Posts
May 23, 2013
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Imagine you are the driver & your chocolate cravings are unruly passengers
If someone gave you a bag of 14 chocolates to carry around for five days, would you be able to resist eating them and any other chocolate? That was challenge faced by 135 undergrads in a new study that compared the effectiveness of two different "mindfulness" resistance techniques.
To help them, Kim Jenkins and Katy Tapper taught 45 of their participants "cognitive diffusion", the essence being that "you are not […]
Jenkins, K. & Tapper, K. (2013). Resisting chocolate temptation using a brief mindfulness strategy, British Journal of Health Psychology, DOI: 10.1111/bjhp.12050
Citation
May 22, 2013
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9:08 AM | The Special Issue Spotter
We trawl the world's journals so you don't have to:
Psychotherapy Outcome (Psychotherapy).
Asexuality (Psychology and Sexuality). Editorial is open access.
Poverty and Class (virtual special issue from British Journal of Educational Psychology). Open access.
Australian Forensic Psychology (virtual special issue of the Australian Psychologist). Open access.
The Teenage Brain (Current Directions in Psychological Science).
Specificity, Methodology and Psychopathology of Emotional Attention […]
May 21, 2013
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What is going on in the brain of someone who has the deluded belief that they are brain dead? A team of researchers led by neuropsychologist Vanessa Charland-Varville at CHU Sart-Tilman Hospital and the University of Liege has attempted to find out by scanning the brain of a depressed patient who held this very belief.
The researchers used a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner, which is the first time this scanning technology has been used on a patient with this kind of delusion […]
Citation
May 20, 2013
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Publication of US psychiatry's updated diagnostic code has provoked renewed debate in recent weeks over the extent to which mental illness ought to be framed as a psychosocial or a biological problem. The answer of course is that it is both. A new Canadian study captures this interplay, showing how close friendships appear to mitigate the risk for girls whose genes mean they are more vulnerable than average to depression.
Mara Brendgen and her colleagues studied 294 pairs of twins aged ten […]
Brendgen, M., Vitaro, F., Bukowski, W., Dionne, G., Tremblay, R. & Boivin, M. (2013). Can friends protect genetically vulnerable children from depression?, Development and Psychopathology, 25 (02) 277-289. DOI: 10.1017/S0954579412001058
Citation
May 17, 2013
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8:31 AM | Link feast
In case you missed them - 10 of the best psychology links from the last week:
1. How too much empathy can actually lead us to do the wrong thing - thought-provoking essay by Paul Bloom. (related research covered on the Digest).
2. Thanks to books like Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow and, most recently, Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people are discovering the manifold biases that muddle human […]
May 16, 2013
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For the penultimate round of the TV show The Apprentice, the competing entrepreneurs must face a series of interviews with a crack team of hardened executives. The implicit, believable message is that these veterans have seen all the interview tricks in the book and will spot any blaggers a mile off. However, a new study provides the reality TV show with a reality check. A team led by Marc-André Reinhard report that experienced job interviewers are in fact no better than novice interviewers […]
Reinhard, M., Scharmach, M. & Müller, P. (2013). It's not what you are, it's what you know: experience, beliefs, and the detection of deception in employment interviews, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43 (3) 467-479. DOI: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2013.01011.x
Citation
May 14, 2013
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Do fluent presenters make
learning feel too easy?
Eloquent and engaging scientific communicators in the mould of physicist Brian Cox make learning seem fun and easy. So much so that a new study says they risk breeding overconfidence. When a presenter is seen to handle complicated information effortlessly, students sense wrongly that they too have acquired a firm grasp of the material.
Shana Carpenter and her colleagues showed 42 undergrad students a one-minute video of a science lecture […]
Carpenter, S., Wilford, M., Kornell, N. & Mullaney, K. (2013). Appearances can be deceiving: instructor fluency increases perceptions of learning without increasing actual learning, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, DOI: 10.3758/s13423-013-0442-z
Citation
May 13, 2013
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Suicide rates have fallen among farmers
Among the various risk factors for suicide, psychologists have recognised for some time that a person's occupation plays an important part. Suicide rates have tended to be unusually high in professions that provide ready access to guns, drugs, or open water, such as in farming, medicine, dentistry and maritime careers.
