It’s well-established that people like to talk about themselves, but it’s not as clear why. A recent study sought to examine the brain science behind personal disclosure. The study’s researchers aimed to determine whether brain regions associated with reward become engaged when people are presented with opportunities to talk about themselves.

Researchers imaged the brains of participants as these people talked about their own beliefs and opinions and as they judged the beliefs of others. When individuals spoke about themselves, activity in areas of the brain associated with reward and pleasure increased. These regions of the brain are part of the mesolimbic dopamine system, which also responds to rewards such as food and money.

Researchers also performed tests in which participants could chose to answer questions about themselves (and receive a small monetary reward) or answer questions about other people (and receive a bigger monetary reward). People opted for a lower payoff and chose to talk about themselves, and they actually gave up on average 17% in potential earnings so they could disclose personal information.

The bottom line: disclosing personal beliefs and opinions is intrinsically rewarding, and it triggers the same reward feeling people get from things such as food and money. It’s so rewarding that people willingly forego money to talk about themselves.

Interestingly, listening (the exact opposite of talking) can be rewarding as well. Listening is a form of compassion and allows us to give some help and assistance to others. Neuroscientists from Emory University recorded brain activity of people who were given the chance to help someone else. Helping others triggered activity in the caudate nucleus and anterior cingulate, portions of the brain that turn on when people receive rewards or experience pleasure, which lead researchers to conclude that helping others brings the same pleasure we get from the gratification of personal desire.

The fact that both talking and listening are rewarding is good news, because striking a balance between the two activities is ideal. It’s incredibly frustrating to have a conversation with someone who is incessantly trying to one-up us (aka insert information about themselves into the conversation at every chance). And, on the other hand, if we’re always listening to other people but never sharing our own feelings/beliefs, we might begin to feel worn down. So, talk and listen—and reap some feel-good benefits by doing both! 

Olivia Roat is a reporter for GoStrengths.com, a site dedicated to helping teens increase their resilience skills and bounce back from any adversity!

Tweet This Post

Something else that comes with old age: an increased capacity to forgive others. It’s easier for older adults to forgive than it is for younger adults.

A recent study set out to examine the reason behind this positive relationship between age and forgiveness. Researchers hypothesized that the two personality traits of agreeableness and neuroticism (the degree of negativity in a person’s response to life situations) explain age differences in tendencies to forgive.

The study looked at individuals who ranged in age from 19-84 years and found that older adults showed higher levels of agreeableness and lower levels of neuroticism than younger adults.  How does this relate to forgiveness? More agreeable people are more forgiving than less agreeable ones, and more neurotic individuals are less forgiving than less neurotic ones. Consequently, older people are more apt to forgive.

The fact that older individuals show less neuroticism explains their aptitude for forgiveness, and it also may shed some light on why older people are happier. The happiness curve is U-shaped: happiness is highest in youth, decreases and hits its lowest point at around age 45, and then increases again in old age. (This remains true across cultures.) Research has shown that personality plays a large role in happiness; in particular, neuroticism plays the largest role. The more neurotic an individual, the less happiness he or she experiences. Case in point: older people, who are less neurotic and happier.

Tweet This Post

The report, released by Measure of America, ranked the top 25 U.S. metro areas for women’s well-being. It gauged well-being by using the American Human Development Index, a summary measure of well-being that combines health, education, and income indicators into a single number between zero and ten. The index looks at data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the CDC in three essential areas: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge, and a decent standard of living. Life expectancy at birth determines people’s ability to live a long and healthy life, school enrollment and educational degree attainment indicate access to knowledge, and median earnings represent standards of living.

Washington D.C. scored high in all three areas. Women in the nation’s capitol are highly educated—45% have Bachelor’s degrees and 20% have graduate degrees. They also earn more money than women in any other city: women in D.C. earn on average around $38,000, far exceeding the national median earnings for women of $24,000.

San Francisco, which ranked second, had the highest life expectancy of all metro areas: women live an average of 84.5 years, about three years longer than the national average. Boston, the third-ranked city, scored high on educational measurements: around 91% of women have a high school diploma and school enrollment is measured at 82%.

Houston, San Antonio, and Riverside-San Bernardino in California took the bottom 3 spots in the ranking. In Riverside San Bernardino, one in five women never completed high school, and the typical female worker earns around $22,300, which according to the study’s researchers is a wage on par with those that prevailed in the U.S. as a whole in 1970. The report actually noted large gaps in well-being between the top-scoring cities and the low-scoring ones. For example, in the top three cities, between 42 and 45% of women have Bachelor’s degrees; in the bottom three, that percentage drops to between 19 and 25%. In regard to standards of living, women in the top three cities earn between $32-38,000, while women in the bottom three earn between $22-24,000.

