific person: 43% had changed settings to avoid a particular person — often a current or former partner — versus just 25% who were trying to avoid people in general. Many stated that online status indicators had led them to feel under surveillance, aware that friends, partners or family members would be watching to see if or when they had signed in.

Checking for others’ online status was also prevalent: over half of participants said they had signed into or opened an app just to check somebody else’s status, and 41% said they had been “surprised” to see someone online, which in turn led to inferences about real-world behaviour and well-being and feelings around being ignored.

Online status indicators can be useful: as participants noted, they can be handy for working out when somebody might be available to chat or play a game, or knowing whether it might be better to message someone or call them instead. But the frequency with which participants anxiously checked others’ online status or sought to hide their own suggests that platforms should be offering better ways to meet user needs. Settings could be more transparent, for a start, or users could select not to appear online altogether — an option which many apps don’t yet offer.

Running into someone you really don’t want to see or speak to is an unfortunate fact of life, both on and offline: eliminating that altogether is probably unlikely to happen. But ensuring that users are able to adequately manage their online status may be something apps or messaging platforms could improve upon. Until then, it’s likely that online statuses will be a source of both community and anxiety.

– User Experiences with Online Status Indicators

Emily Reynolds is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

View more here.
Credit- BPS Research Digest. Published by- Dr. Sabiha : www.drsabiha.blogspot.com

SACAP graduate says his psychology degree is the key to his success

Our world has changed. Overwhelmed by the Covid-19 crisis what we deemed normal merely months ago feels like an indulgent daydream today. How can we reframe the uncertainty and anxiety that so many of us are feeling? “We need psychologists now more than ever,” says Erick Kabongo, 27. “However, to make a difference in other people’s lives you have to start working on yourself first.”

Starting out

Originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Erick says his own journey of self-discovery began after he finished matric. “Initially I wanted to become a doctor but realised I didn’t qualify for medical school in this country,” he explains. “Choosing psychology was the closest option to medicine at the time – it’s something I’ve never regretted!”

Erick enrolled at SACAP and finished his Bachelor of Applied Psychology (BAppSocSci) in 2018. He says the degree gave him a solid footing in psychology and nurtured his desire to help people. “I loved SACAP’s approach to teaching through role play, case studies and Work Integrated Learning,” he says. “I also really liked being introduced to research at an undergrad level.”

As a result of his circumstances Erick had to work and study at the same time. “SACAP offers a flexible and accommodating environment,” he says. “I studied through a combination of online, face-to-face daytime and mostly evening classes.”

Buoyed by his positive experience at SACAP Erick has continued his studies in psychology. “I completed my honours degree at the University of Johannesburg last year and I’m currently at Wits University where I’m completing my master’s degree in community-based counselling,” he says.

Community is crucial

Erick is motivated by his heartfelt desire to make a positive difference in people’s lives. “I would like to change the landscape of psychology in general and specifically community psychology by being part of development programmes, conducting research and publishing through academia,” he says.

Assimilating spirituality and psychology is also something Erick feels very passionate about. “I believe that spirituality in general – Christianity in particular due to my own Christian convictions – and psychology can offer great value when integrated in an effective and efficient manner.”

To this end Erick has created a YouTube channel called The Unconventional Christ Followers, where he cultivates and supports a devout community. “It’s a platform for young people to share their thoughts, showcase their talents, ask questions, engage in conversations and build meaningful personal relationships with God,” he explains.

Key to his success

Erick says his Bachelor of Applied Social Science has been an important catalyst for his growing development. “Not only has it provided a firm foundation that has prepared me for my current studies,” he says, “it’s enabled me to understand myself and my spirituality better, which is important because I use my knowledge of the Bible and psychology to engage with my audience on my YouTube channel.”

In light of the current global coronavirus pandemic Erick believes his SACAP degree has also helped inform his worldview. “It’s helped me appreciate the concept of systemic theory and the interrelationship between various systems. For example, how something that started as a health problem is now affecting various other systems such as families, the economy and people’s social lives,” he says.

Future focussed

Amidst the confusion and uncertainty that currently cloaks the country Erick has developed his core values and is reaching out and connecting to people in a real and relevant way. You can too. SACAP’s BAppSocSci is a highly regarded degree that will help foster your raw passion for people into a fully-fledged career.

What’s more you can get cracking soon. To mitigate disruptions caused by Covid-19 SACAP has migrated all its classes onto its Online Campus, which means that you can begin classes in June and then switch back to the physical campus of your choice when the coronavirus crisis subsides. BAppSocSci applications close on the 31^st of May 2020. What are you waiting for? Your country needs you! Apply here now.