A new analysis has examined whether this still holds true. Stephen Roberts and his colleagues accessed the UK suicide rates for dozens […]
Roberts, S., Jaremin, B. & Lloyd, K. (2012). High-risk occupations for suicide, Psychological Medicine, 43 (06) 1231-1240. DOI: 10.1017/S0033291712002024
Citation
May 10, 2013
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8:16 AM | Link feast
In case you missed them - 10 of the best psychology links from the past week:
1. Love this - "Neuroscience may be sexier than psychology right now, and it certainly has a lot more money and celebrity. But they really cannot get along without each other." Alison Gopnik in the Wall Street Journal.
2. New Scientist has started a new column written by people with "mysterious neurological conditions". The first is by Heather Sellers who has a severe form of prosopagnosia (AKA face […]
May 09, 2013
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The Greek Stoic Epictetus wrote that "Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them." A new study involving 185 children and teenagers, 88 fathers and 97 mothers shows how this same principle applies to children's fear of the dentist. This is an important topic because many children avoid the dentist out of fear, and around half of dentally anxious adults trace their fears to childhood.
Antonio Crego and his colleagues assessed the children's fear of the dentist, […]
Crego, A., Carrillo-Diaz, M., Armfield, J. & Romero, M. (2013). Applying the Cognitive Vulnerability Model to the analysis of cognitive and family influences on children's dental fear, European Journal of Oral Sciences, DOI: 10.1111/eos.12041
Citation
May 08, 2013
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In a safety-obsessed culture, why do some people throw caution to the wind and pursue sports where a wrong move often means instant death? Clues come from a series of interviews conducted with a group of 15 extreme sport participants (aged 30 to 70; 10 men) about their relationship with fear, including BASE jumpers (who launch themselves off high buildings), big wave surfers and waterfall kayakers.
Eric Brymer and Robert Schweitzer transcribed the interviews and looked for emerging themes. […]
Brymer, E. & Schweitzer, R. (2012). Extreme sports are good for your health: A phenomenological understanding of fear and anxiety in extreme sport, Journal of Health Psychology, 18 (4) 477-487. DOI: 10.1177/1359105312446770
Citation
May 06, 2013
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7:53 AM | Why your friends on Twitter are (probably) more interesting than you, and what to do about it
Statistical logic means that your lover has probably had more sexual partners than you. Similarly, at the gym, most of the other users train more frequently than you. And your friends have more friends than you do - this last observation was labelled the "friendship paradox" by sociologist Scott Feld. It's a fact because popular people get counted in more people's tallies of how many friends their friends have (here's more explanation).
Now thanks to a new paper by
[…]
May 03, 2013
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8:00 AM | Link feast
In case you missed them - 10 of the best psychology links from the past week:
1. Ferris Jabr for Scientific American on a fascinating study conducted on the streets of New York into people's private conversations with themselves - their internal stream of consciousness. (see also).
2. The New York Times published an in-depth back story and interview with social psychology fraudster Diederik Stapel. Includes the revelation that Stapel wore suits as a grad student - a warning […]
May 02, 2013
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We each vary in how much we use first-person singular pronouns (I, Me, Myself) in our speech and writing, and how much we use first-person plural pronouns (We, Us, Ourselves). Researchers say it's a kind of habit and not something we usually have much control over. Now a study conducted in Germany claims that people who are more prolific users of "I" and "Me" tend to have more interpersonal problems and to experience more depression. "Using first-person singular pronouns highlights the self […]
Zimmermann, J., Wolf, M., Bock, A., Peham, D. & Benecke, C. (2013). The way we refer to ourselves reflects how we relate to others: Associations between first-person pronoun use and interpersonal problems, Journal of Research in Personality, 47 (3) 218-225. DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2013.01.008
Citation
May 01, 2013
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3:35 PM | The Special Issue Spotter
We trawl the world's journals so you don't have to:
The psychology of crime (Journal of Criminal Justice).