In addition to ranking the cities in terms of life expectancy, educational access, and median income, the report noted some interesting findings. Among them: earnings in metro areas track closely with education in these areas and women tend to earn more in metro areas where greater numbers of women are unmarried.

The report concludes that women can no longer be considered a monolithic category, as the American Human Development Index highlights the tremendous variation that exists among women by race, place, age, and marital status. They also conclude that “on the whole, women living in the most populous metro area have higher levels of well-being than the typical American women.”

Yet, women living in the bottom three cities are lacking in regard to health, education, and income. The report knows that the first thing people will do after learning about the findings is question why disparities exist in U.S. metro areas. They anticipate this question, and while they acknowledge that only detailed study can provide explanation, they do identify some potential “well-being risk factors,” i.e. low birth weight, percentage of adults who smoke, and preschool enrollment.

Tweet This Post

Researchers at the Auckland University in New Zealand developed a video game called SPARX to deliver cognitive behavioral therapy to adolescents in an easily accessible and enjoyable way. SPARX (an acronym that stands for Smart, Positive, Active, Realistic, X-factor thoughts) is an interactive fantasy game where players create an avatar and undertake challenges to restore balance in a world dominated by “gloomy negative automatic thoughts” (GNATS). Players move through seven levels in the fantasy world, where they kill off GNATS and learn skills such as assertiveness, listening, and muscle relaxation.

The study included 187 adolescents between the ages of 12-19 with mild to moderate depression. It split participants into two groups: one group played SPARX while the other group underwent face-to-face counseling by trained counselors and clinical psychologists.

Researchers found that both standard therapy and SPARX reduced levels of anxiety and depression by about one-third. Participating in the SPARX game resulted in a significant decrease in depression, anxiety, and hopelessness and an improvement in quality of life. SPARX was actually more effective in helping kids recover from depression: about 44% of those who played SPARX recovered completely from depression, compared to 26% of those who underwent usual treatment.

When researchers questioned the adolescents on satisfaction, 95% of SPARX users said they believed it would appeal to other teens, and 81% said they would recommend it to friends, though satisfaction was just as high among those who received traditional treatment.

According to researchers, the fact that SPARX was just as effective as face-to-face therapy in reducing depression is impressive mainly because SPARX is a true self-help program: adolescents had contact with a clinician only at recruitment and received input from professionals only once (after a month). The researchers concluded that SPARX “is at least as good as treatment as usual, would be cheaper and easier to disseminate, and could be used to increase access to therapy.”

Despite the prevalence of depression (up to 25% of young people experience a depressive disorder by the age of 19), less than one-fifth of depressed teens receive treatment. Given the gap between the number of teens who experience depression and the number who actually receive treatment, this study is promising because it offers a possible new way to help depressed teens. A lot of teens play video games (97%, according to the Pew Research Center), so helping them deal with emotional problems through a medium in which they’re already familiar sounds like it has the potential to be effective and accessible. Gaming might be the newest way to build coping skills and resilience.

Olivia Roat is a reporter for GoStrengths.com, a site devoted to preventing teen depression. 

Tweet This Post

According to a recent study, the degree of motivation people exhibit may be determined by levels of dopamine in the brain.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that has several different functions. It regulates movement and emotional responses; it’s also linked with the reward system of the brain. When dopamine is released in certain regions of the brain, people experience pleasure and satisfaction. These feelings of enjoyment motivate people to seek out and perform certain activities. Eating food releases dopamine, as does using technology.

While dopamine’s role in the brain’s pleasure and reward system is well established, this new study shows it may play a role in people’s motivation and work ethic as well.

The study sets out to determine how hard people were willing to work for a monetary reward. It looked at 25 participants ranging in age from 18 to 29. The participants were able to choose between playing an easy button-pushing task in which they would earn $1 or a more difficult task where they could earn up to $4. Some people chose to work harder and perform the difficult task for the bigger reward, while others stuck to the easy task and reaped a smaller reward.

Why did some opt for the more difficult task? The answer lies in the brain. Researchers imaged the brains of the participants and found that those who selected the harder task had high dopamine levels in two areas of the brain: the striatum and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, both of which are linked to reward and motivation. This was expected.

What was not expected was the discovery that those who opted for the less difficult task had a higher release of dopamine in the anterior insula, a region of the brain involved with emotion, meaning that they were focused more intently on the cost of the exercise (incessant button pushing and consequent pinky-finger pain) than the rewards.

