tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/psychological-science-journal-8468/articlesPsychological Science (journal) – The Conversation2014-01-16T00:16:33Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219012014-01-16T00:16:33Z2014-01-16T00:16:33ZGreen cities provide a mental health boost that lasts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39149/original/d3phnx79-1389807284.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's not easy, building green.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Herrera</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s been established that enjoying green spaces in otherwise grey urban areas can lead to improved mental health for city-dwellers. But new research has revealed how surprisingly quickly those benefits appear, and how long they last.</p>
<p>Research from the University of Exeter’s <a href="http://www.ecehh.org/">European Centre for Environment and Human Health</a> found that people living in towns and cities with more parks and gardens tend to report greater well-being than those without. But it also revealed that relocating to a greener part of town led to improvements in their mental health that lasted for at least three years.</p>
<p>There are other life changes that influence mental health, and many of those do so gradually, or else seem to be only short-lived. Job promotion and marriage boost well-being in the short term, for example, and financial windfalls can lead to gradual improvements. But these new findings indicate that simply increasing the ratio of green to grey in urban neighbourhoods is likely to provide benefits that are not only immediate, but which continue to deliver benefits long afterwards.</p>
<p>The research, just <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es403688w">published</a> in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, used data from the <a href="https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/bhps">British Household Panel Survey</a>, a long-running household survey project, based in Essex. We analysed five consecutive years of mental health questionnaires, answered by people who had relocated to a different residential area between the second and third years.</p>
<p>Two groups of people were tracked: 600 who moved to greener urban areas, and 470 who moved to areas that were less green. While the group who moved to greener suburbs showed significant improvements for all three years after their relocation, there was not a corresponding decline in mental health for those who moved to less green areas. There was, however, a decline in the mental health of these people in the year before they moved. It’s not clear whether this was some degree of dread at the anticipated relocation, or whether it was declining well-being that lay behind the decision to relocate.</p>
<p>Studying people who relocate from one area to another can offer insights into the effects of town planning decisions that alter the make-up of city neighbourhoods. It’s hard to design and carry out experiments that involve the radical “re-greening” and “de-greening” of our cities to see what effects these processes have. But we can get important clues by looking at the average effects that result from the loss or gain of green space after someone has moved home.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39148/original/4bq8q2t4-1389807187.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39148/original/4bq8q2t4-1389807187.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39148/original/4bq8q2t4-1389807187.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39148/original/4bq8q2t4-1389807187.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39148/original/4bq8q2t4-1389807187.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39148/original/4bq8q2t4-1389807187.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39148/original/4bq8q2t4-1389807187.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Endless cities risk much grey, not enough green.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">wilhelmja</span></span>
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<p>The benefits we’ve observed have implications for planning policy, which aims to improve public health through urban design. Our findings suggest that improved mental health is not the result simply of the novelty of living in a greener area, which might wear off quickly. Creating parks and green corridors in our increasingly urban landscapes could represent good value-for-money public health services, delivering long term benefits to community health.</p>
<p>How good is green space for urban residents? An <a href="http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/04/23/0956797612464659.abstract">earlier study</a> published in Psychological Science estimated the effects on mental health delivered by a 1% difference in urban green space, also working with Household Panel Survey data from England and controlling for the effects of personality. <a href="http://www.ecehh.org/research-projects/urban-green-space/">The study</a> found that living in an area with high rather than low green space was equal to roughly a third of the benefit of being married, and a tenth of the benefit of having a job. </p>
<p>Importantly, in estimating the effects of green space, the team accounted for other factors which can influence mental health, such as the individuals’ income, family and employment circumstances. They also accounted for area factors which may overlap with urban greenness, such as the socio-economic profile of the neighbourhood.</p>
<p>Depression and depressive disorders are now the <a href="http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/2004_report_update/en/">leading cause of disability</a> in middle to high income countries – mental health is a critical public health issue of modern times. And it’s quite possible this trend is related to how quickly the world’s population is moving to the city: in the world’s more developed regions, <a href="http://esa.un.org/unup/Wallcharts/urban-rural-areas.pdf">more than three-quarters</a> of the population live in urban environments, with the reduced access to the natural world that brings.</p>