The post SACAP graduate says his psychology degree is the key to his success appeared first on SACAP.

View more here.
Credit- SACAP. Published by- Dr. Sabiha : www.drsabiha.blogspot.com

Researchers Once Found That People Believe In “Climate Change” More Than “Global Warming” — But Word Choice No Longer Seems To Matter

By guest blogger Jesse Singal

One of the biggest political challenges of this era is getting powerful people to take the threat of climate change seriously. The most straightforward way to do that would be with bottom-up pressure: if the people who vote demand that their leaders take assertive action against climate change, then politicians will have no choice but to do so (at least if they want to get into office, or to stay there). The major challenge to this, in turn, has been the lingering influence of climate denialism: disbelief in the reality that humans are the cause of climate change, or in the seriousness of the problem.

What can be done to combat climate denialism? Back in 2011, the researchers Jonathon P. Schuldt, Sara H. Konrath, and Norbert Schwarz published an article in Public Opinion Quarterly which suggested one possible partial remedy: framing the issue a bit differently. They found that 75.0% of Americans expressed belief in “climate change,” but only 67.7% in “global warming.” It was Republicans driving this effect: among this more politically conservative subset of Americans, the difference was 60.2% versus 44.0%.

Those findings suggested that environmental campaigns and policy initiatives might do better if they refer to “climate change” rather than “global warming”, write Alistair Raymond Bryce Soutter and René Mõttus in a new paper in the Journal of Environmental Psychology. But while some follow-up studies had been conducted on this issue, with fairly mixed results, no one had yet carried out a direct, pre-registered replication. So Soutter and Mõttus attempted to both replicate the original result and expand it to two other countries: the United Kingdom and Australia. (This gave them a total sample size of 5,717, about double that of the original study.)

As in the first study, the researchers simply asked respondents about whether they believed in climate change in one of two conditions — one which referred to the climate “changing”, and one which referred to it “warming” (see full wording below). This time around, though, the researchers found no statistically significant difference between the two conditions (88.8% registered agreement that “climate change” was occurring, while 88.0% said “global warming” was.) That pattern repeated itself in the study’s three main subgroups: in neither the US, the UK, nor Australia did word choice matter. Interestingly, and contrary to the original experiment, word choice didn’t matter among political conservatives, either. One aspect of the 2011 finding — unfortunately — was replicated: in all countries, conservatives were less likely than liberals to believe in climate change.

Why the generally different results this time around? The researchers explain that there’s no way to know, but they speculate it could be some combination of causes: one is simply that the American sample was a bit different, politically, with more self-identified Democrats and Republicans and fewer Independents and Others than in the 2011 sample (though it’s hard to imagine that having much of an impact on what had been such a giant-sized effect on Republicans). Perhaps more importantly, the 2011 study drew on data collected in 2009, and “[s]ince then there have been major social, political, and indeed environmental changes.” The terms might simply mean different things to people today than they did back then.

There’s one arguably questionable aspect of the original study’s methodology — and, since it was a direct replication, the follow-up as well — that bears mentioning. Here’s the language presented to the two groups, with the differences bolded by me:

You may have heard about the idea that the world’s temperature may have been changing over the past 100 years, a phenomenon sometimes called ‘climate change’. What is your personal opinion regarding whether or not this has been happening?

or

You may have heard about the idea that the world’s temperature may have been going up over the past 100 years, a phenomenon sometimes called ‘global warming’. What is your personal opinion regarding whether or not this has been happening?

It could be argued that this doesn’t capture exactly what researchers are interested in. What matters is whether and to what extent people agree that the planet is warming, and the first passage doesn’t mention that concept at all due to the fact that two word choices, not just one, are different. So a different rate of agreement with the two statements could just reflect the fact that they are saying two different things — the first is asking the respondent whether the planet’s climate is merely “changing” (up, down, up and then down over time, whatever), while the second specifically points out “warming”. A cleaner test would have mentioned the temperature going up in both conditions, only swapping out “global warming” versus “climate change.”

Setting that aside, this partially failed replication is compatible with belief held by many researchers: when issues become politicised, people cling more tightly to their opinions. It could be that word choice matters more for issues that don’t have much of a bearing on someone’s ideological or social allegiances. But once an idea becomes politicised, it feels threatening to have the ‘wrong’ view on it, which suggests subtle matters like word choice likely matter less. And climate change (or global warming, if you like) has certainly become more politicised since 2009, unfortunately.

All of which suggests that something as minor as word choice is rarely going to nudge people’s beliefs on as contentious an issue as this one.

