May 11, 2008, 9:04 AM CT

Is divorce bad for the parents?

The elderly are cared for by their adult children regardless of their marital status. In a unique study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, scientists found British adult children help their elderly parents as per current need (i.e. health) rather than past behaviour. This contrasts with other countries such as the US, where parents with a history of divorce see less of their children and receive less help from them.

So in the UK a parent that is living alone is more likely to receive help from children than parents with partners. Children also give more help as the parent ages. For every extra year of the parents age, he/she is 9% more likely to receive help from children not living at the same address. And parents with health problems are 75% more likely than those without health problems to be helped by their children. Curiously, divorced parents get more help from children than if they are widowed, but both groups receive more help than if they still have a partner. And it helps to have more children. Parents with more children receive more support; however, step children give step parents less support.

The research was carried out by a team from the Institute of Gerontology at Kings College London. They analysed data from an annual survey of over five thousand British households (British Household Panel Survey) from 1991 to 2003. They compared this information with a survey of over 3500 people at around retirement age (55-69 years) in 1988, and an Italian family survey......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

May 8, 2008, 8:59 PM CT

Do antidepressants enhance immune function?

Infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which leads to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), is an epidemic of global concern. As per the most recent estimates, released in November 2007, by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 33.2 million worldwide are living with HIV infection currently. Eventhough the rates of infection appear to be decreasing, there are obviously immense implications for achieving improvements in HIV/AIDS therapy.

The functioning of natural killer (NK) cells, which are a major element of the innate immunity system and are involved in the bodys first line of defense against infections such as HIV, is decreased in both HIV and depression. A group of scientists who have previously observed that stress and depression impair NK cell function and accelerate the course of HIV/AIDS are now publishing a new report in the May 1st issue of Biological Psychiatry.

In this study, they recruited both depressed and non-depressed HIV-infected women and studied the ex vivo effects of three drugs, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), a substance P antagonist, and a glucocorticoid antagonist, on their NK cell activity. These drugs were selected because, as the authors state, each affect[s] underlying regulatory systems that have been extensively investigated in both stress and depression research as well as immune and viral research. The researchers observed that the SSRI citalopram, and the substance P antagonist CP 96,345, but not the glucocorticoid receptor antagonist RU486, increased NK cell activity. As per Dr. Dwight Evans, corresponding author of the article: The present findings provide evidence that natural killer cell function in HIV infection may be enhanced by selective serotonin reuptake inhibition and also by substance P antagonism in both depressed and non-depressed individuals......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

May 7, 2008, 6:56 PM CT

Mental Fitness and Multi-Lingualism

Children who speak a second or third language may have an unexpected advantage during the later part of life, a new Tel Aviv University study has observed. Knowing and speaking a number of languages may protect the brain against the effects of aging.

Dr. Gitit Kave, a clinical neuro-psychology expert from the Herczeg Institute on Aging at Tel Aviv University, together with her colleagues Nitza Eyal, Aviva Shorek, and Jiska Cohen-Manfield, discovered recently that senior citizens who speak more languages test for better cognitive functioning. The results of her study were reported in the journal Psychology and Aging.

However, Kave says that one should approach these findings with caution. "There is no sure-fire recipe for avoiding the pitfalls of mental aging. But using a second or third language may help prolong the good years," she advises.

Exercising the Brain

A person who speaks more languages is likely to be more clear-minded at an older age, she says, in effect "exercising" his or her brain more than those who are monolingual. Languages may create new links in the brain, contributing to this strengthening effect.

The research was based on a survey taken in 1989 on people between the ages of 75 and 95. Each person was asked how a number of languages he or she knew, what his or her mother tongue was, and which language he or she spoke best. The scientists compared bilingual speakers to tri- and multilingual speakers......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 5, 2008, 8:51 PM CT

Youths in towns with smoke-free restaurant laws

Young people who live in towns where regulations ban smoking in restaurants may be less likely to become established smokers, as per a report in the recent issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

A number of studies have examined the risk factors that lead young people to try their first cigarette, as per background information in the article. However, fewer scientists have differentiated these factors from those that cause children and teens to progress to established smoking, or having smoked 100 or more cigarettes. Yet understanding this difference is critical, the authors write. It would allow us to determine the age and stage at which youths are most sensitive to various types of interventions, thus enabling the more specific tailoring and more effective delivery of smoking prevention interventions.

Michael Siegel, M.D., M.P.H., of Boston University School of Public Health, and his colleagues studied 3,834 Massachusetts youths who were age 12 to 17 at the first interview, conducted between 2001 and 2002. Of those, 2,791 were interviewed again two years later and 2,217 were interviewed four years later.

Overall, 9.3 percent of the participants became established smokers over the study period, including 9.6 percent of those living in towns with weak restaurant smoking regulations (where smoking is restricted to designated areas or not restricted at all), 9.8 percent of those in towns with medium regulations (smoking is restricted to enclosed or ventilated areas, or no smoking is allowed but variations are permitted) and 7.9 percent of those in towns with strong regulations (complete smoking bans). The strength of local smoking regulations was not linked to the transition from non-smoking to experimentation, but was linked to the transition from experimentation to established smoking......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 30, 2008, 5:55 PM CT

Salk study links diabetes and Alzheimer's disease

Diabetic individuals have a significantly higher risk of developing Alzheimers disease but the molecular correlation between the two remains unexplained. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies identified the probable molecular basis for the diabetes Alzheimers interaction.