<p>So while these studies don’t show that relocating to a greener area will definitely increase happiness, the findings fit with other experimental work that shows how short spells in a green space does improve people’s mood, and cognitive functioning. Our findings join those from earlier epidemiological studies that clearly demonstrate the link between health benefits and green space.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/21901/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Alcock receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. The European Centre for Environment and Human Health is funded by the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund Convergence Programme for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.</span></em></p>It’s been established that enjoying green spaces in otherwise grey urban areas can lead to improved mental health for city-dwellers. But new research has revealed how surprisingly quickly those benefits…Ian Alcock, Associate Research Fellow, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/217652014-01-08T06:38:10Z2014-01-08T06:38:10ZChildren with low self-esteem respond worse to overpraise<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38522/original/6wffmk9x-1389010664.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=148%2C4%2C875%2C659&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pushy parent.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nocibomber</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Overly positive, inflated praise such as “terrific!”, “you did incredibly well!”, “perfect!” is very common in western countries. At first glance this might not seem a bad thing; heaping praise can only make people do better – right?</p>
<p>Parents often give such praise to children with low self-esteem, in an effort to boost their esteem. But this inclination can backfire, and make children with low self-esteem less ambitious.</p>
<h2>What is inflated praise?</h2>
<p>Praise is a written or spoken positive evaluation of someone’s traits, actions, or products. It becomes inflated when it contains an adverb (such as “incredibly”) or adjective (such as “perfect”) that indicates a very positive evaluation. “You made a beautiful drawing” is an example of a non-inflated praise, whereas “you made an incredibly beautiful drawing” is inflated. In research we carried out, due to be published in Psychological Science this month, we found that around 25% of all praise was inflated.</p>
<p>Our research suggests parents give inflated praise in an attempt to raise children’s self-esteem. Parents see low self-esteem in children as a worrisome problem, and they believe that inflated praise can cure this problem. So, if children have low self-esteem, parents might intentionally give them more inflated praise. We tested this idea in a series of studies.</p>
<p>In the first study, 712 participants read hypothetical descriptions of children with either high or low self-esteem, for example: “Sarah is often unhappy with herself. She has just made a drawing.” Participants then wrote down the praise they would give the child. We found that participants gave more inflated praise to children with low self-esteem than to children with self-esteem. In fact, they gave them almost twice as much inflated praise (33% versus 18% of praise was inflated).</p>
<p>In a second study, we tested the same hypothesis but this time in in-home observations of actual interactions between 114 parents and their children. After measuring the child’s self-esteem, we asked parents to administer 12 timed mathematics exercises to their child. As predicted, parents were more inclined to give their child inflated praise when their child had lower self-esteem.</p>
<h2>For better or for worse?</h2>
<p>But is this for the worse or for the better? Inflated praise actually conveys very high standards on the person it is given to. When children receive inflated praise, they might think they have to continue to meet these very high standards. Children with low self-esteem might fear that they will not be able to meet these standards, and therefore avoid challenges. But children with high self-esteem might want to demonstrate that they are able to meet these standards, and therefore seek challenges.</p>
<p>We tested this in a third study of 240 children. Again we started by measuring children’s self-esteem. We then got the children to create their own rendition of Wild Roses, a painting by Vincent van Gogh.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38521/original/z4jfrnpc-1389009524.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38521/original/z4jfrnpc-1389009524.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38521/original/z4jfrnpc-1389009524.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38521/original/z4jfrnpc-1389009524.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38521/original/z4jfrnpc-1389009524.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38521/original/z4jfrnpc-1389009524.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/38521/original/z4jfrnpc-1389009524.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Go wild.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Minke Wagenaar</span></span>
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<p>After finishing their drawing, children were randomly assigned to receive either inflated praise, “you made an incredibly beautiful drawing!”, non-inflated praise, “you made a beautiful drawing!”, or no praise at all.</p>
<p>The children were then asked which pictures they wanted to draw next from pairs that consisted of one easy picture – with the proviso that though they wouldn’t make many mistakes but they “wouldn’t learn much either” – and a difficult picture where they risked many mistakes but would “definitely learn a lot too”.</p>
<p>As predicted, children with lower self-esteem who had received inflated praise were more likely to choose easier tasks, to avoid the risk of failure. Inflated praise, then, although well-intended can backfire in children with low self-esteem (who are most likely to receive it). Yet, it can benefit children with high self-esteem, providing them an impetus to seek challenges.</p>
<h2>What else does inflated praise do?</h2>
<p>Our study was the first to investigate inflated praise. There are many exciting questions that are still unanswered. For example, if parents primarily target inflated praise at children with low self-esteem, how does that make other children in the family feel? Does it make them feel jealous or just relieved for not being put under as much pressure?</p>
<p>And if children with low self-esteem receive inflated praise frequently for longer periods of time, does that eventually change their personality or mindset? For example, does it make them more withdrawn or afraid of failure? </p>
<p>Parents shouldn’t stop praising their kids. Our research shows, however, that it may be beneficial to think about how they phrase their praise. It is almost habitual for parents to give children with low self-esteem lots of inflated praise. But our findings suggest that it might be more beneficial to consider giving non-inflated praise instead. Even a single word, like “perfect” can feel quite large to children with low self-esteem, who fear that they cannot be perfect all the time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/21765/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research was supported by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (Grant 431-09-022). Study 3 was part of Science Live, the innovative research program of Science Center NEMO that enables scientists to use NEMO visitors as participants.
