Category: Psychology

Is 50 old? Young people have the most skewed perceptions about aging.

Children and young adults want to live until their early 90s, but those approaching middle age are less optimistic, a study finds.

People in their 30s and 40s want to live the shortest period, falling to a low of 88-years-old, on average.

Among people over 50, the ideal number of years starts to rise again.

Those in their 80s say they would like to live to an average of 93.

The study revealed a fascinating array of results about people’s perception of age.

It showed the well-known phenomenon that young people think anyone over about 30-years-old is a dinosaur.

They believed that middle age starts at 30 and old age begins at 50.

Dr William Chopik, the study’s first author, said:

“I find it interesting that there’s a ton of people who have skewed perceptions about aging – mostly young adults.

I think the most interesting finding of this study is that our perceptions of aging aren’t static – they change as we change ourselves.

What you consider to be old changes as you become old yourself.”

Changing perceptions

The results come from a study of over half-a-million Americans.

People’s views about age change steadily: 0ver the years a person finds the age they have reached isn’t so old after all.

Older adults often find that aging can bring happiness, said Dr Chopik:

“…older adults actually have really enriching lives and some studies suggest that they’re happier than young adults.”

Many people will have to think seriously about diet and exercise if they really want to live into their 80s and 90s, as life expectancy in the US is 79.

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology (Chopik et al., 2018).

• 13 Surprising Ways Reading Transforms Your Mind: From Boosting IQ to Beating Dementia (P)
• 12 Simple Changes That Could Save You From Depression, Stroke & Dementia (P)
• Exercise: 12 Scientifically Proven Ways To Get Moving & Stay Motivated (P)
• 12 Studies Reveal The Life-Changing Habits That Crush Anxiety (P)
• Beat Insomnia: 11 Unusual Sleep Tips Backed By Psychological Research (P)
• Weight Loss: The 16 Best Psychological Techniques (P)
• How Psychopaths Deceive And Dominate: 12 Essential Psychology Studies (P)
• 16 Personality Traits That Predict Your Happiness, Success, Long Life, IQ & Income (P)
• The Hidden Psychology Of Colours: What They Say About Your Health, IQ, Attractiveness And Emotions (P)
• The Ultimate Guide To Digital Detox: 6 Goals For Better Mental Health (P)
• How To Change People’s Behaviour: Only These 3 Methods Really Work (P)
• The ‘Big 5’ Key Activities That Block Depression And Anxiety (P)
• The Psychological Reason Millions Are Miserable At Work (P)
• Effortless Efficiency: 20 Simple Techniques To Maximize Motivation And Productivity (P)
• 10 Depression Therapies Most People Have Not Tried (P)
• Happiness Hacks: 20 Simple Strategies For A Brighter, Joy-Filled Life (P)
• The Only 4 Proven Methods To Break Free From Bad Habits (P)

Courses included

• Accept Yourself: Learn Daily Practices That Promote Emotional Healing
• Activate: How To Find Joy Again By Changing What You Do
• Spark: 17 Steps That Will Boost Your Motivation For Anything
• The Anxiety Plan: 42 Strategies For Worry, Phobias, OCD and Panic

If you are not a member of PsyBlog and find it valuable, please consider becoming a member.

For those of you who have yet to become members or were once members, I would invite you to consider a paid membership.

Becoming a member will remove all the ads from the site and give you access to every article marked (M) — there are 1,400+ and growing every day.

Here are just a few recent articles that are only a tiny fraction of what you will gain access to:

• What Being Realistic Or Pessimistic Reveals About Your Intelligence
• The Startling Link Between Facial Features And Death Penalty Verdicts
• The Percentage Of Men And Women Open To Multiple Partners
• Antidepressants: 7 Must-Read Studies For Patients And Psychologists

Thank you

Each year, I invest considerable time and financial resources into the site, and for 20 years it has thrived with the unwavering support of its readers.

To those who are already members, a heartfelt thank you.

Your contributions are the reason this website endures.

For others, you can discover more about the benefits of membership by clicking here.

Thank you,

Dr Jeremy Dean

.

If you are not a member of PsyBlog and find it valuable, please consider becoming a member.