Hypnosis (Cortex).
Authoritarianism in societal context: The role of threat (International Journal of Psychology).
Contemporary Issues in Forensic Psychology in Australia (Australian Psychologist).
The vegetative state (Neuroethics).
Toward an interdisciplinary neuroaesthetics (Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts).
Methodological Issues in Measuring and Interpreting
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April 30, 2013
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When we adults are confronted by a bridge, we're concerned not just by its width and sturdiness, but also by the height of the drop beneath. If there's a deep canyon, we'd usually rather the bridge was mighty strong and wide. If there's but a short drop, we'll happily jaunt along the narrowest, flimsiest of crossings - after all, it won't matter much if we fall.
Infants - those aged 11 to 14 months - are different. They don't want to fall, so they're wary of narrow bridges. But the height of […]
Kretch, K. & Adolph, K. (2013). No bridge too high: Infants decide whether to cross based on the probability of falling not the severity of the potential fall, Developmental Science, 16 (3) 336-351. DOI: 10.1111/desc.12045
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8:30 AM | Research Digest on the radio
The BPS Research Digest makes its radio debut tonight on BBC Radio 4's All in the Mind programme. Tune in at 9pm (BST) to hear the Digest editor Christian Jarrett chat with presenter Claudia Hammond about some of the psychology and neuroscience studies reported in recent weeks here at the Digest.
The studies mentioned are:
Female political role models have an empowering effect on women
Serious power failure threatens the entire field of neuroscience
How children learn
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April 29, 2013
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In 2004, in Silicon Valley, Google posted a huge billboard ad featuring a mathematical problem. The answer led to a web address with yet another puzzle to crack. People who successfully followed this intellectual treasure hunt ended up being invited in for a job interview.
This is an extreme example of a recruitment principle spelled out in a new article by psychologists in Belgium. They say that distinctive recruitment procedures are the secret to attracting more and better job […]
Cromheecke, S., Van Hoye, G. & Lievens, F. (2013). Changing things up in recruitment: Effects of a ‘strange’ recruitment medium on applicant pool quantity and quality, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, DOI: 10.1111/joop.12018
Citation
April 26, 2013
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9:54 AM | Link Feast
In case you missed them - 10 of the best psychology links from the past week:
1. "Research suggests that mental illnesses lie along a spectrum — but the field's latest diagnostic manual still splits them apart" - ace feature by David Adam for Nature News.
2. "Can you catch depression?" asked the Daily Mail on the back of a new study published in the new journal Clinical Psychological Science. NHS Choices takes a calm, objective look at the evidence.
3. Why is it so hard to quit
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April 25, 2013
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Why are most people in the world religious? Some say it is because we're naturally predisposed to believe in a god or gods and that religion brought evolutionary advantages to our ancestors. But if that's the case, how come there are over half a billion atheists in the world? One theory is that atheists consciously suppress their instincts for religion, with only varying degrees of success. A new study provides tentative support for this idea. Marjaana Lindeman and her colleagues report […]
Lindeman, M., Heywood, B., Riekki, T. & Makkonen, T. (2013). Atheists become emotionally aroused when daring God to do terrible things, International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 2147483647. DOI: 10.1080/10508619.2013.771991
Citation
April 24, 2013
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10:19 AM | Extras
10 eye-catching studies that I didn't get the chance to report on in full:
How do our brain hemispheres cooperate to avoid false memories?
The psychological benefits of refusing to apologise.
What's the fastest speed at which a face can be recognised?
Exploring the transitional process from receiving a diagnosis to living with motor neurone disease
"Power gets the job" Boost your interview chances by first remembering a time you were in a position of power.
Forget the Mozart effect,
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April 23, 2013
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Most research into CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) for teenagers has focused on whether it works or not, with largely positive results. Surprisingly little attention has been paid to finding out what it is actually like for a teenager to undertake CBT.
