Research Roundup 22

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”

– Confucius

Intelligence without wisdom is like GPS with no destination. In fact, worse than that, rational thought removed from a broader contextual awareness – an ability to see the bigger picture – can be not just useless but counterproductive, even dangerous. I am reminded of the maxim “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should!”

Intelligence brought us nuclear weapons, dangerous chemicals in our foods, and Celebrity Big Brother (okay, that last one is debatable!).

A ‘brainy’ person may not be wise if they tend to:

• Overanalyze to the point that all feel and intuition is lost
• Take so much pride in their intelligence that they start to assume it’s infallible
• Break things up into thinly spliced morsels of reality and focus only on detail, to the detriment of bigger-picture processing.

As you know, the left and right hemispheres of the brain do the same things but in markedly different ways.¹ The left brain is wonderful at detail, sequential thought, taking things literally, anger, and hubris. The right hemisphere is wonderful at seeing broader patterns of reality: It is integrative, not separationist.

Science is supposed to be the disinterested pursuit of truth. And yet we can see how exclusive ‘left-brain’ thinking can start to pollute science when scientists start to study smaller and smaller areas of reality without a sense of what their findings may mean for broader reality.

Once again I’m reminded of the story of the scientifically-minded boy (or perhaps young psychopath!) who dissected a live spider only to find that he now had a collection of legs, a body, and head… but was at a loss to understand where the spider itself had gone.

Psychological research may end up being little more than a ‘collection of legs’ unless we can see how it relates to the living, breathing human being. The human condition as a whole.

Anyway, in this infrequent but regular series I take five recent(ish) psychological research studies, briefly describe them, and suggest how their findings might fit into a wider explanation of what it means to be human.

You may see different or deeper realties to the research. Who knows!

So what do I have for you this time?

This month’s gems

This month we’re going to take a look at:

1. How childhood adversity can promote resilience to anxiety disorders
2. The benefits of daily mindfulness for wellbeing and fighting depression
3. The effect of group activities on mental health in older adults
4. People’s resistance to changing their mind, even in the face of new evidence
5. Why we don’t like ‘do-gooders’.

Research out of Yale University has found that while 40% of people who experience trauma and adversity in childhood or adolescence develop anxiety conditions as adults, the majority demonstrate resilience and do not develop lasting mental health issues.²

The study suggests that the timing of adversity during brain development plays a key role in shaping mental health outcomes. While higher levels of childhood adversity are linked to greater psychiatric risk in adulthood, the findings indicate a more nuanced reality: moderate adversity in middle childhood (ages 6-12) and adolescence may actually promote resilience to anxiety.

My take?

According to this research, people who experienced mild to moderate adversity in middle childhood and adolescence had, on average, lower anxiety levels than those with either minimal or extreme adversity. This suggests that not all adversity is harmful and, in some cases, it may build resilience.

The study highlights the importance of the timing of adversity. Since the brain is at different developmental stages at ages 5 and 15, stressors at these points can have vastly different effects.

So by identifying sensitive periods when the brain is most adaptable, researchers may be able to better predict who may be at higher risk for anxiety and infer how the brain’s ability to distinguish safety from danger plays a key role in resilience.

The other point here is that too little adversity during some stages of childhood may be associated with the development of long-term anxiety conditions.

This links in with Nassim Taleb’s concept of anti-fragility,³ whereby systems, individuals, or organizations can not only withstand stress, chaos, and uncertainty but actually grow stronger and thrive in response to them.

Too much ‘safetyism’ weakens and disempowers.⁴ Ironically, there are real dangers in too much comfort and ease.

Yes, children need to be protected – particularly at certain ages, according to this research – and maximum adversity needs to be avoided. But it appears that so too does minimum adversity.

After all, if everything is treated as a threat to a child when they’re young, then it’s no great leap to see that the same child may grow into an adult for whom everything feels like a threat.

Success for individuals, and whole civilizations, is so often the byproduct of surmountable challenge and adversity. To protect someone wholesale from difficulty may be to cause them the greatest of difficulties later on.

As Seneca, the ancient Roman philosopher, said:

“A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a soul perfected without trials.”

Of course, if an adult does suffer from anxiety, it doesn’t mean they are stuck with it.

