Empathy in couples

Understanding the adaptative functioning of couples is something crucial considering the harmful consequences of situations of domestic violence.

Choosing the usual or taking a chance?

We always choose the same route back home, but one day, alerted about traffic restrictions, we decide to risk an alternative route. What drives us to make this decision?

Dream and daydream: differences and similarities

Did you know that daydreams reflect events from the previous two days and “night” dreams resemble a fictional plot?

Luís Portela honoured with ACEPI's 2023 Navegantes XXI Career Award

The chairman of the BIAL Foundation, Luís Portela, was honoured with the Navegantes XXI Career Award for his work in leading BIAL.

Why some individuals have more peace of mind than others?

Peace of mind (PoM) is an aspect of well-being characterized by internal peace and harmony. It is not clear why some individuals have more peace of mind than others. Looking to answer this question, Pilleriin Sikka assessed participants from Finland (Study 1, N = 417) and the US (Study 2, N = 303) and observed that people with higher levels of PoM display a greater tendency to use cognitive reappraisal (adaptive emotion regulation strategy) and a lesser tendency to use expressive suppression (less adaptive emotion regulation strategy). It seems that adaptive emotion regulation may explain individual differences in PoM. The paper Individual differences in peace of mind reflect adaptive emotion regulation, reporting these findings, was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, in the scope of project 295/20 - Peace of Mind and Emotion Regulation: Survey-Based, Behavioural, and Neuroscientific Investigations, supported by the BIAL Foundation.

Gratitude associated with decreased risk of suffering a heart attack

Brenda O'Connell, principal investigator of the research project 287/18 - More Thankful, Less Stressed? Gratitude and Physiological reactions to Stress, supported by the BIAL Foundation, assessed, by using a longitudinal study, the relationship between trait gratitude and acute myocardial infarction in a sample of 912 participants from 35 to 86 years old with 32.9% reporting a hypertension diagnosis and 9.6% reporting a diabetes diagnosis. Higher trait gratitude was associated with lower likelihood of suffering acute myocardial infarction 6.7 years later, through changes in heart rate reactivity, even when controlling for age, sex, body mass index (BMI), education, high blood pressure and diabetes. This suggests that gratitude may buffer the negative physiological consequences of stress and overall improving cardiovascular outcomes. To know more about this study read the paper Heart rate reactivity mediates the relationship between trait gratitude and acute myocardial infarction published in the journal Biological Psychology.