Tag: Persuasion

Be aware of the two most harmful relationship patterns.

People who expect their partners to read their minds are harming their relationships, research finds.

It occurs when there are problems in the relationship and one person disengages and does not communicate their problems to the other.

It often happens when that person is anxious about the relationship and feels neglected.

Anger and negative communication often result from expecting the other person to be a mind-reader.

Dr Keith Sanford, who led the study, explained:

“You’re worried about how much your partner loves you, and that’s associated with neglect.

You feel sad, hurt and vulnerable.”

Toxic disengagement

Expecting the other person to be telepathic is one of the most toxic ways that people disengage psychologically from a relationship.

The other is type is withdrawing.

Dr Sanford said:

“It’s a defensive tactic that people use when they feel they are being attacked, and there’s a direct association between withdrawal and lower satisfaction overall with the relationship.”

Withdrawing when attacked by your partner complains or criticises is extremely common.

Dr Sanford said it is…

“…more characteristic of unhappiness.

Just about everyone does that from time to time, but you see more of that in distressed relationships.”

Partners who psychologically withdraw from the relationship are more likely to be disinterested or bored with the other person.

Dr Sanford said:

“There’s a desire to maintain autonomy, control and distance.”

While one person makes demands on the relationship (often, but not always the woman), the other person disengages, Dr Sanford said:

“Often, you have one person who withdraws and the other demands.

The more the one demands and complains, the more the other withdraws, and so on.

It’s an issue both of being aware of when these behaviors are occurring and of finding an alternative — a more constructive, polite approach to resolve conflict.

And at times, that’s easier said than done.”

The results come from surveys of thousands of people in relationships.

They answered questions about relationship conflicts, how they responded and the emotions that resulted.

The study was published in the journal Psychological Assessment (Nichols et al., 2014).

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The study found thinning in areas of the brain important for memory, language, awareness, consciousness and attention.

Binge drinking of alcohol is linked to brain damage in young people, research finds.

Binge drinking is defined in the US as four or more standard alcoholic drinks for women or five or more for men in two hours.

Using alcohol in this way was linked to thinning in areas of the brain important for memory, language, awareness, consciousness and attention.

For example, binge drinking is associated with problems learning new words in young people.

This research backs up studies that have also linked moderate alcohol intake in adults to brain damage.

Moderate intake is defined in the US as between 7 and 10 standard drinks per week.

Here are examples of one standard drink in the US:

Dr Anita Cservenka, who led the study, said:

“Adolescence is a time when the brain still matures including not only biological development but also maturation of psychosocial behaviours.

Given the increase of binge and heavy drinking in young people, understanding the effects of consuming large quantities of alcohol on neural development and the impact on cognitive skills is very important.”

The conclusions come from a review of studies on the link between alcohol and brain damage.

Along with thinner brains, binge drinkers also have worse memories, the studies found.

Dr Cservenka explained:

“We looked at six areas to determine the deleterious impact of heavy drinking on brain response, namely: response inhibition, working memory, verbal learning and memory, decision making and reward processing, alcohol cue reactivity, and socio-cognitive/socio-emotional processing.”

Dr Cservenka said:

“These brain alterations, as a result of heavy alcohol use during adolescence and young adulthood, could result in increased risk of developing an alcohol use disorder later on in life.

It is therefore important to continue raising awareness of the risks of binge drinking and to promote future research in this area.

Our review provides a useful basis to determine the areas that require further attention.”

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology (Cservenka & Brumback, 2017).

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The kinds of things that narcissists buy.

Narcissists tend to buy products for themselves that make them stand out, research finds.

For example, they were more likely to buy a leather case that could be personally engraved, or a ‘limited edition’ of an electronic gadget.

Exclusivity and individuality is what a narcissist is looking for in a product.

Dr Aiden Gregg, who led the study, explained:

“Narcissists seek to self-enhance.

One way to do so is by buying products for symbolic as well as material reasons — for what they mean as well as what they do.

Our early results show that narcissists’ interest in consumer products, whether bought for themselves or for others, is strongly driven by the power of those products to positively distinguish them.

