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Reports on the latest psychology research plus psych gossip and comment. Brought to you by the British Psychological Society.
BPS Research Digest
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- September 22, 2008
- 01:00 AM
- 1,593 views
How ambitious mothers breed successful daughters
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
"I always knew our Karen would do well"... these words, so typical of a proud mother, have taken on profound significance following a new study by Eirini Flouri and Denise Hawkes at the Institute of Education in London. Their research shows that a mother's expectations about about her daughter's future educational attainment may actually affect that child's future success at work, as well as her sense of control in life.Flouri and Hawkes used data collected from 1,520 men and 1,765 women as part of the British Cohort Study, which began in 1970. When the study participants were aged ten, their mothers were asked when they thought their child would leave school: at age 16, 17 or 18.Crucially, those female participants whose mothers predicted that they would stay in school longer, tended to earn more money at the age of 26, and to report having a greater sense of control over their lives at 30, than the female participants whose mothers predicted they would leave school early."Given that women are particularly at risk for poor psychological and economic outcomes in adulthood... this is an important conclusion," the researchers said.This association between mothers' expectations and their daughters' later occupational success and psychological confidence remained even after controlling for a raft of other relevant factors. In other words, mothers' expectations appeared to be exerting an independent effect quite separate from other influences, such as the child's ethnicity or general ability, that might have have simultaneously influenced both the mothers' expectations and their daughters' outcomes.In contrast to these findings, mothers' expectations had no association with the later occupational success or psychological confidence of sons._________________________________Eirini Flouri, Denise Hawkes (2008). Ambitious mothers - successful daughters: Mothers' early expectations for children's education and children's earnings and sense of control in adult life British Journal of Educational Psychology, 78 (3), 411-433 DOI: 10.1348/000709907X251280Link to related feature article in The Psychologist magazine (open access).... Read more »
Eirini Flouri, & Denise Hawkes. (2008) Ambitious mothers - successful daughters: Mothers' early expectations for children's education and children's earnings and sense of control in adult life. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 78(3), 411-433. DOI: 10.1348/000709907X251280
- September 3, 2008
- 03:24 AM
- 1,564 views
We remember more from our teens and early twenties than from any other time of life
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Research shows we're better at recollecting events that occurred during our teens and early twenties than during any other period in our lives - an anomaly that experts call the "reminiscence bump". One explanation for the bump, according to Steve Janssen and colleagues, is that our memories work more efficiently during our teens and early adulthood relative to other periods in our lives.The problem with testing that biological account, however, is that it is possible events are more memorable from our teens and early twenties simply because they were more meaningful to us. Just think, your first driving lesson or first kiss will obviously be more memorable than subsequent ones.As a way round this, Janssen's team invited over 1000 people aged between 16 and 75 years to complete an internet-based test of events that had occurred in the news between 1950 and 2006. For example, "In which city was US President John F Kennedy assassinated in 1963?"; and "What was the name of the hurricane that flooded New Orleans in 2005?".The computer programme that ran the test ensured that each participant answered 30 questions from three periods: from before they were ten years' old; from the era when they were aged 10 to 25 years; and from when they were older than 25 years. Some questions were multiple-choice, whereas others were free recall.Among the younger participants, the recency effect (our tendency to better recall more recent events) and the reminiscence bump could be confused, so the researchers removed the influence of the recency effect from the data. Having done that, the researchers found clear evidence that participants of all ages tended to have a better memory for events that occurred during their teens and early twenties than at other times. This was particularly the case for the free-recall questions.The researchers said their finding backs up the idea that events are stored better in adolescence and early adulthood because the brain works at an optimum during those periods (although they acknowledged this doesn't mean that other explanations don't also play a role). The new finding is also consistent with research showing that people tend to recall books, films and music from their teens and early twenties when asked to name their favourites.What remains unclear is why memory works optimally during adolescence and early adulthood. "Is this effect caused by changing levels of hormones or neurotransmitters?" the researchers asked. "Or does working memory have a larger capacity in adolescence, enabling more memories to be stored? More work, by psychologists as well as neuroscientists, will be required to answer this question."_________________________________Janssen, S., Murre, J., Meeter, M. (2007). Reminiscence bump in memory for public events. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 20(4), 738-764. DOI: 10.1080/09541440701554409... Read more »
Steve Janssen, Jaap Murre, & Martijn Meeter. (2007) Reminiscence bump in memory for public events. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 20(4), 738-764. DOI: 10.1080/09541440701554409
- September 24, 2008
- 01:00 AM
- 1,556 views
What does crying do for you?
