Posts by Neil Petersen
Working Memory Training Might Help With Regulating Emotions
Working memory is a type of memory that, well, does a lot of work. It’s the type of memory you use when you’re doing a task and you need to keep relevant information in your mind. Needing to keep information in your mind is, of course, something that happens frequently in a wide variety of…
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2 Reasons Self-Control and Forgiveness Go Hand-in-Hand
Forgive and forget? Easier said than done, but also easier to do if you have high levels of self-control, it turns out. Previous psychology studies have repeatedly pointed to a link between people’s levels of self-control and their capacity for forgiveness. That link appears to be especially strong when “forgiveness” is seen in terms of…
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Resources and Studies on the Psychological Impact of Coronavirus
It seems like one can’t check the headlines these days without some disconcerting bit of news about novel coronavirus, aka COVID-19, popping up. At least, that’s true in my hometown of San Francisco, where public health officials are now recommending social distancing. As a mental health blogger, I naturally tend to look at the psychological…
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Are Bad Memories Useful?
Our memories about our own lives are one of the primary ways we make sense of who we are and how the world works. As I’ve written about before, there are at least three ways people tend to make use of their autobiographical memories: Guiding future behavior by learning from the past Creating a sense…
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General Language Skills Might Help With Learning Programming Languages
Is learning a programming language like learning any other kind of language? Intuitively, you might expect the answer to be no. Programming languages are made up of different components than natural languages, and they’re used for a different purpose. But a new study from researchers at University of Washington suggests that to some extent the…
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What Label Do People on the Autism Spectrum Prefer?
A label might be “just a label,” but when that label is applied to a person it can have significance. That’s why people with neurological or mental health conditions often have preferences about the language used to discuss those conditions. This is something I sometimes think about when writing over on the ADHD Millennial blog.…
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A Text-Message Treatment for Social Anxiety
Online interventions are a promising new way of providing mental health support, as I’ve written about before. And the logical conclusion of that idea is that if we can treat mental health conditions over the internet, why not over text messaging too? A new study titled Text Message Safety Behavior Reduction for Social Anxiety suggests…
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People With “Dark Triad” Personality Traits Aren’t Necessarily Emotionally Cold
You might suspect that people who engage in callous or manipulative behavior would tend to be emotionally colder. Intuitively, that could even be a plausible explanation as to why those individuals would be more likely to treat others poorly. A new study suggests, however, that it’s not necessarily the case. For the sake of science,…
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When Are Teens Comfortable Talking With Their Moms About Sex?
Parents are a useful resource for teenagers to learn about sex and sexual health. Of course, that doesn’t mean teens are going to go out of their way to engage their parents in discussions about sex. A new study from researchers at University of New Brunswick sheds light on what factors play into adolescents’ willingness…
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Online Interventions Can Smooth Divorce
Marriages can go south for a variety of reasons, but whatever the cause, the effect can include damage to one’s mental health. Regular readers of the AllPsych blog might recall a study that came out last year looking at the most common reasons for divorce among couples in Denmark. Now, the team of researchers who…
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