Narcissists feel better about themselves because they think they have succeeded in individualising or elevating themselves.”

Across three studies people were asked to imagine buying various items.

Time after time the narcissists chose things that were exclusive or that could be personalised.

For example, narcissists showed greater interest in a shirt that could be customised.

The study also looked at the type of gifts that narcissists buy for others.

These also tended to be more exclusive, suggesting they want others around them to be special or different as well.

Dr Russell Seidle, commenting on the study, said:

“As expected, narcissistic consumers demonstrate a preference for scarce products that correspond with their views of themselves as unique individuals.

Interestingly, these same consumers show a lower tendency to critically evaluate the actual characteristics of these goods.

That is, scarcity in and of itself seems to be the main driver of their purchasing behaviour.

These findings help to shed light on the importance of the symbolic value of purchasing decisions, which for these consumers seems to outweigh even the practical usefulness of the product being bought.”

The study was published in the journal Journal of Consumer Psychology (Sedikides et al., 2007).

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A monthly dose of the vitamin was found to lower the incidence of cardiovascular events, including heart attacks.

Supplementation of vitamin D in older people might lower their risk of cardiovascular events, particularly myocardial infarction, a study has found.

A once-a-month supplement of vitamin D3 containing 60,000 international units (IU) could decrease the rate of major cardiovascular events, especially heart attacks.

This is the biggest clinical trial examining whether vitamin D supplements can change the incidence of major cardiovascular events in older adults.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) refers to heart and blood vessel disorders and is a leading cause of death worldwide.

The CVD incidence including coronary heart disease and stroke in aging populations continues to increase with higher prevalence in men than women.

Participants in this study were 60 years and older and received one tablet of 60,000 IU vitamin D3 at the start of each month for five years.

During this period the rate of hospital admissions and death related to major cardiovascular events including heart attacks, strokes, and coronary revascularisation (treatment to improve blood flow to the heart) among participants was recorded.

The total incidence in the vitamin D group was nine percent lower than those taking placebo tablets.

The heart attack rate was reduced by 19 percent and coronary revascularization by 11 percent while the intervention had no effect on stroke-related incidence.

Overall, these findings indicate that vitamin D supplements may lower the rate of major cardiovascular events.

The authors wrote:

“This protective effect could be more marked in those taking statins or other cardiovascular drugs at baseline.

In the meantime, these findings suggest that conclusions that vitamin D supplementation does not alter risk of cardiovascular disease are premature.”

Vitamin D is found in foods such as oily fish including salmon, trout, mackerel, and sardines, and fish liver oils but most people get their vitamin D from the action of sunlight on the skin.

Related

The study was published in The BMJ (Thompson et al., 2023).

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This bright quality is linked to higher intelligence.

Feeling more happiness is a sign of a higher IQ, research finds.

Indeed, stable happiness is also a sign of higher IQ.

More intelligent people experience fewer drops in their happiness over the years.

People with higher IQs are just as happy at 31-years-old as they are at 51.

In contrast, the happiness of people with lower IQs is not just lower overall, but also goes up and down more over the years.

The conclusions come from a national survey of all 17,419 babies born in Britain during one week in 1958.

Those that stayed in the study were asked about their levels of happiness from ages 31 to 51.

The results are explained by Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, the study’s author:

“…childhood general intelligence emerged as the strongest predictor of the life-course variability of happiness.

More intelligent children on average tended to grow up to be more stable in their subjective well-being throughout adulthood.”

However, the reason that more intelligent people enjoy stable happiness was not clear from the study.

Dr Kanazawa writes:

“More intelligent individuals were significantly more stable in their happiness, and it was not entirely because: (1) they were more educated and wealthier (even though they were); (2) they were healthier (even though they were); (3) they were more stable in their marital status (even though they were); (4) they were happier (even though they were)…”

Satisfaction with life

Higher satisfaction with life is also a sign of high intelligence, a previous study has found.

People who are more satisfied with their life and their job score higher on tests of general mental ability.

Satisfaction with life is one of the two major aspects of happiness, along with the feeling of positive emotions in the moment.