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Nearly all of us cry sometimes. But what makes us cry, how often we do it, and how it makes us feel varies hugely from person to person. According to Jonathan Rottenberg and colleagues, crying in general, and particularly how crying makes us feel, are surprisingly under-researched aspects of human behaviour.Rottenberg's team asked 196 adult Dutch women (aged between 17 and 84 years) to answer questions about their personalities, their mental health, their propensity for crying and how crying made them feel.Consistent with past research, people who reported being more neurotic, extravert and/or empathic tended to cry more often and more easily. The research was correlational, so it's not clear if having these personality types leads to more crying, or if crying more contributes to these personality types. Perhaps surprisingly, mental health, in terms of reported depression, anxiety and so forth, was not associated with how often or easily people said they cried.When it came to the effects of crying, the pattern was the other way round. Aspects of personality were not associated with how the participants said crying made them feel, but mental health was. While the majority of the participants (88.8 per cent) said that crying brought them relief, a minority, especially those with depression, anxiety, anhedonia (a loss of the ability to experience pleasure), and/or alexithymia (a difficulty expressing or processing emotions), said that crying left them feeling worse or just the same.The researchers said more work was needed to find out why crying brings relief to some people but not others. "Currently there is only anecdotal evidence that learning how to cry and how to derive positive effects from it could help people who are having difficulty expressing sadness or crying," they wrote._________________________________J ROTTENBERG, L BYLSMA, V WOLVIN, A VINGERHOETS (2008). Tears of sorrow, tears of joy: An individual differences approach to crying in Dutch females Personality and Individual Differences, 45 (5), 367-372 DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2008.05.006... Read more »
J ROTTENBERG, L BYLSMA, V WOLVIN, & A VINGERHOETS. (2008) Tears of sorrow, tears of joy: An individual differences approach to crying in Dutch females. Personality and Individual Differences, 45(5), 367-372. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2008.05.006
- April 24, 2009
- 03:47 AM
- 1,552 views
Classroom lighting could be harming pupils' performance
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Lighting conditions in UK classrooms could be needlessly harming children's school performance, psychologists have claimed. Mark Winterbottom and Arnold Wilkins assessed 90 classrooms in 11 secondary schools across the UK during the Summer of 2006.Past research has shown that fluorescent lights that flicker imperceptibly at a rate of 100Hz are harmful to mental performance. They're easily replaced by more efficient and less harmful lights, yet Winterbottom and Wilkins found 20 per cent of classrooms were lit solely by the harmful variety. In the remaining classrooms, an average of 90 per cent of lighting was of the harmful variety.Excess or inadequate luminance is another problem in classrooms, usually caused by a lack of control over lighting in different areas of a room. The researchers found that luminance exceeded recommended levels in 88 per cent of the classrooms they investigated. More fine-tuned light control and more use and servicing of blinds could easily ameliorate these issues.Another lighting problem, brought about since the introduction of data projectors into classrooms, is glare reflecting off the projection screen into pupils' eyes. The researchers found that all bar one of the classrooms they studied had equipment arranged in such a way as to exacerbate this problem, with projectors on the ceiling and screens mounted vertically. The situation can be improved by tilting the screen upwards slightly, so that the glare is directed towards the ceiling."Most of these problems are unnecessary and appear due to poor policy decisions," Winterbottom and Wilkins concluded. "In most cases, action to correct the problems would be simple, and any costs would be offset in the medium term, due to increased efficiency, reduction of wastage, and benefits in terms of health of pupils and staff."_________________________________Winterbottom, M., & Wilkins, A. (2009). Lighting and discomfort in the classroom. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 29 (1), 63-75 DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2008.11.007... Read more »
Winterbottom, M., & Wilkins, A. (2009) Lighting and discomfort in the classroom. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 29(1), 63-75. DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2008.11.007
- October 13, 2008
- 03:17 AM
- 1,547 views
A personality test that can't be faked
