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The Briefing Room - The psychological impact of the coronavirus pandemic - BBC Sounds

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The Briefing Room - The psychological impact of the coronavirus pandemic - BBC Sounds

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Catch up on your favourite BBC radio show from your favourite DJ right here, whenever you like. Listen without limits with BBC Sounds.

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Peter Fonagy tells Jim Al Khalili how therapy saved his life and led him to pioneer a radical new way of treating our mental health

Peter Fonagy arrived in the UK from Hungary aged 15, not speaking a word of English. His family was in Paris. He was bullied at school, failed every exam and thought of ending his life. Therapy saved him, he says. Years later, he trained to be a clinical psychologist and then a psychoanalyst. His research on attachment styles between a mother and her baby (which can be healthy, anxious or avoidant) was ground breaking. He went on to show that the human need to be understood runs very deep indeed. The ability to 'mentalise' (to say that we're feeling angry rather than being angry, for example) enables us to understand our own thoughts and feelings. And, Peter believes, it forms the cornerstone of good mental health. He pioneered a new way of treating people with borderline personality disorder which he called mentalisation based treatment, or MBT. Shocked to discover that such a simple approach was so effective, he set up randomised control trials to prove the effectiveness of this new approach to mental health care. The results were a revelation and it led to a revolution in mental health care for patients with a wide range of mental health problems, from borderline personality disorder to drug dependency, eating disorders and psychosis.

Producer: Anna Buckley

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BBC Radio 4 - The Life Scientific, Peter Fonagy on a revolution in mental health care

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Peter Fonagy tells Jim Al Khalili how therapy saved his life and led him to pioneer a radical new way of treating our mental health Peter Fonagy arrived in the UK from Hungary aged 15, not speaking a word of English. His family was in Paris.

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Sophie Scott, The Life Scientific - BBC Radio 4

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Jim Al-Khalili talks to neuroscientist Sophie Scott about the science of laughter.

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"Smartphones are here to stay and there is a need to understand the prevalence of problematic smartphone usage," says one of the report's authors, Nicola Kalk, from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London.

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Smartphone 'addiction': Young people 'panicky' when denied mobiles

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"Smartphones are here to stay and there is a need to understand the prevalence of problematic smartphone usage," says one of the report's authors, Nicola Kalk, from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London.

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During childhood, many of us are taught about the importance of kindness.

But are you aware of the different motivations behind kindness and the benefits it can have on yourself?

It's not uncommon to experience a "feel-good rush" after you've been kind to another person, says Dr James Kirby, a lecturer in clinical psychology at The University of Queensland.

"Sometimes people refer to it as the warm glow, and that's some of the endorphins that are being kicked back into the system, the internal reward system," he says.

So, is getting a regular rush of these endorphins as simple as just being more kind, more often?

Altruistic vs strategic kindness

A study conducted by psychologists at the University of Sussex in 2018 examined brain scans of more than a thousand participants who were carrying out acts of kindness.

It discovered that people benefit from acts of kindness regardless of whether they are strategically motivated (meaning there is something to be gained from their act of kindness), or altruistic (there is nothing in it for them) - but the "warm glow" effect was at its peak with altruistic acts of kindness.

"We found that there's a part of the brain that is even more active when we give away [acts of kindness] with no possible benefits for ourselves, so in the altruistic case," says Jo Cutler, a PhD student who co-authored the study.

"So, this is when that warm glow from kindness will be its strongest, and we saw the brain activity reflecting that."

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The 'lost letter experiment'

Eager to get a better understanding of kindness, Cyril Gruiter, senior lecturer at University of Western Australia, carried out a 'lost letter experiment' in Perth.

It involved dropping letters across different neighbourhoods, including low and high socio-economic suburbs, on two separate occasions.

Have we become less kind?

Australians disagree on many issues, but we're united in one thing - that we should treat each other with more respect.

Read more

In the first study, published in 2016, his team dropped 300 letters. In the second study conducted more than a year later, 1,200 letters were dispersed in various areas.

To his surprise, on both occasions, 50 per cent of the letters that were dropped were returned.

"If you encounter a letter on the pavement and you pick it up and you post it, then that obviously means you have to go out of your way, you incur a cost - and that's exactly how we define altruism, incurring a cost to help someone else," he says.

"So that really tells us that humans have this innate kindness, otherwise they wouldn't do that.

"And to our surprise, again, we found that letters dropped in high socio-economic areas were more likely to be returned.

"We believe that it may have something to do with the fact that people in low socio-economic areas, they are more preoccupied with meeting their immediate needs. And whereas people in high-end suburbs, they may have slightly different priorities. But we can only speculate on why people in low-end suburbs were less likely to return a letter."

What does kindness look like?

Has an act of kindness changed the course of your day, life or community?

Tell us about it and the person behind it (don't forget to add where you're based): kindnesshero@abc.net.au.

Your details will be kept private and if we select your story as one to feature, we'll be in touch.

Benefits of self-kindness

Altruism is when an individual helps another person at their own expense.(Supplied: Annie Splatt/Unsplash)

Being kind to other people can have multiple benefits, but it's also just as important to be kind to yourself, stresses Dr Kirby.

