Well, I'm doomed: Extroverted optimists live longest. 

Who lives the longest?

1. Introverts versus extroverts

Outgoing, sociable people have the strongest immune systems, a recent study finds.

Those who are the most careful, though, are more likely to have a weaker immune system response.

The research found no evidence, though, that a tendency towards negative emotions was associated with poor health.

2. Optimists versus pessimists

Optimists have healthier hearts than pessimists, a study of over 51,000 adults has found.
Professor Rosalba Hernandez, who led the study, said:

“Individuals with the highest levels of optimism have twice the odds of being in ideal cardiovascular health compared to their more pessimistic counterparts.
This association remains significant, even after adjusting for socio-demographic characteristics and poor mental health.”

Optimists also had healthier body mass indexes, were more physically active and less likely to smoke.
Researchers found that the more optimistic people were, the greater their overall physical health.
The most optimistic people were 76% more likely to have health scores that were in the ideal range.

3. Conscientiousness

Men with conscientious personality traits and those who are open to experience live longer, a study has found.

For women, those who are more agreeable and emotionally stable enjoy a longer life.

This means that for women the best personality traits for a long life are:

  1. Extroversion
  2. Optimism
  3. Agreeableness
  4. Emotional stability

Whereas for men, the best traits are:

  1. Extroversion
  2. Optimism
  3. Conscientiousness
  4. Openness to experience

Ask your friends how long you will live

The kicker is that it’s your friends — not you — who are better at judging these personality traits from the outside…
…and consequently predicting how long you will live.
Dr Joshua Jackson, the author of a study on the subject, said:

“You expect your friends to be inclined to see you in a positive manner, but they also are keen observers of the personality traits that could send you to an early grave.
[…]
Our study shows that people are able to observe and rate a friend’s personality accurately enough to predict early mortality decades down the road.
It suggests that people are able to see important characteristics related to health even when their friends were, for the most part, healthy and many years from death.”

Source: 4 Personality Traits That Affect How Long You Will Live – PsyBlog


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Can a ketchup-and-mustard color scheme help you study?

From Psyblog:  
Brightly coloured rooms can boost your concentration, new research finds.

This is the exact opposite of what most people expect, according to the same research.

Two-thirds of people believe that a bright red room was linked to discomfort, depression and annoyance.
When psychologists tested it, though, they found that vivid reds and yellows enhanced students’ concentration.
Aseel Al-Ayash, the study’s first author, said:

“Bright colors can support students’ learning performance by positively affecting psychological and physiological states.
If the reading tasks are difficult, the vivid colour conditions may increase arousal to optimal levels.”

This was the exact reverse of what most expected, Ms Al-Ayash said:

“In general, most participants believed that pale colors with high whiteness would be appropriate color schemes in learning environments, because they are considered calm and relaxing.
However, the calmness and relaxation aspects may not help students to be alert and active.
They performed better in the vivid color conditions, because these colors have arousing properties that stimulate neural activity.
If the task is boring, a red condition may stimulate individuals and enhance their performance.”

The finding is consistent with a century-old psychological finding called the Yerkes-Dodson Law.

 This is simply the idea that people perform at their best when somewhat stimulated.

Too much and too little stimulation, though, tends to make people’s performance worse.
For the research participants read passages of text and had to answer questions afterwards.
They did this in six different rooms painted a variety of colours, including pale and vivid shades or red, blue and yellow.
The results showed that their reading comprehension was higher in the vividly painted red and yellow rooms.
The study was published in the journal Color Research and Application (Al-Ayash et al., 2016).

from PsyBlog http://bit.ly/29hbJol
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The Secret to Better Learning That Most People Don’t Know: Interleaving

brain
Mixing up your learning can lead to massive gains, a new study of academic performance reveals.

 For years now ‘interleaving’ has been a secret largely confined to researchers.

Interleaving means practising or learning different skills in quick succession.
When interleaving, tennis players might practice forehands, backhands and volleys altogether.
Interleaving for musicians could mean practising scales, arpeggios and chords all in the same session.
It’s quite a different method to how people normally learn.
Tennis players typically focus on forehands for a session and musicians on scales for a session.
The benefits have been shown in studies of motor skills:

“…college baseball players practiced hitting three types of pitches (e.g. curve ball) that were either blocked by type or systematically interleaved.
During a  subsequent test in which the three types of pitches were interleaved (as in an actual game), hitting performance was greater if practice had been interleaved rather than blocked.
A similar benefit was observed in a study of basketball shooting…” (Taylor & Rohrer, 2010)

A new study, though, shows the dramatic benefits of interleaving on children’s performance at math.