Both sets of participants had high dopamine levels—albeit in different brain areas. This finding shows that dopamine can have opposing effects in different brain regions; simply put, dopamine does different things in different parts of the brain.

The implications of this study go far beyond explaining the factors behind individual motivation and drive: the opposing effects of dopamine complicate the issue of medications used to treat depression, ADHD, and schizophrenia. The prevailing assumption is that these drugs, which alter dopamine, impact brain regions in the same way, but as this study shows, dopamine does not have a standard, uniform effect.

The results of the study may provide valuable information that can be used to improve the treatment of mental health disorders. It also may help establish an objective method for diagnosing problems such as depression, ADHD, or schizophrenia.

Co-author of the study, David Zald, PhD, remarked, “Right now our diagnoses for these disorders is often fuzzy and based on subjective self-report of symptoms. Imagine how valuable it would be if we had an objective test that could tell whether a patient was suffering from a deficit or abnormality in an underlying neural system. With objective measures we could treat the underlying conditions instead of the symptoms.”

Olivia Roat is a reporter for GoStrengths.com

Tweet This Post

Researchers from Germany set out to examine the ways in which regret affects emotional health. They conducted a study that involved three groups of participants: healthy young people who averaged 25 years of age; healthy seniors; and depressed seniors (both groups averaged 65 years of age). All of the participants played a simple gambling video game in which the object was to earn money. While they played the game, researchers measured brain activity in a region of the brain involving regret and a region of the brain involved in emotional regulation through fMRI scans.

What did they find?

Young participants and depressed seniors acted on feelings of regret. If they stopped the game prematurely and lost out on a big payoff, they took greater risks in subsequent rounds. In contrast, healthy seniors did not alter their behavior in response to their performance in the game. Also, healthy seniors experienced less regret and had increased brain activity in the region involved in emotional regulation, suggesting they were able to regulate their feelings more successfully while playing the game.

Researchers also measured participants’ heart rates and skin electrical conductivity. Young participants and depressed seniors experienced increased heart rates and sweaty palms when missing out on opportunities in the game. On the other hand, healthy seniors did not show significant differences in heart rate or sweat production, again suggesting less regret and better emotional regulation.

This research suggests that letting go of regrets may be vital to ensuring happiness later in life. According to the study’s authors, “The lack of an age-adapted management of regret experiences may thus represent a risk factor for highly prevalent late-life depression.” People who don’t learn to let go may be at risk for depression down the road. With age comes experience and with experience comes increased chances of regret. They key is to not hold onto those regrets as we age. In fact, the ability to accept and move on is an invaluable “resilience factor” in old age.

Olivia Roat is a reporter for GoStrengths.com, a site focused on teaching happiness and resilience skills to parents and kids.

Tweet This Post

Past research reveals the stress associated with negative emotions can actually damage the heart and arteries. According to the theory of accelerated aging,  people dealing with long-term stress, depression, or PTSD develop at an early age health problems that we typically associate with older people, such as heart disease and stroke. So, if people who chronically experience negative emotions have a higher risk of heart problems, is the inverse of that statement also true? Do those who experience positive emotions have better heart health? Recent research says yes.

Harvard School of Public Health conducted a review (the first of its kind) of 200 separate research studies that examined the connection between psychological well-being and cardiovascular health. According to the findings, optimism, life satisfaction, and happiness are linked to reduced risk of heart disease. People with a better sense of well-being have healthier blood pressure, cholesterol, and weight, and they’re also more likely to exercise, eat healthy foods, get adequate sleep, and avoid smoking. Individuals who scored highest on optimism rankings had a 50% reduced risk of heart attack or stroke compared to their peers who scored the lowest, regardless of such factors as a person’s age, socio-economic status, smoking status or body weight.

Professor Laura Kubzansky, a senior author of the study, says that, “bolstering psychological strengths rather than simply mitigating psychological deficits may improve cardiovascular health.” We know that chronic stress, anxiety, depression, and PTSD can be detrimental, but the absence of these things might not be enough to ensure our physical health. What looks to be more effective and beneficial is boosting positive emotions.

People aspire to happiness and optimism because these positive emotions are beneficial in their own rights. Yet, because of the above findings, we now know that boosting happiness levels won’t just make us feel good: it can give us a healthier heart as well.

Olivia Roat is a reporter for GoStrengths.com, a site dedicated to increasing the happiness of both kids and adults.

