Psychology News

• Saturday, May 18, 2013

  Happiness is the best medicine

  We’ve all experienced downward spirals, in which dark emotions lead to destructive behavior that damages our health, strains our relationships, and leaves us feeling even worse than when we started. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was an uplifting equivalent to that destructive chain of events? Read more

• Saturday, May 18, 2013

  Which ear your listen to your phone on can determine which side of the brain you use predominantly

  If you’re a left-brain thinker, chances are you use your right hand to hold your cell phone up to your right ear, according to a newly published study from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. The study – to appear online in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery – shows a strong correlation between brain dominance and the ear used to listen to a cell phone. More than 70% of ... Read more

• Saturday, May 18, 2013

  Understanding How Color Is Perceived in the Brain

  Scientists have examined the effects of language on categorical color perception — the idea that color perception is affected by how it is described in language — with behavioral research. Meanwhile, other scholars have looked into this phenomenon using neuroimaging techniques in an attempt to get a better look at the neural processes underlying these results. Read more

• Friday, May 17, 2013

  Brain Stimulation may be a fast and painless way to better mental arithmetic

  In the future, if you want to improve your ability to manipulate numbers in your head, you might just plug yourself in. So say researchers who report in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on May 16 on studies of a harmless form of brain stimulation applied to an area known to be important for math ability. "With just five days of cognitive training and noninvasive, painless brain stimulation, we were able to bring about ... Read more

• Friday, May 17, 2013

  Mice, Men, and Fate

  Almost fifteen years ago, in a book called “Chance, Development, and Aging,” the gerontologists Caleb Finch and Thomas Kirkwood described a truly elegant study of biology: a batch of roundworms, all genetically identical, raised on identical diets of agar. Despite having identical genetics and near-identical environments, some worms lived far longer than others. The lesson? The classical equation of “life = nature + nurture” had left out chance. Read more

• Friday, May 17, 2013

  Bach to the blues, our emotions match music to colors

  Whether we’re listening to Bach or the blues, our brains are wired to make music-color connections depending on how the melodies make us feel, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley. For instance, Mozart’s jaunty Flute Concerto No. 1 in G major is most often associated with bright yellow and orange, whereas his dour Requiem in D minor is more likely to be linked to dark, bluish gray. Read more

• Thursday, May 16, 2013

  ‘Good Vibrations’! Brain Ultrasound Improves Mood

  Non-invasive brain stimulation techniques aimed at mental and neurological conditions include transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for depression, and transcranial direct current (electrical) stimulation (tDCS), shown to improve memory. Transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) has also shown promise. Ultrasound consists of mechanical vibrations, like sound, but with frequencies far greater than the upper limit of human ... Read more

• Thursday, May 16, 2013

  How to Help Other People Change Their Habits

  Say I want my partner to stop cracking his knuckles or get my daughter to put down her mobile phone at meal times or start someone else exercising: how do I do that? It's not something I cover in the book, which focuses mainly on how habits work, how much of our everyday lives they influence and how to change your own personal habits. Read more

• Thursday, May 16, 2013

  Advertising Product Results ? Put Product and Result Images Closer Together

  Consumers believe a product is more effective when images of the product and its desired outcome are placed closer together in advertisements, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. “Merely changing the spatial proximity between the image of a product and its desired effect in an advertisement influences judgment of product effectiveness. Consumers tend to judge the product to be more effective when ... Read more

• Wednesday, May 15, 2013

  Relationship Troubles? Some Sad Music Might Help You Feel Better

  Consumers experiencing relationship problems are more likely to prefer aesthetic experiences that reflect their negative mood, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. “Emotional experiences of aesthetic products are important to our happiness and well-being. Music, movies, paintings, or novels that are compatible with our current mood and feelings, akin to an empathic friend, are more appreciated when ... Read more

• Wednesday, May 15, 2013

  Male Testosterone Levels Increase When Victorious in Competition Against Rivals, but Not Friends

