Childhood psychological abuse may be as harmful as sexual or physical abuse, according to a study led by a psychologist at The Trauma Center at Justice Resource Institute in Brookline, Massachusetts. Researchers analyzed data from 5,616 youths who had lifetime histories of at least one of three types of abuse: psychological maltreatment, physical abuse or sexual abuse. Children who had experienced psychological abuse — such as bullying, severe insults, overwhelming demands and isolation — suffered from anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, symptoms of post-traumatic stress and suicidality at the same or greater rates than children who were physically or sexually abused. The researchers also found that among the three types of abuse, psychological maltreatment was most strongly associated with depression, general anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, attachment problems and substance abuse (Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, Special Issue).
Most people — including health professionals — can't visually identify whether a man is at a healthy weight, overweight or obese, according to research by psychologists at the University of Liverpool. Scientists asked 315 general practitioners and practitioners in training to look at 15 photographs of healthy weight, overweight and obese young males and estimate their body mass index, classify their weight status and report whether they would be likely to recommend weight loss to that person. The researchers found that most of the health-care professionals underestimated the men's weight, often believing that overweight men were a healthy weight (British Journal of General Practice, November).
Hospital workers wash their hands less frequently toward the end of their shifts, according to a study by University of Pennsylvania scientists. The research examined three years of hand-washing data from 5,157 caregivers in 35 U.S. hospitals. The data were collected using radio frequency identification technology to monitor whether health-care workers — including nurses, physicians, therapists and others — were washing their hands within a specified number of seconds of entering and leaving a patient's room. The findings suggest that hand-washing compliance rates dropped by an average of 8.7 percentage points from the beginning to the end of a typical 12-hour shift. The decline in compliance was magnified by increased work intensity (Journal of Applied Psychology, online Nov. 3).
Mental rest and reflection appear to boost learning, finds a study conducted at the University of Texas at Austin. Researchers gave 35 adults two tasks in which they were asked to memorize photo pairs. Between the tasks, the participants rested and were told they could think about anything they chose. Brain scans found that the participants who used the time to reflect on what they had learned in the tasks did better on later tests (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesopens in new window, Nov. 4).
Girls from families with a history of depression appear to have greater stress responses and shorter telomeres — a marker for aging — than their low-risk peers, according to research by psychologists at Stanford, Northwestern University and the University of California, San Francisco. In the study, conducted with 97 10- to 14-year-old healthy girls with and without a family history of depression, researchers measured the girls' response to stress tests, asking them to count backward from 100 by sevens, and interviewing them about stressful situations. They also analyzed DNA samples for telomere length, and measured the girls' cortisol levels before and after the stress test. The researchers found that girls with a family history of depression experienced higher levels of personal stress, and that when they experienced stress, they released much higher levels of cortisol than girls who did not have depression in their families. The girls from depressed families also had telomeres that were shorter by the equivalent of six years (Molecular Psychiatryopens in new window, online Sept. 30).
Infants as young as 7 months old may be able to unconsciously pick up on eye cues based on the size of the whites of a person's eyes, according to a study led by University of Virginia and Max Planck Institute psychologists. Researchers used electroencephalography to measure the brain activity of 46 7-month-old infants while showing them images of eyes in different positions: wide open, indicating fear or surprise; narrowly opened, such as when smiling; and with direct or averted gazes. The infants' brain responses displayed a different pattern when looking at wide-open eyes compared with eyes less open. The study also showed that the babies' brains responses differed when viewing direct versus averted gazes (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesopens in new window, Nov. 11).
Both environmental and genetic factors appear to influence how proactive an employee is at work, according to a study led by a Kansas State University psychologist. Researchers used a nationwide database of identical and fraternal twins to examine how environmental factors — such as co-workers, supervisors and the type of organization and culture of the company — combined with genetic factors affect an employee's proactivity. The researchers found that about 40 percent of the differences among individual workers could be attributed to their genetic makeup, while 60 percent of the differences could be attributed to environmental factors. The study also found that environmental factors are more likely to determine how much money proactive employees earn, while genetics are more likely to determine a proactive employee's job satisfaction (Journal of Applied Psychologyopens in new window, September).
Airport security agents who talked with mock airline passengers were more successful at spotting deception than agents who only examined body language for suspicious signs, according to a study led by a University of Sussex psychologist. In experiments spanning eight months with more than 400 mock and genuine passengers, security agents at eight international airports in Europe detected dishonesty in 66 percent of the deceptive mock passengers using the new Controlled Cognitive Engagement (CCE) screening method, compared with just 3 percent for agents who observed signs thought to be associated with deception, including lack of eye contact, fidgeting and nervousness. In the CCE method, security agents engage in friendly, informal conversations by asking passengers seemingly unrelated, unpredictable questions about knowledge the passenger should possess, and then gauge whether a passenger's responses become evasive or erratic (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Generalopens in new window, online Nov. 4).
