Feature Channels: Psychology and Psychiatry

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Human empathy can even extend to dogs: Empathetic people interpret dogs' facial expressions more intensely.

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My eight-year-old daughter received the classic Hasbro Game of Life as a holiday gift this past year. What caught my attention right away while playing the game with her were the salaries.

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Researchers have found that the microorganisms residing in the intestines (microbiota) play a role in the development of high blood pressure in rats. The study is published in Physiological Genomics. It was chosen as an APS select article for February.

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First UW psychology master’s program launches in fall 2017 to meet the growing need for mental health professionals trained to serve children, teens and families

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Early predictors of anxiety and depression may be evident in the brain even at birth, suggests a study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

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The Super Bowl is one of the most watched events on the planet. When the New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons face off in Super Bowl LI on Sunday, Feb. 5, in Houston, Texas, millions will be watching and rooting for their favorite teams or players. For fans, their pregame ritual may center around Super Bowl commercials, nacho recipes and who will sing the National Anthem, but what’s going on in these elite athletes’ heads before the big game? Florida State University professors Graig Chow and Gershon Tenenbaum are experts on sport psychology and how professionals can help players prepare to compete in the biggest game of their careers.

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As the number of grandparents caring for grandchildren full-time continues to swell, so do the stress-induced health risks associated with such a demanding responsibility. Now, a four-year, $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health will allow researchers at Case Western Reserve University’s Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing to refine and test a new approach to help grandmothers manage the stresses of the this new role—and hopefully reduce the emotional and physical fallout that often results.

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Researchers with Beaumont Health System found that patients’ self-reported pain and anxiety scores improved immediately after a clinical massage, while other patients who listened to a guided-imagery recording found the intervention to be very helpful, reporting improvements in pain, anxiety and insomnia.

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The University of Washington-based Forefront will host a Feb. 16 memorial for state residents who died by suicide and join firearms dealers, veterans’ organizations, pharmacists, health care providers and suicide attempt and loss survivors to advocate for two legislative bills as part of Suicide Prevention Education Day in Olympia, WA.

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This study’s findings show there was a 75 percent reduction in suicide attempts among participants who engaged in crisis response planning versus a contract for safety. Crisis response planning also was associated with a significantly faster decline in suicidal thoughts and fewer inpatient hospitalization days.

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A study that tracked hundreds of children from kindergarten through high school found that chronic or increasing levels of bullying were related to lower academic achievement, a dislike of school and low confidence by students in their own academic abilities, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

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Children who believe intelligence can grow pay more attention to and bounce back from their mistakes more effectively than kids who think intelligence is fixed, indicates a new study that measured the young participants’ brain waves.

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The American Psychological Association thanked the Department of Veterans Affairs for exempting health care provider positions, including those of doctoral psychology interns, from the hiring freeze implemented this week by President Trump.

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Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Vigil Volunteers (V3) program — which pairs volunteers with dying patients who either have no known family or friends, or whose family and friends are unable to be with them — is expanding in 2017.

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Disputes over science-related policy issues such as climate change or fracking often seem as intractable as other politically charged debates. But in science, at least, simple curiosity might help bridge that partisan divide, according to new research.

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Body shaming is a pervasive form of prejudice, found in cyber bullying, critiques of celebrities’ appearances, at work and school, and in public places for everyday Americans. People who are battling obesity face being stereotyped as lazy, incompetent, unattractive, lacking willpower, and to blame for their excess weight. The pain of these messages may take a toll on health and increase risk of cardiovascular and metabolic disease.

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With the growing disagreement between the White House and the media over what constitutes fact, the American Psychological Association has made available psychology experts who can comment on the issue of deception, including why some people (politicians and private individuals alike) choose to dissemble, how to identify when someone is attempting to deceive and what individuals can do to protect themselves from falling victim to falsehoods in the public sphere.

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Sian Beilock, the Stella M. Rowley Professor of Psychology, has been awarded the 2017 Troland Research Award for her pioneering work on anxiety and performance in high-stress situations. The National Academy of Sciences gives the award annually to two investigators no older than 40 to recognize their unusual achievements and to further research in the field of experimental psychology. The honor is accompanied by a $75,000 prize.

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Offering your spouse what you believe to be positive support could have negative physiological effects on them, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.

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If you're seeking investments through online marketing or crowd-funding websites, be sure to smile in your profile photo or your post. But maybe not too big.

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Adolescents are more likely to ignore information that could prompt them to rethink risky decisions. This may explain why information campaigns on risky behaviors such as drug abuse tend to have only limited success.

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Mindfulness meditation is an increasingly popular treatment for anxiety, but testing its effectiveness in a convincing way has been difficult. Now a rigorously designed, NIH-sponsored clinical trial has found objective physiological evidence that mindfulness meditation combats anxiety.

