Psychology news

• Readers recommend: melancholy songs | Peter Kimpton

  27-08-2015 21:00
  
  Bittersweet, articulate, beautiful or bold? Suggest selections for a special form of sadness in songs in this week’s sorrowful but strangely uplifting topic
  “Misery is the river of the world,” grunts out an energetically downbeat Tom Waits. “Melancholy is sadness that has taken on lightness,” replies the eccentric, upbeat author Italo Calvino. And, now also entering the Readers Recommend bar (you never know who might turn up), here’s Rob Spragg, aka Larry Love
  
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• Study delivers bleak verdict on validity of psychology experiment results

  27-08-2015 20:00
  
  Of 100 studies published in top-ranking journals in 2008, 75% of social psychology experiments and half of cognitive studies failed the replication testA major investigation into scores of claims made in psychology research journals has delivered a bleak verdict on the state of the science.An international team of experts repeated 100 experiments published in top psychology journals and found that they could reproduce only 36% of original findings.Related: The first imperative: Science that isn&
  
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• Surprised? Cholinergic neurons send broadcasts enabling us to learn from the unexpected

  27-08-2015 19:01
  Neuroscientists have discovered a set of cholinergic neurons in the basal forebrain that broadcast messages throughout the cerebral cortex, rapidly informing multiple distributed subregions of any surprising rewards or punishments -- what scientists call reinforcers. It's a way we learn from the unexpected.
  
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• Creative and neurotic: Is neuroticism fueled by overthinking?

  27-08-2015 19:01
  Psychologists have presented a new theory for why neurotic unhappiness and creativity go hand-in-hand. The authors argue that the part of the brain responsible for self-generated thought is highly active in neuroticism, which yields both of the trait's positives (e.g., creativity) and negatives (e.g., misery).
  
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• Parkinson’s disease brain cells at risk of burnout, like an overheating motor

  27-08-2015 18:20
  The death of brain cells in Parkinson’s disease may be caused by a form of cellular energy crisis in neurons that require unusually high quantities of energy to carry out their job of regulating movement, researchers have reported.
  
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• Alzheimer’s disease thought to be accelerated by an abnormal build-up of fat in the brain

  27-08-2015 18:20
  People with Alzheimer’s disease have fat deposits in the brain. For the first time since the disease was described 109 years ago, researchers have discovered accumulations of fat droplets in the brain of patients who died from the disease and have identified the nature of the fat.
  
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• About 10 percent of mothers experienced depression two years after Hurricane Katrina

  27-08-2015 18:19
  About 10 percent of mothers experienced chronic, persistent depressive symptoms two years after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1,800 people, displacing hundreds of thousands and causing widespread damage estimated at more than $100 billion, according to a new study.
  
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• Is neuroticism fueled by overthinking?

  27-08-2015 18:00
  
  Isaac Newton was a classic neurotic. He was a brooder and a worrier, prone to dwelling on the scientific problems before him as well as his childhood sins.
  
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• Covert and overt forms of sexism are equally damaging to working women

  27-08-2015 18:00
  
  Frequent sexist wisecracks, comments and office cultures where women are ignored are just as damaging to women as single instances of sexual coercion and unwanted sexual attention, according to a new...
  
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• Study finds fair trade logo boosts consumer's willingness to pay

  27-08-2015 17:00
  
  Researchers at the University of Bonn investigate how our brain responds to the ethical logoProducts labeled with a Fair Trade logo cause prospective buyers to dig deeper into their pockets.
  
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• Link between gene variant and aggression in children

  27-08-2015 17:00
  
  Findings help to substantiate 'differential susceptibility,' where some individuals are more susceptible to environmental conditions partly due to genotypeSome children react more strongly to...
  
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• Differences in brain structure and memory suggest adolescents may not 'grow out of' ADHD

  27-08-2015 17:00
  
  Young adults diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adolescence show differences in brain structure and perform poorly in memory tests compared to their peers, according to...
  
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• Nasal spray device for mental illness

  27-08-2015 16:17
  Researchers have tested a new device for delivering hormone treatments for mental illness through the nose. This method was found to deliver medicine to the brain with few side effects.
  
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• Selfie sticks should be banned for massaging our self-obsession

  27-08-2015 16:09
  
  More successful societies are cooperative and prosocial. Is new tech driving our inherent narcissistic tendencies beyond a healthy level?It is just over 100 years since Sigmund Freud’s polemical claim that narcissism is not only a normal, but also an ubiquitous, personality trait. “Loving oneself,” he argued, is the “libidinal complement to the egoism of the instinct of self-preservation”. In other words, we have evolved as selfish animals because our self-love is p
  
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• Suicide: Difficulty making good choices is one of the factors that make certain people vulnerable to suicide

  27-08-2015 14:36
  Few people who face challenges or live with severe depression commit suicide. Some people are clearly more vulnerable than others. A series of studies has shown that the way in which a person makes decisions is among the main factors that determines whether that person is protected from or vulnerable to suicide. High-risk decision-making was prevalent among many parents of individuals who committed suicide, which may serve to explain its apparent “inheritability”.
  
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• Fair Trade Logo Boosts Consumer’s willingness to pay

  27-08-2015 14:36
  Products labeled with a Fair Trade logo cause prospective buyers to dig deeper into their pockets. Participants were willing to pay on average 30 percent more for ethically produced goods, compared to their conventionally produced counterparts. The neuroscientists analyzed the neural pathways involved in processing products with a Fair Trade emblem. They identified a potential mechanism that explains why Fair Trade products are evaluated more positively. For instance, activity in the brain's rew
  
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• Raising your child with Victorian hang-ups: a guide for parents | Taylor Glenn

  27-08-2015 14:06
  
  Is your child too affectionate or expressive? Does this worry you? Worry no longer. Here are some tips to ensure your children grow up with a level of emotional suppression that would do any Victorian aristocrat proud.American psychologist and author of several parenting books Charlotte Reznick has reportedly advised parents that kissing children on the lips is “too sexual.” Speaking to the unfailingly respectable publication The Sun, Reznick allegedly explained that children are lik
  
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• Can speech patterns predict psychosis in young adults?

  27-08-2015 09:00
  
  Could computers analyzing speech find a place in the clinic as a means of picking out young people at risk of psychosis? A proof-of-principle study shows they could.
  
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• Crying is good for your mood

  27-08-2015 06:55
  
  Studies have shown mixed results where crying and emotional rebound are concerned.
  
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• In Katrina's aftermath, psychologists find trauma as well as resilience

  27-08-2015 06:52
  
  Researchers were surprised to observe that a number of survivors showed remarkable resilience, and even growth, in the wake of trauma.
  
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