This post is about how sports, mindfulness, and an open mind helped one student deal with the rising problem of (academic) pressure. As many other students are also trying to deal with stress and anxiety, this post is a must-read for all students and staff.
Are you considering applying for the Behavioural and Social Sciences Research Master this year? Have you heard that it is a demanding program and are you wondering if it is something for you? Minita had the same thoughts last year. She is now a first-year student in the program and shares some of her experiences.
What is the purpose of higher education? How should universities balance academic forming against economic needs? Read here what famous reformers and psychologists thought on the issue.
A few weeks ago, we talked with the Education Director of the Psychology Department, professor Karel Brookhuis, about the Lecturer of the Year Award, how candidates are selected at our faculty, and how he sees the future of education. You can listen to the interview in this post.
Though disgust is a universal emotion, little is known about how it emerges. It is assumed that disgust primarily helps us avoid contaminants and diseases. However, disgust responses are not always adaptive. For example, people with a phobia may experience extremely high levels of disgust.
Thinking about how things could have turned out differently can be useful for people. When you think about how something could have gone better, you may learn from it. On the other hand, when you think about how it could have gone worse, you may feel better about yourself.
Negative attentional biases have been linked to depression. The “find the smiling face task” has been shown to reduce these dysfunctional attentional biases. To further validate the task, Thole Hoppen and two fellow students investigated whether the “find the smiling face task” changes attentional biases when people are in sad mood.
Is it possible to identify the sounds people pay attention to, based on brain signals? If so, this could have important implications for urban planning aimed at reducing the noise pollution in today’s cities.
Distressing mental images can severely disrupt a person’s daily life. A psychotherapeutic technique called Imagery Rescripting can reduce the impact of traumatic memories in individuals diagnosed with depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, and it may also work when people visualize a stressful future.
Soccer players often display aggressive behavior when they are frustrated during matches. This aggressive behavior could possibly be explained by a loss of competency that goes along with goal-related frustration. However, pro-social behavior could also possibly be a way to restore that competence.