Self-control or behavioral disinhibition has been implicated in a number of psychiatric disorders, including Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). It may be a mediating factor responsible for the lowered academic performance found among many …
Human and animal studies have found that brains go through substantialsynaptic pruning during childhood, removing approximately half of all synapses until puberty. While the pruning of synapses is a natural process, some researchers have theorized that …
A recent report published by SAMHSA addresses the issue of self-disclosure regarding mental illness. Research has already shown that the more familiar people are with others who have different form of mental illness, the more their attitudes regarding …
Some ethnic minority groups have higher rates of schizophrenia than the general population. My first thought was that the differences were genetic. Current research has found a strong genetic component to schizophrenia, and given that different ethnic …
From all-about-addiction: Okay, maybe I’m getting a little ahead of myself here, but I’m pretty excited about one study in particular that I heard about while in DC (for a Society For Neuroscience conference). I’ve already written about a study by the …
From: all-about-addiction.com Like most living creatures, humans have internal biological clocks known as circadian rhythms. These internal cycles synchronize our bodies with the Earth’s 24-hour day/night cycle and prepare us for predictable daily even …
Dacher Keltner over at UC Berkeley recently wrote this interesting piece on teasing for the New York Times magazine. Citing examples of recent attempts to curb teasing in schools and in the workplace, Keltner argues that society is going too far in its …
As one of the bloggers who tends to be a bit more skeptical of work in social cognitive neuroscience, I’m posting this article w/out really investigating it closely. I do this for three reasons. 1) As I said, I’m biased toward believing its true anyw …
Professionals in psychiatry and clinical psychology rely heavily on the guidelines laid out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in order to make decisions about clients’ disorder status. This American Psychiatric Association pu …
Tobias Gibson once said, “Great people talk about ideas. Small people talk about other people.” Well that may or may not be true, talking about other people may be adaptive. We all find ourselves engaging in this activity from time to time and it may n …
Ok, so there’s the question of whether a higher power exists or not. I leave that to you. However, either way, we have a psychological question. How do we maintain our beliefs in a supernatural plane of existence and make causal attributions to Gods …
From allaboutaddiction.com: A comment posted by a reader on a recent post reprimanded me for suggesting that marijuana caused relationships to go bad. While in that instance the reader was mistaken, as I had specifically used the word associated, the c …
From Science Sounds: The US Preventative Services Task Force concluded last week that men over 75 years old should no longer be screened for prostate cancer. Furthermore, they conclude that “the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of …
From Science Sounds: A recent article in the New York Times reported results from an APA study that concluded that abortion does not cause mental illness. The full title of the article is “Abortion Does Not Cause Mental Illness, Panel Says.” Maybe I am …
From All About Addiction: About a year ago, while sitting in a lecture on learning and memory, the idea that certain drugs can affect the emotional responses to memory long after the memory itself has been formed came up. As someone interested in addic …
Some theories suggest that conservatives tend to have a more structured and persistent cognitive style, where liberals tend to be more open to ambiguity. Building on this idea, a recent paper by David Amodio and his colleagues investigated whether lib …
It’s no secret that politicians can twist words to make anything sound as if it supports their agenda. There’s even a name for those who are good at this (and a 90s band with the same name) – Spin Doctors. However, when scientific findings are misrepre …
We’ve all had to swerve out of the way of someone who’s paying more attention to their cell phone than to the road. Presumably the problem stems from the fact that the person is driving one handed, dialing, looking at the phone, etc. So, on July 1, dri …
“The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and endangering the country.” Basically, people will fall in line i …
Well, sort of. Traditionally, academics have argued that our sense of right and wrong is based on the harm that might occur or the rights that might be violated as a result of our judgments. But according to Psychologist Jonathan Haidt (2007), people h …
Sharon Stone got in trouble today, and it wasn’t for her performance in Basic Instinct 2. No, Stone made headlines when she declared that the recent Earthquake in China, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives, was the result of bad karma stemming …