Psychology posts
- April 18, 2013
- 01:02 PM
- 51 views
The Daddy Chronicles: What Happened To My Testosterone?
by Psych Your Mind in Psych Your Mind
Zoë at two weeks
I'm not sure how many of you know this, but on March 19th of this year I became a new daddy. It's hard to describe the meaning of this event and its impact on my life, but here is a useful comparison that might put things into perspective: My dissertation was accepted for publication on the same day that my daughter was born and despite the near month passing, I still haven't filed the publication forms for the paper. Fatherhood changes the way I see the world in........ Read more »
Gettler LT, McDade TW, Feranil AB, & Kuzawa CW. (2011) Longitudinal evidence that fatherhood decreases testosterone in human males. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108(39), 16194-9. PMID: 21911391
- April 18, 2013
- 10:18 AM
- 66 views
Nonpurging Bulimia Nervosa: Where Does It Fit?
by Tetyana Pekar in Science of Eating Disorders
When most people think of bulimia nervosa, they think of binge eating and self-induced vomiting. While that is not incorrect, it is not the full picture either. In the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV), there are two subtypes of bulimia nervosa: purging (BN-P) and nonpurging (BN-NP). The difference lies in the types of compensation methods: patients with BN-P engage in self-induced vomiting, or the misuse of laxatives, diuretics, or enemas whereas patients with BN........ Read more »
van Hoeken, D., Veling, W., Sinke, S., Mitchell, J., & Hoek, H. (2009) The validity and utility of subtyping bulimia nervosa. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 42(7), 595-602. DOI: 10.1002/eat.20724
- April 18, 2013
- 08:17 AM
- 38 views
Predictions About Workplace Sexual Harassment: Experiencers, Observers, Predictors, and the Psychological Immune System
by Dan DeFoe in Psycholawlogy
Judges, jurors, lawyers, and EEO investigators evaluate possible instances of sexual harassment. Their judgments stem from assumptions about whether the complainant experienced unwelcome, severe, and pervasive conduct in a hostile work environment. Psycho-legal researchers identify these persons as “predictors”. Predictors do not directly experience or observe the workplace misconduct. Instead, they gauge the impact [...]The post Predictions About Workplace Sexual Harassment:........ Read more »
Wiener, R., Gervais, S., Allen, J., & Marquez, A. (2012) Eye of the Beholder: Effects of Perspective and Sexual Objectification on Harassment Judgments. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. DOI: 10.1037/a0028497
- April 18, 2013
- 04:16 AM
- 88 views
Exploiting children's social instincts to boost their learning
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Young children's instinct for group membership can be exploited to boost their learning performance. That's according to a new study that recalls classic social psychology research conducted in the 1970s. Back then Henri Tajfel showed a darker side to this group mentality. In his "minimal group" studies, schoolboys were divided into two groups based merely on their preference for one of two artists. The arbitrary groups thus formed, the boys showed immediate bias against peers not in thei........ Read more »
Master, A., & Walton, G. (2013) Minimal Groups Increase Young Children's Motivation and Learning on Group-Relevant Tasks. Child Development, 84(2), 737-751. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01867.x
- April 17, 2013
- 10:50 PM
- 82 views
How stores trick our senses to make us buy more (Part 3 of 5: Touch)
by Jordan Gaines in Gaines, on Brains
Sure, a company can do its job to create an attractive, pleasurable product for us consumers. But—you guessed it—the store does its own part in tricking us, ensuring that the phrase "you touch it, you buy it" often holds true.... Read more »
James R. Wolf, Hal R. Arkes, & Waleed A. Muhanna. (2008) The power of touch: An examination of the effect of duration of physical contact on the valuation of objects. Judgment and Decision Making, 3(6), 476-482. info:/
- April 17, 2013
- 05:34 PM
- 119 views
Van Gogh was afraid of the moon and other lies
by TheCellularScale in The Cellular Scale
I remember the first time I realized just how easily false information gets spread about.A terrifying starry nightI was in French class in high school. Our homework had been to find out 1 interesting fact about Van Gogh and tell it to the class. When it was my turn, I said some boring small fact that I no longer remember. My friend sitting behind me, however, had a fascinating fact: When Van Gogh was a young child, he was actually afraid of the moon.The teacher and the class were all quite impre........ Read more »
Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U., Seifert, C., Schwarz, N., & Cook, J. (2012) Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 13(3), 106-131. DOI: 10.1177/1529100612451018
- April 17, 2013
- 03:02 PM
- 60 views
Weighing the Risks
by sschroeder in Daily Observations
No one can know everything; in our daily lives, we make do with the best information we can get. Psychological scientists are working to understand how people choose to learn The post Weighing the Risks appeared first on Association for Psychological Science.... Read more »
Wakebe, T., Sato, T., Watamura, E., & Takano, Y. (2012) Risk aversion in information seeking. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 24(2), 125-133. DOI: 10.1080/20445911.2011.596825
- April 17, 2013
- 08:30 AM
- 72 views
Do Dogs Try to Hide Theft of Food?