– “Global warming” versus “climate change”: A replication on the association between political self-identification, question wording, and environmental beliefs

Post written by Jesse Singal (@JesseSingal) for the BPS Research Digest. Jesse is a contributing writer at New York Magazine, and he publishes his own newsletter featuring behavioral-science-talk. He is also working on a book about why shoddy behavioral-science claims sometimes go viral for Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

At Research Digest we’re proud to showcase the expertise and writing talent of our community. Click here for more about our guest posts.

View more here.
Credit- BPS Research Digest. Published by- Dr. Sabiha : www.drsabiha.blogspot.com

We’re Not Good At Spotting When Someone Has A False Memory Of Committing A Crime

By Emily Reynolds

Our memories are not always reliable. But sometimes they’re rich, textured and vivid — even if they didn’t happen. Research has suggested false memories often have the descriptive, multisensory elements of real memories, a fact that obviously poses both interesting questions about memory itself and difficulties for those relying on eyewitness encounters for evidence.

But beyond the question of how people remember is another quandary: are we, as observers, able to tell whether someone’s memory is true or false? It’s a question tackled by UCL’s Julia Shaw in a new study published in Frontiers in Psychology — and she finds that not only are we susceptible to having memories planted, we’re not very good at working out when someone else’s memory is false either.

Shaw has worked on false memory and our susceptibility to it before. In 2015, she co-authored a paper that claimed to have successfully implanted false memories of having committed a crime in 70% of participants; these crimes ranged from petty theft to the much more serious assault with a weapon. Videos of these participants recalling true and false memories formed the stimuli for the new work.

(It’s important to note that the findings from Shaw’s 2015 study have been subject to much debate, with some psychologists arguing that the coding scheme used in the study led to wildly inflated results. However, all videos of false memories included in this paper were also classified as false memories in a re-analysis by critics.)

In the first study, 124 participants saw videos of someone recalling both a real and a false memory of events that had (supposedly) happened during their adolescence. In one condition, participants saw the person recalling an emotive false memory (e.g. being attacked by an animal, being bullied or the death of a parent) while in the other condition, the false memory related to committing a crime (e.g. an assault with a weapon). Participants were told before watching the videos that “all, some, or none of the videos” involved memories of real accounts. Afterwards they were told one memory was real and one was false, and were asked to identify which was the false one.

In the second study, participants were shown the same videos — only this time, one set of participants watched the video with sound, one listened just to the audio, and a final set watched the video without audio.

The results suggest that participants are not better than chance at classifying false memories — about 57% of false memories were identified in the first study, and only 44% in the second. Numbers were similar across conditions: criminal false memories were identified 55% of the time in study one and 44% in study two. In study two, accuracy was highest when participants were given video with audio (53% accuracy) and worst with just audio (32%) .

Shaw argues that the study’s results demonstrate that false memories look real to an observer: even though participants knew that one memory was false and one was true, they were still unable to accurately tell the difference.

This could have serious implications for judges, police officers, lawyers and others involved with gathering evidence and interviewing eyewitnesses. Shaw points to judges in particular, who should “never assume they can tell when someone has a false memory … and should consider the entire process to see if there was any risk of contamination of a defendant or witness’ memories.”

The results should almost be beside the point — judges, lawyers and police officers should already try to assume they can’t always tell whether someone’s memory is accurate or not. So it will be interesting to see exactly how these findings are taken by legal and law enforcement officials. Memory, for better or worse, is a key part of evidence; being cautious before we make any firm conclusions about it may be vital to ensuring that evidence is as watertight as possible.

– Do False Memories Look Real? Evidence That People Struggle to Identify Rich False Memories of Committing Crime and Other Emotional Events

Emily Reynolds is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

View more here.
Credit- BPS Research Digest. Published by- Dr. Sabiha : www.drsabiha.blogspot.com

Purposefully going into the Unknown: Preparing mental health practitioners for the VUCA world

Higher Education Institutions need to think about how they could better assist in preparing professional and non-professional graduates for the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) helping field environment. The helping field, for both professionals and non-professionals, has devastating mental health effects on the helper in society.

Mental health professionals, such as psychologists, counsellors and social workers, report high levels of burnout, compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, anxiety, helplessness, despair, nightmares, flashbacks, emotional and social withdrawal. The non-professionals in the helping field, like psychology graduates, are also at risk of mental health challenges because they enter the helping field with even less professional training to assist them to navigate and thrive in the VUCA environment.

What is the Mental Health VUCA Environment?

Higher Education is being challenged to reflect on their responsibility in equipping mental health graduates with the necessary soft skills to thrive in a VUCA environment. Students in mental health programmes, who pursue professional or non-professional careers in the helping field, require particular soft skill development in order to assist them to cope with the demands of the mental health field.