"If I am being kind towards myself, the same regions light up if I'm receiving kindness from another person or giving kindness to another person," Dr Kirby says.

"That's why we tell people, when you have a setback or difficulty, what's the tone of your self-talk like? Do you talk to yourself in an aggressive, matter-of-fact, blunt way, or can you speak to yourself in a friendlier way?

"If you speak to yourself in a friendly way, much like a friend would in terms of trying to be kind and helpful, the same areas of the brain light up."

As a clinical psychologist, Dr Kirby adds that he works with a lot of people who feel they are unlovable and undeserving of kindness or compassion.

"They are very good at being kind to others but the very idea or thought of being kind to themselves is just completely foreign or a big no-no. They find it very threatening," he says.

"We all have this inner voice that is judgemental or commenting or narrating ... monitoring how we are going and performing.

"You try to explore what's that about or where has this come from. Sometimes it can be, 'Oh, that's the way Dad spoke to me', or 'That's the way teachers spoke to me' so it has a long history.

"So, when you're seeing people in their 20s, 30s and 40s, that kind of voice has been there for years ... a lot of people don't recognise that that inner tone can impact your physiology in your body much like if it was coming from someone else."

Acts of kindness that will seriously warm your heart

Kindness is everywhere as these readers shared with us when we asked to hear about the little gestures and favours that have helped brighten their day.

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If you're wanting to start your day in the right mindset by being kinder to yourself, Dr Kirby has some words of advice:

"When you wake up in the morning, just welcome yourself."

Sounds odd, right?

"Yes, that sounds a bit funny," he laughs.

"But welcome yourself as if you're saying hello to a dear friend in your mind. I would say, 'Oh, good morning James'. Wake yourself with that joyful friendliness and playfulness, and that kicks off a different physiology in your body.

"As opposed to 'What, it's 6am, this is shit I have so much stuff to do'. That kicks off a stress physiology in your body, and already your stress levels are at their peak in the morning, and then they drop away across the day."

Then for 30 seconds or a minute, contemplate: "If I was to be at my kindest today, what would I do?"

"Just imagine what it would be like to walk around at your kindest. Then start your day."

A belief that Australians need to show more respect to each other was the top uniting issue to emerge from the Australia Talks National Survey, which asked 54,000 Australians about their lives and what keeps them up at night. Use our interactive tool to see the results and how their answers compare with yours - available in English, simplified Chinese, Arabic and Vietnamese.
Then, join Annabel Crabb as she takes you through some of the most surprising and exciting insights with Waleed Aly on the Australia Talks TV special on iview.

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The chemistry and psychology of kindness - ABC Life

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During childhood, many of us are taught about the importance of kindness. But are you aware of the different motivations behind kindness and the benefits it can have on yourself? It's not uncommon to experience a "feel-good rush" after you've been kind to another person, says Dr James Kirby, a lecturer in clinical psychology at The University of Queensland.

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BBC World Service - The Psychology of Consumerism, Japan: After the Bubble

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How the country's culture of mass consumerism is affecting the family unit

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Conflicts can involve different nations and religions, different races and classes. Some of them seem intractable: the tensions and hatred seem depressingly permanent. But there are a number of social psychologists who have been studying how prejudice and distrust between groups can be overcome.

David Edmonds has been exploring some of their ideas for BBC Radio 4's Analysis programme. Click here for a three-minute clip.

Self-criticism

Eran Halperin is associate professor at the School of Psychology at the Interdisciplinary Centre, Herzliya, Israel, and has carried out many experimental studies to test how people can be encouraged to think more favourably about the "other" group, and be more willing to reach a deal.

In one experiment a group of Israelis was given a fake newspaper article. It described a Palestinian leader criticising his own society - corruption in Gaza and the West Bank or shortcomings at schools. A group of Palestinians was likewise exposed to Israelis being self-critical.

"One of the major barriers to conflict resolution is that people just won't listen to what the members of the other group are saying. We were looking for a way to make them listen that is feasible and effective.

"We used a real speech by Knesset member Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, who talked about the Holocaust as one of the major disasters in the history of humankind, something that is incomparable to any other disaster of any other society.

"After Israelis were exposed to this speech, suddenly they were willing to be exposed to things that he or other members of the Palestinian society were saying about other issues.

"And if Israelis hear a Palestinian leader - or just a Palestinian citizen - saying something critical about the educational system, or corruption within the Palestinian government, then suddenly they are much more open to hear what Palestinians have to say about issues related to the conflict.

"We found exactly the same results when Palestinians were exposed to Israelis criticising their own group."

The effect seems to be achieved by disrupting the idea of monolithic blocs, the idea that the other group is overwhelmingly dominated by a single identity, a single value system, a single political objective.

Fairness

In July this year, Iran finally signed a deal with major powers around the world to freeze its controversial nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. Sanctions had been in place for years, and were hitting the Iranian economy. The puzzle, then, was why the deal had taken so long to reach.

Nick Wright of the University of Birmingham has a background in neuroscience, which he now applies to international conflict:

"Why has Iran been prepared to accept costs of some $100bn to pursue its nuclear programme?

