Psychology

There’s a biological reason why abused kids become depressed adults

Young adults who were abused as children share a similar neuroendocrinal trait. When they confront ordinary situations of stress, like taking a test, their brains are flooded with abnormally high levels of the hormone cortisol. According to Queens University psychology professor Karen Harkness: This kind of reaction is a problem because cortisol kills cells in…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Why we really can judge people on first impressions

There’s a very good reason why first impressions are thought to be so important: it’s because most people really can accurately judge another person after just one meeting. Turns out we’re much more perceptive than we give ourselves credit for. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the first impression a person makes is always accurate.…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Text messaging actually makes you a better speller

With the plethora of acronyms and creative spellings available to the modern text messaging user, it seems only logical that knowledge of the actual spellings would be forgotten. And yet, against all odds, text messaging can actually improve spelling abilities. That’s the somewhat counterintuitive finding of University of Central Missouri psychologists D.S. Kreiner and D.L.…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Chimpanzee yawning could explain human empathy

Just like humans, chimpanzees yawn when they’re bored or sleepy, and they also yawn contagiously when they see another chimp do it. That discovery could help unlock the secrets of human empathy. Empathy is one of the more subtle mental processes to understand, because it involves someone perceiving the emotional response of another and then…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Take an online psychology test seemingly designed to drive you insane

io9 pal (and contributor) Phil Freeman points out that after taking this completely disturbing psychological test he’s worried that he’s been recruited to become some kind of sleeper assassin. You’ll be directed to answer twenty increasingly scary questions by picking between two weird, throbbing shapes. By the end, you’re having a bad trip. And then…

io9 Annalee Newitz

The strange, sad history of the lobotomy

If you thought that scene in Sucker Punch where the doctor gave lobotomies with an ice pick was artistic exaggeration – well, it wasn’t. That’s exactly how Walter Freeman, a popularizer of lobotomies in the 1940s, performed thousands of operations. In the mid-twentieth century, the lobotomy was such a popular “cure” for mental illness that…

io9 Annalee Newitz

For your brain, romantic rejection is the same thing as being physically burned

When your sweetheart dumps you, there’s a reason why it hurts so much. It turns out your brain registers the psychological hell in exactly the same way it registers physical pain. A group of scientists used fMRI scans to study the brains of people dealing with being rejected, and compared them to the brains of…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Monkeys can count…but not on an empty stomach

Even though they’re one of our more distantly related primate cousins, macaque monkeys keep revealing remarkably human-like abilities. First they displayed self-awareness, and now it turns out they can count…but only if they don’t get to eat what they’re counting. https://gizmodo.com/game-playing-monkeys-reveal-how-we-evolved-self-awarene-5771500 Researchers at the German Primate Center tested a bunch of macaques by offering them…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Pediatricians Will Ask Kids about Facebook to Gauge Depression

Hello there, lad. Breathe in. Breathe out. Good! Now I’m going to take your temperature. Looks fine. Would you mind stepping on the scale? Hm. Okay, now how many Facebook friends do you have? Oh. Hm. I see. This scenario could soon be part of a kid’s routine checkup, according to new guidelines from the…

Social Media Sam Biddle

Even newborn chicks know Escher’s staircases are impossible

It turns out that the impossible buildings and bizarre objects dreamed up by artists like M.C. Escher tap into an incredibly primal understanding of the world’s geometry, a knowledge that is hard-wired into all vertebrates, including newly hatched chickens. Because scientists can kind of be jerks when they really want to know something, a bunch…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Science explains why you fight with your best friend – and why you don’t

Friends fight about a lot of things, but there’s often an underlying theme in what sets them off. Now two psychology researchers at Wilfrid Laurier University say they have come up with a simple test that reveals whether two friends will have a tempestuous relatoinship or not. It all has to do with knowing your…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Monty Python’s most disgusting sketch ever unlocks the secret of aggression

Do people become more aggressive when they are forced to bottle up their emotions? It seems like a simple enough question, but psychologists decided to find out in the most sadistic way possible, with a little help from Monty Python. Researchers at the University of Texas and the University of Minnesota wanted to figure out…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

We can reverse the aging process in bees’ brains. Could humans be next?

Bees can become mentally young again with just a few simple alterations to their otherwise fixed routines. Because the brains of bees are surprisingly like our own, this trick could help fight dementia and keep human minds young and flexible. Norwegian researcher Gro Amdam had groups of older bees take part in learning and memory…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

A scientific experiment that dramatically improved the grades of minority students

One of the big puzzles for education researchers is why students of comparable talents fall into a “racial achievement gap.” On average, white students outperform black students when it comes to grades in college classes – even when the students are equally capable. Now psychologists have discovered a simple exercise that closes the gap, boosting…

io9 Annalee Newitz

If you want to force someone to do something, be sure to touch them first

Need to ask somebody a big favor? Don’t discount the importance of a little friendly physical contact. It can make even a total stranger want to do your bidding, even if the favor involves a very large, very energetic dog. That, at least, is what a pair of researchers from France’s University of Southern Brittany…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

A bad job is just as damaging to your mental health as unemployment

Being unemployed is generally regarded as detrimental to your mental health, with the prevailing wisdom being that gainful employment will fix you right up. Unfortunately, according to research published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, a crappy job can be just as bad — if not worse — than unemployment. Analyzing more than 7,000 working-age Australians…

io9 Tim Barribeau

Red is irresistible to heterosexual females of all species

If you’re a vertebrate female, chances are that you’re attracted to the color red, and that includes humans. It’s one of the oddest facts in all biology – no matter what the species, women seem to love red. That’s what a bunch of University of Rochester researchers discovered last year when they took the already…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Why being a cowardly workaholic can actually make you live longer

Feel good about yourself, don’t work too hard, and don’t worrying too much…it’s all good advice, but they’re not actually going to help you live any longer. That’s the counterintuitive finding of a 20-year study examining how personality affects longevity. As it turns out, all these things that might help improve the quality of your…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

How wearing a glove can warp your sense of good and bad

Whether we’re right-handed or left-handed can have a huge impact on what we subconsciously associate with good and bad. Right-handers, according to psychologists, see things to the right them as being better than things on their left. But it’s remarkably easy to change this association. Putting a ski glove on your dominant hand changes how…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Why gymnasts don’t really need their eyes

Gymnastics is one of the most physically demanding activities imaginable, and you would assume it’s a good idea to have complete use of your eyes while performing aerial somersaults. But science never got anywhere by taking assumptions at face value. In this case, researchers from the University of Minnesota analyzed the performance of NCAA gymnasts…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

There’s a biological reason why abused kids become depressed adults

Why we really can judge people on first impressions

Text messaging actually makes you a better speller

Chimpanzee yawning could explain human empathy

Take an online psychology test seemingly designed to drive you insane

The strange, sad history of the lobotomy

For your brain, romantic rejection is the same thing as being physically burned

Monkeys can count…but not on an empty stomach

Pediatricians Will Ask Kids about Facebook to Gauge Depression

Even newborn chicks know Escher’s staircases are impossible

Science explains why you fight with your best friend – and why you don’t

Monty Python’s most disgusting sketch ever unlocks the secret of aggression

We can reverse the aging process in bees’ brains. Could humans be next?

A scientific experiment that dramatically improved the grades of minority students

If you want to force someone to do something, be sure to touch them first

A bad job is just as damaging to your mental health as unemployment

Red is irresistible to heterosexual females of all species

Why being a cowardly workaholic can actually make you live longer

How wearing a glove can warp your sense of good and bad

Why gymnasts don’t really need their eyes

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