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Religiosity appears to be linked to better outcomes for people who suffer from schizophrenia, a debilitating disorder that affects both the ability to think as well as the ability to form meaningful personal relationships.

New research by Carl I. Cohen, Carolina Jimenez and Sukriti Mittal and others compared the religiosity of people suffering from schizophrenia with the religiosity of people who were mentally healthy, as well as outcomes for patients who were and were not religious. They found that fewer people with schizophrenia were religious than those in the general community, but that patients who were religious had better outcomes than patients who did not practice religion.

Here, again, is the Hidden Brain Puzzle # 26. (All puzzles are posted first to The Hidden Brain’s Facebook Page, so log into Facebook and become a fan if you want to hear about subsequent puzzles.)

Religiosity has been linked to
A) A higher likelihood of schizophrenia (a disorder marked by disordered thinking, hallucinations, delusions etc)
B) A lower likelihood of schizophrenia
C) A higher likelihood of recovery from schizophrenia
D) A lower likelihood of recovery from schizophrenia

The correct answer is C.

I think this research ought to be of interest regardless of whether one is a believer: If religious belief is indeed helpful in treating schizophrenia, it ought to be one of the tools used by clinicians. Doctors don’t have to tell patients to become religious if they are not religious, but they can certainly encourage people to practice their faith if they happen to be believers. Since psychology and psychiatry tend to have the largest number of non-believers among science/medical professions, this may be an intervention that is often overlooked.

One of the chapters in The Hidden Brain talks at length about the relationship between the hidden brain and mental disorders – it’s called “Tracking The Hidden Brain: How Mental Disorders Reveal Our Unconscious Lives.” I would highly recommend the chapter if you haven’t read it. I also wrote a series of articles for the Washington Post some years ago exploring the effects of different aspects of culture on mental disorders. One explored the curious phenomenon that people with schizophrenia happen to have better outcomes in poor countries than in rich countries. Could that be because, among other things, that people who live in poor countries tend to be more religious than those who live in rich countries?

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Have you ever noticed when you are sad or angry that doing something mentally difficult — solving a puzzle or remembering a poem — tends to make you temporarily “forget” to be sad or angry? The moment you finish the difficult and engrossing task, the negative emotion often comes right back.

New research suggests that this phenomenon occurs because emotions are mentally taxing; they take up brain resources. When you focus your brain on something challenging, mental resources that were being previously devoted to producing and experiencing the negative emotion are now being pulled away to solve the puzzle or remember the poem. This is why you experience less of the emotion.

Here is a puzzle I posted recently on The Hidden Brain’s Facebook page, which is where all puzzles get their first airing. (Navigate over and click on the LIKE button if you want to be alerted about future puzzles — you’ll have to login to Facebook first.)

People experience less sadness, fear and other negative emotions when they …
A) Try to remember the lines of a poem memorized many years before
B) Count backward from 1 to 100 in steps of 7
C) Focus intensely on the negative emotion
D) Multiply the numbers 14 and 23 in their heads

The correct answer(s): A, B, C and D

The hidden brain mechanism involved here is that different experiences/tasks often compete for the same brain resources, and one way to diminish the effects of a negative emotion is to use up some of the resources needed to produce/experience that emotion in some difficult mental task.

I based this puzzle on new research by Assaf Kron, Yaacov Schul, Asher Cohen and Ran R. Hassin who found that “the intensity of both negative and positive feelings diminished under a cognitive load.”

One of the interesting dimensions of the research is that it showed that concentrating on the negative emotion itself — as opposed to experiencing the emotion — also decreased its effects. Concentrating (ie. thinking about) an emotion takes up mental resources. I’ve personally found that when I hurt myself — stub a toe for example — focusing intensely on the pain (thinking about whether the sensation feels like burning, tingling or pressure etc) — reduces my experience of the pain. Probably the same phenomenon at work.

Take note that the same thing holds true for positive emotions as well. What this means is that if you are experiencing a particularly lovely emotion, don’t imagine you can experience the emotion with the same intensity while typing on your blackberry at the same time!

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People who use Botox for cosmetic reasons report that they are able to use their faces in less mobile ways. That’s not surprising, given that botox impairs the muscles that produce wrinkles in the forehead and other areas. One byproduct of smoother skin is that users are not able to register emotional expressions in the way they could before. New research shows that reducing expressiveness tends to reduce the intensity of the underlying emotions, too.

I posted this puzzle recently on The Hidden Brain’s Facebook Page — all my puzzles get posted here first, so if you haven’t done so already, please subscribe to the page by logging into Facebook, navigating over to the page and clicking on the LIKE button. It’s free and fun.

Hidden Brain Puzzle #21: Botox injections tend to make the faces of cosmetics-users somewhat immobile. Limiting the full range of facial expressions tends to
A) Make users experience emotions less strongly
B) Makes no difference to the emotions users experience
C) Makes users experience emotions somewhat more strongly
D) Makes users experience emotions much more strongly

The correct answer is A.

