APS Fellow Alan Leshner, who has held some of the most prestigious scientific leadership positions in the United States, calls on policymakers to support research into the real causes of mass shootings instead of scapegoating people who struggle with mental disorders. More
Some mental health patients report more symptoms than they actually experience and this is often attributed to malingering, when people intentionally inflate their symptoms for some benefit. The assumption that such patients are malingering tends to overshadow alternative explanations, even though research indicates that there are actually multiple pathways that could lead to overreporting. Researcher Harald Merckelbach of Maastricht University and colleagues review the available data and detail some of these alternative explanations in Current Directions in Psychological Science. More
Anxiety has long been one of the most feared enemies in our emotional canon. We fear its arrival, feel helpless and trapped under its spell, and grant it power to overtake us in new, exciting and challenging situations. But what if we’ve been going about it all wrong? Research shows More
A generation ago, depression was viewed as an unwanted guest: a gloomy presence that might appear in the wake of a loss or a grave disappointment and was slow to find the door. The people it haunted could acknowledge the poor company — I’ve been a little depressed since my More
Instructors should be prepared to listen for —and challenge — belief perseverance, and can use this myth to highlight how automatic and difficult belief perseverance can be to overcome. More
An estimated 12.8 percent of adolescents in the U.S. experience at least one episode of major depression, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. According to previous studies, many of those teens’ mental health is linked to depression in their parents. But new research suggests there’s a flipside to More
