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Teachers’ growth mindset appears more important than warmth

Students tend to like friendly teachers, but they like those who believe they can improve even more, new research indicates.

Students in a study still responded positively to instructors described as being cold but who also had a growth mindset, meaning they felt students’ ability in a subject could improve by working hard and trying different strategies. The opposite was also true: more participants reacted negatively to a warm, smiling teacher when they stated a fixed mindset, which is a belief that innate abilities cannot be changed, such as someone being naturally good at math.

“It’s not enough to just be nice,” said lead author Makita White, a Washington State University psychology Ph.D. candidate. “If teachers can change their demeanor to be warmer, it does have a good impact, but it’s a lot better to convey a growth mindset than a fixed mindset to students.”

Previous research has noted that students tend to view teachers who have growth mindsets as friendly and warm, so this proof-of-concept study, published in the journal Motivation Science, was designed to evaluate those factors separately.

“At a very simple level, being friendly is good, but the mindset messages that you send students are really important. They can be even more powerful than just being friendly or welcoming to students,” said Elizabeth Canning, a WSU psychology researcher and the senior author on the paper.

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Does using weed make you a nicer person? Results may vary.

Some people may turn to weed for anxiety, sleep and creativity. New research suggests it could also make you a nicer person.

The findings, published in the Journal of Neuroscience Research, suggests there could be a connection between cannabis use and empathy.

A study of 85 regular cannabis users and 51 nonusers asked participants to complete a test that measures empathy. Researchers also used brain imaging to study some of the subjects, analyzing a region of the brain that plays a central role in mediating the empathic response.

The recent research shows an association between cannabis use and empathy, but doesn’t prove cause and effect, said Carrie Cuttler, a psychology professor at Washington State University.

“We have no idea if it’s that the people who are more empathetic to begin with are more likely to use cannabis,” Cuttler said.

Or there may be another reason such as “a personality trait or difference in lived experience, that is driving people to be interested in using cannabis and have higher empathy as well,” Cuttler said. “There’s not enough evidence to convince me yet that the cannabis is causing them to be more empathetic.”

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Forget FOMO. Embrace JOMO to discover the joy of missing out.

Your friends are probably having fun without you. For many, this knowledge would trigger a fear of missing out – popularly acronymized as FOMO. But emerging research suggests that missing out need not be something we fear, but something we can enjoy.

For better mental health this year, try reframing those feelings of FOMO and instead, try finding JOMO – the joy of missing out.

The fear embodied in FOMO is a social one. Humans have dealt with it since we realized that there were opportunities being missed, fun not being had and Joneses needing to be kept up with. But the rise of social media meant that FOMO arose in public consciousness and vocabulary.

“FOMO existed before social media did, but it just wasn’t such a salient part of our experience,” said Chris Barry, a psychology professor at Washington State University.

With the advent of social media, we were granted the profound ability to constantly see the highlight reel of everyone’s life – and all the possibilities for self-comparison. Research shows that higher levels of FOMO are associated with lower self-esteem, lower life satisfaction and more loneliness.

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The Star

WSU Experts Offer Advice on Turning New Year’s Resolutions Into Reality

From ancient Babylonians making new commitments to their gods to today’s average office worker pledging to give up soda, humans have been struggling with New Year’s resolutions for a very long time.

Yet there is hope, according to a group of Washington State University experts who offer their insights into keeping positive lifestyle changes going in the weeks and months ahead.

One solution is setting SMART goals, which stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. By setting clear, quantifiable objectives, individuals looking to make positives changes can start accumulating small victories and maintain perspective of how far they’ve come and set the next milestone to aim for.

“If you’re committed to being healthier, you need to take stock of what that means and define what your goal is from the outset,” said Chris Barry, a professor in the Department of Psychology at WSU.

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Exposure to soft robots decreases human fears about working with them

Seeing robots made with soft, flexible parts in action appears to lower people’s anxiety about working with them or even being replaced by them.

A Washington State University study found that watching videos of a soft robot working with a person at picking and placing tasks lowered the viewers’ safety concerns and feelings of job insecurity. This was true even when the soft robot was shown working in close proximity to the person. This finding shows soft robots hold a potential psychological advantage over rigid robots made of metal or other hard materials.

“Prior research has generally found that the closer you are to a rigid robot, the more negative your reactions are, but we didn’t find those outcomes in this study of soft robots,” said lead author Tahira Probst, a WSU psychology professor.

Currently, human and rigid robotic workers have to maintain a set distance for safety reasons, but as this study indicates, proximity to soft robots could be not only physically safer but also more psychologically accepted.

“This finding needs to be replicated, but if it holds up, that means humans could work together more closely with the soft robots,” Probst said.

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Science Daily
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