by CAPB in Companion Animal Psychology Blog
Will your dog steal food even if you can see or hear the theft take place? Two new studies investigate whether dogs can take a human’s perspective in deciding whether to take a piece of forbidden food.Earlier work has shown that dogs and other animals seem to have an awareness of human visual attention. For example, Gácsi et al (2004) found that dogs were more likely to beg from an attentive rather than an inattentive human. However, it is not known if dogs understand what a human........ Read more »
Bräuer, J., Keckeisen, M., Pitsch, A., Kaminski, J., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2012) Domestic dogs conceal auditory but not visual information from others. Animal Cognition. DOI: 10.1007/s10071-012-0576-9
Gácsi M, Miklósi A, Varga O, Topál J, & Csányi V. (2004) Are readers of our face readers of our minds? Dogs (Canis familiaris) show situation-dependent recognition of human's attention. Animal cognition, 7(3), 144-53. PMID: 14669075
Kaminski, J., Pitsch, A., & Tomasello, M. (2012) Dogs steal in the dark. Animal Cognition. DOI: 10.1007/s10071-012-0579-6
- April 17, 2013
- 07:44 AM
- 89 views
The Mental Health Troubles of the "Spiritual but not Religious"
by Scott McGreal in Eye on Psych
A large British survey found that spiritual but not religious people have poorer mental health compared to both religious and non-religious/non-spiritual people. Reasons for this are no yet clear, but personality traits associated with spiritual beliefs and interests might be a factor.... Read more »
King, M., Marston, L., McManus, S., Brugha, T., Meltzer, H., & Bebbington, P. (2012) Religion, spirituality and mental health: results from a national study of English households. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 202(1), 68-73. DOI: 10.1192/bjp.bp.112.112003
- April 17, 2013
- 07:02 AM
- 67 views
The seductive allure of ‘seductive allure’
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
Sometimes academics make the most of a clever turn of phrase. But this post isn’t about sex and it isn’t about Marilyn Monroe. Instead, it is about everyone’s favorite other topic: the CSI effect. Am I right? That is your favorite other topic, isn’t it? Even though there have been growing indications that fear of [...]
Related posts:
Redux: Bye-bye CSI?
The dilemma of the ‘Expert’ Witness
Confused about brain scans? Welcome to the club!
... Read more »
Farah, M., & Hook, C. (2013) The Seductive Allure of "Seductive Allure". Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8(1), 88-90. DOI: 10.1177/1745691612469035
- April 17, 2013
- 06:24 AM
- 101 views
How Can I Avoid Procrastination?
by Esther Ghijssen in United Academics
Procrastination is a common behavior in 95 percent of people ( Ellis & Knaus, 1977) and in 15 to 20 percent of that group it can be considered chronic and problematic (Harriot & Ferrari, 1996). Recent research shows that men are more likely to procrastinate than women, that procrastinators tend to be less educated, and that their marriages are more likely to fall apart.
Considering procrastination has little benefit, why is it such a common way of behaving? One of the possible causes is perfo........ Read more »
Wohl, M., Pychyl, T., & Bennett, S. (2010) I forgive myself, now I can study: How self-forgiveness for procrastinating can reduce future procrastination. Personality and Individual Differences, 48(7), 803-808. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2010.01.029
- April 17, 2013
- 05:19 AM
- 59 views
Autism, the autisms or "developmental brain dysfunction"?
by Paul Whiteley in Questioning Answers
"If you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism" so the oft-cited phrase goes. The implication is that whilst unified under the label of presenting with the triad/dyad characteristics of an autism spectrum condition, the heterogeneity present across the spectrum coupled with other comorbidity, allied to factors such as genes, personality, temperament, maturation, environment et al, mean that everyone is different and importantly everyone is dynamic.Umbrella under an........ Read more »
Whitehouse AJ, & Stanley FJ. (2013) Is autism one or multiple disorders?. The Medical journal of Australia, 198(6), 302-3. PMID: 23545020
Moreno-De-Luca A, Myers SM, Challman TD, Moreno-De-Luca D, Evans DW, & Ledbetter DH. (2013) Developmental brain dysfunction: revival and expansion of old concepts based on new genetic evidence. Lancet neurology, 12(4), 406-14. PMID: 23518333
- April 17, 2013
- 04:38 AM
- 71 views
Female political role models have an empowering effect on women
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Psychologically empowering to women?
