Dream Diaries And Awkward Acronyms: The Week’s Best Psychology Links

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

Psychologists interested in dreams spend a lot of time analysing dream diaries — but what if they could have a computer do all that laborious work for them? That’s the promise of a new algorithm that uses text analysis to look for patterns in people’s dream reports, writes Charlotte Hartley at Science. The tool could help researchers understand how dreams differ in different populations, or how the content of dreams relates to wellbeing.

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Extreme worry and anxiety is rarely a good thing, but some level of worry can be adaptive. At BBC Future, Christine Ro takes a look at the benefits of worrying — and how to worry better.

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Many people who live with eating disorders have experienced an exacerbation of their symptoms during the coronavirus pandemic, reports Michelle Konstantinovsky at Scientific American. There could be many reasons for this, including reduced social support and face-to-face therapy, a lack of structure, and increased feelings of anxiety.

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Another study has found that there has been a reduction in anxiety among year nine students in southwest England during lockdown. While stuck at home, kids may have been protected from aspects of school which negatively affect their wellbeing, such as pressures associated with schoolwork and the need to navigate social relationships, writes researcher Emily Widnall at The Conversation. Indeed, the team found that those who felt most disconnected from school had the greatest improvement in wellbeing during lockdown.

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We’re facing a very serious situation right now — but could silliness help us through it? At The Guardian, Elle Hunt explores the psychological benefits of whimsy and playfulness.

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Finally, acronyms are becoming increasingly common in scientific papers, creating barriers for science communication, reports Hannah Seo at Popular Science. Researchers analysed 25 million papers published in the past 70 years, finding that abstracts and titles contained more than 1 million unique acronyms, most of which were only used a handful of times. More recent papers also contained a greater proportion of acronyms. There is clearly a place for acronyms, Seo writes, but overuse can make science less accessible to the public and even to scientists from different fields.

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

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

Babies’ Moods Can Determine How Well They Remember Things They’ve Learned

By Matthew Warren

One of the classic findings in memory research is that we’re better at remembering information when we’re in a similar context to that in which we learned it. This was perhaps most famously demonstrated in a 1975 study, which found that people who learned a list of words while scuba diving had better memory for the words when again underwater, compared to when on land (similarly, those who had learned the list on land were better at remembering it on land).

But it’s not just the external environment that matters: our internal states can also provide memory cues. For instance, people who were intoxicated when learning information were better at recalling that information when drunk than when sober, and there’s also evidence that our recall is better when our mood matches how we felt at learning.

Now a new study published in Child Development has found that the same is true even of babies in their first year of life. The findings have implications for understanding infant memory — and could even help to explain why we can’t remember anything from our early years.

To look at state-dependent memory in babies, Sabine Seehagen and colleagues from Ruhr University Bochum in Germany recruited 96 nine-month-old infants and their caregivers. In the learning phase of the experiment, the babies watched a researcher perform a series of actions with an animal puppet: removing the puppet’s mitten, shaking it three times, then replacing it.

After a short break, there was a test phase where the infant had the opportunity to play with the puppet themselves. They had 90 seconds to do any of the three actions — i.e. remove the mitten, shake it, and replace it — though they weren’t prompted to do so in any way.

Crucially, immediately before the learning and testing phases, the babies had a 5 minute play session designed to put them in a specific state of mind. Sometimes caregivers were instructed to play as calmly as possible with their infant and they were given quiet toys like a book and soft toy. Other times they were instructed to play as animatedly as possible, and given more active toys like a ball and swing.

For one group of infants, the play sessions were the same before both learning and testing phases (i.e. calm both times, or animated both times). In another group, the play sessions were different (i.e. calm at learning and animated at testing, or vice-versa). And a third group only did the testing phase, without the learning part (this allowed the researchers to look at how often the babies performed the actions just by chance).  

The team found that infants who had the same kind of play before both learning and testing made an average of 1.47 actions during testing. This was significantly more than those whose play sessions were different, who only made an average of 0.59 actions. In fact, the babies in the latter condition didn’t seem to remember the actions at all: they performed no better than the babies who hadn’t even done the learning part of the study.

The findings suggest that internal states do provide important cues for babies when they’re retrieving memories. And that seems to make sense: while older children and adults have a wealth of knowledge and experiences which allow them to use a variety of cues to trigger memories, young infants haven’t yet formed those connections. Relying on internal states to aid recall is therefore “highly adaptive”, the authors say.

This reliance on internal cues might also contribute to “infantile amnesia”, the fact that we’re unable to recall anything from our earliest years. As we grow our internal state changes considerably, and is never again going to match that of our first years of life — so, like the babies in the “different state” condition, we’re not able to access our memories.  

It’s worth pointing out that the research didn’t directly measure babies’ internal states, as the team acknowledges. During the animated play sessions, the babies did show significantly more movement and active behaviour than during the calm sessions. But further work will be required to see whether memory recall is truly dependent on infants’ emotions — it could be that the matching types of activity were somehow providing cues to the babies even without influencing their mood.

– State‐Dependent Memory in Infants

Matthew Warren (@MattBWarren) is Editor of BPS Research Digest

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

SACAP graduate says online learning paved the path to her counselling career success

With so much bad news clouding our headlines these days it’s easy to become pessimistic. Sandwiched between the cataclysmic reality of Covid-19 and the economic uncertainties of our future, life feels really hard, right?

Hey! Don’t get too despondent.

Hate it as we may, the pandemic has brought about fundamental changes to our way of life and catalysed a paradigm shift in education. Social distancing protocols have prompted the need to study remotely resulting in a meteoric rise in online learning.

