Psychology news

• Visual feedback enhances activation of muscle movement in response to bodily sensation

  31-03-2020 19:00
  Visual feedback is just as important as a sense of body position when it comes to the involuntary reflexes that activate muscle movement, says a new study.
  
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• My patient’s near-death experience in hospital left me with worry and guilt. This is how vicarious trauma starts | Ranjana Srivastava

  10-02-2026 15:00
  Afterwards, my team and I kept going without ever discussing the event. But something felt heavy. And because I couldn’t name it, I didn’t know how to deal with it“And who are you?” Tracking the voice, I realise the nurse is talking to me.“I’m the physician looking after the patient.” Continue reading...
  
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• Menopause Linked to Grey Matter Loss in Key Brain Regions

  09-02-2026 06:07 via socialpsychology.org
  Source: Science Daily - Top HealthA major study suggests menopause is linked to changes in brain structure, mental health, and sleep. Brain scans revealed grey matter loss in areas tied to memory and emotional regulation, while many women reported increased anxiety, depression, and fatigue. Hormone therapy did not reverse these effects, though it may slow age-related declines in reaction speed. Researchers say menopause could represent an important turning point for brain health.
  
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• New Transgender Policy Consensus Reached Across Sports

  09-02-2026 06:06 via socialpsychology.org
  Source:Al JazeeraGlobal sports leaders ‌have reached consensus on eligibility criteria for transgender athletes, with the new policy expected to be announced within the first half of this year, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said Saturday. It would be the first uniform policy adopted by the IOC and international sports federations, applying to dozens of sports, including the Games and world championships. Currently, federations each have their own...
  
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• How the Brain Changes As a Romance Matures

  09-02-2026 06:06 via socialpsychology.org
  Source: PsyPostA new study suggests that the human brain processes romantic partners differently than close friends. The research, published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, found that the brain creates a unique neural signature for a partner early in a relationship, but the distinction tends to fade as the bond matures. These findings offer insight on how the biological drivers of romantic love may evolve from passion to...
  
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• A Hidden Aloe Vera Compound May Help Treat Alzheimer's

  09-02-2026 06:06 via socialpsychology.org
  Source: Science Daily - Top HealthScientists are continuing to search for new ways to treat Alzheimer's disease, a progressive brain disorder that affects memory, thinking, and behavior. In a recent study, researchers identified several compounds found in Aloe vera that could offer new possibilities for future treatments. Aloe vera is best known as a soothing plant used for skin care, but it also contains natural chemicals that may influence biological processes inside the body.
  
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• How AI and Virtual Worlds Are Reshaping Holocaust Remembrance

  09-02-2026 06:05 via socialpsychology.org
  Source: United Nations NewsAs Holocaust survivors age and first-hand testimony becomes rarer, educators are turning to new technologies to preserve memory, foster empathy, and engage younger generations far beyond museums and classrooms using narrative-driven games and immersive virtual spaces allowing students to not only observe history but interact with it. The challenge is to employ the technologies thoughtfully enough to ensure that memory endures for generations to...
  
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• White House Lauds Plastic Surgeons' Statement on Trans Surgery

  09-02-2026 06:04 via socialpsychology.org
  Source: NPRThe Trump administration celebrated a recent statement from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, which recommends that doctors delay gender-related surgery until a patient is at least 19 years old. In an email to NPR, the Society noted that the new position statement is not a reversal of a previous position. It is also not a new clinical practice guideline, but rather, an articulation of the professional group's recommendations.
  
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• Social Media Firms Sued for Mental Health Harms, But Are They Addictive?

  09-02-2026 06:04 via socialpsychology.org
  Source: Google News - HealthForthcoming legal proceedings against Meta and YouTube are frequently referred to as the "social media addiction trials," but whether these platforms are truly addictive is still under scientific debate. Lawsuits were brought against Meta, YouTube (Google), Snap, and TikTok by plaintiffs alleging these platforms severely damaged their mental health during childhood. Snap and TikTok settled the first case, but Meta and YouTube are fighting it.
  
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• Social media companies are being sued for harming their users’ mental health – but are the platforms addictive?

