15% to 50% improvements in cognition from brief meditation.
How would you like your brain to work faster? Say, a more efficient working memory, greater verbal fluency and improved visuo-spatial processing?
Continue reading “Cognition Accelerated by Just 4 x 20 Minutes Meditation”
Alcohol makes us attentionally ‘short-sighted’ — this helps explain its popularity and its variable effects.
We tend to think of alcohol as primarily a disinhibitor, but this can’t really explain its varying effects. Sometimes it seems to make us loud and boisterous, sometimes quiet and contemplative, sometimes sad and depressed, along with all the shades and combinations of these, and other emotions.
Continue reading “What Alcohol Does to Your Mind: Attentional Myopia”
How pushing a thought out of consciousness can bring it back with a vengeance.
It sometimes feels like our minds are not on the same team as us. I want to go to sleep, but it wants to keep me awake rerunning events from my childhood. I want to forget the lyrics from that stupid 80s pop song but it wants to repeat them over and over again ad nauseam.
Continue reading “Why Thought Suppression is Counter-Productive”
Explore the psychology of the emotions with these 12 laws.
We tend to think of our emotions as having laws unto themselves, but one psychological researcher has suggested that our emotions do follow certain general rules.
Professor Nico Frijda puts forward twelve laws of the emotions (Fridja, 2006). As with most laws there are exceptions, but these have been synthesised from years of psychological research and hold true much of the time.
The first law is simply that emotions derive from situations. Generally the same types of situation will elicit the same types of emotional response. Loss makes us grieve, gains make us happy and scary things make us fearful (mostly anyway – see all the other laws).
We feel because we care about something, when we have some interest in what happens, whether it’s to an object, ourselves, or another person. Emotions arise from these particular goals, motivations or concerns. When we are unconcerned we don’t feel anything.
Whatever seems real to us, can elicit an emotional response. In other words how we appraise or interpret a situation governs the emotion we feel (compare with laws 11 & 12). The reason poor movies, plays or books don’t engage us emotionally is because, in some sense, we fail to detect truth. Similarly it’s difficult to get emotional about things that aren’t obvious, right in front of us. For example grief may not strike when we are told about the death of loved one, but only once it becomes real to us in some way – say when we pick up the phone to call them, forgetting they are gone.
The law of habituation means that in life we get used to our circumstances whatever they are (mostly true, but see laws 7 & 8). The emotions, therefore, respond most readily to change. This means that we are always comparing what is happening to a relatively steady frame of reference (what we are used to). As a result our emotions tend to respond most readily to changes that are relative to this frame of reference.
There are certain awful circumstances to which we can never become accustomed. If things are bad enough, it is impossible to escape negative feelings like fear or anxiety. On the other hand positive emotions always fade over time. No matter how much we are in love, how big the lottery win, or how copious the quantities of drugs consumed, positive emotions like pleasure always slip away.
Time doesn’t heal all wounds – or if it does, it only does so indirectly. Events can retain their emotional power over the years unless we re-experience and re-evaluate them. It’s this re-experiencing and consequent re-definition that reduces the emotional charge of an event. This is why events that haven’t been re-evaluated – say, failing an exam or being rejected by a potential lover – retain their emotional power across the decades.
The way we respond to our emotions tends to be absolute. They often lead immediately to actions of one kind or another, and they will brook no discussion (but see laws 10, 11 & 12). In other words emotional responses are closed to goals other than their own or judgements that can mitigate the response. An emotion seizes us and send us resolutely down one path, until later that is, when a different emotion sends us down the opposite path.
People naturally consider the consequences of their emotions and modify them accordingly. For example anger may provoke violent feelings towards another, but generally people refrain from stabbing each other willy-nilly. Instead they will shout, hit their head on the wall or just silently fume. Emotions may absolutely dictate a type of response, but people do modulate the size of that response (usually!).
The emotional impact of an event or situation depends on its interpretation. Putting a different ‘spin’ on a situation can change the feeling. The law of the lightest load means people are particularly motivated to use re-interpretations to reduce negative emotions. For example we might reduce the fear of the credit crunch by generating the illusion we won’t be affected. The exact reverse is also true: whenever a situation can be reinterpreted for a positive emotional gain, it will be. For example anger can be used to make others back down, grief attracts help and fear may stop us rashly attempting difficult or dangerous tasks.