"If you listen to what the Iranians actually say, it's that, as Foreign Minister Javad Zarif put it at the end of 2013, imagine you're told you cannot do something that everyone else can do. What would you do? Would you relent or would you stand your ground?"

Here's a thought experiment. Imagine that Fred had been given a £10 windfall and had been told he must share it with you. You can choose to accept or reject Fred's distribution. If you accept it, you get to keep what Fred offers you. But if you reject it, you both get nothing.

If Fred offers you half the money, you'll almost certainly accept: £5 to you and £5 to Fred. But what if Fred offers you only £1? After all, £1 is still better than nothing.

"If you only cared about what you were going to receive, obviously you should choose to accept the nine-one split, because you're getting £1 rather than nothing.

"But what most people do is they say, 'Oh, God, that's terribly unfair! You're getting £9 and I'm only getting £1. That's very unfair and I'm going to reject it.'

"People are prepared to forego money in the name of fairness."

And it turns out that offers of less than 25% in this type of experiment are routinely rejected. That's true whether you conduct the experiment in London or Lagos, India or Indonesia.

Sacred values

Almost all of us have so-called "sacred values". These aren't necessarily religious values: they're values which are core to identity, the values which drive and define us.

Anthropologist Scott Atran has written extensively about terrorism, violence and religion.

"Sacred values differ from material values precisely because all the traditional assumptions of rational actors, of utility, of trade-offs fly out the window."

If you try to bargain with sacred values it can prove disastrous:

"When things are sacred, if you try to trade them off, not only doesn't it work but it backfires. Suppose I offered you money for your child. You might think I'm crazy. If I insisted, you might get angry.

"It's the same for people who offer to trade money for your being a traitor to your country or your religion, or for the right of return or for whatever sacred value you may hold.

"In experiments, the more material incentives are offered, the greater the insult, and the more violent people get in the defence of those values.

"I briefed the United States Military Command for the Middle East, and people would sort of understand what I was talking about, and believe that they themselves have sacred values which they're defending.

"But the difficulty is getting them to believe the others are also operating on the basis of sacred values. People tend to conceive of their enemies as strict consequentialists - simply out for the short-term gain of power - or that they're crazy or nihilists.

"That is a great mistake, because the force of intractable and enduring conflict comes from a clash over sacred values more than it does over material interests."

Contact theory

In parts of Northern Ireland, the two main communities, Protestant and Catholic, have virtually no contact with each other. What contact they do have is often hostile: for example, during the summer marching season. But whether the walls are in West Belfast or the West Bank, lack of interaction can make one side blind to the humanity of the other.

Prof Miles Hewstone is the director of the Oxford Centre for the Study of Intergroup Conflict, part of Oxford University, and is a leading proponent of contact theory.

"Contact theory is the idea that you can reduce prejudice by members of different groups by bringing them together under positive conditions."

Five years ago two schools in Oldham, one of Britain's most racially segregated towns, were merged to create Waterhead Academy. It was a good test:

"They took two pre-existing schools, Breeze Hill and Counthill, one of which was almost entirely white British, the other was almost entirely Asian British, and said, 'We'll take this pint of milk, we'll take this pint of Guinness and we'll pour them into a new quart pot.'

"What is interesting is that the data are going the way we would have hoped - slowly but gradually. There is an indication that the social networks of the Asian students and the white British students are becoming more mixed.

"Within just three months we've got more gender links and are beginning to break down some of the racial isolation."

Although the effect is not dramatic, the school merger does seem to have improved relations.

Contact theory, self-criticism, understanding sacred values and perceptions of fairness: these are no panacea for settling conflict, but they do offer a greater insight into what motivates enmity, and so how it might be diminished and overcome.

They could be psychologically useful levers in the pursuit of peace.

Such theories advocate a different approach in the attempt to bring warring parties together. But they raise the question: do we have the courage to embrace this unconventional approach and the possibilities it presents?

Analysis is on BBC Radio 4 on Monday 9 November at 20:30 GMT. You can listen online or download the programme podcast.

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Conflicts can involve different nations and religions, different races and classes. Some of them seem intractable: the tensions and hatred seem depressingly permanent. But there are a number of social psychologists who have been studying how prejudice and distrust between groups can be overcome.

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It's Friday 13th - allegedly the most cursed day of the calendar and when everything is fated to go wrong. But where did we get the idea that it's a date when bad things happen?

Walking through Birmingham city centre, everyone I ask has heard the myth that dark forces are at work on this "dreaded day".

But do they really believe it?

Do you think Friday 13th is unlucky?

Sitting on a bench in Victoria Square are John and Gillie Hemmer who say they have "no qualms" about the date.

"My mum was actually born on Friday 13th," says Mrs Hemmer. "She always thought it was a lucky day - and so do I."

Sitting nearby is Niall Johnstone, who thinks the whole idea is a joke.

"It was put there as something else to worry about," says the 26-year-old. "It's Friday - you've got to love a Friday."

Not everyone is so relaxed about it. In the shadow of the cathedral I find a woman who does believe, even though her sceptical companions cast their doubts.

"It's just a feeling," says Aurora Marin, from Romania.