  Sporting events can bring a community together, such as when the Louisville Cardinals won the NCAA championship and University of Louisville campus was filled with camaraderie. They also can fuel bitter rivalries, such as the long-standing animosity between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs. A new University of Missouri study has found that testosterone levels during ... Read more

• Wednesday, May 15, 2013

  Teaching the Brain to Calm Itself

  Estimates of combat-related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in U.S. veterans since the Vietnam War ranges from approximately 2& to 17%. Additional studies of combat veterans of more recent wars places the range of Iraq War returnees who suffer from PTSD between 4% and 17%. Currently, there is no one form of treatment that has been found effective in combating this disorder, but can the brain somehow be encouraged to calm itself down? Read more

• Tuesday, May 14, 2013

  Exercise for Depression – A Gold Standard Therapy

  Depression has become a common medical issue worldwide. Conventional treatments, generally, have not been effective in preventing recurrence of this condition. SSRIs can take months to provide a beneficial effect. Adverse side effects of antidepressant medications are a further concern, based on individual physical and mental health status. Additionally, in order to achieve remission, the most depressed patients require two ... Read more

• Tuesday, May 14, 2013

  Brain study shows body clocks of depressed people are altered at cell level

  Every cell in our bodies runs on a 24-hour clock, tuned to the night-day, light-dark cycles that have ruled us since the dawn of humanity. The brain acts as timekeeper, keeping the cellular clock in sync with the outside world so that it can govern our appetites, sleep, moods and much more. But new research shows that the clock may be broken in the brains of people with depression -- even at the level of the gene activity ... Read more

• Tuesday, May 14, 2013

  “All I Really Want to Do Is Sleep”

  A recent article in NYTimes [1] declared that the rising rate of suicides among our baby boomer generation now made suicides, by raw numbers alone, a bigger killer than motor vehicle accidents! Researchers quoted within the article pointed to complex reasons like the economic downturn over the past decade, the widespread availability of opioid drugs like oxycodone, and changes in marriage, social isolation and family roles. Then I scrolled down, as I always do, to peruse ... Read more

• Monday, May 13, 2013

  How Positive Emotions Lead to Better Health

  New research suggests that meditation or any other mood-enhancing activity can serve as a nutrient for the human body. We’ve all experienced downward spirals, in which dark emotions lead to destructive behavior that damages our health, strains our relationships, and leaves us feeling even worse than when we started. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was an uplifting equivalent to that destructive chain of events? Read more

• Monday, May 13, 2013

  Study finds brain system for emotional self-control

  Different brain areas are activated when we choose for ourselves to suppress an emotion, compared to situations where we are instructed to inhibit an emotion, according a new study from the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Ghent University. In this study, published in Brain Structure and Function, the researchers scanned the brains of healthy participants and found that key brain systems were activated when ... Read more

• Monday, May 13, 2013

  Perform Better Under Stress Using Self-Affirmation

  In a burgeoning series of experiments which use self-affirmation exercise, participants are then asked to write a paragraph or two on why this characteristic or value is so important to them. Sometimes they also think about a specific time or story that is illustrative. Read more

• Saturday, May 11, 2013

  Markets Erode Moral Values

  Many people express objections against child labor, exploitation of the workforce or meat production involving cruelty against animals. At the same time, however, people ignore their own moral standards when acting as market participants, searching for the cheapest electronics, fashion or food. Thus, markets reduce moral concerns. Prof. Dr. Armin Falk from the University of Bonn and Prof. Dr. Nora Szech from the University of Bamberg, both economists, have shown in an ... Read more

• Saturday, May 11, 2013

  Power Up: The Performance Benefits of a Simple Mental Exercise

  "Have successful professionals always been successful? Take Francesca Gino. An Associate Professor at Harvard, she is considered by many to be a superstar. But things did not always look so bright for her: two years in a row she gave job talks at a number of top 10 schools and universities, but got no offers from those schools. Yet, in 2009, everything suddenly turned up roses; she got offers from Harvard, Wharton, Berkeley, ... Read more

