Psychology

A new analysis indicates that states’ Web-based and phone-based tobacco cessation programs can help people quit smoking, but certain personal characteristics may lead individuals to prefer one type of program over the other.  Quitline (telephone-based counseling) programs are effective tools for people who are trying to give up smoking, and the evidence for Web-based cessation services is building. Research has found that only one percent to two percent of adult tobacco users in the United States access state quitlines each year, however. Also, sustained use of Web-based interventions is…

The term "schizophrenia," with its connotation of hopeless chronic brain disease, should be dropped and replaced with something like "psychosis spectrum syndrome," argues Professor Jim van Os at Maastricht University Medical Centre in The BMJ. The official glossary of mental disorders used to diagnose patients is found in ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision) and DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition) but van Os argues that the classification is complicated, particularly for psychotic illness. Currently, psychotic illness is…

Why do people on the left think American media is right wing? Because journalists are paid by corporations funded by other corporations? Why do people on the left think journalism is right wing? Because journalists go into the field to make a difference rather than to talk about news or events or science, and when people want to be important, they become activists. And controlling media works. While many groups find media bias to be a negative, social psychologists say it can be a benefit; by getting them to produce positive content or conciliatory messages about ethnic groups and…

When employees leave a company, there is always an undercurrent of doubt that they might have stayed if they had a good manager. But plenty of well-liked managers lose employees too.  People leave for more money and/or a promotion most of the time, and less commonly due to a bad boss.  According to Ravi S. Gajendran, a professor of business administration at University of Illinois, an organization's former employees -- or "alumni" -- can potentially be important strategic assets in the future, provided they leave on good terms. "If you have a good relationship with an employee who's…

Take a look at any food label and there's a good chance all design elements, from the color palette to the smallest detail, were meticulously chosen. Some anti-science activists, enabled by academics such as Marion Nestle and political magazines like Mother Jones, want to add the process used to grow food to that list; in this case, whether the food contains anything grown using a genetically modified organism process. But that tried-and-true social authoritarian approach, get more government laws and force companies to obey, has become less and less effective. The public has learned that…

Marion Nestle, Vani Hari, Michael Pollan; we have all seen messages from self-appointed "food police" telling us that sugary snacks are bad, GMOs are bad, everything except organic vegetables (they seem to believe those have no pesticides or genetic modification) is bad. But they may be doing more harm than good, not just for public acceptance of science, but for the people they claim to want to help. The government is doing the same thing. They are increasing their use of public service announcements (PSAs) about the dangers of unhealthy eating.  Nguyen Pham, Naomi Mandel, and…

The Centers for Disease Control recently released survey results from kids showing that many of them had seen some form of advertisement for e-cigarettes. Then they matched them to the uptick in e-cigarette use among young people and implied causation. Is it real? Perhaps, anecdotal results say that e-cigarette shops are springing up close to schools. And then there is the cigarette industry and fear they may switch from getting people on cigarettes using nicotine to nicotine itself.  On the other side is the anti-smoking establishment, which gets hundreds of millions of dollars to do…

Have you ever been to the supermarket and chosen foods based on nutrition labels?  Have you ever assumed a fat-laden, high-calorie coffee drink must be healthier because a barista claims the milk does not contain something science-sounding like rBST? Labels were once used to inform. The government mandated accuracy beginning in 1938 to make sure people were getting what they thought they were buying. A decade ago a food maker was penalized for selling cheese that was fake cheese but today a vegan company wants to sell mayonnaise that isn't mayonnaise, and various food activists want…

There is a common perception that as people spend more time together, they begin to act and think more alike. They may even look more alike.  This synchrony, or interdependence, between a couple posits that a married person's cognitive functioning or health influences not only their own well-being but also the well-being of their partner. A new paper finds that this interdependence continues even when one of the partners passes away and his or her characteristics continue to be linked with the surviving spouse's well-being.  Lead author Kyle Bourassa, a psychology doctoral student…

It may seem strange to have a segment of the population, once confined to wealthy elites on the coasts but now growing nationwide, which believe that a particular process for food is not only healthier, but materially, culturally and ethically important. Yet the ultra-conservatives who make up the organic food customers, corporations, trade groups and lobbyists are not a modern invention. The engine was going to ruin agriculture too, and resistance to modern science and technology goes back at least 7,000 years. Then, as now, the difference was that staying in the past would be 'better' for…