Cold Days Can Make Us Long For Social Contact — But Warming Up Our Bodies Eliminates This Desire
By Emma Young
From our earliest moments, our awareness of being physically close to someone else is tied up with perceptions of actual warmth. It’s been suggested that this relationship becomes deeply ingrained, with temperature in turn affecting our social perceptions on into adulthood. However, some of the most-publicised results in this field have failed to replicate, leading critics to query whether the relationship really exists.
Now a new paper, published in Social Psychology, provides an apparently compelling explanation for at least some inconsistencies in the results, and supports the idea that our temperature ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - January 27, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Perception Social Source Type: blogs
We Consistently Overestimate How Much Other People Will Enjoy Or Pay For Stuff
By Emma Young
Imagine taking a two-week holiday to the Bahamas. Sand, sea, and reef — who wouldn’t love it? I mean, personally, though I would love aspects of it, I’m quickly bored on a beach, I’m too nervous of deep water to dive and excessive sun brings me out in a rash. But that’s just me. Anyone else would just adore it….right?
This, it turns out, is a classic example of a bias, dubbed the overestimation bias, revealed in a new paper, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. In a series of studies involving thousands of participants, Minah Jung at New York University and colleagues found that ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - January 14, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Cognition Decision making Social Source Type: blogs
What Should Academics Know About Lobbying Law?
Academics sometimes get a bad rap for being stuck in their ivory towers. But many academics realize that their expertise can be useful to policymakers and aim to make it widely available through a variety of avenues. We write op-eds, publish in policy-oriented journals, send letters to elected officials, write amicus briefs, submit comments on proposed regulations, serve on advisory committees, and offer testimony. At the current political moment, these types of public engagement and advocacy activities are particularly salient for academics doing work relevant to health and science policy, topics at the top of the nationa...
Source: Academic Medicine Blog - January 14, 2020 Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: Guest Author Tags: Featured Guest Perspective academic advocacy faculty health policy law lobbying Source Type: blogs
Dopamine Fasting Probably Doesn ’ t Work, Try This Instead
A behavioral brain fad called “dopamine fasting” (#dopaminefasting) has been floating around the internet for the past year. The idea is that by restricting most of your pleasurable daily activities — from social media, to watching videos, gaming, talking, or even eating — you can “reset” your brain. The idea also plays into people’s simplistic beliefs about how the brain works.
Can you have conscious control over discrete dopamine levels in your brain? Let’s delve into the science behind one of your brain’s most important neurotransmitters, dopamine.
During a “d...
Source: World of Psychology - November 13, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: John M. Grohol, Psy.D. Tags: Brain and Behavior General Mental Health and Wellness Motivation and Inspiration Psychology Research dopamine fasting Neuroscience Neurotransmitter social media Technology unplug Source Type: blogs
Five Ways To Boost Resilience In Children
By Emma Young
While some of us crumble in the face of adversity, and struggle to recover, others quickly bounce back from even serious trauma. Psychological resilience is undeniably important in all kinds of areas of life, so understanding what underpins it, and how to train it – particularly in children — is of intense interest to psychologists.
1. Watch your language
According to Carol Dweck of growth mindset fame, to drive success in our children we should “praise the effort that led to the outcome or learning progress; tie the praise to it,” as opposed to praising effort more broadly, or achievement al...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - November 5, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Developmental Feature Source Type: blogs
Cool Images: A Colorful —and Halloween-Inspired—Collection
Transformations aren’t just for people or pets around Halloween. Scientific images also can look different than you might expect, depending on how they’re photographed. Check out these tricky-looking images and learn more about the science behind them.
Credit: Nilay Taneja, Vanderbilt University, and Dylan T. Burnette, Ph.D., Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Do you have a hunch about what this image is? Perhaps something to do with dry leaves? It’s a human fibroblast cell undergoing cell division, or cytokinesis, into two daughter cells. Cytokinesis is essential for the growth and development...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - October 31, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Cells Biofilms Cellular Imaging Cool Images Source Type: blogs
When Politics Meets Genomics In the US
DNA
collection from migrants who cross the US-Mexico border might be put in place
soon, and the information will feed a large criminal database operated by the
FBI, announced
headlines early October. We’ve come a long way
since the first direct-to-consumer (DTC) company, 23andme, started to offer
ancestry DNA testing kits online. It seems as it was decades ago – while in
fact, we’re speaking about 10-12 years. How has DTC genetic testing culminated
in population genomics – and what can we expect in the future to come? In the
second part of our article series about genomics and politics, we’ll try to see
where ‘...
Source: The Medical Futurist - October 19, 2019 Category: Information Technology Authors: nora Tags: Genomics American biotechnology dna testing ethics future genes genetics policy-making politics regulation science US USA Source Type: blogs
20 Medical Technology Advances: Medicine In The Future – Part I
Mind-reading exoskeletons, digital tattoos, 3D printed drugs, RFID implants for recreational purposes: mindblowing innovations come to medicine and healthcare almost every single day. We shortlisted some of the greatest ideas and developments that could give us a glimpse into the future of medicine, but we found so many that we had trouble fitting them into one article. Here are the first ten spectacular medical innovations to watch for.
