Study debuks long-held myth propably arising from the confirmation bias. The full moon is NOT linked to busier h
ospital emergency rooms or more births, a new study finds.
The belief that there might be a link is likely down to a bias in the way even intelligent people think called the confirmation bias.
Read more: How Intelligent People Develop Totally Incorrect Beliefs?
Every fan of music knows the tremendous power it can have over both thoughts and emotions.
Great music can transform an ordinary day into something magical, even spiritual. It can provide solace, release, strong sensations and more.
But music’s influence spreads further still: right up from our genetic code, through our thoughts and bodies and out into how we relate in groups.
Prompting people to think about the legacy they want to leave for future generations can boost their desire and intention to take action on climate change, according to new research published in Psychological Science.
Taking steps to address climate change now is the only way to prevent greater environmental harm later on, and yet it can be difficult to get people to rally around the cause because it lacks the immediacy of other urgent policy issues.
“The long time horizon and ambiguity associated with climate change can serve as psychological obstacles to conservation — people think that the negative effects of climate change will be felt far away in time by future others,” says Zaval.
Zaval and colleagues wondered whether getting people to consider the long view in a less hazy, more concrete way might boost their concern over climate change. They hypothesized that prompting people to think about the future in terms of how they want to be remembered could motivate them to want to leave a positive legacy, including a positive environmental legacy. And this desire to leave a positive legacy could, ultimately, impact their behavior now.
Read more: Focusing on Lasting Legacy Prompts Environmental Action
Study of 3,000+ finds men and women process emotions differently and this affects what they remember.
Does emotion help us remember? That's not an easy question to answer, which is unsurprising when you consider the complexities of emotion.
It does seem clear that, as a general rule, we remember emotionally charged events better than boring ones.
Latest research suggests that it is the emotions aroused, not the personal significance of the event, that makes such events easier to remember.
The memory of strongly emotional images and events may be at the expense of other information. Thus, you may be less likely to remember information if it is followed by something that is strongly emotional. This effect appears to be stronger for women.
Hugs are a great way to show love because they create a bonding experience and can heal our emotions.
We're told to wash our hands, get plenty of rest, and avoid public coughers and sneezers in order to keep the common cold at bay, but new research suggests another line of defense: hugs.
A team of researchers, tested whether hugs act as a form of social support, protecting stressed people from getting sick. They found that greater social support and more frequent hugs protected people from the increased susceptibility to infection associated with being stressed and resulted in less severe illness symptoms.
The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Cohen and his team chose to study hugging as an example of social support because hugs are typically a marker of having a more intimate and close relationship with another person.