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Research piece two: Just 10 minutes of mindfulness daily boosts wellbeing and fights depression

A recent study shows that a mere 10 minutes per day of mindfulness practice can improve wellbeing, reduce depression and anxiety, and boost motivation for healthier lifestyle choices, including better exercise, diet, and sleep habits.⁵

The study, which involved 1,247 adults across 91 countries, saw participants access daily 10-minute mindfulness sessions via a mobile app for 30 days. They completed mental health surveys both before and after.

Compared to the control group, those who used the mindfulness app experienced:

• 19.2% greater reduction in depression
• 6.9% more improvement in overall wellbeing
• 12.6% greater decrease in anxiety
• 7.1% more positive attitudes toward health, and
• 6.5% greater increase in intention to adopt healthier behaviors.

My take?

No surprises here. Depression thrives on stress⁶ and a sense of helplessness. Ten minutes of calm a day will work to lower circulating stress hormones in the body and also afford an all-important sense of control.

It’s no surprise, either, that mindfulness training has been found to be as effective in the treatment of depression and anxiety as cognitive behavioural therapy.⁷ CBT has also been found to be 70% more effective when used in conjunction with clinical hypnosis.⁸

One thing really stood out to me. Participants in the study weren’t just more resistant to depression, they were more able to move towards productive goals and follow healthier lifestyles. It seems the daily practice of calm reflection was enough to create spare capacity in the minds and bodies of the research subjects.

If we are continually swamped by our feelings, stressed, and depressed, we will not have the spare capacity to think beyond the horizon of our day-to-day experience. For the participants, just 10 minutes of mindfulness a day (added to the sense of doing something to help themselves!) was enough to create enough spare capacity or ‘bandwidth’ to set positive goals and engage in healthier behaviours.

Regular relaxation, as well as feeling good, creates spare capacity to move forward in life. It can be an empowering therapeutic shock to realize that we can direct our own perceptions and sometimes transcend our feelings at will.

But of course, overcoming depression isn’t just about what we think but also about what we do.

Research piece three: Group activities ease depression and anxiety in older adults

A 2025 study from Queen Mary University of London shows that group arts activities such as painting, music, and dance can greatly ease symptoms of depression and anxiety in older adults.⁹ This highlights the powerful impact of creative experiences shared with others. And as a very widespread meta-analysis of 39 studies across 21 countries, it seems like pretty robust research.

The magnitude of these reductions is similar to those seen with conventional treatments for depression and anxiety, including antidepressants, psychotherapy, and physical exercise.

Older adults in care homes experienced a more significant decrease in depression symptoms than those living independently, emphasizing the potential of these interventions to aid some of society’s most vulnerable individuals.

My take?

When considering a depressed person we need to look at them ‘in the round’. No one is depression; no one can be reduced to a neurochemical imbalance or even to what happened to them in the past.

We are a blend of many aspects which combine to make up our entirety. An amazing totality of the physical, psychological, spiritual, and social. When anyone suffers we need to see what important needs remain unfulfilled in that person’s life. And we shouldn’t be surprised to see that when those needs start being fulfilled, depression itself starts to happily shrivel.

Human beings are human doings, so what people do cannot be extricated from how they feel and what they think.

In this research it’s interesting to note that the benefits remained steady across various art forms – painting, dancing, and music – and among different groups of people, indicating that the true power lies in the collective experience of creation.

If we go back to first principles we can see that these kinds of creative group activities might fulfil:

• The need for a sense of connection to other people – group identity and community
• The need for stimulation and challenge, which lifts self-esteem
• The need for purpose and goals
• The need to receive and give attention
• And possibly more needs besides.

If we see emotional distress as a signal that one or more needs are not being met, then any activity that helps us start to meet those needs will begin to lift us out of depression.

Now, have you ever noticed the next aspect of human nature in other people? Or even, if you’re really enlightened, in yourself?

Research piece four: Once people reach a conclusion, they aren’t likely to change their minds

A study from the University of Iowa reveals that once individuals form an opinion or decision, they’re unlikely to reconsider, even if fresh evidence indicates that their conclusion was flawed and even when maintaining it leads to negative financial consequences.¹⁰

The study, done way back in 2015 and co-authored by Tom Gruca, a marketing professor at the Tippie College of Business, sheds light on aspects of financial market behaviour. He explains that even equity analysts who publish stock forecasts may fall victim to this confirmation bias, resisting the influence of new data that could challenge their initial assessments.

