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The End of Barroom Brawls: Study Shows Alcohol can Reduce Aggression
The link between alcohol and aggression is well known. What’s not so clear is just why drunks get belligerent. What is it about the brain-on-alcohol that makes fighting seem like a good idea? And do all intoxicated people get more aggressive? Or does it depend on the circumstances? University of Kentucky psychologist Peter Giancola and his student Michelle Corman decided to explore these questions in the laboratory. One theory about alcohol and aggression is that drinking impairs the part of the brain involved in allocating our limited mental resources—specifically attention and working memory.
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“Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda…” New Study Sheds Light on How We Would Have Done Things Differently
If you’re like most people, you’ve probably experienced a shoulda-woulda-coulda moment; a time when we lament our missteps, saying that we should have invested in a certain stock, should have become a doctor instead of a lawyer and so on. Psychologists refer to this process, in which we evaluate how we would do things differently, as “counterfactual thinking” and while it can have a positive spin, more often than not it is a psychological mechanism that causes us to harbor feelings of disappointment and regret.
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The Perks and Pitfalls of Pride
Pride has perplexed philosophers and theologians for centuries, and it is an especially paradoxical emotion in American culture. We applaud rugged individualism, self-reliance and personal excellence, but too much pride can easily tip the balance toward vanity, haughtiness and self-love. Scientists have also been perplexed by this complex emotion, because it is so unlike primary emotions like fear and disgust. University of British Columbia psychologist, Jessica Tracy, and Richard Robins of the University of California, Davis, have been exploring the origins and purpose of pride, both in the laboratory and in the field. They wanted to know if pride is as universal as, say, joy or anger.
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Study: Discriminating Fact from Fiction in Recovered Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse
A decade or so ago, a spate of high profile legal cases arose in which people were accused, and often convicted, on the basis of “recovered memories.” These memories, usually recollections of childhood abuse, arose years after the incident occurred and often during intensive psychotherapy. So how accurate are recovered memories? The answer is not so clear. In fact, this question has lead to one of the most contentious issues in the fields of psychology and psychiatry.
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Smoking on the Silver Screen: New Study Shows Exposure to Smokers in Movies Increases Likelihood of Smoking in the Future
A new study appearing in the July issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reports that watching an actor smoke on the big screen may make smokers more likely to continue smoking in the future, and make nonsmokers more favorably disposed toward smoking. Sonya Dal Cin, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center of Dartmouth Medical School, and colleagues from the University of Waterloo and Central Michigan University, assessed the level to which identification with a protagonist on film alters our implicit associations between the self and smoking.
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It’s Not all the Parent’s Fault: Delinquency in Children Now Linked to Biology
How do sweet children turn into delinquents seemingly right before our eyes? A unique study appearing in the June issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, shows that, in children, a highly reactive autonomic nervous system, which regulates our cardiovascular, digestive and respiratory functions, paired with a stressful family environment leads to increased instances of maladaptive personality change. Rutgers University psychologist, Daniel Hart, and colleagues Nancy Eisenberg and Carlos Valiente of Arizona State University, used a Skin Conductance Response (SCR) test to assess 138 elementary school aged children.
