Mindfully Healing

This personality trait is on the rise among the younger generation. The personality trait of entitlement can lead to chronic disappointment, psychologists have concluded. Entitlement is believing you are better than others and deserve more than them. Unfortunately people who feel entitled often enter a spiral of habitual behaviour that is toxic. From anger they tend to lash out at others, blaming them. At the same time they continue to tell themselves that they are special. Dr Joshua Grubbs, the study’s first author, said: “At extreme levels, entitlement is a

Lonely people quickly move to the edges of social networks — here’s why. Loneliness makes the areas of the brain that are vigilant for threat more active, a new study finds. This can make people who are socially isolated more abrasive and defensive — it’s a form of self-preservation. This may be why lonely people can get marginalised. Professor John Cacioppo, an expert on loneliness, speaking about an earlier study on the marginalisation of the lonely, said: “We detected an extraordinary pattern of contagion that leads people to be moved

There is something about the voice which is effective in communicating status. Lowering the pitch of your voice in the first few seconds of an interaction can help you influence others, new research finds. Those who lowered their voice were also seen as more prestigious and admirable by their peers in the study. Dr Joey Cheng, the study’s first author, said: “What excites me about this research is that we now know a little bit more about how humans use their voices to signal status. In the past, we focused

Boosting marital quality with some of the oldest (and cheesiest) techniques known to psychology. It can be hard to keep positive feelings towards your partner in a long-term relationship. But help is at hand in the shape of new research funded by, of all people, the US Department of Defense. Dr Jim McNulty, the study’s first author, explained: “The research was actually prompted by a grant from the Department of Defense — I was asked to conceptualize and test a brief way to help married couples cope with the stress