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Oct. 27, 2010

Friends with cognitive benefits: Mental function improves after certain kinds of socializing

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ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Talking with other people in a friendly way can make it easier to solve common problems, a new University of Michigan study shows. But conversations that are competitive in tone, rather than cooperative, have no cognitive benefits.

“This study shows that simply talking to other people, the way you do when you’re making friends, can provide mental benefits,” said psychologist Oscar Ybarra, a researcher at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR).

Ybarra is the lead author of the study, which is forthcoming in the peer-reviewed journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

For the study, the researchers examined the impact of brief episodes of social contact on one key component of mental activity—executive function. This type of cognitive function includes working memory, self-monitoring, and the ability to suppress external and internal distractions—all of which are essential in solving common life problems.

In previous research, Ybarra has found that social interaction provides a short-term boost to executive function that’s comparable in size to playing brain games, such as solving crossword puzzles. In the current series of studies, he and colleagues tested 192 undergraduates to pinpoint which types of social interactions help—and which don’t.

They found that engaging in brief (10 minute) conversations in which participants were simply instructed to get to know another person resulted in boosts to their subsequent performance on an array of common cognitive tasks. But when participants engaged in conversations that had a competitive edge, their performance on cognitive tasks showed no improvement.

“We believe that performance boosts come about because some social interactions induce people to try to read others’ minds and take their perspectives on things,” Ybarra said. “And we also find that when we structure even competitive interactions to have an element of taking the other person’s perspective, or trying to put yourself in the other person’s shoes, there is a boost in executive functioning as a result.”

The studies further showed that the improvement in mental function was limited to tasks assessing executive function. Neither processing speed nor general knowledge were affected by the type of social interaction engaged in by participants.

“Taken together with earlier research, these findings highlight the connection between social intelligence and general intelligence,” Ybarra said. “This fits with evolutionary perspectives that examine social pressures on the emergence of intelligence, and research showing a neural overlap between social-cognitive and executive brain functions.”

The research also has some practical implications for improving performance on certain kinds of intellectual tasks. If you want to perform your best, having a friendly chat with a colleague before a big presentation or test may be a good strategy. Also, in competitive contexts that occur in some organizations, be aware that you may inadvertently fail to support your cognitive flexibility and focus.

Established in 1949, the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR) is the world’s largest academic social science survey and research organization, and a world leader in developing and applying social science methodology, and in educating researchers and students from around the world. ISR conducts some of the most widely-cited studies in the nation, including the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers, the American National Election Studies, the Monitoring the Future Study, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Health and Retirement Study, the Columbia County Longitudinal Study and the National Survey of Black Americans. ISR researchers also collaborate with social scientists in more than 60 nations on the World Values Surveys and other projects, and the Institute has established formal ties with universities in Poland, China, and South Africa. ISR is also home to the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), the world’s largest digital social science data archive. Visit the ISR Web site at http://www.isr.umich.edu for more information.

 

Contact: Diane Swanbrow
Phone: (734) 647-4416

Related Categories: Institute for Social Research

Related Keywords: friends, social interaction, mental benefits

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Thomas Friedman’s column from NYTimes:

 

I’m meeting a retired Israeli general at a Tel Aviv hotel. As I take my seat, he begins the conversation with: “Well, everything we thought for the last 30 years is no longer relevant.”

That pretty much sums up the disorienting sense of shock and awe that the popular uprising in Egypt has inflicted on the psyche of Israel’s establishment. The peace treaty with a stable Egypt was the unspoken foundation for every geopolitical and economic policy in Israel for the last 35 years, and now it’s gone. It’s as if Americans suddenly woke up and found both Mexico and Canada plunged into turmoil on the same day.

“Everything that once anchored our world is now unmoored,” remarked Mark Heller, a Tel Aviv University strategist. “And it is happening right at a moment when nuclearization of the region hangs in the air.”

This is a perilous time for Israel, and its anxiety is understandable. But I fear Israel could make its situation even more perilous if it succumbs to the argument one hears from a number of senior Israeli officials today that the events in Egypt prove that Israel can’t make a lasting peace with the Palestinians. It’s wrong and dangerous.

To be sure, Hosni Mubarak, Israel’s longtime ally, deserves all the wrath being directed at him. The best time to make any big, hard decision is when you are at your maximum strength. You’ll always think and act more clearly. For the last 20 years, President Mubarak has had all the leverage he could ever want to truly reform Egypt’s economy and build a moderate, legitimate political center to fill the void between his authoritarian state and the Muslim Brotherhood. But Mubarak deliberately maintained the political vacuum between himself and the Islamists so that he could always tell the world, “It’s either me or them.” Now he is trying to reform in a panic with no leverage. Too late.

But Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel is in danger of becoming the Mubarak of the peace process. Israel has never had more leverage vis-à-vis the Palestinians and never had more responsible Palestinian partners. But Netanyahu has found every excuse for not putting a peace plan on the table. The Americans know it. And thanks to the nasty job that Qatar’s Al Jazeera TV just did in releasing out of context all the Palestinian concessions — to embarrass the Palestinian leadership — it’s now obvious to all how far the Palestinians have come.

No, I do not know if this Palestinian leadership has the fortitude to close a deal. But I do know this: Israel has an overwhelming interest in going the extra mile to test them.

Why? With the leaders of both Egypt and Jordan scrambling to shuffle their governments in an effort to stay ahead of the street, two things can be said for sure: Whatever happens in the only two Arab states that have peace treaties with Israel, the moderate secularists who had a monopoly of power will be weaker and the previously confined Muslim Brotherhood will be stronger. How much remains to be seen.

As such, it is virtually certain that the next Egyptian government will not have the patience or room that Mubarak did to maneuver with Israel. Same with the new Jordanian cabinet. Make no mistake: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has nothing to do with sparking the demonstrations in Egypt and Jordan, but Israeli-Palestinian relations will be impacted by the events in both countries.

If Israel does not make a concerted effort to strike a deal with the Palestinians, the next Egyptian government will “have to distance itself from Israel because it will not have the stake in maintaining the close relationship that Mubarak had,” said Khalil Shikaki, a Palestinian pollster. With the big political changes in the region, “if Israel remains paranoid and messianic and greedy it will lose all its Arab friends.”

To put it bluntly, if Israelis tell themselves that Egypt’s unrest proves why Israel cannot make peace with the Palestinian Authority, then they will be talking themselves into becoming an apartheid state — they will be talking themselves into permanently absorbing the West Bank and thereby laying the seeds for an Arab majority ruled by a Jewish minority between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.

What the turmoil in Egypt also demonstrates is how much Israel is surrounded by a huge population of young Arabs and Muslims who have been living outside of history — insulated by oil and autocracy from the great global trends. But that’s over.

“Today your legitimacy has to be based on what you deliver,” the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, explained to me in his Ramallah office. “Gone are the days when you can say, ‘Deal with me because the other guys are worse.’ ”

I had given up on Netanyahu’s cabinet and urged the U.S. to walk away. But that was B.E. — Before Egypt. Today, I believe President Obama should put his own peace plan on the table, bridging the Israeli and Palestinian positions, and demand that the two sides negotiate on it without any preconditions. It is vital for Israel’s future — at a time when there is already a global campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state — that it disentangle itself from the Arabs’ story as much as possible. There is a huge storm coming, Israel. Get out of the way.

 

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Keynote speaker

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Dr. Marvin Cetron is one of the preeminent forecaster-futurists in the world and has consulted for 400 of the Fortune 500 firms, including General Motors, IBM, Best Western, and Capital One; more than 100 government agencies, among them the CIA, the TSA, and the NSA; and served as an advisor to the White House for every administration from the time of John Kennedy through the Clinton years.
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I’ll be presenting at this Conference on Digital Media and Jewish Community. Should be a fascinating conference.

Raising Cain premiered on January 12, 2006.
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America’s boys are in trouble. They are the most violent in the industrialized world. Many are unable to express their emotions. On average, boys are doing worse in the classroom than they were 10 years ago.

Who is responsible for this situation? How do we learn to listen to and support our boys? How can we guide them on the path to becoming responsible, caring men?

The documentary, Raising Cain: Boys in Focus, provides answers, insights, ideas, and hope. Hosted by child psychologist Michael Thompson, Ph.D., co-author of the best-selling book Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Lives of Boys, this documentary explores the emotional development of boys in America today. Thompson consults with some of our nation’s most respected psychologists, social activists, researchers and educators to probe the issues facing boys and find solutions to their dilemmas.

This two-hour documentary provides surprising new research about boys’ inner lives, dispelling a number of commonly held misconceptions, and highlights innovative programs that are bringing out the best in boys. The PBS Parents Guide to Understanding and Raising Boys offers insights and advice from Thompson and other experts on raising boys in America today.

Raising Cain is a production of Powderhouse and Michael Thompson, Ph.D., in association with Oregon Public Broadcasting.

 

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ConverJent melds Jewish Wisdom with New Media through live events, digital games and simulations, and digital narratives. ConverJent uses today’s vernacular of New Media to connect and engage Jews of all kinds, share core Jewish narratives, and teach 21st century Jewish skills.  ConverJent is incubated at Clal, The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, in NYC.  Now… a PresenTense Fellow!

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