  08-02-2026 16:00
  Experts say the term ‘addiction’ is be overused and, for social media use, could be difficult to proveForthcoming legal proceedings against Meta and YouTube are frequently referred to as the “social media addiction trials”, but whether these platforms are truly addictive is still the subject of scientific debate.The lawsuits were brought against Meta, YouTube (Google), Snap Inc and TikTok by plaintiffs alleging these platforms severely damaged their mental health when the
  
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• Readers’ replies: why does a song sometimes get stuck in our heads – and what makes an earworm?

  08-02-2026 15:00
  The series in which readers answer other readers’ questions explores the sounds and music that play on repeat mentally – and how to escape their aural clutches• This week’s question: can you acquire courage?I know a song that’ll get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nerves. I know a so … you get the gist! Why does a song sometimes get stuck in our heads? (And good luck stopping this one now!) Laura Ashton, Haslemere, SurreySend new questions to n
  
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• Is Australia getting ruder? How to be kinder to others in everyday life – and break the contagion of rage

  08-02-2026 15:00
  Slow down, take a deep breath, maybe even let the other car take the park. In the face of rudeness, sometimes the most radical thing to do is remain passively politeGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailThink of a typical day in our angry world. You open social media and read abuse either directed at yourself or someone else, then you get in your car and find yourself aggressively overtaken while driving at the speed limit. You pull into a shopping mall car park, where another driver execut
  
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• Can you acquire courage?

  08-02-2026 15:00
  The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts• This week’s replies: why does a song sometimes get stuck in our heads – and what makes an earworm?Is it possible to acquire courage if you don’t have it? I was moved this week by the story of the Australian boy who swam to land for several hours in rough seas to raise the alarm that his mother an
  
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• ‘I’m the psychedelic confessor’: the man who turned a generation on to hallucinogens returns with a head-spinning book about consciousness

  08-02-2026 10:00
  With the Omnivore’s Dilemma and How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan transformed our understanding of food and drugs. Can he do the same for our sense of self?Several years ago, Michael Pollan had a disturbing encounter. The relentlessly curious journalist and author was at a conference on plant behaviour in Vancouver. There, he’d learned that when plants are damaged, they produce an anaesthetising chemical, ethylene. Was this a form of self-soothing, like the release of endorphin
  
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• The troubling rise of longevity fixation syndrome

  08-02-2026 06:00 via theguardian.com
  This unofficial diagnosis describes the anxiety-driven, compulsive obsession with living as long as possible.
  
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• How where you grow up affects your personality

  07-02-2026 06:00 via bbc.com
  The environment we grow up in can shape some aspects of our personality more than others.
  
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• Fired After Gender Identity Lesson, Professor Sues Texas A&M

  06-02-2026 06:12 via socialpsychology.org
  Source: Google News - HealthMonths after Texas A&M fired a professor over a gender identity lesson, she is suing the university, alleging administrators knowingly violated her free speech and due process rights. In a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, former A&M lecturer Melissa McCoul alleged that Governor Greg Abbott's chief of staff asked then-university President Mark Welsh to press for her termination and that Provost Alan Sams was told not to give her a required hearing...
  
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• Uganda's Anti-LGBTQ+ Law Exposes Systemic Failures

  06-02-2026 06:11 via socialpsychology.org
  Source: DW- top storiesEarlier this week, a court in Uganda dismissed the first case brought under the country's Anti-Homosexuality Act. The accused, a man who was 20 when he was arrested in August 2023, had spent nearly a year in detention before being released on bail as the case progressed over an extended period. He was initially accused of "unlawful sexual intercourse" with a 41-year-old man and charged with "aggravated homosexuality"—an offense punishable by...
  
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• More Companies Are Pointing to AI As They Lay Off Employees

  06-02-2026 06:11 via socialpsychology.org
  Source: CBS News - U.S. NewsWhen Pinterest and Dow announced layoffs last month, they attributed the job cuts in part to a shift to artificial intelligence—a sign that some companies are investing in AI as they pare payrolls. Although economists have generally downplayed the impact to date of AI on the U.S. workforce, that may offer little comfort to 55,000 employees who lost their job in 2025 as a result of AI—more than 12 times the number of layoffs due to AI just...
  