But where does the myth come from?

The double whammy of Friday 13th

Friday and the number 13 have always been unlucky in their own right, says Steve Roud, author of The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland.

"Because Friday was the day of the crucifixion, Fridays were always regarded as a day of penance and abstinence.

"This religious belief spilled over into a general dislike of starting anything - or doing anything important - on a Friday."

To further compound the chance of peril, an urban legend started circulating sometime in the 1690s that it was unlucky to have 13 people around a table or in a group, he explains.

Folklorist Anne Marie Lagram - herself a "strong believer" - says theories behind "unlucky 13" include the number of people present at the Last Supper or the number of witches to make a coven.

But it was the Victorians who put the two together, says the author of the Country Wisdom and Folklore Diary.

"They were intrigued by folklore and put Friday and 13 together and created a doubly unlucky day."

Where do superstitions come from?

There are numerous well-known superstitions, involving black cats, ladders and cracks in the pavement. But where does the sense of foreboding come from?

"Superstition comes from a time when life was uncertain and you felt you didn't have control," says Mr Roud.

"There became a notion of fate as being something you could control by doing lucky things or avoiding doing unlucky things."

For example, Ms Marin - ever the cautious - makes sure to complete a ritual if she sees a black cat.

"If I see one I go back three steps."

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Many superstitions are to do with the idea of upsetting the order of the world, says Mr Roud.

"Opening umbrellas indoors is unlucky and a spade or a wild bird in the house means death. It's the same with shoes on the table - they belong on the floor."

Some stay in our minds as they have become part of our language, he adds.

"Although I count myself as the least superstitious man in the country, I say 'fingers crossed' and 'touch wood'."

And why do they persist?

Superstitions are learned from other people and persist because they are as good as any other strategy in situations beyond our control, says Michael Aitkin, psychology lecturer at Kings College London.

"Whatever action an individual is doing just before they experience something rewarding might become a superstitious behaviour, which is later repeated even if it is unrelated to the reward," he says.

These personal superstitions are common among people who have dangerous jobs or those that leave a lot to chance, says Mr Roud. Indeed, some footballers are slaves to ridiculous rituals.

Mrs Hemming says once a lucky or unlucky notion gets into your head it is "very hard to un-know it" and more of an effort to avoid it than go along with it.

"If you know it's unlucky to walk on the cracks in the pavement and you've got an important interview that day you wouldn't take a chance on it," she says.

Would you take your chances?

Joan Carthy and Paulette Hall are sitting on a windowsill in Birmingham city centre waiting to go to work.

"The only one I won't do is walk under ladders," says Ms Carthy. "It's common sense, there's always something going to fall on you. And knowing my luck it'd be a house brick."

"I've never had bad luck on Friday 13th," says Ms Hall. "It's just another day," Ms Carthy replies.

Mrs Lagram errs on the side of caution.

"I always feel a bit wary when I'm out and about and will send a message to my daughter to be doubly careful on that day."

Couldn't hurt, could it?
This story was inspired by questions sent in by readers and a version was first published in 2017.

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It's Friday 13th - allegedly the most cursed day of the calendar and when everything is fated to go wrong. But where did we get the idea that it's a date when bad things happen? Walking through Birmingham city centre, everyone I ask has heard the myth that dark forces are at work on this "dreaded day".

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Top tips on better mental health from Yale's most popular professor.

We know that one in four people will suffer from a mental health problem at some point in their life and that anxiety seems to be on the increase. The latest research suggests that rates of psychological distress and illness are especially high among undergraduates.
Dr Laurie Santos wanted to do something about it: she's professor of psychology and cognitive science at Yale University and was so concerned about the anxiety her students experienced she devised a course that would teach them how to be happy. Psychology and the Good Life quickly became the most popular course in the history of Yale and the online version went viral.
Now Laurie Santos has turned her research into a podcast called the Happiness Lab. She gave us her top tips were to ensure lasting happiness.

Presenter: Tina Daheley
Produced by Philly Beaumont
Mixed by Nicolas Raufast
Editor: John Shields

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BBC Radio 4 - Beyond Today, Does self-care really make you happy?

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Top tips on better mental health from Yale's most popular professor. We know that one in four people will suffer from a mental health problem at some point in their life and that anxiety seems to be on the increase. The latest research suggests that rates of psychological distress and illness are especially high among undergraduates.

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BBC World Service - Psychologically Speaking, Psychology

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Clarifying ambiguous expressions about the mind

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Martin Sixsmith examines the ways in which thinking, emotions and mental events can affect our physical state. From May 2014.

In this programme, Martin Sixsmith examines the ways in which thinking, emotions and mental events can affect our physical state, and the efforts of doctors and nurses to deploy psychological levers in the fight for wellbeing.

He discovers how medical students at Manchester University are being trained in better communication with patients and he looks at different ways of encouraging empathy in the next generation of doctors through poetry and music.

Produced by Sara Parker
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.

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BBC Radio 4 Extra - In Search of Ourselves: A History of Psychology and the Mind, Bedside Manners

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Martin Sixsmith examines the ways in which thinking, emotions and mental events can affect our physical state. From May 2014. In this programme, Martin Sixsmith examines the ways in which thinking, emotions and mental events can affect our physical state, and the efforts of doctors and nurses to deploy psychological levers in the fight for wellbeing.