You may not agree with all of these ‘laws’, for example this is quite an individually based account of emotion, and tends to downplay the social aspects of emotion. Nevertheless it is an excellent starting point which provides a very useful way of thinking about emotions, and helps pave the way for examining individual emotions.
[Image credit: Victor Bezrukov]
When we get a gift from someone out of the blue, alarm bells start ringing.
When we get a gift from someone out of the blue, alarm bells start ringing. What do they want? What have they done? There must be a reason for this unexplained act of kindness…
We naturally like to try and figure out other people’s motivations; using rationality to reduce uncertainty helps us make sense of the world. The problem is that sober and logical reflection seems to kill the pleasure and romance of a moment. Sometimes it’s better to be kept in the dark, better to just marvel at the unexpected bounty that has come our way. Truly not knowing can mean intrigue and excitement. Don’t try to make sense of it, just enjoy it!
Continue reading “How to Feel More Pleasure: Crank up the Mystery”
Spend now or save for tomorrow? Many financial decisions come down to this exact problem. How do we calculate these kind of trade-offs?
Spend now or save for tomorrow? Many financial decisions come down to this exact problem. If you buy the dress or the sunglasses now, you can’t use that money at the weekend to pay for the restaurant. How do we calculate these kind of trade-offs? Do we make any calculation at all? If not, then what factors influence our decisions?
Continue reading “Money and Self-Control: The Battle Between Thoughts and Emotions”
There’s a 50% chance that you consider yourself shy. But is this ‘just’ shyness or is it a mental disorder?
There’s a 50% chance that you consider yourself shy. But is this ‘just’ shyness or is it a mental disorder? Since 1980 the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders used by psychiatrists in diagnosis has included the categories of ‘social phobia’ and ‘social anxiety disorder’. This suggests that what would previously have been your particular way of being, has become a ‘disorder’ with a biological cause which needs some medication…
Continue reading “Are You Just Shy or Do You Have a Social Phobia?”
We need rapport to influence others, to teach and learn, to achieve difficult tasks in groups and even to mate.
Rapport is important. We need rapport to influence others, to teach and learn, to achieve difficult tasks in groups and even to mate. The latest research reveals gaining rapport is not just about matching body language and being positive, the picture is actually much more complicated. Studies have shown that expressivity is actually one of the most important factors in rapport. An expressive person displays their emotions nonverbally to those around them. Those who are more expressive have been found to elicit greater levels of liking and rapport from others.
Continue reading “Achieving Rapport: Expressivity, Coordination and Flow”
It has been estimated that 5% of the UK population are active users of mental health helplines. Mental health helplines are close to my heart as I volunteer for one of them myself. One question has troubled me since I have worked there, as it has troubled many of my colleagues: Do they do any good? Is it really good to talk?
Last weekend the British Psychological Society had its Annual Conference. It’s a chance for psychologists to show off what they’ve been up to for the last year. Here’s some of the research that caught my eye.
The key to finding love on the net is honesty. Would you believe that it’s bad for your chances of finding true love if you lie about your personal appearance? And yet how many people are still doing this? A lot.
If you’re still unsuccessfully trying to give up smoking then psychologists may know why. Apparently it makes all the normal activities of life less pleasurable. Certainly disheartening news for those trying to give up, but still it can help to know the worst.
As people are finding more health related information on the internet, GPs are re-evaluating their roles. Instead of being the initial point of access to knowledge, they now tend to see themselves more as information filters.
In a related vein, researchers are also asking which websites people trust when looking for health information. The findings make for worrying reading: people were ignoring reputable organisation in favour of more ‘attractive’ sites.
Confident communicators are more persuasive. So you’ve got to fake it ’till you make it.
But don’t worry if it all gets too much for you then there is one easy way to make the pain go away and reduce your anxiety: listen to some music.
The British Psychological Society Annual Conference
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