• There is an increased need for graduates who are able to provide healing, support and empowerment to the community, despite the reality of poverty, high stress rates, elevated crime rates, unemployment and lack of resources.
• The mental health environment is portrayed as fragmented, understaffed and dealing with a myriad of community health challenges.
• Despite the difficulty in gathering mental health statistics in SA, there is an elevated, ever-increasing, high prevalence of substance abuse, addiction, malnutrition, psychiatric disorders, suicides and trauma-related problems.

The mental health VUCA environment highlights the need for graduates who are prepared, equipped and willing to work in challenging circumstances. However, teaching students how to cope with expected discomfort or equipping students to willingly experience discomfort is not well documented.

What are forward thinking organizations doing to teach students to embrace and thrive in discomfort?

• Importance of Soft skills: Organisations have recognised the need for the inclusion of soft skills in mental health programmes that aid students to embrace discomfort while striving toward meaningful goals. Soft skills such as Psychological Flexibility (PF), grit, reduction in impulsivity, resilience, growth mindset and mental toughness, all relate to the ability to persevere, toward meaningful outcomes despite discomfort. These soft skills equip mental health graduates to purposefully go into the unknown and thrive.
• Embedding soft skills in mental health programmes: Organizations are ensuring that soft skills are intertwined in how they teach, design curriculums, conduct classrooms, provide support, grade and provide feedback. If we are building soft skills into the learning process of developing mental health professionals, they graduate with these refined soft skills tailored to their profession already.  

Student development is often amplified when individuals are challenged in a safe environment, such as a well-managed classroom. The classroom provides an opportunity to assist students to cultivate the necessary soft skills to sit in discomfort, work within discomfort and willingly embrace discomfort. Students who can develop these soft skills during their studies are better equipped to deal with their own mental health challenges while also caring for a broken world.

Written by: Lauren Martin Head of Teaching and Learning (Pretoria Campus) 

The post Purposefully going into the Unknown: Preparing mental health practitioners for the VUCA world appeared first on SACAP.

View more here.
Credit- SACAP. Published by- Dr. Sabiha : www.drsabiha.blogspot.com

Teenagers Who Believe They Are Particularly Intelligent Tend To Be More Narcissistic And Happier With Life

By Emily Reynolds

Though it may vary based on context or mood, most of us have a fairly steady belief in how intelligent we think we are. Whether that belief is in any way accurate or even helpful is a different question — one 2019 study found that people who were happier to admit they don’t know something actually had better general knowledge, whilst a survey from the year before found that the majority of Americans believed they were smarter than average. We’re also susceptible to the same foibles when it comes to those close to us, tending to rate our romantic partners as more intelligent than they actually are. 

But how early do our ideas about our own intelligence start, and how do they relate to other facets of our personality? In new research published in Personality and Individual Differences, Marcin Zajenkowski looks at just that.

The way we perceive our intelligence seems to have an important effect on both academic achievement and how we feel about ourselves. Though studies have largely focused on adults, Zajenkowski argues that this is also likely to be the case amongst teenagers, too, where some evidence has already suggested that self-perceived ability in Maths and English is correlated with actual achievement.

First, Zajenkowski asked 428 teenagers aged between 15 and 17 to rate their own intelligence compared to other people on a scale from 1 (very low) to 25 (very high). Next, they completed a test of objective intelligence which measured abstract and non-verbal reasoning.

Participants also completed a measure of the Big Five personality traits, and the Narcissistic Personality Inventory was used to assess grandiose narcissism: participants rated themselves on 34 statements such as “I have a natural talent for influencing people” and “I will be a success”. Finally, participants rated their life satisfaction, rating how much they agreed or disagreed with sentiments including “in most ways my life is close to my ideal”.

Zajenkowski found that teenagers with higher levels of narcissism and those who scored higher on the “intellect” personality trait tended to make higher assessments of their own intelligence. These participants also showed greater levels of life satisfaction.

Gender also played a part, with male students scoring significantly higher than female students on self-assessed intelligence, as well as narcissism, extraversion and life satisfaction. But, importantly, there was no gender difference in objective intelligence.

This mirrors what had already been found in adult populations (one researcher dubbed it the “male hubris, female humility” effect). It’s not clear when in development self-assessed intelligence starts to become associated with gender, though studies looking at only slightly younger children have found no gendered difference.

But unlike in studies on adults, there was no correlation between self-assessed intelligence and objective intelligence. Zajenkowski argues that this may be down to the way objective intelligence was measured: the test used in this study looked at abstract thinking, and  previous research has suggested that people may not see this kind of thinking as an aspect of intelligence until they’re of university age. Teenagers, therefore, may not value it or even see it as a facet of intelligence.