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Claudia Hammond explores our complex relationship with cash, from how our attitudes to money start to take shape early in life to why we think we're good at spotting a bargain.

How much do we really understand about our relationship with money and the power it holds over us? In The Psychology of Money, award-winning journalist and broadcaster, Claudia Hammond examines how everyday encounters illuminate our complex relationship with money and how a better understanding of it can help our wallets as well as our minds.

It starts early. Very young schoolchildren have little idea where money actually comes from or its true value - but they already know that it's 'special', clutching their piggy banks and purses. But even better for children is chocolate money.

Our childhood experiences and circumstances shape our attitudes to spending. Many of us hate talking about money but there are awkward occasions when we can't avoid it. Out for dinner with friends, having a great time? The food, wine and conversation flow freely - until the bill arrives: anxiety sets in. Splitting the bill evenly seems fair but what if you didn't have any wine or dessert and you picked the cheapest main course on the menu whilst others indulged? You might feel forced into keeping the peace and paying up. Psychologists call this "the unscrupulous diner's dilemma". If you're the one who's always taking the extra financial hit for your "mates" then take note to avoid coughing up - and propose you pay for your food before the starters arrive.

If you're shopping for a laptop or tablet this Christmas beware the display of three items - the most expensive one may be there to tempt you into buying the mid-priced item, the so-called compromise effect that might leave you out of pocket.

In this programme, Claudia Hammond explores some of the latest research into the psychology of money and reveals some simple and effective tricks that can help us all.

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Claudia Hammond explores our complex relationship with cash, from how our attitudes to money start to take shape early in life to why we think we're good at spotting a bargain. How much do we really understand about our relationship with money and the power it holds over us?

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Documentary. Sian Williams explores the science of resilience, finding out if mental strength is in her genes and how schoolchildren are taking lessons in bouncing back.

Confucius said "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." Some people, however, are just better at getting back up when the most challenging life events knock them down. Today there is a growing body of research into mental resilience; where it comes from, why it matters and how it can be nurtured.

Journalist Sian Williams explores the science of resilience; she meets Dr Michael Pluess from Queen Mary University of London who is testing for the resilience gene, and Professor Toni Bifulco who, along with her colleague Dr David Westley at Middlesex University, has developed an online test for those at risk of resilience failure.

Nobel laureate Professor Daniel Kahneman and science journalist and psychologist Daniel Goleman offer expert insight into resilience. Professor Martin Seligman who founded the Penn Resiliency Program, and David Clark, Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, describe the psychological background to mental strength and how it can be developed. Professor Lord Richard Layard from the LSE explains the economic benefits of building resilience into society. Sian visits Icknield Community College in Watlington in Oxfordshire where resilience is on the curriculum and watches a lesson in which children are taught to bounce back. She meets students, Headmaster Mat Hunter, teacher Claire Foster, and Lucy Bailey and Emma Judge from the resilience-building organisation How To Thrive.

The documentary is informed by Sian's own MSc research into post-traumatic growth and also from personal testimony: while drafting her thesis for academic publication, she experiences a sudden and very personal trauma which changes her view of resilience.

Producer: Dixi Stewart.

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Documentary. Sian Williams explores the science of resilience, finding out if mental strength is in her genes and how schoolchildren are taking lessons in bouncing back. Confucius said "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

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Professor Stephen Reicher of St Andrews University and Jim Al-Khalili discuss the psychology of crowd behaviour at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead.

Stephen Reicher is a social psychologist at St Andrews University who has spent decades understanding how people behave when in a group. To do so, he's often had to immerse himself among the subjects of his studies, from the Bristol riots in 1980 to the millions of Hindu pilgrims who go to the Magh Mela. Stephen Reicher talks to Jim al-Khalili about the positive and the negative sides to a crowd and the role of a leader of a crowd. He explains how he gave up a place to read medicine, to the annoyance of his parents, to study psychology. Now, he says, his mother would be proud of him as he's publishing research on the health benefits of attending mass gatherings.

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BBC Radio 4 - The Life Scientific, Stephen Reicher on the psychology of crowds

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Professor Stephen Reicher of St Andrews University and Jim Al-Khalili discuss the psychology of crowd behaviour at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead. Stephen Reicher is a social psychologist at St Andrews University who has spent decades understanding how people behave when in a group.

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BBC Radio 4 - The Life Scientific, Anya Hurlbert on seeing colour

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Anya Hurlbert tells Jim Al-Khalili how colours are made in the mind.

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Mass media idea but linked to actual studies.  (Sept 2017)

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It's hard to say exactly why you like someone.

Maybe it's their goofy smile; maybe it's their razor-sharp wit; or maybe it's simply that they're easy to be around. You just like them.

But scientists generally aren't satisfied with answers like that, and they've spent years trying to pinpoint the exact factors that draw one person to another.