As per a research findings reported in the current online issue of Neurobiology of Aging, researchers led by David R. Schubert, Ph.D., professor in the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory, report that the blood vessels in the brain of young diabetic mice are damaged by the interaction of elevated blood glucose levels characteristic of diabetes and low levels of beta amyloid, a peptide that clumps to form the senile plaques that riddle the brains of Alzheimers patients.

Eventhough the damage took place long before the first plaques appeared, the mice suffered from significant memory loss and an increase in inflammation in the brain. Eventhough the toxic beta amyloid peptide was first isolated from the brain blood vessels of Alzheimers patients, the contribution of pathological changes in brain vascular tissue to the disease has not been well studied, says Dave R. Schubert, Ph.D., professor and head of the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory. Our data clearly describe a biochemical mechanism to explain the epidemiology, and identify targets for drug development......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 24, 2008, 5:08 AM CT

Every fifth adolescent smokes

As a number of as 20% of adolescents from 11 to 17 years of age smoke. This was the result of the nationwide German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS), performed by the Robert Koch Institute and presented by the sociologist Thomas Lampert in the current edition of Deutsches rzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2008; 105[15]: 265-71).

The analysis of tobacco consumption by children and adolescents covered almost 7,000 girls and boys aged 11 to 17. Data on the current smoking status and on exposure to passive smoking were collected for the years 2003 to 2006. Possible factors influencing the findings were examined, including the social status of the family, the type of school attended by the adolescents, and the smoking status of parents and friends.

Thomas Lampert's study shows that friends and the type of school have greater influence on smoking behavior than the parents do. The probability that an adolescent starts smoking is markedly greater when his or her friends smoke. The risk is hardly increased if the parents smoke. Conversely, students at general secondary schools (Hauptschule), intermediate schools (Realschule) or comprehensive schools (Gesamtschule) smoke much more frequently than do pupils at high school (Gymnasium)......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 24, 2008, 5:01 AM CT

Environment influences when drinking begins

The influence of genetics increases as young women transition from taking their first drink to becoming alcoholics. A team of scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis observed that eventhough environment is most influential in determining when girls begin to drink, genes play a larger role if they advance to problem drinking and alcohol dependence.

The scientists studied 3,546 female twins ages 18 to 29 to ferret out the influences of genes and environment in the development of alcohol dependence. Their findings are reported in the recent issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

The road to alcohol dependence involves transitions through a number of stages of drinking behaviors: from the first drink to the first alcohol-related problems (such as drinking and driving, difficulty at school or work correlation to alcohol use) to alcohol dependence.

Environmental factors the twins shared, such as exposure to conflict between parents or alcohol use among peers in school, exerted the largest influence on initiation of alcohol use. The study observed that females who had their first drink at an earlier age were more likely to develop serious alcohol problems. The scientists observed that all transitions were attributable in part to genetic factors, increasing from 30 percent for the timing of first drink to 47 percent for the speed at which women progressed from problem drinking to alcohol dependence. But genetics did not explain everything......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 21, 2008, 9:07 PM CT

Coke or Pepsi?

A can of Coke next to the word awesome; a can of Pepsi next to a picture of a happy couple. Seem too basic to be effective advertising" Previous research has shown that reported attitudes towards brands are not affected by such simple juxtapositions. However, a new paper in the June 2008 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research examines our implicit opinions and finds that we may actually be more susceptible than we think.

Bryan Gibson (Central Michigan University) showed undergraduate psychology students pairings of well-known cola brands with words and images. Some had positive associations: a field of flowers, the word awesome, or a mother holding a child. Others had negative associations: people at a gravesite, the word terrifying, or a person in a contamination suit.

Participants were then distracted by an unrelated cognitive task memorizing an eight-digit number and offered a can of Coke or Pepsi to take home with them.

When distracted, those who were initially neutral towards both brands strongly tended to choose the brand that had been paired with positive images or words in the earlier task. Importantly, this happened even when the participant couldnt remember which brand had been paired with positive information, Gibson reports.

Those who had an established preference for one brand before the experiment, as established by a pre-test, were not affected by the inclusion of a distracting task while making their choices......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 21, 2008, 7:54 PM CT

Why teens get hooked on cocaine more easily

New drug research suggests that teens may get addicted and relapse more easily than adults because developing brains are more powerfully motivated by drug-related cues. This conclusion has been reached by scientists who observed that adolescent rats given cocaine a powerfully addicting stimulant were more likely than adults to prefer the place where they got it. That learned association endured: Even after experimenters extinguished the drug-linked preference, a small reinstating dose of cocaine appeared to rekindle that preference but only in the adolescent rats.

