Laughter Matters
PsychCentral: Laughter Is Key for Social Dynamics
Researchers are finding that laughter can play key roles in group communication and group dynamics, even when there’s nothing funny to laugh at. The finding comes from new research that examined the role of laughter in jury deliberations during a capital murder case.
Also: Laughter Yoga, Serious Benefits (NYT)
And:
Preschool Depression?
NYT Magazine: Can Preschoolers Be Depressed?
One established [treatment] method is called Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, or P.C.I.T. Originally developed in the 1970s to treat disruptive disorders — which typically include violent or aggressive behavior in preschoolers — P.C.I.T. is generally a short-term program, usually 10 to 16 weeks under the supervision of a trained therapist, with ongoing follow-up in the home. Luby adapted the program for depression and began using it in 2007 in an ongoing study on a potential treatment. During each weekly hourlong session, parents are taught to encourage their children to acquire emotion regulation, stress management, guilt reparation and other coping skills. The hope is that children will learn to handle depressive symptoms and parents will reinforce those lessons.
Music and Exercise
NYT: Does Music Make You Exercise Harder?
Just how music impacts the body during exercise…is only slowly being teased out by scientists. One study published last year found that basketball players prone to performing poorly under pressure during gameswere significantly better during high-pressure free-throw shooting if they first listened to catchy, upbeat music and lyrics (in this case, the Monty Python classic “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”).
Life Without Downtime
Another NYT “Your Brain on Computers” dispatch: Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime
“Almost certainly, downtime lets the brain go over experiences it’s had, solidify them and turn them into permanent long-term memories,” said Loren Frank, assistant professor in the department of physiology at the university, where he specializes in learning and memory. He said he believed that when the brain was constantly stimulated, “you prevent this learning process.”
New Maslow Pyramid
Some ASU psychologists have taken it upon themselves to update the Maslow hierarchy of needs.
Maslow’s pyramid describes human motivations from the most basic to the most advanced. According to experts, Maslow’s time-tested pyramid, first proposed in the 1940s, needed to be updated to reflect the last 50 years of research…The bottom four levels of the new pyramid are highly compatible with Maslow’s, but big changes are at the top. Perhaps the most controversial modification is that self-actualization no longer appears on the pyramid at all.
Stretch Your Mood
Yoga, meditation, pets, nature, and 15 other mood helpers.
Meditation Can Improve Brain Function (PsychCentral)
15 Ways to Help Treat Depression Naturally (WebMD)
New study finds new connection between yoga and mood (ScienceDaily)
“Emerging Adulthood”
What is it About 20-Somethings? asks the NYT.
We’re in the thick of what one sociologist calls “the changing timetable for adulthood.” Sociologists traditionally define the “transition to adulthood” as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so…
For Friendship
An essay from the Wilson Quarterly (via aldaily.com):
[W]e live now in a climate in which friends appear dispensable. While most of us wouldn’t last long outside the intricate web of interdependence that supplies all our physical needs—imagine no electricity, money, or sewers—we’ve come to demand of ourselves truly radical levels of emotional self-sufficiency…
Brains Like Meditation
ScienceDaily: Integrative body-mind training (IBMT) meditation found to boost brain connectivity
Just 11 hours of learning a meditation technique induces positive structural changes in brain connectivity by boosting efficiency in a part of the brain that helps a person regulate behavior in accordance with their goals, researchers report…
Life, Unplugged
NYT’s Unplugged Challenge–series of articles and video from participants. The latest article profiles research into how plugged-in life affects attention:
Echoing other researchers, Mr. Strayer says that understanding how attention works could help in the treatment of a host of maladies, like attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia and depression. And he says that on a day-to-day basis, too much digital stimulation can “take people who would be functioning O.K. and put them in a range where they’re not psychologically healthy.”