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Aspects of personality can be even more important than IQ when it comes to predicting workplace performance and academic success. If you're conscientious and emotionally stable, you're likely to be a better employee or a more successful student than someone who is lazy and unstable. The trouble for university selectors or company recruiters is that personality tests can be easily faked...until now. Psychologists in Canada think they've found a way to measure the Big Five factors of personality that is less vulnerable to faking.Jacob Hirsh and Jordan Paterson asked 205 undergrads to complete both the standard Big Five Inventory and their newly designed "relative-scored" personality questionnaire.The new test taps into the Big Five factors of personality but instead of asking respondents to rate how highly they agree with a set of descriptions about themselves, it forces them to choose between pairs of competing statements. For example, a participant might have to choose between "I rarely get irritated" versus "I am full of ideas". This means participants can't paint themselves as all round wonder-candidates - they have to sacrifice some positive attributes at the expense of others.Crucially, half the students were asked to complete the tests honestly, while the other half were asked to fake them - as if they were trying to present the best impression possible.When the tests were answered honestly, both of them predicted the participants' final school exam performance (their "grade point average") and their self-reported creative achievements. However, when the tests were deliberately faked, only scores on the newly designed test predicted exam and creative success."The massive variability in productivity typically obtaining between individuals means that even the moderate improvements in predictive validity potentially gained from the new questionnaire could have large economic benefits when used in real world selection procedures," the researchers said.The new test also provides some intriguing clues about people's faking strategies. It showed that students tended to sacrifice their scores on agreeableness in order to present themselves as more conscientious. The researchers plan to test whether this will change in different circumstances or with different participants._________________________________J HIRSH, J PETERSON (2008). Predicting creativity and academic success with a “Fake-Proof” measure of the Big Five Journal of Research in Personality, 42 (5), 1323-1333 DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2008.04.006... Read more »
J HIRSH, & J PETERSON. (2008) Predicting creativity and academic success with a “Fake-Proof” measure of the Big Five. Journal of Research in Personality, 42(5), 1323-1333. DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2008.04.006
- February 5, 2008
- 06:05 AM
- 1,518 views
Sprinters should kick-off with their right foot
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
All sprinters should start with their right foot in the rear kick-off position on the starting block. Doing so will give them an advantage of about 80ms compared with starting with their left foot in that position. That's according to Adam Eikenberry and colleagues who say the effect of foot position on starting time has to do with differences in the workings of the left and right brain hemispheres.Ten experienced and ten novice sprinters were timed as they repeatedly launched into a sprint with either their left or right foot in the rear position on the starting block. The rear fo... Read more »
A EIKENBERRY. (2008) Starting with the “right” foot minimizes sprint start time. Acta Psychologica, 127(2), 495-500. DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2007.09.002
- February 1, 2008
- 05:05 AM
- 1,474 views
The type of interrogation likely to lead to false confessions
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Not surprisingly, confessions are extremely persuasive in court, but according to Jessica Klaver and colleagues, all too often these confessions are false, leading to the wrong person being found guilty.Now Klaver's team have used an elegant laboratory task to compare two types of interrogation technique and found that it is so-called 'minimising' questions and remarks - those that downplay the seriousness of the offence, and which blame other people or circumstances - that are the most likely to lead to a false confession.Over two hundred Asian and Caucasian students w... Read more »
Jessica Klaver, Zina Lee, & V Gordon Rose. (2008) Effects of personality, interrogation techniques and plausibility in an experimental false confession paradigm. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 13(1), 71-88. DOI: 10.1348/135532507X193051
- February 18, 2008
- 06:02 AM
- 1,459 views
Alzheimer's patients retain their taste in art
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
As Alzheimer's disease wipes out a person's identity, their taste in art can remain stubbornly, wonderfully, intact. Andrea Halpern and colleagues hope their finding will bring encouragement to carers of people with the disease.Seventeen healthy older adults and sixteen older adults with probable Alzheimer's disease were asked to place three sets of eight art post-cards in order of preference. One set depicted representational paintings (e.g. Hopper's People in the Sun), another set depicted quasi-representational paintings (e.g. Picasso's Weeping Woman), while the final set featur... Read more »
A HALPERN. (2008) “I Know What I Like”: Stability of aesthetic preference in alzheimer’s patients☆. Brain and Cognition, 66(1), 65-72. DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2007.05.008
- October 17, 2008
- 01:00 AM
- 1,450 views
When thoughts of death turn to environmentalism