• Saturday, May 11, 2013

  After the breakup in a digital world: Purging social media memories

  The era is long gone when a romantic breakup meant ripped-up photos and burned love letters. Today, digital photos and emails can be quickly deleted but the proliferation of social media has made forgetting a bigger chore. What about the ubiquitous digital records of a once beloved that lurk on Facebook, tumblr, and flicker? Read more

• Friday, May 10, 2013

  Study uncovers the key to brand affinity and brand aversion for brands like Apple and Manchester United

  Why do brands such as Manchester United and Apple capture hearts and minds? When consumers feel a strong emotional attachment to a brand, there is seemingly nothing we would not do–from paying more for it to defending it against detractors. For all the millions of dollars spent on advertising and other efforts, however, consumers rarely feel an affinity for brands. So how do ... Read more

• Friday, May 10, 2013

  Children aren't scared by nasty dentist visits, but by what they think of them

  The Greek Stoic Epictetus wrote that "Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them." A new study involving 185 children and teenagers, 88 fathers and 97 mothers shows how this same principle applies to children's fear of the dentist. This is an important topic because many children avoid the dentist out of fear, and around half of dentally anxious adults trace their fears to childhood. Read more

• Friday, May 10, 2013

  Experience leads to the growth of new brain cells

  he adult brain continues to grow with the challenges that it faces; its changes are linked to the development of personality and behavior. But what is the link between individual experience and brain structure? Why do identical twins not resemble each other perfectly even when they grew up together? To shed light on these questions, the scientists observed forty genetically identical mice that were kept in an enclosure ... Read more

• Thursday, May 9, 2013

  What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains

  Most of us are on the Internet on a daily basis and whether we like it or not, the Internet is affecting us. It changes how we think, how we work, and it even changes our brains. The creators of this video interviewed Nicholas Carr, the author of, "The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains," about how the Internet is influencing us, our creativity, our thought processes, our ideas, and how we think. Read more

• Thursday, May 9, 2013

  Why parents should leave their kids alone

  Many parents' reasons for using controlled crying can be summed up in one word: work. Parents who want "routines" are keen on controlled crying, says Gina Ford, a famous British advocate of the system, and she comments that babies who have been forced into a routine will later adapt easily to a school routine and, one presumes, be more malleable to a workforce system. Yet whenever I have spent time in indigenous communities, ... Read more

• Thursday, May 9, 2013

  Early Math and Reading Ability Linked to Job and Income in Adulthood

  Math and reading ability at age 7 may be linked with socioeconomic status several decades later, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The childhood abilities predict socioeconomic status in adulthood over and above associations with intelligence, education, and socioeconomic status in childhood. In light of ongoing debates about the impact that ... Read more

• Wednesday, May 8, 2013

  Study: Meditation Improves Memory, Attention

  Students who did about an hour of "mindfulness training" for eight days subsequently did better on the GRE as well as tests of working memory and mind-wandering. The Internet is probably destroying our attention spans and working memories, but companies still want employees who are able to "focus." Also, even though they are pretty minimally predictive of professional success, academic admissions departments still seem to ... Read more

• Wednesday, May 8, 2013

  When Women Sell Themselves Short on Team Projects

  Working on a team is always a challenge, but a new study highlights a particular challenge to women: how much they credit themselves in a joint success. Women will devalue their contributions when working with men but not with other women, according to the new research. The study suggests yet another reason why women still tend to be under-represented at the highest echelons of many organizations. Read more

• Wednesday, May 8, 2013

  Why your friends on Twitter are (probably) more interesting than you, and what to do about it

  Statistical logic means that your lover has probably had more sexual partners than you. Similarly, at the gym, most of the other users train more frequently than you. And your friends have more friends than you do - this last observation was labelled the "friendship paradox" by sociologist Scott Feld. It's a fact because popular people get counted in more people's tallies of how ... Read more