Feature Channels: Psychology and Psychiatry

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An Iowa State University professor says reality TV shows, like American Idol, are a good example of how we all have a hard time accurately evaluating our abilities.

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Women who are night owls share the same high propensity for risk-taking as men, according to a recent study by a University of Chicago professor.

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Researchers at The Ohio State University have found a way for computers to recognize 21 distinct facial expressions—even expressions for complex or seemingly contradictory emotions such as “happily disgusted” or “sadly angry.” The study more than triples the number of documented facial expressions that researchers can now use for cognitive analysis.

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A team of researchers from the business schools at Wake Forest University, Georgia State University, and the Miami University of Ohio, determined that misreporting of project statuses, at all levels of the company, is often to blame for corporate projects failing or ballooning in cost. Everything from cultural predispositions to career aspirations motivate people to misreport, according to the study published in MIT’s Sloan Management Review.

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Spouses who regulate their emotions together in a satisfactory manner are more fulfilled sexually, psychologically, and relationally, among couples in which the woman has provoked vestibulodynia (PVD), also known as “vulvar vestibulitis".

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A simple cognitive test may be able to predict how well an individual struggling with addiction will respond to certain treatments, according to a study led by an addiction expert at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute.

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People who care about justice are swayed more by reason than emotion, according to new brain scan research from the University of Chicago Department of Psychology and Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience.

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Military men who are targets of frightening and threatening sexual harassment may experience more distress and work performance problems than military women who face the same treatment, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

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When it comes to detecting deceit, your unconscious instincts may be more accurate than conscious thought when making judgments about others, according to research by Leanne ten Brinke, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

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A large proportion of teenage boys and college men report having been coerced into sex or sexual behavior, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

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What makes a person bipolar, prone to manic highs and deep, depressed lows? Why does bipolar disorder run so strongly in families, even though no single gene is to blame? And why is it so hard to find new treatments for a condition that affects 200 million people worldwide? New stem cell research may help scientists find answers to these questions.

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A joint study by researchers at the University of California San Diego and the University of Toronto has found that a computer system spots real or faked expressions of pain more accurately than people can. The work, titled “Automatic Decoding of Deceptive Pain Expressions,” is published in the latest issue of Current Biology.

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UC San Diego experiment is the first to show a connection between adult dishonesty and children’s behavior, with kids who have been lied to more likely to cheat and then to lie to cover up the transgression.

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Cognitive scientists may have produced the strongest evidence yet that humans have separate and distinct cognitive systems with which they can categorize, classify, and conceptualize their worlds.

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We are less likely to humanize members of groups we don’t belong to—except, under some circumstances, when it comes to members of the opposite political party. A study by researchers at New York University and Harvard Business School suggests that we are more prone to view members of the opposite political party as human if we view those individuals as threatening.

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Getting motivated to exercise can be a challenge, but new research from the University of New Hampshire shows that simply remembering a positive memory about exercise may be just what it takes to get on the treadmill. This is the first study to explore how positive memories can influence future workouts.

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A new study of math anxiety shows how some people may be at greater risk to fear math not only because of negative experiences, but also because of genetic risks related to both general anxiety and math skills.

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Very young children often don't view an artistic copycat negatively, but that changes by the age of 5 or 6, even in countries that place less value on intellectual property rights than the U.S.

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Innovative approach introduces five-to-eight year-olds to the concept of natural selection using a story book, and the children show remarkable comprehension

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Your answers on psychological questionnaires, including some of the ones that some employers give their employees, might have a distinct biological signature. New research indeed demonstrates overlap between what workers feel and what their bodies actually manifest.

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When it comes to helping young adults avoid serious health problems later in life, assessing their personalities during routine medical exams could prove as useful as recording their family medical histories and smoking habits, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

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Black boys as young as 10 may not be viewed in the same light of childhood innocence as their white peers, but are instead more likely to be mistaken as older, be perceived as guilty and face police violence if accused of a crime, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

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Thirty percent of adults with Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD) report they were physically abused before they turned 18. This compares to seven per cent of those without ADD/ADHD who were physically abused before 18.