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Reminding people of their own mortality can either turn them off environmentalism or reinforce their commitment to it, depending on how important the cause was to them in the first place. That's according to Matthew Vess and Jamie Arndt who asked 57 students to think about what will happen when they die, or to imagine physical pain (this served as a non-morbid control condition).After completing an irrelevant distraction task, the students next read an article about a lawsuit concerning a city council's decision to prohibit development on parkland. Finally, the students gave their opinions on the lawsuit and chose further pro- or anti-environment articles to read.Students who said being an environmentalist was unimportant to their self-esteem, and who'd earlier thought about their own death, subsequently showed less environmental concern in response to the development article than did non-environmentalists who had earlier thought about physical pain. This is consistent with previous work showing that thoughts of death lead people to reject their earthly origins (for example, one study showed that people reminded of their mortality subsequently rated a wilderness scene less favourably and a cityscape more favourably).By contrast, students who said environmentalism was important to their self-esteem, and who'd earlier thought about their own death, subsequently showed far greater environmental concern than environmentalist students who'd earlier thought about physical pain."It appears that certain people derive existentially important feelings of self-esteem from pro-environmental behaviour and thus respond to concerns about mortality with increased concern for the well-being of the natural world," the researchers said. "These self-esteem investments can thus transform the protection of the natural world into an existentially relevant behaviour which can similarly function to mitigate concerns with our vulnerability to death."_________________________________M VESS, J ARNDT (2008). The nature of death and the death of nature: The impact of mortality salience on environmental concern Journal of Research in Personality, 42 (5), 1376-1380 DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2008.04.007... Read more »
M VESS, & J ARNDT. (2008) The nature of death and the death of nature: The impact of mortality salience on environmental concern. Journal of Research in Personality, 42(5), 1376-1380. DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2008.04.007
- October 22, 2008
- 01:00 AM
- 1,427 views
Self-belief boosts problem solving success
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Success at mental arithmetic isn't purely a question of mathematical skill and knowledge - people's belief in their own ability, known as "self-efficacy", plays a key part too. Bobby Hoffman and Alexandru Spatariu who made the new finding say their research is the "first study that we know of to demonstrate the effect of self-efficacy on problem-solving efficiency when controlling for background knowledge."Hoffman and Spatariu tested the basic addition and multiplication abilities of 81 undergrad students, as well as their confidence in performing mental multiplication. Next, the researchers gave the students twenty easy (single digit X single digit) and twenty difficult (double digit X double digit) multiplication problems to perform in their heads, in a "reasonable amount of time". In a final twist, half the students were also given so-called "metacognitive prompts" during the testing. For example, the computer screen on which they were being tested would flash up prompts like "What steps are you using to solve these problems?"Self-efficacy and general ability each made a unique contribution to the students' success at the easy and difficult multiplication task, in terms of overall accuracy and efficiency. Those students with higher ability and greater self-belief performed more quickly and more accurately. For the harder multiplication task only, metacognitive prompting also boosted accuracy. It sped efficiency too, if the time taken for the prompts to appear and be cleared was not counted.Lead researcher Dr Bobby Hoffman told the Digest that effective problem-solving requires a unique blend of skills and strategies. "In learning situations there is a natural tendency to build basic skills," he said, "but that is only part of the formula. Instructors that focus on building the confidence of students, providing strategic instruction, and giving relevant feedback can enhance performance outcomes."_________________________________B HOFFMAN, A SPATARIU (2008). The influence of self-efficacy and metacognitive prompting on math problem-solving efficiency Contemporary Educational Psychology, 33 (4), 875-893 DOI: 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2007.07.002... Read more »
B HOFFMAN, & A SPATARIU. (2008) The influence of self-efficacy and metacognitive prompting on math problem-solving efficiency. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 33(4), 875-893. DOI: 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2007.07.002
- June 20, 2008
- 05:03 AM
- 1,420 views
Biofeedback training can boost concentration power
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Psychologists have developed a form of training, involving biofeedback, that can boost people's ability to concentrate. The system shows potential as a way to help people with ADHD (i.e an attention deficit). The work was inspired by research showing that brain areas involved in arousal overlap with those involved in sustained attention.Participants were first tested on a boring concentration task, during which single numbers between 1 and 9 appeared on a computer screen hundreds of times. The task was to press the left mouse key in response to any number that appeared, except for ... Read more »
R OCONNELL, M BELLGROVE, P DOCKREE, A LAU, M FITZGERALD, & I ROBERTSON. (2008) Self-Alert Training: Volitional modulation of autonomic arousal improves sustained attention. Neuropsychologia, 46(5), 1379-1390. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.12.018
- October 29, 2008
- 05:23 AM
- 1,405 views
Are brain damaged people who confabulate even trying to remember?
