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Post-Divorce Journaling May Hinder Healing for Some
Following a divorce or separation, many people are encouraged by loved ones or health-care professionals to keep journals about their feelings. But for some, writing in-depth about those feelings immediately after a split may do more harm than good, according to new research. In a study of 90 recently divorced or separated individuals, psychological scientist David Sbarra of the University of Arizona and colleagues found that writing about one’s feelings can actually leave some people feeling more emotionally distraught months down the line, particularly those individuals who are prone to seeking a deeper meaning for their failed marriage.
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Order of Psychiatric Diagnoses May Influence How Clinicians Identify Symptoms
The diagnostic system used by many mental health practitioners in the United States -- known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -- assumes that symptoms of two disorders that occur at the same time are additive and that the order in which the disorders are presented doesn’t matter. But new research suggests that order actually plays a significant role in determining how clinicians think about psychiatric disorders.
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Tight Times May Change Our Perceptions of Who ‘Belongs’
From the playground to the office, a key aspect of our social lives involves figuring out who “belongs” and who doesn’t. Our biases lead us -- whether we're aware of it or not -- to favor people who belong to our own social group. Scientists theorize that these prevalent in-group biases may give us a competitive advantage against others, especially when important resources are limited. Psychological scientist Christopher Rodeheffer and his colleagues at Texas Christian University wanted to examine whether resource scarcity might actually lead us to change our definition of who belongs to our social group.
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Bothered by Negative, Unwanted Thoughts? Just Throw Them Away
If you want to get rid of unwanted, negative thoughts, try just ripping them up and tossing them in the trash. In a new study, researchers found that when people wrote down their thoughts on a piece of paper and then threw the paper away, they mentally discarded the thoughts as well. The results are published online in the journal Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. On the other hand, people were more likely to use their thoughts when making judgments if they first wrote them down on a piece of paper and tucked the paper in a pocket to protect it.
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Call for Papers: International Society for the Study of Individual Differences
The International Society for the Study of Individual Differences (ISSID) invites paper submissions for the 2013 conference. Conference Location: Barcelona, Spain, EU Conference Date: July 22-25, 2013 Deadline for Symposia Submissions: February 15, 2013 Deadline for Individual Papers: February 28, 2013 Conference Website: www.ub.edu/issid2013 Conference Twitter: @ISSID2013 Conference Facebook: International-Society-for-the-Study-of-Individual-Differences-2013 Conference Information The ISSID 2013 conference will be held in Barcelona, from Monday, July 22, to Thursday, July 25, 2013. Dr. David Gallardo-Pujol, chair of the ISSID 2013 conference, has announced that submissions are now open.
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New Insights Into Personality From Psychological Science
Read about new insights into personality from Psychological Science and Current Directions in Psychological Science. What Is Extraversion For? Integrating Trait and Motivational Perspectives and Identifying the Purpose of Extraversion Kira O. McCabe and William Fleeson Can the goals people pursue predict individual differences in extraverted behavior? Participants used a personal digital assistant to report their current level of extraversion, their momentary goals, and their current level of positive affect 5 times a day for 10 days. The researchers found that within- and between-person fluctuations in levels of extroversion were associated with changes in people's momentary goals.