It could therefore be useful to include a wider range of IQ tests in future work. Firstly, this could provide a more comprehensive picture of intellect with which to compare self-assessed intelligence; secondly, it may be a better fit when it comes to how teenagers perceive what intelligence actually means.

Effort must also be made by educators and families to ensure that girls are just as confident and sure in their abilities and intelligence as boys. Not only might this increase well-being, it could disrupt negative gender stereotypes as it does so.

– How do teenagers perceive their intelligence? Narcissism, intellect, well-being and gender as correlates of self-assessed intelligence among adolescents

Emily Reynolds is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

 

View more here.
Credit- BPS Research Digest. Published by- Dr. Sabiha : www.drsabiha.blogspot.com

A degree in psychology is paving the way for this ambitious young student

Iviwe Mati, 22, is a Digital Customer Care Consultant at Multichoice in Johannesburg. Her role is very client focused and relies heavily on her ability to engage effectively with others and resolve problems. “I love assisting customers because I’m able to practice many of the skills my degree in psychology has taught me,” she says.

Empathy, effective communication and conflict resolution are just a handful of the competencies Iviwe feels she’s mastered thanks to her Bachelor in Applied Social Science (BAppSocSci) from SACAP. “It’s provided me with the necessary skills and training to not only deal with customers, but to also thrive in a team.”

Growing for gold

While Iviwe says she thoroughly enjoys her current position as Customer Care Consultant, she views it as a stepping-stone on her journey towards fulfilling her dream job, which is to become a Clinical Psychologist. The lessons garnered from her current work experience will be relevant to her ultimate career goals, she believes.

After completing her undergraduate degree at SACAP Iviwe went on to do her Honours at Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth. “I planned to study for my Masters in Clinical Psychology thereafter, but the feedback I received from most of my interviews was that I lacked real-life experience,” she says. Iviwe decided to explore other avenues. “I’ve learnt that having a qualification in psychology enables you to go into various different environments and prosper.”

“My BAppSocSci qualification has equipped me with a deeper understanding of myself,” she explains. It’s also engendered a greater empathy towards others. “The critical thinking skills that I gained through SACAP stimulated my yearning for compassion, knowledge and growth.”

From strength to strength

“Self-doubt in my ability to succeed, especially when embarking on something new, had become a recurring fear for me,” Iviwe concedes. “Studying psychology has helped me identify these misgivings and given me the tools to overcome them.”

The degree has enriched Iviwe’s life in other ways, too. “From the thought-provoking theory to my fantastic Work Integrated Learning experience, I have gained confidence, a deeper self-awareness and better communication skills – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg!” she exclaims. Self-reflection and the ability to assess the way she behaves in different environments are also outcomes that she values highly. “I have become more observant and have opened up so much more to those around me,” she says.  

Iviwe is in the process of becoming a full-time volunteer at Ububele, a centre that promotes mental wellbeing and development in children under the age of seven. “My degree definitely influenced my decision to become a volunteer,” she says. “I think it helps facilitate the necessary open-mindedness and flexibility required for volunteer work.”

Future forward

As Iviwe cultivates her real-life experiences and develops her skills, her goal of becoming a Clinical Psychologist shimmies closer. “I’d love to branch out into neuropsychology and have my own practice, but still remain rooted in the community, collaborating with other health professionals on a regular basis and learning. Constantly learning.”

What are your ultimate career goals? If you’re curious about studying psychology but unsure what job opportunities it’ll unfold for you, get in touch. SACAP’s BAppSocSci is one of the most highly regarded social science qualifications in the country. It provides an excellent foundation that allows you to progress into many different qualifications or career pathways and develops robust theoretical and methodological thinking.

Applications for SACAP’s Bachelor of Applied Social Science are now open and will close on the 31st of May 2020. The good news? In the face of a possible Covid-19 lockdown extension SACAP has put online measures in place so you can start your studies in the virtual classroom and continue them on campus later.

SACAP will provide a portable router, plus 10G of data to assist with your online learning data costs. What’s not to love? C’mon! There’s never been a better opportunity to get growing on your career dreams. Apply here today.

The post A degree in psychology is paving the way for this ambitious young student appeared first on SACAP.

View more here.
Credit- SACAP. Published by- Dr. Sabiha : www.drsabiha.blogspot.com

Talking Across Divides And Quashing Conspiracy Theories: The Week’s Best Psychology Links

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

Consumer-based brain computer interfaces (BCIs) have received a lot of hype in recent years — but many scientists are worried that the claims about what these devices can achieve don’t match the reality, reports Benjamin Powers at Undark. Often these devices also fall into a regulatory grey area, potentially leaving consumers, or their data, at risk.