I based this puzzle on research by Joshua Davis and Ann Senghas, who found that disabling (or limiting) the expression of an emotion reduces the emotion itself. This matches with work done in the other direction — and a staple piece of counseling advice. When you fake an emotion such as happiness by smiling a lot, the production of the expression of an emotion tends to produce the emotion, too.

In a press statement from Barnard, where Davis and Senghas work, Davis said: “In a bigger picture sense, the work fits with common beliefs, such as ‘fake it till you make it’ … with the advent of Botox, it is now possible to work with people who have a temporary, reversible paralysis in muscles that are involved in facial expressions. The muscle paralysis allows us to isolate the effects of facial expression and the subsequent sensory feedback to the brain that would follow from other factors, such as intentions relating to one’s expressions, and motor commands to make an expression. With Botox, a person can respond otherwise normally to an emotional event, (such as) a sad movie scene, but will have less movement in the facial muscles that have been injected, and therefore less feedback to the brain about such facial expressivity. It thus allows for a test of whether facial expressions and the sensory feedback from them to the brain can influence our emotions.”

One of the more interesting philosophical dimensions of this research is the questions it raises about some of our cherished assumptions about the nature of individual identity. Most of us think we would be the same person minus a hand or a leg; certainly that a new kidney or a heart makes us no different as individuals. This thesis implicitly argues that our identity is located our brains. The new research, along with a bunch of other experiments and insights, suggests that our belief is not true. Happiness and sadness do not reside only in the brain; they also reside in the body.

John Milton once said that, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” One mustn’t quibble with poets, who are in the business of artistic truth and not literal truth, but there is growing evidence that the home for emotions as well as other cognitive functions is in the body as well (as much?) as in the brain.

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One of the interesting dimensions of the hidden brain is the way in which seemingly unrelated experiences are brought together in the unconscious mind. People who are given a warm drink to hold, for example, might be more likely to experience an interpersonal interaction as being warm, even though the cup of coffee has nothing to do with the interaction.

Here’s a puzzle I recently posted on The Hidden Brain’s Facebook page, which is where all puzzles get aired first:

You are considering a financial investment. You are likely to take a bigger risk if
A) A man lightly touches your shoulder before you invest
B) A woman lightly touches your shoulder before you invest
C) A man shakes your hand firmly before you invest
D) A woman shakes your hand firmly before you invest

The correct answer is B.

I based this puzzle on some interesting research by Jonathan Levav and Jennifer J. Argo, who found that when a woman patted volunteers on the back, they were more likely to take bigger risks than if the woman merely spoke to them or if a man patted them on their back. When a woman shook the hands of volunteers it had a similar effect, but was not as strong as a reassuring pat.

The researchers speculate that the effect may be because of the associations people tend to have with a mother’s touch, and that the sense of reassurance this produces is what prompts people to take greater risks.

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Both men and women change the pitch of their voices when they are trying to convey romantic interest, but the nature of those voice changes might surprise you. Psychologist Susan Hughes at Albright College recently asked a group of college students to leave voice mail messages via Skype to a fictitious person. The psychologist found that men lowered the pitch of their voices when addressing someone they found attractive. No surprise there. Hughes expected women trying to convey romantic interest to use higher pitched and more “feminine” voices, but she discovered the opposite was true. Women also lowered the pitch of their voices to communicate interest.

Here’s the puzzle I posted recently on The Hidden Brain’s Facebook page — all puzzles get posted here first.

When people speak to a person they find attractive — and when they want to arouse mutual interest — a study in the United States recently found that
A) Both men and women raise the pitch of their voices
B) Men raise the pitch of their voices and women lower the pitch of their voices
C) Men lower the pitch of their voices and women raise the pitch of their voices
D) Both men and women lower the pitch of their voices

The correct answer is D.

It is unclear whether this behavior is limited to the United States and to our present context. It’s possible that at other times and in other places, women raised the pitch of their voices to communicate interest.

“There appears to be a common stereotype in our culture that deems a sexy female voice as one that sounds husky, breathy, and lower-pitched,” Albright said in a news release about the study, which is to be published later this year in the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. “This suggests that the motivation to display a sexy/seductive female voice may conflict with the motivation to sound more feminine … When a woman naturally lowers her voice, it may be perceived as her attempt to sound more seductive or attractive, and therefore serves as a signal of her romantic interest.”

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A host of extraneous factors have been known to affect the sentencing decisions of judges in the United States. New research shows that having children and being seen to be good providers for them benefits most defendants and earns them lighter prison sentences.

I recently posted this puzzle on The Hidden Brain’s Facebook fan page.

Which of the following statements are true?
A. Men are less likely to receive jail time from a suburban judge than a rural judge
B. Women are less likely to receive jail time from a black judge than a white judge
C. Black men are less likely to receive jail time if they have fathered children
D. White men are less likely to receive long sentences iif they are “family men”

The answer is … ALL of the above.

I based this puzzle on new research by Tina L. Freiburger, who found in a paper she published in Behavioral Sciences and the Law that “defendants who were depicted as performing caretaker roles had a significantly decreased likelihood of incarceration. Further analysis found that the reduction in likelihood of incarceration for being a caretaker was larger for males than for females. Examination of the interaction of familial role with race found that familial role equally reduced the likelihood of incarceration for black and white females.”