Below, we've rounded up some of their most intriguing findings. Read on for insights that will cast your current friendships in a new light - and will help you form better relationships, faster.
1. Copy the person you're with
This strategy is called mirroring, and involves subtly mimicking another person's behavior. When talking to someone, try copying their body language, gestures, and facial expressions.

In 1999, New York University researchers documented the "chameleon effect," which occurs when people unconsciously mimic each other's behavior. That mimicry facilitates liking.

Researchers had 72 men and women work on a task with a partner. The partners (who worked for the researchers) either mimicked the other participant's behavior or didn't, while researchers videotaped the interactions. At the end of the interaction, the researchers had participants indicate how much they liked their partners.

Sure enough, participants were more likely to say that they liked their partner when their partner had been mimicking their behavior.
2. Spend more time around the people you're hoping to befriend
According to the mere-exposure effect, people tend to like other people who are familiar to them.

In one example of this phenomenon, psychologists at the University of Pittsburgh had four women pose as students in a university psychology class. Each woman showed up in class a different number of times. When experimenters showed male students pictures of the four women, the men demonstrated a greater affinity for those women they'd seen more often in class - even though they hadn't interacted with any of them.
3. Compliment other people
People will associate the adjectives you use to describe other people with your personality. This phenomenon is called spontaneous trait transference.

One study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that this effect occurred even when people knew certain traits didn't describe the people who had talked about them.

According to Gretchen Rubin, author of the book "The Happiness Project," "whatever you say about other people influences how people see you."

If you describe someone else as genuine and kind, people will also associate you with those qualities. The reverse is also true: If you are constantly trashing people behind their backs, your friends will start to associate the negative qualities with you as well.
4. Try to display positive emotions
Emotional contagion describes what happens when people are strongly influenced by the moods of other people. According to a research paper from the Ohio University and the University of Hawaii, people can unconsciously feel the emotions of those around them.

The authors of the paper say that's possibly because we naturally mimic others' movements and facial expressions, which in turn makes us feel something similar to what they're feeling.

If you want to make others feel happy when they're around you, do your best to communicate positive emotions.
5. Be warm and competent
Princeton University psychologists and their colleagues proposed the stereotype content model, which is a theory that people judge others based on their warmth and competence.

According to the model, if you can portray yourself as warm - i.e., noncompetitive and friendly - people will feel like they can trust you. If you seem competent - for example, if you have high economic or educational status - they're more inclined to respect you.

Harvard psychologist Amy Cuddy says it's important to demonstrate warmth first and then competence, especially in business settings.

"From an evolutionary perspective," Cuddy writes in her book "Presence," "it is more crucial to our survival to know whether a person deserves our trust."
6. Reveal your flaws from time to time
According to the pratfall effect, people will like you more after you make a mistake - but only if they believe you are a competent person. Revealing that you aren't perfect makes you more relatable and vulnerable toward the people around you.

Researcher Elliot Aronson at the University of Texas, Austin first discovered this phenomenon when he studied how simple mistakes can affect perceived attraction. He asked male students from the University of Minnesota to listen to tape recordings of people taking a quiz.

When people did well on the quiz but spilled coffee at the end of the interview, the students rated them higher on likability than when they did well on the quiz and didn't spill coffee or didn't do well on the quiz and spilled coffee.
7. Emphasize shared values
According to a classic study by Theodore Newcomb, people are more attracted to those who are similar to them. This is known as the similarity-attraction effect. In his experiment, Newcomb measured his subjects' attitudes on controversial topics, such as sex and politics, and then put them in a University of Michigan-owned house to live together.

By the end of their stay, the subjects liked their housemates more when they had similar attitudes about the topics measured.

Interestingly, a more recent study from researchers at the University of Virginia and Washington University in St. Louis found that Air Force recruits liked each other more when they had similar negative personality traits than when they shared positive ones.
8. Casually touch them
Subliminal touching occurs when you touch a person so subtly that they barely notice. Common examples include tapping someone's back or touching their arm, which can make them feel more warmly toward you.

In a French study, young men stood on street corners and talked to women who walked by. The men had double the success rate in striking up a conversation when they lightly touched the woman's arms as they talked to them instead of doing nothing at all.

A University of Mississippi and Rhodes College experiment studied the effects of interpersonal touch on restaurant tipping, and had some waitresses briefly touch customers on the hand or shoulder as they were returning their change. As it turns out, those waitresses earned significantly larger tips than the ones who didn't touch their customers.
9. Smile
In one University of Wyoming study, nearly 100 undergraduate women looked at photos of another woman in one of four poses: smiling in an open-body position, smiling in a closed-body position, not smiling in an open-body position, or not smiling in a closed-body position. Results suggested that the woman in the photo was liked most when she was smiling, regardless of her body position.

More recently, researchers at Stanford University and the University of Duisburg-Essen found that students who interacted with each other through avatars felt more positively about the interaction when the avatar displayed a bigger smile.

Bonus: Another study suggested that smiling when you first meet someone helps ensure they'll remember you later.
10. See the other person how they want to be seen
People want to be perceived in a way that aligns with their own beliefs about themselves. This phenomenon is described by self-verification theory. We all seek confirmations of our views, positive or negative.

