Why are some of us more inclined than others to stick up for ourselves, not aggressively, but assertively. Assertive people let others know when they feel mistreated and they’re confident saying “no” to unwanted demands.

Presumably it has to do with how see ourselves, yet past research has established that two key aspects of the self-concept – good feelings about the self (“self-liking” or “self-confidence”) and seeing oneself as competent – are not strongly related to assertive behaviour.

Daniela Renger, a researcher at the Institute of Psychology at Kiel University in Germany, believes this is because most relevant to assertiveness is self-respect – “a person’s conviction that they possess the universal dignity of persons and basic moral human rights and equality”. Across three studies published in Self and Identity, Renger shows that self-respect is a distinct psychological concept and that it is uniquely correlated with assertive behaviour. To read more from Christian Jarrett, click here.

What is it that makes you…you? NPR’s Shankar Vedantam explores new research that suggests the labels we use to categorize people affect not just who they are now, but who they’ll be in the future. A person’s personality and potential can be tricky things to pinpoint and measure. On today’s Morning Edition, NPR’s Shankar Vedantam looked at the world of personality testing and what these tests can and cannot tell us about ourselves. And now he explores new research that asks another question – can the ways we categorize people affect not just who they are now, but who they’ll become in the future? To read more from SHANKAR VEDANTAM, click here.

Psychologists are regularly berated for spending their workdays reaching blindingly obvious conclusions about the world – an accusation that isn’t entirely unwarranted. (My favourite recent finding comes from the journal Psychological Science: “Depressed individuals may fail to decrease sadness.”) At first glance, it’s tempting to respond that way to a new study from the University of British Columbia, explaining why people tend to assume that their friends have more friends, and lead less solitary lives, than they do. Can you guess? That’s right: because every single time we see our friends, they’re socialising. By definition. Assuming you don’t spy on your friends via telescope from treetops, you never see them at home alone in their pyjamas, eating pickled onion Monster Munch while watching The X Factor and feeling sorry for themselves. You’re never there when they wake in the dark at 3am, wondering where their lives are headed. Or, likewise, consider those happy throngs you glimpse through the windows of the bar you pass each day on your way home from work: doesn’t it seem like they’re always meeting friends at the bar? To read more from Oliver Burkeman, click here.

During the holiday season, many of us feel pressure to find our loved ones the “perfect” gift. Why? Because gift-giving has long been considered a prime way to express love. However, recent research suggests that gestures don’t need to be large or have a hefty price tag to feel meaningful.

The study, published this summer in The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, suggests that small acts of kindness, not grand overtures, make people feel most loved and supported.

“Our research found that micro-moments of positivity, like a kind word, cuddling with a child, or receiving compassion make people feel most loved,” says Dr. Zita Oravecz, a professor in human development and family studies at Pennsylvania State University and one of the study’s researchers.

In the study, 495 men and women between the ages of 18 and 93 completed a questionnaire evaluating 60 possible ways that people can feel love. Each question began with, “Most people feel loved when…” The scenarios included situations like spending time with friends, receiving gifts, and spending time in nature. The survey also included negative interactions, like being controlled and criticized by others. To read more from JULI FRAGA, click here.

Every day our brains grapple with various last-minute decisions. We adjust our gait to avoid a patch of ice; we exit to hit the rest stop; we switch to our backhand before thwacking a tennis ball.

Scientists have long accepted that our ability to abruptly stop or modify a planned behavior is controlled via a single region within the brain’s prefrontal cortex, an area involved in planning and other higher mental functions. By studying other parts of the brain in both humans and monkeys, however, a team from Johns Hopkins University has now concluded that last-minute decision-making is a lot more complicated than previously known, involving complex neural coordination among multiple brain areas. The revelations may help scientists unravel certain aspects of addictive behaviors and understand why accidents like falls grow increasingly common as we age, according to the Johns Hopkins team.
The findings, published Thursday in Neuron, reveal reneging on an intended behavior involves coordinated cross talk between several brain regions. As a result, changing our minds even mere milliseconds after making a decision is often too late to alter a movement or behavior. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging—a technique that monitors brain activity in real time—the Johns Hopkins group found reversing a decision requires ultrafast communication between two specific zones within the prefrontal cortex and another nearby structure called the frontal eye field, an area involved in controlling eye movements and visual awareness. To read more from Bret Stetka, click here.

