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The Four Loko Effect
The popular, formerly caffeinated, fruity alcoholic beverage, Four Loko, has been blamed for the spike in alcohol-related hospitalizations, especially throughout college campuses. Initially, caffeine was deemed the culprit and the Food and Drug Administration ordered all traces of caffeine to be removed from Four Loko and all other similar beverages. However, according to an upcoming evaluation in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, caffeine might not be the primary cause of the spike in hospitalizations.
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New Research From Psychological Science
When Categories Collide: Accumulation of Information About Multiple Categories in Rapid Scene Perception Karla K. Evans, Todd S. Horowitz, and Jeremy M. Wolfe Humans can sort visual information into categories instantaneously. But does the visual system assess a single category at a time or determine multiple categories all at once? Researchers asked volunteers to view pictures and assign them to categories. They found that individuals could accumulate information about multiple categories in parallel, and if participants were cued to focus on one category, it could affect their accuracy in detecting another category.
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How You Think About Death May Affect How You Act
How you think about death affects how you behave in life. That's the conclusion of a new study which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Researchers had people either think about death in the abstract or in a specific, personal way and found that people who thought specifically about their own death were more likely to demonstrate concern for society by donating blood. Laura E.R. Blackie, a Ph.D. student at the University of Essex, and her advisor, Philip J. Cozzolino, recruited 90 people in a British town center.
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Is Fear Deficit a Harbinger of Future Psychopaths?
Psychopaths are charming, but they often get themselves and others in big trouble; their willingness to break social norms and lack of remorse means they are often at risk for crimes and other irresponsible behaviors. One hypothesis on how psychopathy works is that it has to do with a fear deficit. A new study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that children with a particular risk factor for psychopathy don't register fear as quickly as healthy children. The hypothesis that psychopaths don't feel or recognize fear dates back to the 1950s, says the study’s primary author Patrick D.
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Want Lasting Love? It’s Not More Commitment, but Equal Commitment That Matters
It’s not partners’ individual commitments that make the most difference in how well they address conflict, but rather how well their levels of commitment match up.
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True Love May Wait—But Waiting Won’t Make You a Safer Lover Later On
Whether sex education focuses only on abstinence or teaches students about contraception and other topics as well, it all shares one main message: Wait. In abstinence-only, students are exhorted to wait for sex until they’re married. In “comprehensive” or “abstinence-plus,” the idea is to delay sexual relations until . . . later. “The underlying assumption is that delay reduces sexual risk-taking”—and with it unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, says University of South Florida psychologist Marina A. Bornovalova.
