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At times, it feels that the world is awash with anger. However, circumstances can affect our perceptions of anger in others… Anger and bias We can misperceive anger. Of course, chronic illness could easily disrupt sleep, which, as we know, increases anger, but this is certainly not the first study to link anger (and the stress hormone cortisol, which is raised during anger) to increased general inflammation. [Extracted from the article]

As low conscientious conservatives don't seem to care whether a story that aligns with their beliefs and interests is true or not, it could be that interventions will need to target conscientiousness itself, rather than simply explaining that a story is fake, the pair writes. In the first, the participants were given 12 reputable and 12 fake news Covid-19 stories from websites. While conservatives were overall less likely than liberals to change their mind, this was especially true for low conscientiousness conservatives. [Extracted from the article]

Is such an elemental aspect of what it is to be human - and yet researchers are still making new discoveries about what makes a line funny (or flop), how humour affects us, and what a person's comic style can reveal about them. The team behind this study developed their 20-item parent-report humour survey to help plug a gap in research: a lack of knowledge about how humour typically develops in children. Find our Research Digest at www.bps.org.uk/research-digest Editor: Dr Matthew Warren Writers: Emily Reynolds, and Emma Young Reports, links and more on the website Whatever your taste in humour, we all love people - and jokes - that make us laugh. [Extracted from the article]

Plagiarism and cheating are persistent problems in higher education, note the authors of a new paper in Personality and Individual Differences. The students completed scales that assessed Dark Triad traits, feelings of academic entitlement, and academic misconduct (they used a five-point scale to report on how regularly they "used notes during a closed-book exam", for example). But Curtis and his colleagues wondered if Dark Triad traits might in fact drive feelings of academic entitlement, which then drives misconduct. [Extracted from the article]

Del Paulhus and Kevin Williams argued that a "Dark Triad" of "overlapping but distinct" toxic traits - subclinical psychopathy, Machiavellianism and narcissism - explained much of what we might otherwise call a "bad" character. The three Dark Triad traits cover a range of anti-social beliefs and behaviours: Psychopathy is associated with low levels of empathy, and being high in impulsivity and thrill-seeking. Find our Research Digest at www.bps.org.uk/ digest Editor: Dr Matthew Warren Writers: Emily Reynolds, and Emma Young Reports, links and more on the Digest website Twenty years ago, two Canadian psychologists published a paper that instantly captured the imagination of researchers - and reporters. [Extracted from the article]

People living in areas where incomes are more similar tend to report greater wellbeing - and this holds not just for overall high-income regions, such as Scandinavian countries, but regions where money isn't used much at all, such as the Solomon Islands. The researchers think this could be because even though there is lower social mobility and also greater income inequality in the US compared with western Europe, Americans are greater believers in the possibility of social mobility. Matthew A. Killingsworth at the University of Pennsylvania, US, analysed data from more than 33,000 employed adults in the US, who had been asked to report on their own wellbeing at random timepoints via a smart phone app. [Extracted from the article]

"Awe walks" can boost positive emotions among older adults Strategies to prevent or at least counteract these deteriorations are badly needed, and new research by a team in the US, published in the journal Emotion, has now identified one apparently promising strategy: so-called "awe walks". Only the awe group was told that 'with the right outlook, awe can be found almost anywhere, but it is most likely to occur in places that involve two key features: physical vastness and novelty'. [Extracted from the article]

But importantly, the conspiracy text was also judged to be more entertaining, and it seemed to be this "entertainment value" that ultimately led these participants to have a stronger belief in the conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories stoke anxiety and uncertainty and can even threaten the health of those who espouse them. What's more, even though it didn't mention any conspiracies, participants who'd read this text were more likely to agree with conspiracy-related statements (such as "There will be cheating in the results counting process" or "A conspiracy will determine the election outcome") - but only if they also scored relatively highly on a measure of sensation-seeking. [Extracted from the article]

The article presents a neuropsychological observation and understanding about the behavior of humans toward art. It offers information on studies by Geoffrey Miller of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque about the correlation of artistic creativity with both general intelligence and the personality trait of being open to new experiences. It also explains how humans perceive art as a social adaptation.

The article offers information on several researches including reduction in symptoms of schizophrenia through aerobic exercise, correlation between personality trait scores and time spend by people and incorporating physical activity into academic school lessons of children.

The article presents several studies on psychology, difference on book purchase of liberals and conservatives and personality which may affect vulnerability to mental health problems.