Psychology

Despite What We Might Say, We Don't Like Unfamiliar Music

Though we have access to a seemingly limitless amount of new music each day, we keep coming back to songs or albums, mostly stuff we liked at college age. It's common to prefer the familiar- even by college students who may self-identify as preferring ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 28 2013 - 3:13pm

Eudaimonic Well-Being: Mother Teresa Had Better Immune Cells Than You Due To Purpose In Life?

Positive psychology is so powerful it can change gene expression, according to a paper in PNAS. A good state of mind, your happiness levels, affect your genes, say academics in psychoneuroimmunology, psychology and psychiatry at UCLA and the University of ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 30 2013 - 10:46am

Psychotherapy Over The Internet Just As Effective

Psychotherapy done over the Internet work is just as effective as face-to-face psychotherapy according to a new paper. The authors from the University of Zurich assumed that the two forms of therapy were on a par but found that the results for online ther ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 30 2013 - 10:45am

Breast Reduction Surgery Makes Women Happier

Breast reduction surgery has been linked to measurable improvements in several important areas of both physical health and quality of life, according to a new paper. The study used the BREAST-Q© questionnaire, a well-validated survey instrument, to docume ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 30 2013 - 3:14pm

Oxytocin Proves Difference In Social Perception Between Men And Women, Say Psychologists

Oxytocin, called the 'love hormone' in popular accounts, affects men and women differently in social contexts, say a group of psychologists. In men it improves the ability to identify competitive relationships whereas in women it facilitates the ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 31 2013 - 10:07am

Guesstimating Can Speed Up Math Ability

Mathematics is a skill. Some people are better at it than others, so an individual person's math ability can range anywhere from being able to do simple arithmetic to calculus and abstract set theory.  But there is some math ability we all share, acc ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 7 2013 - 1:04pm

Battered Dogs Get More Empathy Than Battered Adults

Surveys show that people have less empathy for battered human adults than they do dogs, according to a paper at the American Sociological Association. Jack Levin  and Arnold Arluke, sociology professors at Northeastern University, used the opinions of 240 ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 10 2013 - 7:58pm

Anorexia And Elevated Autistic Traits

What group has above average interest in systems and scores below average in empathy? If you answered autistic people, you are correct. If you answered girls with anorexia, also correct. Girls with anorexia nervosa show a mild echo of the characteristics o ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 11 2013 - 9:30am

The Psychology Of Distrusting Science

People have always distrusted science, just like people have always been afraid of the supernatural (unless it promises a spiritual pot of gold at the end of your particular rainbow) but the naturalistic fallacy- that natural is somehow good and unnatural ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Aug 14 2013 - 12:40pm

Taxonomy Study Says Family Killers A Special Class Of Murderer

'Family annihilators', where the male parent murders the family, are most prevalent in August. That doesn't mean much, it is too rare a crime to have a lot of data and when there are 12 months in the year, one month is going to be first, but ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 15 2013 - 8:35am