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Looking to lose weight? Think happy thoughts. An international team of researchers has found that mood and food do more than just rhyme – your mood impacts what kind and how much food you eat.

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New UT Austin study finds childhood adversity launches a lifelong process of relationship and health disadvantage for African-American men.

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A new University of Virginia psychology study has found that a sample of mostly white American children – as young as 7, and particularly by age 10 – report that black children feel less pain than white children.

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Hooking up people using similar phrases, according to one Texas Tech University researcher.

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The next time you want to turn down the emotional intensity before making an important decision, you may want to dim the lights first. A new study from the University of Toronto Scarborough shows that human emotion, whether positive or negative, is felt more intensely under bright light.

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When it comes to chronic pain, psychological interventions often provide more relief than prescription drugs or surgery without the risk of side effects, but are used much less frequently than traditional medical treatments, according to a comprehensive review published by the American Psychological Association.

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New research from the University of Adelaide has delved into the reasons why some people are unable to break free of their delusions, despite overwhelming evidence explaining the delusion isn't real.

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By the time most people are 25, they have made the most important memories of their lives, according to new research from the University of New Hampshire.

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Feeling extreme loneliness can increase an older person’s chances of premature death by 14 percent, according to research by John Cacioppo, professor of psychology at the University of Chicago.

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According to Simona Manescu and Johannes Frasnelli of the University of Montreal’s Department of Psychology, an odour is judged differently depending on whether it is accompanied by a positive or negative description when it is smelled.

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John Mayer, the University of New Hampshire psychologist and internationally recognized researcher who co-developed the groundbreaking theory of emotional intelligence, now introduces another paradigm-shifting idea: in order to become our best selves, we use an even broader intelligence—personal intelligence—to understand our own personality and the personalities of the people around us.

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Understanding and properly studying fear is partly a matter of correctly defining fear itself, NYU neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux writes. His analysis points to ways research can be better geared to address a range of fear-related afflictions, such as post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and commonly experienced phobias.

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The capacity of our working memory is better explained by the quality of memories we can store than by their number, a team of psychology researchers has concluded.

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As many American public school districts adopt single-sex classrooms and even entire schools, a new study finds scant evidence that they offer educational or social benefits. The study was the largest and most thorough effort to examine the issue to date, says Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Single-sex education does not educate girls and boys any better than coed schools, according to research published by the American Psychological Association analyzing 184 studies of more than 1.6 million students from around the world. The findings are published online Feb. 3 in the APA journal Psychological Bulletin.

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Discussing five movies about relationships over a month could cut the three-year divorce rate for newlyweds in half, researchers report. The study, involving 174 couples, is the first long-term investigation to compare different types of early marriage intervention program

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New research finds that while a majority of adults cite the ability to compete with friends as their primary reason for playing online casual video games such as Bejeweled Blitz, they report differing perceived benefits from playing the games based upon their age.

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A new Boston University study led by postdoctoral fellow Natalie Emmons and published in the January 16, 2014 online edition of Child Development suggests that our bias toward immortality is a part of human intuition that naturally emerges early in life.

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Many individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) also experience depression. Researchers at Case Western Reserve University found that during PTSD treatments, rapid improvements in depression symptoms are associated with better outcomes.

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A University of Toronto report based on two neural imaging studies that monitored brain activity has found individuals are more satisfied to get a reward from telling the truth rather than getting the same reward through deceit. These studies were published recently in the neuroscience journals Neuropsychologia and NeuroImage.

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People feel worse when they tell only part of the truth about a transgression compared to people who come completely clean, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

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In studying the differences in brain interactions between religious and non-religious subjects, researchers conclude there must be a biological basis for the evolution of religion in human societies.

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The estimated 9 percent of college students who have symptoms of PTSD are likely to drink more alcohol than peers without the psychological condition. In turn, heavy alcohol consumption exacerbates their PTSD symptoms.

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Researchers at the University of Illinois and the University of Nebraska conduct meta-analysis to conclusively answer whether narcissism and leadership are linked.