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
When a patient with brain damage provides bizarre answers to questions about their life or their recent activities, they are said to be confabulating. It's nearly always associated with damage to the frontal cortex and has traditionally be construed as a problem with memory retrieval - a mixing up of real memories with imagined facts. But now Gian Zannino and his associates have proposed a new explanation. Their suggestion is that confabulation often doesn't involve memory at all. Rather, they say it reflects a basic inability to select the appropriate mental process for the task at hand.Zannino's group studied patient M.L. - a 55-year-old woman who frequently confabulates following an aneurysm in the front of her brain. They compared her performance on a range of psychological tests with that of two patients with frontal lobe brain damage who don't confabulate, and with five healthy controls.The researchers showed first that M.L., but not the other participants, confabulated just as much regardless of question difficulty. So, for example, she gave bizarre, incorrect answers whether she was describing the last time she'd travelled by ship ("I went to...ehmm...so, I took the ship in Lyons and I went to Great Britain, then I sailed round the island, because I had to go opposite St. Paul's island"), or whether she was answering a deliberately impossible question about the job held by Baudelaire's sister ("tailor"). By contrast, in the case of impossible questions, the control participants would simply say they didn't know. The researchers said that as M.L.'s tendency to confabulation doesn't vary with the difficulty of memory retrieval, it undermines the idea that it's inherently a memory retrieval problem.Secondly, the researchers showed that M.L. produced bizarre answers to tasks that didn't involve memory, and that she used the wrong mental process in a word definition task. In the former situation, she invented new features when asked to copy a simple line drawing, and in the latter case she gave the origins of words rather than their definitions.Zannino's team concluded by arguing against an intimate link between confabulation and recollective processes. "We believe that the present case report provides evidence that in confabulators the lack of strategic control might occur at a very high hierarchical level in the control of mental processes - that is, at a level where confabulators have to choose between engaging in an attempt to recollect or perform some other less demanding mental process..."_________________________________Gian Daniele Zannino, Francesco Barban, Carlo Caltagirone, Giovanni Carlesimo (2008). Do confabulators really try to remember when they confabulate? A case report Cognitive Neuropsychology, 25 (6), 831-852 DOI: 10.1080/02643290802365078... Read more »
Gian Daniele Zannino, Francesco Barban, Carlo Caltagirone, & Giovanni Carlesimo. (2008) Do confabulators really try to remember when they confabulate? A case report. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 25(6), 831-852. DOI: 10.1080/02643290802365078
- August 20, 2008
- 03:00 AM
- 1,392 views
Negative false memories are more easily implanted in children's minds than neutral ones
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Children develop false memories for a negative event more readily than they do for a neutral one. Henry Otgaar and colleagues, who made the new finding, said their work has real world implications for anyone working with child witnesses: "The argument that is sometimes heard in court - i.e. this memory report must be true because it describes such a horrible event - is, as our data show, on shaky grounds."Seventy-six children aged between seven and nine years were asked to recall details about a true event that had happened to them the previous year (e.g. that their class had to perform a musical), and either a neutral fictitious event (moving classrooms) or a negative fictitious event (being wrongly accused of copying a classmate's work).The children were asked about the events, true and fictitious, during two interviews held a week apart. If at first the children were unable to recall any further details, they were asked to concentrate and try again. They were also asked to reflect on the events during the week between interviews, to see if they could flesh out any further details.Altogether, 74 per cent of the children developed false memories for the fictitious event - that is, they said they remembered the event and added extra details about what happened. Crucially, those asked to recall the time they were accused of copying a classmate were significantly more likely to develop a false memory than were those asked to recall the time they had to switch classrooms.The researchers speculated that children might be more prone to developing false memories of negative rather than neutral events because the two kinds of information are stored differently in the brain. "Negative information is more interrelated than neutral material," they explained. "As a result, the presentation of negative information – either true or false – might increase the possibility that other negative materials become activated in memory. This, in turn, could affect the development of a false memory for a negative event."_________________________________OTGAAR, H., CANDEL, I., MERCKELBACH, H. (2008). Children's false memories: Easier to elicit for a negative than for a neutral event. Acta Psychologica, 128(2), 350-354. DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2008.03.009... Read more »
H OTGAAR, I CANDEL, & H MERCKELBACH. (2008) Children’s false memories: Easier to elicit for a negative than for a neutral event. Acta Psychologica, 128(2), 350-354. DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2008.03.009
- September 10, 2008
- 04:52 AM
- 1,383 views
Why female business owners are less successful but just as satisfied
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