For the research some kids were taught math the usual way.
They learned one mathematical technique in a lesson and then practised it.
A second group, however, were given assignments which included questions requiring different techniques.
The results were impressive.
On a test one day later, the students who’d been using the interleaving method did 25% better.
But, when tested a month later, the interleaving method did 76% better.
That’s quite an increase given that both groups had been learning for the same amount of time.
The only difference was that some learned block by block and others had their learning mixed up.
One of the potential drawbacks of the technique is that it can feel harder at first.
Instead of concentrating on one skill at a time, you have to work on two or more.
But interleaving probably works because it forces the mind to work harder.
Instead of relying on learning a system and sticking with it, the mind has to keep searching and reaching for solutions.
The research was published in the Journal of Educational Psychology(Rohrer et al., 2015).
from PsyBlog http://bit.ly/2co2Lt6

Improve your writing by typing with one hand

Forcing yourself to type slower could improve the quality of your writing, a new study finds.

Participants in the study who typed with only one hand produced higher quality essays, researchers found.

Mr Srdan Medimorec, the study’s lead author, said:

“Typing can be too fluent or too fast, and can actually impair the writing process.
It seems that what we write is a product of the interactions between our thoughts and the tools we use to express them.”

People who type quickly may use the first word that comes to hand.
Slowing down allows the mind more time to find the right word.
This could be why forcing yourself to slow down a little improves the sophistication of vocabulary used.
Professor Evan F. Risko, who co-authored the study, said:

“This is the first study to show that when you interfere with people’s typing, their writing can get better.

We’re not saying that students should write their term papers with one hand, but our results show that going fast can have its drawbacks.
This is important to consider as writing tools continue to emerge that let us get our thoughts onto the proverbial page faster and faster.”

Slowing down your writing could help writing quality no matter what input method is used, the authors think.
The same trick could benefit people using pen-and-paper or even speech-to-text.
Slowing down too much, though, can be detrimental.
When people slow to below the rate of normal handwriting, their quality gets worse, previous research suggests.
The study was published in the British Journal of Psychology (Medimorec & Risko, 2016).
from PsyBlog http://bit.ly/2c0lDKV


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How to tell if someone is lying

It may be easier to tell if someone is lying when you cannot see their face, new research finds.

 Contrary to most people’s expectations, being able to see someone’s full face does not help lie detection.

In fact, it actually hurts it.
Dr Amy-May Leach, the study’s first author, explained that the reason may be because it helps people focus on important cues:

“The presence of a veil may compel observers to pay attention to more ‘diagnostic’ cues, such as listening for verbal indicators of deception.”

The finding emerges from a study of the wearing of veils in court.
Witnesses appearing in US, UK and Canadian courts are not allowed to wear a niqab (covering the whole body except for the eyes) or hijab (covering the head and neck).
This is partly because judges believe it is necessary to see the face to tell if someone is lying.
Dr Leach, though, explained that they thought this was wrong:

“We hypothesized that lie detection accuracy would be higher in the niqab condition than in the hijab or no-veil conditions because it would minimize the availability of misleading cues to deception.
It was only when witnesses wore veils (i.e., hijabs or niqabs) that observers performed above chance levels.
Thus, veiling actually improved lie detection.”

The researchers conducted two experiments with a total of 523 participants.
They compared people’s ability to detect lies when witnesses were wearing a hijab or a niqab or neither.
The researchers explained the results:

“Contrary to the assumptions underlying the court decisions cited earlier, lie detection was not hampered by veiling across two studies.
In fact, observers were more accurate at detecting deception in witnesses who wore niqabs or hijabs than those who did not veil.
Discrimination between lie- and truth-tellers was no better than guessing in the latter group, replicating previous findings.”

The study was published in the journal Law and Human Behavior(Leach et al., 2016).
from PsyBlog http://bit.ly/29e8ujJ


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Which Professions Have The Most Psychopaths?

According to a survey conducted by psychologist Kevin Dutton—called the Great British Psychopath Survey—here are the top 10 professions with the most psychopaths:

  1. CEO
  2. Lawyer
  3. Media (TV/Radio)
  4. Salesperson
  5. Surgeon
  6. Journalist
  7. Police Officer
  8. Clergyperson
  9. Chef
  10. Civil Servant

And here are the professions with the least psychopaths:

  1. Care Aide
  2. Nurse
  3. Therapist
  4. Craftsperson
  5. Beautician/Stylist
  6. Charity Worker
  7. Teacher
  8. Creative Artist
  9. Doctor
  10. Accountant

Although people tend to think of psychopaths as killers—indeed about 15-25% of people in prison are psychopaths—in fact many people with psychopathic tendencies are not criminals.
Here are some of the traits of psychopaths:

  • Self-confident
  • Cold-hearted
  • Manipulative
  • Fearless
  • Charming
  • Cool under pressure
  • Egocentric
  • Carefree

from PsyBlog http://bit.ly/29TqRfU


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Today in Disgusting Wonders of Nature

Gulp. Just look at how ridiculous this thing looks. It’s a giant black sea slug known as a sea hare and it’s freaking monstrous. You don’t really hold it in your hand as much as the sea hare, which can grow up to over 3 feet long and weigh over 30 pounds, just swallows your entire arm. Brave Wilderness found the black sea hare in the tide pools off the coast of the Pacific Ocean in San Pedro, CA and described holding it as super slimy and unbelievably slippery.Source: Just Look at This Freaking Giant Black Slug


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Reading Fiction Increases Empathy

All sorts of narratives, including literary fiction, TV shows and even certain video games could help boost our fellow-feeling.That is the conclusion of a new review by Professor Keith Oatley, a cognitive psychologist and novelist.
brain
your brain (artist’s rendition)

Literary fiction, in particular, which simulates the social world, may help to boost our empathy with others.
One study gave people a test of empathy after they had either read some literary fiction or some nonfiction.
It was the literary fiction which produced the most empathetic response in people.
Professor Oatley said:

“The most important characteristic of being human is that our lives are social.
What’s distinctive about humans is that we make social arrangements with other people–with friends, with lovers, with children–that aren’t pre-programmed by instinct.
Fiction can augment and help us understand our social experience.”

 
Professor Oatley said:

“What’s a piece of fiction, what’s a novel, what’s short story, what’s a play or movie or television series?
It’s a piece of consciousness being passed from mind to mind.
When you’re reading or watching a drama, you’re taking in a piece of consciousness that you make your own.
That seems an exciting idea.”

The study was published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences (Oatley, 2016).
from PsyBlog http://bit.ly/2a9tFE4


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Why It’s So Hard to Shake a Bad First Impression

PAFF_072816_BadImpressions_newsfeatureA new study demonstrates that shaking a negative first impression is often diabolically difficult, providing just one more reason to make sure that you show up on time for your next job interview.
“Moral and immoral behaviors often come in small doses. A person might donate just a few dollars to charity or cheat on just one exam question,” explain University of Chicago psychological scientists Nadav Klein and Ed O’Brien. But how many positive or negative acts must a person undertake before we change our minds about someone?
Across five experiments, Klein and O’Brien found that this moral tipping point is asymmetric — a moral improvement takes a lot more work for us to notice compared to a moral decline, even if the evidence is we observe is the same in each case. In other words, “it is apparently easier to become a sinner than a saint, despite exhibiting equivalent evidence for change.”
In one experiment, Klein and O’Brien attempted to measure the moral tipping point – the number of behaviors that will change our assessment of someone. A group of 201 participants took part in an online study in which they read a scenario about an average office worker named Barbara. All of the participants were told that Barbara’s personality was pretty neutral; most of the time her behavior towards her colleagues was inoffensive, but occasionally she was especially nice (e.g., holding the door, giving compliments) while other times she was kind of a jerk (e.g., cutting in line, spreading gossip).
Participants were then told that there had been a change in Barbara’s behavior over a period of several weeks. One group of participants was told that Barbara was now doing many more nice things and another group was told she was now doing many more mean things. Participants were then asked how many weeks of this behavior change (1 – 16 weeks) would convince them she had made a substantial moral change as a person.
When Barbara’s behavior turned mean, it only took a few weeks for participants to conclude that she had taken a turn for the worse. However, it took many more weeks of positive behavior to convince people that Barbara was changing for the better.
“Put another way, these results suggest an asymmetry in the moral tipping point that truly depends on valence: it takes relatively few bad actions to be seen as changed for the worse, but relatively many good actions to be seen as changed for the better,” the researchers explain.
In another online experiment, 200 female participants read a very similar scenario, but this time the information about their coworker’s behavior changes was presented in increments. After reading that the coworker had shown a change in behavior for a whole week, participants were asked whether they were convinced this person’s moral character had “officially” improved or declined. If they responded “yes,” the session ended. If they responded “no,” they were told the behavior had continued for another week and were asked if the personality change had tipped.
Again, the results showed that people were much quicker at concluding the change in behavior showed a moral decline and much slower at acknowledging moral improvement.
“People apparently need to commit just a few bad actions to appear substantively changed for the worse, but need to commit many good actions to appear substantively changed for the better,” Klein and O’Brien report.
A recent article published in Perspectives on Psychological Science demonstrates just how influential small acts can be in our assessment of another person’s morality. In one experiment, participants were told about a company hiring a new CEO. One of the candidates requested an expensive marble table as a perk. Participants found this request so morally appalling that they “reported a preference for paying an additional $1 million in salary to a different job candidate just to avoid hiring a candidate whose salary request included a $40,000 marble table.”
Participants viewed a candidate who asked for such perks as more likely to act on his own selfish interests rather than the good of the company.
In their article, Klein and O’Brien argue that it’s important to be aware of this strong bias against negative information. Because the threshold for forming negative impressions is much lower than positive ones, we may want to be more open to giving people opportunities to redeem themselves after a bad first impression.
 
