Psychology

The Optimism Of Depressed People

Even depressed people are essentially optimistic- they believe that tomorrow will be better, even though that belief probably won't lead to better outcomes. That is true optimism. A paper in Clinical Psychological Science says that middle-aged adults ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 21 2014 - 8:56am

Perception Of Hatred Fuels Conflicts Between Democrats And Republicans

There are some things that Republicans and Democrats share in common with Palestinians and Israelis and lots of other groups where human conflict seems intractable. A new sociology paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that seeming ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 21 2014 - 6:00pm

To Reduce Drug-Related Harm, It's Time To Be Honest About The Pleasure

Getting high on own supply. Dance by Shutterstock By Adam Winstock, King's College London Despite the language we use about drugs, many people don’t see themselves as “drug users” but as rational adults who aren’t on a mission to seek moral disintegr ...

Article - The Conversation - Oct 21 2014 - 2:30pm

Violent Immersion: How 3-D Gaming Affects Player Emotions

Playing violent video games in 3-D makes everything seem more real –  and in a new study researchers found that people who played violent video games in 3-D showed more evidence of anger afterward than people who played games on 2-D systems.  That may hav ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 21 2014 - 8:42pm

It’s Art, but is it Abstract?

We have over the years read of paintings by chimpanzees, but could they be art critics also? A recent article has appeared, outlining evidence that many cognitive tasks the we take to be a function of our human intelligence can be performed just as well ( ...

Blog Post - Robert H Olley - Oct 23 2014 - 1:49am

Why Do We Find It So Hard To Write About Ourselves?

Credit: The Conversation By Jordan Gaines Lewis, Penn State College of Medicine If you’ve ever applied for a job, you know how hard it is to write the perfect cover letter that will make you stand out above all the other applicants. It’s a competitive job ...

Article - The Conversation - Oct 22 2014 - 6:30pm

Cheers To Psychology: Why A Failure To Replicate Is Good News For The Field

Psychology has endured a lot of black eyes in recent years. Numerous papers have used arbitrary interpretations of brain scans, surveys of college students and unreal levels of social priming, implicit association and motivated reasoning. It has become woo ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Aug 23 2019 - 11:46am

The Army May Not Increase Risk Of Suicide, More Suicidal People May Join

Due to increased awareness of suicide and military life, there has been concern military lifestyle may be causing more suicides. A new study instead finds that new soldiers are twice as likely to have three or more psychological disorders, or comorbidity, ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 23 2014 - 6:28pm

Sadness Lasts 240X Longer Than Other Emotions

A new psychology paper says people feel sad up to 240 times longer than they do ashamed, surprised, irritated or even bored. The reason may be because sadness often goes hand in hand with events of greater impact such as death or accidents and so we need ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 30 2014 - 12:01pm

Sexual Fantasies: Threesomes Are Normal, Golden Showers Not So Much

Fantasizing about sex with two women is common but fantasizing about being urinated on- called a golden shower- is not. That's just one of the findings from a research project on sexual deviation undertaken by scholars at Institut universitaire en sa ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 31 2014 - 12:36am