---

On the medical side, however, BCIs are showing promise in helping paralysed people to move again. This week researchers report giving a patient an implant that not only restored movement to his hand, but also allowed him to detect objects by touch. Donna Lu has the story at New Scientist.

---

How can we become better at talking across divides — political or otherwise? Francesca Gino, Julia Minson and Mike Yeomans explain their research on “conversational receptiveness” at Scientific American.

---

We’ve probably all had the experience in recent weeks of cringing when a character on TV shakes hands with someone or touches their face. Thanks to the pandemic, we have a conditioned aversion to these kinds of behaviours, writes Marina Koren at The Atlantic — but once this is all over, how long will it take for us to “unlearn” these associations?

---

March saw a huge number of people watching and reading news, particularly news about coronavirus — but now those figures are dropping back down. Although research is still ongoing, there could be psychological reasons for this drop, writes Will Bedingfield at Wired: it could reflect reduced anxiety in the general population, or, more worryingly, a kind of “desensitisation” to coronavirus-related news.

---

Conspiracy theories about coronavirus abound — so what can we do to stop them spreading? At The Conversation, Stephan Lewandowsky and John Cook suggest some strategies for “inoculating” the public against misinformation, such as explaining the faulty logic behind conspiracy theories and highlighting the dubious sources from which they originate.

---

Finally, there’s lots more in the media this week on how the pandemic is affecting our sleep and dreams.  At Quartz, Amanat Khullar looks at how the trauma of the crisis may be causing sleep disturbances, and gets some advice on how to get a better night’s sleep.

Compiled by Matthew Warren (@MattbWarren), Editor of BPS Research Digest

View more here.
Credit- BPS Research Digest. Published by- Dr. Sabiha : www.drsabiha.blogspot.com

Pop Concert, Opera — Or Both? What Drives People To Become “Cultural Omnivores”

By guest blogger Tomasz Witkowski

While waiting for the philharmonic orchestra to begin in the concert hall, you observe the people around you and wonder, “What made them come to this place?” The love of music? Snobbery? Conformism — because other friends do this? Or, maybe there are other, deeper motives? Similar questions arise when we think about what drives people to participate in pop culture and consume its products. Do they simply enjoy it? Scientists’ answers to this question can be surprising. For example, one study suggests that we consume pop culture because we suffer psychological ill effects from feeling out of the loop.

But what drives people to become cultural omnivores, those who consume both “highbrow” and “lowbrow” culture? Hanna Shin and Nara Youn from Hongik University in Seoul recently investigated this question in a paper in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.

Cultural omnivorousness is a relatively new phenomenon. Until the first half of the 20th century, participation in highbrow or lowbrow culture was clearly associated with social and economic status. Opera, symphony orchestra, and painting exhibitions are places traditionally included in highbrow culture. Street performances and graffiti are considered to be products of lowbrow culture. The former are usually credited with greater intellectual sophistication and artistic values, while the latter are often considered to be more authentic and of higher intrinsic motivation.

Shin and Youn wondered whether personality factors such as narcissism, self-esteem, and feelings of authenticity could explain how likely someone is to be a cultural omnivore. To find out, they conducted two studies. In the first, they tested 178 undergraduate students, asking them to complete the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and a measure of self-esteem, as well as a scale that measured their distinction-seeking drive: that is, the desire to stand out. Participants were also asked to indicate their intentions to participate in highbrow and lowbrow cultural activities (e.g. “visiting art galleries” and “going to pop concerts”, respectively).

The results showed that participants who scored high in narcissism and also had low self-esteem tended to be cultural omnivores. These “insecure narcissists” seemed to be driven to consume both high- and lowbrow culture because of their desire to distinguish themselves from others.

In the second study, Shin and Youn explored more specific motivations for insecure narcissists’ cultural omnivorousness. The researchers created two biographies of a fictional artist: in the highbrow condition, the biography stated that the artist’s paintings had been displayed in major museums around the world, while in the lowbrow condition it stated the paintings were kept by family and later discovered by a collector. One hundred and forty-four undergraduate students were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions and completed scales of personality. After they had reviewed the applicable biography and viewed two examples of the artist’s paintings, they rated the paintings as highbrow or lowbrow, and indicated how likely they would be to visit or recommend an exhibition of the artist’s work. Finally, they completed scales of status-seeking motivations.

The results suggested that insecure narcissists had different reasons for consuming highbrow and lowbrow art. When they believed the paintings were highbrow, their intention to visit or recommend the exhibition seemed to be driven by a desire to consume status-seeking products . But when they believed the paintings were lowbrow, their intention to consume the art was fuelled instead by a desire to signal self-integrity.

