Tag Archives: Psychology

Why We Laugh When Others Trip or Fall

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Schadenfreude Explained: Why We Secretly Smile When Others Fail

Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor
Date: 09 December 2011 Time: 10:50 AM
upset businesswoman carrying a box of supplies after losing a job
Do you take joy in seeing a colleague who “has it all” fail in some way?
CREDIT: R. Gino Santa Maria | Shutterstock

When the office slacker makes a mistake that could cost them a pay raise — do you truly feel bad, or do you have to work to hide your smile?

If you smiled, you’ve just experienced schadenfreude, a bit of enjoyment at the misfortunes of others. And now researchers know more about why we experience this seemingly odd emotion. Turns out, it can be a sure way to make you feel better about yourself. It’s a self-affirming boost.

“If somebody enjoys the misfortune of others, then there’s something in that misfortune that is good for the person,” said study researcher Wilco W. van Dijk, adding that it could be due to thinking the other person deserves the misfortune, and so becoming less envious of them or feeling better about one’s self.

Mwa-ha-ha-ha!  

In the study, van Dijk, of Leiden University in the Netherlands,and his colleagues had 70 undergraduate students (40 women and 30 men) read two interviews about a high-achieving student who was likely to land a great job. Then they read an interview with the student’s supervisor revealing that the student had suffered a big setback in his/her studies. Next, they rated their level of agreement with five statements meant to gauge their schadenfreude, such as: “I enjoy[ed] what happened to Marleen/Mark”; “I couldn’t resist a little smile.”

Those with low self-esteem (assessed at the study’s start) were both more likely to be threatened by the overachieving student, and to experience schadenfreude. However, the researchers found that regardless of self-esteem, those who felt more threatened by this student also felt more schadenfreude.

The researchers thought that perhaps the reason for this was that schadenfreude was self-affirming for these “threatened” individuals.

As a follow-up experiment, the researchers gave about half of the students a self-affirmation boost by shoring up their beliefs about what the students had indicated was a very important value to them, and then asked them to repeat the same interview-reading stint.

Participants with low self-esteem were again more likely to experience schadenfreude, and also more likely to feel threatened by the high-achieving student. However, those who had been self-affirmed were less likely than those who hadn’t to reap pleasure when reading about the other student’s academic slip.

“I think when you have low self-esteem, you will do almost anything to feel better, and when you’re confronted with the misfortune of others,” you’ll feel schadenfreude, van Dijk told LiveScience. “In this study, if we give people something to affirm their self, then what we found is they have less schadenfreude — they don’t need the misfortune of others to feel better anymore.” [5 Ways to Boost Self-Compassion]

Evil thoughts

If you feel an evil sort of glee at the slip-ups of another, are you a bad person? Well, van Dijk says that just about all of us experience schadenfreude at some point in our lives.

“We know that it’s very good to feel empathy and sympathy for people, so if you feelschadenfreude without any sympathy or compassion for that other person,” that would not be good, van Dijk said. “Our society thrives on compassion and empathy.”

While some of us get a kick out of the small blunders of a colleague, say, others experience schadenfreude due to another’s grave misfortunes, as van Dijkhas found in research yet to be published.

The current study is detailed in the December 2012 issue of the journal Emotion.

from:    http://www.livescience.com/17398-schadenfreude-affirmation.html

Body Odor and Personality Traits

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Some Personality Traits Affect How You Smell

Rachael Rettner, MyHealthNewsDaily Staff Writer
Date: 02 December 2011 Time: 09:23 AM ET


friends-social-outside-101008-02

Getting to know someone usually requires at least a little conversation. But a new study suggests you can get a hint of an individual’s personality through his or her scent alone.

Participants in the study assessed, with some degree of accuracy, how outgoing, anxious or dominant people were after only taking a whiff of their clothes. The study is the first to test whether personality traits can be discerned through body odor.

While the match-up between responses by the judges and the judged were not perfect, they do suggest that, when forming a first impression, we take into account a person’s smell, as well as visual and audible cues to their personality traits, the researchers said.

We not only express ourselves through our looks, “we also express ourselves with how we smell,” said study researcher Agnieszka Sorokowska, a doctoral candidate at the University of Wroclaw, in Poland.

The study will be published in an upcoming issue of the European Journal of Personality.

Personality smells

Sorokowska and colleagues asked 30 men and 30 women to don white cotton t-shirts for three consecutive nights. Participants could not use fragrances, deodorants orsoaps, and could not smoke or drink or eat odorous foods during the study. Participants also took a personality test.

