psychologists

Violin plots showing the distributions of hope for peace and hope for victory Among Israeli Jews (Study 1, N = 306) and among Pakistanis (Study 2, N = 253). Credit: British Journal of Social Psychology (2024). DOI: 10.1111/bjso.12722 Research on group-based hope typically focuses on the positive effects of hope, such as peace and harmony. However, a new research project shows that another collective hope can stand in the way of…

Jamey Simpson was 10 when he watched the space shuttle lift off from Kennedy Space Center with his mother, astronaut Cady Coleman, on board. A voice from a hand-held radio counted down as fire spewed from the rocket and propelled it skyward in a chest-crushing roar. Now 23, Jamey recalls the existential weight that followed. “It was in that moment, I realized, `My mom is really gone and she’s not on the planet anymore.’”Space: The Longest Goodbye, which premieres March 8 in theaters and on Amazon and AppleTV, is not your…

Tales of the relentless pursuit of a romantic interest date back to antiquity, turning up in the Epic of Gilgamesh. More than 4,000 years from the time that poem emerged, society still runs into enormous difficulties in understanding and dealing with someone who engages in such obsessive and unwanted pursuits. Laws on stalking are still in their infancy. The first U.S. law criminalizing stalking passed in 1990, and within two decades similar laws arose worldwide. The growing realization of the harm stalking causes also…

Are you feeling anxious about climate change? You're not alone. And it's precisely that connection that two psychologists think can help explain where climate anxiety comes from and help ease it.Writing in Nature Climate Change, psychology researchers Anne van Valkengoed and Linda Steg make the case that the sickening anxiety many people feel about how fast Earth is heating up is a "healthy and empathetic" response to the incalculable loss of millions of species and human lives that we're told is in the cards.Citing…

We're not sure exactly how many people have insomnia – estimates range from 10-60 percent of the population – but we are confident that it's linked to several long-term health issues, including depression and cardiovascular disease.A new study outlines how insomniacs might make their condition even more tiresome: clock-watching (or time-monitoring behavior (TMB), to be technical). It seems this can aggravate insomnia, increase frustration, and lead to higher use of sleeping aids.It's a sort of negative feedback loop, the…

The NSW Police Force has been able to identify 38 of its own super-recognizers, opening the possibility that their special abilities could be put to use in areas like forensics and counter-terrorism. Credit: Shutterstock Identifying faces is a crucial part of police work, and while training can bring about small improvements in accuracy, superior face recognition abilities are something you are born with, past research has…

If your kids aren't keen on a particular dish, you might want to try changing the look of the crockery it's served in. A new study has revealed how the color of a bowl can impact the taste of the food it holds.The experiment involved 47 volunteers split into two groups based on their responses to a food-pickiness questionnaire. Although there is no set way to define a picky eater, the category could arguably include people who have a restricted diet, who have strong dislikes for certain foods, who require food to be…

When I discover or am reminded of a song I particularly like, I am one of those people who will listen to it over and over and over again. The song will be on when I am exercising, when I am running errands, when I am putting things in my online shopping basket to replicate the rush of actually buying them. It becomes, for a couple of days, omnipresent in my life, until another takes its place.One such recent pick has been Babies by Pulp. This is a track whose chorus hook goes: “I want to take you home / I want to give…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Psychologists have revealed some of the secrets of scoring a chart-topping, hit song. JCU psychology lecturer Dr. Amanda Krause was a co-author of the new paper. She said several studies show that a concept or object is more popular when it's easier to process. "We know for instance that instructions…

 The subjective well-being of visitors to a three-minute online art or culture exhibition was found to be significantly improved.Effects are comparable to those of going to actual art galleries or even being in nature.Visits to art galleries and museums can have a significant impact on a person’s emotions, stress levels, and well-being. But does this also apply to seeing art in a digital environment?  This question was examined in recent research conducted by psychologists Matthew Pelowski and MacKenzie Trupp.  They came…