The research adds much to the understanding of the motives for one’s participation in culture, going beyond the narrow focus on economic status. The results suggest at least one psychological mechanism underlying cultural omnivorousness: a combination of narcissism and psychological insecurity, which is related to a drive to signal both status and self-integrity.

But it also leaves many questions to be answered. How valid is the division between highbrow and lowbrow contemporary culture: is the appearance of cultural omnivores not the result of blurring the boundaries between these two types of cultures? Does a laboratory experiment reflect the complexity of motives that push us to participate in culture? Finally, are the examined motives and personality traits the most important? There is certainly still much to be done in this research area, and studies that include more psychological variables and factors could definitely enrich our understanding of this phenomenon.

– How insecure narcissists become cultural omnivores: Consuming highbrow culture for status seeking and lowbrow culture for integrity signaling

Post written by Dr Tomasz Witkowski for the BPS Research Digest. Tomasz is a psychologist and science writer who specialises in debunking pseudoscience in the field of psychology, psychotherapy and diagnosis. He has published over a dozen books, dozens of scientific papers and over 200 popular articles (some of them in Skeptical Inquirer). His new book Shaping Psychology which is a unique collection of in-depth conversations with the most influential psychologists working today will be published this year by Palgrave Macmillan. He blogs at Forbidden Psychology.

At Research Digest we’re proud to showcase the expertise and writing talent of our community. Click here for more about our guest posts.

 

View more here.
Credit- BPS Research Digest. Published by- Dr. Sabiha : www.drsabiha.blogspot.com

Ubuntu 4.0: Pandemic-sized acts of kindness during COVID-19

Social distancing does not need to mean a social disconnection from showing kindness. We can appreciate what the 4IR looks like during the lockdown.  Could this, however, be an opportunity to find out what Ubuntu 4.0 and kindness could also look like for the sake of collective wellbeing?

The post Ubuntu 4.0: Pandemic-sized acts of kindness during COVID-19 appeared first on SACAP.

View more here.
Credit- SACAP. Published by- Dr. Sabiha : www.drsabiha.blogspot.com

East Coast Drive helps Matrics and their parents during this challenging time

WATCH: East Coast Drive talks to Lauren Martin, Counselling Psychologist and Head of Teaching and Learning at SACAP, who gives advice for Matrics who find themselves in limbo between two very different worlds. For the young people in their final year of school, this is an especially difficult time.

The post East Coast Drive helps Matrics and their parents during this challenging time appeared first on SACAP.

View more here.
Credit- SACAP. Published by- Dr. Sabiha : www.drsabiha.blogspot.com

Here’s How Long-Distance Runners Are Different From The Rest Of Us

By Emily Reynolds

For many, running a marathon is seen as the ultimate amateur athletic achievement; for others, it’s just the start. Ultramarathon runners often take on courses of incredibly impressive length, running 50 or 100 kilometres at one time or over several days.

Clearly this is physically demanding, and only those in seriously good shape will be able to take on such challenges — ultramarathon running involves stress on muscles and bones, blisters, dehydration, sleep deprivation and mental and physical fatigue, so it’s really not for the faint of heart.

But what about the psychological traits that make someone suitable for long-distance running? What kind of person can withstand this kind of physical stress, and how? A new study in the Australian Journal of Psychology takes a look.

Gregory Roebuck from Monash University and colleagues recruited 20 ultrarunners and 20 control participants aged between 18 and 70; runners were matched with non-runners by gender and age. Participants were asked about their exercise behaviours and running experiences before completing a number of questionnaires. These included a 25-item scale designed to measure resilience (with participants rating how much they agreed with statements such as “I am able to adapt when changes occur”), and two questionnaires that looked at emotion regulation — the ways a person moderates or expresses their emotion. Finally, a 155-item questionnaire looked at a range of personality traits across domains like well-being, achievement, stress reaction, and, aggression.

Next, participants took part in an emotion regulation task, viewing 36 neutral images (e.g. a sofa or chair) and 36 negative images (e.g. a bloody medical scene). Before viewing each image, participants were asked to either respond naturally to it (a “look” trial) or attempt to not have a negative reaction to it (a “decrease” trial), before rating the strength of their emotional response. Heart rate and skin conductance were measured during this section of the experiment.

Ultrarunners scored significantly higher on the resilience questionnaire than non-runners, and were more likely to indicate they used positive reappraisal when regulating their emotions — in other words, they were better able to reframe a situation with a positive angle. This may be down to the need to maintain high levels of motivation during races, attaching positive meaning to negative events in order to keep running.

There was also a physiological difference between ultrarunners and non-runners in the emotion regulation task, with ultrarunners showing reduced skin conductance and heart rate even when viewing unpleasant images. However, they didn’t show any differences in their ability to decrease their response to negative images.