The upshot? Students are being exposed to many online learning benefits such as its flexibility, convenience and affordability. Interestingly, in these queer Covid times pursuing courses online is bringing likeminded people together and proving to be a novel platform for social engagement, too.

Glittering good news

Beleaguered by an uncertain future, instead of putting your plans on hold you can study online for the career of your dreams through SACAP’s highly acclaimed Online Campus. While many tertiary institutions are new to the online learning environment, SACAP has been offering online courses since 2014, which means their well-rounded, intensive virtual programmes have been tried and tested (and sought after) for almost a decade – nice!

Bronwyn Sherry (31) counts herself lucky to have discovered SACAP’s Online Campus. She completed her Bachelor of Social Science Honours in Psychology in May 2019 and graduated earlier this year. “For as long as I can remember, I have loved being there for people,” she recalls. “My parents called me ‘Agony Aunt’ at school because everyone came to me with their problems. It’s where my interest in psychology began. Once I got to university I realised how much I love learning about human interaction and how our brains work.”

True to her passion Bronwyn has worked in a counselling capacity for a number of years in different contexts. “I’ve been a volunteer school counsellor with the Johannesburg Parent and Child Counselling Centre, worked for Scripture Union (a youth ministry NGO), run and supported small groups at my church and continue to attend counselling training where I can,” she says.

Online counselling course opportunity

Inspired by a friend who was studying SACAP’s BPsych Equivalent Programme, Bronwyn decided to enrol for the Bachelor of Social Science Honours in Psychology course. “I wanted to do my honours, but knew it had to be part time because I couldn’t afford to give up my job,” she says. “When I started researching my options, SACAP was a standout.”

Bronwyn admits she was nervous about studying online initially. “I had just moved to Hermanus, which has no universities close by,” she explains. “I suppose my circumstances motivated my decision to pursue the degree online as opposed to face to face, but now that I’ve done it this way, it would be my go-to option.”

A fortuitous fit

SACAP’s online learning environment suited Bronwyn in many ways, she says. “I loved being able to work at my own pace. I tend to procrastinate so I was concerned this would come back and bite me, but each module had measurable outcomes for each week, which helped keep us students accountable and on track.”

“The course content is fantastic, too,” Bronwyn continues. “So is the teaching environment SACAP creates. I felt our educators were real experts in their fields and they made the learning process engaging, challenging and practical. They made us feel supported and like we were on campus in many ways. I’m big fan of them all!”

Bronwyn cites other benefits to completing her psychology honours online through SACAP: “I was able to further my studies in a year that suited me when my geographical location hindered the process. I learnt proper time-management skills and discovered that I am capable of working on my own. Studying online also allowed me to keep my day job, which was very important.”

Course credentials for counselling

Currently Bronwyn is a counsellor licensed with the Association for Supportive Counsellors and Holistic Practitioners (ASCHP), which is a professional board for non-statutory workers, she says. “It’s a pathway I only recently discovered and one I’m passionate about!”

Coupled with her counselling experience, Bronwyn’s Bachelor of Social Science Honours in Psychology has given her the accreditation and practical knowledge she requires to register with the ASCHP. “I have a very specific scope I can practice in,” she explains. “I don’t diagnose or assess and I refer to my psychology networks when issues fall outside my scope.”

“At this stage I’m not sure whether I’ll pursue a masters or continue in the counselling space,” she says. “I love being able to walk a journey with people, giving them support for daily struggles, so I’m currently very happy to stay where I am.”

Academic appreciation

Studying psychology online through SACAP is something Bronwyn recommends. “You need to be dedicated and willing to put in the hard work. It’s not easy, and there are constant deadlines and expectations – possibly more so than other remote courses – but the rewards are tangible.”

That’s not all. “I’m really grateful that all our modules encouraged us to dig deeper, look further and question our assumptions,” she asserts. “It’s helped me to be more critical in my day-to-day interactions and has challenged how I experience my world and the world of psychology.”

Bronwyn feels her SACAP course continues to inform what she does on a daily basis. “Not only has my degree opened doors for me, it’s taught me invaluable skills – academically and professionally. Without my Bachelor of Social Science Honours in Psychology I would still be struggling to make my career dreams of owning my own counselling practice a reality,” she says.

Your time to shine as a counsellor

Bronwyn’s decision to study psychology online was driven by her circumstances at the time. Our circumstances as a nation – indeed as a world – have changed dramatically in the last six months, too. Either we allow these dark times to usurp our potential or we fight for our rights to fulfil our life’s purpose.

SACAP’s Online Campus boasts a variety of comprehensive and dynamic programmes offering advanced levels of academic challenge that build intellectual independence, critical thinking skills and analytical insights in psychology. Sure, there’s a lot of doom and gloom enveloping the world right now, but bourgeoning online learning is a silver lining that has the potential to ultimately change our world for the better. SACAP’s Term 3 intake, which is dedicated to online courses only, starts in September and registrations are open now. C’mon, fight for your right to flourish! Enquire here to find out more.

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More Entitled People Get Angrier After Experiencing Bad Luck

By Matthew Warren

We’ve all had the experience of losing our temper when being treated unfairly by someone else. And while anger isn’t the most pleasant emotion, it can be a useful social tool to signal to another person that we’re not happy with how they’re acting towards us.

But what about when we suffer because of bad luck, rather someone else’s actions? In that case it would seem to make little sense to get mad. And yet, a new study in Personality and Individual Differences finds that a certain group of people are more likely to show anger in such situations: those who feel like they are particularly entitled in the first place.

Psychological entitlement is essentially a belief that you deserve more than others. People who score highly in entitlement tend to think that others should be accommodating of their own needs and schedules, for instance, and are more likely to see themselves as being mistreated. When their high expectations aren’t met, they can experience reduced wellbeing and feelings of anger.

