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Troy Davis: Victim of Eyewitness Testimony
Troy Davis is scheduled to be executed today, charged with murdering a Savannah police officer in 1989. Davis’ execution has been scheduled 4 times, and appealed again and again. The most recent appeal to halt the lethal injection was rejected yesterday and it seems Davis’ attorneys are out of options. The death penalty is a…
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The Convenience of Therapy on your Computer
Finding a good therapist is important. As a graduate student in clinical psychology, I am often asked where to find one. Typically, I would recommend the psychology clinic associated with my university, or point them in the direction of therapists who use empirically supported treatments. Yet, there remains several obstacles for reaching a therapist. These include…
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APA Resolution Supporting Marriage Equality
Yesterday the American Psychological Association passed a resolution supporting full marriage equality for same-sex couples by a unanimous vote of 157-0. Although the full text of the resolution is not yet available, the APA has supported same-sex marriage for several years, always citing peer-reviewed research to support their views. This quote from The Examiner is…
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Evidence for Multiple Pathways to Sexual Orientation
Social scientists have long debated the “true” nature of sexual orientation. In the past, this debate has been characterized as another example of the classic battle of nature vs. nurture/biology vs. society. Today, most acknowledge that a simplistic this or that explanation doesn’t fly for most things and likely doesn’t rightly characterize sexual orientation, either.…
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Sexting: Should adolescents be expelled?
This post was first published on parenting in the digital age. Phones are being used by teens for sexual exploration via the exchange of sexually suggestive content (sexting). Sexting includes explicit text, and nude or semi-nude personal pictures or videos captured on a cell phone or digital camera and sent via personal texts, emails, and…
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Child development outcomes with same-sex parents
In November 2010, the Pew Research Center released results of a poll that showed that 43% of people agreed with the statement that gay or lesbian couples raising children are bad for society, 41% believe that it doesn’t make a difference, and only 12% saying that they believed it was good for society. The authors…
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Race to Nowhere
A documentary called Race To Nowhere is making its way around the schools in my neighborhood. The film was made by a mother who was disturbed by the amount of homework that schools were assigning, as she felt her children were focusing too much on homework and not enough on play. This has been a…
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Pre-Maternity Leave Requested!
The upcoming article by Christine Dunkel Schetter outlines a number of difficulties that may negatively impact the infant’s birth weight and duration of the pregnancy. The sources of stressors outlined in the article are broad, including financial stressors, problems in ones romantic relationships, family responsibilities, employment conditions, and pregnancy-related concerns. Both episodic and chronic stressors…
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Raising an academically motivated child
Children who are motivated on their own to do well in school is a dream of almost every parent. Fortunately, whether a child is intrinsically motivated to do well academically is not purely genetic or based on socioeconomic factors. This means that parents can purposefully contribute to the development of academic intrinsic motivation, or AIM…
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Childhood Sexual Assault: Impacts are broad, but not for all victims?
Psychologists often rely on grouping participants together based on shared characteristics (e.g., are girls better than boy in reading ability). The goal is to broadly understand the relationships between potential causes and effects, and, ideally learn from them. In the first example above, perhaps reading interventions targeting boys may be an effect if the study…