Shirts from the “odor donors” were collected and rated by 100 men and 100 women. Raters were asked to smell the shirts (placed in non-transparent plastic bags) and evaluate five personality traits of the donors, on a scale of one to 10. Each rater assessed six shirts, and each shirt was assessed by 20 raters.

The judges’ ratings matched up with the self-assessments of the donors for three personality traits: extroversion (the tendency to be outgoing and sociable) neuroticism (the tendency to feel anxious and moody) and dominance (the urge to be a leader).

The matches were far from perfect. But the raters predicted the donor’s level of extroversion and neuroticism through smell about as accurately as participants in a different study predicted personality traits based on a video depicting a person’s behavior, Sorokowska said.

Judgments of dominance were most accurate in the case where an individual rater was assessing the odor of someone who was the opposite sex, suggesting such judgments are especially important when it comes to choosing a mate, the researchers said.

Odor and emotions

Extroversion, neuroticism and dominance are all traits that may, to some extent, be expressed physiologically, including through our emotions.

For instance, people who are neurotic may sweat more when they experience stress, which would modify the bacteria in their underarms and make them smell different, the researchers said.

Personality traits may also be linked with the secretion of hormones that could alter a persons’ scent. People who are high in dominance may have higher levels of testosterone, which in turn may modify their sweat glands, the researchers said.

The findings are preliminary and more studies need to be done to confirm the results, Sorokowska said. It’s not clear whether the same link would be found in other cultures known to have weaker body odors, Sorokowska said.

from:    http://www.livescience.com/17279-personality-traits-affect-smell.html

Why Did I Come In Here?

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Forget Why You Walked in a Room? Doorways to Blame, Study Finds

By Natalie Wolchover, Life’s Little Mysteries Staff Writer
21 November 2011 3:43 PM ET

 

Credit: Dreamstime

 

“So … what am I doing here, anyway?”

Even the most nimble-minded among us have pondered that question after walking into a room with some purpose in mind — to get something, perhaps? — only to blank on what that purpose was. Now a new study suggests that it’s the very act of walking through a doorway that causes these strange memory lapses.

“Entering or exiting through a doorway serves as an ‘event boundary’ in the mind, which separates episodes of activity and files them away,” said lead researcher Gabriel Radvansky, a psychologist at the University of Notre Dame. “Recalling the decision or activity that was made in a different room is difficult because it has been compartmentalized.”

In our minds, like in the movies, threshold-crossing signals the end of a scene.

As detailed in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, the explanation follows from a series of experiments that probed the relationship between memory and various types of home wandering. First, Radvansky assigned a group of study participants the task of selecting an object from one table and exchanging it for an object at a different table in another room. He then had a second group perform the same task between tables that were an equal distance apart, but in the same room.

The difference in the two groups’ performances was “big enough to drive a truck through,” Radvansky told Life’s Little Mysteries. Despite the simplicity of their task, “people were two to three times as likely to forget what they were supposed to do after walking through a doorway.” This suggested that doorways acted as mental blocks, impeding our ability to retrieve memories formed elsewhere.

The finding held true when the participants navigated both real-world and virtual settings.

But was it actually threshold-crossing that caused their memory lapses, or was it simply being in a different environment than the one in which they learned their task? To find out, Radvansky had the volunteers perform another object-exchanging task, but this time, the task required them to pass through several doorways leading back to the room in which they started. As it turned out, their memories failed them in this scenario just as they did in the other threshold-crossing scenarios. “When they went through multiple doorways, the error rate increased,” he said. This suggests that the act of passing through doorways, rather than the fact of being in a different environment, kills memory, he said.

So why does this happen? “When we are moving through the world, it is very continuous and dynamic and to deal with it more effectively, we parse things up,” Radvansky said. Neuroscientists have begun imaging the brains of people crossing event boundaries and, from these studies, are just beginning to piece together how the brain performs this function. “There are a lot of [brain] areas that light up at different kinds of event boundaries.”

Mental event boundaries are useful because they help us organize our thoughts and memories. But when we’re trying to remember that thing we were intending to do… or get… or maybe find… they can be annoying.

“I think architects are interested in this research because they want to design spaces that are more effective,” Radvansky said. “For example, they might need to consider where you need doorways and where you don’t.”

from:   http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/walking-doorways-forgetting-2192/

Another Reason NOT to Live in Utah

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Suicidal Thoughts Highest in Utah, National Survey Finds

Jennifer Welsh, LiveScience Staff Writer
Date: 20 October 2011 Time: 12:00 PM E
depressed guy sitting on stairs
A new study of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in U.S. adults finds suicidal thoughts are the highest in Utah, and attempts are highest in Rhode Island.
CREDIT: © Ron Sumners | Dreamstime.com

While someone commits suicide in the United States every 15 minutes, many more think about it or even attempt to take their own lives, according to a new study showing that residents of Utah have the highest rates of such thoughts while suicide attempts are highest in Rhode Island.