In a series of studies, Emily Zitek from Cornell University and Alexander Jordan from Harvard Medical School looked at whether these emotional effects of entitlement extend to situations solely involving bad luck. First, the pair asked 162 participants to fill in the Psychological Entitlement Scale, which asks respondents to rate their agreement with statements like “I honestly feel I’m just more deserving than others”.  Participants were also asked how good they would expect their luck to normally be when rolling dice.

Participants were then told that they would be randomly allocated by dice roll to either a fun task (rating comic strips) or a boring task (counting the letters in a paragraph). In reality, all participants were told they had had “bad luck” and been assigned to the boring task. They then rated how unjust they felt this was, and indicated how angry they were.

The team found that those higher in entitlement had a stronger feeling of injustice and greater levels of anger. More entitled participants also generally expected to experience better luck when rolling dice, suggesting this is another instance where entitled people have (unrealistically) high expectations.

In a second study, participants were asked to recall either a time when something bad had happened to them solely because of bad luck, or when someone had treated them unfairly. They then indicated how fair and just they felt the event was, and rated their feelings of anger. 

People high in entitlement again showed greater anger than those low in entitlement when recalling an instance of bad luck. But when remembering an instance of unfair treatment, those high and low in entitlement showed similar levels of anger. That is, entitlement again seemed to be an important factor in determining anger after bad luck, but not when there was a specific individual to blame.

Finally, the researchers looked at how entitlement related to feelings of anger and pity when someone else experiences bad luck. Participants read a scenario in which their flight had been cancelled and the airline was randomly selecting a customer to hop onto another plane with a spare seat. In one scenario they were told that they had been unlucky and someone else had been picked; in another they were the lucky one.

When the participants read that they had had bad luck, higher entitlement was once again related to greater feelings of anger. Unsurprisingly, participants didn’t feel much anger when they were assigned the seat and the other person was unlucky. But they did experience pity towards that person — and interestingly, those with a greater sense of entitlement reported less pity.

Overall, then, the studies suggest that entitled people expect to have good luck, and get angry after experiencing bad luck — even though by definition there is no-one to direct that anger towards. (The authors do acknowledge it’s possible that people implicitly blame God or some higher power for their bad luck).

So what are the consequences of experiencing anger in those situations? The researchers suggest that feelings of anger and injustice could reinforce people’s sense of entitlement, though they add that there could be benefits too — if anger motivates someone to try and improve their performance in the future, for instance (though that may be difficult in cases where a bad result is purely down to luck).

Similarly, it remains to be seen how the results translate to the real world. In most cases an instance of “bad luck” doesn’t occur in isolation, but often in a social setting — so it would seem prudent to examine whether this kind of anger is taken out on others.

– Individuals higher in psychological entitlement respond to bad luck with
anger

Matthew Warren (@MattBWarren) is Editor of BPS Research Digest

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

How Making Sacrifices For A Partner — Or Saying You Will — Affects Wellbeing

By Emma Young

You were hoping to go out with friends on Saturday night, but your partner really wants to have a quiet night at home instead…

Your life’s going great, but then your partner is offered their dream job in a town you’d happily never visit, let alone live in…

So what do you do? Do you stand your ground? Or you do you sacrifice your own goals for the sake of your partner’s?

It’s a dilemma familiar to anyone who’s ever been in a relationship. It would seem reasonable, then, to assume that research could tell us what the likely impacts would be on individual wellbeing, and on the health of the relationship itself. However, as the authors of a new paper published in Psychological Bulletin point out, there are two conflicting hypotheses for how sacrifices should pan out.

The “benefit hypothesis” holds that making sacrifices can relieve tension in a relationship and help to build a climate of trust and cooperation. According to the “burden hypothesis”, however, when one partner sacrifices a personal goal, and compromises on their autonomy, their own wellbeing takes a hit.

Francesca Righetti at the Free University of Amsterdam led work that set out to look at what actually happens. And the results are fascinating: if you feel that you would in theory be willing to make a sacrifice for your partner, there are benefits for you both. However, when one person actually makes a sacrifice (not just says that they would), it’s a different story.

Righetti and her colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of 82 sets of data on sacrifice and wellbeing in relationships, comprising more than 32,000 people. Only some of the data, collected in nine different countries, had previously been published, and just over half of the data sets came from studies that included same-sex couples, with the rest exclusively focused on mixed-sex couples. The team looked at four different facets of sacrifice: willingness to sacrifice (saying that in theory, you would), behavioural sacrifice (actually sacrificing), satisfaction with a sacrifice and costs of a sacrifice.

They found that when someone reported being willing to make a particular hypothetical sacrifice for their romantic partner, this was linked not only to higher personal wellbeing (more positive emotional states and greater life satisfaction) but also higher “relationship wellbeing” scores both from that individual and also their partner.

The results in relation to actual sacrifices were striking, though. Though the relationship wellbeing scores weren’t affected, the individual’s personal wellbeing ratings were lower when they made more frequent sacrifices.

It’s worth noting that reporting a general willingness to sacrifice and actually regularly making sacrifices for your partner are two very different things — a reported willingness “may only weakly correspond to actually performing these sacrifices in everyday life,” the researchers write.

The data did also reveal, however, that when people said they gained  satisfaction from giving up their own goals and preferences in favour of their partner’s, they tended (unsurprisingly) to report more positive personal and also relationship wellbeing than if they had not felt satisfied with their sacrifice. Similarly, when the personal costs of a sacrifice were reported to be higher, the individual’s personal and relationship wellbeing scores also tended to be lower. (This difference may relate simply to the size of the sacrifice — going with your partner’s plans for Saturday night vs agreeing to move to another town or country, for example.)

