Psychology

Internet addiction, an impulse-control problem marked by an inability to inhibit Internet use, can adversely affect a person's life, including their health and interpersonal relationships. The prevalence of Internet addiction varies among regions around the world, as shown by data from more than 89,000 individuals in 31 countries analyzed for a study published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. In the article "Internet Addiction Prevalence and Quality of (Real) Life: A Meta-Analysis of 31 Nations Across Seven World Regions," Cecelia Cheng and Angel Yee-lam Li, The…

The magi, as you know, were wise men – wonderfully wise men – who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. So O Henry tells us in his classic Christmas story, The Gift of the Magi. It’s about a young down-at-heel couple in New York, who scrape enough money together to buy each other Christmas presents by selling their most prized possessions. The wife, Della, sells her hair to buy a platinum chain for her husband’s watch and, in an ironic twist, Jim sells his watch to buy Della two beautiful, tortoise shell hair combs. But though the two…

Children should be taken into consideration when helping adults with mental health issues. Shutterstock By Sam Cartwright-Hatton, University of Sussex Mental illness runs in families. This is well known and uncontroversial. There is much that we could do to reduce this risk, but we currently do almost nothing. A parent with mental illness is several times more likely to have a child with psychological problems than a healthy parent. For example, a child whose parent has an anxiety disorder has a one in three chance of developing an anxiety disorder of their own. If both of their parents has…

An overdose of self-esteem won't build character. Shutterstock By Kristján Kristjánsson, University of Birmingham In the last few months the UK’s two main political parties have entered into an apparent bidding war over which of them can elevate the teaching of character highest on their educational agendas before the next general election. With an extra flourish, the secretary of state for education, Nicky Morgan, announced a £3.5m fund to “place character education on a par with academic learning” for pupils. This money will be spent on scaling-up existing initiatives and funding more…

You're probably not racist. As the world has gotten smaller, race as a bias has become less of a thing. Yet there is a test - the Implicit Association Test - that is guaranteed to show you are racist and weak observational studies that use it end up in a lot of mainstream media stories. Now there may be a way to cure it. The rubber hand illusion is designed to allow people to experience being different virtually. Now it can make you feel like you have the body of someone of a different race, age, or sex. So whatever stereotypes you have - and you have them - may at least be changed…

You definitely didn't have one? Honestly? Shutterstock By Lara Warmelink, Lancaster University Lying is often seen as bad behavior in children. Fairy tales and folk stories, from Aesop’s Peter who cried wolf to Washington’s cherry tree tell children to be honest and never lie. But what can we do to encourage children to tell the truth? Children learn to lie from about the age of two. The first lies children learn to tell are denials of wrongdoing. From the age of three they also learn to tell “white” lies. These are lies that are told to benefit other people or to be polite. For example, a…

Some people eat when they are hungry and stop when they are not. Others eat until they are full. For that second group, science may soon have a way to help keep them slimmer. Inulin-propionate ester (IPE) contains propionate, which stimulates the gut to release hormones that act on the brain to reduce hunger. Propionate is produced naturally when dietary fiber is fermented by microbes in the gut and in its first tests in humans, researchers found that the ingredient is effective at preventing weight gain in overweight volunteers. First, 20 volunteers were given either IPE or inulin, a dietary…

You may not have been born a criminal, but experiences influence how genetic variants affect the brain and therefore behavior, according to a new paper.  The study used a survey of 1,337 students aged 17 or 18 in Västmanland, a Swedish county, who anonymously completed questionnaires reporting on delinquency, family conflict, experiences of sexual abuse, and the quality of their relationship with their parents. They also provided a sample of saliva from which the researchers extracted DNA to examine it. The Monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene is a key enzyme in the catabolism of…

A new study by political science scholars has found one reason why women are less likely to run for political office - they will volunteer to lead but don't like competing to do so.  Prior claims have been that more women lack the confidence to seek and hold office so University of Pittsburgh associate Professors of Political Science Kristin Kanthak and Jonathan Woon enlisted 350 undergraduate college students to participate in laboratory experiments which Kanthak said appeared to show women are more "election averse" than men. The work was conducted in three phases in the…

In modern times, nitrous oxide is a pollutant or a way to make an old custom Nissan go really fast, but it was once common as an anesthetic in medicine and dentistry and that is how it got its common name - laughing gas. In a small pilot study, it was shown to have another modern use - as a treatment for depression.In 20 patients who had treatment-resistant clinical depression, the researchers found that two-thirds experienced an improvement in symptoms after receiving nitrous oxide. In comparison, one-third of the same patients reported improved symptoms after treatment with a placebo. The…