For a series of studies at Stanford University and the University of Arizona, participants with positive and negative perceptions of themselves were asked whether they wanted to interact with people who had positive or negative impressions of them.

The participants with positive self-views preferred people who thought highly of them, while those with negative self-views preferred critics. This could be because people like to interact with those who provide feedback consistent with their known identity.

Other research suggests that when people's beliefs about us line up with our own, our relationship with them flows more smoothly. That's likely because we feel understood, which is an important component of intimacy.
11. Tell them a secret
Self-disclosure may be one of the best relationship-building techniques.

In a study led by researchers at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, the California Graduate School of Family Psychology, the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Arizona State University, college students were paired off and told to spend 45 minutes getting to know each other.

Experimenters provided some student pairs with a series of questions to ask, which got increasingly deep and personal. For example, one of the intermediate questions was "How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?" Other pairs were given small-talk-type questions. For example, one question was "What is your favorite holiday? Why?"

At the end of the experiment, the students who'd asked increasingly personal questions reported feeling much closer to each other than students who'd engaged in small talk.

You can try this technique on your own as you're getting to know someone. For example, you can build up from asking easy questions (like the last movie they saw) to learning about the people who mean the most to them in life. When you share intimate information with another person, they are more likely to feel closer to you and want to confide in you in the future.
12. Show that you can keep their secrets, too
Two experiments led by researchers at the University of Florida, Arizona State University, and Singapore Management University found that people place a high value on both trustworthiness and trustingness in their relationships.

Those two traits proved especially important when people were imagining their ideal friend and ideal employee.

As Suzanne Degges-White of Northern Illinois University writes on PsychologyToday.com: "Trustworthiness is comprised of several components, including honesty, dependability, and loyalty, and while each is important to successful relationships, honesty and dependability have been identified as the most vital in the realm of friendships."
13. Display a sense of humor
Research from Illinois State University and California State University at Los Angeles found that, regardless of whether people were thinking about their ideal friend or romantic partner, a sense of humor was really important.

Another study from researchers at DePaul University and Illinois State University found that using humor when you're first getting to know someone can make the person like you more. In fact, the study suggested that participating in a humorous task (like having someone wear a blindfold while the other person teaches them a dance) can increase romantic attraction.
14. Let them talk about themselves
Harvard researchers recently discovered that talking about yourself may be inherently rewarding, the same way that food, money, and sex are.

In one study, the researchers had participants sit in an fMRI machine and respond to questions about either their own opinions or someone else's. Participants had been asked to bring a friend or family member to the experiment, who was sitting outside the fMRI machine. In some cases, participants were told that their responses would be shared with the friend or relative; in other cases, their responses would be kept private.

Results showed that the brain regions associated with motivation and reward were most active when participants were sharing information publicly - but also were active when they were talking about themselves without anyone listening.

In other words, letting someone share a story or two about their life instead of blabbing about yours could give them more positive memories of your interaction.
15. Be a little vulnerable
Writing on PsychologyToday.com, Jim Taylor of the University of San Francisco argues that emotional openness - or the lack thereof - can explain why two people do or don't click.

Yet Taylor admits:

"Emotional openness, of course, comes with risks that involve making yourself vulnerable and not knowing whether this emotional exposure will be accepted and reciprocated or rejected and deflected."

It might be worth the risk - the same Illinois State University and California State University at Los Angeles study cited above found that expressiveness and openness are desirable and important traits in ideal companions.

It doesn't matter whether that partner is a romantic partner or a friend.
16. Act like you like them
Psychologists have known for a while about a phenomenon called "reciprocity of liking": When we think someone likes us, we tend to like them as well.

In one 1959 study published in Human Relations, for example, participants were told that certain members of a group discussion would probably like them. These group members were chosen randomly by the experimenter.

After the discussion, participants indicated that the people they liked best were the ones who supposedly liked them.

More recently, researchers at the University of Waterloo and the University of Manitoba found that when we expect people to accept us, we act warmer toward them - thereby increasing the chances that they really will like us. So even if you're not sure how a person you're interacting with feels about you, act like you like them and they'll probably like you back.
Read more: * This chart is easy to interpret: It says we're screwed Read the original article on Business Insider UK. © 2016. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.
* How Uber became the world's most valuable startup
* These 4 things could trigger the next crisis in Europe
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16 psychological tricks to make people like you immediately

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It's hard to say exactly why you like someone. Maybe it's their goofy smile; maybe it's their razor-sharp wit; or maybe it's simply that they're easy to be around. You just like them. But scientists generally aren't satisfied with answers like that, and they've spent years trying to pinpoint the exact factors that draw one person to another.

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School uniforms (Sept 2017)

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For headteacher Jamie Barry, introducing a gender-neutral school uniform policy at his Bristol primary school was just basic common sense. "Why would we define our children by the clothes they wear? We still have the same uniform, we simply removed all references to gender in our uniform policy."

Girls at Parson Street school already had the option to wear whatever the boys could wear, but Barry's new policy enabled boys to wear skirts and dresses for the first time. The fact that not a single boy has chosen to do so in the year since the policy was introduced doesn't matter to Barry. "For me, this was about creating a culture of acceptance. Children are not born homophobic or discriminatory, they are exposed to those influences as they grow up. At Parson Street, we believe children should grow up seeing and experiencing equality, before any stigmas are created."