Every year I spend thousands of hours and dollars on PsyBlog.

For almost 20 years it has continued thanks to the support of its readers.

If you are already a member then thank you — it is because of you that this website still exists.

If you are not a member and PsyBlog is valuable to you, please consider becoming a member.

Not only does it give you access to over 1,300 members-only articles, it removes adverts from the site and makes you feel good.

You can find out more by clicking here.

Thank you,

Dr Jeremy Dean

.

Psychology it not just common sense, but do psychologists go too far in denying similarities?

If you want to see a psychologist’s head explode, tell them psychology is just common sense.

It’s not that surprising as it’s like saying that they’ve been wasting their time all these years and needn’t have bothered studying all that claptrap in the textbooks.

While psychology is, of course, more than common sense, there is certainly an intersection between the two, and anyone denying it should have their head examined.

Because psychologists are so sensitive when told their discipline is nothing more than self-evident, they’ve often gone out of their way to prove how different psychology is from common sense, sometimes with disastrous results.

Two straw men

An oft-cited argument against common sense pits two common sayings against each other.

For example, how is it possible to reconcile, ‘birds of a feather flock together’, with ‘opposites attract’.

Clearly these are mutually incompatible, it is argued, so common sense is (apparently) proved wrong.

Psychology to the rescue!

But the problem with this argument is pretty fundamental: it assumes that these well-known sayings are a good proxy for common sense.

In reality, they’re not.

Common sense is something much more subtle than just hackneyed old sayings.

Rather it is our intuitive sense of the way people think and behave based on all we know, both consciously and unconsciously.

Assuming common sense is just cliché is doing it a disservice.

The second argument you’ll get about the problem with common sense refers to a study carried out by Houston (1985).

Houston asked 50 random people in a local park 25 questions about psychology.

The questions had all the psychological jargon removed so that they were easily understood, but the psychological principles remained.

He found that out of 25 questions, 16 were answered correctly more often than would be expected by chance.

So, what’s your interpretation of this finding?

Does that support the idea that psychology is just common sense or not?

Well, it can just as easily be interpreted both ways.

The fact that people score above chance means they have some intuitive understanding of psychology’s findings.

On the other hand the fact that people don’t score 100% shows that people don’t know everything.

Perhaps even this is just common sense!

Counter-intuitive findings

No, rather than attacking common sense, psychologists are much better off defending their science by explaining the multitude of counter-intuitive findings.

This blog is filled with them.

Start with, say, choice blindness, and work on from there.

These types of findings are the best evidence for how much more psychology is than just common sense.

Ultimately what really sets psychology apart from common sense is the scientific method.

Psychology tests common sense ideas about people (along with some nonsensical ideas) to try and find out the truth.

Sometimes common sense is proved right, other times not.

But, again, let’s not be too down on common sense.

While psychologists are usually sensitive and therefore defensive about the role common sense plays, they don’t need to be: in fact common sense is very important to them.

The reason for that lies at the interface between psychology and common sense.

Crossing boundaries

Academic psychologists are generally pretty coy about the role common sense plays in coming up with ideas for their research.

They will talk about theory and hypotheses a lot, without really acknowledging that they just had a hunch.

What most people would call common sense plays a huge part in the early phases of psychological research.

When psychologists first consider a new area of research, there’s little else to go on other than guesswork or common sense.

And sometimes the results are exactly as we would expect and so common sense becomes science.

Of course many experiments don’t return common sense answers and often these are the most fascinating.

They can reveal the most to us about what it means to be human as well as setting up a whole line of further studies to try and hunt the answer down.

When common sense is proved wrong, though, this begs the question of how, and whether, psychological knowledge can creep across the line to become common sense.

Perhaps once psychological findings become well-known, people incorporate them into their intuitive thoughts and behaviour.

People, such as myself, who are interested in disseminating psychological research, would hope the answer is yes.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if just understanding Milgram’s experiment on conformity really did allow us to avoid it’s more depressing consequences?

This may be far-fetched but it doesn’t hurt to consider the interaction between common sense and psychology.

After all what used to be ‘just’ psychology, can become ‘common sense’ and similarly what used to be ‘just’ common sense can become psychology.

