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How Faith Can Affect Therapy
The New York Times: Can belief in God predict how someone responds to mental health treatment? A recent study suggests it might. Researchers at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., enrolled 159 men and women in a cognitive behavioral therapy program that involved, on average, 10 daylong sessions of group therapy, individual counseling and, in some cases, medications. About 60 percent of the participants were being treated for depression, while others had bipolar disorder, anxiety or other diagnoses. All were asked to rate their spirituality by answering a single question: “To what extent do you believe in God?” ...
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Grit Versus Aptitude: Relative Influence of Effort and Intelligence in Academic Success
In educational research, an age-old question has remained unanswered: Does IQ or hard work matter more in predicting success in school? Intellectual gifts have been studied extensively, but other non-cognitive factors contributing to success have been less carefully examined. One factor is “grit”, defined by Duckworth et al (2007), as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.” This research studies the impact of grit, or perseverance for long-term goals and intelligence on middle school students’ GPAs. We hypothesized that change in grit over a span of two years would be a better predictor of GPA than aptitude (New York State Education Department Exams).
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Clinical Psychological Science and Psychological Science. Blair E. Wisco, Denise M. Sloan, and Brian P. Marx Do cognitive emotion-regulation strategies influence the effectiveness of interventions for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? Participants with PTSD were assigned to receive a 5-week written exposure therapy (WET) or to a waitlist condition. Before and after the intervention, both groups of participants were assessed for Axis 1 disorders, severity of PTSD symptoms, and use of cognitive emotion-regulation strategies (self-blame, rumination, positive reappraisal, and putting into perspective).
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Clean Hands = Clean Conscience for People with OCD
Cleaning one’s hands is associated with an alleviation of anxiety from moral misconduct. But this effect is even more pronounced in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), according to new research published in Clinical Psychological Science. Orna Reuven, Nira Liberman, and Reuven Dar of Tel Aviv University suspected that, because people with OCD are sometimes debilitated by obsessions about moral transgressions and cleanliness, the link between physical cleanliness and ethical purity might be even stronger for them.
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Buying Behavior Can Be Swayed by Cultural Mindset
There are some combinations that just go well together: Milk and cookies, eggs and bacon, pancakes and maple syrup. But new research reveals that people with individualistic mindsets differ from their collectivist counterparts in ascribing value to those perfect combinations. The collection of new studies, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, demonstrate that people with collectivist mindsets tend to value the relationships between items more than the particular items themselves.
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Advancing Science Through Critical Discussion
Recent initiatives in psychological science -- such as facilitating replication and ensuring sound methodologies -- have sparked a lively dialogue among researchers, publishers, and the general public. The July 2013 issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science builds upon these recent discussions, featuring a special section devoted exclusively to the advancement of psychological science. Perspectives Editor Barbara A. Spellman introduces this section and outlines the articles, all of which are available free to the public.