The proportion of businesses owned by women is on the increase in many countries. These female-run firms tend to be less successful in financial terms than businesses run by men, and yet limited evidence suggests female business owners are just as satisfied with their careers as their male counterparts - a phenomenon dubbed: "the paradox of the contented female business owner".Gary Powell and Kimberly Eddleston surveyed 201 business owners in America (43 per cent were female) and found fresh evidence for this paradox. Compared with the male owners, the female business owners reported that their firms were less successful than rivals', in terms of traditional measures such as growth and profit. And yet, the female owners reported being just as satisfied with their business success as the men.One explanation for the paradox is that female business owners have lower expectations for success because they recognise that they're bringing less to the business in terms of working hours and experience. However, no evidence for this explanation was found. For example, the female owners reported being better educated than the men and had been in their current position just as long.An alternative explanation is that female business owners value business outcomes that aren't related to the traditional objectives of growth and sales. It's possible for example that female entrepreneurs are more concerned by achieving their own work-life balance, or by ensuring customer loyalty and satisfaction. Preliminary support for this explanation was found. The male business owners reported placing a much higher value on achieving business success than did the women, and for men, but not women, satisfaction tended to be higher, the greater their own business success.Powell and Eddleston said more research was needed to uncover the values held by female business owners, but they argued their findings have immediate implications for the current "one size fits all" approach to business education. "It should not be assumed that all business owners seek to grow their businesses, or that business success necessarily leads to business owner satisfaction," they wrote._________________________________G POWELL, K EDDLESTON (2008). The paradox of the contented female business owner Journal of Vocational Behavior, 73 (1), 24-36 DOI: 10.1016/j.jvb.2007.12.005... Read more »
G POWELL, & K EDDLESTON. (2008) The paradox of the contented female business owner☆. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 73(1), 24-36. DOI: 10.1016/j.jvb.2007.12.005
- September 15, 2008
- 01:00 AM
- 1,381 views
Background TV disrupts children's play
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
It's a rainy afternoon, there's a TV quiz show jabbering in the background, a young child plays sweetly with her toys, and Mum (or Dad) flicks idly through the newspaper - what could be wrong with this domestic scene? According to Marie Schmidt and colleagues, the background TV could well be disrupting the child's play, which in turn could have a negative impact on her cognitive development.Fifty children aged between one and three years were videoed playing in a room for an hour while their mother or father sat nearby reading magazines. For either the first or second half of the session, a 21-inch TV in the room displayed the adult quiz show "Jeopardy!". Past research has tackled the question of whether children's TV shows are harmful or beneficial, but this study was interested in the effects of an adult TV show buzzing away in the background (see Psychologist magazine news item for more on TV effects). When the TV quiz show was on, all three age-groups of children played less overall, each of their playing episodes was shorter, and their bursts of focused attention were shorter, compared with when the TV was off. However, the maturity of their play (for example whether or not it incorporated imaginary objects) was unaffected.Schmidt's team described the disruptive effects of the background TV as "real but small". While the current study doesn't say anything about the possible developmental consequences of TV-disrupted play, previous research has shown that shorter play episodes and less focused attention tend to be associated with poorer developmental outcomes. Moreover, a previous unpublished study by the present team of researchers showed that background TV reduces how often parents interact with their children. "Taken together," the researchers said, the new and previous findings lead us to "hypothesise that background television, as a chronic influence, is by itself an environmental risk factor in children's development."_________________________________Marie Evans Schmidt, Tiffany A. Pempek, Heather L. Kirkorian, Anne Frankenfield Lund, Daniel R. Anderson (2008). The Effects of Background Television on the Toy Play Behavior of Very Young Children Child Development, 79 (4), 1137-1151 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01180.xPreviously on the Digest:TV shows like the O.C. accused of making teenagers sexist.A family intervention to reduce TV use.Can you learn a new language just by watching TV?Educational TV must overcome young children's video deficit.... Read more »
Marie Evans Schmidt, Tiffany A. Pempek, Heather L. Kirkorian, Anne Frankenfield Lund, & Daniel R. Anderson. (2008) The Effects of Background Television on the Toy Play Behavior of Very Young Children. Child Development, 79(4), 1137-1151. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01180.x
- November 26, 2008
- 12:00 AM
- 1,379 views
We're better at spotting fake smiles when we're feeling rejected
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
The last thing you need if you're feeling rejected is to waste time pursuing friendships with people who aren't genuinely interested. That's according to Michael Bernstein and his colleagues, who say we've actually evolved a perceptual adaptation to rejection that helps prevent this from happening.Bernstein's team provoked feelings of rejection in students by asking them to write about a time they felt rejected or excluded. These students were subsequently better at distinguishing fake from real smiles as depicted in four-second video clips, than were students who'd either been asked to write about a time they felt included, or to write about the previous morning."These results are among the first to show that rejection can lead to increases in performance at the perceptual level, provided that the performance supports opportunities for affiliation," the researchers said.However, I wonder if this increased ability to detect fake smiles is as adaptive as the researchers imply. In the same way that unrealistically positive beliefs about the self can guard against depression, perhaps it would be more helpful to a socially excluded person to tone down their sensitivity to fake smiles. After all, just because a stranger gives you a fake smile doesn't mean they aren't a potential friend - they may just have had a bad day._________________________________Michael J. Bernstein, Steven G. Young, Christina M. Brown, Donald F. Sacco, Heather M. Claypool (2008). Adaptive Responses to Social Exclusion: Social Rejection Improves Detection of Real and Fake Smiles Psychological Science, 19 (10), 981-983 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02187.x... Read more »
Michael J. Bernstein, Steven G. Young, Christina M. Brown, Donald F. Sacco, & Heather M. Claypool. (2008) Adaptive Responses to Social Exclusion: Social Rejection Improves Detection of Real and Fake Smiles. Psychological Science, 19(10), 981-983. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02187.x
- May 12, 2009
- 05:59 PM
- 1,377 views
Do professional movie critics evaluate films the same way as the rest of us?
