Feature Channels: Psychology and Psychiatry

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New research from of the Sexuality and Gender Laboratory at Queen's University shows that heterosexual women have more diverse patterns of sexual response than previously reported.

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Scientists in California and Utah have developed software that recognizes words and vocal qualities in therapy. The vocal data is run through algorithms to infer, for instance, whether a counseling session was empathic.

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Mitochondria, the tiny structures inside our cells that generate energy, may also play a previously unrecognized role in mind-body interactions. Based on new studies of stress responses in animals, this insight may have broad implications for human psychology and for the biology of psychiatric and neurological diseases.

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Researchers at FAU and colleagues put to test the hypothesis that adolescents become less similar to their friends and more similar to romantic partners after they start a new romantic relationship.

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New research from The New York Academy of Medicine reveals the circumstances contributing to mental health problems in a range of urban residents.

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Kids and teens who take medications like Ritalin to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder are twice as likely to be physically or emotionally bullied by peers than those who don't have ADHD, a new University of Michigan study found.

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Women with multiple tattoos report higher self-esteem than anyone else in the study and escalating acquisition of body art does not correlate with increased depression or suicide ideation. However, the same multi-tattooed women also report a much higher frequency of past suicide attempts.

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As the nation watches the reports about the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, many people may find themselves feeling anxious, worried, saddened or otherwise concerned.

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The following feature was produced by the American Psychological Association. You may reprint it in its entirety or in part. We only request that you credit APA as the source. We also have provided a photograph of Bockting for reprinting.

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A new study by Dr. Naama Mayseless and Prof. Simone Shamay-Tsoory from the Department of Psychology at the University of Haifa attempted to crack the connection between brain activity and creativity. The results shed a new, perhaps unexpected light, on our ability to think outside the box

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Facebook can have positive and negative effects on teens levels of a stress hormone, say researchers at the University of Montreal and the Institut universitaire de santé mentale de Montréal.

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University of Iowa researchers say behavior, particularly psychologist Edward Thorndike’s law of effect, is the foundational principle behind the evolution of the violin and other handmade inventions. Simply put, behaviors that are followed by positive outcomes tend to be repeated.

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Consumers of self-help books are more sensitive to stress and show higher depressive symptomatology, according to a study conducted by researchers at the CIUSSS de l'Est-de-l'Île-de-Montréal (Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal) and the University of Montreal, the findings of which were published in Neural Plasticity.

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When parents have high hopes for their children’s academic achievement, the children tend to do better in school, unless those hopes are unrealistic, in which case the children may not perform well in school, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

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University of Alberta research is giving insight into how officer interactions with the homeless can shape their long-term attitudes toward police. The study, published in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, finds negative interactions can affect attitudes for at least two years.

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Being bullied in childhood has been associated with increased risk for anxiety, depression and even eating disorders. But according to new research, it’s not only the victims who could be at risk psychologically, but also the bullies themselves.

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What can you tell about people and their situations from only 140 characters? Apparently, quite a lot according to a new study about Twitter. Researchers from FAU used more than 20 million Tweets to study the psychological characteristics of real-world situations that people actually experienced over the course of two weeks.

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Women with apple-shaped bodies – those who store more of their fat in their trunk and abdominal regions – may be at particular risk for the development of eating episodes during which they experience a sense of “loss of control,” according to a new study from Drexel University. The study also found that women with greater fat stores in their midsections reported being less satisfied with their bodies, which may contribute to loss-of-control eating.

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When team members are motivated toward promoting the benefits of others, they are higher-performing and stay in their teams for a longer period, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Notre Dame and University of Illinois at Chicago.

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When supervisors are verbally abusive to their subordinates, it harms not only the employees, but the organization as a whole, says Texas A&M University Professor of Management Stephen Courtright, whose study reveals it’s often factors outside of work that cause bad boss behavior.

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Patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) can improve their symptoms significantly by adding exposure and response prevention therapy to their treatment regimen when common drug treatment options have failed, according to new research from psychiatrists at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The study is published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

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“Blink and you’ll miss it” isn’t only for eyelids. The human brain also blinks, dropping a few frames of visual information here and there. Those lapses of attention come fast — maybe just once every tenth of a second. But some people may be missing more than others, according to psychologists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

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In her PhD thesis, conducted at the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Olga Chelnokova has explored how our visual system is able to direct attention to the most important information in a face. Her study suggest that evolution has made us experts on faces.

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Parents’ charitable giving is affected by the sex of their first child, according to a new report released today by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, located on the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis campus.

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Human factors/ergonomics researchers examined the relationship between U.S. voting system usability and the polling station environment because these systems are so diverse and little is understood about the impact of one on the other. The study reveals that if environmental features and system attributes deter people from voting, it could lead to altered election outcomes.

