Psychology

Lavender- The Fragrance Of Trust

Long before oxytocin was the miracle spray that could make people feel more trusting, our ancestors used lavender. Unsurprisingly, it still works today, according to a new psychology paper. Nederlandse Vereniging voor Psychonomie member psychologists Rober ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 12 2015 - 11:55am

Essentialism In Kids: Bilingualism Changes Beliefs

Most young children are essentialists, they believe that human and animal characteristics are innate, so traits like native language and clothing preference are intrinsic rather than acquired. It is a natural law that other kids should speak the same langu ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 13 2015 - 1:17pm

Bisexual Women Have Worse Mental Health Than Lesbians

Bisexual women are more likely to experience poor mental health and mental distress than lesbians, according to new data gleaned from the 2007 Stonewall UK Women's Health Survey. Researchers from the London School of Hygiene&Tropical Medicine anal ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 14 2015 - 9:30am

Letting People Simulate Blindness Actually Worsens Attitudes Toward Blindness

Using simulation, such as wearing a blindfold while performing everyday tasks, has negative effects on people's perceptions of the visually impaired, according to a recent paper. In one part of the study, after simulating blindness by having their ey ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 16 2015 - 12:24pm

Helicopter Parenting: Good For Your Pets, Bad For Your Kids

If you want to make your children neurotic, clinginess and overprotectiveness on your part- helicopter parenting- is the way to go. Assuming you don't want to cause that, it is still okay to hover over your dogs and cats, according to an analysis of p ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 14 2015 - 5:42pm

What Drives Killers Like In Ottawa Or Paris?

When mass murders happen in a place like the US, despite the fact that they are no more prevalent than most countries and murders have plummeted as gun ownership rose, the simplistic answer is 'guns'- when murders happen in Canada or France, wher ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 15 2015 - 12:13pm

Innocent People Can Be Convinced They Committed A Crime That Never Happened

Evidence from some wrongful-conviction cases suggests that suspects can be questioned in ways that lead them to falsely believe in and confess to committing crimes they didn't actually commit. The new work provides lab-based evidence for this phenomen ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 17 2015 - 11:11am

Cultural Psychology- American Liberals More WEIRD Than Conservatives

Political conservatives in the United States are somewhat like East Asians in the way they think, categorize and perceive, while liberals in the U.S. are more extreme in thought, categorization and perception, according to a new cultural psychology analysi ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 22 2015 - 12:54pm

Hardwired For Miscommunication? Why Women Think Sex When Men Just Want To Be Friends

We are all familiar with the following scenarios: a woman and a man are having a conversation. She is warm and friendly and clearly interested in the conversation. He interprets her behavior as sexual interest. Or she is warm and friendly and clearly inter ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 29 2015 - 4:54pm

Does Porn Make People More Likely To Engage In Unsafe Sexual Behaviors?

Risky sexual behaviors such as casual sex, lack of condom use and a high number of sexual partners have been linked to poor health outcomes, including obviously an increased incidence of sexually transmitted infections, in the effects part of the psycholog ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 1 2015 - 7:43pm