Psychology News and Research

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Psychology is the study of human mental functions, behavior and processes.

Healthy neighborhoods for older adults subject of study

Doctors often advise their older patients to walk more to enhance their health, but what if the sidewalks are crumbling; if they don't know a neighbor who could serve as a walking partner to help them feel safe; or if there's nothing interesting to see outside of their homes?

9 Jun 2005

Neuroscientists redefine the dyslexic brain

The dyslexic brain may have a general problem forming perceptual categories, including the templates for printed letters and speech sounds, say University of Southern California (USC) neuroscientists.

5 Jun 2005

Scientists create digital bacteria to advance biomedical research

Scientists at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory have constructed a computer simulation that allows them to study the relationship between biochemical fluctuations within a single cell and the cell's behavior as it interacts with other cells and its environment.

5 Jun 2005

Consumption comes with a mental health cost

With consumption comes a cost, says report in the June 2005 issue the Journal of Consumer Research. But, this time it is not just dollars that are at stake, it may be your mental health, too.

3 Jun 2005

Autism community knows there is no one-size-fits-all approach

Autism therapy is bedeviled by unpredictable outcomes. Even with the best behavioral treatments, which are the only ones to have been scientifically demonstrated to work - says Laura Schreibman, professor of psychology and director of the Autism Research Program at the University of California, San Diego - some children improve dramatically, some only somewhat and others not at all.

1 Jun 2005

Oxytocin - don't sniff it if you want to hang on to your money!

Scientists have often suspected that oxytocin, a neuropeptide involved in various behaviors related to emotion, plays a key role in trust. In humans, oxytocin induces childbirth and lactation, and plays a key role in maternal bonding, while in animals, researchers believe it encourages mating by suspending the animals normal wariness of other animals which allows "approach behavior."

1 Jun 2005

Learning about each other's differences is the way to reduce prejudice

From anti-Semitism to Islamophobia, from the fear of terrorism to hostility towards asylum seekers, conflict between different cultural groups continues to be an alarming feature of the 21st century.

1 Jun 2005

Sniffing out a partner

Beneath the perfume, soap and deodorant, it seems that the old smelly rules of attraction still apply.

1 Jun 2005

Those old crooners were right, love really can make you crazy

According to scientists brain images show that falling in love can look for all the world like mental illness with a mixture of mania, dementia and obsession that cuts people off from friends and family prompting uncharacteristic behavior which could almost be mistaken for psychosis.

31 May 2005

Young adults forget their own life-support decisions

More than half of young adults soon unwittingly change their minds about decisions they make governing future life-saving medical treatment for themselves, a new study has found.

30 May 2005

Adolescent depression can be as high as 20 percent

Teenage depression is widespread and can become a life-long illness, but is more often transitory, said UCLA Psychology Professor Constance Hammen, who discussed her research at the American Psychological Society's annual convention in Los Angeles.

29 May 2005

New evidence for cause of dyslexia

Addressing a persistent debate in the field of dyslexia research, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Southern California (USC) have disproved the popular theory that deficits in certain visual processes cause the spelling and reading woes commonly suffered by dyslexics.

29 May 2005

How the human brain can learn without thinking

Watch out -- you may learn something and not even know it, says Takeo Watanabe, an associate professor of psychology at Boston University's Center for Brain and Memory. Watanabe and his team recently pinpointed the mechanism that makes subliminal learning work. Watanabe will present the team's findings at the American Psychological Society meeting in Los Angeles, May 27 and 28.

26 May 2005

Tendency to be prejudiced is a form of common sense, hard-wired into the human brain

Contrary to what most people believe, the tendency to be prejudiced is a form of common sense, hard-wired into the human brain through evolution as an adaptive response to protect our prehistoric ancestors from danger.

26 May 2005

Most elementary school age children are harsher judges of others than adults and older children

By the time children are in second grade, they know to take what people say with a grain of salt, particularly when the statement supports the speaker's self-interest, according to a published study by Yale researchers.

26 May 2005

Study suggests deadlines intensify emotions

Amateur observers and scholars alike have remarked that older people often have more intense and complex emotional lives than their younger cohort. What accounts for the difference, wondered psychologist Ursina Teuscher: Wisdom gained with the gathering years? A shift in values thanks to greater life experience? Or, is it a keener sense of time – a precious and, of necessity, diminishing resource?

26 May 2005

Psychology studies confirm 'unfelt' emotion can alter consequential behavior

In studies led by Piotr Winkielman, associate professor of psychology at the University of California, San Diego, people altered their consumption behaviors after exposure to subliminal facial expressions.

26 May 2005

Familiar songs act as strong memory cues

Memories associated with music are strong. So strong that even the mere mention of a song's title or a glimpse of the album cover can bring the recollections of a time or place flooding back.

26 May 2005

State of "incomplete" health has resulted in a loss of productivity in the workforce

While most American adults may not be patently sick, a vast majority of them still lack full health and vitality. This state of "incomplete" health has resulted in a loss of productivity in the workforce, and potentially increases health care costs in the long term, according to a new Emory University study published in the May issue of the Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health.

25 May 2005

Early-onset antisocial behaviour in children with psychopathic tendencies is largely inherited

The findings are the result of extensive research funded by the Medical Research Council, the Department of Health and the Home Office, and carried out by Dr. Essi Viding of the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, within the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London.

24 May 2005