Sadness lasts longer than other emotions, finds a study conducted at the University of Leuven in Belgium. Researchers asked 233 high school students to recollect recent emotional episodes, report how long they lasted and answer questions about how they dealt with the emotions. Out of 27 emotions, the researchers found that sadness lasted the longest — up to 240 times longer than emotions lasting the shortest time, including shame, surprise, fear, disgust, boredom, irritation, being touched or feeling relief. The researchers also discovered that the shorter-lasting emotions were typically elicited by events that had relatively low importance attached to them, whereas long-lasting emotions tended to be caused by events that were very important and had a strong impact on the students (Motivation and Emotionopens in new window, October).
Reminiscing and mind-wandering may help boost mental performance, finds research by a Cornell University neuroscientist. While undergoing brain scans, 36 young adults viewed famous and anonymous faces in sequence and were asked to identify whether a current face matched one presented two faces back. Researchers found that participants were faster and more accurate when matching the famous faces, a task that involves activating brain regions referred to as the default network, which are associated with behaviors such as mind-wandering (Journal of Neuroscienceopens in new window, Oct. 15).
Sexual preference for "masculine men" and "feminine women" is a relatively new habit that has only emerged in modern, urbanized societies, according to a study conducted at Brunel University London. A team of psychologists, anthropologists and biologists surveyed 962 participants from 12 populations around the world, from the primitive to the highly developed, showing them sets of three opposite-sex composite and digitally manipulated photos. For each set of photographs, representing five different ethnic groups, researchers asked participants which face was most attractive and which appeared most aggressive. They found that only in the most industrialized and urbanized environments did people hold the opinion that highly feminine women and highly masculine men are attractive. Those from more primitive populations often favored the neutral face, and sometimes the least sex-typical one (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesopens in new window, Oct. 7).
Hearing gossip about other people may promote one's self-reflection and growth, according to research conducted at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Investigators asked participants to recall an incident in which they heard gossip about another person and then asked questions to measure the self-improvement, self-promotion and self-protection value of the gossip. The researchers found that positive gossip had more self-improvement value, motivating people to work harder in their own lives. Negative gossip elicited pride, providing participants with social comparison information that justified their self-promotional judgments. Negative gossip also prompted fear and anxiety due to increased self-protection concerns; people worried that their own reputations could be at risk should they become targets of negative gossip in the future (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletinopens in new window, December).
A family-focused, culturally informed intense treatment for schizophrenia reduces patients' symptoms and improves patient and caregiver emotional well-being, finds a study conducted at the University of Miami. Researchers randomly assigned 46 ethnically diverse patients with schizophrenia and their families to one of two groups: a control group, in which families received only three psycho-education sessions about the illness, or a group in which families had 15 weekly one-hour sessions about the illness, techniques to bolster family cohesion and adaptive use of religious coping, communication training and problem-solving. The patients who participated in the more intense intervention program reported significant reductions in their hallucinations, delusions and other psychiatric symptoms and their caregivers reported significantly lower levels of guilt, shame and burden of care (Journal of Family Psychology, online Oct. 6).
Seeing pictures of others being loved and cared for reduces the brain's response to threat, according to a study led by University of Exeter psychologists. They used fMRI to study brain activity in 42 healthy adults who had viewed pictures of people receiving emotional support and affection. The researchers found that after subjects looked at the photos, their brain's threat monitor, the amygdala, surprisingly did not respond to a second set of images showing threatening facial expressions or words (Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscienceopens in new window, online Oct. 17).
A mother's educational attainment and age at her child's birth may be linked to the child's academic success, according to a study by University of Michigan psychologists. Researchers examined math and reading scores from nearly 15,000 children who were first assessed upon entering kindergarten and then followed for at least nine years. They found that children born to mothers age 19 and older are more likely to enter kindergarten with higher levels of achievement, and that they continued to excel in math and reading through eighth grade, compared with children of mothers age 18 and younger (Journal of Research on Adolescenceopens in new window, online Nov. 7).
A person's credit score may be a strong predictor of his or her health status, according to a study led by Duke University scientists. The researchers looked at data from a long-term physical and mental health study of more than 1,000 people in New Zealand who had been monitored continuously from birth to age 38. Findings point to a strong relationship between low credit scores and poor cardiovascular health (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nov. 17).
Anxiety increases risk of Alzheimer's disease in people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), finds a study by researchers at Baycrest Health Sciences' Rotman Research Institute in Toronto. Scientists examined data from a large population-based Alzheimer's disease neuroimaging initiative, analyzing anxiety, depression, cognitive and brain structural changes in 376 adults with MCI, ages 55 to 91, every six months over a three-year period. They found that for MCI patients with mild, moderate or severe anxiety, Alzheimer's risk increased by 33 percent, 78 percent and 135 percent, respectively. The researchers also found that MCI patients who had reported anxiety over the follow-up period had more atrophy in the medial temporal lobe — the area responsible for creating memories and a region often implicated in Alzheimer's disease (American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry,opens in new window online Oct. 29).
— Amy Novotney