If you’re losing sleep over the blue light coming from your phone, there’s an app for that.

In fact, there are now lots of apps that promise to improve sleep by filtering out the blue light produced by phones, tablets, computers and even televisions.

But how well do these apps work?

There haven’t been any big studies to answer that question. So I phoned a couple of scientists who study the link between blue light exposure and sleep.

My first call is to Lisa Ostrin, an assistant professor at the University of Houston College of Optometry.

Ostrin owns an iPhone. And every iPhone comes with an app called Night Shift that lets you filter out blue light. So does Ostrin use Night Shift?

“Yes I do,” she tells me.

Without a filtering app, cellphones and tablets expose users to an alarming amount of blue light, she says, “Especially as people are lying in bed and have their screens just a few inches from their face.” To read more from JON HAMILTON, click here.

Research shows that dreaming is not just a byproduct of sleep, but serves its own important functions in our well-being.

We often hear stories of people who’ve learned from their dreams or been inspired by them. Think of Paul McCartney’s story of how his hit song “Yesterday” came to him in a dream or of Mendeleev’s dream-inspired construction of the periodic table of elements.

But, while many of us may feel that our dreams have special meaning or a useful purpose, science has been more skeptical of that claim. Instead of being harbingers of creativity or some kind of message from our unconscious, some scientists have considered dreaming to be an unintended consequence of sleep—a byproduct of evolution without benefit.

Sleep itself is a different story. Scientists have known for a while now that shorter sleep is tied to dangerous diseases, like heart disease and stroke. There is mounting evidence that sleep deprivation leads to a higher risk of obesity and Alzheimer’s disease. Large population studies reflect a saddening truth—the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life. Not only that, sleep helps us to hold onto our memories and to learn facts and skills faster, making it important for everyone including infants, students, athletes, pilots, and doctors. To read more from MATTHEW WALKER, click here.

When my mother died, the first thing I did was call my two best friends. Like good friends will, they dropped everything and came to my rescue. Having them there made all the difference in getting through a very difficult period of my life.

Researchers haven’t always emphasized this kind of social support as a factor in individual resilience—that is, the ability to recover from hardship and move forward in a positive, adaptive way. Instead, they have placed a high premium on studying personal qualities, often relegating social context to a lesser role.

For example, studies have found that people who are happier, have a strong purpose in life, or higher levels of self-efficacy—the belief that they have control over their situation—seem to have an easier time recovering after disaster. Some of these personality factors have been shown to be protective, even for those who suffer from economic hardship, and can lead to better health outcomes, a reduced risk of suicide, and a better recovery after the loss of a spouse or loved one. To read more from JILL SUTTIE, click here.

If we want to succeed in the self-expressive marriage, we’ll have to grapple with a paradox: Just as our expectations of our spouses are increasing, we’re also spending less time with them, and less time with other social connections who could help meet our needs. Finkel offers three strategies that can make the difference between marital crisis and marital flourishing.

If your relationship needs a booster shot but you don’t have much time or energy to devote to it at the moment, “lovehacking” may be the way to go.

Lovehacks are quick, simple practices that change the way you think about your partner. Like other forms of hacking, they won’t fix deep, underlying problems—but they are a helpful patch to tide you over into the future. To read more from KIRA M. NEWMAN, click here.

Health experts widely agree that most of us should sit less, especially at work. Prolonged sitting has been linked with higher risks for diabetes and heart disease, among other conditions. While treadmill and standing desks have grown in popularity, they provide a clear impact on our health but perhaps not on our work itself. We know that most people type better when they sit still than when they stand up or move about. But do they also think better?

Most studies of prolonged sitting have looked at the benefits from breaking up sitting time on blood sugar and blood pressure. For an innovative new study published recently in The Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, researchers at Arizona State University in Phoenix recruited nine sedentary, overweight men and women and asked them to show up at a simulated office space at the university.

During one visit, the volunteers sat continuously for eight hours (apart from bathroom breaks), while using a computer and talking on the phone, as if it were any workday. Twice during the day, they also completed computerized measures of many thinking skills, including working memory and decision making. To read more from Gretchen Reynolds, click here.