“Thus,” the team writes, “although results aligned with the benefit hypothesis when considering willingness to sacrifice and satisfaction with sacrifice, data were consistent with the burden hypothesis when considering behavioural sacrifices and costs of sacrifice.”

The researchers also found some gender-related effects. The associations between all four facets of sacrifice and personal and relationship wellbeing were more negative for women than for men. Why? The team suggests that women typically make more sacrifices than men do and so, when they do sacrifice, they may receive less appreciation and gratitude from their partner, and also society in general, than men. Consequently, women may have less positive attitudes towards sacrifice than men, the team suggests.

Why, though, should a reported willingness to sacrifice be linked to various benefits, when actual sacrifices were not?

Feeling willing, in theory, to sacrifice may of course be linked to having a stronger relationship in the first place. Also, people who feel like this may be generally more prosocial in other ways, which could enhance their partner’s own wellbeing and perceptions of the relationship itself. 

So what if you’ve just agreed to make a significant sacrifice for your partner, or you’re weighing one up? The researchers have some advice: “Being willing to sacrifice may be valuable for individuals and couples but when people actually perform this behaviour, they maximise their wellbeing when they focus on the gains rather than the losses.”

– The link between sacrifice and relational and personal well-being: A meta-analysis.

Emma Young (@EmmaELYoung) is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

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Under the weather or weathering under: What is situational depression?

Situational depression and clinical depression can mirror one another now more than ever due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s important to be able to reflect on your current situation and see whether you may just be experiencing quarantine fatigue or something more along the lines of situational or clinical depression.

Situational depression versus clinical depression: Understanding these concepts

Situational depression and clinical depression both form part of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) that practitioners use to diagnose conditions. In order to have the diagnosis, there are certain criteria that need to be met by the individual. Situational depression forms part of the adjustment disorder section of the DSM and can be understood as a stress related type of depression that is short term in nature. It is usually as a result of a life event that overwhelms a person’s regular coping mechanisms and they start experiencing symptoms up to 3 months after the life stressor occurred.

Some of the symptoms include losing interest in pleasurable activities, often feeling sad, worried, hopeless or overwhelmed, noted changes in eating and sleeping patterns as well as suicidal thoughts.

When it comes to making the distinction between situational depression and clinical depression, besides experiencing a large, stressful event, the main factor in making this diagnosis is linked to the time period that the person has been experiencing these symptoms. Since most of the symptoms between situational and clinical depression are shared, the diagnosis simply describes how pervasive the symptoms are.

Feeling depressed during the COVID-19 pandemic

Everyone feels depressed from time to time and as many as one in four South Africans will experience enough anxiety or depression at some point in their lifetime to receive a diagnosis from a mental health professional. Coping during the Coronavirus pandemic has taken its toll on a lot of people, it has resulted in the loss of freedom, the loss of income and for some, the loss of life. The lockdown has created a situation where the majority of the population are spending day in and day out in their homes. Due to this, people may find themselves feeling slightly more irritable than usual or start lacking motivation to the tasks they once enjoyed. Others may find themselves more lethargic or see changes in their eating or sleeping patterns. It is expected that people may be struggling to cope more than usual as a lot of coping mechanisms have been taken away by the lockdown restrictions, for example.

Because of increased stress, even people who don’t usually experience feelings of depression in their everyday life are likely to feel them with more intensity and frequency and people who already struggle with these feelings might begin to feel overwhelmed. These increased levels of sadness are a natural expression in a difficult time and identifying this is an important part of the process. We need to work towards genuinely exploring and expressing our authentic emotions, especially when circumstances are more challenging.

How to deal with situational depression

If you are feeling like you can relate to some of the aspects mentioned above, it is important to reflect on if these feelings were present before the pandemic/lockdown or started only after – this would be a starting point. By reflecting on these aspects it may help guide you in what steps to take next. Although it isn’t always easy, it is important that we reach out when we are struggling. Often we are reluctant because it doesn’t seem “bad enough” to seek help for example, you may be telling yourself, it’s just sleep or it’s just feeling down – sometimes by doing this, we actually minimize our authentic experience. We need to work on normalizing receiving help for mental health concerns. For those looking for some direction on reaching out for help, the below contact details can be a great starting point. Remember that we need to stay in touch with the reality of our current situation, whatever the circumstances, and sometimes that involves help from others.

The Counselling Hub:

• 067 235 0019
• info@counsellinghub.co.za

SADAG:

• 0800 456 789
• help@sadag.org

Lifeline:

• 0861 322 322
• safetalking@lifeline.org.za

FAMSA:

• 086 641 6882

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Here’s How Feelings Of Optimism Change As We Age

By Emily Reynolds

There’s a commonly held notion that young people are more hopeful about the future than any other group — you might have heard this referred to, either positively or negatively, as “youthful optimism”. Even Jane Austen picked up on it: “There is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions”, she wrote in Sense and Sensibility.

But is this actually the case? According to a new study from William J. Chopik and colleagues published in the Journal of Research in Personality, optimism actually continues growing well past youth — and it’s only later in life that it begins to decline.

The team was interested in how optimism changes with age — and how life events might affect that trajectory. They gathered data from three longitudinal studies of people aged between 16 and 101: one from the Netherlands (10,045 participants), one from Germany (42,691 participants) and one from the United States (22,150 participants).

In the Dutch and American studies optimism was tracked using a six-item measure, with participants rating how much they agreed with statements including “I expect more good things to happen” or “I rarely count on good things”. In Germany, participants rated how optimistic or pessimistic they were about the future on a scale from 1 to 4.

