Psychology

In the spirit of Halloween, it seems most appropriate to share Annette Child's encounters with the afterlife. Margaret Borwhat co-founded the Women's Cancer Advocacy Network (WCAN) in 1997 while waging her own fight against the disease. This resolute woman was a powerhouse to the end and though she peacefully succumbed in body in 2006, her spirit took up the banner for a new dimension of the crusade. She wants us to know that this life is not all there is. And, much to his chagrin, Margaret left her skeptical husband, Don, with an undeniable "foo foo" experience that was the first of endless…

The largest such study ever published finds that while about 40 percent of women surveyed report having sexual problems only 12 percent indicate that those issues are a source of significant personal distress. The report led by a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) physician appears in the November issue of Obstetrics&Gynecology.  "Sexual problems are common in women, but problems associated with personal distress, those which are truly bothersome and affect a woman's quality of life, are much less frequent." says Jan Shifren, MD, of the MGH Obstetrics and Gynecology Service, who…

A team of researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Scripps College, Princeton University, and the University of Iowa writing in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience say appearance counts  when it comes to perception of politicians - but mostly if the appearance is negative.   This effect diminishes the more people know about a candidate.    So, voters who know little about John McCain coming up to election 2008 might be inclined to view him negatively when compared to a younger, more charismatic Barack Obama. Deciding whom…

A new study in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy explored how men and women perceive online and offline sexual and emotional infidelity. Results show that men felt sexual infidelity was more upsetting and women felt emotional infidelity was more upsetting. Monica T. Whitty and Laura-Lee Quigley of Queen's University Belfast surveyed 112 undergraduate students and asked them questions about sexual and emotional infidelity both offline and on the internet.  When given the choice, men were more upset by sexual infidelity and women were more upset by emotional infidelity. …

A study by two University of Rochester psychologists in  the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology adds color, literally and figuratively, to the age-old question of what attracts men to women. Through five psychological experiments, Andrew Elliot, professor of psychology, and Daniela Niesta, post-doctoral researcher, demonstrate that the color red makes men feel more amorous toward women. And men are unaware of the role the color plays in their attraction. The research provides the first empirical support for society's enduring love affair with red. From the red ochre used in…

While general wisdom says that you look at the eyes first in order to recognize a face, UC San Diego computer scientists now report that you look at the nose first. The nose may be the where the information about the face is balanced in all directions, or the optimal viewing position for face recognition, the researchers from UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering propose in a paper recently published in the journal Psychological Science. The researchers showed that people first look just to the left of the center of the nose and then to the center of the nose when trying to determine if…

Children and adolescents who abuse alcohol or are sexually active are more likely to take methamphetamines (MA), also known as ‘meth’ or ‘speed’. Research published today in the open access journal BMC Pediatrics reveals the risk factors associated with MA use, in both low-risk children (those who don’t take drugs) and high-risk children (those who have taken other drugs or who have ever attended juvenile detention centres). MA is a stimulant, usually smoked, snorted or injected. It produces sensations of euphoria, lowered inhibitions, feelings of invincibility, increased wakefulness,…

Take a centuries-old system of personalities charted in a nine point diagram called the Enneagram, mix it with modern psychology and nonsectarian spiritual ideas, and you have a means for understanding ourselves and others that prompts compassionate and empathetic behavior. The Enneagram has undergone a renewal of scholarly attention in the last decade. Helen Palmer, co-founder of Enneagram Worldwide and the Enneagram Professional Training Program considers the system crucial and promising in uniting psychological and spiritual insight and awareness. "I think the Enneagram is here because we…

Warm hands, cold heart?   Not when it's our own hands that are warm.   Our judgment of a person's character can be influenced by something as simple as the warmth of the drink we're holding.   It makes sense; everyone is friendlier if they have a cup of coffee in their hand. Writing in Science, Yale University psychologists say that subjects regarded others  as more generous and caring if they had just held a warm cup of coffee and less so if they had held an iced coffee. In a second study, they showed people are more likely to give something to others if they had just…

Those who worship a higher power often do so in different ways. Whether they are active in their religious community, or prefer to simply pray or meditate, new research out of Temple University suggests that a person's religiousness – also called religiosity – can offer insight into their risk for depression.  Lead researcher Joanna Maselko, Sc.D., characterized the religiosity of 918 study participants in terms of three domains of religiosity: religious service attendance, which refers to being involved with a church; religious well-being, which refers to the quality of a person's…