Psychology

We all know people who have suffered by trusting too much: scammed customers, jilted lovers, shunned friends. Indeed, most of us have been burned by misplaced trust. These personal and vicarious experiences lead us to believe that people are too trusting, often verging on gullibility. In fact, we don’t trust enough. Take data about trust in the United States (the same would be true in most wealthy democratic countries at least). Interpersonal trust, a measure of whether people think others are in general trustworthy, is at its lowest in nearly 50 years. Yet it is unlikely that people are any…

Living in an organized society means we usually abide by unwritten rules of conduct, in addition to avoiding breaking state laws. We can then rely on order to prevail over chaos, kindness to overpower selfishness, and the common good to be an achievable goal. But the way each of us interprets their own script in this comedy we call life shows a significantly wide range of behaviours. The extrema of the spectrum are populated at one end by individuals who always try to game the system for their own benefit, without any consideration for the damage they cause to others; and at the other end by…

Of all the sounds humans produce, nothing captures our attention quite like a good scream. They’re a regular feature of horror films, whether it’s Marion Crane’s infamous shower scream in “Psycho” or Chrissie Watkins’ blood-curdling scream at the beginning of “Jaws.” Screams might seem simple, but they can actually convey a complex set of emotions. The arsenal of human screams has been honed over millions of years of evolution, with subtle nuances in volume, timing and inflection that can signal different things. Janet Leigh in "Psycho".. Paramount Pictures Ancestral cues Screaming can…

A National Academy of Medicine report released today says that a third to a half of physicians and nurses say they feel burned out, and that is even higher for medical students and residents at nearly 60 percent. That could obviously affect patient care and, with lawyers waiting in the wings to sue, health care costs.  The report says key issues will be: Tackling clinician burnout early in professional development. Fixing electronic health care record systems that increase frustration and stress. Lowering administrative burdens and distracting clinicians from the care of patients. Less…

A new paper finds that instead of leading to more honest replies, presumably because people don't think about the response, time pressure questions actually increase the likelihood of socially desirable answers over honest ones. There’s a longstanding belief in the field of psychology that limiting the time subjects have to respond to questions will result in more honest answers. Certainly, many of us who have participated in personality tests have heard the directive to “say the first thing that comes to mind.”  However, a recent study demonstrates that the quickest answer — especially…

The belief that scientists should be dispassionate observers and neutral resources for the public good is dangerously misguided, argue marine biologists in a Science letter.  Environmentalists feel pain when they see destruction of nature and should be allowed to cry, write Gordon, Radford, and Simpson, because that grief and post-traumatic recovery can strengthen resolve and inspire scientific creativity.  They argue that environmental scientists feel trauma much like health care, disaster relief, law enforcement, and military personnel, and those witnessing the destruction of…

Political events can take a serious toll on mental health - at least in one case. A man with a brief episode of acute psychosis convinced a doctor it was triggered by the 2016 Referendum on Brexit--the process of the UK leaving the European Union (EU), which it joined in 1993. The doctor describes the case of a middle aged man, brought to hospital by paramedics in an acute psychotic state, three weeks after the June 2016 Referendum result on the UK's departure from the EU.  The patient was confused and very agitated, with disordered thoughts and speech. He heard voices and was delusional…

Older people often talk about how they knew they had gone too far with their mothers. While a father might yell more a mother's tone would change into "that voice" and they knew they had gone over an invisible line. Today, it doesn't work so well. At least in controlled experiments - your mileage at home may vary. A study involving over 1000 adolescents aged 14-15 is the first to examine how subjects respond to the tone of voice when receiving instructions from their mothers, even when the specific words that are used are exactly the same and the authors conclude supportive tones of voice are…

HILLSBORO, Ore. — On Kimberly Repp’s office wall is a sign in Latin: Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae. This is a place where the dead delight in helping the living. For medical examiners, it’s a mission. Their job is to investigate deaths and learn from them, for the benefit of us all. Repp, however, isn’t a medical examiner; she’s a Ph.D. microbiologist. And as the Washington County epidemiologist, she was most accustomed to studying infectious diseases like flu or norovirus outbreaks among the living. But in 2012 she was asked by county officials to look at suicide. The…

Impostor syndrome is where people feel like frauds even if they are actually capable and well-qualified. A new group of interviews finds that impostor syndrome is quite common and uncovers one of the best -- and worst -- ways to cope with such feelings. The results revealed that 20 percent of college students (naturally, psychology is primarily a study of undergraduates) suffered from very strong feelings of impostor-ism. The authors conducted interviews with students in an elite academic program (translation; their own department at their own school) to understand the various coping…