Factors Associated With Cognitive Function in Older Age

From exercise to education, researchers have found many factors linked to dementia risk in older age. More recently, a team of researchers from the United Kingdom explored whether some of these factors are associated with cognitive functioning in older people without dementia. In their study, published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, the researchers…

Read More

The Difference a Good Teacher Makes

It’s hard to overstate how much difference the right teacher can make in students’ confidence and engagement. Many people know this to be true from anecdotal experience, and now there’s a study out to back this idea up with some hard evidence. In the study, researchers from Harvard Graduate School of Education and Brown University…

Read More

How Important is Self-Control in Exercising Frequently?

Intuitively, it might seem like sticking to a regular exercise routine is nothing more than a battle of willpower. This would suggest that people who are somewhat lacking in the self-control department are doomed to forever be out of shape. A recent study, however, suggests that while high levels of self-control help with keeping up…

Read More

The Psychology of Snacking

Why do people snack between meals? Because they’re hungry, maybe. But you know psychologists are going to dig a little deeper than that. Several studies have revealed a range of psychological factors in why people snack, what they snack on, and how much they snack. Most recently, a study published in Psychology & Health examined…

Read More

Tattoos Make People Think You’re More Independent, Less Competent

Tattoos are commonplace these days, but society’s attitudes can be slow to change. Two studies published this year suggest that on average, people make more negative judgments about the character of people with tattoos. Most recently, a study had people view images of people with tattoos. Some of the images showed the tattoos while in…

Read More

What Motivates Conspicuous Consumption?

If you’ve ever wondered what exactly people are looking to accomplish by flaunting their wealth with fancy cars and expensive clothes, you’re not alone. In fact, several psychology researchers have asked this same question – and come up with at least a few answers. Most recently, an international group of researchers published a study looking…

Read More

Self-Esteem Influences How People Express Romantic Affection

If you want to have good relationships with other people, it helps to have a good relationship with yourself first. That might sound a little corny, but I’ve got some science to back it up. Recently, researchers from City University of New York and University of California, Berkeley published a study looking at how people’s…

Read More

How Does a Tendency to Ruminate Develop in Childhood?

Rumination, repetitively playing over negative thoughts, has been consistently associated with mental health problems. Among children, for example, rumination on anger-provoking situations has been linked to both aggression and depression. Rumination has also been proposed as a path from being bullied to becoming depressed – children who are victims of bullying tend to ruminate on…

Read More

Vegetarians and Meat Eaters Differ in Personality, Politics

It might be overstating the case to say that you are what you eat. But what you eat could reveal subtle statistical differences about you. At least, that’s what a new study, Examining the “Veggie” Personality, from researchers in Germany suggests. Published in the journal Appetite (yum!), the research looked at differences between vegetarians and…

Read More

How Parents Teach Their Children to Be Anxious

Anxiety runs in families, partly because it has a genetic component. But genetics aren’t the whole story. Without realizing it, anxious parents can transmit anxiety to their children by modeling anxious behaviors and teaching their children to be fearful of the world around them. Recently, a team of child psychologists from the Netherlands published a…

Read More