This month John Lewis announced it was removing "girls" and "boys" labels from its children's clothing departments in order to get rid of gender stereotyping and offer more choice. It is the first retailer to do this but it is following a trend set by many schools. They say it is partly about liberating girls from flimsy shoes, constricting skirts and gender stereotyping but it is also about making all children feel they don't have to be pigeonholed.

Cavendish Road primary in west Didsbury introduced its new policy last September. "We felt that in this day and age it was inappropriate to designate certain clothing items to one gender," says the headteacher, Janet Marland.

"We wanted our boys and girls to know they had the same rights. Plus, we had concerns about what some of our girls were wearing - footwear without proper grips or sturdy soles, and tight-fitting pencil skirts that restricted their movement. This was preventing them from playing safely on climbing frames."

Her policy now simply lists a range of uniform items that parents can choose from when buying for a child of either sex. The removal of references to boys' and girls' clothing was not difficult to do, she says. "There was no adverse reaction from parents or governors at all. I think all schools can and should have gender-neutral uniform policies."

Nearly half of women (48%) and more than a third of men (36%) would strongly support schools adopting a gender-neutral uniform policy that allows both boys and girls to wear trousers and skirts, according to a YouGov survey of more than 3,400 UK adults this month. School policies that allow students of either sex to wear trousers but allow only girls - and not boys - to wear skirts, were less popular: only 32% of female and 33% of male respondents supported this approach above others.

Uniform policies that deny pupils any choices are the least popular: just one in 20 women and one in 10 men were in favour of policies that force girls to wear skirts and boys to wear trousers. Only 8% of male and 7% of female respondents wanted schools to get rid of skirts so that all children wear trousers.

This is, however, what headteacher Tony Smith has done at Priory school, a comprehensive secondary school in Lewes, East Sussex. "We often started the school day with conversations about the inappropriate way that young ladies were wearing torn tights and skirts rolled up very high, and the inappropriate way that boys were carrying off their uniform, with untidy shirts and blazers not worn correctly." New students of either sex are now only allowed to wear trousers, a shirt and a school jumper, although both girls and boys can also wear PE "skorts" - skirts with shorts underneath - or PE shorts if there is a heatwave. "It is a uniform that is smart, practical, cost-effective and decent, and it is the same for everybody."

While some parents have responded by expressing a desire for their daughter to continue to wear a skirt, many agree with his decision, he says. "What we're saying is: education is a particular event. Dress appropriately and decently, and come to school to learn. There are plenty of opportunities for you to express your individualism outside school."

Janet Daulby is a consultant at the Driver Youth Trust charity and campaigns on Twitter against gender stereotyping. She is concerned that girls are often scrutinised far more than boys. "Boys have got fewer rules to break than girls because there are no sexual messages about boys' uniforms. There are never any stipulations about how short a boy's shorts can be. But if we create rules about skirt lengths, those rules then exist to be broken by girls."

Schools send a terrible message to boys if they suggest girls should dress modestly to save male staff or students from becoming aroused, she says. "I think that condones a blame culture for girls and what they wear."

She and Cheryl Rickman, an ambassador for Let Clothes Be Clothes - which worked with John Lewis to remove its gender labels - are not in favour of forcing girls to wear only what boys were already wearing. "We need to stop girls feeling like they're wearing a boy's uniform because they wear trousers, which are more practical," says Rickman. She dislikes the motifs of sequins, hearts and flowers that are frequently found on designated girls' school clothes and shoes because they perpetuate gender stereotypes, and is concerned that girls' school trousers are often tighter fitting than boys'. "It's important to offer children a choice and recognise that each child is an individual. We want genderless clothing, not genderless children."

For some schools, though, dividing up girls and boys through uniform is part of their tradition, says Neil Roskilly, chief executive of the Independent Schools Association. "Each school will make sure their uniform is in line with their values. Parents who don't like that uniform can either choose to take their child to another school or ask the school to review its policy - which I think most would be happy to do."

Pupils can, of course, make sure their voices are heard. Earlier this year, boys at Isca academy in Devon were denied the right to wear shorts during a heatwave and donned skirts in protest. By the end of the week, headteacher Aimee Mitchell announced that all boys would be allowed to wear shorts next summer, while those who wore skirts would not be punished.

Over in Bristol, Barry is reaping the rewards of his gender-neutral uniform policy. The school recently won a Gold Best Practice award from the LGBT education charity Educate & Celebrate.

"Removing the association of 'boys' or 'girls' with particular clothes in a school uniform policy may not change the way students dress but it could be a huge deal to young people who don't identify as a boy or a girl," he says. "It may give them the acceptance that they need. Until we do that, it's going to be much more difficult for children to say: I am who I am."

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School trousers or skirts for all: 'Children should experience equality'

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For headteacher Jamie Barry, introducing a gender-neutral school uniform policy at his Bristol primary school was just basic common sense. "Why would we define our children by the clothes they wear? We still have the same uniform, we simply removed all references to gender in our uniform policy."