Each should inform the other.

But, please, don’t try to tell a psychologist that psychology is just common sense.

It’s safer for all concerned.

.

Parkinson’s disease causes problems with walking, balance and coordination — along with a characteristic tremor.

Anxious or pessimistic people are at a higher risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, research finds.

Parkinson’s disease affects the brain cells that control movement.

It is linked to problems with walking, balance and coordination — along with a characteristic tremor.

Dr James Bower, who led the study, said:

“This is the first study that took a group of people with documented personality characteristics but no symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and showed that those with high levels of an anxious or pessimistic personality are at higher risk for developing Parkinson’s disease up to several decades later.”

The reason for the link between the personality trait and Parkinson’s, though, is not clear, said Dr Bower:

“What we have shown in this study is that there’s a link between an anxious or pessimistic personality and the future development of Parkinson’s.

What we didn’t find is the explanation for that link.

It remains unclear whether anxiety and pessimism are risk factors for Parkinson’s disease, or linked to Parkinson’s disease via common risk factors or a common genetic predisposition.”

The conclusions come from a group of 7,216 people who were followed over more than 50 years.

Those ranked in the top 25% for anxiety had a moderately increased risk of developing Parkinson’s decades later.

The increase in risk for anxious and pessimistic people was not that great, said Dr Bower:

“We found a significant and definite link between anxious and pessimistic personalities and the future development of Parkinson’s disease.

But, the increased risk was relatively small. Just to give you an idea of numbers, if you take 1,000 40-year-olds, about 17 of them will eventually develop Parkinson’s disease.

If you take 1,000 anxious 40-year-olds, about 27 of them will develop Parkinson’s disease.”

Normal worrying in response to stressful events was not examined by the research, Dr Bower explained:

“I think it’s important to understand that what our study looked at is people with anxious personalities.

These are the chronic worriers — the people who worry about things that most people don’t seem to worry about.

Those are the people we’re saying have an increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.

We did not look at people who are undergoing some acute, stressful life event or people who have very stressful jobs.”

The study was published in the journal Movement Disorders (Bower et al., 2005).

The best psychological therapy to reduce bodily inflammation.

Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) is the best psychological therapy to boost the immune system, a review finds.

CBT is superior to other types of therapies at reducing disease-causing inflammation in the body.

While CBT is best known as a treatment for psychological problems like depression and anxiety, it also boosts biological processes.

Dr George Slavich, study co-author, said:

“People automatically go to medication first to reduce chronic inflammation, but medications can be expensive and sometimes have adverse side effects.

In this review, we wanted to know whether psychotherapies can also affect the immune system and, if so, which ones have the most beneficial effects over the long term.”

Researchers reviewed 56 separate randomised controlled trials that tested how various non-drug therapies affect the immune system.

The results showed that CBT was particularly effective at reducing pro-inflammatory cytokines in the body.

If cytokines remain at high levels in the body, they can cause a range of physical problems, such as cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s.

Mental health problems like depression, anxiety and schizophrenia are also linked to high levels of inflammation.

Dr Slavich said:

“This seems to be a case of mind over matter.

Psychotherapies like CBT can change how we think about ourselves and the world, and changing these perceptions can in turn affect our biology.

The results of this study take this idea one step further and suggest that psychotherapy may be an effective and relatively affordable strategy for reducing individuals’ risk for chronic diseases that involve inflammation.”

The findings are a boost for those who prefer a non-drug approach, said Dr Slavich:

“There are many people who would prefer to use non-drug interventions for improving their immune system function.

In some cases, they can’t take certain medications because of medical reasons, and in other instances the medications they need are too expensive.

And then there are people who simply prefer a more holistic approach to improving their health.”

Psychotherapy emerged as the best non-drug approach, said Dr Slavich:

“Out of all of the interventions we examined, CBT was the most effective for reducing inflammation, followed by multiple or combined interventions.

Moreover, we found that the benefits of CBT on the immune system last for at least six months following treatment.

Therefore, if you’re looking for a well-tested, non-drug intervention for improving immune-related health, CBT is probably your best choice.”

The study was published in JAMA Psychiatry (Shields et al., 2020).