psychology

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Va. Tech Shooter Denied Homicidal Thoughts

(Newser) - Recently discovered records show the Virginia Tech gunman denied homicidal thoughts to a school counselor nearly a year and half before the worst mass shootings in modern US history. Seung-Hui Cho denied the thoughts in a session with counselor Sherry Lynch Conrad on Dec. 14, 2005. On April 16, 2007,...

Nature Makes You Nicer
 Nature Makes You Nicer 
Aug 18, 2009 4:55 PM CDT

Nature Makes You Nicer

People more focused on others when primed with natural imagery, research shows

(Newser) - Being around the natural world or representations of it makes you a better person, Miller-McCune reports. A study finds that people shown slides of natural landscapes rated community-oriented goals—such as “to work for the betterment of society”—as more important to them than self-oriented goals—for example,...

Video Games: The New Prozac
Video Games: The New Prozac
Aug 18, 2009 10:26 AM CDT

Video Games: The New Prozac

Classic time-wasters seem to ease the symptoms of depression in studies

(Newser) - If depression's got you down, it might be time to turn to your Wii over your wee blue pills, reports the Washington Post in a look at how video games might ease the disease. For one depression sufferer, Bejeweled was "a big help in getting through to the next...

Optimistic Women Face Lower Heart Disease Risk

Subjects less likely to die of any cause over set period

(Newser) - Women 50 and up who see the glass as half full have a lower risk of getting heart disease—or dying of any cause—than their half-empty peers, a study suggests. Researchers found that over 8 years, the most optimistic subjects in their 97,000-woman-strong study faced a 9% lower...

Soldier KIA, But Adopted Puppy Comes to America

He took in stray in Iraqi war zone

(Newser) - An Army major killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq has left a canine legacy—Laia, a stray puppy who made it back to America, the Los Angeles Times reports. Working on a transition team, Steven Hutchison found the dog loafing around his vehicle after a meeting. “Maj. Hutchison...

Studies Agree: Happiness Comes With Age

Mental health keeps improving even into one's '90s

(Newser) - Greater happiness and better mental health may be the big payoff for aging. Exceptions abound, of course, but people generally get happier as they get older because they've learned how to tune out all the negative stuff, say researchers. A spate of new studies suggests that older people have better...

Therapy to 'Cure' Gays Is Bogus: Shrinks

(Newser) - Claims that sexual orientation can be changed through therapy have no scientific credibility, finds a new report by the American Psychological Association. The group reviewed 83 journal articles published over several decades and found that many studies purporting to show successful changed sexuality "contain serious design flaws." The...

Gaydar: It's All in the Eyes
 Gaydar: It's All in the Eyes  
Aug 4, 2009 12:40 PM CDT

Gaydar: It's All in the Eyes

(Newser) - Gaydar is real, according to a new study, but only if you don’t think about it too hard. Participants were shown the faces of 98 straight women and 94 lesbians taken from a dating website, reports Miler-McCune, and were able to guess sexual orientation rapidly, at a rate better...

Shrinks Fume Over Wiki's 'Rorschach Cheat Sheet'

(Newser) - Psychologists are seeing red in a row over Rorschach's famous inkblots, the New York Times reports. The original series of 10 inkblot images, whose interpretations are used to gain insight into a viewer's mind, have been posted on Wikipedia along with the most common responses. Psychologists fear that some people...

Wall Street Lives, Dies by Overconfidence: Gladwell

(Newser) - Confidence is key to the banking game, but an overabundance of it seems to have made the industry’s titans so delusional they blundered into the financial crisis, Malcolm Gladwell writes in the New Yorker. “The roots of Wall Street’s crisis were not structural or cognitive so much...

Girls Bond, Boys Compete: Brain Study

Scans confirm gender split on one-on-one interaction

(Newser) - Ever wonder why girls are so fixated on swapping friendship bracelets? They may just be wired that way, according to a new study. Using MRIs to look inside tweens' and teens' brains, researchers found that one-on-one interactions got girls’ synapses firing, Time reports. Boys focused less on other individuals than...

The Power of Negative Thinking
The Power
of Negative Thinking
Jul 8, 2009 2:50 PM CDT

The Power of Negative Thinking

Better to acknowledge bad feelings than recite phony good ones

(Newser) - Deliberate positive thinking—from Norman Vincent Peale to Stuart Smalley—has long been touted as a way to overcome feelings of worthlessness and self-doubt. But a new study suggests that repeating positive mantras may often backfire, making people with low self-esteem feel even worse about themselves. For many, it may...

Positive Thinking Can Make You Feel Worse: Study

Affirmations don't help low self-esteem

(Newser) - It turns out the Little Engine That Could had it all wrong. Repeating positive statements to yourself doesn’t appear to help people with low self-esteem, according to a new study. Researchers asked students to repeat statements like “I am a lovable person” to themselves, then measured their mood....

The Way You Hold Your Drink Speaks Volumes

A gossip? Fun-lover? Psychologist sees clues in how you booze

(Newser) - The way you hold your drink says a lot about you, psychologist Glenn Wilson tells the BBC. Wilson studied 500 drinkers at the behest of a bar chain, and discerned a series of notable types. Among them:
  • The gossip: Will hold a wineglass by the bowl, often gesticulating with it
...

Uncertainty, Not Poverty, Behind Recession Blues

It's not the lack of funds, it's the lack of knowing that brings us down

(Newser) - Americans are worrying more than they were last year, and happiness is down while sadness is up, writes Daniel Gilbert in the New York Times. But it’s not the lightness of our pocketbooks that’s weighing on us; it’s the uncertainty of the times. While most of us...

'Healthy' Fast Food Eaters Mull the Salad, Buy the Fried

Companies like KFC know how to play to customers' cravings

(Newser) - KFC's grilled chicken giveaway may have been a bust, but the company actually got what it wanted—luring health-conscious eaters back to the franchise, argues Steve Almond in the Washington Post. The chicken chain's CEO appeared on Oprah to apologize for pulling the plug on the offer, yet "his...

How To Be Happy: 'Social Aptitude' Helps

(Newser) - The secret to a happy life? It's ... complicated. Joshua Wolf Shenk of the Atlantic examines an extraordinary and still continuing 72-year study of 268 Harvard men—JFK and Ben Bradlee are two of the well-known participants—designed to shed light on how to lead a successful life. The subjects were...

Motivational Speaker, 3 Feet Tall and Rising

(Newser) - Sean Stephenson is 30 years old, 3 feet tall, and can’t walk without help. And that’s why he is a successful motivational speaker, psychologist, and former Bill Clinton staffer, the Chicago Tribune reports. When he broke his leg at age 10—his condition, osteogenesis imperfecta, makes him vulnerable...

5 Signs of Facebook Addiction
 5 Signs of Facebook Addiction 
Apr 23, 2009 1:28 PM CDT

5 Signs of Facebook Addiction

(Newser) - If you're ignoring your kid or getting divorced because of Facebook—it's happened—you might have a problem. CNN outlines five telltale signs of Facebook addiction.
  • Losing sleep: If you're tired every morning because of late-night-friending, take a break, a UCLA psychologist advises: "You shouldn't be neglecting yourself because
...

CIA Tactics Can Cause Mental Harm: Doctors

Bush-era interrogation memos understated long-term effects

(Newser) - Experts disagree with Bush-era rulings, made public in memos released last week, that interrogation techniques the CIA used on terror suspects don’t cause lasting psychological damage, the Los Angeles Times reports. “There’s absolutely no question they are going to lead to permanent mental harm,” one psychology...

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