Fwd: Watching box sets with your partner can benefit your relationship

I have posted TED talks, Eric Barker's Barking Up the Wrong Tree and Maria Popova's Brainpickings, all free and all good and all can be subscribed for once a week delivery.  You could add BPS Research.  That is the British Psychological Society's research newsletter.  You may know that psych research is undergoing some special stress these days since quite a lot of the American stuff has not replicated, not shown the same results upon re-doing the research.  So, I say take research results with a grain of thought.  Bill

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: BPS Research Digest <rd@lists.bps.org.uk>
Date: Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 1:32 AM
Subject: Watching box sets with your partner can benefit your relationship
To: olderkirby@gmail.com

Share on   Forward to a friend View this email in your browser WRAT5 TM - Coming soon to Pearson Assessment! Use the newly updated WRAT5TM to accurately monitor & assess the reading, spelling, & maths skills of individuals & groups of people aged 5–85+. An easy-to-administer tool, upgraded with data reflecting current census information. Discover more about WRAT5TM.  About this email Every week we bring you engaging reports on the latest psychology research. Anyone can subscribe free. We also provide daily updates on the latest psychology research via our app and on: Twitter Facebook Google Plus Tumblr Issue Number: 376 Editor Dr Christian Jarrett Medically Unexplained Symptoms/Somatic Symptom Disorder National Summit 2017: 30/10/17, London. IAPT: Improving Psychological Therapies for Older People: ​27/11/17, London. Improving Psychological Therapies For Mental Health Trauma National Summit 2017: 8/12/17, London. Special rate £250 +vat with code hcuk250bps​ Reach over 50,000+ subscribers by placing your banner in this space. Watching box sets with your partner can benefit your relationship, claim researchers My wife and I were ridiculously excited about watching the recent season finale of Game of Thrones together, writes Christian Jarrett – we'd watched all the previous 66 episodes together too, and the characters almost feel a part of our lives. Spending our time this way has always seemed like a guilty pleasure, but a team of psychologists led by Sarah Gomillion at the University of Aberdeen say that couples' shared enjoyment of TV, movies and books can help foster feelings of closeness and a shared social identity. Continue reading → Believing widely doubted conspiracy theories satisfies some people's need to feel special Unrelenting faith in the face of insurmountable contradictory evidence is a trait of believers in conspiracy theories that has long confounded researchers. For instance, past research has demonstrated how attempting to use evidence to sway believers of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories can backfire, increasing their certainty in the conspiracy. Could it also be the case that knowing that most people doubt a conspiracy actually makes believing in it more appealing, by fostering in the believer a sense of being somehow special? This question was explored recently in the European Journal of Social Psychology by Roland Imhoff and Pia Karoline Lamberty at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. Continue reading → How short-term increases in testosterone change men's thinking style The hot-headed "macho man", who acts first and thinks later, has long been popular in movies. Now there's psychological evidence to support it. A new study in the Psychological Science finds that a short-term rise in testosterone – as might occur when in the presence of an attractive potential mate, or during competition – shifts the way men think, encouraging them to rely on quick, intuitive, and generally less accurate, judgements, rather than engaging in careful, more deliberate thought. Continue reading → Learning more about yourself could help you better understand others As social creatures, accurately recognising and understanding the mental states of others (their intentions, knowledge, beliefs, etc.) is crucial to our social bonds and interactions. In fact, in today's multi-cultural world and strongly divided political climate, this skill – known as Theory of Mind – is perhaps more important than ever. A recent study published in the Journal of Cognitive Enhancement proposes that an effective way to develop our Theory of Mind lies in learning to better understand ourselves. Continue reading → Researchers asked these British mothers which personality traits they would most wish for their babies – extraversion came out on top Ambitious and self-disciplined or affable and fun-loving? If you could choose the personality profile for your children, what would you prioritise? Researchers at Goldsmiths, University of London, put this question to 142 British mothers with a baby aged 0 to 12 months. Reporting their findings in Personality and Individual Differences, Rachel Latham and Sophie von Stumm say there was a clear preference among the mothers for most of all wanting their infants to grow up to be extraverted, especially friendly and cheerful, more so than conscientious or intelligent, even though these latter attributes are more likely to contribute to a healthy, successful life. Continue reading → Increase the meaningfulness of your work by considering how it helps others When we find our work meaningful and worthwhile, we are more likely to enjoy it, to be more productive, and feel committed to our employers and satisfied with our jobs. For obvious reasons, then, work psychologists have been trying to find out what factors contribute to people finding more meaning in their work. Top of the list is what they call "task significance", which in plain English means believing that the work you do is of benefit to others. Now Blake Allan at Purdue University has provided some of the first longitudinal evidence that seeing our work as benefiting others really does lead to an increase in our finding it meaningful. Continue reading → Editor's archive pick: "A burden and a privilege" – clinical psychologists look back on their life's work Anyone who knows anyone who is a clinical psychologist or other kind of psychotherapist will know about the stories they carry in their minds and hearts. Stories of other people's struggles, pain, trauma, hurt, love and sometimes, wonderfully, recovery. When the psychologist returns home, the stories stay with them, but now in a parallel world of partners, children, friends and mundanity. What is this life like for the psychologist and her loved ones? How do they cope? Some clues come from in-depth interviews with nine senior psychologists and three senior psychiatrists in Norway, published recently in Psychotherapy Research by Marit Råbu and her colleagues. Continue reading → The Psychologist The Psychologist is the monthly magazine of the British Psychological Society. Visit our website for the September issue and latest online content, including a review of Adrian Owen's new book Into the Grey Zone. Also check out all our latest reports and feature articles and much more. Reach a large, international and professional audience: advertise in The Psychologist or Research Digest Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list Our mailing address is: The British Psychological Society St Andrews House 48 Princess Road East Leicester, LE1 7DR United Kingdom Add us to your address book The British Psychological Society is a charity registered in England and Wales (SC039452), and Scotland (229642). Copyright © 2017 The British Psychological Society, All rights reserved. You are receiving this because you are subscribed to the British Psychological Society's Research Digest.