No Regrets

Thomas Gilovich, a psychologist at Cornell university, has been studying the psychology of regret for over 10 years. Over that time a large number of people has been interviewed and asked about their biggest regret. Interestingly, it seems that people are much more likely to regret doing NOTHING as they are to regret any single decision. Around 75% of those interviewed regret not doing something - here are the top 3 slots: not studying hard enough at school, not taking advantage of an opportunity and failing to spend enough time with friends and family.

In contrast only 25% of people regret doing something such as a poor career choice or marriage to someone they didn't love.

Why should this be the case?
well its easy to see the consequences of bad decisions you have made isn't it? - that bad relationship takes years to get out of and leaves a trail of unpleasantness, or the job you took that seemed good at the time but now is dull and tedious. However you never see the consequences of things you haven't done and you might spend time wondering 'what if?'


"For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: it might have been"

How Creative are You?

Creativity is a real talent - the ability to think 'outside the box' is a must for success in many areas. Psychologists have used many different tasks to test how creative people are. For example participants might be presented with an item such as a brick and given a limited time to suggest as many uses as possible. Alternatively they could be given an A4 sheet divided into squares and asked to make each square into a different object (such as a television, pair of curtains or kite). Some researchers use lateral thinking puzzles to test creativity. Have a go at the following questions and see how you get on:

1.Can you add a single line to this equation to make it correct - there is one rule - you are not allowed to put a line through the = sign to convert it into a 'not equals' sign! 10 10 11 = 10.50

2. Joanna and Jackie were born on the same day of the same month of the same year. They have the same mother and father and yet they are not twins. How is this possible?

3. A man has married twenty different women in the same town. All are still alive and he never divorced any of them. Polygamy is unlawful, yet the man has not broken the law. How is this possible?

4. A man walks into an antique shop and offers to sell an impressive bronze coin. One side of the coin contains an image of a Roman emperor's head, while the other shows the date as 500 B.C. The dealer instantly knows the coin is a fake - why?

The laughter chain

The Viral effect of laughter!

Laughter is contageous, isn't it. You know how difficult it is to resist when someone else is laughing heartily - think of actors 'corpsing' when reading through their lines. Once it starts spreading, laughter can be quite difficult to contain in its viral effect.

In fact in 1962 there was a laughter epidemic in Africa which started off in a girls' boarding school in Tanzania. The first symptoms appeared on January 30, when three girls got the giggles and couldn't stop laughing. The symptoms quickly spread to 95 students, forcing the school to close on March 18. The girls sent home from the school were focal points for the further spread of the epidemic. Related outbreaks occurred in other schools in Central Africa and spread like wildfire, ceasing two-and-a-half years later and afflicting nearly 1,000 people.

Happy Friday

Hey it's Friday, possibly the happiest day of the working week as it heralds the weekend. There are even better reasons to be forward looking, optimistic and cheerful however.

A long term study showed that optimistic people live on average 19% longer than pessimists. That's a substantial number of extra years to "lick the lid of life"!
The study examined more than 1100 patients attending the Mayo Clinic in the US between 1960 and 62. Each was asked to complete a personality test which ranked them on optimism. Thirty years later, it was found that the optimists had lived on average 19% longer!

So smile and enjoy your day. Here's a Friday joke to start you off.

A lecturer was in a particularly bad mood and decided to take it out on her students, and so she gave cutting criticism to the recent homework and then said "Would everyone who thinks they are stupid stand up!" At first no one moved but then after a few seconds one student got to his feet. The lecturer turned to him and said "So you are admitting that you are stupid".
"No" he said......"I just hate to see you standing there all by yourself".

What sex is your brain?

Men and women are different! There I've said it - its not exactly politically correct these days but I like throwing caution to the wind. This is not to say that men are better than women or vice versa, but the sooner we accept that we are different from each other we can relax and play to our strengths! You will read about some of these differences in future blogs but meantime why not take the quick online test and see what sex your brain is?

Extraordinary People - Synaesthesia

What will you call your baby?

It has been said "A child's name is generally a settled affair when his first breath is drawn and his future personality must then grow within its shadow". How you name your child can shape his/her life experience. For example research has shown that teachers give higher marks to students with more likeable names. It has also been demonstrated that people whose names are earlier in the alphabet (A, B, C) are more likely to be successful than those whose names start with letters that appear late in the alphabet. Maybe its something to do with always being last on the list?

In the 1960's, researchers Hartman et al investigated whether people with 'strange' names were more likely to be psychologically disturbed than those with more 'normal' names. They examined over 10,000 psychiatric court records and from those they found 88 people with very unusual first names such as Oder, Lethal and Vere. They selected a control group of 88 individuals who were matched on gender, age and location of birth, and who had more usual names. Those with unusual names were significantly more likely than the control group to be diagnosed as psychotic.

It appears that your initials can even affect how long you live! Christenfield et al (1999) used an electronic dictionary to generate every possible 3 letter word, then separated those that were clearly positive (e.g. ACE, HUG, JOY) from the more negative words like PIG, BUM and DIE. They searched a database of California death certificates and examined the age at which people with positive initials and negative initials died. Controlling for several factors, the researchers found that men with positive initials lived around 4 and a half years longer than average, whereas those with negative initials died around 3 years earlier than average. Women with positive initials lived an additional 3 years (although in their case there was no detrimental effect from having negative initials).

Smile - its free and you'll feel better!

How are you feeling today? A bit flat perhaps - the trauma of dragging yourself out of bed on this Winter's day. Well SMILE! That's right break into a nice cheesy grin. Research into something called the Facial Feedback hypothesis shows that our emotions are affected by our facial expressions. Laird (1974) tested this hypothesis by deceiving participants into thinking they were having activity in their facial muscles measured. Electrodes were attached and participants were asked to make facial expressions. While this was going on their was a series of cartoon slides shown in the background. Participants rated the slides funnier when they were 'smiling' and also reported feeling happier when smiling (and more irritable when frowning!).

Quirkology

I have added a link to this great site. Dr Richard Wiseman has been an inspiration to me through his brilliant and readable books. He coined the term Quirkology to describe quirky and fun psychology!

The company of dogs

Did you know that having a dog is good for your health? Friedmann and colleagues from the University of Maryland looked at this special relationship and its effect on heart health. They found that dog owners were almost NINE times more likely to be alive one year after suffering a heart attack than non dog owners! Dog owners tend to have higher self esteem and are less prone to depression too - maybe its all that exercise!

talking dogs

Synaesthesia

Synaesthesia is a fascinating and relatively rare condition, where an individual experiences a blending of senses. For example, a synaesthete might be able to taste colour or to see music! Amazing! Any synaesthetes out there could let us know about their experience.