(Press-News.org) EAST LANSING, Mich. --- The ability to stay positive when times get tough -- and, conversely, of being negative -- may be hardwired in the brain, finds new research led by a Michigan State University psychologist.
The study, which appears in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, is the first to provide biological evidence validating the idea that there are, in fact, positive and negative people in the world.
"It's the first time we've been able to find a brain marker that really distinguishes negative thinkers from positive thinkers," said Jason Moser, lead investigator and assistant professor of psychology.
For the study, 71 female participants were shown graphic images and asked to put a positive spin on them while their brain activity was recorded. Participants were shown a masked man holding a knife to a woman's throat, for example, and told one potential outcome was the woman breaking free and escaping.
The participants were surveyed beforehand to establish who tended to think positively and who thought negatively or worried. Sure enough, the brain reading of the positive thinkers was much less active than that of the worriers during the experiment.
"The worriers actually showed a paradoxical backfiring effect in their brains when asked to decrease their negative emotions," Moser said. "This suggests they have a really hard time putting a positive spin on difficult situations and actually make their negative emotions worse even when they are asked to think positively."
The study focused on women because they are twice as likely as men to suffer from anxiety related problems and previously reported sex differences in brain structure and function could have obscured the results.
Moser said the findings have implications in the way negative thinkers approach difficult situations.
"You can't just tell your friend to think positively or to not worry – that's probably not going to help them," he said. "So you need to take another tack and perhaps ask them to think about the problem in a different way, to use different strategies."
Negative thinkers could also practice thinking positively, although Moser suspects it would take a lot of time and effort to even start to make a difference.
INFORMATION:
His co-researchers were former or current MSU psychology students Rachel Hartwig, Tim Moran and Alexander Jendrusina; and University of Michigan researcher Ethan Kross.
Positive, negative thinkers' brains revealed
2014-04-02
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Cereal box psychology
2014-04-02
Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids! In a study of 65 cereals in 10 different grocery stores, Cornell researchers found that cereals marketed to kids are placed half as high on supermarket shelves as adult cereals—the average height for children's cereal boxes is 23 inches verses 48 inches for adult cereal. A second key finding from the same study is that the average angle of the gaze of cereal spokes-characters on cereal boxes marketed to kids is downward at a 9.6 degree angle whereas spokes-characters on adult cereal look almost straight ahead.
To examine the influence ...
An easier, safer, and more accurate treatment for pancreatic cancer
2014-04-02
(Lebanon, NH, 4/2/14) — Using CT scans with contrast enhancement, Dartmouth researchers measured treatment response to pancreatic cancer photodynamic therapy (PDT) according to a paper published in Physics in Medicine and Biology.
The research team at Dartmouth set out to reduce the imaging obstacles for PDT, a minimally invasive and nontoxic treatment for cancer. "This study implies that treatment response can be reliably predicted using contrast CT. This would represent a major breakthrough in PDT for pancreas cancer that allows for easier, faster treatment tailored ...
Galactic serial killer
2014-04-02
Several clues in the structure of NGC 1316 reveal that its past was turbulent. For instance, it has some unusual dust lanes [1] embedded within a much larger envelope of stars, and a population of unusually small globular star clusters. These suggest that it may have already swallowed a dust-rich spiral galaxy about three billion years ago.
Also seen around the galaxy are very faint tidal tails — wisps and shells of stars that have been torn from their original locations and flung into intergalactic space. These features are produced by complex gravitational effects on ...
Colorado grandparents may be able to seek visitation or custody
2014-04-02
Colorado grandparents may be able to seek visitation or custody
Article provided by Littman Family Law
Visit us at http://www.davidlittmanpc.com
The relationship between a child and his or her grandparents can be a huge factor in that child's happiness. Grandparents spoil us, teach us about our family's history, give us practical skills and shower us with love.
In spite of the importance of the grandparent/grandchild relationship, in some circumstances, a grandparent is cut off from his or her grandchild because of a dispute or disagreement with the child's parent ...
Ohio employer charged in a payroll tax dispute
2014-04-02
Ohio employer charged in a payroll tax dispute
Article provided by Terrence A. Grady & Associates Co., L.P.A.
Visit us at http://www.tgradylaw.com
When one thinks of tax liability or tax evasion, he or she may first imagine an employee who failed to report earned income. However, legal responsibility comes in varied forms. For example, employers or managers responsible for deducting pay roll taxes could be under the microscope, too. It is the duty of such person to forward deducted taxes to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). If one fails to do so, he or she ...
Fatalities from stroller accidents trigger new regulations
2014-04-02
Fatalities from stroller accidents trigger new regulations
Article provided by The Epstein Law Firm, P.A.
Visit us at http://www.theepsteinlawfirm.com
The Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a new safety standard for strollers in the United States. The changes were prompted by multiple reported amputations, lacerations and four fatalities since 2008.
Key changes aimed at reducing the risk of releasing a defective or dangerous product that could injure a child include:
-Braking systems. One of the reported lacerations occurred when a stroller rolled off ...
TrackResults Software is selected by Club Leisure Group
2014-04-02
Club Leisure Group, the largest timeshare sales and property management company in South Africa, has contracted to use TrackResults Software sales management analysis tools to keep track of its growing business. Leadership at Club Leisure wanted more flexible reporting, plus the ability to run instant analytics on their data without an additional burden to the IT Department.
Award-winning TrackResults Software, known around sales and marketing circles in the vacation ownership industry as being easy and ready-to-use with precise sales management analysis tools is used ...
Walter Strapps of Idera to speak at Nucleic Acid R & D Meeting, June 19&20, 2014, San Diego, CA.
2014-04-02
Walter R. Strapps, Executive Director of RNA Therapeutics at Idera Pharmaceuticals, Inc., to give a presentation titled "Gene Silencing Oligos: The Next Generation in Gene Silencing" at the Inaugural Nucleic Acid Research and Development Conference, June 29 & 20, 2014 in San Diego, CA.
Dr. Strapps leads the RNA Discovery unit at Idera and is responsible for research and development of Idera's gene silencing oligo (GSO) platform. Dr. Strapps joined Idera in 2014. Prior to Idera, Dr. Strapps was Director, RNAi Therapeutics at Merck & Co., Inc. where he led siRNA ...
Top Six Mold Testing Mistakes To Avoid, Recommends Environmental Hygienist Fry
2014-04-02
"Mold testing results, as done by many mold inspectors and industrial hygienists, are often inaccurate and misleading because of a number of mold testing mistakes and problems," warns Phillip Fry, Certified Environmental Hygienist, Professional Industrial Hygienist, and author of five mold advice ebooks, who explains these top six mold testing mistakes or misconceptions:
The most basic problem is that "Standards for judging what is an acceptable, tolerable, or normal quantity of mold have not been established," according to the Centers for Disease Control on its website.
Second, ...
Millennium Park Orthodontics Earns Fifth Consecutive Talk of the Town Customer Satisfaction Award
2014-04-02
Achieving a 5-star rating for the fifth year in a row, Millennium Park Orthodontics and Howard E. Spector, DDS, FACDS, have once again earned the prestigious Talk of the Town Customer Satisfaction Award in the Orthodontists Category.
The awards, presented by Talk of the Town News, honor companies and professionals that provide excellent customer service as reported by their customers through no-cost, user review websites, blogs, social networks, business rating services and other honors and accolades. This data is analyzed by a team of researchers who calculate a company's ...