Psychology posts
- March 3, 2010
- 01:05 AM
- 807 views
Hour-glass figure activates the neural reward centre of the male brain
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
There's little doubt that many conceptions of attractiveness are faddish - the size zero female model being an obvious example. However, other notions of beauty are more hard-wired, perhaps reflecting an evolutionary adaptation. These aspects of appearance have come to be associated with fertility, signifying 'reproductive fitness' to potential mates. Male facial symmetry is one example. Another is the hour-glass female form. Men in cultures across world report a preference for women with a lowe........ Read more »
Platek, S., & Singh, D. (2010) Optimal Waist-to-Hip Ratios in Women Activate Neural Reward Centers in Men. PLoS ONE, 5(2). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0009042
- March 2, 2010
- 03:34 PM
- 587 views
Robot Lizard Push-ups!
by Jason Goldman in The Thoughtful Animal
Have you ever been walking through the forest and thought to yourself, “Damn, its loud here…it’s really, really hard to hear anything anybody else is saying”? Well, maybe that’s what prompted Terry J. Ord and Judy A. Stamps, respectively from Harvard and UC Davis to investigate lizard exercise routines.
You ask: What do lizard calisthenics and [...]... Read more »
Ord TJ, & Stamps JA. (2008) Alert signals enhance animal communication in "noisy" environments. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105(48), 18830-5. PMID: 19033197
- March 2, 2010
- 02:52 PM
- 766 views
Is Your Brain A Communist?
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Capitalists beware. No less a journal than Nature has just published a paper proving conclusively that the human brain is a Communist, and that it's plotting the overthrow of the bourgeois order and its replacement by the revolutionary Dictatorship of the Proletariat even as we speak.Kind of. The article, Neural evidence for inequality-averse social preferences, doesn't mention the C word, but it does claim to have found evidence that people's brains display more egalitarianism than people thems........ Read more »
Tricomi E, Rangel A, Camerer CF, & O'Doherty JP. (2010) Neural evidence for inequality-averse social preferences. Nature, 463(7284), 1089-91. PMID: 20182511
- March 2, 2010
- 01:00 PM
- 835 views
Dawkins.net: Storm in a teacup 2.0?
by The Twenty-first floor in The Twenty-first floor
Anyone in the skeptical and atheist community who hasn't heard of the row that erupted over changes to richarddawkins.net forum probably still uses a 56K modem and a dialup connection.
This post summarises the fallout and explores the issue of online communities: are they real or illusory?... Read more »
Haythornwaite, C. (2008) Chapter 9: Social Networks and Community, Oxford handbook of internet psychology – Edited by Adam Joinson. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(3), 561-562. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8535.2008.00855_4.x
- March 2, 2010
- 12:35 PM
- 761 views
Depression’s Upside?
by Michael Bishop in Permutations
The superficial summary is that depression is an evolutionary adaptation, and that is still helping us solve problems in modern society. Is this true? These are two very distinct claims and while each may have some merit, saying it like that may obscure as much as it enlightens. ... Read more »
Andrews, P., & Thomson, J. (2009) The bright side of being blue: Depression as an adaptation for analyzing complex problems. Psychological Review, 116(3), 620-654. DOI: 10.1037/a0016242
- March 2, 2010
- 10:09 AM
- 775 views
Reparative Therapy Can Cure Homosexuality
by Ultimo167 in Strong Silent Types
Karten and Wade's (2010) research study finds that some men conflicted by their homosexual feelings and behaviours who engage in 'sexual orientation change efforts' (SOCE)later report a decrease in those feelings and behaviours. ... Read more »
Karten, E., & Wade, J. (2010) Sexual Orientation Change Efforts in Men: A Client Perspective. The Journal of Men's Studies, 18(1), 84-102. DOI: 10.3149/jms.1801.84
- March 2, 2010
- 09:42 AM
- 1,405 views
The Curious Case of Kerrie Wooltorton
by The Journal Nomads in Vagus Journalis
Kerry Wooltorton
If you have not heard of Kerrie Wooltorton, then you are either living in a box (like me) or an Indian medical student (again. like me, sigh!)...
So here is the deal.
Kerrie Wooltorton was a 26 year old woman who was suffering from an "untreatable" emotionally unstable personality disorder, infertility and depression. She drunk anti freeze and waved an advance directive in the face of the doctors when she was pushed into the ER. It said (1):
14/09/2007 To whom this may c........ Read more »
Dyer, C. (2009) Coroner rules that treating 26 year old woman who wanted to die would have been unlawful. BMJ, 339(oct05 1). DOI: 10.1136/bmj.b4070
- March 1, 2010
- 05:07 PM
- 1,044 views
Is this why atheists are, on average, more intelligent?
