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
How Nutrition Can Increase Motivation – In the Brain
Fascinating study on how antioxidants (and therefore also nutrition) in the brain can increase motivation…
Mindfulness Intervention as Effective as Drugs in Anxiety Disorders
An important study showing how mindfulness is as effective as medication – without the side effects…
New Insights into How the Teenage Brain Develops
Teenagers’ brains go through substantial changes – and now we know more of some of these…
Screen Time Boosts Wellbeing in Teenagers!
Screen time is considered a modern technological evil – maybe not so for teenagers…
Taking Photographs of Slides Improves Memory of Presentations
Taking pictures has been shown to reduce memory – but this study shows the opposite…
How Your Brain Eats Itself – To Improve Memory
Your brain eats itself – gruesome eh! Actually this appears to be a good thing most of the time…