A study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) looked at data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health from 2008 through 2009. Results showed that serious thoughts of suicide range from about 1 in 50 adults in Georgia (2.1 percent) to 1 in 15 in Utah (6.8 percent). [See complete list of state suicide numbers]

“Suicide is a tragedy for individuals, families and communities. This report highlights that we have opportunities to intervene before someone dies by suicide. We can identify risks and take action before a suicide attempt takes place,” said Thomas M. Frieden, CDC director. “Most people are uncomfortable talking about suicide, but this is not a problem to shroud in secrecy. We need to work together to raise awareness about suicide and learn more about interventions that work to prevent this public health problem.”

http://www.livescience.com/16633-suicide-thoughts-attempts-states-survey.html

Once Again, The World Ends Tomorrow

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Why the World Will End (Again) on Friday

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 19 October 2011 Time: 01:14 PM ET
A post-apocalyptic scene
The end of the world has been predicted by dozens, if not hundreds, of “prophets” over the centuries. The most recent is Harold Camping, who believes that the end will come on October 21.
CREDIT: Jens Beste, Shutterstock

The world is about to end. Again.

Oct. 21 is the next in a long line of supposed apocalypses, stretching back thousands of years. This time, the prophet of doom is Harold Camping, a radio preacher who received international media attention in May when he predicted that Judgment Day would fall on May 21, followed by months of torment on Earth and an end to everything in autumn.

Judgment Day didn’t bring the promised earthquakes and Rapture, but Camping now says May 21 marked a spiritual Judgment Day and that the world will still end “quietly” on Friday. It may seem odd that Camping’s faith remains strong, but apocalypse experts say that doomsday prophets have often built their entire lives around their end-of-the-world views, and that worldview is hard to shake. For an elderly preacher like Camping, who suffered a stroke in June, apocalypse beliefs may also reflect his struggle with his own mortality.

I would not be surprised to discover that Mr. Camping sees this prediction as his life’s work, the culmination of decades of intensive Bible study, filtered through the sieve of faith,” said Lorenzo DiTommaso, a professor of religion at Concordia University in Montreal. “If this is correct, then perhaps he sees in the world a reflection of his self.”

The appeal of the end

Doomsday predictions, whether secular or religious, often attract those who feel theworld is unsalvageable. Sometimes the world-ending catastrophe is nuclear winter; sometimes it’s the Mayan apocalypse. But religious doomsday groups often draw on mainstream faith, said Stephen Kent, a sociologist at the University of Alberta.

“Almost all apocalyptic beliefs show Christian influence,” Kent told LiveScience.

That’s because a central tenant of the faith is that Jesus will return — although many mainstream Christians point to the Bible verse Matthew 24:36 to condemn doomsday prophets such as Camping. That verse says that no one knows the day or hour of the end, “not even the angels in heaven.”

Those who try to predict when doomsday will occur often focus on the world’s sin. Camping, for example, has said that God left all churches in 1988, leaving Satan to rule those institutions. Famous 1800s doomsday prophet William Miller, who predicted that the end would come on Oct. 22, 1844, was “disillusioned with humanity,” Kent said. [Read: Oops! 11 Failed Doomsday Predictions]

“He read a considerable amount of history and came to see humans as brutes,” Kent said.

With this worldview, the end of the world is a welcome way to wipe Earth clean.

“Despite fire, death and destruction, the god of apocalypticism is a god of order, not chaos,” DiTommaso told LiveScience in May. “That’s the reassurance.”

The personal is the prophetic

An individual’s psychology and environment may contribute to the apocalyptic worldview. Followers often live and socialize in small groups where outside opinions aren’t heard, DiTommaso said. This “social encapsulation” keeps faith-shaking questions at bay.

Camping and his followers are also operating from a worldview that holds that the Bible and its prophecies cannot be wrong, DiTommaso told LiveScience.

to read more, go to:    http://www.livescience.com/16612-world-oct-21.html

Toning Down the Inner Critic

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Walter E. Jacobson, M.D.

Psychiatrist, speaker and author, ‘Forgive to Win!’

How to Turn the Volume Down on Your Inner Critic

Posted: 9/1/11 08:34 AM ET

Many of us resist change because we are more comfortable with the known, as bad as it may be, compared to the unknown, which we fear could be far worse. Many of us resist change because we fear it may make others uncomfortable to the point where they distance themselves from us and possibly leave us, triggering our abandonment issues in the process.