The team also looked at sixteen life events concerning children (e.g. childbirth, or a child leaving home), relationships (e.g. getting married or divorcing,), parents (loss of a parent), moving house, health, and employment (e.g. getting a job for the first time or retiring). The team then measured variance in the optimism measure from 2006 to 2016, mapping it against these life events.

Results suggested that “youthful optimism” isn’t quite as accurate a concept as we might assume: in fact, younger adults were lower in optimism than middle aged people. This hopefulness then plateaued until later life, when optimism started to decline again. This also held for pessimism, which was highest among older adults and sharply decreased as young adults reached middle age.

It might not fit our assumptions about optimism, but it does make sense that optimism increases into middle age. As we get older we have more and more experience of success, whether that’s in our careers or our personal lives. We’re more likely to know what we want out of life and may also feel in control of the future – hence feeling more optimistic.

This pattern was different in the German sample, however, where younger adults were more optimistic than their middle aged counterparts: the team suggests this may be down to social and cultural changes between generations specific to Germany.     

Predictably, optimism was sometimes related to positive events and pessimism to negative events — if you’ve experienced chronic illness, unemployment or bereavement it makes sense you’d have less hope for the future. However, results weren’t consistent between samples and were not all so straightforward: for instance, negative changes in health were associated with higher levels of optimism in some cases.

These inconsistent results could be because life events were simply categorised as either “occurred” or “did not occur”, which may not pick up on the nuances of how people actually experience things. A break-up, for example, might be a positive life event for somebody in a miserable relationship; similarly, leaving the parental home may be more or less emotionally significant depending on person and context. Future research could look at categorising life events more thoroughly.

Limitations aside, the results do suggest that human beings tend to be fairly optimistic for most of their lives. As Chopik says, this resilience is a cheering thought. “We often think that the really sad or tragic things that happen in life completely alter us as people,” he said. “But people diagnosed with an illness or who go through another crisis still felt positive about the future and what life had ahead for them on the other side.”

– Changes in optimism and pessimism in response to life events: Evidence from three large panel studies

Emily Reynolds is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

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We Find Some Word Sounds More Emotionally Arousing Than Others

By Emma Young

Of all “cross-modal” findings, the most famous is surely the bouba-kiki effect — that we tend to pair round, blobby shapes with the sound bouba and spiky shapes with kiki. However, research has not yet revealed why this effect is common among adults who speak very different languages — and even in infants as young as four.

Various theories have been put forward. One holds that levels of emotional arousal may be key — that both kiki and a spiky shape trigger relatively high levels of arousal, compared with bouba and a blob. Now a new study, reported in Psychological Science, provides compelling evidence for this idea. The researchers also take their findings further, arguing that they could have important implications for understanding the early evolution of languages.

For an initial study, Arash Aryani at Freie Universität Berlin and colleagues presented English-speaking students (at Cornell University, US) with shapes and words taken from previous studies that have investigated the bouba-kiki effect. (For example, maluma vs takete, from the original 1929 report of this word/shape effect). In each case, the participants had to use a five-point scale to rate how calming or exciting they considered these words or shapes to be. The results revealed significantly higher arousal ratings for kiki-type than bouba-type words and shapes.

Next, the team asked a fresh group of participants to use the same scale to rate 940 computer-generated pseudo-words (which were all spoken in a neutral tone by an actor) for how arousing they sounded. These pseudo-words all sounded like they could be English words, but they had no meaning (think tylo or sooking, for example). Separately, the team analysed them, looking for particular acoustic features that earlier work has suggested we use to infer different emotional states. (For example, variations in the fundamental frequency of even animal sounds lead us to infer different emotions, and quickly-pulsating sounds are associated with high arousal.)

The results showed a clear relationship — those pseudo-words that the researchers expected, based on their acoustic analysis, to trigger more arousal received higher arousal ratings from the participants. The same was true for low arousal.

The team then applied the acoustic model to the specific bouba-like and kiki-like words that they’d used in the first experiment. They found that the model predicted significantly higher arousal values for the kiki-like words than for the bouba-like words. This suggested, then, that the acoustic features of bouba and kiki (and similar pairs) explain the low vs high arousal ratings given by the participants in the first study.

Together, the results suggest that, no matter what the word (or pseudo-word), depending on its acoustic features, it will trigger different perceptions of arousal. “Any wordlike stimulus can potentially convey emotional information solely on the basis of its perceptual acoustic characteristics, making it possible to match it with emotionally similar concepts, eg. shapes,” the team writes.

Based on the results of the second experiment, the researchers then identified groups of “high-arousal”, “medium-arousal”, and “low-arousal” pseudo-words. They asked a fresh batch of participants to match these to a range of spiky and rounded shapes (again taken from previous studies). As the team predicted, spiky shapes were most likely to be matched to high-arousal pseudo-words (followed by medium-arousal and then finally low-arousal examples), while rounded shapes were most likely to be matched to the low arousal group. “These results suggest that the extent to which a word in a bouba-kiki experiment is matched with a rounded shape or spiky shape depends on the level of arousal elicited by its sound,” the team writes. 

The findings not only support the emotional arousal theory to explain the bouba-kiki effect but may also shed light on the early stages of language evolution, they add.

The finding that humans can reliably identify levels of arousal in the vocal sounds of a range of animals is telling, they think. “An initial form of vocalisation might have been a motor reflection of arousal in the vocal tract. Such vocalisations might gradually have been used to refer to external objects that were associated with similar affective experience.” So a sharp rock could become associated with high-arousal sounds (and note the “sharp” sound of rock vs bubble, say.)

