Sanity Check
Taking a One-Week Break from Social Media Improves Well-Being, Depression, and Anxiety: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Jeffrey Lambert et al.
Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, May 2022, Pages 287–293
Abstract:
The present study aimed to understand the effects of a 1-week break from social media (SM) (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok) on well-being, depression, and anxiety compared with using SM as usual. We also aimed to understand whether time spent on different SM platforms mediates the relationship between SM cessation and well-being, depression, and anxiety. We randomly allocated 154 participants (mean age of 29.6 years) to either stop using SM (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok) for 1 week or continue to use SM as usual. At a 1-week follow-up, significant between-group differences in well-being (mean difference [MD] 4.9, 95% confidence interval [CI] 3.0–6.8), depression (MD −2.2, 95% CI −3.3 to −1.1), and anxiety (MD −1.7, 95% CI −2.8 to −0.6) in favor of the intervention group were observed, after controlling for baseline scores, age, and gender. The intervention effect on well-being was partially mediated by a reduction in total weekly self-reported minutes on SM. The intervention effect on depression and anxiety was partially mediated by a reduction in total weekly self-reported minutes on Twitter and TikTok, and TikTok alone, respectively. The present study shows that asking people to stop using SM for 1 week leads to significant improvements in well-being, depression, and anxiety. Future research should extend this to clinical populations and examine effects over the longer term.
“Better the devil you know”: Are stated preferences over health and happiness determined by how healthy and happy people are?
Matthew Adler et al.
Social Science & Medicine, June 2022
Abstract:
Most people want to be both happy and healthy. But which matters most when there is a trade-off between them? This paper addresses this question by asking 4000 members of the UK and US public to make various choices between being happy or being physically healthy. The results suggest that these trade-offs are determined in substantial part by the respondent's own levels of happiness and health, with unhappy people more likely to choose unhappy lives and unhealthy people more likely to choose unhealthy ones: “better the devil you know, than the devil you don't”. Age also plays an important role; older people are more likely to choose being healthy over being happy. Information about adaptation to physical health conditions matters too, but less so than respondent characteristics. These results further our understanding of public preferences with important implications for policymakers concerned with satisfying those preferences.
‘If you’re uncomfortable, go outside your comfort zone’: A novel behavioral ‘stretch’ intervention supports the well-being of unhappy people
Pninit Russo-Netzer & Geoffrey Cohen
Journal of Positive Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
An increasingly large body of research in social psychology has underscored the power of brief situational interventions in promoting purposeful change. The present research contributes to the literature on positive psychology interventions (PPIs) by testing a novel volitional intervention that encourages people to engage in activities ‘outside their comfort zone.’ Participants were randomly assigned either to a condition that encouraged them to engage in an activity outside of their comfort zone over the following two weeks or to a control condition that encouraged them to keep a record of their daily activities. The intervention boosted the life satisfaction of people who were relatively less happy at baseline, with exploratory analyses tentatively suggesting benefits strongest among people who went outside their comfort zone by helping others. Discussion centers on the potential of behavioral ‘stretch’ interventions to promote positive change and well-being among people dissatisfied with their life.
Resting (Tonic) Blood Pressure Is Associated With Sensitivity to Imagined and Acute Experiences of Social Pain: Evidence From Three Studies
Tristen Inagaki & Peter Gianaros
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Social pain is a common experience that has potent implications for health. However, individuals differ in their sensitivity to social pain. Recent evidence suggests that sensitivity to social pain varies according to a biological factor that modulates sensitivity to physical pain: resting (tonic) blood pressure. The current studies extended this evidence by testing whether blood pressure relates to sensitivity to imagined (Study 1: N = 762, 51% female adults) and acute (Study 2, preregistered: N = 204, 57% female adults) experiences of social pain and whether associations extend to general emotional responding (Studies 1–3; Study 3: N = 162, 59% female adults). In line with prior evidence, results showed that higher resting blood pressure was associated with lower sensitivity to social pain. Moreover, associations regarding blood pressure and sensitivity to social pain did not appear to be explained by individual differences in general emotional responding. Findings appear to be compatible with the interpretation that social and physical pain share similar cardiovascular correlates and may be modulated by convergent interoceptive pathways.
Intranasal Oxytocin Alters Attention to Emotional Facial Expressions, Particularly for Males and Those with Depressive Symptoms
Ariel Boyle, Aaron Johnson & Mark Ellenbogen
Psychoneuroendocrinology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Intranasal oxytocin (OT) can enhance emotion recognition, perhaps by promoting increased attention to social cues. Some studies indicate that individuals with difficulties processing social information, including those with psychopathology, show more pronounced effects in response to OT. As such, there is interest in the potential therapeutic use of OT in populations with deficits in social cognition. The present study examined the effects of intranasal OT on the processing of facial features and selective attention to emotional facial expressions, as well as whether individual differences in depressive symptom severity predict sensitivity to intranasal OT. In a double-blind placebo-controlled within-subject design, eye tracking was used to measure attention to facial features in an emotional expression appraisal task, and attention to emotional expressions in a free-viewing task with a quadrant of multiple faces. OT facilitated the processing of positive cues, enhancing the maintenance of attention to the mouth region of happy faces and to happy faces within a quadrant, with similar effect sizes, despite the latter effect not being statistically significant. Further, persons with depressive symptoms, and particularly males, were sensitive to OT’s effects. For males only, OT, relative to placebo, increased attentional focus to the mouth region of all faces. Individuals with depressive symptoms showed less attentional focus on angry (males only) and sad facial expressions, and more attention to happy faces (particularly for males). Results indicate increased sensitivity to OT in males and persons at risk for depression, with OT administration promoting a positive bias in selective attention to social stimuli.
A voice inside my head: The psychological and behavioral consequences of auditory technologies
Alicea Lieberman, Juliana Schroeder & On Amir Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes, May 2022
Abstract:
People spend over four hours listening to auditory media daily, providing an important outlet for organizations, marketers, and policymakers to influence behavior. Headphones and speakers are the two most ubiquitous auditory media used. Five experiments demonstrate that because headphones localize sound inside a listener’s head (i.e., in-head localization, the sensation that the sound is originating from within one’s own head), they increase listeners’ felt closeness to the communicators of a message. Consequently, listeners perceive the communicators as warmer, feel and behave more empathically toward them, and are more persuaded by them. Consistent with our theorized mechanism, the difference in felt closeness between headphones and speakers attenuates when headphone listeners hear audio designed to create a “surround sound” experience which reduces the in-head localization of sound. This research sheds light on how, and why, different auditory technologies influence judgments, attitudes, and behaviors.