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False Confessions Confuse Forensics
Scientific American: Confessing to a crime usually is not enough to throw you behind bars. Many states require independent evidence to corroborate a confession. But if a suspect confesses and forensic investigators know, it can cause them to favor evidence in support of a guilty verdict—even if the confession is coerced or false. So says a study in the journal Psychological Science. [Saul Kassin, Daniel Bogart and Jacqueline Kerner, Confessions that Corrupt: Evidence from the DNA Exoneration Case Files, January 2012 Psychological Science (no link yet)] Researchers analyzed 241 cases from the Innocence Project, which uses DNA tests to try to exonerate prisoners who are in fact not guilty.
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A Serving of Gratitude May Save the Day
The New York Times: The most psychologically correct holiday of the year is upon us. Thanksgiving may be the holiday from hell for nutritionists, and it produces plenty of war stories for psychiatrists dealing with drunken family meltdowns. But it has recently become the favorite feast of psychologists studying the consequences of giving thanks. Cultivating an “attitude of gratitude” has been linked to better health, sounder sleep, less anxiety and depression, higher long-term satisfaction with life and kinder behavior toward others, including romantic partners.
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Consistency Of A Mother’s Psychological State Vital To Child Development, New Study Shows
The Huffington Post: Developing infants can sense what their mothers are feeling, but in an unusual twist, authors of a new study suggest it isn't necessarily a woman's mental state that matters -- i.e. whether or not she's depressed -- but rather the consistency of the woman's psychological state before and after she gives birth. The new study, slated for publication in the December issue of Psychological Science, examines how maternal depression impacts babies' mental health and motor skills. Researchers from the University of California, Irvine, followed 221 pregnant women through pregnancy and for a year following birth.
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Giving thanks helps your psychological outlook
USA Today: While it seems pretty obvious that gratitude is a positive emotion, psychologists for decades rarely delved into the science of giving thanks. But in the last several years they have, learning in many experiments that it is one of humanity's most powerful emotions. It makes you happier and can change your attitude about life, like an emotional reset button. Especially in hard times, like these. Beyond proving that being grateful helps you, psychologists also are trying to figure out the brain chemistry behind gratitude and the best ways of showing it.
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Vitamin risks? Study ties supplements to bad health decisions
CBS News: Talk about irony. People who take vitamin supplements may be more likely to take risks with their health, according to a surprising new study from Taiwan. Its authors conclude that taking vitamins may give an "illusory sense of invulnerability" that leads the pill-poppers to exercise less and to eat more than they should. Researchers looked into the psychology of vitamin supplementation after noticing an "asymmetrical" relationship between public health and the use of vitamins.
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A Study Looks At the Nature of Change in Our Aging, Changing Brains
As we get older, our cognitive abilities change, improving when we’re younger and declining as we age. Scientists posit a hierarchical structure within which these abilities are organized. There’s the “lowest” level— measured by specific tests, such as story memory or word memory; the second level, which groups various skills involved in a category of cognitive ability, such as memory, perceptual speed, or reasoning; and finally, the “general,” or G, factor, a sort of statistical aggregate of all the thinking abilities. What happens to this structure as we age? That was the question Timothy A.
