Posts by Neil Petersen
Some Types of Sedentary Behavior Might Be Worse Than Others for Mental Health
Here’s a question that’s still up for debate among psychology researchers: just how bad is sitting around, really? On one hand, there’s a definite connection between sedentary behavior and mental health risks. One study found, for example, that people’s life satisfaction drops when they’re asked to limit their physical activity for a week. At the…
Read More
Not Judging Your Own Thoughts as an Element of Happiness
There’s no formula for happiness, but something that apparently helps is not being too judgmental toward your own thoughts and feelings. A recent study from researchers in Spain highlights the role that this kind of acceptance plays in overall happiness. The study surveyed 589 participants, asking about several different personality traits and about their self-rated…
Read More
Can Psychology Research Make Us Healthier Eaters?
Healthy diet isn’t just a topic for doctors and medical researchers. There’s a psychological component to the question of why people maintain knowingly maintain unhealthy eating habits, and what might prompt people to switch to healthier foods. A new paper from Christina Roberto, a health policy researcher at University of Pennsylvania, argues that findings from…
Read More
Developing a Sense of Purpose in High School
With a strong sense of purpose in life tend to come a range of cognitive, mental health, and possibly even physical health benefits, as I’ve written about before. A more complex question is how a strong sense of purpose arises. Although it’s reasonable to expect that a sense of purpose would be something that develops…
Read More
Switching Off Your Phone Half an Hour Before Bed Might Improve Sleep, Memory
I’m not going to bother telling you not to use your phone before bed. Partly because you’ve probably heard that advice before, and partly because it would be hypocritical of me to do so! But I am going to highlight the results of a study that shows what might happen to people who do and…
Read More
Who Drives Fancy Cars?
When I see someone driving a fancy car, I generally assume two things about them: They have a lot of money They want you to know they have a lot money Maybe you have your own set of assumptions you make when you see someone in an expensive vehicle. Of course, without concrete data, the…
Read More
What Friendships Can Do for Mental Health in Old Age
It seems self-evident that having rewarding social connections should be able to help with healthy aging, but framing that intuition in a scientific way turns out to be surprisingly complicated. There are a couple reasons why that’s the case. The first is that loneliness influences and is influenced by other aspects of our behavior in…
Read More
Short Interval Between Children Ups Risk of Divorce
We all like a fairytale love story, but psychologists are just as interested in stories about marriages that fall apart. That much is clear from a study I wrote about last year, in which researchers surveyed a couple thousand residents of Denmark about their reasons for divorce. Participants found a whole range of shortcomings in…
Read More
When People Lie Because the Truth is Unbelievable
From white lies to more malicious fibs, people bend or hide the truth for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons, it turns out, is that sometimes the truth is so fantastical that other people wouldn’t even believe it. If you’ve ever had something so strange happen to you that it doesn’t even seem…
Read More
Friends Cooperate More Efficiently After Exchanging Gifts
As I’ve written about before, people give gifts for a range of reasons – sometimes simply to do something nice, sometimes because they want to influence others. A new study from researchers in Italy sheds light on another function gifts can serve: increasing teamwork and cooperative performance. In the study, 32 pairs of close friends…
Read More