The study was published in the British Journal of Psychology (Kanazawa et al., 2014).

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People in the study lost an average of nine pounds using the diet.

People on an intermittent fasting diet lose more weight than those following the Mediterranean or paleo diets, research finds.

Broadly, there are two types of intermittent fasting.

The first type involves restricting the time of day during which people can eat.

For example, breakfast is taken 90 minutes later than usual and supper 90 minutes earlier, with nothing outside this 6 to 8 hour window.

The other approach involves only eating one meal on two days of the week, then eating normally the rest of the week (sometimes known as the 5:2 diet).

People in the current study lost an average of nine pounds using the intermittent fasting diet, more than double that of the paleo diet.

Those on the Mediterranean diet lost 6 pounds, on average, while those on the paleo diet lost 4 pounds on average.

However, people on the Mediterranean diet, while losing less weight, found it easier to follow and showed improvement in their blood pressure.

The conclusions come from a study that compared the three diets in a ‘real-world’ setting, without support from professionals.

There was evidence that all three diets could be healthy ways to eat.

Dr Melyssa Roy, study co-author, said:

“This work supports the idea that there isn’t a single ‘right’ diet—there are a range of options that may suit different people and be effective. In this study, people were given dietary guidelines at the start and then continued with their diets in the real world while living normally.

About half of the participants were still following their diets after a year and had experienced improvements in markers of health.

Like the Mediterranean diet, intermittent fasting and paleo diets can also be valid healthy eating approaches—the best diet is the one that includes healthy foods and suits the individual.”

The results showed that the Mediterranean diet was the easiest to follow.

Dr Michelle Jospe, the study’s first author, said:

“Our participants could follow the diet’s guidelines more closely than the fasting and paleo diets and were more likely to stay with it after the year, as our retention rates showed.”

The Mediterranean diet typically involves eating more fruits and vegetables, legumes, seeds, olive oil and fish, eggs, chicken and, once a week, red meat.

The paleo diet focuses on less processed foods including fruits and vegetables, animal proteins and extra-virgin olive oil.

The paleo diet prohibits legumes, grains and dairy.

However, people in the study used a modified version of the paleo diet that allows some dairy.

The study was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Jospe et al., 2019).

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The brain is very sensitive in early childhood.

Exposure to maltreatment or trauma early in life is linked to lower IQ, research finds.

Being abused, physically or emotionally, neglected or witnessing domestic violence, was linked to an IQ score 7 points lower, on average.

Abuse that occurs before the age of two-years-old is particularly damaging to intellectual development.

The brain is very sensitive in this early period, neuroscience has revealed.

Trauma and adversity early in life has repeatedly been linked to changes in the structure and circuitry of the brain.

The conclusions come from a study of 206 US children enrolled in the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children.

The study started in 1975 and tracked the children from birth.

Children and mothers were assessed and interviewed at regular intervals and the children were given IQ tests.

The study revealed that one in three children had been maltreated and/or seen their mothers subject to violence.

This happened in infancy to 5 percent of children, in the pre-school period to 13 percent and in both periods to 19 percent.

Maltreatment — including witnessing violence and being neglected — was linked to lower intelligence scores every time it was measured.

The study’s authors write:

“The results suggest that [maltreatment and witnessing domestic violence] in early childhood, particularly during the first two years, has significant and enduring effects on cognitive development, even after adjusting for [other risk factors].

Because early brain organisation frames later neurological development, changes in early development may have lifelong consequences.”

The study was published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health (Enlow et al., 2012).

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Reducing loneliness and depression could be as simple as this…

Limiting social media to 30 minutes per day decreases feelings of loneliness and depression, research finds.

The study strongly suggests that excessive social media use makes people more depressed and lonely.

It is also ironic that less ‘social’ media use reduces feelings of loneliness.

For the study, 143 college students were tracked for three weeks.

Half were told to use social media as normal, while the other half were instructed to limit it to 30 minutes per day.

All reported their use of Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram along with feelings of anxiety, depression, loneliness and fear of missing out.

