While more older adults than ever are using cell phones and computers, a technology gap still exists that threatens to turn senior citizens into second-class citizens, according to Florida State University researchers.
Dalhousie University researcher Mark Petter has been looking into whether dogs can recognize if humans had the intention of deceiving them. His results have been published in Behavioural Processes magazine.
Whether a parent or a professional caregiver, anyone who has cared for children is likely to have dozens of questions about their development. With the intent of providing up-to-date information on the many issues related to children and their development, a leading group of scholars has created The Child: An Encyclopedia Companion.
People with relatively extreme opinions may be more willing to publicly share their views than those with more moderate views. The key is that the extremists have to believe that more people share their views than actually do, the research found.
Violence between couples is usually the result of a calculated decision-making process and the partner inflicting violence will do so only as long as the price to be paid is not too high. This is the conclusion of a new study by Dr. Eila Perkis at the University of Haifa.
Drinking. Drugs. Caving into peer pressure. When parents expect their teenagers to conform to negative stereotypes, those teens are in fact more likely to do so.
Baby boomers may be popularly portrayed as whiners, complainers and narcissists, but a new study by University of Massachusetts Amherst psychology Professor Susan Krauss Whitbourne says the 50-somethings are getting a bad rap.
In “The Rewards of Punishment: A Relational Theory of Norm Enforcement,” WSU sociologist Christine Horne develops her theory that people sanction because they want to look good to others. Further, her research indicates that the more cohesive or interdependent the group, the more likely people are to sanction bad behavior.
Urban legend has it that Las Vegas casinos hire "coolers," mopes who ease up next to players on a hot streak hoping their bad luck cools the table down. A new study by a University of Iowa business professor suggests people make choices in ways that show we think such a thing is possible, despite our reason telling us it isn't.
In a new twist on the adage "power corrupts," researchers at UC Berkeley and USC have found a direct link among supervisors and upper management between self-perceived incompetence and aggression.
In the first published research study of the long-term effects of different treatments for seasonal affective disorder, cognitive behavior therapy proved significantly more effective than light therapy in decreasing depression the following winter.
A 16-year-old might be quite capable of making an informed decision about whether to end a pregnancy – a decision likely to be made after due consideration and consultation with an adult – but this same adolescent may not possess the maturity to be held to adult levels of responsibility if she commits a violent crime, according to new research into adolescent psychological development.
Many U.S. children face a terrible burden of stressors that can harm the development of their brains and nervous systems, ultimately causing some to die prematurely, a CDC study finds.
The prevalence of mental health disorders in this country has nearly doubled in the past 20 years. Who is treating all of these patients? Clinical psychologists and therapists are charged with the task, but many are falling short by using methods that are out of date and lack scientific rigor.
The brain’s neural mechanisms keep straight which color belongs to what object, so one doesn’t mistakenly see a blue flamingo in a pink lake. But what happens when a color loses the object to which it is linked? Research shows for the first time, that instead of disappearing along with the lost object, the color latches onto a region of some other object in view.
Want to be a better person? Commune with nature. Paying attention to the natural world not only makes you feel better, it makes you behave better, finds a new study to be published October 1 in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Van Gogh cut off his ear. Sylvia Plath stuck her head in the oven. Were they simply mad or brilliant? According to new research, maybe both: Volunteers with a specific variant of neuregulin 1 scored higher on a creativity assessment than volunteers with a different form of neuregulin 1.
Does “use it or lose it” apply to foreign languages? Although it may seem we have absolutely no memory of a neglected language, new research suggests this “forgotten” language may be more deeply engraved in our minds than we realize.
A new study analyzes differences between truthful and false content in the flow of writing, height and length of strokes and pressure of the pen on the page. "This method can improve our ability to identify lies in handwriting," the researchers noted.
A recreational experience gone wrong will cause much more unhappiness than the purchase of poor quality goods, reports a study in the Journal of Consumer Research
We are faced with making decisions all the time. Often, we carefully deliberate the pros and cons of our choices, before making a final decision. However, a new study suggests that cognitive stress, such as distraction, can influence this balanced, logical approach to decision making.
Reading a book by Franz Kafka ––or watching a film by director David Lynch ––could make you smarter. According to research by psychologists at UC Santa Barbara and the University of British Columbia, exposure to surrealism enhances the cognitive mechanisms that oversee implicit learning functions.
Researchers provided a nationally-represented sample of adults with an online survey about the US Supreme Court's ruling on physician-assisted suicide.