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
If you want to know whether you're going to enjoy a movie, the opinion of professional film critics might not be the best place to find out. Jonathan Plucker and colleagues compared the ratings given to films by professional critics, "amateur critics", and undergrad students, and discovered a continuum of overlapping opinion with the experts being the harshest judges, followed by the amateur critics, while the students were the most generous.A further finding to emerge was that undergrads who'd watched more films tended to provide harsher ratings, but these were still more generous on average than the amateur and professional critics.Plucker's team said this is one of the first studies to compare expert and lay opinion on films in a systematic way. Their results involved the assessment of 680 films dating from 2001 and 2005, with professional ratings garnered from metacritic.com and amateur critics' ratings taken from www.imdb.com and www.boxofficemojo.com. One hundred and sixty-nine undergrads provided their ratings for comparison.The researchers said their findings support the idea of "creative gatekeepers" who help society decide what products in a given realm are truly creative. A continuum of film opinion suggests different people might best be served by different gatekeepers. They explained: "a gatekeeper for one person may be a well-known critic, for another, novice critics on the most popular film sites; and for yet another, their next-door neighbour or best friend."_________________________________Plucker, J., Kaufman, J., Temple, J., & Qian, M. (2009). Do experts and novices evaluate movies the same way? Psychology and Marketing, 26 (5), 470-478 DOI: 10.1002/mar.20283... Read more »
Plucker, J., Kaufman, J., Temple, J., & Qian, M. (2009) Do experts and novices evaluate movies the same way?. Psychology and Marketing, 26(5), 470-478. DOI: 10.1002/mar.20283
- March 2, 2009
- 12:00 AM
- 1,365 views
Txtng associated wiv superior reading skills
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
"It is the relentless onward march of the texters, the SMS vandals who are doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbours eight hundred years ago. They are destroying it: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary. And they must be stopped." John Humphreys, writing in the Daily Mail.The growing use of mobile phones to send text messages, often with abbreviations and symbols (i.e. "textisms"), has been blamed by many for the alleged decline in correct English usage. But now Beverly Plester and colleagues have shown that young children who use more textisms also tend to be better readers.Eighty-eight children aged between ten and twelve years were asked to compose text messages describing ten scenarios - for example, explaining to a friend that they'd missed the bus and would be late. Those children who used more textisms in their messages - including abbreviations like "bro", unconventional spellings like "skool" and so-called accent stylizations like "wiv" - also tended to score more highly on a reading task.The study also showed that girls tended to use more textisms than boys, and that the earlier a child first started using a mobile phone, the more superior their reading ability tended to be.The researchers think greater use of textisms may be a sign of increased phonological awareness - that is, awareness of the sounds that words are made of - a skill that's been linked with literacy for some time. However, this can't be the whole story - greater use of textisms was associated with better reading ability even when the influence of other factors, such as age, working memory and phonological skill were taken into account. One possibility is that texting could be associated with superior reading because it exposes children to printed text, which in itself is known to be beneficial to reading.The researchers themselves acknowledge that these findings must be interpreted with caution. This is a correlational, rather than longitudinal, study so it doesn't prove that using textisms leads to superior reading. Also factors like socio-economic status weren't taken into account. Children who use more textisms may do so because their parents are better off and they've had more chance to send instant messages on computer. Another issue is that the researchers didn't study texts that the children had composed spontaneously in everyday life."As the possession of mobile phones touches younger and younger children by the year, continuing research into the ways using these phones contributes to developing linguistic competence will be very important," the researchers said._________________________________Beverly Plester, Clare Wood, Puja Joshi (2009). Exploring the relationship between children's knowledge of text message abbreviations and school literacy outcomes. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 27 (1), 145-161 DOI: 10.1348/026151008X320507... Read more »
Beverly Plester, Clare Wood, & Puja Joshi. (2009) Exploring the relationship between children's knowledge of text message abbreviations and school literacy outcomes. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 27(1), 145-161. DOI: 10.1348/026151008X320507
- September 29, 2008
- 05:13 AM
- 1,362 views
Practice, practice, practice ... the benefits are ongoing
