Psychology

No matter what you do for a living, you're likely to consistently feel better mentally and physically on the weekend, according to a study of daily mood variation in employed adults. Dubbed the 'weekend effect', this tendency to feel  better on your days off is largely associated with the freedom to choose how you spend your time, the study's authors suggest.  Published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, the study tracked the moods of 74 adults, aged 18 to 62, who worked at least 30 hours per week. For three weeks, participants were paged randomly at three times…

While genetics play a key role in children's initial reading skills, a new study of twins is the first to demonstrate that environment plays an important role in reading growth over time. The results, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, give further evidence that children can make gains in reading during their early school years, above and beyond the important genetic factors that influence differences in reading. While other studies have shown that both genetics and environment influence reading skills, this is the first to show their relative roles in how quickly or…

"Don't feel entitled to anything you didn't sweat and struggle for." -Marian Wright Edelman The psychology of entitlement. It seems that research, op-eds, rants, and satire are increasingly focused on the rising rates of entitlement. Strangely enough, I think that in this community - where many of you teach college students as teaching assistants or professors and lecturers - many of you are growing too familiar with this attitude. Or maybe that's something I tell myself when I become concerned that no one else listens to these ridiculous statements - from asking to take the final three hours…

 Adolescents with earlier bedtimes are significantly less likely to suffer from depression and suicidal thoughts, suggesting that earlier bedtimes could have a protective effect by increasing the likelihood of getting enough sleep, reports a new study in the journal Sleep. The results show that adolescents with parental set bedtimes of midnight or later were 24 percent more likely to suffer from depression (odds ratio = 1.24) and 20 percent more likely to have suicidal ideation (OR=1.20) than adolescents with parental set bedtimes of 10 p.m. or earlier.  This association was…

“Respected expert and director of the institute…” These are the words you hear as you are being introduced at a black-tie speaking engagement. You are an inventor, scientist, or artist, and this flattering introduction is music to your ears; had you seen these words written in the paper you would have saved a copy to show Mom. Finally, you are at the place every creative mind wishes to reach. The words wash back over you. “Respected”: The members of your community appreciate you. “Expert”: Your more than twenty years of dedication to the field have not gone unnoticed. “Director”: You have…

One of my male friends was recently teasing me about the results of a study by Dr. Claudia Wolf of Ruhr University in Germany in which she had 65 participants - men and women - park Audi A6s in "standard size parking spaces." Dr. Wolf claimed that results showed that (1) women parked more slowly than men, and (2) women were less accurate than men (men were able to maneuver the cars to the middle of the space better than women). This study has achieved a fair amount of attention on the internet - as of the writing of this entry, the original Telegraph article had been dugg …

Did you have a pushy physical education teacher that made you loathe exercising at school? If so, you're not alone. New research suggets that many people may have been persuaded to permanently avoid exercise as a result of the humiliation they experienced in physical education class. In a study published in Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise,  Billy Strean, a professor in the U of A's Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, says a negative lifelong attitude towards physical activity can be determined by either a good or a bad experience, based on the personal…

While communicating with out hands is often considered strange (or even rude) today, gesturing may actually improve our communication abilities, according to research conducted by an international team of scientists and published in a recent issue of Psychological Science. The authors say the finding has important social implications for "everyday communicative situations," like political speeches and classroom lectures. In the study, psychologists investigated the interaction between speech and gesturing and how important the relationship is for language. Volunteers watched brief videos of…

Despite the stereotype that girls aren't very good with numbers, it appears that they're just as proficient as boys when it comes to mathematics, and girls from countries where gender equity is acceptable are more likely to perform better on mathematics assessment tests. The findings are detailed in the latest issue of Psychological Bulletin.  "Stereotypes about female inferiority in mathematics are a distinct contrast to the actual scientific data," said Nicole Else-Quest, PhD, a psychology professor at Villanova University, and lead author of the meta-analysis. "These results show that…

Women's minds and bodies respond differently to sexual arousal, whereas men's bodies and minds tend to be more in tune with each other, according to research conducted by an international team of scientists. The team's meta-analysis of the extent of agreement between subjective ratings and physiological measures of sexual arousal in men and women is published online this week in Archives of Sexual Behavior. The authors reviewed 134 studies, published between 1969 and 2007, which measured the degree of agreement between subjective experiences of sexual arousal and physiological genital…