Retail Ruses And Accent Attitudes: The Week ’s Best Psychology Links

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web Deep brain stimulation (DBS) can help patients with Parkinson’s control their movement — but a new study has found that it also prevents some people from being able to swim. Nine patients — including two former competitive swimmers — were no longer able to keep afloat after receiving implants for DBS, reports Jennifer Walter for Discover. Past research has found that DBS can also disrupt other learned motor skills, such as golfing. A ketamine-based intervention could help heavy drinkers cut down on their alcohol consumption, reports Kelly Servick at Science. Researchers gave drinkers a single dose of ketamine, with the aim of disrupting the associations they had formed between the sights and smells of beer and the reward they got from consuming it. Months later, the participants were drinking far fewer pints. “All humans have biases – simplified ways of thinking when we need to process our thoughts quickly. Accent is no exception: we all have automatic associations with accents based on people we’ve met during our lives. It’s only when we rely on these simple stereotypes to judge unrelated traits, like intelligence or competence, that our cultural baggage becomes discrimination.” At The Conversation, Devyani Sharma writes about her research into people’s perceptions of different British accents — and how these attitudes can lead to prejudice against those who are already mar...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Weekly links Source Type: blogs