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When sports fans wear their lucky shirts on game day, they know it is irrational to think clothing can influence a team’s performance. But they do it anyway. In a paper from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, to be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Review, Associate Professor Jane Risen finds that even when people recognize that their belief does not make sense, they can still allow that irrational belief to influence how they think, feel and behave.

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A prison pen pal scheme, currently operating in 52 prisons in England and Wales, is contributing to prisoner wellbeing, offering early warning of potential suicide and improving the chances of successful rehabilitation, says an in-depth study from the University of Warwick.

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Psychogenic fever is a stress-related, psychosomatic condition that manifests itself in a high body temperature. It is caused by exposure to emotional events or to chronic stress.

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New research from the University of Waterloo debunks the age-old moral philosophy that if you are unable to do something, then you are not morally obligated to do it.

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In the long term, cognitive behavior therapy is more effective at treating seasonal affective disorder that light therapy, considered the gold standard, a study to be published in the American Journal of Psychiatry found. Two winters after the initial treatment, 46 percent of research subjects given light therapy reported a recurrence of depression compared with 27 percent of those who were administered CBT. Depressive symptoms were also more severe for those who received light therapy.

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UC San Diego paper finds young adults are more envious than older adults. They are more envious over looks and for a wider range of other reasons, too. It also appears that both men and women are more likely to envy someone who is of their own gender and approximately their own age

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The hippocampus, a brain structure known to play a role in memory and spatial navigation, is essential to one’s ability to recognize previously encountered events, objects, or people – a phenomenon known as recognition memory – according to new research from the departments of Neurosurgery and Psychology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Their work is published in PNAS.

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According to a surprising new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, a decades-long decline in the death rate of middle-aged white Americans (age 45 to 54) has reversed in recent years. The causes are not the big killers such as heart disease and diabetes but an epidemic of suicides and substance abuse. The study was done by Nobel-winning researchers Angus Deaton and Anne Case of Princeton University.

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Music has long been described, anecdotally, as a universal language. This may not be entirely true, but we're one step closer to understanding why humans are so deeply affected by certain melodies and modes.

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What people believe they want and what they prefer are not always the same thing. When outperformed as an element of romantic attraction, the difference between affinity and desirability becomes clearer as the distance between people gets smaller.

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Nonsuicidal self-injury is not officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) as a mental disorder, which means insurance may not cover treatment - despite estimates that anywhere from 10 to 40 percent of adolescents suffer from it. “The mental health system is failing patients who have a clear problem for which they need help,” says Edward Selby, an assistant professor of psychology in Rutgers’ School of Arts and Sciences in New Brunswick, whose research lays out a case for recognizing the condition.

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If you are trying to achieve a goal, the more often that you monitor your progress, the greater the likelihood that you will succeed, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. Your chances of success are even more likely if you report your progress publicly or physically record it.

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In a new study from the University of Montreal, infants remained calm twice as long when listening to a song, which they didn’t even know, as they did when listening to speech.

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Recent negative publicity surrounding police after several shootings of unarmed civilians appears to have diminished some officers’ motivation to be in law enforcement but does not decrease willingness to carry out their duties, according to a study published by the American Psychological Association.

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People who have had an episode of major depression are at high risk for having another episode. Now, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have found that the risk of recurrence is significantly lower for people with complete, rather than partial depressive symptom resolution.

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The hormone oxytocin, which has been associated with interpersonal bonding, may enhance the pleasure of social interactions by stimulating production of marijuana-like neurotransmitters in the brain, according to a University of California, Irvine study. The research provides the first link between oxytocin – dubbed the “love hormone” – and anandamide, which has been called the “bliss molecule” for its role in activating cannabinoid receptors in brain cells to heighten motivation and happiness.

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Fear-based appeals appear to be effective at influencing attitudes and behaviors, especially among women, according to a comprehensive review of over 50 years of research on the topic, published by the American Psychological Association.

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A key ingredient to improving couples’ marriages might just be gratitude, according to new University of Georgia research. The study was recently published in the journal Personal Relationships.

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Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center say they have added to evidence that a shell-shaped region in the center of the mammalian brain, known as the thalamic reticular nucleus or TRN, is likely responsible for the ability to routinely and seamlessly multitask.

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A new study, led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute, the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System and University of California San Diego School of Medicine shows that increasing a crucial membrane protein in nerve cells within the brain can improve learning and memory in aged mice.

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Workers who feel emotionally attached to and identify with their work have better psychological well-being, reports a study in the November Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).

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Research shows that end-of-life dreams are comforting and may improve quality of life.