Psychology

A new survey by the University of Iowa says casino growth in the state has not influenced gambling by residents. It instead suggests that fewer Iowans gambled overall and also that fewer people have become addicted to gambling despite a recent spurt in gaming facilities. This is good news for those of you worried about having a crack house in your neighborhood or prostitutes on street corners. They will also apparently not lead to more drug use or prostitution. Casino gambling was introduced in Iowa in 1991 and the state currently has 21 casinos in Iowa, three licensed by the state and the…

Higher rates of schizophrenia are found in urban areas and it can be attributed to increased deprivation, increased population density and an increase in inequality within a neighborhood, says a new paper. In common tongue, that used to be called putting the cart before the horse.  A cliché among people who know just enough science to be wrong, you will read 'correlation does not equal causation', and for a more thoughtful examination, you can read how autism can be 'attributed' to the rise if organic food and the Arab spring can be attributed to the price of steel in the same way this…

Do you prefer to have a few close friends or a larger social circle that is less deep? Social psychologists say your preference reflect your personality but also individual circumstances - like socioeconomic conditions. Social psycholosits Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Virginia and Selin Kesebir of the London Business School say that Americans may prefer a large social network, for example, because Americans move around a lot. Thus, it may make sense to spread time and resources across many friends to minimize the loss of any one friend moving away. Economic conditions at a given time…

Why do people think that a $25 flu shot is more likely to still have them getting the flu than a $125 flu shot? It isn't that they think a $25 flu shot is less effective, it's that they worried they had a greater need for it because the cost is low.  Yes, the flu is perceived as more of a threat from an illness because the vaccine is cheap and not that some company is just charging a lot more when they can. One study examined whether consumers believe that some products (vaccines or cancer medications) are more likely to be priced with need and accessibility in mind than others (…

Emotion can help us recognize words more quickly, just like the context of a sentence can. But a new paper about the role of emotion in word recognition memory says we do not remember emotionally intoned speech as accurately as neutral speech - and if we do remember the words, they have acquired an emotional value. Words spoken with a sad voice are more negative. In anger, sadness, exhilaration or fear, speech takes on an urgency that is lacking from its normal even-tempered form - louder or softer, more hurried or delayed, etc. This emotional speech immediately captures a listener'…

Public opinion on environmental issues such as climate change, deforestation, and toxic waste seems to fall along predictable partisan lines but they have little to do with science. People who deny global warming, for example, conserve just as much energy as people who accept it.  And even the unscientific term 'global warming' gains more acceptance across the board when it is replaced with the more accurate 'climate change'. A new psychology paper even suggests that environmental messages framed in terms of conservative morals, describing environmental stewardship in terms of fending…

Experimental evidence by psychologists concludes that the negative effects of playing violent video games can accumulate over time. The psychologists found that people who played a violent video game for three consecutive days showed increases in aggressive behavior and hostile expectations each day they played. Those who played nonviolent games showed no meaningful changes in aggression or hostile expectations over that period. Other experimental efforts have shown that a single session of playing a violent video game increased short-term aggression but this is the first to show longer-term…

If your pockets are empty and you have no money for roast beast this Christmas, there may still be hope. You could try remembering a better dinner and trick your brain into feeling full. That's episodic memory. The memory of having eaten a large meal can make people feel less hungry hours after the meal, according to a paper by experimental psychologists at University of Bristol. They note hippocampal-dependent memory processes in the control of hunger and draw an analogy to the hyperphagia that is associated with amnesia. But they wanted to see if ‘memory for recent eating’ is significant…

Lying, like anything else, can be done pretty well with some practice.  Just like not everyone can be a world class pianist but everyone can sound decent with some time and effort, with a little work, one could learn to tell a lie that may be indistinguishable from the truth, say psychologists. They say that lying is more malleable than previously thought, and with a certain amount of training and instruction, the art of deception can even be perfected. People generally take longer and make more mistakes when telling lies than telling the truth, because they are holding two conflicting…

Antidepressants are the most widely used treatment for people with moderate to severe depression but up to two thirds of people with depression don't respond fully to antidepressants. A new paper in The Lancet says cognitive behavioral therapy reduces symptoms of depression and helps improve patient quality of life when provided in addition to the usual care. They say this is the first large-scale trial to test the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy, a type of talking psychotherapy, given in addition to usual care that includes antidepressants. The CoBalT study aimed to determine…