Craving as Part of Gaming Addiction

Can one person be addicted to video games the way another person might be addicted to a drug? Psychologists agree that it’s possible to be addicted to behaviors like gambling. There’s still some some debate, though, over whether gaming addiction is similar to other behavioral addictions or whether it’s some other kind of psychological phenomenon.…

Read More

Dark Personality Traits and Internet Usage

It’s a common recognition these days that the internet has a dark side. The anonymity, lack of face-to-face interaction, and low amount of effort required are all a natural fit for the less noble side of human nature. Psychologists researching the relationship between the dark side of the internet and the dark side of the…

Read More

The Ingredients of an Addictive Video Game

Psychologists are still working on piecing together the details of what exactly video game addiction is. One of the open questions is how similar gaming addiction is to other addictions like gambling and drugs. The latest version of DSM, a handbook commonly used for diagnosing psychiatric disorders, lists “Internet Gaming Disorder” as a “Condition for…

Read More

The Cognitive Benefits of Hip Hop Dance

Want to sharpen your cognitive abilities? Maybe try taking up hip hop dance. According to a new study, gaining experience in hip hop dance may improve certain social and cognitive skills. The idea for the research came from previous work showing that developing expertise in a given area can sharpen the mind more generally. For…

Read More

Media Literacy: An Essential Twenty-First Century Skill

Here’s an idea you won’t here about in, well, the media: we should have media literacy classes in schools. Despite how much information we get from the media, we don’t talk much about how to critically evaluate the things we see on TV or read in the papers. But not helping students learn how to…

Read More

ADHD Treatment

ADHD is a neurodevelopmental type of psychiatric disorder. Because the brain, including areas of the brain that have been indicated as significant in ADHD, stops developing by the end of the third decade of life, ADHD in adults is a permanent disorder. Many children diagnosed with ADHD will grow into adults with ADHD. Treatment for…

Read More

History of Psychology (387 BC to Present)

Timeline of Psychology 387BC: Plato suggested that the brain is the mechanism of mental processes. 335BC: Aristotle suggested that the heart is the mechanism of mental processes. 1774AD: Franz Mesmer detailed his cure for some mental illness, originally called mesmerism and now known as hypnosis. 1793: Philippe Pinel released the first mental patients from confinement…

Read More