Feature Channels: Psychology and Psychiatry

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Despite concerns that stay-at-home orders and other government efforts to stem the spread of COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic would cause lasting harm to people’s mental health, research published by the American Psychological Association found that state restrictions in the first six months of the pandemic were not related to worse mental health.

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Rates of anxiety and depression have been increasing around the world for decades, a trend that has been sharply exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Some children aged 7 years and younger may benefit from screening for anxiety in primary care, according to an editorial published in JAMA by John Walkup, MD, Chair of Pritzker Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and colleagues. The authors respond to the US Preventive Services Task Force recommendation that children be screened for anxiety at 8-18 years of age.

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Not all older adults were offended by public health messaging, but they were affected in other ways

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An interdisciplinary team of researchers reports on how social norms—“patterns of behaviors or values that depend on expectations about what others do and/or think should be done”—can be harnessed to bring about collective climate action and policy change.

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An odor machine, so-called olfactometer, makes it possible to smell in VR environments. First up is a “wine tasting game” where the user smells wine in a virtual wine cellar and gets points if the guess on aromas in each wine is correct.

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The fear, uncertainty and stress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic took a toll on adults’ mental and physical health – and their sex lives, several studies reported.

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A study of U.S. middle and high school students shows that about 17 percent were cyberbullied in 2016 and 2019, but that proportion rose to 23 percent in 2021. Notably, 19 percent of Asian American youth said they had been cyberbullied, and about 1 in 4 (23.5 percent) indicated they were victimized online because of their race/color. Asian American youth were the only racial group where the majority (59 percent) reported more cyberbullying since the start of the COVID‐19 pandemic. In 2019, Asian American youth were the least likely to have experienced cyberbullying.

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New Washington University in St. Louis research suggests those touched by the sometimes devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are now more likely to recognize sources of inequality and, in turn, advocate for greater equality in the United States.

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Working alongside robots may contribute to job burnout and workplace incivility, but self-affirmation techniques could help alleviate fears about being replaced by these machines, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

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Are depressed people simply more realistic in judging how much they control their lives, while others view the world through rose-colored lenses, living under the illusion that they have more control than they do? That’s the general idea behind depressive realism, a theory that has held sway in science and popular culture for more than four decades. The problem is, it's not true, researchers find.

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A new survey from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine reveals that nearly 60% of adults (58%) have lost sleep due to worries about politics.

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On World Mental Health Day, NCCN announced an updated NCCN Distress Thermometer, is available in more than 70 languages, to help people around the world identify and address psychosocial stressors that may raise challenges when coping with having cancer, its symptoms, or treatment.

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People with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and their carers report experiencing discrimination and stigma when presenting to health services following self-harm or a suicide attempt, leading to inadequate treatment and care for suicide prevention, say authors of a new large-scale review.

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Research from the Arizona State University Department of Psychology has shown that positive communication among family members contributes to less depressive symptoms and alcohol use in Latino students during their transition to college. The study also found that parent awareness of their child’s daily lives predicted less alcohol use.

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Mindfulness studies have long dominated our understanding of the neurobiology of meditation, with practitioners of mindfulness-related meditation taught to be vigilant of the content of their thoughts so as to experience relaxation and stress reduction to improve attention and focus. A recent study led by Associate Professor Maria Kozhevnikov from the Department of Psychology at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, has discovered a different class of meditative practices that seeks to employ and regulate the state of stress that an individual experiences – rather than to reduce it – to achieve an even more heightened state of focus and attention.

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When people believe that a door is closing -- that they have a limited amount of time left to enjoy something, such as dining out or traveling -- they gravitate to the comfort of something familiar rather than the excitement of something new, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

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By: Bill Wellock | Published: October 5, 2022 | 1:50 pm | SHARE: Hurricane Ian left a path of destruction in its wake, and communities in Florida and elsewhere are working to rebuild in the aftermath.Florida State University faculty are available to speak to media covering post-storm recovery efforts.COMMUNITY RESILIENCE Brad Schmidt, professor, Department of Psychology schmidt@psy.

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Trying to understand people we disagree with can feel like a lost cause, particularly in contentious political environments. But research in Psychological Science suggests that cross-partisan empathy may actually make our political arguments more persuasive, rather than softening our convictions.

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First responder teams better grasp an emergency situation when they use continual, clear texting communication of factual information in a way that all members can understand, and that is key to a successful team response, according to new research at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).

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PSPI Live is an online symposium series that highlights papers published in the APS journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest (PSPI).

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When a high school or college student consults a physician about a sport-related concussion, their age, severity of symptoms, number of previous concussions, and family history of psychiatric disorders predict whether they can be released to supervision by an athletic trainer or will need additional medical care, according to an article in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

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Tufts University School of Medicine Chair of Psychiatry Paul Summergrad discusses the pandemic’s impact on mental health and what needs to be done to improve access to care

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Acetaminophen use during pregnancy is associated with sleep and behavior problems consistent with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to a study by Penn State College of Medicine researchers.

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A federally-funded study led by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers discovered that communication among cells is altered in pregnant women who go on to develop postpartum depression (PPD) after giving birth.

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A new study in Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology shows that targeted cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can significantly lessen food allergy-related anxiety (FAA) for both children and parents.