Tweet This Post

In 2010, Social Welfare Professor Adrian Aguilera from the University of California, Berkeley, developed a customized “Short Message Service (SMS)” intervention program for the patients treated: low-income Latinos struggling with depression and mental health disorders. The patients were sent automated text messages prompting them to track their moods and think about positive and negative interactions they experienced during the day. They also received texts reminding them to take their medications.

Aguilera found that people felt more connected and cared for when they received text messages. In fact, the text-messaging sessions were scheduled to last only for a certain number of weeks, and when they stopped, 75% of the patients requested to continue receiving them. Patients even noticed a difference in their moods and stress levels when the program stopped for a week due to a technical glitch.

Professor Aguilera developed the idea for the program when he noticed a gap between therapy and people’s everyday lives that was difficult to bridge: many of his patients had a hard time putting the coping skills they learned in therapy into practice because of routine stressors. They didn’t have regular access to laptops or the Internet, so Aguilera used text messages.

We’ve all heard the saying “Man is not an island,” and Aguilera’s findings point to our basic need for human interaction. They also concur with the findings of another study, which revealed that social interaction is essential to contentment and happiness. Achieving a sense of well-being requires five to six hours a day of social interaction (which actually includes text messaging!).

The bottom line: while texting often gets a bad rap, it has its place. It can boost feelings of connection and well-being in those struggling with depression or mental illness and in all people. Sending a text takes only a few seconds, and it can have a significant, positive impact on people by letting them know they’re cared about.

Olivia Roat is a reporter for GoStrengths.com, a site that offers depression prevention resources for teens and their parents.

Tweet This Post

A new infographic from Keas.com entitled “The Case for Facebook” shows that Facebook can actually inspire productivity in employees. Keas points to a study by the Academy of Management exploring whether allowing people to surf the web while working is beneficial or detrimental to productivity levels. Employees were divided into three groups: a control group (which received no breaks), a rest-break group (in which people could take breaks but not use the internet), and an internet-browsing group (people could take 10 minutes to browse the internet and Facebook). The findings were a shock. Internet browsers were 16% more productive than the rest-break group and 39% more productive than the control group. Internet browsers further reported a reduction in mental exhaustion and boredom and more psychological engagement.

What do experts make of the study’s results? Dr. Brent Coker of the Department of Management and Marketing at the University of Melbourne says that, “short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf on the Internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher net total concentration for a day’s work, and as a result, increased productivity.” The CNY Business Journal also weighed in, referring to studies in which employees suggest that web surfing at work makes them more productive by providing “an easy way to escape the pressures of the day.”

This  study, along with others, gives some insight into the fact that we may be selling Facebook, and social media in general, a little short. Facebook has the potential to boost not only productivity but also happiness. The Keals.com infographic reveals that a person can be positively effected by the happiness of those up to three degrees removed from them in a social network. Also, each additional friend increases the chance of being happy by nine percent.

There are many paths to happiness and productivity, and now it seems Facebook may be counted among them.

Olivia Roat is a reporter for GoStrengths, a site dedicated to increasing the happiness of parents, teachers, and children.

Tweet This Post

One study reveals the benefits of a game called Re-Mission™ where players sit in the driver seat of a miniature robot named Roxxi to fight cancer. In the game, players kill cancer cells and help fictional cancer patients battle the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation. The results show young cancer patients who regularly play the game activate neural circuits, enhance attitudes, induce positive emotions, and stick more closely to treatment protocols.

Other research shows video games can facilitate children’s growth and education by enhancing problem-solving and creativity skills. Games can additionally help kids make friends, encourage exercise (as playing sports-related games encourage kids to play those sports in real life), and help kids learn about competition and leadership. Games can further bring kids and parents together.

Video games have also weaved their way into the new field of positive psychology. Jane McGonigal, a designer for a genre of games termed “alternate reality games,” fuses the science of optimal living with gaming. McGonigal’s most recent game, SuperBetter, is geared toward helping people achieve their health goals or recover from an illness/injury by increasing their personal resilience. Skills employed include staying curious, optimistic and motivated in the face of their adversity. The game builds up four kinds of strength: mental, physical, emotional, and social.

Innovative games can benefit kids’ mental, social, and emotional health. To help your kids access these benefits:

• Choose the right type of game for your kids. Games like McGonigal’s SuperBetter can provide real-world benefits.
• Make video gaming a family activity. Games like Guitar Hero have two-player settings and can inspire some family fun and healthy competition.
• Help kids use gaming as a social outlet. Suggest game play dates with friends so your kids can socially interact rather than playing solo.

Tweet This Post