Recent Psychology Articles
Study shows that children and adults who are short sleepers
have a consistent increased risk of obesity.
Poor sleeping at night has been linked to daytime napping for older adults
according to a study just published in the journal SLEEP.
Men find forgiving more difficult than women but this gender gap closes if men develop empathy toward an offender by
seeing they may be capable of acting in a similar way themselves.
Research has shed new light on "gut feelings" arguing that they are real psychological
phenomena that should be taken seriously.
New light on ways in which people are prepared to sacrifice personal advantage for the common good and what
happens when freeloaders take advantage of their altruism.
Significant differences can be seen in how people from eastern and western cultures assess interpersonal situations.
Longstanding anxiety significantly
increases the risk of heart attack in men, even when other common risk factors are taken into account.
Researchers conclude that happiness is a worthy goal for the unhappy, but the endless pursuit of ever more happiness may be counterproductive.
People who know each other well are more likely than strangers to agree on the attractiveness of faces.
Depression increases the risk of intellectual decline in older
people and can be a predictive factor.
While we tend to believe that we are capable of forming independent opinions, what other people think can
influence our conclusions, with negative attitudes resulting in the biggest changes.
Characteristic and sometimes severe symptoms of autism such as
repetitive motions, problems interacting with others and impaired communication can improve with age.
Hearing messages embedded in meaningless noise could be an early
sign of schizophrenia.
Longing for something intensely (like a holiday or food) can
change an individual's choice making processes with a wider array of options considered than would normally be
the case.
An innovative study evaluated young children's
storytelling ability and found that they are able to immerse themselves in the thoughts and feelings of fictional
characters.
Beauty is still of paramount consideration for
men while women are more discriminating, placing greater emphasis on the need for security and commitment.
Pointing out that loneliness is not the same
as solitude which can be highly valued they nevertheless conclude that social isolation and physical aging may have a
deleterious effect on health.
Two recent studies offer insight into how individuals
perceive their own bodies and a possible explanation for out-of-body experiences.
Insufficient sleep can have an adverse effect the next day not only on an adult's work performance but also on how well students perform at
school.
Research from the University of Oregon published in Psychological Science
suggests that short-term memory capacity is a strong predictor of IQ.
Research sheds new light on the mental processes involved in "counterfactual
thinking" in which past decisions are reviewed and alternatives evaluated.
Recent research has shown that negative emotional memories can be
suppressed with practice, offering the possibility of new treatments for people suffering from a range of conditions
including post-traumatic stress disorder, phobias, depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive syndrome.
In-group bias is the basis for discrimination, the favoring of people in your group over those in another.
New research shows that people were less distressed and coped much better with ending a relationship than they predicted and that this
unanticipated effect was particularly marked for those described as "madly in love".
A study has found significant
parallels between sophisticated use of facial whiskers by rats and fingertips by humans.
Findings suggest that where emotional control is the cultural norm (e.g. Japan) eyes are the key to
interpretation. In cultures where there is more open expression of emotion (e.g. USA) the mouth is the main focus.
New research suggests that early
adolescents who prefer evening to morning activities are more likely to exhibit antisocial behavior. Previous studies
focusing on older adolescents showed a similar link with psychological problems.
Teenagers can learn to manage powerful emotions and gain insight into the processes involved.
Study supports the popular notion that men and women differ when it comes to colour
preference.
A recent study throws new light on the "cross-race effect", a well-replicated if not fully understood phenomenon involving difficulty in distinguishing between people
of other racial groups.
Excessive discussion about problems with friends (co-rumination) may have a negative impact on emotional
adjustment in girls who are more likely than boys of the same age to develop anxiety and depression as a result.
Adolescents who engaged in violent behavior relatively regularly throughout their teenage years or who began in their mid teens and increased
with time were significantly more likely to perpetrate domestic violence in their mid 20s.
People from Western cultures such as the United States find it particularly difficult to understand someone else's point of view because they are part of a culture
that encourages individualism.
A new consensus that scientists are reaching on the origins and
mechanisms of morality.
People who do well on a series of decision-making tasks involving hypothetical
situations tend to have more positive decision outcomes in their lives.
Study finds that the colour of orange juice has a huge effect on perceptions of taste.
Recent technological advances in facial composite
systems have failed to improve identification and apprehension of criminal suspects.
New research finds that normal aging processes have little detrimental effect on the sense of smell.
Lonely people may be twice as likely to develop the type of dementia linked to Alzheimer's disease.
Two new studies shed light on the process of learning new languages.
A new study shows a possible mechanism for contagious laughter. Positive sounds like
laughter trigger a response in the area of the listener's brain activated when we smile, as though preparing facial
muscles to laugh.
Vanderbilt University researchers have found that we are able to remember
more faces compared to other objects and that faces are retained best in our short-term memory.
They suggest that our expertise in remembering faces allows them to be packaged better for memory.
Researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's
College London have found higher rates of schizophrenia and other psychoses in certain ethnic minority groups and
also that parental separation in childhood is associated with an increased risk of developing psychosis later in life.
The amount of emotional content
in television advertisements affects viewers' opinions of the product, regardless of the intended message.
Whites often avoid using race to describe other people, particularly when communicating with blacks. Researchers
found that these efforts to appear colorblind and unprejudiced are counterproductive and can be associated with
negative nonverbal behaviors.
A possible mechanism for how the brain allows us to anticipate future events and detect unexpected outcomes has been identified.
New research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) reveals
complex motivations behind street robbery in the UK. Rather than being simply an acquisitive crime, it commonly
reflects a damaged sense of self in the perpetrator resulting in a need for violence or revenge, or to increase
status among peers.
A new study by a number of co-authors published in the October issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental
Research examines how helpful parents may be in assessing their children's alcohol
and/or drug use and abuse. Findings indicate that they do not provide valuable
information because they are often unaware of it.
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