Psychology

Because of the broad nature of autism spectrum disorder and even broader range of autism traits, any number of genetic and environmental influences are associated with risk of it. Twins studies are valuable in science because at least some of the factors are quantifiable. Though many papers claim  genetic influences on the risk of autism and the fuzzy related traits diagnosis, they are drawn from samples of individuals which may miss people with more subtle manifestations and may not represent the broader population. A new paper using UK twins seeks to rectify that. Beata…

A review of 31 years of narcissism research using data from more than 475,000 participants finds that men, on average, are more narcissistic than women. Or at least they scored higher in narcissism across multiple generations and regardless of age. Psychology is overwhelmingly dominated by women so it's difficult to know what bias that may introduce into testing - and there is a difference between clinical narcissism and colloquial narcissism, which was not controlled for in the analysis. The scholars examined more than 355 journal articles, dissertations, manuscripts and…

Sometimes losing money is more exciting than taking it. A recent study found that turning down a bribe brought greater physiological arousal than the thought of more money did. This means that the violation or enforcement of a given ethical standard is not what triggers emotional activity, but rather the actual decision to act against the monetary self-interest, according to scholars at Universitat Jaume I, who also note a major tendency to act ethically and shows the effectiveness of the threat of a possible punishment when curbing corrupt attitudes. “This study has allowed us to…

In a symposium on social psychology, psychologists are challenging the beliefs of other psychologists about the effectiveness of traditional strategies for encouraging healthy eating.  A paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association observed whether or not photographs of vegetables on a school lunch tray had an impact on the amount of vegetables eaten. The study found that placing photos of carrots and green beans did increase the amounts of vegetables eaten during lunch, but it still was not at levels consistent with government-recommended dietary guidelines. …

If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it, said cultural pundit Beyoncé Knowles about women and fingers - but that does not mean women should accept. First, they should look at the fingers on men. Men with short index fingers and long ring fingers are on average nicer towards women, which researchers at McGill University say stems from the hormones these men have been exposed to in their mother's womb. That  link between a biological event in fetal life and adult behavior might also explain why these men tend to have more children, the authors write…

Parents of kids with severe autism are willing to try anything - unfortunately, a lot of people who claim to be experts in psychology and communication disorders don't understand science and may continue to try things long after they have been debunked.  Hope and desperation among parents, along with cluelessness among people trying to help,  make the autism community especially vulnerable to interventions and "therapies" that have been thoroughly discredited. Yet they persist.  In a new commentary in Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention, the…

If I scratch your back and you scratch mine, then we’re both better off as a result – so goes the principle of reciprocity, one of the most popular explanations for how co-operative behavior has evolved. But what if one partner provides a better service than another? A paper by Dolivo and Taborsky shows that Norway rats will only give as good as they get. As humans, we are familiar with the concept of helping those who help us, whether it is by buying rounds of drinks or expelling diplomats. But demonstrating reciprocity in other species has proved more challenging. Part of the reason for…

The more similar the personalities of teachers and their pupils, the more likely the teachers are to grade them highly, according to new research from Germany. The findings again open up the debate around the subtle biases teachers have about their pupils and how important it is to try and minimize their impact on children’s progress through school. Tobias Rausch from the University of Bamberg in Germany and his colleagues carried out an investigation with Grade 8 classes in Germany. First, they asked 94 teachers to rate their 293 pupils, aged 13 to 14, on reading comprehension and some…

Mandarin-speaking Chinese more likely to read emotions in the voices of others, while English-speaking North Americans rely more on facial expressions, according to a new paper. That may be why Americans think Chinese language is exaggerated while the Chinese believe Americans are too physically expressive. Yet it isn't just a style issue, it can be seen in brain activity. If you are a Mandarin-speaker from China and want to understand how someone else is feeling, you are likely to concentrate on their voice rather than on their face. The opposite is true for English-language speakers in…

Regular concert-goers are used to seeing singers use expressive and even very dramatic facial expressions - that's because it works. Music and speech are alike in that they use both facial and acoustic cues to engage listeners in an emotional experience and so  a team of researchers at McGill University wondered what roles these different cues played in conveying emotions. To find out, they did an experiment where participants were offered recordings of short phrases (neutral statements, all of which were seven syllables long, such as "children tapping to the beat" or "people talking…