There's a new paper out by Satoshi Kanazawa which is causing a bit of a stir. You might have seen something about it already - I'm a little behind the curve on this one, but on the plus side I have actually read the paper, unlike many other pundits!What's got people talking is the correlation between atheism and intelligence, although that isn't what the paper is actually about. It's already pretty well established that atheists tend, on average, to be more intelligent. This paper firms that fin........ Read more »
Kanazawa, S. (2010) Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent. Social Psychology Quarterly. DOI: 10.1177/0190272510361602
- March 1, 2010
- 07:39 AM
- 645 views
How looking away prevents pedestrian collisions
by William Lu in The Quantum Lobe Chronicles
One day a friend and I were briskly strolling along a mall corridor, engaged in conversation, until something quite hilarious happened. A burly gentleman was quickly approaching my friend's direct line of trajectory. She and this man had to make either one of two choices; move to the left or to the right to avoid a disastrous collision. Simple, no? And so I thought. With about a foot between them, my tiny-sized friend and this large stranger began this seemingly unending and surprisingly well-co........ Read more »
Nummenmaa L, Hyönä J, & Hietanen JK. (2009) I'll Walk This Way: Eyes Reveal the Direction of Locomotion and Make Passersby Look and Go the Other Way. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS. PMID: 19883491
Pelphrey, K. (2005) Neural basis of eye gaze processing deficits in autism. Brain, 128(5), 1038-1048. DOI: 10.1093/brain/awh404
Mitchell P, Parsons S, & Leonard A. (2007) Using virtual environments for teaching social understanding to 6 adolescents with autistic spectrum disorders. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 37(3), 589-600. PMID: 16900403
Parsons, S., Mitchell, P., & Leonard, A. (2004) The Use and Understanding of Virtual Environments by Adolescents with Autistic Spectrum Disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 34(4), 449-466. DOI: 10.1023/B:JADD.0000037421.98517.8d
- March 1, 2010
- 04:59 AM
- 779 views
Can therapists tell when their clients have deteriorated?
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
About five to ten per cent of the time, people in therapy get worse instead of better. What should psychotherapists do in such cases? Hang on a minute. There's no point answering that question unless therapists can recognise that a client has deteriorated in the first place. A new study tackles this precise issue, finding, rather alarmingly, that the vast majority of therapists appear blind to client deterioration. Derek Hatfield and colleagues took advantage of therapy outcome data gathered at ........ Read more »
Hatfield, D., McCullough, L., Frantz, S., & Krieger, K. (2009) Do we know when our clients get worse? an investigation of therapists' ability to detect negative client change. Clinical Psychology . DOI: 10.1002/cpp.656
- February 28, 2010
- 12:15 AM
- 1,409 views
Are Dolphins People Too?
by Jason Goldman in The Thoughtful Animal
The blogosphere is all a-twitter with talk of the recent commentary in Science that dolphins should be considered people. Well, sort of people. Non-human people.
On the heels of the incident at SeaWorld in Florida in which a trainer was killed by one of the killer whales, this is especially an important issue to consider.
Frequent commenter [...]... Read more »
Grimm, D. (2010) Is a Dolphin a Person?. Science, 327(5969), 1070-1071. DOI: 10.1126/science.327.5969.1070-c
Marino, L. (2004) Dolphin cognition. Current Biology, 14(21). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2004.10.010
- February 27, 2010
- 07:41 PM
- 699 views
Marriage Prevents Suicide...
by Ultimo167 in Strong Silent Types
Masocco et al. (2009) wonder why the suicide rate differs so much from region-to-region across Italy, although they note that marriage does indeed tend to protect some men from suicide. They call for greater understanding of the socio-cultural variables that might influence suicidal ideation.... Read more »
Masocco, M., Pompili, M., Vanacore, N., Innamorati, M., Lester, D., Girardi, P., Tatarelli, R., & Vichi, M. (2009) Completed Suicide and Marital Status According to the Italian Region of Origin. Psychiatric Quarterly, 81(1), 57-71. DOI: 10.1007/s11126-009-9118-2
- February 27, 2010
- 07:42 AM
- 670 views
The Decline and Fall of the Cannabinoid Antagonists
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Cannabinoid Receptor, Type 1 (CB1) antagonists were supposed to be the next big thing.They're weight loss drugs, and with obesity rates rising and the diet craze showing no signs of abating, that's a large and growing market (...sorry). They worked, at least in the short term, and they were at least as effective as existing pills. They may even have had health benefits over and above promoting weight loss, such as improving blood fat and sugar levels through metabolic effects.It all started off ........ Read more »
Aronne, L., Tonstad, S., Moreno, M., Gantz, I., Erondu, N., Suryawanshi, S., Molony, C., Sieberts, S., Nayee, J., Meehan, A.... (2010) A clinical trial assessing the safety and efficacy of taranabant, a CB1R inverse agonist, in obese and overweight patients: a high-dose study. International Journal of Obesity. DOI: 10.1038/ijo.2010.21
- February 27, 2010
- 12:50 AM
- 712 views
what’s adaptive about depression?