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The pediatric neuropsychology program at NYU Lutheran, led by Gianna Locascio, PsyD, brings a new level of care to Brooklyn families.

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Researchers show that the phenomenon, previously seen in Western populations, also occurs in Chinese teenagers, and can cross cultural divides

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• A new study found that patients on chronic hemodialysis with depression are frequently not interested in modifying or initiating anti-depressant treatment. Kidney specialists caring for these patients are often unwilling to modify or initiate anti-depressant therapy even when patients are willing to accept recommendations from nurses to do so

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Patients who reported the most positive relationships with their counselors on a session-to-session basis had fewer days of drinking and fewer days of heavy drinking between treatment sessions than patients whose relationship was not as positive. The results indicate that efforts to ensure a good match between patient and counselor can have considerable benefits to the patient’s recovery.

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Most people are concerned about the prospect of their social media accounts being hacked, but a new study finds that it’s actually people we know who frequently access our accounts without our permission.

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How we feel after 1-night stands has a lot to do with our gender -- and evolution.

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The Chapman Perelman Foundation has contributed $1 million to Columbia University Medical Center’s Department of Psychiatry to expand an initiative that provides mental health services to victims of domestic violence.

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Psychologist Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD, has been named chief executive officer of the American Psychological Association, the APA Board of Directors announced today. Evans assumes the post effective March 20.

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Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Karolinska Institutet have found that gestational diabetes raises the risk of postpartum depression in first-time mothers.

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Researchers have made a ground-breaking discovery revealing new molecular information on how the brain regulates depression and anxiety. In so doing, they identified a new molecule that alleviates anxiety and depressive behaviour in rodents.

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A new Université de Montréal study in the British Medical Journal reveals that antidepressants prescribed to pregnant women could increase the chance of having a baby with birth defects.

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Our heartbeat can increase pre-existing racial biases when we face a potential threat, according to new research published in Nature Communications.

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Many adults who believe they can’t carry a tune likely formed those beliefs in elementary school, according to new Northwestern University research.  

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A parenting program where fathers engage with their children through reading was found to boost the fathers’ parenting skills while also improving the preschoolers’ school readiness and behavior, finds a study led by NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

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African-American women in abusive relationships use a variety of strategies pulled from three general categories to survive intimate partner violence (IPV), according to a new University at Buffalo study recently published in the journal Social Work.

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Depression is very common during pregnancy, with as many as one in seven women suffering from the illness and more than a half million women impacted by postpartum depression in the U.S. alone. The disorder not only affects the mother’s mood, but has also been linked to influencing the newborn’s development, according to recent research. In a study published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, research from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center found that BDNF levels change during pregnancy, and can cause depression in the mother and low birth weight in the baby.

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It's something many of us say in anger, but don't mean. However, for a small percentage of people homicidal thoughts are very real. Iowa State's Matt DeLisi says identifying offenders with homicidal thoughts could change how we sentence the most serious offenders.

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Is Virginia really for lovers? Other states may have something to say about that. In the first nationwide study of positive relationships, a Michigan State University researcher found that Mississippi, Utah and Wisconsin were actually the top states for lovers. Virginia finished mid-pack.

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Research has shown that internet addicts do not always feel guilty about their usage, and in many cases, they do not even perceive their usage as problematic. A new model developed by researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York could help addicts realize that their usage is a problem and reduce it.

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Even if they believe they could be punished, older kids are more likely than younger children to view confessing to a misdeed as the right thing to do.

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The devastating 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and resulting nuclear disaster in Japan had a high mental health impact—with some effects persisting several years later, according to a comprehensive research review in the January/February issue of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry, published by Wolters Kluwer.

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Psychologists can offer critical experience and expertise in strengthening the increasingly common model of coordinated health care, the patient-centered medical home, helping to achieve the “triple aim” of improved outcomes, decreased cost and enhanced patient experience, according to articles published by the American Psychological Association.

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Soon you can seek mental health advice on your smartphone as quickly as finding a good restaurant.A novel suite of 13 speedy mini-apps called IntelliCare resulted in participants reporting significantly less depression and anxiety by using the apps on their smartphones up to four times a day, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.

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It’s not every day a researcher draws from their own experiences as the basis for a published study but that’s exactly what Miles Taylor, associate professor of sociology at Florida State University, has done in her latest paper addressing what she calls the structural burden of caregiving.

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The American Psychological Association has appointed Rose Sokol-Chang, PhD, as publisher of journals in its Office of Publications and Databases, charged with managing all the editorial, peer review and production functions of APA’s journals’ program.

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Sexual preference is influenced by males’ adolescent social stress history and social status, according to a research team including Nicole Cameron, assistant professor of psychology at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

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State laws requiring ignition interlocks for all drunk driving offenders appear to reduce the number of fatal drunk driving crashes, a new study by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Colorado School of Public Health researchers suggests.