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Moniker mumbo jumbo
Social psychology research is known for its counterintuitive, surprising, sometimes even “cute” findings. One of the latest findings in this series is that your initials can affect how successful you are; for instance, students whose names start with C or D get worse grades than students whose names start with A or B. Authors Lief…
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Ovulation Studies Under Attack?
A recent article published by the online magazine Slate.com criticized “ovulation studies,” or psychological research that examines how females’ thoughts, feelings, and behavior change when they are at the most fertile point in their menstrual cycle. The article claims to point out “the many weaknesses of ovulation studies,” but centers around one recent study that…
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Values In America
Thomas Friedman’s op-ed in the NY Times today underscores some of the findings of psychological research for the last few years… namely that young people in the US may be changing. Below are some of the findings from recent studies: Narcissism has gone up 30% The psychologist Twenge has found ample evidence of this through …
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A Virtual Audience 24/7
Peggy Orenstein’s recent NY Times Magazine piece on Twittering brings to the forefront many of the issues that psychologists at the CDMC@LA are concerned about. Due to the myriad of self-presentation tools that digital media such as YouTube, twittering and social networking sites provide, people are often hyper aware of their audience. How will this…
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Kid’s networking… we’re cited in the
Kid’s networking… we’re cited in the NY Times http://tiny.cc/09wdm
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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…
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Did you know that the second most popula
Did you know that the second most popular use of mobile phones by teenagers is texting? The first… checking the time!
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Marijuana as a Treatment for PTSD?
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has received wave of criticism over the department’s prohibition on providing prescriptions for medical marijuana to patients, even for patients living in the 14 states that have legalized medical marijuana. State and federal political differences appear to be playing a role in the decision, as the Drug Enforcement Agency…
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Impact of Divorce: Children’s reactions
Approximately half of all children experience the divorce of their parents (National Center for Health Statistics, 2008), and the negative impact of divorce has been widely studied and debated. While researchers generally agree that children of divorce are at-risk for negative outcomes, questions persist about study findings given methodological limitations. Parental divorce is associated with…
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Treatments for ADHD – and the forgotten role of motivation
Research on the treatments for ADHD suggest that even the most effective treatments may not be sufficient for improving outcomes for children with ADHD diagnoses. Current treatments have a predominately person-biased approach to conceptualizing and treating the disorder. For example, the largest study conducted to assess the efficacy of ADHD interventions pitted medication and psychosocial…