Psychology in Action

Author: Alexandra

  • Feel better by practicing gratitude

    Gratitude is defined as feeling thankful and appreciative of other people or aspects of life such as nature. It comes from the Latin root gratia, meaning grace, graciousness, or gratefulness. Actively being grateful on a daily basis has been shown to have benefits not just for the person you’re thankful for, but for you! Research…

  • The silver lining: research on personal growth after trauma

    Research on stressful life events like receiving a terminal diagnosis or the impact of losing a job has focused primarily on the negative psychological effects of such events.  However, clinicians and researchers began to realize that many of their patients were reporting positive changes after experiencing adversity. Interviews with cancer patients and other samples found,…

  • Possible link between poverty and health

    About a year ago I went on a field trip to the California Science Center to dissect cow eyes with a class of third graders. I am a mentor for a 3rd grade student through an organization called I Have a Dream (IHAD). I was awestruck by how smart, funny, adorable, and happy these children…

  • Gene expression difference in lonely versus socially integrated people

    Psychoneuroimmunology is a field you may not have heard of before, but if you break it down it’s pretty clear what the field studies: psych is for psychological, neuro for neuroendocrine (read: hormones), and  immunology for immune system. So it’s a field that studies how the mind effects the body. And specifically, how stress effects…

  • Positivity and cancer progression: what’s the evidence?

    Here are two really interesting recent editorials about the role of positive attitudes in cancer progression.  One article harshly criticizes the “positive psychology” movement of lacking in scientific sophistication (Coyne & Tennen, 2010) and the other defends the research that has been done thus far (Aspinwall & Tedeschi, 2010). This is the most heated researchers…

  • Staying active keeps you (well at least your genes) younger

    An article in 2008 (click here to access) published in Archives of Internal Medicine, found that adults who are physically active are biologically younger than those who are sedentary. This study focused on telomere length as an indicator of biological age. I find this research really exciting because it helps us dig deeper into exercise…

  • Is a snickers bar the new cigarette?

    Does eating too much fat and sugar have the same consequences as smoking? We don’t know…maybe because the answer is being covered up by the food industry. A compelling article by Brownell and Warner (2009) available here compares the tobacco industry’s errant actions to the food industry’s latest tactics. The tobacco industry tried for years…

  • Will my kid be overweight as an adult?

    What are the risk factors for obesity? What predicts which children will become obese as adults? Here are a few psychological and behavioral risk factors that have been identified: – Diet restriction. Children who try to restrict the types and amounts of foods they eat on a consistent basis are more likely to be obese…

  • Why do we dream?

    Why do we dream? Theory 1: Dreams express inner wishes and desires (Freud’s idea). But what about nightmares? Those can’t be wishes. Theory 2: Dreams provide solutions to problems. But then why can we only recall 1% of dreams? Dreams aren’t helpful in providing solutions if we can’t remember them. Often anecdotes about people who…

  • Who’s to blame?

    “Proposals for reform that focus solely on individuals-be it on their knowledge, willpower, or decision-making ability-will not be successful in reversing our society’s body weight trajectory. We need measures aimed at changing the context, not the individual. Rather than simply encouraging consumers to make healthier choices, we must recast the environment so that health options…