Relationships, Community, & Social Psychology

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 ...
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/ / Cognitive Psychology, Friendships, Gratitude, Positive Psychology, Social Psychology

Two Ways to Use Social Media

In my last post, I talked about how children in neighborhoods with faster internet apparently evaluate their lives more negatively. That study is one of several that has explored a possible link ...
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/ / Clinical Psychology, Emotion-Affective Psychology, Social Media, Social Psychology

In Neighborhoods With Faster Internet, Children Feel Worse About Their Lives

Who wouldn’t want a faster internet connection? Kids who want to feel good about their lives, maybe. A new analysis of data from 6,300 children carried about by researchers at University of ...
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/ / Children, Clinical Psychology, Cyber Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Emotion-Affective Psychology, Internet, Social Psychology

What Sets Good Liars Apart?

Everyone can lie, but not everyone can lie well. In fact, some research suggests that the demeanor of a liar is the most important factor in whether lies are detected, possibly more ...
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/ / Behavioral Psychology, Honesty, Relationships, Social Psychology

“Thank You” Can Change How People See You

If your parents told you to always say your thank yous when you were growing up, chances are they understood on some intuitive level that these two simple words carry a lot ...
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/ / Gratitude, Performance Psychology, Relationships, Social Psychology, Work

What Social Connections and Financial Security Mean for Retirement

Given the choice, most of us would probably rather retire with a broad social network and a deep bank account. Of course, the choice isn’t entirely up to us, since there are ...
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/ / Depression, Older Adults, Retirement, Social Psychology

Social Anxiety May Disrupt Conversational Synchrony

Although people with high levels of social anxiety don’t necessarily leave as bad an impression as they think, there is some evidence that those without social anxiety receive more favorable assessments overall ...
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/ / Anxiety, Clinical Psychology, Language, Relationships, Social Psychology

Quality and Quantity of Social Interactions Both Matter for Happiness

It seems obvious that having fulfilling social interactions with other people makes a difference in how happy we are. Less obvious is what makes for fulfilling social interactions, and how that varies ...
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/ / Happiness, Positive Psychology, Relationships, Social Psychology

Helping Others Is a Link Between Self-Control and Life Satisfaction

Last week, I wrote about the health and mental health benefits of volunteering. Today brings us another study on the theme of helping others being a good way to help yourself. If ...
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/ / Altruism, Happiness, Positive Psychology, Relationships, Self-Control, Social Psychology

When Are Rich People More Entitled?

When a person has more of something, there’s always the risk that they’ll decide the reason they have more is because they deserve more. That’s the most self-serving interpretation, but then again, ...
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/ / Personality, Politics, Social Justice, Social Psychology