The study raises some interesting questions. You could make the argument that it makes societal sense to give reduced jail time to defendants who are family caregivers, because otherwise, the state will end up bearing the burden of some or all of that caregiving (and likely do a worse job.) On the other hand, you could make the argument that it is unfair to reduce a defendant’s prison sentence merely because he or she happened to be a parent. Why should the childless defendant be treated more harshly than the defendant who is a mom or a dad?

Which view do you espouse — and why?

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A significant component of food craving involves mentally “seeing” the tempting food, and food cravings can be countered by distracting the mind with unrelated imagery, according to new research.

Let’s say you crave a cookie. The best way to fight the temptation is to
A) Think about the cardiovascular risks that come with obesity
B) Remind yourself about how you want to look in a swimsuit
C) Eat the cookie and tell yourself it will be the last cookie you’ll eat
D) Focus on an untuned TV set’s random black and white dots

The correct answer is D.

I based this puzzle on research by Eva Kemps and Marika Tiggemann. The researchers noticed that food cravings are different than general hunger. When we crave something, we crave just that thing — only the chocolate-chip cookie will suffice, not ice-cream or a fruit tart. Much of this craving involves mentally imagining the cookie, down to small details, and imaginging how delicious it would taste etc. The researchers speculate that one reason cravings may be difficult to counter is that cravings “use up” significant amounts of the hidden brain’s resources, leaving little room for the kind of mental processing that advises us against eating unhealthy food.

Volunteers gripped by food cravings reported reductions in these cravings when they were asked to visualize specific images in their minds, such as a rainbow. In another experiment, volunteers asked to watch black and white dots on a monitor, very similar to the flickering TV screen described in option D, reported reductions in their food cravings.

I’m struck by how similar adult minds are to those of small children. (When you come to think about it, why should they be different — the minds of adults grow out of children’s minds.) Just as you can distract small children who want a cookie by suggesting an alternate activity, it appears you can do the same to your adult mind. In both cases, what is happening is that the conscious mind is finding a way to override the impulses of the hidden brain.

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When the person you are talking to blinks a lot, it probably means he or she has tuned you out, according to new research that links increased blinking with reduced attention.

So, if you are talking with a manager/colleague/spouse, the unconscious signal that best tells you that the person has tuned you out?
A) He/she blinks a lot
B) He/she does not blink at all
C) His/her eyes are frozen in a stare
D) His/her eyes dart around a lot

The correct answer is A.

I based this puzzle on research by Daniel Smilek, Jonathan S.A. Carriere and J. Allan Cheyne, at the University of Waterloo. The researchers had volunteers read books, and attached eye sensors to the volunteers that measured eye movements and blinking. From time to time, subjects were interrupted and asked whether their minds were wandering. The periods during which the volunteers reported their minds wandered matched the periods when the volunteers blinked their eyes the most.

“What we suggest is that when you start to mind-wander … you basically close your eyelid so there’s less information coming into the brain,” Smilek said in a press statement.

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President Barack Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court highlights the power of frames in politics. In recent years, conservative presidents have appointed conservative justices, whereas liberal presidents have appointed moderates.

Supreme Court Justice nominee Elena Kagan herself once noted the irony inherent in this process. In the University of Chicago Law Review, she noted, “Herein lies one of the mysteries of modern confirmation politics: The Republican Party has an ambitious judicial agenda and the Democratic Party has next to none, why is the former labeled the party of judicial restraint and the latter the party of judicial activism?”

Why does this happen? It has to do with the power of framing an issue. Once the issue has been framed as “judicial activism” (as opposed to, say, “judicial passivity”) the frame determines how much leeway presidents from both political parties have. Republican presidents appoint ever more conservative justices on the grounds that they will back the status quo and avoid activism, and Democratic presidents appoint ever more moderate justices, to avoid being tarred with the “judicial activist” brush.

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The recent British elections highlight why the rules — not candidates, parties, issues or ideologies — are the real kingmakers in democracies. The graphic shows the percentage of votes and percentage of seats won by the three major British parties. Look at the disparities! If the Tories and Labour had stuffed ballot boxes so they won more seats than British voters actually intended, everyone would have cried foul. If ballot boxes filled with votes for the Liberal Democrats were stolen from election booths, there would be calls for a re-election monitored by U.N. observers. But because the rules say the party with the largest share of votes in each parliamentary constituency wins the entire constituency, it looks like democracy even though large numbers of voters were effectively disenfranchised.

Regardless of your political views, winner-take-all rules are an abomination only slightly better than outright electoral corruption. (The United States has several variations of the British rules: See my Washington Post column about the Republican and Democratic primaries, for example.) Proportional representation, where parties are awarded seats in parliament commensurate with their overall vote share, encourage a greater diversity of political views in a country (because groups that have only small amounts of support are not entirely shut out of the conversation). Proportional representation also keeps one or two major parties, which are often responsible for writing the original election rules in the first place, from effectively silencing everyone else.

You want a hidden brain connection? We are unconsciously predisposed to see theft perpetrated at gunpoint as being worse than theft perpetrated by clever bureaucracies and scheming constitutional architects.