The author had no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship or the publication of this article.</span></em></p>Overly positive, inflated praise such as “terrific!”, “you did incredibly well!”, “perfect!” is very common in western countries. At first glance this might not seem a bad thing; heaping praise can only…Eddie Brummelman, PhD Candidate in Behavioural Sciences, Utrecht UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/217702014-01-07T00:09:00Z2014-01-07T00:09:00ZSmug couples patronise singles to feel better about themselves<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38534/original/xwcq6rsc-1389026487.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Happily ever after?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">photosbyzoe</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>People tend to see their own lifestyle as being the ideal lifestyle. A single person may question why anyone would choose to shackle themselves to one partner rather than live it up with the single life. Then there is that smug married couple who pushes for other couples to also tie the knot, so they can similarly bask in wedded bliss. </p>
<p>This phenomenon is called “normative idealisation”, which is the tendency to idealise one’s own lifestyle and believe others would benefit from it too. </p>
<p>Where does such insufferable behaviour come from? It has been suggested that people might idealise their own relationship status not because they are actually confident that it is ideal, but rather because they are trying to feel better about their own lives.</p>
<p>Psychologists at Stanford University and the University of Waterloo tested whether people were more judgemental of others’ lifestyles when they felt threatened regarding their own. Their results are published in the journal <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797612475095">Psychological Science</a>. </p>
<p>In the first study, the researchers measured participants’ perceived stability of their current relationship status, and then measured the bias people have against those with an opposing relationship status. For single people, they measured how difficult single participants thought it would be to find a romantic partner. For romantically attached people, they measured how difficult they thought it would be to leave their current relationships. The more “stuck” one feels with their current lifestyle, the more threatened one should feel by the idea of people happily enjoying the opposing lifestyle.</p>
<p>As predicted, when people in romantic relationships felt it would be difficult to end those relationships, they were more likely to endorse statements such as “Individuals who are in long-term romantic relationships generally have more meaningful, fulfilling lives than those who are not.” Similarly, when single people felt it would be difficult to enter a romantic relationship, they were more likely to endorse statements such as “Although many people feel pressured to find a long-term romantic relationship partner, many people would prefer to be independent.” </p>
<p>This study provided the first preliminary evidence that people look down on other lifestyles to make themselves feel better about their own. However, an alternative hypothesis is that people who prefer a particular lifestyle are more likely to do things that actually make that lifestyle more permanent. To rule this out, the researchers conducted an experiment where some participants were temporarily made to feel their relationship status was more permanent. They asked how long they expected their current relationship status to continue, and then manipulating how they answered that question. </p>
<p>People who were asked to rate the question on a scale from “now” to “the end of my lifetime” subsequently felt that their current relationship status was considerably more permanent than if they rated the question on a scale from “now” to “the end of this year”. </p>
<p>Next, participants evaluated a hypothetical job candidate who was either single or in a romantic relationship. The researchers found that when people were made to feel like their current lifestyle was more permanent, they made more negative evaluations of the job candidate who had the opposite relationship status. </p>
<p>So if people like to idealise their own relationship status, and if couplehood is the dominant relationship status, this may help to explain why our society is so geared toward couples. This might also explain the <a href="http://www.scienceofrelationships.com/home/2012/3/21/are-single-people-stigmatized-by-society.html">prejudice against singletons</a>.</p>
<p>It seems then that people look down on people with opposing relationship statuses as a way to feel better about their own. This kind of judgement is really a form of defensiveness. A person who has taken a different path in life can threaten our confidence in our own lifestyle, particularly if we feel that our own lifestyle is not easily changed. A good way to combat that sense of threat is to convince ourselves that our way is the only right way. So the next time you catch yourself looking down on someone else’s lifestyle … ask yourself if it is possible that you are actually a little bit envious.</p>
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<p><em>This is an edited version of a post that appeared on <a href="http://www.scienceofrelationships.com/home/2013/10/8/self-righteous-singles-and-smug-married-couples-why-people-t.html">Science of Relationships</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/21770/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samantha Joel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>People tend to see their own lifestyle as being the ideal lifestyle. A single person may question why anyone would choose to shackle themselves to one partner rather than live it up with the single life…Samantha Joel, PhD student, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.