Welcome to the Weekly Medius PsychNews. Every week, we select five thought-provoking Psychology articles from hundreds published in journals and other media. Psychology Drives Everything.

Exercise seems to help alleviate depression, but not for everybody:
I hear it often: A friend swears that her running practice staves off bouts of low spirits. Another says going to the gym before work keeps him mentally steady. Perhaps you’ve heard similar stories; perhaps you believe it for yourself. Those anecdotes prompt some questions. Is there evidence to support the idea that exercise can have an effect on depression? And if so, how much exercise? A number of research studies have been done to answer those questions and others. One study assigned participants, 202 depressed adults at least 40 years old, to one of four groups. One group attended supervised group exercise sessions three times per week, where they monitored their heart rate as they walked or jogged on a treadmill for 30 minutes. A second group received similar instructions but were left to work out on their own at home. Groups three and four took pills: either the antidepressant medication sertraline or a placebo. Full article.

Successful projects suggest a more thorough cataloging of how “vividness” nudges can help us delay gratification:
The human desire to beat back the inexorable march of the aging process is big business. By one estimate, global producers of anti-aging lotions, potions and medical procedures raked in $250 billion in 2016, and are on pace to generate more than $330 billion in revenue by 2021. Fooling everyone else about one’s age may be fine, but fooling oneself can prevent one from taking steps to plan for the future. A driver of this dynamic is the difficulty of practicing delayed gratification; saving a dollar today for the future is a lot harder than spending that dollar, especially when you are working hard to stay disconnected to your future self. Behavioral research has begun to explore how to help us bridge our aging gap as a way to encourage us to make better choices for our future, older self. Full article.

Creative People Really Do Think Differently:
The common human default mode is that we focus our energy on the here-and-now, and we care less about ourselves and the events of the farther-off future. This present-bias can get in the way of all sorts of decisions that might improve our lot. The struggle with delayed gratification is what makes it hard to choose saving for retirement over spending today, or committing to a diet or exercise plan for our future health at the cost of spending less time on the couch binging Netflix and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. Or, say, supporting public policy aimed at tamping down the march of global warming for the benefit of future generations. An inability to think far into the future has also been shown to influence our empathy and ability to consider the perspective of our enemies. Full article.

Cognitive gadgets:
Bookshops are wonderful places – and not all the good stuff is in books. A few months ago, I spotted a man standing in the philosophy section of a local bookshop with his daughter, aged three or four. Dad was nose-deep in a tome, and his daughter was taking care of herself. But rather than wreaking havoc with the genres or scribbling on a flyleaf, she was doing exactly as her father was: with the same furrowed brow, bowed posture and chin-stroking fingers, this small child was gazing intently at a book of mathematical logic. Children are masters of imitation. Copying parents and other adults is how they learn about their social world – about the facial expressions and body movements that allow them to communicate, gain approval and avoid rejection. Imitation has such a powerful influence on development, for good and ill, that child-protection agencies across the world run campaigns reminding parents to be role models. If you don’t want your kids to scream at other children, don’t scream at them. Full article.

What Signal Does a Beard Send?
Perhaps more than any other trait, beards are perceived a sign of gruff manliness. They visibly differentiate men from females, mask emotions, provide warmth, and shield skin from the elements. While most evolutionary theorists believe beards evolved as a display of dominance, masculinity, and aggression, what signals do they send in the modern world? And, specifically, what social information does a beard convey? Full article.