References
Klein, N., & O’Brien, E. (2016). The Tipping Point of Moral Change: When Do Good and Bad Acts Make Good and Bad Actors?. Social Cognition34(2), 149. doi: 10.1521/soco.2016.34.2.149
Uhlmann, E. L., Pizarro, D. A., & Diermeier, D. (2015). A person-centered approach to moral judgment. Perspectives on Psychological Science10(1), 72-81. doi: 10.1177/1745691614556679
from Minds for Business – Association for Psychological Science http://bit.ly/2aiwGz6


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Entitled at the Top: Are Leaders More Selfish Than the Rest of Us?

PAFF_072616_SelfishLeaders_newsfeatureLeaders’ propensity for generosity seems to depend on whether they feel like they’ve earned their high-status position, according to new research conducted by psychological scientists Nicholas Hays (Michigan State University) and Steven Blader (New York University).
The findings indicate that a boss or colleague who feels that their high-status position is unearned is likely to be much more generous compared to someone who feels like they’re entitled to a spot at the top.
“For instance, high-status CEOs—who have a greater sense of hubris and thus are likely to have an exaggerated sense of their value to their organizations— extract more compensation and yet devote less time and effort to advancing organizational goals compared to lower-status CEO,” write Hays and Blader. “Because generosity is often strategically demonstrated to attain status, generosity may decrease once status-attainment goals are achieved.”
Previous research published in Psychological Science has shown that attaining a position of power really can change people for the worse: Across five experiments, Joris Lammers (Tilburg University) and colleagues found that “irrespective of how power was manipulated or hypocrisy was measured, we found strong evidence that the powerful are more likely to engage in moral hypocrisy than are people who lack power.”
However, power only seemed to compromise people’s moral judgement under circumstances in which people felt like they had earned their position: “Our final study demonstrated the crucial role of entitlement: Only when power is experienced as legitimate is moral hypocrisy a likely result. If power is not experienced as legitimate, then the moral-hypocrisy effect disappears.”
For their first experiment, Hays and Blader surveyed a group of 255 MBA students. The students were working together in 51 teams over the course of a six-month field project with real clients. The students completed two surveys asking them to assess how helpful they were (i.e., “I will be willing to help when needed”) and how important they were to their group’s success. The first survey was completed at the very beginning of the field project; in a second survey, completed three months into the project, participants also rated each member of their group on a 7-point scale for how much respect, esteem, and prominence they had within their team.
“As predicted, there is a significant positive relationship between status and generosity at low legitimacy and a significant negative relationship at high legitimacy,” the researchers report.
A second experiment looked at whether status influenced people’s actual behavior. A group of 339 college students were assigned roles in a business scenario, ostensibly based on their scores from a business aptitude assessment. In reality, the participants were randomly assigned to either high- or low-status roles and either legitimacy or illegitimacy conditions.
Those in the legitimate conditions were assigned to a status role that matched their “score” on the assessment, while those in the illegitimate condition were told they’d received a lower score than their team members but would be given a higher-ranking role.
After learning their scores and role assignments, participants played a game in which group members could allocate 100 points among themselves and their two teammates. These points could be exchanged for lottery tickets at the end of the study, and generosity was gauged based on how many points participants allocated to their teammates.
As expected, those who felt they were entitled to a high-status position were significantly less generous towards their teammates than participants who thought their high ranking was not earned. Across all six experiments, those who felt entitled to their high-status position showed significantly less generosity than people who felt they’d ended up at the top through a fluke.
“Complementing previous work indicating that generosity leads to status increases, we find that once an individual has obtained high status, the legitimacy of that status determines whether he or she tends to behave more or less generously than low-status group members,” Hays and Blader conclude.
 

References

Hays, N. A., & Blader, S. L. (2016). To Give or Not to Give? Interactive Effects of Status and Legitimacy on Generosity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. doi: 10.1037/pspi0000067
Lammers, J., Stapel, D. A., & Galinsky, A. D. (2010). Power increases hypocrisy moralizing in reasoning, immorality in behavior. Psychological Science21(5), 737-744. doi: 10.1177/0956797610368810
from Minds for Business – Association for Psychological Science http://bit.ly/2aapvcT


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