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• Moltbook Is the Newest Social Media Platform—But It's Just for AI Bots

  06-02-2026 06:11 via socialpsychology.org
  Source: NPRCan computer programs have faith? Can they conspire against the humans that created them? Or feel melancholy? On a social media platform built just for artificial intelligence bots, some of them are acting like it. Moltbook was launched a week ago as a Reddit-like platform for AI agents. Agents, or bots, are a type of computer program that can autonomously carry out tasks such as organizing email inboxes or booking travel.
  
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• Depression can look different for everyone, but some symptoms could increase dementia risk

  06-02-2026 06:00 via us.cnn.com
  Study looks at symptoms in midlife and if they signal greater vulnerability to dementia decades later.
  
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• What *not* to say to someone who doesn’t want kids

  05-02-2026 06:00 via cosmopolitan.com
  Experts recommend ways to respond to someone who expresses a desire not to have children.
  
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• The rise of ‘low contact’ family relationships: ‘I said, Mum, I need to take some space’

  05-02-2026 06:00
  Many people are now opting for minimal contact with their parents and other relatives. But while this can provide time to think, it is fraught with emotional complexitiesWhen her mum called her, stress would ring through Marie’s body like an alarm going off. So “I stopped answering the phone,” she says. She forms the words purposefully, as if reading from a script. This was one of the “boundaries” she discussed carefully with her therapist three years ago when she r
  
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• Some Public Health Service officers deployed in detention centers suffer 'moral distress'

  05-02-2026 06:00 via npr.org
  The Department of Homeland Security's push to detain and deport immigrants has led to high numbers of detainees and a need for more medical staff.
  
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• Things reek, stink and pong – but why are there no verbs for describing a delightful odour? | Adrian Chiles

  04-02-2026 17:16
  We don’t have a single verb to express smelling something nice. Welsh and Croatian, by contrast, are never caught short when something fragrant gets right up your noseI remember the first time I remembered a smell. This was remembering to the extent that it stopped me in my tracks, taking me back to a specific moment, a specific place and a specific feeling. The smell was that of a bike shop. Mainly rubber, with notes of oil and plastic and a strong hint of sheer excitement. In that instan
  
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• French Police Raid X Offices in Paris, Summon Musk in Cybercrime Probe

  03-02-2026 15:22 via socialpsychology.org
  Source: DW- top storiesFrench police, alongside Europol, searched the office of Elon Musk's social media platform X in the French capital on Tuesday, the Paris prosecutor's office said. The platform, formerly known as Twitter, is being investigated for a litany of alleged offenses, including Holocaust denial, boosting engagement for far-right extremist content, and allowing the company's AI chatbot to create sexualized deepfake images of women and children.
  
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• President Trump's Greenland "Piece of Ice" Comment Echoes History

  03-02-2026 15:21 via socialpsychology.org
  Source: DW- top storiesWhen U.S. President Donald Trump referred to Greenland as "a piece of ice" during his recent speech at the World Economic Forum, it seemed to ignore that Greenland has been inhabited for close to five millennia and is home to over 56,000 people, mostly of Inuit descent. It also echoed a long‑standing pattern by colonial powers to apply their own ideas of land ownership to places where indigenous people regard land as something to be shared...
  
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• What scientists still don’t know about autism

  03-02-2026 06:00 via npr.org
  Every autistic person has their own unique constellation of behaviors and characteristics.
  
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• Ultra-processed foods should be treated more like cigarettes than food – study

  03-02-2026 06:00
  UPFs are made to encourage addiction and consumption and should be regulated like tobacco, say researchersUltra-processed foods (UPFs) have more in common with cigarettes than with fruit or vegetables, and require far tighter regulation, according to a new report.UPFs and cigarettes are engineered to encourage addiction and consumption, researchers from three US universities said, pointing to the parallels in widespread health harms that link both. Continue reading...
  
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• How Team USA has evolved mental health services for Olympians

  02-02-2026 06:00 via usatoday.com
  The mental health program has become more robust with more than 500 psychological services professionals and several ways to assess athletes for mental health needs.
  
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