Our preferences for specific popular movies, music, and classic art may predict personality traits and the lives we will lead, according to new research from the University of New Hampshire.
C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health finds few parents would grade schools with an "A" for school bullying and violence prevention programs.
The belief that healthy older brains are substantially smaller than younger brains may stem from studies that did not screen out people whose undetected, slowly developing brain disease was killing off cells in key areas, according to new research. As a result, previous findings may have overestimated atrophy and underestimated normal size for the older brain.
In a new study in Psychological Science, researchers found that priming infants with subtle cues to affiliation increases their tendency to be helpful.
Folk wisdom usually has it that “seeing is believing,” but new research suggests that “believing is seeing,” too – at least when it comes to perceiving other people’s emotions.
Music is one of the surest ways to influence human emotions; most people unconsciously recognize and respond to music that is happy, sad, fearful or mellow. But psychologists who have tried to trace the evolutionary roots of these responses usually hit a dead end. Nonhuman primates scarcely respond to human music, and instead prefer silence.
A new book by researchers from across the world explores the contexts within which individuals, families, and communities develop and change – and strategies for improving life.
Every March, most Americans welcome the switch to daylight saving time because of the longer days, but also dread losing an hour of sleep after they move their clocks forward. Now a new study shows that losing just an hour of sleep could pose some dangerous consequences for those in hazardous work environments.
More than 12,000 children under the age of 20 are diagnosed with cancer each year. Although these children and their parents undergo a tremendous amount of stress during this time, researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital found that most children are able to cope with their diagnosis without experiencing high levels of depression or anxiety. In a study published this year in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology, researchers found a group of 75 kids with cancer adjusted surprisingly well within the first year of diagnosis.
Weighty. Heavy. What do these words have to do with seriousness and importance? Why do we weigh our options, and why does your opinion carry more weight than mine? New research suggests that we can blame this on gravity.
The advantage that children get from living in two-parent families may actually be due to family stability more than the fact that their parents are married, a new study suggests.
A new study shows just what it takes to convince a person that he isn’t qualified to achieve the career of his dreams. Researchers found that it’s not enough to tell people they don’t have the skills or the grades to make their goal a reality.
According to a recent study, it appears humans are not actually capable of "turning off" another language entirely--knowledge of a second language actually has a continuous impact on native-language reading.
Although Asian-Americans as a group have lower rates of thinking about and attempting suicide than the national average, U.S.-born Asian-American women seem to be particularly at risk for suicidal behavior.
Being a victim of sexual assault and seeking help is difficult for anyone, but when the victim is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or queer (LGBTQ) the thought of reporting a crime may well be laced with added layers of uncertainty and mistrust, according to a study in Oregon.
About one-third of children with a parent deployed in the Global War on Terror are at high risk for psychosocial problems, suggests a study in the August issue of the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics.
Merely seeing a smile (or a frown, for that matter) will activate the muscles in our face that make that expression, even if we are unaware of it. Now, according to a new study, simply reading emotion verbs may also have the same effect.
"That blasted siren. I can't focus." That reaction to undesired distraction may signal a person's low working-memory capacity, according to a new study. Based on a study of 84 students divided into four separate experiments, University of Oregon researchers found that students with high memory storage capacity were clearly better able to ignore distractions and stay focused on their assigned tasks.
Professor Robert Feldman says most of what we know about how and why people lie is wrong. Lying is common and people willingly accept and often welcome the lies they are told, he says. And it's hard to identify lying and liars. Feldman's new book, "The Liar in Your Life," has just been published.
Research conducted by Dr. Taylor Plumb and Dr. Diane Zelman from the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University shows high rates of disturbed sleep and indicators of possible sleep disorders experienced by current and former military personnel who served in Afghanistan or Iraq during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) or Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).
New research from the Kellogg School of Management demonstrates that individuals believe they have more restraint than they actually possess"”ultimately leading to poor decision-making.
A stable, long-term marriage can be good for your health, but divorce or widowhood leave a lasting scar on the health of middle-aged and older people, according to a new study. Remarriage seems to reduce but not erase the damage done by losing a marriage, and those who remain single after a marriage ends show consistently worse health than those who remarried.
A new report reveals that students who were the most devoted to their school to begin with were also the most cooperative and helpful when forced to confront the school's failings. That is, those truest to their group redoubled their sense of service and commitment when faced with injustice.