Mental health, Therapy

False economy? Half of “low intensity” CBT clients relapse within 12 months
Members Of Support Group Sitting In Chairs Having Meeting
Low-intensity CBT can include group-guided self-help, computerised CBT and telephone support

By Christian Jarrett

Heralded as a revolution in mental health care – a cost-effective way to deliver evidence-based psychological help to large numbers – low-intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is recommended by NICE, the independent health advisory body in England and Wales, for mild to moderate depression and anxiety and is a key part of the “Improving Access to Psychological Therapies” programme in those countries. Prior studies into its effectiveness have been promising. However, little research has looked at whether the benefits last.

A new study in Behaviour Research and Therapy has done that, following a cohort of people with depression and anxiety over time. Disappointingly, the team led by Shehzad Ali at the University of York, found that after completing low-intensity CBT, more than one in two service users had relapsed within 12 months.

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Cognition, Cross-cultural

“Reverse ego-depletion”: People in India find mental effort energising

Hindu Devotees Celebrate Holi Festival In IndiaBy Christian Jarrett

Exercising self-control leaves you feeling drained. That’s what many of us in the West believe and it’s what we seem to experience – think of the fatigue after a morning spent dealing with difficult clients or focused on spreadsheets on a computer screen. But in Indian culture, there is a widespread belief that mental effort is energising – that the more concentration and self-control you expend in one situation, the more invigorated you will feel for the next challenge.

Psychology has, so far, mostly backed up our Western intuitions. Over 100 studies – nearly all conducted in the West – have shown that participants are less able to resist temptation or exercise mental focus after completing a mentally taxing task, an effect that researchers call “ego depletion”. But now a paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology has tested Indian participants and it shows for the first time a “reverse ego-depletion effect” – the more difficult an initial mental task, the better participants performed on a subsequent challenge.

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Social

The pique persuasion technique plays on our curiosity and it’s surprisingly effective

501125424By Alex Fradera

“Sorry to bother you – I’m just after three pounds sixty-five for a bus ticket to Bromley.”

Living in an urban area you frequently hear this kind of request, which showcases a persuasion approach called the “pique technique”, whereby people are more likely to comply with requests for an unusually specific quantity, because it piques their interest. But do people really give more readily, or in higher amounts, when exposed to the technique? A meta-analysis in the journal Social Influence puts pique through its paces.

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Dating, Gender, Personality, Social

The reasons we stay friends with an ex
3rd Annual Sean Penn & Friends HELP HAITI HOME Gala Benefiting J/P HRO Presented By Giorgio Armani - Inside
Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin have remained close since their “conscious uncoupling” in 2014

By Emma Young

Why do we sometimes stay friends with ex-partners? There may be many reasons, but according to a new paper in Personality and Individual Differences they fall into seven main categories – and men and women don’t quite see eye-to-eye on them. The research also found that certain personality traits were related to motivations for staying friends after a break-up.

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Faces, Social

Scientists’ facial appearance affects our perception of their work
2016 Winter TCA Tour - Day 15
Participants were more interested in the work of attractive scientists, but assumed it was lower quality

By Emma Young

Scientists are increasingly encouraged to communicate directly with non-experts, through newspaper and TV interviews, science festivals, online videos, and other channels. But the quality of their research or ideas alone is not enough to guarantee interest or support, suggests a series of new studies in PNAS. The way the general public responds is also influenced by the scientist’s facial appearance, an important finding, say the researchers, because the public communication of scientific findings shapes beliefs, opinion and policy.

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Morality, Terrorism

On psychological tests comparing 66 terrorists with controls, one key difference stood out

AUC and FARC Battle Over Cocaine ProvinceBy Christian Jarrett

After a terror attack, amidst the shock and sadness, there is simple incomprehension: how could anyone be so brutal, so inhuman? In Nature Human Behaviour, Sandra Baez and her colleagues offer rare insight based on their tests of 66 incarcerated paramilitary terrorists in Colombia, who had murdered an average of 33 victims each. The terrorists completed measures of their intelligence, aggression, emotion recognition, and crucially, their moral judgments.

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Political

Online purchase patterns show left-wingers and right-wingers read very different science books
Book, books, piledbooks
The partisan consumption of science may contribute to opposing views on important issues

By Alex Fradera

With political tribalism a feature of our times, perhaps science could act as a unifying force. While faith in politicians and journalists is in the doldrums, surveys in countries like Britain, Canada and the US suggest scientists are among the most respected professions, and citizens are appreciative of the contribution science makes to their lives. As the authors of a recent article in Nature Human Behaviour note, it seems that “we may disagree on emotionally charged social issues, but at least we can agree on science”.  Sadly, their findings show that it’s not so simple. Although politically diverse people may be fans of science, we’re not fans of the same science.

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Cognition, Memory, Methods, Perception, Replications

These nine cognitive psychology findings all passed a stringent test of their replicability
Abstract brain gear
“These results represent good news for the field of psychology”

By Christian Jarrett

The failure to reproduce established psychology findings on renewed testing, including some famous effects, has been well-publicised and has led to talk of a crisis in the field. However, psychology is a vast topic and there’s a possibility that the findings from some sub-disciplines may be more robust than others, in the sense of replicating reliably, even in unfavourable circumstances, such as when the participants have been tested on the same effect before.

A new paper currently available as a preprint at PsyArXiv has tested whether this might be the case for nine key findings from cognitive psychology, related to perception, memory and learning. Rolf Zwaan at Erasumus University Rotterdam and his colleagues found that all nine effects replicated reliably. “These results represent good news for the field of psychology,” they said.

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Mental health, Personality

Your personality may affect your vulnerability to mental health problems
Mental health
Swiss researchers used longitudinal data to test a “personality centred model of psychopathology”

By Christian Jarrett

Your personality describes your behavioural tendencies, your habits of thought and ways of relating to the world. For instance, some of us find it a lot harder to keep our negative emotions in check, which is measured by the Big Five personality trait of neuroticism (or “emotional instability”). It seems logical that people with this kind of disposition might be more prone to developing mental health problems like anxiety and depression, and indeed many studies suggest this to be the case.

From a scientific perspective, however, it’s not clear which comes first: perhaps mental health problems contribute to a more neurotic personality, or maybe living through adversity contributes to a neurotic personality and mental health difficulties.

An important new study in European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience helps clarify the picture because it is the first, to the researchers’ knowledge, to look simultaneously at people’s personality, life events and mental health problems as they unfold over time. Though they come with important caveats, the findings suggest that some people have a personality profile that predisposes them to mental health problems, to more serious mental health problems when they occur, and even to more adverse life events.  

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Cognition, Creativity, Music

Can you will yourself to be more creative?

giphyBy Alex Fradera

Surely creativity is about freedom. Dropping your inhibitions – maybe with the help of a few substances – and letting ideas writhe free from the unconscious unfiltered. What to make then of the research showing that creativity is associated with higher levels of executive functioning – the mind’s suite of control processes – which seem to help by inhibiting irrelevant information and combining the rest in novel ways? Does it mean you can use this mental control to make yourself perform more creatively? According to a new study in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts involving jazz pianists the answer may depend in part on your creative experience.

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