If our early speech sounds and words were grounded in our emotional, arousal system, this could have made them easier to learn, and so more likely to be retained, the team thinks. And though most words are often held up to be arbitrary, there’s increasing evidence that this is often not the case — our word sound/meaning links go deeper than the onomatopoeia of crack for instance, or the ideogram of zigzag, and can, it seems, be grounded in our emotional responses.

– Affective Arousal Links Sound to Meaning

Emma Young (@EmmaELYoung) is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

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Studying later in life boosts your brain and keeps you young, says this SACAP graduate

You can’t teach old dogs new tricks, right? Uh-uh, not true! The antediluvian adage, which dates back to 1523, appears to be unfounded – particularly in these terrifically technological times.

Unquestionably puppies are keenly curious, however, dogs never stop learning. In fact, its widely purported among canine compliance groups that adult dogs are often easier to train than their younger counterparts especially because they’re not as active, aren’t easily distracted and can focus for longer periods of time.

Wondering what this pooch phenomenon has to do with people? A fair bit, in fact. Apparently with age our potential for learning grows, too. According to extensive neuroscience research, the human brain keeps on developing in adults, as long as the adult continues learning.

Love to learn

There are many benefits to studying later in life and fortunately SACAP graduate Mark Pretorius (63) has had first-hand experience of some of them. He attributes his youthful demeanour and enthusiastic outlook to his heartfelt – and lifelong – love of learning. “While many people my age are on the verge of retiring, I just cannot get enough of studying and seeking new and fresh information,” he says.

Mark lives with his wife in Abu Dhabi in The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and he’s an accomplished scholar. Besides being an active student and senior lecturer at the South African Theological Seminary (SATS) – where he teaches online – he also presents academic papers at national and international conferences and publishes books.

Earlier this year Mark completed his Bachelor of Social Science Honours in Psychology (BSocSciHons) through SACAP’s Online Campus. We asked him to share his thoughts on his online learning experience and how the content of his course is informing not only his career but also his whole approach to life.

Mind matters

Mark has always had a keen interest in psychology, he says. “The mind and brain are, for me, the most untapped and exciting fields to study. Research is vast and endless, new information is regularly discovered and published articles run into the thousands.”

Fuelled by his longing to learn more, Mark decided to pursue his academic journey in psychology after he completed his Ph.D. in systematic theology. “I discovered that my understanding of psychology fitted in well with my study and writings in theology,” he explains.

With four theology degrees under his belt Mark elected to study online for his bachelor’s in psychology through UNISA, and then signed up to complete his honours through SACAP’s Online Campus. “In order to give a more informed view of how psychology intersects with theology in my publications I wanted to further my understanding of psychology,” he says.

Course criteria

“Being a seasoned academic, I had four specific criteria when looking for a place to study,” Mark recalls. “It must be an institution registered with the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA), the programme must be online, the course material must be of a high quality and, most importantly, the lecturing staff must be well qualified.”

Happily, says Mark, SACAP met all these prerequisites with aplomb. “Right from the start of my application I found SACAP’s service to be excellent. It was quick, friendly and easy.”

Mark rates SACAP’s course material highly, too. “The lecturers are competent, professional and easy to get along with. I never once felt alone or overwhelmed. And, while the readings are intensive, I found the subject matter invigorating.”

In terms of face-to-face versus virtual learning, Mark says he’s a devotee of the latter. “Because I live in the UAE and work fulltime I chose to study online. Also, I teach online and know from experience that it’s equal, if not better, to studying on campus. In fact, the mini-thesis I submitted for my honours at SACAP was about the psychology of online learning and its benefits.”

Supportive synergy

The knowledge and skills Mark has gleaned from his SACAP degree is helping him fulfil his current purpose, “which deals specifically with how psychology can help in better understanding certain ideas in theology,” he says. “Consequently, I’ve added psychology to one of our courses at SATS, which students have been enjoying.”

On a broader level Mark is relishing the spoils his affection for mental aerobics has ushered in. “Psychology is a truly wonderful discipline!” he exclaims. “It has shown me that if you think you’re old, you probably are, regardless of your age. Conversely, if people consider you old in age, yet you think you’re young, you are! You can trick your brain, and it’s great. I do it all the time and my wife loves it. I can do the Macarena with a Michael Flatly twist – true story!”

Geared to grow

Seemingly, Mark’s thirst for knowledge is far from satiated. Next year he’s planning to study for his masters in positive psychology. “I believe it will give me tools to further enhance my writing and teaching, as well as benefit my counselling ministry to people in my local church who have lost hope,” he says. “Positive psychology shows how, amidst the many hardships and obstacles we face, we have been created to flourish.”

Do you have a lust for learning? It’s worth remembering that no matter how far along we are in our careers we’re still living, growing organisms. Our capacity to keep developing our consciousness and skill set expands exponentially when we flex our grey matter. Essentially, cerebral workouts keep you young – it’s a scientific fact!

SACAP’s Online Campus offers a range of dynamic courses that suit adults of all ages and from all walks of life. From engaging content and interactive online learning to expert educators and the advantage of studying at your own pace, SACAP’s online courses encourage high levels of intellectual autonomy so you can grow and extend yourself beyond your wildest expectations. The next Online Campus intake is in September, SACAP’s Term 3, and course registrations are open now. If, like Mark, you want to fulfil your highest potential and continue to contribute, then consider studying online through SACAP. The start of your own unique journey to self-actualisation could be just a few mouse clicks away. Enquire here now.

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Reminders Of God Don’t Actually Encourage Us To Take Risks, Replication Study Finds

 By guest blogger Sofia Deleniv

“…Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you.”