1) Mixed reality opens new ways for medical education
Augmented, virtual, and mixed reality are all technologies opening new worlds for the human senses. While the difference between...
Source: The Medical Futurist - October 17, 2019 Category: Information Technology Authors: berci.mesko Tags: Future of Medicine 3d printing artificial food brain-computer interface cyborg digital tattoos drug development exoskeleton gamification google glass health insurance Healthcare Innovation List Medical education medical techn Source Type: blogs
Where Are All the Late Career Radiologists?
The population of radiologists in the United States falls by more than 50 percent after around 30 years post-residency, according to a studyrecently published inAcademic Radiology.Researchers from the New York University Langone Medical Center ’s Department of Radiology led byAndrew B. Rosenkrantz, MD, MPA, found that radiologists in a variety of specialties who were still working three or four decades past their residency were just as productive as their earlier career counterparts. A 2017 national workforce survey echoes this drastic contrast and found that 28 percent of practicing radiologists were older than 56 whe...
Source: radRounds - May 17, 2019 Category: Radiology Authors: Julie Morse Source Type: blogs
Are Female And Male Brains Fundamentally Different? An Expert Pours Cold Water On Recent Claims That A Brain-Scan Study of Foetuses Proves They Are
By guest blogger Gina Rippon
In case you hadn’t noticed, there is an ongoing debate about the existence of differences between women’s and men’s brains, and the extent to which these might be linked to biological or to cultural factors. In this debate, a real game-changer of a study would involve the identification of clear-cut sex differences in foetal brains: that is, in brains that have not yet been exposed to all the different expectations and experiences that the world might offer. A recent open-access study published in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience by Muriah Wheelock at the University of Washington and ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - April 23, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Brain Gender guest blogger Methods Source Type: blogs
Has The Liberal Bias In Psychology Contributed To The Replication Crisis?
By Jesse Singal
There’s no simple explanation for why psychology has been hit so hard by the replication crisis – it’s the result of a complicated mix of professional incentives, questionable research practices, and other factors, including the sheer popularity of the sorts of sexy, counterintuitive findings that make for great TED Talk fodder.
But that might not be the entire story. Some have also posited a more sociological explanation: political bias. After all, psychology is overwhelmingly liberal. Estimates vary and depend on the methodology used to generate them, but among professional psychologists the ratio ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - April 2, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Methods Political Replications Source Type: blogs
Do Opposites Really Attract?
News flash! Just about everyone thinks that opposites attract — but they don’t. Many relationship experts write that people seek partners whose traits complement their own.
It’s a myth that opposites attract, says Matthew D. Johnson, Chair & Professor of Psychology and Director of the Marriage and Family Studies Laboratory, Binghamton University, State University of New York.
“Love stories often include people finding partners who seem to have traits that they lack,” he writes, “like a good girl falling for a bad boy. In this way, they appear to complement one another … The question i...
Source: World of Psychology - March 24, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Marcia Naomi Berger, MSW, LCSW Tags: Communication Marriage and Divorce Relationships Source Type: blogs
ISCHEMIA Trial baseline data
International Study of Comparative Health Effectiveness With Medical and Invasive Approaches (ISCHEMIA) trial was sponsored by the New York University School of Medicine. Collaborators include National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), Stanford University, Duke University, Emory University, Harvard University and several other leading institutions.
ISCHEMIA trial randomized 5179 patients with stable ischemic heart disease with moderate to severe degree of inducible ischemia on stress testing. Blinded CT coronary angiogram was used to exclude those with significant unprotected left main coronary artery disease or ...
Source: Cardiophile MD - March 16, 2019 Category: Cardiology Authors: Prof. Dr. Johnson Francis Tags: Cardiology Source Type: blogs
The Fantastical World of Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler
Meet Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler aka Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler aka Damian Dariusz Markiewicz.
According to him, he’s “an award-winning Polish-American clinician sexologist, the scholar of forensic and legal medicine, the scientist trained in digital epidemiology, and the media health expert personality.” He’s been quoted by more than a dozen online publications internationally about his unique research examining human sexual behavior.
However, according to Gizmodo journalist Jennings Brown, much of his professional résumé and background is a lie. Is Brown right or is Sendler a bona fide scientist who simply go...
Source: World of Psychology - March 14, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: John M. Grohol, Psy.D. Tags: Ethics & Morality General Minding the Media Psychology Special Report Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler Damian Markiewicz Damian Sendler Dr. Sendler Taublum Media Source Type: blogs
Hearing Loss and the Increased Risk of Falls
One of our roles as audiologists is
to help our patients better connect and communicate with the world around them.
We care deeply about our patients and treating their auditory system so they
can lead better lives. Our responsibility includes educating patients about the
benefits of treatment, as well as the risks of leaving them untreated.
For the elderly in particular, one
such risk involves the increased chance of falls due to hearing loss.
Facts
on falling
People 65 or older commonly fall. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than one out of four older adults falls each yea...
Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Press Releases - March 1, 2019 Category: Speech-Language Pathology Authors: Zhanneta Shapiro Tags: Academia & Research Audiology Health Care Private Practice Slider audiologist balance Hearing Aids hearing loss Source Type: blogs
