Most of us have something about us that we’re not 100% in love with, such as an impulsive streak or a short temper. What if those personality traits (个性特征) could be improved with daily use of a smartphone app? That was the focus of a new study from an international research team led by the University of Zurich.

“Personality traits predict several important aspects of life such as success at work, health and even a long.” says first author Mirjam Stieger. PhD. of Brandeis University in Waltham. Massachusetts. “So we wanted to test whether people can actively shape their personality traits with the help of a digital intervention (干预) within a relatively short period of time.”

Around 1.500 participants were provided with a specially developed smartphone app called PEACH for three months. On the app, a virtual companion communicated with the participants daily and provided support to help them make the changes they desired. And participants were divided into two groups — an intervention group and a waitlist control group. Participants in the waitlist control group selected and indicated their change goals before a one-month waiting period, and then they received the same three-month intervention as the intervention group.

The researchers found that participants in the waitlist control group didn't change their personality traits during the one-month waiting period. but participants who received the intervention reported changes in the desired direction. “We also found that friends and family members were able to detect personality changes,” Stieger says. “Another surprising finding was that most participants were able to maintain (维持) their personality trait changes until three months after the end of the intervention.”

While apps could be used to promote personality change, mental health expert Karen Peters warns, it's important to remember they are there for support and not as a substitute for an individual's change. “The use of an app itself isn't going to influence change — change is influenced by internal motivation.” she says. “The new study demonstrates this point by determining that change outcomes were in agreement with the individual's desire to change.”

Crowded streets, noise, and unattractive grey buildings can be boring and stressful. A solution to such problems may lie in nature, which can have calming and renewing power.

Introducing vegetation or colorful designs may make cities more livable. However, growing plants or covering buildings in paint to test these approaches is expensive and inconvenient. Moreover, studying these phenomena outdoors can be tricky, as many factors can affect the final results. “Measuring pleasure and motivation in natural settings is extremely hard,” explained Prof. Yvonne Delevoye -Turrell of the University of Lille. “Human reactions are sensitive to environmental changes, such as weather or traffic. Consequently, we used virtual reality to measure reactions to these factors in a virtual urban space.”

Using virtual reality, the team created an immersive (沉浸式的) urban environment with either no vegetation or some green vegetation, as well as introduced colorful patterns onto a path. Then they invited students to participate in the study. Wearing a VR headset and walking on the spot, the students spent time exploring the virtual environment. To find out where the volunteers were looking and for how long, each headset included an eye tracker.

The researchers found that the students walked more slowly when there was green vegetation present in the experiment, and their heart rate increased. They would spend less time looking at the ground and more time observing their surroundings. These results indicate a pleasurable experience. Bright color patterns alone did not have quite the same uplifting effect as the green vegetation, but they inspired interest and passion of the students and attracted their stare while increasing their heart rate.

Virtual reality could be a valuable tool for urban planners, enabling them to virtually test the impact of various factors. In the future, the researchers hope to make the VR experience even more immersive to obtain the most accurate results.

Imagine a world in which there was suddenly no emotion — a world in which human beings could feel no love or happiness, no terror or hate. Try to imagine the consequences of such a transformation. People might not be able to stay alive: knowing neither joy nor pleasure, anxiety nor fear, they would be as likely to repeat acts that hurt them as acts that were beneficial. They could not learn: they could not benefit from experience because this emotionless world would lack rewards and punishments. Society would soon disappear: people would be as likely to harm one another as to provide help and support. Human relationships would not exist: in a world without friends or enemies, there could be no marriage, affection among companions, or bonds among members of groups. Society’s economic underpinnings (支柱) would be destroyed: since earning $10 million would be no more pleasant than earning $10, there would be no incentive (刺激, 动机) to work. In fact, there would be no incentives of any kind, for as we will see, incentives imply a capacity to enjoy them.

In such a world, the chances that the human species would survive are next to zero, because emotions are the basic instruments of our survival and adaptation. Emotions structure the world for us in important ways. As individuals, we categorize (分类) objects on the basis of our emotions. True, we consider the length, shape, size or texture (质地, 纹理), but an object’s physical aspects are less important than what it has done or can do to us — hurt us, surprise us, anger us or make us joyful. We also use categorizations colored by emotions in our families, communities, and overall society. Out of our emotional experience with objects and events comes a social feeling of agreement that certain things and actions are “good” and others are “bad”, and we apply these categories to every aspect of our social life — from what foods we eat and what clothes we wear to how we keep promises and which people our group will accept. In fact, society uses our emotional reactions and attitudes, such as loyalty, morality, pride, shame, guilt, fear and greed, in order to maintain itself. It gives high rewards to individuals who perform important tasks such as surgery, makes heroes out of individuals for unusual or dangerous achievements such as flying fighter planes in a war, and uses the legal penal (刑法的) system to make people afraid to engage in antisocial acts.