This passage, pulled from Isaiah 41.10, is just one example of the Bible’s many references to God’s power to protect. And this protective persona might affect you much more than you think. At least that’s what emerged in 2015, when researchers from Stanford University published a string of studies finding that people prompted to think of God made significantly riskier decisions — whether or not they were religious.

The scientists’ explanation, promptly picked up by the media, was that thinking of God makes risk-taking less intimidating because it primes us to expect divine protection. As of recently, however, this narrative has not stood up to scrutiny. The first pre-registered replication of this study, published in the journal Psychological Science, suggests that the effect was probably no more than an exciting false positive.

The failure to replicate such a high-profile experiment will probably come as a disappointment. The original publication had certainly generated a global splash, giving rise to headlines like “God is my co-pilot” and “Thank God for risky behaviour”. In many ways, the study stated a convincing case. It featured nine experiments, all of which concurred that being reminded of God triggered a significant increase in people’s tendency to take on risk. In these experiments, a mix of religious and non-religious participants from across the US were prompted to think either of God or an unrelated topic, such as astronomy. In most cases, this was achieved by having participants solve scrambled sentences, which either contained religions words (e.g. “spirit” or “divine”) or non-religious words.

Participants then indicated how likely they were to engage in a range of risky behaviours related to ethical dilemmas (like taking credit for someone else’s work), safety concerns (driving a car without a seatbelt) or social risk (starting a whole new career in one’s mid-thirties). The effects seemed clear. Those who had been primed to think of God were significantly more likely to consider engaging in risky behaviours, as long as these did not involve an ethical transgression. Moreover, participants in the “God-prime” condition perceived significantly less risk in all of these behaviours, as if thinking of God really had reduced the sense of threat.

But some researchers were concerned. Looking at the string of statistical results, many of which had just made it over the threshold of significance, one couldn’t help but wonder — what if this divine protection effect was just a statistical blip? The answer arrived a few weeks ago, when Will Gervais from the University of Kentucky and colleagues repeated two of the original 2015 experiments in exact detail, but with one crucial difference. They recruited a substantially larger sample of over a thousand participants, which was designed to give the researchers a very strong probability of detecting the “God-prime” effect, if it did really exist. Their study revealed no evidence that being primed to think of God had the power to make people choose riskier behaviours. There was no effect even when the authors ran a mini meta-analysis combining their own findings with those of the original publication.

So far, this failed replication has not been met with the media attention that surrounded the original paper. Perhaps that study struck a chord because it resonated with our long-held ideas about the function of religion. Many sociologists and psychologists believe that religion helps individuals deal with stress by offering a padding of divine protection, which makes the chaos and volatility of daily life less frightening. Indeed, the “God comfort hypothesis” has received considerable support from international surveys, which find that national levels of religion tend to go hand-in-hand with governmental instability and poor material security. Strife might directly throw previously unbelieving people into the arms of God. This was observed in Christchurch, New Zealand, where researchers spotted a sudden spike in religiosity in the aftermath of its devastating 2011 earthquake. Thus, when researchers discovered that the sense of security associated with God not only gives us perceived shelter from risk, but actually emboldens us to seek it out, their findings might have enjoyed some degree of automatic credibility.

But experience should have taught us that caution is the better policy. Researchers have failed to replicate a host of high-profile discoveries,  from the controversial effects of “power posing” on our confidence and stress hormones, to the Macbeth Effect, which claims that having our moral purity threatened makes us literally want to clean ourselves. As psychological science works to recover from its replication crisis, and scientific editors increasingly realise the importance of publishing negative results, communicators of popular science may need to be careful about overstating the certainty of new and exciting findings. As with the God-priming effect, some discoveries might not be scientific scripture after all.

– Do Religious Primes Increase Risk Taking? Evidence Against “Anticipating Divine Protection” in Two Preregistered Direct Replications of Kupor, Laurin, and Levav (2015)

Post written by Sofia Deleniv for the BPS Research Digest. Sofia holds a degree in Experimental Psychology and has just completed her PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, where she investigated sensory processing using a mix of electrophysiology and computer modelling. In 2015, she decided to try her hand at science writing by starting her blog ‘The Neurosphere‘. Since then, her work has appeared in magazines such as the New Scientist and Discover. You can visit her Twitter feed for updates on her written work and other exciting bits of science.

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

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Musings On Music: Seven Insights From Psychology

By Emma Young

Music and humans go back a very long way. The earliest accepted instruments, made from bones, appear on the European scene about 40,000 years ago. But for perhaps at least a million years before that, our ancestors had the throat architecture that in theory would have allowed them to sing.

All kinds of ideas have been put forward for why and how music came to matter so much to us. But what’s abundantly clear is that it does matter; there isn’t a society out there that doesn’t make and listen to music. And new research is now revealing all manner of psychological and neurological effects…

But what about people who don’t like music?

Music is a human universal, but it’s true — not everyone enjoys music. In fact, as a 2014 paper published in Current Biology revealed, some perfectly healthy people can perceive music just like anybody else, but their reward-related neural circuits don’t respond to it. (These circuits do still respond to food or money, for example, so it’s not that they’re generally defective).

In fact, an estimated 3-5% of people experience “musical anhedonia”, and get no pleasure from music. (To find out where you sit on the music reward spectrum, you could fill in the team’s questionnaire, available here.) Last year, a team that included some of the same researchers published a follow-up study in the Journal of Neuroscience. They found a neurobiological basis for their earlier observations: differences in the white matter “wiring” that connects the auditory cortex and the ventral striatum, a key part of the reward system. What causes these differences is not yet clear.

For the rest of us, what is it about a piece of music that gives us pleasure?