Deanna Donnellan and her colleagues have made an initial effort to plug this gap, conducting in-depth interviews with three teenage girls who'd completed a course of individual CBT, asking them about their perception of the therapy and […]
Citation
April 22, 2013
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Bankers, investors, stock market traders and their ilk have been vilified in recent years, in large part because the global financial crisis has been blamed on their allegedly unchecked selfishness and greed.
In fact, there's a widespread implicit belief that a love of money goes hand in hand with selfishness. A study published in 2008 backed this up - people with a greater love of money tended to report being more selfish at work.
A new study with business students at Loyola University […]
Babula, M. (2013). The unlikely Samaritans, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43 (4) 899-908. DOI: 10.1111/jasp.12055
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We have five copies to give away of Occupational Psychology: An Applied Approach by Gail Steptoe-Warren, kindly donated to us by the publishers Pearson.
From the publishers: "Occupational Psychology: An Applied Approach introduces students to the essential theories in this area, from motivation and wellbeing to group roles and individual differences. The book explores the impact of every topic from the perspective of the individual, management, and the organisation as a whole,
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April 19, 2013
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9:29 AM | Link feast
In case you missed them - 10 of the best psychology links from the past week:
1. The publishers Wiley have teamed up with TED to present a series of curated neuroscience talks packaged with free teaching and study materials.
2. Differences around the world in the way parents describe their children.
3. Scientific American Mind reviews Drunk Tank Pink - the new book about disfluency and other environmental psychological effects by Adam Alter. Disfluency is the idea that the […]
April 18, 2013
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Young children's instinct for group membership can be exploited to boost their learning performance. That's according to a new study that recalls classic social psychology research conducted in the 1970s. Back then Henri Tajfel showed a darker side to this group mentality. In his "minimal group" studies, schoolboys were divided into two groups based merely on their preference for one of two artists. The arbitrary groups thus formed, the boys showed immediate bias against peers not in […]
Master, A. & Walton, G. (2013). Minimal Groups Increase Young Children's Motivation and Learning on Group-Relevant Tasks, Child Development, 84 (2) 737-751. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01867.x
Citation
April 17, 2013
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Psychologically empowering to women?
The late Margaret Thatcher - Britain's first and, so far, only female Prime Minister - is criticised for failing to do more to help other women get ahead in politics. Supporters argue, however, that the example she set will, on its own, have been of profound benefit to women with leadership ambitions. A new study puts this principle to the test, examining the effect on women of reminders about the contemporary female political high-flyers Angela […]
Latu, I., Mast, M., Lammers, J. & Bombari, D. (2013). Successful female leaders empower women's behavior in leadership tasks, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49 (3) 444-448. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2013.01.003
Citation
April 15, 2013
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People who worry habitually about separation and abandonment - the "anxiously attached" - tend to be highly skilled at lie detection, an attribute that means they excel at poker. That's according to Tsachi Ein-Dor and Adi Perry whose new findings build on their theory that anxiously attached people are natural sentinels - highly sensitive to threats in the environment, including, this new research suggests, social threats.
Across a pair of initial studies, dozens of men and women […]
Ein-Dor T & Perry A (2013). Full House of Fears: Evidence that People High in Attachment Anxiety are More Accurate in Detecting Deceit., Journal of personality, PMID: 23437786
Citation
April 12, 2013
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9:46 AM | Link feast
In case you missed them - 10 of the best psychology links from the past week:
1. Stunning video of a whole mouse brain rendered entirely transparent.
2. Brilliant article by Joseph LeDoux on the benefits to anxious people of "pro-active avoidance". "When avoidance prevents one from dealing with life, it is maladaptive. But when avoidance is proactive and part of active coping and agency, it helps the person control the accelerator, brakes, and the track switches. It is a useful […]
April 10, 2013
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Psychology has had a torrid time of late, with fraud scandals and question marks about the replicability of many of the discipline's key findings. Today it is joined in the dock by its more biologically oriented sibling: Neuroscience. A team led by Katherine Button at the School of Experimental Psychology in Bristol, and including psychologist Brian Nosek, founder of the new Center for Open Science, make the case in a new paper that the majority of neuroscience studies involve […]
