UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK Sugar does not improve any aspect of mood and can even worsen it, according to new research published in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews Using data collected from 31 studies, the researchers discovered that sugar consumption does not have a beneficial effect on mood Instead, sugar increases tiredness and lowers alertness within an hour...
Tag: <span>psychology</span>
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Brain activity predicts fear of pain
Neuroscientific approach may help reconcile self-reported emotions and their neural underpinnings SOCIETY FOR NEUROSCIENCE Researchers applied a machine learning technique that could potentially translate patterns of activity in fear-processing brain regions into scores on questionnaires used to assess a patient’s fear of pain. This neuroscientific approach, reported in eNeuro, may help reconcile self-reported emotions and their...
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New evidence that social media increases loneliness
Although experts have debated the potential link between social media use and decreased well-being for years, a new study adds more fuel to the fire. According to the first author of the new study, which featured in the Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology, no scientific study has proven a causal connection between the two until now. A new study investigates the psychological impact of social media. University of Pennsylvania...
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Sleep research uncovers dire consequences to deprivation
Researchers at Michigan State University conducted the largest experimentally controlled study on sleep deprivation to date, revealing just how detrimental operating without sleep can be in everything from bakers adding too much salt to cookies to surgeons botching surgeries. Credit: CC0 Public Domain While sleep deprivation research isn’t new, the level at which distractions hinder...
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A behavioral intervention for cancer patients that works
Treatment program successful at 15 sites across the nation OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY COLUMBUS, Ohio – This is a story about something rare in health psychology: a treatment that has gone from scientific discovery, through development and testing, to dissemination and successful implementation nationwide. In a new study, researchers found that a program designed at The...
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New personality test is faster, tougher to trick
Psychology researchers have developed a new personality test that is both faster to take and much harder to manipulate by those attempting to control the outcome. “The test draws on the ‘Big Five’ approach to personality assessment, so it’s a new method for personality testing, rather than a new paradigm,” says Adam Meade, a professor of psychology...
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7 famous psych studies with troubling backstories
Psychology 101 textbooks typically include epic tales of the discipline’s history. They chronicle inventive experiments and dazzling results from days of old. But many of the things we think we know about the human mind—like the depth of the parent-child bond, or our inclination to submit to authority even when it feels unethical—come from research that’s since...
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Scientist explores the nexus between appetite and psychology
August 21, 2018 by Molly Birnbaum, Brown University Rachel Herz, an adjunct assistant professor in Brown’s Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, arrives at an East Greenwich, Rhode Island, café feeling stressed. She’d lost a document when her computer crashed and she isn’t sure how to retrieve it. “If I were an emotional eater, I’d be...