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When and why is economic inequality seen as fair
Publication date: August 2020Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 34Author(s): Kris-Stella TrumpEconomic inequality is seen as fair when people believe it to be the result of fair processes, or in other words, in accordance with normative rules about resource allocation. As a result, people may support substantial inequalities of outcome as fair. There is broad agreement, within and across societies, on the normative rules that govern resource allocation. However, when people use these rules to evaluate specific instances of inequality, their conclusions are systematically affected by available informatio...
Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences - December 25, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Sleep, rest-activity fragmentation and structural brain changes related to the ageing process
Publication date: June 2020Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 33Author(s): Marion Baillet, Christina SchmidtIncreasing evidence suggests an association between typical age-related changes in sleep and brain structure. Here we review studies exploring the association between human histo-pathological and in vivo neuroimaging markers of brain structure and sleep-wake parameters in healthy older adults. Evidence from both large-scale epidemiological studies and in-lab quantification of specific sleep signatures are reviewed and advantages and pitfalls highlighted. Overall, the results point to an associatio...
Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences - December 15, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

New directions in sleep and memory research: the role of autonomic activity
Publication date: June 2020Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 33Author(s): Lauren N Whitehurst, Pin-Chun Chen, Mohsen Naji, Sara C MednickOver the last 100 years there has been a proliferation of research into the mechanisms of sleep that support cognition. Majority of these studies point to electroencephalographic features during sleep that are linked to plasticity and support valuable cognitive skills, like long-term memory. Importantly, sleep is both a central and an autonomic phenomenon with dynamic shifts occurring in both the brain and the body at sleep onset and throughout a sleep period. Prior w...
Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences - December 15, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Ideological (A)symmetries in prejudice and intergroup bias
Publication date: August 2020Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 34Author(s): Jarret T Crawford, Mark J BrandtThe traditional perspective on the political ideology and prejudice relationship holds that political conservatism is associated with prejudice, and that the types of dispositional characteristics associated with conservatism (e.g. low cognitive ability, low Openness) explain this relationship. This conclusion is limited by the limited number and types of groups studied. When researchers use a more heterogeneous array of targets, people across the political spectrum express prejudice against grou...
Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences - December 14, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Interoception relates to sleep and sleep disorders
Publication date: June 2020Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 33Author(s): Yishul Wei, Eus JW Van SomerenThe central nervous system senses and responds to afferent signals arising from the body. These interoceptive afferents are essential to physiological homeostatic control and are known to influence an individual’s momentary affect, cognition, motivation, and conscious experiences. Both sleep and interoception are tightly connected to physical and mental well-being. This review outlines the current knowledge about the interactions between interoception and sleep. It is demonstrated that there are co...
Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences - December 14, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

The role of cognitive rigidity in political ideologies: theory, evidence, and future directions
Publication date: August 2020Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 34Author(s): Leor ZmigrodA contentious debate in political psychology has centred on the role of cognitive rigidity in shaping individuals’ political ideologies and worldviews. Early theories in the 1950s posited that strict ideological doctrines may tend to attract individuals with dispositions towards mental rigidity. This question has persisted: Does psychological rigidity foster a tendency towards ideological extremism? This review evaluates the empirical landscape with respect to the rigidity-of-the-extreme and the rigidity-of-the-ri...
Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences - December 11, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

The political significance of fragile masculinity
Publication date: August 2020Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 34Author(s): Sarah H DiMuccio, Eric D KnowlesRecent research in gender psychology finds that males are expected to actively earn and maintain their status as ‘real men’ or risk losing this valued group status. The precariousness of manhood can create anxiety among males who feel that they are failing to meet cultural standards of masculinity—a state we term fragile masculinity. Although research has identified a variety of strategies that men adopt in order to restore their threatened status as ‘real men’, few studies have examine...
Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences - December 11, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Xenophobia, prejudice, and right-wing populism in East-Central Europe
Publication date: August 2020Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 34Author(s): Anna Kende, Péter KrekóRight-wing populist parties have been particularly successful in East-Central Europe in the second decade of the 21st century. We explain this phenomenon using a demand—supply framework. We review studies about characteristics of East-Central European nationalism and intergroup tensions with minorities on the psychological demand side and the anti-immigrant political discourse on the political supply side. We conclude that the success of right-wing populism can be explained by a high, but unstable nat...
Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences - December 11, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

