http://medicineworld.org/news/psychology-news.html MedicineWorld.Org brings daily psychology news from various sources to keep you updated on the latest events in the world on this topic. Medicineworld psychology news service is the most comprehensive psychology news service on the internet. We keep an archive of previous few days of news on this site. Please go down through the list to find the older news items. Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:33:50 GMT en-us http://medicineworld.org/images/psychology-news.jpg http://medicineworld.org/news/psychology-news.html 107 77 http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/handedness-may-effect-body-perception.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/handedness-may-effect-body-perception.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:33:50 GMT There are areas in the brain devoted to our arms, legs, and various parts of our bodies. The way these areas are distributed throughout the brain are known as "body maps" and there are some significant differences in these maps between left- and right-handed people. For example, in left-handed people, there is an equal amount of brain area devoted to the left and right arms in both hemispheres. However, for right-handed people, there is more cortical area linked to right arm than the left........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/sleep-disturbances-improve-after-retirement.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/11-2009/sleep-disturbances-improve-after-retirement.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:33:50 GMT A study in the Nov.1 issue of the journal Sleep shows that retirement is followed by a sharp decrease in the prevalence of sleep disturbances. Findings suggest that this general improvement in sleep is likely to result from the removal of work-related demands and stress rather than from actual health benefits of retirement........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/seeing-is-relieving.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/seeing-is-relieving.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:33:50 GMT An f1000 assessment examines how pain relief improves greatly when the sufferer can actually see the area where the pain is occurring. In an Anglo-Italian study, thirty healthy subjects were invited to look at either their own hand, the experimenter's hand, or an object, while their hand was subjected to laser-induced pain........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/pregnant-women-using-psychiatric-medications.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/pregnant-women-using-psychiatric-medications.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:33:50 GMT The odds triple for premature child delivery pregnant women with a history of depression who used psychiatric medication, as per a newly released study. Scientists at the University of Washington, University of Michigan and Michigan State University observed that a combination of medicine use and depression either before or during pregnancy was strongly associated with delivery before 35 weeks' gestation........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/people-with-depression-have.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/people-with-depression-have.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:33:50 GMT New research shows people who feel depressed tend to recall having more physical symptoms than they actually experienced. The study indicates that depression -- not neuroticism -- is the cause of such over-reporting. Psychology expert Jerry Suls, professor and collegiate fellow in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, attributes the findings to depressed individuals recalling experiences differently, tending to ruminate over and exaggerate the bad........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/crushing-cigarettes.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/crushing-cigarettes.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:33:50 GMT Smokers who crushed computer-simulated cigarettes as part of a psychosocial therapy program in a virtual reality environment had significantly reduced nicotine dependence and higher rates of tobacco abstinence than smokers participating in the same program who grasped a computer-simulated ball, as per a research studydescribed in the current issue of CyberPsychology and Behavior, a peer-evaluated journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The article is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/cpb........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/married-with-children-the-key-to-happiness.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/married-with-children-the-key-to-happiness.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:33:50 GMT Having children improves married peoples' life satisfaction and the more they have, the happier they are. For unmarried individuals, raising children has little or no positive effect on their happiness. These findings (1) by Dr. Luis Angeles from the University of Glasgow in the UK have just been published online in Springer's Journal of Happiness Studies........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/increasing-schizophrenia-risk.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/increasing-schizophrenia-risk.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:33:50 GMT An international team of scientists led by geneticist Jonathan Sebat, Ph.D., of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), has identified a mutation on human chromosome 16 that substantially increases risk for schizophrenia. The mutation in question is what researchers call a copy number variant (CNV). CNVs are areas of the genome where the number of copies of genes differs between individuals. The CNV is located in a region referred to by researchers as 16p11.2. By studying the genomes of 4,551 patients and 6,391 healthy individuals, Sebat's team has shown that having one extra copy of this region is linked to schizophrenia. The study appears online today ahead of print in the journal Nature Genetics....... ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/psychological-trauma-in-hiv-patients.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/psychological-trauma-in-hiv-patients.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:33:50 GMT The feeling of stigmatization that people living with HIV often experience doesn't only exact a psychological toll new UCLA research suggests it can also lead to quantifiably negative health outcomes. As per a research findings reported in the recent issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, scientists from the division of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA observed that a large number of HIV-positive individuals who reported feeling stigmatized also reported poor access to care or suboptimal adherence to antiretroviral treatment (ART)........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/who-believe-in-equality-are-more-likely-to-buy-on-impulse.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/who-believe-in-equality-are-more-likely-to-buy-on-impulse.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:33:50 GMT A newly released study from Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business finds that Americans who believe in equality are more-impulsive shoppers. And it has implications for how to market products differently in countries where shoppers are more likely to buy on impulse. The study, "Power-Distance Belief and Impulsive Buying," was authored by Rice management professor Vikas Mittal and recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Marketing Research........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/making-depression-treatments-better.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/making-depression-treatments-better.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:33:50 GMT New research clarifies how neurotransmitters like norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine, are regulated a finding that may help fine-tune therapies for depression. Current drugs for depression target the regulatory process for neurotransmitters, and while effective in some cases, do not appear to work in other cases........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/candy-bar-or-healthy-snack.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/candy-bar-or-healthy-snack.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:33:50 GMT If you think choosing between a candy bar and healthy snack is totally a matter of free will, think again. A newly released study in the Journal of Consumer Research shows that the choices we make to indulge ourselves or exercise self-control depend on how the choices are presented. Author Juliano Laran (University of Miami) tested subjects to determine how certain words and concepts affected consumers' decisions for self-control or indulgence. He observed that consumer choices were affected by the actions most recently suggested to them by certain key words........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/self-esteem-in-overweight-and-underweight-women.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/self-esteem-in-overweight-and-underweight-women.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:33:50 GMT Overweight women's self-esteem plummets when they view photographs of models of any size, as per a newly released study in Journal of Consumer Research And underweight women's esteem increases, regardless of models' size. Authors Dirk Smeesters (Erasmus University, the Netherlands), Thomas Mussweiler (University of Cologne, Gera number of), and Naomi Mandel (Arizona State University) researched the ways individuals with different body mass indexes (BMIs) felt when they were exposed to thin or heavy media models........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/transcendental-meditation-reduces-stress.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/transcendental-meditation-reduces-stress.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:33:50 GMT Women with breast cancer reduced stress and improved their mental health and emotional well being through the Transcendental Meditation technique, as per a newly released study reported in the current issue of the peer-evaluated Integrative Cancer Therapies (Vol. 8, No. 3: September 2009). "A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effects of Transcendental Meditation on Quality of Life in Older Breast Cancer Patients" was a collaboration between the Center for Healthy Aging at Saint Joseph Hospital; the Institute for Health Services, Research and Policy Studies at Northwestern University; the Department of Psychology at Indiana State University; and the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention at Maharishi University of Management........ ]]> http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/how-do-people-choose-a-name-for-their-child.html http://medicineworld.org/stories/lead/10-2009/how-do-people-choose-a-name-for-their-child.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:33:50 GMT How do people choose a name for their child? Scientists have long noted that the overall popularity of a name exerts a strong influence on people's preferencesmore popular names, such as Robert or Susan, are more frequent and, by their sheer ubiquity, drive more parents to adopt a similar choice. However, new research by psychology experts at New York University and Indiana University, Bloomington suggests that the change in popularity of a name over time increasingly influences naming decisions in the United States. Like momentum traders in the stock market, parents today appear to favor names that have recently risen in popularity relative to names that are on the decline........ ]]>