🫶 Welcome to Field Report, a brief, digestible, consumable examination of what’s happening in psych culture from Reel Therapy.
THE GENETICS OF RIGID THINKING via bbc
Fifty percent of Americans endorse at least one conspiracy theory. Why are some brains more susceptible to extremism than others? Dr. Leor Zmigrod, a political psychologist, neuroscientist, and author of The Ideological Brain, uses neuroscience to understand people’s beliefs and ideologies. Dr. Zmigrod found that “how you believe in something, not what you believe” is what truly matters. A rigid thinker sees the world in black and white and has a hard time adjusting to change. They also have a higher concentration of dopamine in the brain's striatum and a lower concentration in their prefrontal cortex.
I looked at the genetics of rigid thinking and found that there are particular genetic dispositions that affect how rigidly you think about the world. Specifically, I looked at how our genes are tied to how dopamine circulates and exists in the brain.
The most rigid thinkers, it turns out, have a particular kind of balance in dopamine in the areas of the brain known as the striatum – the area at the very centre of our brain, responsible for rewarding learning and instinctual response.👇
SPEED AND DURATION CAN BE WORSE FOR YOU WHEN DRINKING via experimental and clinical psychopharmacology
Researchers looked at heavy drinkers in college with transdermal alcohol sensors over 4 weekends to see how people drink, not just how much they drink. In relation to how much alcohol affects one's sleep, cravings, tolerance, and withdrawal symptoms, they found that chugging alcohol or drinking over a long period of time has more of an impact on us than how much alcohol is in our system at our drunkest moment. Therefore, prevention efforts aimed at young adults should target drinking pace and duration (e.g., drinking quickly or all-day drinking sessions) rather than total consumption (“know your limits”). 👇
NARCISSISTS MATCHED WITH INSECURE PRE-TEENS via american psychologist
In general, people with narcissistic traits lack empathy, have exaggerated feelings of self-importance, have troubled relationships, are highly sensitive to criticism, believe the rules do not apply to them, are entitled, manipulative, and deceitful, and value power and fame above all else. Research in adults shows that individuals with higher narcissism traits usually gravitate toward leadership roles. Researchers studied 332 children (ages 7–14) to see whether narcissistic leaders have a psychological fit with pre-teens with low self-esteem. For these pre-teens, the leader's narcissism felt comforting and sometimes empowering. People with high narcissistic traits tend to thrive when paired with submissive or insecure followers who are more submissive or insecure. It is hard to believe that, as early as age 7, the charisma of a narcissistic leader can take hold. 👇
IDEAL VS. REAL: THE FEED DOESN’T ALWAYS WIN via psychology of popular media
The “ideal versus real” trend on social media may not necessarily be hurting our mental health. Body image, or our thoughts and feelings about our body, is usually negatively affected by social media's objectification of the female body and hyper-idealized images. In a study of 265 women, around 21 years old, researchers found that “ideal vs. real” content actually boosted body positivity in women. In this study, idealized-only content also produced a small increase in body appreciation — the opposite of what most other research has shown. Showing the edited and unedited versions of the same image helped women feel a bit better about their bodies in the moment, regardless of the platform (TikTok, Instagram, etc.), possibly because it helps us conceptualize what we are seeing online.👇
THE CHATTY CATHY TROPE HAS BEEN DEBUNKED via the new yorker
Matthias Mehl, a University of Arizona psychologist, recently finished recording audio from 2000 participants between the ages of 10 and 94, over 14 years. The research found that men and women talk pretty much the same amount (i.e., women are not chattier).
👍Thank you so much for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts and feedback with me anytime.
Most importantly, please subscribe if you haven’t already, so I can keep writing these field reports.
👇I will leave you with this quick retelling of the history of the “Chatty Cathy” doll.
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