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Whether you're talking about sport, chess or music, a surfeit of research has shown that the best performing experts practice more than their less able colleagues.What's unclear is whether the benefits of this practice are ongoing throughout a person's career and secondly, whether the benefits of practice vary with a person's level of skill. Are the most elite performers of such a high standard because of all the practice they do, or is it because of their superior talent that this practice is beneficial?These questions are addressed in a new study of elite teenage chess players in the Netherlands, taking advantage of what's known as linear mixed methods analysis to compare the effects of multiple factors over time, both within and between separate groups.Anique de Bruin and colleagues were particularly interested in comparing the effects of deliberate, focused practice on those teenagers who remained in the Netherlands' elite chess training programme, compared with the effects of practice on the performance of those who continued competing but who dropped out of the national training.Forty-eight elite teenage players who stayed in the training scheme and thirty-three who dropped out answered questions about how many hours a week they spent practising. Their performance over the years was measured via their official chess ratings, collected between two to four times a year.The headline result is that the benefits of practice are ongoing through the years - not just once a person has become elite - and that the players who dropped out performed less well, not because they benefited less from practice, but because they practised less. Assuming these findings translate to other domains of skill besides chess, these findings have implications for all of us."Irrespective of skill level, stimulating deliberate practice will likely improve performance," the researchers said.The Digest caught up with co-author Niels Smits and asked him about the statistical approach taken in this study:"Linear mixed models are a very elegant method of analyzing longitudinal data. They are very flexible for at least three reasons. First, in contrast to older methods such as repeated measures (M)ANOVA, they do not ask for complete data on all time points for all subjects. Consequently, one does not have to deal with missing data such as removing observations or imputing data points. Second, they do not ask for equal time intervals between the measurements; therefore subjects are allowed to differ in the moment of measurement. Time of measurement is simply entered as a covariate in the model to allow for a time effect. A third virtue, is that time varying covariates can be easily added to the model to determine how changes in these them influence the dependent variable."For more information on linear mixed models, see:This talk given to the BPS Student Memebers' Group by Thom Baguley.The Centre for Multilevel modelling at the University of Bristol.The Adequacy of Repeated-Measures Regression for Multilevel Research (journal article)._________________________________Anique B., Niels Smits, Remy, M., J., P. Rikers, Henk G. Schmidt (2008). Deliberate practice predicts performance over time in adolescent chess players and drop-outs: A linear mixed models analysis British Journal of Psychology DOI: 10.1348/000712608X295631... Read more »
Anique B., Niels Smits, Remy, M., J., P. Rikers, & Henk G. Schmidt. (2008) Deliberate practice predicts performance over time in adolescent chess players and drop-outs: A linear mixed models analysis. British Journal of Psychology. DOI: 10.1348/000712608X295631
- March 30, 2009
- 03:37 PM
- 1,350 views
Women really are better than men at processing faces
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Often, if a film features two characters who look vaguely similar - for instance both are tall, dark-haired, middle-aged men - I will find myself confusing the two, as I struggle to form a distinct impression of each of their faces. Maybe it's to do with the fact I'm male. New research by Ryan McBain has built on previous, more equivocal studies by showing that women are better than men at spotting a face in a display, and better at distinguishing between faces.In an initial experiment, 35 women and 27 men had to say as fast as possible where on a screen a line drawing of a face appeared. The drawing was basic, showing only the outline of eye-brows, a nose, mouth and chin, and was embedded among other random lines. The female participants were more accurate than the men for this face-spotting task, whereas both sexes performed equally well during a control task that required them to spot trees.A second experiment required 18 men and 18 women to look at a briefly presented target face and then say which of two subsequent faces, presented together, was the same as the initial target face.When the conditions were easiest - with a short (half a second) interval between the target and subsequent faces, and the faces were displayed crisply - the male participants matched the performance of the female participants. However, as the task was made more difficult, either by extending the retention interval (to 3 seconds), or by reducing the visual quality of the images, the female participants began to outperform the men.Previous research on this topic has suggested women, rather than being superior at face processing in general, might be better only at processing emotional facial expressions, or only at processing female faces. By using emotionally neutral and gender neutral faces, the present research suggests that women have a general face processing advantage, especially in more difficult viewing conditions.McBain's team said it was at present unclear how much sex differences in face processing are innate or learned. "Future investigations which compare face recognition performance in male and female children and adults may provide insight regarding the extent to which culture (e.g. gender role socialisation) influences gender-related differences in face perception," they said._________________________________R MCBAIN, D NORTON, Y CHEN (2009). Females excel at basic face perception. Acta Psychologica, 130 (2), 168-173 DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2008.12.005... Read more »
R MCBAIN, D NORTON, & Y CHEN. (2009) Females excel at basic face perception. Acta Psychologica, 130(2), 168-173. DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2008.12.005
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