Can your iPhone make you happier? But of course, according to a new application called “Live Happy.” The app is meant to boost contentedness by helping users practice “positive psychology.” It’s a technique that creates spurts of happiness that research suggests may boost overall well-being over time.
The app is based on research by psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky, who has found that, for example, savoring common, yet pleasurable, experiences such as a hot shower can boost happiness. According to U.S. News & World Report:
The $6.99 Live Happy app allows users to track their happiness levels and practice some of her strategies—gratitude, for example, can be practiced by texting, emailing, or calling someone from your contact list. While Lyubomirsky is not profiting financially off the new app, she will be using it to study how her recommendations work in the real world.
So are iPhone users jumping to nab this joy-bringing app? Not all of them. When we offered one iPhone devotee a free trial of the app, he responded: “You know what would make me happy? Not spending so much time staring into an iPhone screen.”
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Image: flickr / William Hook
Are you a professional hoping to alienate others in your field? Perhaps you could try the technique used by a Canadian doctor who posted all 10 inkblots used in Rorschach tests to Wikipedia, along with complete descriptions of the most common responses to the images.
Although some psychologists debate the usefulness of the test, which was invented in 1921, it remains the second most-used psychological test today. Many in the field worry that patients who come into the Rorschach test with preconceptions could “game” the test, resulting in a skewed diagnosis.
The New York Times reports:
For [psychologists], the Wikipedia page is the equivalent of posting an answer sheet to next year’s SAT. They are pitted against the overwhelming majority of Wikipedia’s users, who share the site’s “free culture” ethos, which opposes the suppression of information that it is legal to publish…
What had been a simmering dispute over the reproduction of a single plate reached new heights in June when [ER doctor] James Heilman…posted images of all 10 plates to the bottom of the article about the test, along with what research had found to be the most popular responses for each.
We’re not quite sure how posting the inkblots online would benefit anyone. But then, we can’t know what was going on in the doctor’s head…maybe we should recruit a couple of psychologists to figure it out.
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Image: flickr / Brian Sawyer
We kid you not: Orphaned baby chimpanzees cared for by humans in a loving, attentive manner have been found to be more cognitively advanced than some human infants.
Authors of a new study in Developmental Psychobiology compared nine-month-old human babies to nine-month-old chimps who had received daily “mom sessions.” For 20 hours a week, humans would play with 17 of the orphaned infant chimps, helping them to develop motor skills and to “meet new challenges with curiosity instead of distress.”
The chimps were then given an IQ test, the same tool normally used to assess infant human development—and those receiving all the mommy time scored an average of almost 10 points higher than normal humans of the same age. Meanwhile, the 28 chimps raised in “standard care” scored an average of 7.5 points lower.
The chimpanzees who received “responsive care” continued to exhibit strong cognitive and emotional development throughout their youth. Those who received standard or institutional care, however—in which only physical needs were met, with no social or emotional care from human surrogate mothers—were less likely to become well-adjusted adults.
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Intrepid psychologists of the less regulated past used to carry out experiments that put not only their subjects, but themselves (or at least their research assistants) in harm’s way. While it was the participants who got the short end of the stick in the likes of Milgram’s electric shock experiment, other experiments called for researchers to do audacious things that would probably get them arrested today.
For example, one experiment [subscription required] from the 1970s called for the researcher to loiter inside a toilet stall and use a periscope to secretly watch men doing their business at the urinals. The purpose of the study was to find out what causes paruresis, or “shy bladder syndrome.” The researcher used a stopwatch to measure delay time and urination time while an accomplice, another researcher, stood at an adjacent urinal or one farther away. The study concluded that invasions of personal space caused longer delay times and shorter urination times. Though a third party can sort of understand why such public voyeurism is needed to capture natural behavior, it would’ve been hard to explain the scientific merit to the man whose urine stream you’ve been staring at.
Scientific American’s Jesse Bering recounts this and other brave experiments, including a mock rape scene and staring at strangers for a creepily long time. Bering, for one, seems to miss the days when researchers risked their own lives and limbs for science.
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DISCOVER: The Dark Side of Reality TV
Image: flickr / markhillary
Lie detection is all the rage on TV these days, with newcomer “The Mentalist” drawing viewers like flies to honey and “The Closer” and “Psych” burning up the Nielsens. And now a new show has joined the mix, called “Lie to Me,” about a man with a near-preternatural ability to tell when someone is lying.
The show stars Tim Roth (forever Mr. Orange) as Dr. Cal Lightman, a behavioral science expert who makes bank as a consultant for clients who want him to catch liars. His near-perfect skills supposedly come from interpretation of body language and facial expressions that let him in on whether this week’s murder suspect or shifty spouse is spinning a big one.
Both the main character and his skills are reportedly based on the persona and work of Dr. Paul Ekman, the facial expression expert who advises the Department of Defense on lie detection. Ekman’s method is based on what he calls “microexpressions,” small facial movements that he says present evidence of what you’re really feeling. We don’t necessarily know we’re doing them, so we can’t necessarily control them—say “I am saddened by my wife’s death” but flash a happy or disgusted microexpression, and a detective should take note.
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Feeling stressed or sad? Before you succumb to the blues, try standing under a blue light. Several cities around the world claim to have reduced suicides, crime, and even traffic accidents by installing blue lights in the public spaces.
In Glasgow, Scotland, blue streetlights installed in 2000 have reduced street crimes noticeably. In Japan, a country notorious for its high suicide rates—authorities say in 2007 alone there were 640 suicides attempted by jumping in front of oncoming trains—two railroad companies have turned to light therapy. After blue lights were installed on station platforms and near railway crossings, the number of suicide attempts dropped to zero. Also in Japan, hundreds of blue lights have been installed along highways and rest stops. An expressway operator said trash cans near blue lights received 20 percent less garbage.
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Your mom always told you that it’s the thought that counts. And when it comes to pain, scientists appear to have shown that intentions really do matter. Harvard researchers report that people experience more pain if they perceive that the pain is intentionally inflicted.
“When someone steps on your toe on purpose, it seems to hurt more than when the person does the same thing unintentionally. The physical parameters of the harm may not differ—your toe is flattened in both cases—but the psychological experience of pain is changed nonetheless,” the researchers report in Psychological Science [pdf].
The researchers enrolled 43 participants in a study in which they were each paired with partner. Little did they know that the partner was actually a researcher running the study. The participant was hooked up to a machine and told that the partner, located in a separate room, would control whether or not to deliver an electric shock through the machine. In some cases, however, the partner’s choice would be reversed by the machine. The participant could see what the partner had chosen—shock or no shock—and whether the machine would follow the choice or reverse it. Even though the participants always knew they were about to be shocked, they rated the intentional shocks as more painful than the unintentional ones—3.62 versus 3.00 on a 7-point scale.
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Have you seen this child—looking like this? A new study suggests authorities are using the wrong kind of photos to locate missing children. Parents of missing children are usually asked to provide a recent school photo, which typically show smiling, clean, and dressed-up children. But these photos don’t accurately depict the state of kidnapped children (which is what the average missing child would be), who usually look upset, tired, and unkempt.
Researchers at Mississippi State University asked 150 adults to look at photos of children, some in “clean” states and others in “dirty” states. (For the “dirty” states, the children were photographed with makeup to simulate dirt and bruises.) The adults were then shown another set of photos and asked if they recognized the children from the previous photos. People were better at recognizing children shown in similar states, and the advantage became more apparent when the researchers inserted a delay (10 minutes, 3 weeks, 6 weeks, or 12 weeks) between the two sets of photos. This means that even someone who has seen a picture of a missing child might easily overlook the same child on the street.
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