by Tal Yarkoni in citation needed
Jonah Lehrer has an interesting article in the NYT magazine about a recent Psych Review article by Paul Andrews and J. Anderson Thomson. The basic claim Andrews and Thomson make in their paper is that depression is “an adaptation that evolved as a response to complex problems and whose function is to minimize disruption of [...]... Read more »
Andrews, P., & Thomson, J. (2009) The bright side of being blue: Depression as an adaptation for analyzing complex problems. Psychological Review, 116(3), 620-654. DOI: 10.1037/a0016242
- February 26, 2010
- 06:54 PM
- 855 views
More Femininity Equals Less Deviant Men
by Ultimo167 in Strong Silent Types
Nofziger (2010) has put forward the idea that the loss of self-control so often associated with deviant behaviour might not be a matter of sex differences but rather, differences in gender identity.... Read more »
Nofziger, S. (2010) A Gendered Perspective on the Relationship Between Self-Control and Deviance. Feminist Criminology, 5(1), 29-50. DOI: 10.1177/1557085109353892
- February 26, 2010
- 03:22 PM
- 540 views
Am happy, will be selfish; Am sad, will be fair. Oh Really?!?
by sandygautam in The Mouse Trap
Image via Wikipedia
Many a times, researchers have their own personal agendas and its very human to fall in to the temptation to interpret study results or spin them to suit ones long term subject matter and expertise. This is a trap in which Joe Forgas et al fall when they report in JESP that happy More >Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
Related posts:Am happy, will seek novelty; am sad, will stick with familiar Image by Getty Images via Daylife I have earlier...
Entrepreneurial ro........ Read more »
Tan, H., & Forgas, J. (2010) When happiness makes us selfish, but sadness makes us fair: Affective influences on interpersonal strategies in the dictator game. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2010.01.007
- February 26, 2010
- 06:44 AM
- 802 views
Video-game exercise bikes - not just a gimmick
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Exercise is going techno. People are playing Wii fit sports games in their homes and gyms are full of ever more interactive exercise machines. But is this trend anything more than gimmickry? Yes, according to a new study by Ryan Rhodes at the Behavioural Medicine Lab at the University of Victoria, and his colleagues.Rhodes' team had 29 previously inactive young men embark on an exercise regime, involving three half-hour cycling sessions a week for six weeks. Crucially, half the men trained on Ga........ Read more »
Rhodes, R., Warburton, D., & Bredin, S. (2009) Predicting the effect of interactive video bikes on exercise adherence: An efficacy trial. Psychology, Health , 14(6), 631-640. DOI: 10.1080/13548500903281088
- February 25, 2010
- 07:41 PM
- 433 views
Is the Clinical Significance Criterion Significant?
by Neuropsych15 in The MacGuffin
The draft version of DSM-V: Revenge of the Fallen has been online for a few weeks (1) and much has already been written about it (1, 2, 3, 4). Much focus has been on what is "new" and what is "gone." One feature that is shared by the majority of DSM diagnoses, the "clinical significance" criterion, might be on its way out. Typically this criterion reads "The symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other........ Read more »
Wakefield, J., Schmitz, M., & Baer, J. (2010) Does the DSM-IV Clinical Significance Criterion for Major Depression Reduce False Positives? Evidence From the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. American Journal of Psychiatry. DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2009.09040553
- February 25, 2010
- 07:01 PM
- 974 views
A personal god boosts the placebo effect
The placebo effect is that spooky phenomenon that can cure people simply by convincing them they're getting real medicine (whereas they in fact are just taking a sugar pill). Although it's been reported in all sorts of areas of medicine, it's particularly potent for treating things like irritable bowel syndrome, pain, and depression.In fact, a recent analysis found that most of the effect of antidepressant medicine in people with depression was in fact due to the placebo effect (but the effect........ Read more »
Murphy, P., & Fitchett, G. (2009) Belief in a concerned god predicts response to treatment for adults with clinical depression. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 65(9), 1000-1008. DOI: 10.1002/jclp.20598
- February 25, 2010
- 03:24 PM
- 1,305 views
Social Cognition in Dogs, or How did Fido get so smart?
by Jason Goldman in The Thoughtful Animal
Figure 1: Dogs are pretty intelligent.
Domesticated dogs seem to have an uncanny ability to understand human communicative gestures. If you point to something the dog zeroes in on the object or location you’re pointing to (whether it’s a toy, or food, or to get his in-need-of-a-bath butt off your damn bed and back onto his [...]... Read more »
Hare, B., Plyusnina, I., Ignacio, N., Schepina, O., Stepika, A., Wrangham, R., & Trut, L. (2005) Social Cognitive Evolution in Captive Foxes Is a Correlated By-Product of Experimental Domestication. Current Biology, 15(3), 226-230. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2005.01.040
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