Culture
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 31, 2009 – Formerly depressed women show patterns of brain activity when they are criticized by their mothers that are distinctly different from the patterns shown by never depressed controls, according to a new study from Harvard University. The participants reported being completely well and fully recovered, yet their neural activity resembled that which has been observed in depressed individuals in other studies.
The study, which appears in the current issue of the journal Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, was led by Jill M. Hooley, professor of psychology in the…
Here's good news for dieters who face food challenges in the break room every day: A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research shows that our resistance gets a boost after we've just been exposed to similar temptations.
"The threat of overconsumption is a real one for many of us. It is all too easy to eat or spend too much, and many others struggle with their desire to smoke or to drink alcohol or to take another pain killer," write authors Siegfried Dewitte, Sabrina Bruyneel (both K.U.Leuven), and Kelly Geyskens (Maastricht University, The Netherlands).
In the course of their research,…
As more and more Americans eat meals outside the home, the country also faces an epidemic of obesity. An association between eating out and weight-related diseases has led to demands for nutritional labeling of restaurant foods. A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research examines the potential benefits of such labeling.
"Using only the sense of taste, smell, and sight to accurately estimate the levels of calories, saturated fat, trans fat, and sodium found in a typical restaurant food serving is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for most consumers," write authors Elizabeth Howlett…
Here's another reason why dieters should avoid all-you-can-eat buffets: When faced with a large variety of items, consumers tend to underestimate how much of each item is present, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
Authors Joseph P. Redden (University of Minnesota) and Stephen J. Hoch (University of Pennsylvania) investigated consumers' perceptions of quantity in a set of experiments that may help us understand how quantity perceptions influence portion sizes.
"Does a bowl with both red and blue candies seem to have more or less than a bowl with only one color candy…
AUSTIN, Texas – A method for creating dispersed and chemically modified graphene sheets in a wide variety of organic solvents has been developed by a University of Texas at Austin engineering team led by Professor Rod Ruoff, opening the door to use graphene in a host of important materials and applications such as conductive films, polymer composites, ultracapacitors, batteries, paints, inks and plastic electronics.
Graphene is a unique atom-thick, carbon-based material.Its unusual combination of very high mechanical stiffness and strength, high and tunable electrical and thermal conductivity…
Consumers often make decisions by predicting how they'll feel after an event or purchase. But different approaches to predicting lead to different conclusions, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
Authors Jane E. J. Ebert (University of Minnesota), Daniel T. Gilbert (Harvard University), and Timothy D. Wilson (University of Virginia) examined the difference between two common ways of predicting emotions: forecasting and "backcasting."
According to the authors, forecasters imagine how they'll feel when an event occurs and then consider how they'll feel subsequent to…
Although perhaps the greatest public health achievement of the 20th century was the disinfection of water, a recent study now shows that the chemicals used to purify the water we drink and use in swimming pools react with organic material in the water yielding toxic consequences.
University of Illinois geneticist Michael Plewa said that disinfection by-products (DBPs) in water are the unintended consequence of water purification. "The reason that you and I can go to a drinking fountain and not be fearful of getting cholera is because we disinfect water in the United States," he said. "But the…
Consumers are constantly bombarded with subtle and even subconscious cues from their environment. A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research examines whether these cues activate goals that affect behavior in the long term or momentary desires that fade away.
Authors Aner Sela and Baba Shiv (both Stanford Graduate School of Business) investigated the difference between goals that influence behavior and semantic activation, which has no lingering effect on behavior.
"Passing mindlessly by a discount store on the way to the mall might activate the goal of being frugal, which can sustain for…
February's brutal chimpanzee attack, during which a pet chimp inflicted devastating injuries on a Connecticut woman, was a stark reminder that chimps are much stronger than humans—as much as four-times stronger, some researchers believe. But what is it that makes our closest primate cousins so much stronger than we are? One possible explanation is that great apes simply have more powerful muscles. Indeed, biologists have uncovered differences in muscle architecture between chimpanzees and humans. But evolutionary biologist Alan Walker, a professor at Penn State University, thinks muscles may…
[PRINCETON, NJ] A new research study, published in the March/April issue of the journal Nursing Economics, has determined what factors can help keep new nurses from leaving their jobs and – in doing so – save health systems money. When nurses leave for another position or retire early, it dramatically affects a hospital's bottom line – as much as 5 percent of a hospital's budget may go to paying for nursing turnover costs.
The study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, reports on 1,933 newly licensed registered nurses working in hospitals in 34 states and Washington, DC. The…