Without saying a word, their steps already showed whether they hit it off
Among women meeting for the first time, a better first impression went with more synchronized walking. The same pattern did not appear among men.
Mind and behavior
An everyday action can raise a research question: how we repeat a routine, what we remember about an experience, or how we describe our emotions. These readings explore specific studies behind those questions.
What to look for in these studies
Look at whether researchers observed what people did, asked how they felt, or compared conditions in an experiment. Those differences change what can be concluded. A laboratory finding does not automatically describe everyone's everyday life.
- What did the study measure, and who took part?
- Did it observe a relationship or test an intervention?
- How far can the finding apply beyond the study?
Explore the research
A short break: less fatigue, but no improvement in performance
Across 19 publications and more than 2,300 people, breaks brought a little more energy, but overall performance did not improve.
One-third of reported moments included both pleasant and difficult emotions
More than 11,000 people used a French-language app to report how they felt at random times. Joy, love, and anxiety were among the most frequent emotions.
Remembering who helped you brought warmth and a wish to give back
People who wrote about someone who helped them felt more moved and connected, and also more indebted. Guilt was less consistent.
Reappraisal and distraction eased feelings similarly, but with different patterns of attention
Twenty-five students viewed unpleasant photos. Both strategies reduced negative emotion, while pupils dilated more during reappraisal.
People who found meaning in boring tasks said they felt more motivated
People who made their tasks more interesting reported greater motivation in the area that mattered most to them, in a Danish survey. The association did not hold in another survey.
More procrastination went along with more stress and less satisfaction
More than 2,500 people in Germany reported how much they procrastinated. Younger people did so more, and the survey cannot show what causes what.
A phone sound slowed responses by about three milliseconds
Students searched for letters on a screen while phone-like or control tones played. There were no more errors, but a brain signal changed.
Social media and gaming, not total screen time, went along with preferring the immediate option
Among 101 iPhone users, social media and gaming use went along with choosing a smaller immediate reward. Total screen time did not.
People with a firm opinion chose more texts that supported it
People who were confident in their opinion opened more like-minded texts in a simulated search about psychotherapy. In the end, learning was similar.
Students chose to view more scenes of harm between people
Interpersonal harm attracted more choices than neutral scenes in three experiments using image pairs. Isolated injuries and dangerous animals did not.
Optimism and pessimism were not mirror images of each other
Among 929 students, pessimism was weakly associated with imagining a change controlled by others. Optimism did not show the reverse pattern.
Refuting the claim did not fully erase it; counterarguments helped
After a text about firefighters was identified as invented, some of its impression remained. Reading prepared counterarguments reduced it the most.
Before attention lapsed, slow waves like those in sleep appeared
In 26 well-rested adults, slow waves appeared before mind wandering or blanking out; their locations coincided with different errors.
Future scenes imagined from rewarded words felt somewhat more vivid
Future scenes felt more vivid with rewarded words than with new words. With neutral words, the difference was smaller.
More money at stake did not make visual memory more accurate
In three online experiments, a larger reward did not appear to improve memory for a figure’s orientation. Remembering more figures did make it harder.
Experts and machines recognized faces similarly but made different errors
Forensic experts, super-recognizers, and neural networks performed similarly on average, but each group made different mistakes.
Faces instead of distorted letters: people were correct about 94% of the time
In 42,000 responses in a 2014 study, people were correct about 94%, but blending faces heavily with the background reduced human accuracy.
When they heard a real recording alongside it, people were better at spotting the fake voice
Listening to each clip alone, 529 people identified 73% of fake voices. Hearing paired versions of the same sentence raised that figure to about 86%.
Reviewing one complete option before moving to the next led to more correct answers
With four options containing four numbers each, accuracy was about 77% this way and 49% when comparing one attribute across all options. With two options, there was no clear difference.
Two studies, two timelines: 59 and 66 days for a habit to become automatic
The review covered eating and health habits, with estimates that varied by behavior and person.
Viewing social media content did not predict well-being a year later
Among 3,205 Australian adolescents, more posting coincided with more distress and more messaging with greater well-being, measured in the same survey.
Browsing social media was followed by slightly more negative emotion
In 154 adolescents followed for two weeks, the prompt after browsing showed slightly higher negative emotion. Posting did not.
Two weeks of gratitude lists led to more positive emotion
Among adults in Brazil, the difference appeared right after the lists ended. Two weeks later, it was no longer distinct from the neutral-list group.
After a task that reduced their sense of control, students bet differently
After solving increasingly difficult patterns, they chose fewer sectors when betting. In another test, perceived risk showed no firm difference.
An apology after an offensive comment increased willingness to forgive
The apology mattered more when the new relationship seemed less valuable, in an online scenario involving 971 adults.
Stress fell in both groups, whether they used a digital program or a book
Among 200 adults in Germany, neither format had an advantage. Without a no-support group, it is unclear how much of the decrease was due to the support.
They slept well, but negative emotions weighed more heavily in their dreams
Among 50 healthy adults, those who said they slept well rated negative emotions in their dreams as more intense. Among those who slept worse, the two were more evenly matched.
Three weeks of doing favors did not lift mood
Among more than a thousand participants, those who intentionally helped others ended with well-being similar to that of the others.
In London, most people sustained support to reconnect with others
Twenty-four of 30 people with complex anxiety or depression attended at least the program’s minimum number of meetings. This was a pilot trial of 40 adults.
Nurse visits left modest improvements at age five
At age five, behavior and parenting improved slightly. The main analysis found no language advantage, although small signals appeared among complete cases.
With a breathing cushion, students reported less anxiety before an exam
Of 129 students, those who used the cushion or listened to a meditation reported less anxiety before a simulated exam than the others.
In appearance comparisons, feeling worse off went with negative emotions
Adults in Germany reported whether they compared themselves with others, their past, or an ideal. Whether they felt better or worse off mattered more than the reference.
A year and a half of meditation improved one part of well-being, not all of it
Among 134 healthy older adults, mindfulness improved compared with both groups, and connection only compared with English classes. Overall well-being showed no difference.
Five online lessons showed no advantage among health workers
Only 52 of 554 health workers in Chicago finished the course. Without random assignment, those 52 showed a greater change in positive emotions.
After one night without sleep, it was harder to calm reactions to distressing images
In a lab, 60 adults stayed awake overnight or rested. The difference disappeared after accounting for mood and sleepiness.