The power of media in shaping political attitudes
Publication date: August 2020Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 34Author(s): Jennifer Hoewe, Cynthia PeacockThe proliferation of media content and the use of that content among various publics frequently raises the question of whether and how media might influence political attitudes and behaviors. Scholarship in political science and communication has continually tried to disentangle these relationships. Recent research has included a variety of theoretical perspectives with a focus on experimental designs, but also including surveys, content analyses, and network analyses. Moderating and mediating var...
Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences - December 6, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Emotional regulation in gambling disorder
Publication date: August 2020Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 34Author(s): Gemma Mestre-Bach, Fernando Fernández-Aranda, Susana Jiménez-Murcia, Marc N PotenzaHere we review emotional regulation and its relationship with gambling disorder. Specifically, we review difficulties individuals with gambling disorder may have in identifying emotional states and selecting and implementing emotional regulation strategies. Difficulties in emotional regulation in individuals with gambling disorder may relate importantly to specific factors, such as gambling-related cognitions, attachment styles, comorbidities a...
Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences - December 5, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Neuropsychology in GD: old and new directions
Publication date: February 2020Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 31Author(s): Iris M BalodisUnderstanding the neuropsychological features in GD has implications for highlighting addictive mechanisms in the absence of potentially neurotoxic effects of drugs. Several recent meta-analyses both within GD groups as well as across addictive disorders are clarifying broad and unique characteristics through more careful control of demographic and comorbid features. Several neuropsychological studies are also beginning to highlight aspects of self-awareness in GD, including metacognition and interoceptive proce...
Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences - November 29, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Concepts and controversies regarding tolerance and withdrawal in gambling disorder
Publication date: February 2020Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 31Author(s): Lawrence Lee, Samson Tse, Alex Blaszczynski, Sandra TsangGambling disorder is classified in the DSM-5 as a behavioral addiction. However, the inclusion of tolerance and withdrawal symptoms as diagnostic criteria for the disorder remains poorly understood and characterized by a lack of empirical support. While the need for increasing excitement is considered central to the concept of tolerance in gambling, alternative explanations for the phenomenon exist. Concomitantly, withdrawal may not be limited to neurobiological process...
Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences - November 29, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Challenges and opportunities in animal models of gambling-like behavior
Publication date: February 2020Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 31Author(s): Cole Vonder HaarIn the past several years, there has been an explosion of interest in animal models of risk-based decision-making, a fundamental process associated with gambling disorder. While early work focused on establishing various tasks for assaying decision-making, current studies are determining the (subtle and not-so-subtle) influence of cues in driving risky decisions to better understand problem gambling. In addition, these decision-making paradigms are now being used to investigate comorbid conditions such as subs...
Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences - November 26, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Using rodent models to understand interactions between gambling and substance use
Publication date: February 2020Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 31Author(s): Barry Setlow, Shelby L Blaes, Matthew R Burns, Richard J Dragone, Caitlin A OrsiniSubstance use is strongly associated with gambling, but the nature of this association can be difficult to determine. Rodents offer the opportunity to test causal models of these relationships through isolation of individual variables of interest. This review describes recent research in rodents showing: a) predisposing factors for both gambling-like behavior and substance use; b) exposure to drugs of abuse increasing gambling-like behavior; c) ...
Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences - November 20, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research

Ideology and the promotion of social change
Publication date: August 2020Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 34Author(s): Julia C BeckerMost models predicting collective action for social change have not considered the role of ideology. Recent research suggests, however, that ideology is a key variable in predicting social change efforts by illustrating that conservatives are more likely to resist whereas liberals are more likely to promote social change. In this review, I bring two lines of research together showing that not ony liberals but also right-wing populists are interested in collective action for social change. I introduce an integrativ...
Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences - November 16, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research