Psychology

As Americans increasingly seek a “quick fix” to physical and mental ailments, psychoanalysts can be caught in the crossfire of a debate about the potential benefits and drawbacks of including…

Even a few days into New Year’s resolutions to exercise more, people are finding reasons to skip workouts even though the benefits of a healthy lifestyle are well-known: In addition to weight loss,…

Oxytocin, a hormone involved in child-birth and breast-feeding, helps people recognize familiar faces, according to new research in the January 7 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. Study…

Many parents have said yes. David Healy, a Scottish psychiatrist, prompted by those stories, did a small experiment in which undepressed persons took anti-depressants. About 10% of them started…

According to Temple University’s Joanna Maselko, Sc.D., women who had stopped being religiously active were more than three times more likely to have suffered generalized anxiety and alcohol abuse…

If you're going to experience a period of helplessness, it's best to be alone. New research at the University of Haifa found that laboratory rats that were on their own when exposed to uncontrollable…

'Flag waving' is often considered a metaphor for stirring up the public towards adopting a more nationalistic, generally hard-line stance. It brings with it a host of other subtle terms, like…

People with clinical addictions know first-hand the ravages the disease can take on almost every aspect of their lives. So why do they continue addictive behaviors, even after a period of peaceable…

One person out of every thousand has synaesthesia, a psychological phenomenon in which they can smell a sound or hear a color. Most of these people are not aware they are synaesthetes and feel…

A brain chemical that makes us sleepy also appears to play a central role in the success of deep brain stimulation to ease symptoms in patients with Parkinson’s disease and other brain disorders. The…