Dr Melissa G. Hunt, the study’s first author, explained the results:

“Here’s the bottom line.

Using less social media than you normally would leads to significant decreases in both depression and loneliness.

These effects are particularly pronounced for folks who were more depressed when they came into the study.”

Dr Hunt does not think young people should stop using social media all together.

Limiting screen time, though, seems sensible, she says:

“It is a little ironic that reducing your use of social media actually makes you feel less lonely.

Some of the existing literature on social media suggests there’s an enormous amount of social comparison that happens.

When you look at other people’s lives, particularly on Instagram, it’s easy to conclude that everyone else’s life is cooler or better than yours.”

Dr Hunt concluded:

“When you’re not busy getting sucked into clickbait social media, you’re actually spending more time on things that are more likely to make you feel better about your life.

In general, I would say, put your phone down and be with the people in your life.”

The study was published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology (Hunt et al., 2018).

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The personality changes came ahead of more obvious behavioural changes linked to Alzheimer’s.

Increases in neuroticism may help to predict the onset of Alzheimer’s, new research finds.

Neuroticism is one of the five major personality traits and it involves a tendency towards worry and moodiness.

Neuroticism is characterised by negative thinking in a range of areas.

Neuroticism is strongly linked to anxiety, sadness, irritability and self-consciousness.

People who transition from mild cognitive impairment to full-blown Alzheimer’s are more likely to show personality changes.

Many people with mild cognitive impairment do not go on to develop dementia.

Both increased neuroticism and lower openness to experience predict the progression of the most common form of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease.

The conclusions come from a study that followed people for more than 7 years.

They were tested for personality, anxiety, depression and other symptoms.

The researchers found that personality changes typically came after memory had begun to worsen.

Increases in depression, anxiety and anger were strongly linked to the transition to dementia.

However, the personality changes came before typical behaviour changes — such as like mood swings — were obvious.

The study’s authors write that Alzheimer’s disease is…

“…characterized by greater neuroticism and less openness; and coincide with subtle, clinically insignificant behavioral changes that qualitatively mirror and anticipate the clinically severe behavioral problems that often complicate dementia care.”

The study was published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (Caselli et al., 2018).

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The common meds that may cause depression, despite having nothing to do with it.

One-in-three US adults is taking prescription medications that can cause depression and increase suicide risk, research finds.

The medications have nothing to do with depression, and so patients and providers are frequently unaware of the risk.

The research also found that people who used multiple medications were at even greater chance of depression.

Over 200 common prescription drugs have depression and suicide listed as potential side-effects, including:

• hormonal birth control medications,
• blood pressure and heart medications,
• proton pump inhibitors,
• antacids,
• and painkillers.

Around 15 percent of people who used three drugs simultaneously also experienced depression compared with just 5 percent of people taking none of these drugs.

The results were similar for drugs that listed suicidal feelings as a side-effect — using multiple drugs increased the risk.

Dr Dima Qato, the study’s first author, said:

“The take away message of this study is that polypharmacy [taking multiple drugs simultaneously] can lead to depressive symptoms and that patients and health care providers need to be aware of the risk of depression that comes with all kinds of common prescription drugs — many of which are also available over the counter.

Many may be surprised to learn that their medications, despite having nothing to do with mood or anxiety or any other condition normally associated with depression, can increase their risk of experiencing depressive symptoms, and may lead to a depression diagnosis.”

The study included data from 26,192 people between 2005 and 2014.

Unfortunately, the prescription and use of these drugs is on the rise, Dr Qato said:

“People are not only increasingly using these medicines alone, but are increasingly using them simultaneously, yet very few of these drugs have warning labels, so until we have public or system-level solutions, it is left up to patients and health care professionals to be aware of the risks.”

Dr Qato thinks health care professionals need to be more aware of the psychological risks involved in patients taking multiple medications:

“With depression as one of the leading causes of disability and increasing national suicide rates, we need to think innovatively about depression as a public health issue, and this study provides evidence that patterns of medication use should be considered in strategies that seek to eliminate, reduce or minimize the impact of depression in our daily lives.”

The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Qato et al., 2018).

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