Psychology

Making love in the middle of the night while both of you are half asleep is undoubtedly pleasurable. But what if you suddenly realize that your partner is still asleep; not just half asleep but fully asleep on the job? If so, then he or she may be suffering from sexsomnia, a rare sleep disorder involving sexual behaviour. Strangely, the first paper to discuss sexsomnia appeared as late as 1996 in Sleep Research where it was still called “sexual behaviour in sleep” (SBS). The first attempt to define this seemingly new sleep disorder was in the June 2003 issue of The Canadian Journal of…

 A new study by researchers at the University of Rochester may very well revolutionize the concept of parenting. The study of 226 children from kindergarten up to third grade found that those taught skills to monitor and control their anger and other emotions improved their classroom behavior and had significantly fewer school disciplinary referrals and suspensions. The results have to be replicated by independent researchers, but it appears that children may behave better when they have positive influences in their lives. The study appears in the  Journal of Abnormal Child…

Just as they would in face-to-face dating, people who lie about themselves on internet dating services probably are people-pleasers who want to present themselves in the most favorable light to get someone to like them, according to a study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. More than 5,000 participants in a national Internet matchmaking service were surveyed to determine what kinds of people are most likely to lie during the online dating process. They were asked how likely they were to lie about topics such as assets, relationship goals, personal interests, personal…

It may seem safe to assume that happy people are trusting people, but a new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that, in some instances, people may actually be less trusting of others when they are in a pleasant mood. According to the research, people in a pleasant mood only tend to be trusting if they have a good reason to be. If you are predisposed to trust a stranger because he belongs to the same club as you, for example, a happy mood makes you even more likely to trust him. But if you are predisposed to not trust him, a positive mood will make you even…

A new study of adult participants in committed relationships suggest that the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) helps people control their emotional reactions to negative facial expressions from their romantic partners. The findings indicate that compromised LPFC function may be a risk-factor for mood and behavioral problems after a stressful interpersonal event.  Research subjects in the Biological Psychiatry study viewed positive, negative, and neutral facial expressions of their partners during a brain scan. In an online daily diary, participants reported conflict occurrence, level of…

A new meta-analysis of 130 research reports on more than 130,000 subjects worldwide 'proves conclusively' that exposure to violent video games makes more aggressive, less caring kids, say researchers from Iowa State University and the City University of New York. The team used meta-analytic procedures -- the statistical methods used to analyze and combine results from previous, related literature -- to test the effects of violent video game play on the behaviors, thoughts and feelings of the individuals, ranging from elementary school-aged children to college undergraduates. The research also…

Cannot resist posting the following paperclip, grabbed from a news site this afternoon (it's a Sunday, a critical detail you should not overlook; and this is an Italian newspaper, as should be obvious). The piece reports news on the Chilean earthquake. Here is a quick-and-dirty translation of the relevant part: "In Conception 350 buried under the rubble. Jackals in action. The government imposes the offside." "Fuorigioco", offside in Italian, sounds a bit like "coprifuoco" (curfew), which is probably the word the unwitty journalist should have preferred here. I can almost imagine the…

A New Scientist article, Born believers: how your brain creates God, takes us through some recent research with children that suggests belief in supernatural beings is somehow hard-wired into the human brain. The starting point is the rather unsurprising statistics that many people turn to religion in times of hardship. The afterlife may seem positively luxurious compared to being down and out. Religious ideas are common to all cultures: like language and music, they seem to be part of what it is to be human. Until recently, science has largely shied away from asking why. "It's not that…

Most people believe the individual is the best judge of his or her own personality. But a Washington University Psychologist says that we are not the know-it-alls that we think we are. Simine Vazire, Ph.D., Washington University assistant professor of psychology, says that the individual is more accurate in assessing one's own internal, or neurotic traits, such as anxiety, while friends are better barometers of intellect-related traits, such as intelligence and creativity, and even strangers are equally adept as our friends and ourselves at spotting the extrovert in us all. For the study, 165…

People have a strong tendency to give nonhuman entities human characteristics (known as anthropomorphism), and researchers from Harvard and the University of Chicago say they now understand the psychology that underlies this behavior. The research appears in Current Directions In Psychological Science. Neuroscience research has shown that similar brain regions are involved when we think about the behavior of both humans and of nonhuman entities, suggesting that anthropomorphism may be using similar processes as those used for thinking about other people. Anthropomorphism carries many…