Research roundup

• Children whose time is less structured are better able to meet their own goals, according to a study led by Jane Barker, a psychology doctoral student at the University of Colorado Boulder. Parents of 70 6-year-olds recorded their children's daily activities for a week, and scientists categorized those activities as either more structured — such as chores, lessons and religious activities — or less structured, including free play time alone and with others, social outings, reading and media time. The researchers also evaluated the children's self-directed executive function, a measure of the ability to set and reach goals independently, based on a commonly used verbal fluency and categorization task. They found that the more time children spent in less structured activities, the better their self-directed executive function. Conversely, the more time children spent in more structured activities, the poorer their self-directed executive function (Frontiers in Psychology, June 17).
• Having high levels of the stress hormone cortisol may lead to short-term memory loss as we age, according to a study led by Rachel Anderson, a psychology graduate student at the University of Iowa. Scientists took 21-month-old rats — roughly the same age as a 65-year-old human — and 4-month-old rats, the equivalent of a 20-year-old human, and separated them according to age and whether they had naturally high or low levels of corticosterone, the hormone comparable to cortisol in humans. The researchers then placed the rats in a T-shaped maze that required them to use their short-term memories to find a treat. They found that older rats with high corticosterone levels consistently performed the worst, choosing the correct direction only 58 percent of the time. Their older peers with low corticosterone levels chose it 80 percent of the time. The performance of the younger rats didn't seem to be affected by their corticosterone levels (Journal of Neuroscience, June 18).
• Whites with low self-esteem appear to have an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease, suggests a study led by Allyssa Allen, a psychology doctoral student at the University of Maryland. Using data from participants in the 2010 Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span study, the researchers found that lower social standing and lower self-esteem were associated with higher cardiovascular disease risk among white adults but not among black adults. The findings persisted even after adjusting for poverty, body mass index, depression and the use of high blood pressure medication (Ethnicity and Disease, May).
• People who think they deserve it all have less respectful views of women, according to research led by Joshua Grubbs, a Case Western Reserve University psychology doctoral student. The researchers surveyed two groups — 333 college students from an introductory psychology class and 437 adults from an online social science research database — about how entitled they felt to special treatment. The researchers found that entitled men were more likely to endorse hostile views of women and entitled women were more likely to endorse views of women as weak and needing extra care (Sex Roles, March).
• We reach our peak cognitive motor performance at age 24, finds a study led by Joe Thompson, a psychology doctoral student at Simon Fraser University. The researchers analyzed the performance records and reaction times of 3,305 16- to 44-year olds while they played StarCraft 2, a competitive computer video game. The researchers found that after around age 24, participants showed a slowing in a measure of cognitive speed known to be important for performance. The researchers also found, however, that older players more readily used short cuts and sophisticated command keys to compensate for their declining speed in executing real-time decisions (PLOS ONE, April 9).
• People who enjoy the task at hand — and believe it is important — do better at it and are less likely to burn out, according to research led by Paul O'Keefe, PhD, who conducted the study as a Duke University psychology doctoral student. Researchers asked 153 undergraduate students to report on how enjoyable and valuable they thought completing a set of word puzzles would be before they began working on it. Half of the students were told completing the puzzles was important, while the other half weren't told anything about the value of completing the task. Researchers also timed how long participants were subsequently able to keep a spring-loaded exercise hand grip squeezed, an indication of how exhausted they were by the puzzle task. They found that the participants who expected to enjoy the puzzle and who were told completing it was important solved the most puzzles. Those who found the puzzles unenjoyable, unimportant or both didn't perform as well and were more exhausted afterward (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, July).
• Being called "fat" makes young girls more likely to become obese, according to a study co-led by Jeffrey Hunger, a psychology graduate student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Hunger and his team examined data from more than 2,300 women, 58 percent of whom at age 10 had been told by a parent, sibling, friend, classmate or teacher that they were too fat. All the girls had their height and weight measured at the beginning of the study and again after nine years. Controlling for initial weight, the researchers found that the girls labeled "fat" were more than 1.5 times as likely as the other girls to be obese at age 19. As the number of people who told a girl she was fat increased, so did the likelihood that she would become obese (JAMA Pediatrics, June).

—Amy Novotney