The late Margaret Thatcher - Britain's first and, so far, only female Prime Minister - is criticised for failing to do more to help other women get ahead in politics. Supporters argue, however, that the example she set will, on its own, have been of profound benefit to women with leadership ambitions. A new study puts this principle to the test, examining the effect on women of reminders about the contemporary female political high-flyers Angela ........ Read more »
Latu, I., Mast, M., Lammers, J., & Bombari, D. (2013) Successful female leaders empower women's behavior in leadership tasks. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(3), 444-448. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2013.01.003
- April 17, 2013
- 12:45 AM
- 88 views
Why You Should Always Confront Prejudice
by Eric Horowitz in peer-reviewed by my neurons
What goes through your mind when somebody makes a racist or sexist remark? Perhaps you feel a strong desire to expose their morally bankrupt worldview through an artful recitation of contemporary philosophy and social science research. Perhaps the potential awkwardness of scolding an acquaintance leads you to avoid confrontation. Whatever you’ve done in the past, [...]... Read more »
Rasinski, H., Geers, A., & Czopp, A. (2013) "I Guess What He Said Wasn't That Bad": Dissonance in Nonconfronting Targets of Prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. DOI: 10.1177/0146167213484769
- April 16, 2013
- 09:12 PM
- 59 views
An Implausible Function For Depression
by Jesse Marczyk in Pop Psychology
Recently, I was involved in a discussion about experimenter-induced expectation biases in performance, also known as demand characteristics. The basic premise of the idea runs along the following lines: some subjects in your experiment are interested in pleasing the experimenter … Continue reading →... Read more »
Moore, M., & Fresco, D. (2012) Depressive realism: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 32(6), 496-509. DOI: 10.1016/j.cpr.2012.05.004
- April 16, 2013
- 08:39 AM
- 105 views
5 Ways You’re Wrong About Surviving Disasters
by Anouk Vleugels in United Academics
Everybody remembers the kind captain in Titanic, drowning in his own guilt when he realises he has comprised safety regulations for fame, and his decision to go down with the ship. Before meeting his demise, he first makes sure the women and children make it off the ship. Surely this is the proper thing to do in such situations – women and children first- right? Research suggests otherwise.... Read more »
Bruno S. Frey, David A. Savage, and Benno Torgler. (2010) Behavior under Extreme Conditions: The Titanic Disaster. Journal of Economic Perspective. info:/
Bush SP. (2004) Snakebite suction devices don't remove venom: they just suck. Annals of emergency medicine, 43(2), 187-8. PMID: 14747806
- April 15, 2013
- 11:42 PM
- 128 views
Why do some memories fade while others endure?
by Shelly Fan in Neurorexia
Ah, the age-old question: why do we remember what we remember? One possible mechanism is selective “memory replay” during sleep, in which the brain reactivates specific patterns of neuronal firing as seen during learning. In other words, memories that are rehearsed during sleep will most likely be retained (“consolidated” in neurojargon) in the long run. [...]... Read more »
Oudiette D, Antony JW, Creery JD, & Paller KA. (2013) The Role of Memory Reactivation during Wakefulness and Sleep in Determining Which Memories Endure. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 33(15), 6672-8. PMID: 23575863
- April 15, 2013
- 09:07 AM
- 81 views
Rehearsal during sleep can increase your potential of long-term memory
by Usman Paracha in SayPeople
Main point:
Researchers found that memory rehearsal during sleep can help you to remember things for a long time.
Journal:
Journal of Neuroscience
Study Further:
In this study, researchers worked with the volunteers and asked them to remember the locations of the objects on a computer screen. A value given to each object informed participants how much money they could make if they remembered it later on the test.
"The pay-off was much higher for some of the objects than fo........ Read more »
Oudiette, D., Antony, J., Creery, J., & Paller, K. (2013) The Role of Memory Reactivation during Wakefulness and Sleep in Determining Which Memories Endure. Journal of Neuroscience, 33(15), 6672-6678. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5497-12.2013
- April 15, 2013
- 09:06 AM
- 61 views
Rehearsal during sleep can increase your potential of long-term memory
by Usman Paracha in SayPeople
Main point:
Researchers found that memory rehearsal during sleep can help you to remember things for a long time.
Journal:
Journal of Neuroscience
Study Further:
In this study, researchers worked with the volunteers and asked them to remember the locations of the objects on a computer screen. A value given to each object informed participants how much money they could make if they remembered it later on the test.
"The pay-off was much higher for some of the objects than fo........ Read more »
Oudiette, D., Antony, J., Creery, J., & Paller, K. (2013) The Role of Memory Reactivation during Wakefulness and Sleep in Determining Which Memories Endure. Journal of Neuroscience, 33(15), 6672-6678. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5497-12.2013
- April 15, 2013
- 07:47 AM
- 78 views
Another Penis Story: Size Matters, Up to a Point
by Andrew Porterfield in United Academics
While females are attracted to larger penises, their interest only extends to a degree and penis size isn’t the only trait that concerns them, a new Australian study shows. Although this finding grabbed a lot of headlines, the research also provided insight into how genitalia can evolve, even without having offspring.... Read more »
Mautz, B., Wong, B., Peters, R., & Jennions, M. (2013) Penis size interacts with body shape and height to influence male attractiveness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1219361110
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