Last year, a team led by Vincent Cheung at the Max-Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany published an analysis of responses to 745 US Billboard pop songs. They found that expectancy is key. When listeners were pretty certain about which chord to expect next (based on what had come before), they found it pleasurable to be surprised. When they weren’t sure what to expect, though, more predictable subsequent chords were pleasing.

Popular songs strike a good balance between both subverting expectation and reassuring listeners, the team concluded. “It is fascinating that humans can derive pleasure from a piece of music just by how sounds are ordered over time,” Cheung commented. It is also important for understanding how music influences our emotional state…

Why do we like listening to sad music?

The first point to stress is that we don’t all necessarily like it. In 2016, a team led by Tuomas Eerola at the University of Durham reported on the emotional experiences connected with sad music of 2,436 people in the UK and Finland. The majority said they enjoyed sad music, and that this pleasure boosted their mood. “However, there are people who absolutely hate sad-sounding music and avoid listening to it,” notes Eerola. The study revealed that for these people, sad music was associated with painful personal experiences, such as loss.

Still, the reports of mood-boosting effects from the majority is important. In 2015, a paper titled “Sad as a Matter of Choice?” reported that people with depression were more likely to listen to sad songs — which the team controversially took to imply that they were maintaining or even worsening their own low mood. Last year, however, a study published in Emotion found that depressed people prefer sad music because it is calming and even uplifting. As some participants in another recent study commented, when you’re feeling low, sad music can seem like a supportive friend.

Extreme emotions

Some pieces of music have dramatic effects on us. “Peak emotional states” involve powerful physical responses, such as tears, or feeling “the chills”, and often extreme sadness or joy. They can be triggered by something inherently deeply meaningful — such as childbirth — but also by a beautiful view, or piece of music. A 2017 study published in Scientific Reports explored these reactions, and found that song-induced tears were associated with subsequent calming — they seem, then, to have a cathartic, relieving function.

Some people, though, are more prone than others to feeling goosebumps or a shiver down the spine in response to a piece of music. And as a paper recently published in Social Cognitive and Effective Neuroscience has revealed, such people have stronger connectivity between auditory processing and social and emotional processing areas of the brain. These same connectivity differences have also been linked to greater empathy. As the researchers write in their paper: “Perhaps one of the reasons why music is a cross-culturally indispensable artifact is that it appeals directly through an auditory channel to emotional and social processing centers of the human brain.” Only, it does this more for some of us than others.

Connecting brains

One proposed adaptive function for music is that it unites individuals. With music, we can march together, dance together, and express emotions as one. And there’s now growing evidence that this unity can occur right down at the neural level.

Back in 2009, Ulman Lindenberger at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and colleagues reported that when two guitarists play the same piece of music together, their brainwaves synchronise. Big deal, you might think: they’re processing and playing identical notes, so why shouldn’t there be similarities in their brain activity? However, in 2012, the team reported a follow-up involving duets with different guitar parts. When these pairs had to actively coordinate their playing, there was a synchronisation in activity in some regions between the two. This, the team concluded, was evidence of “inter-brain networks”. “When people coordinate actions with one another, small networks within the brain and, remarkably, between the brains are formed,” noted Johanna Sänger, lead author of this study.

Since then, more evidence of inter-brain synchronisation during musical experiences has emerged. It’s known that when audience members are enjoying a piece of live music, their brainwaves tend to synchronise. And, earlier this year, a team led by Yingying Hou at East China Normal University revealed that when a musician is playing a piece, and the audience is enjoying it, a synchronisation in brain activity develops. The team were even able to use the strength of this “inter-brain coherence” to predict how much the audience reported enjoying a piece.

Use the beat

Humans are unique as a species in being able to perceive beat. And there’s all kinds of evidence that the tempo of a piece of music affects our behaviour. A classic study, published back in 1986, found that diners in a Dallas restaurant ate significantly faster when faster tempo (more beats per minute) music was played, compared with slow tempo music. These findings went on to influence the choice of soundtracks in restaurants the world over. But there’s also recent evidence that listening to high-tempo music while exercising can increase heart rate more than slow-tempo music and also make the exercise feel less difficult. “This means that the exercise seemed like less effort but it was more beneficial in terms of enhancing physical fitness,” commented researcher Luca P. Ardigò of the University of Verona in Italy.

Background effects

If you’re the kind of person who likes to have background music playing while you work, there are a couple of studies worth bearing in mind.

Listening even to music that you enjoy can interfere with working memory, which could impair mental arithmetic, a study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology has found. And though it has been suggested that music can encourage creativity, in fact it “significantly impairs” it, according to a 2019 paper published in the same journal. The researchers, from the UK and Sweden, gave participants verbal insight problems, which are meant to tap into creativity. (For example, they were given the words “dress”, “dial”, and “flower”, and asked to identify a single word that could be combined with each — “sun”). Background music with foreign lyrics, instrumental music without lyrics and music with familiar lyrics all made the participants worse at this. Again, the researchers think that this is because music disrupts working memory; in this case, verbal working memory. “To conclude, the findings here challenge the popular view that music enhances creativity, and instead demonstrate that music, regardless of the presence of semantic content, consistently disrupts creative performance in insight problem solving,” they write.

It’s worth noting that the negative impact of familiar music was observed even when a participant said it boosted their mood, reported liking the song, or said that they typically studied with background music playing. So if you do typically work with music, and think it helps, surely it’s worth at least trying to go without.

– Find much more music in The Psychologist archive via https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/thirty-three-and-third and at Research Digest under the “Music” category.

Emma Young (@EmmaELYoung) is a staff writer at BPS Research Digest

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