-
Warning of Potential Side Effects of a Product Can Increase Its Sales
Drug ads often warn of serious side effects, from nausea and bleeding to blindness, even death. New research suggests that, rather than scaring consumers away, these warnings can improve consumers’ opinions and increase product sales when there is a delay between seeing the ad and deciding to buy or consume the product. “Messages that warn consumers about potentially harmful side effects — presumably with the intent to nudge them to act more cautiously — can ironically backfire,” says psychological scientist Ziv Carmon of INSEAD in Singapore.
-
Some Parts of Memory Still Developing Deep Into Childhood
Young Children Have Difficulty When Elements of Memory Overlap Memory for not only what happened, but where and when something happened, undergoes substantial development even after the age of 7, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study suggests that this kind "episodic memory" takes longer to develop than often assumed. The findings indicate that young children may have no problem with remembering certain simple events or facts. But, in some cases, they may have difficulty placing them in the right place, time or context.
-
Disaster Relief Donations Track Number of People Killed, Not Survivors
People pay more attention to the number of people killed in a natural disaster than to the number of survivors when deciding how much money to donate to disaster relief efforts, according to new research
-
New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Clinical Psychological Science: Childhood Adversity and Cumulative Life Stress: Risk Factors for Cancer-Related Fatigue Julienne E. Bower, Alexandra D. Crosswell, and George M. Slavich Fatigue is a side effect experienced by almost all who undergo cancer treatment. Despite its prevalence, however, little is known about risk factors for experiencing persistent fatigue. Breast cancer survivors with or without cancer-related fatigue completed a childhood trauma questionnaire and the Stress and Adversity Inventory -- a novel online stress assessment that measures a person's lifetime exposure to different stressors.
-
After the Storms, A Different Opinion on Climate Change
Hurricanes and other traumatic weather events may have the power to shift people’s instincts about the need for policies that address the threats of climate change, a study indicates.
-
Diminishing Fear Vicariously By Watching Others
Watching someone safely interact with a supposedly harmful object can help to extinguish conditioned fear responses, and prevent them from resurfacing.