There was one measure on which ultrarunners scored lower, however — affiliative extraversion, which measures how socially warm people are, which the team puts down to the high levels of solitude involved in long-distance running.  There was no significant difference in any of the other measures.

The results suggest that ultrarunners are pretty similar to the rest of us — with some important differences. While it’s clear that ultrarunners are indeed more resilient than non-runners, and use different emotion regulation strategies, the direction of those relationships is not yet clear. It could be that training for ultramarathons makes people more resilient, or, on the other hand, it could be that people with higher levels of resilience are more likely to be attracted to the pastime.

It would be interesting to further explore how ultrarunners motivate themselves through many hours of pain and effort. Because even though most of us will never run 100 kilometres in one go (and may have no desire to, either), understanding how to tolerate pain, and cope with physical and mental fatigue, is a lesson we all could benefit from.

– Psychological characteristics associated with ultra‐marathon running: An exploratory self‐report and psychophysiological study

Emily Reynolds is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

View more here.
Credit- BPS Research Digest. Published by- Dr. Sabiha : www.drsabiha.blogspot.com

Homeschooling During Coronavirus: Teaching Your Kids To Learn

Are you a parent suddenly thrust into the role of teacher while homeschooling during the Coronavirus shutdown? It’s not easy, this sudden change of roles …

Homeschooling During Coronavirus: Teaching Your Kids To Learn Read More »

The post Homeschooling During Coronavirus: Teaching Your Kids To Learn appeared first on .

View more here.
Credit- Parenting Today. Published by- Dr. Sabiha : www.drsabiha.blogspot.com

We Often Choose To Avoid Learning Information That Could Benefit Us

By Emily Reynolds

Picture the scene: you’re attending a regular medical checkup, fielding questions about your health and lifestyle, when your doctor tells you they can accurately estimate your life expectancy from your answers. Would you want to hear the truth, no matter how brutal it might be? Or would you prefer to live in ignorance?

If you belong to the latter category, you’re not alone. A new study in Management Science has found that many of us would rather avoid stressful or uncomfortable truths — even if they might benefit us.

To find out who is most likely to avoid information and why, Emily Ho from Fordham University and colleagues first presented 380 participants with a series of scenarios designed to test their desire for knowledge about a situation that could have a favourable or unfavourable outcome for them. The scenarios replicated situations that participants were likely to have encountered in the past and fell into three broad categories: personal health, finances, and other people’s perceptions.

Participants were asked whether they would want to look at how well a missed investment opportunity was performing, for example, whether or not they’d want to know their risk for a particular medical condition, or if they’d want to know the truth about how well a speech had gone. (If you’re interested in finding out your own tendency to avoid information, you can see all the scenarios and take the test here). Participants’ personality traits were also measured.

Information avoidance was incredibly common: on average, participants indicated that they would definitely or probably not want to receive information 32% of the time. Overall, these figures were fairly stable across domains: an average of 24% would prefer not to know if a friend hated a book given as a gift, for instance, whilst 29% would avoid finding out the impact stress had had on their long-term health. Even among those who were more likely to want to hear potentially troubling information, there was often at least one domain in which they opted to remain uninformed.

Participants’ likelihood of avoiding information wasn’t associated with their gender, income, age or education. However, it was related to particular personality traits: those higher in extraversion, conscientiousness and openness to new experiences tended to seek information more, while those with high neuroticism scores showed a higher likelihood of wanting to stay in the dark.

A second study, which saw participants rate the scenarios again, four weeks apart, suggested their responses remain stable over time.

A final study looked at participants’ real-world behaviour. In this case, two weeks after completing the initial survey on information avoidance, participants were given the option to be sent to a website containing potentially valuable information that they might be motivated to avoid: for instance, an occupational website that compared average salaries between men and women, or a health site informing people about their individual risk of burnout.

Results suggested that participants’ tendency to avoid information as measured by the survey did have an impact on real-world decisions: avoidant and seeking scores correlated with the decision to avoid or read information respectively.

The findings may have important uses: understanding in which situations people tend to ignore or avoid information could be vital for organisations or governments sending out public service information, for example.

We already knew, to some extent, that there are cases where people avoid information — interventions that seek to improve financial literacy tend to have smaller impacts than hoped, for example, partly because some people feel so anxious about money they’ll go out of their way to avoid thinking about it. Building this knowledge into the design of social interventions may be a useful way to approach such individual differences in information seeking.

– Measuring Information Preferences

Emily Reynolds is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

View more here.
Credit- BPS Research Digest. Published by- Dr. Sabiha : www.drsabiha.blogspot.com