Consequently, instead of making efforts to change and being willing to deal with the uncertainty of the unknown and the possible abandonment of others, we cling to the past, we cling to the unsatisfying relationships and circumstances of our lives, we don’t take risks and we accept a life less lived.

What can we do about it? First, we have to deal with the prevailing fear that is dominating our resistance to change. We must make the conscious decision that it’s better to risk potential disappointments, in an effort to reach for the stars, rather than accept a life of dormant dreams and quiet desperation.

We must make the conscious decision that if people can’t accept us for choosing to change it may be painful, but we’ll deal with it. We may feel abandoned by them, but we won’t abandon ourselves. We have faith that others will enter our lives, attracted by what we are striving to achieve, who will appreciate and support our growth efforts.

Once we make a commitment to change, we must vigilantly monitor our thoughts and neutralize our inner critic, that negative, disparaging, shaming and degrading voice inside our head that keeps telling us that we’re not good enough, we’re not loveable, we’re unworthy, we don’t deserve success and happiness and that it is a pointless waste of time to try to become something more.

We must de-fang our inner critic and give it no power to fuel our fear and our doubt, to discourage us and derail us. We must de-throne our inner critic and replace it with our inner colleague — that inspiring, encouraging, uplifting voice inside our head, that loving and nurturing voice of our higher self that truly knows what’s best for us.

For far too long we have kept that voice soft if not silent, relegating it to the back seat of our consciousness. But now, having made the commitment to change, we pump up the volume and use it to repeatedly reinforce positive, optimistic messages that neutralize the negative, critical labels from our inner critic and, at the same time, fuel our passion, our persistence and our perseverance.

Bottom line: We don’t have to sell ourselves short. We don’t have to settle for less. There is great joy and abundance available to each of us when we release ourselves from the bondage of “I can’t” and other limiting self-definitions.

to read more, go to:    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/walter-e-jacobson-md/fear-of-change_b_941300.html?ref=healthy-living-spirit

Archetypal Astrology

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Archetypal Astrology and Transpersonal Psychology:
The Research of Richard Tarnas and Stanislav Grof
Renn Butler
In the mid-1960’s, a young Czechoslovakian psychiatrist working at the Psychiatric 
Research Institute in Prague made some epoch-making discoveries concerning the 
fundamental structures of the human psyche. Working with a wide range of individuals 
involved in supervised LSD psychotherapy, Stanislav Grof and his clients encountered 
experiences that gradually and then irrevocably challenged the orthodox Freudian model 
in which he and his colleagues were working.
The content of the sessions suggested a far deeper understanding of the human psyche 
and the cosmos itself than had been previously imagined. After supervising 3,000 LSD 
sessions and studying the records of another 2,000, Grof eventually systematized a farreaching model that accounted for the observations of his client’s sessions, integrated the 
diversity of competing psychological theories, and reached into areas of human 
spirituality described by the great spiritual traditions of the world.
Stanislav Grof’s Expanded Cartography of the Human Psyche
In 1976, Grof and his partner Christina developed a comparable non-drug technique for 
entering non-ordinary states of consciousness, which they called Holotropic 
Breathwork™ (from holos=“wholeness”; and trepein=“moving toward”). Throughout his 
long career of more than fifty-five years of research using powerful drug and non-drug 
catalysts, Grof discovered that individuals who enter holotropic states of consciousness 
have access to three broad layers of experience.
to read the whole article, go to:    http://www.stanislavgrof.com/pdf/Richard%20Tarnas%20and%20Stan%20Grof.pdf

Watch Who You Mimic

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Copying Someone’s Behavior? Watch Who You Mimic

Remy Melina, LiveScience Staff Writer
Date: 01 August 2011 Time: 12:19 PM ET
mirroring experiment
During the experiment, participants rated the interviewees who mimicked the behavior of the unfriendly interviewer as less competent than those who didn’t mirror him.
CREDIT: Piotr Winkielman | University of California, San Diego

While imitating another may be a sincere form of flattery, such mirroring can get you into trouble socially if you’re copying the wrong person, new research shows.

When participants in the study mirrored (or copied the mannerisms of) an unlikeable person, they were also judged as less competent and likeable by others, the researchers found.

Mirroring happens all the time and has been shown to involve mirror neurons, which are the cells in the brain that activate when we watch someone else perform a particular action that we also perform ourselves.

to read more, go to:    http://www.livescience.com/15332-mirroring-behavior-downside.html