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When My Eyes Serve My Stomach
Our senses aren’t just delivering a strict view of what’s going on in the world; they’re affected by what’s going on in our heads. A new study finds that hungry people see food-related words more clearly than people who’ve just eaten. The study, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that this change in vision happens at the earliest, perceptual stages, before higher parts of the brain have a chance to change the messages coming from the eyes. Psychologists have known for decades that what’s going on inside our head affects our senses.
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Placebo Power
APS Fellow and Charter Member Irving Kirsch, associate director of the Placebo Studies Program at Harvard Medical School, says the difference between the effect of a placebo and the effect of an antidepressant is minimal for most people. "People get better when they take the drug, but it's not the chemical ingredients of the drugs that are making them better," Kirsch told Lesley Stael in a 60 Minutes interview, "it's largely the placebo effect." The "placebo effect" may not be all in your head says Kirsch in the interview below: Kirsch, I., Deacon, B.J., Huedo-Medina, T.B., Scoboria, A., Moore, T.J., & Johnson, B.T. (2008).
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Hope for children addicted to gaming
The Sydney Morning Herald: Children addicted to video games are more likely to suffer depression, anxiety and social phobias as a result of their pathological gaming, and may need professional help to recover, a visiting American researcher says. Once their gaming is back to normal levels, their psychological problems shift, and their mood and school work improves, says Douglas Gentile, a lead researcher on two studies of video game addiction. Dr Gentile, an associate professor in psychology at Iowa State University, will be a guest speaker at the Corporate Takeover of Childhood conference in Melbourne next month. Read the whole story: The Sydney Morning Herald
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Driven to Worry, and to Procrastinate
The New York Times: SINCE time began, it seems, people have been putting off till tomorrow what they could have done today — berating themselves and inconveniencing others in the process. It wouldn’t be a problem except that time eventually runs out. “You may delay, but time will not,” said Benjamin Franklin. In the world of work, procrastination has “expensive and visible costs,” said Rory Vaden, a corporate trainer, who points to research showing that the average employee admits to wasting two hours a day on nonwork tasks. People know that procrastination hurts themselves, others and their work, so why do they do it?
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El estrés cambia la forma en la que se toman decisiones
ABC Salud: El estrés cambia la forma en la que se toman decisiones, alterando la manera en la que las personas sopesan riesgos y beneficios. Así lo apunta un estudio de llevado a cabo por un equipo de investigadores de la Universidad de California del Sur (EE.UU.), cuyos resultados, publicados en el último número de Current Directions in Psychological Science, revelan que el estrés hace que la gente se centre más en lo positivo.
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Perfectionism, Goal Appraisals, and Distress in Students
In case you missed it, the cameras were rolling in Washington, DC. Watch. Watch Gordon L. Flett from York University, Canada and Taryn Nepon of York University, Canada present their research at the 23rd APS Annual Convention in Washington, DC. This study examined perfectionism, goal cognitions, and distress in 95 students. Participants completed the Goal Systems Assessment Battery, along with measures of perfectionism, anxiety, and depression. Socially prescribed perfectionism and perfectionistic thoughts were associated with goal-related self-criticism and negative arousal. Self-oriented perfectionism predicted self-criticism and negative arousal for academic goals.
