Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences
The good ‘ole days, eh! There is some evidence to suggest that we always view the past though rose-tinted glasses – feeling that the past was somehow better than the present. However, research just out has shown that that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Research by Alberto Prati, Claudia Senik for the Association of Psychological Science has shown that current feelings impact our view of the past. To do this they have assessed data from different longitudinal studies into how happy people feel over time. These include a German study over 10 years of 11’000+ participants, a British study over 12 years of 20’000+ participants, a French study of over 18’000 participants, and about 4’000 results from the USA over a period of 35 years.
What did they find?
What they found is that there seem to be some mix up between current ratings and change in happiness over time. This in contrast to the past is better hypotheses. This showed that those who felt happy now rate their past happiness as lower than it actually was. It seems that feeling happy now suggests an improvement or a contrast to the past and so the past must have been less good.
In contrast the opposite happened with those with current lower happiness – they rated their past happiness as higher than it actually was.
This shows that our past memories are influenced by our current states. Prati and Senik plan to further research how memories impact current life decisions – that will be interesting to see. I also wonder how this influences political climate!
Andy Habermacher
Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.
Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).
References
Alberto Prati, Claudia Senik.
Feeling Good Is Feeling Better.
Psychological Science, 2022; 33 (11): 1828
DOI: 10.1177/09567976221096158
More Quick Hits
Behaviour at eight helps predict midlife health behaviours
A long-term study in Finland has tracked children from the age of eight until the age of 50 and a new analysis of the data, just published, has looked at some of the correlations between socioemotional behaviour in childhood and later life achievement and health...
Psychedelics and consciousness
Psychedelics change our conscious experience of the world – that is part of their attraction. Now a new study out of John Hopkins Medicine has analysed data on attributions of consciousness to other animals and innate objects by those using psychedelics and how this...
Lower smartphone usage increases wellbeing
So much has been said about smartphone usage in modern times. This ranges from some who say that they are destroying our brain to others who see they benefit our cognition by outsourcing cognitive heavy tasks like remembering lists of phone numbers – thereby freeing...
Modesty preferred for cooperative teams
In an age where it appears that many people are vying for self-esteem especially through social media, this research is interesting. Particularly in business contexts where cooperation is king. Research has previously shown that appearing to be wealthy increases...
Poverty shrinks babies’ brains
Quick HitsDaily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences couple of studies have just been released which look at the brains of newborns and young babies. The results are worrying for any society. Brain scans of newborn babies from...
Babies born with five from seven functional brain networks
In the 1950s the blank slate theory was the most prominent theory ascribed to babies. They are born blank slates and then their experiences allow them to develop their networks thoughts, associations, etc., and just about everything else. Though this theory is long...