My take?

I seem to recall a study way back which reached the conclusion that one in three people couldn’t change their minds about something important even when conflicting new evidence was presented to them.

Whatever the percentage, an inability to update one’s assessments and beliefs shows more concern with the comforts and rewards of being right than wanting to know the truth.

This study shows that even in a ‘hard-headed’ business context, people can struggle to update their approach and ideas once new information comes along. But I suspect this tendency to pin down reality into an immobile idea, attitude, or belief is even more widespread in day-to-day life.

People believe weird things because beliefs are not necessarily indicative of intelligence, but rather the human tendency to ‘pin down’ reality, just as we might pin a butterfly’s flutterless corpse onto a board. There can be a kind of cognitive dissonance, a denial when new information comes along.

Human beings have a need for consistency.¹¹ We rationalize away data that conflicts with our solidified opinion or belief.

A more flexible person may, at least sometimes, re-evaluate what they thought they knew, but a so-called dogmatic person has exchanged the disinterested search for truth (which cannot be done without an attitude of humility) with the need to be proved right and therefore feel superior and special.

It takes a big person to admit they were wrong, either partially or completely, and update their take on things.

Laziness may also play a role. It’s easier to continue as you were, even if the path might lead you off a cliff. We might sleepwalk into irrelevance or oblivion.

But I do believe (and don’t bother trying to convince me otherwise!) that life is too multifaceted, nuanced, and flowing to be approached through an ossified set of beliefs so concrete that they cannot adapt to the visceral shifts and twists of existence as they unfold.

Research piece five: Why we don’t like ‘do-gooders’

Finally, four separate studies conducted by a social psychologist from Washington State University have revealed that employees who are selfless and quick to step up are also among the most likely to be, in essence, pushed out by their colleagues.¹² It seems, perhaps counterintuitively, that if people see you as too eager to help, they may like you less!

Lead author Craig Parks said, “It’s not hard to find examples but we were the first to show this happens and have explanations for why.”

Parks and his co-author Asako Stone discovered that selfless co-workers often face resentment because their actions “raise the bar” for expectations, making others feel they will be judged more harshly by comparison.

And, according to Parks, even “what is objectively good, [we] see as subjectively bad” – frustration persists even when the unselfish behaviour ultimately benefits the group or improves the outcome of a task.

Altruistic individuals are also perceived as rule-breakers. It’s as if they were handing out free Monopoly money to keep someone in the game – an act that, much to the annoyance of other players, disrupts the established norms.

My take?

So we, or many of us, tend to regard ‘goody-two-shoes’ types – those who do their job ‘too well’, go the extra mile, volunteer for the tasks no one else wants – with irritation or even dislike.

I’ve seen other research showing that we like helpful people and that generosity is seen as an attractive trait.¹³ Now, that might conceivably be because generosity denotes maturity and access to resources, which in turn may correlate with power or high status. But I tend to think it is more likely related to the generosity itself. So why might generous employees – who you’d think might be liked! – be so unpopular?

Well, I agree with the researchers that this ‘no one likes a goody-two-shoes’ effect (I’m paraphrasing!) has more to do with the dynamic within a group of co-workers. We might like a neighbour to be helpful, for example, because we don’t feel in competition with them. But our co-worker is always going the extra mile, well, they might just ‘rock the boat’ and show us up.

We don’t tend to like newcomers to established groups who make too many suggestions for changes too soon, so group dynamics are important, especially when a group is arranged for the purposes of work or survival.

So it makes sense to me that we may fear they will make us ‘look bad’ in comparison – that every time they selflessly take on some task no one asks them to do, it is a silent and damning commentary on what we are like.

But we might also suspect that their apparent selflessness isn’t so selfless at all, but rather an irritating form of Marxism or submissiveness, even masochism. Or perhaps “Don’t worry, I’ll clear up! You go and enjoy yourself!” may be a kind of status move, underlying the unstated sentiment of “I am better than you!”

I’m not for a moment suggesting that all hardworking or conscientious people are like that for egotistical reasons – just that some might be, and/or others might see them as such in a group setting.

Anyway, one thing is for sure. Human nature is endlessly fascinating!

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About Mark Tyrrell

Psychology is my passion. I've been a psychotherapist trainer since 1998, specializing in brief, solution focused approaches. I now teach practitioners all over the world via our online courses.

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