The research, performed at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical Schools largest psychiatric facility, was published in the recent issue of Behavioral Neuroscience, published by the American Psychological Association.

Evidence that younger brains get stuck on drug-related stimuli reinforces real-world data. Epidemiological studies confirm that of people in various age groups who experiment with drugs, teens are by far the most likely to become addicted. Thus, the new findings may be useful in developing new therapys for youthful addiction.

In the study, psychology experts Heather Brenhouse, PhD, and Susan Andersen, PhD, who directs McLeans Developmental Psychopharmacology Laboratory, introduced rats that were 38 or 77 days old (equivalent to 13 or 20 human years) to an apparatus with one central and two larger side chambers that had different flooring, wall colors and lighting. For three days in a row, the scientists injected the rats with saline solution in the morning and placed them in one side chamber for an hour. Four hours later, they injected them with a preference-forming dose of cocaine (either 10 or 20 mg per kg of weight, to assess two doses known to be habit-forming) and placed them in the opposite-side chamber for an hour. Conditioning this way kept the rats from associating the symptoms of withdrawal with the non-drug chamber......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 21, 2008, 6:34 PM CT

Brain reacts to fairness as it does to money and chocolate

The human brain responds to being treated fairly the same way it responds to winning money and eating chocolate, UCLA researchers report. Being treated fairly turns on the brain's reward circuitry.

"We may be hard-wired to treat fairness as a reward," said co-author of study Matthew D. Lieberman, UCLA associate professor of psychology and a founder of social cognitive neuroscience.

"Receiving a fair offer activates the same brain circuitry as when we eat craved food, win money or see a beautiful face," said Golnaz Tabibnia, a postdoctoral scholar at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and lead author of the study, which appears in the recent issue of the journal Psychological Science.

The activated brain regions include the ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Humans share the ventral striatum with rats, mice and monkeys, Tabibnia said.

"Fairness is activating the same part of the brain that responds to food in rats," she said. This is consistent with the notion that being treated fairly satisfies a basic need, she added.

In the study, subjects were asked whether they would accept or decline another person's offer to divide money in a particular way. If they declined, neither they nor the person making the offer would receive anything. Some of the offers were fair, such as receiving $5 out of $10 or $12, while others were unfair, such as receiving $5 out of $23......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 21, 2008, 6:03 PM CT

Counseling trauma victims causes secondary trauma

Hearing repeated stories of suffering from trauma victims causes serious psychological stress in clinical social workers, a new Geisinger-led study suggests.

In a study appearing in the May edition of Research on Social Work Practice, Geisinger Senior Investigator Joseph Boscarino, PhD, MPH and his co-scientists examined psychological stress, job burnout and secondary trauma among 236 New York City social workers following the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Secondary trauma includes experiencing symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress such as having nightmares or flashbacks, being easily startled and avoiding situations that remind one of the original trauma. Sometimes called vicarious trauma, it can seriously impact the mental health of counselors, first responders, critical care nurses and others in healthcare professions involved with treating those exposed to traumatic events, Boscarino said.

The study observed that involvement in World Trade Center recovery effort was the primary reason why social workers experienced secondary trauma.

The research also showed that a positive work environment for social workers helped reduce secondary trauma and prevent job burnout.

Listening to a persons traumatic experiences can be a very difficult experience for a clinician, Boscarino said. Sometimes caregivers need emotional support of their own and if they dont get it, they can become emotionally ill......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 17, 2008, 7:46 PM CT

Parents stricter with older kids to set example

Parents are more likely to punish their teen's risky behavior when there are younger kids in the family, driven by a desire to set a strict example for these siblings, says new game theory research from the University of Maryland, Duke University and The Johns Hopkins University.

The research team used economic game theory to predict levels of parental discipline. Parental concern for their reputation as a disciplinarian with the younger children would be a powerful motivator, they predicted.

Their study, reported in the April edition of the Economic Journal, concludes that the exercise of parental control is effective in modifying the risky adolescent behavior.

This is particularly true in the case of the older children, who expect stronger penalties because their parents are making an example of them.

But as the younger siblings grow up and the games get played out a second or third time, the parents resolve tends to dwindle, the scientists say.

Tender-hearted parents find it harder and harder to engage in tough love as they have fewer young children in the house, since they have less incentive to uphold reputations as disciplinarians, says University of Maryland economist, Ginger Gin, one of three co-authors of the study, and herself an older sister and a parent of two. As a result, the theory predicts that last-born and only children, knowing that they can get away with much more than their older brothers and sisters, are, on average, more likely to engage in risky behaviors......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

April 13, 2008, 9:08 PM CT

Disparities in depression

Older Puerto Ricans have higher rates of depression than other Hispanics living in the United States, as per a new study by scientists at Hebrew SeniorLifes Institute for Aging Research (IFAR).

Nearly 7 percent of Puerto Ricans, who make up 11 percent of the Hispanics 65 and older in the U.S., suffer from major depression, in comparison to Mexican Americans, Cuban Americans, and Hispanics from Central and South America. Only 2.8 percent of Mexican Americans (46.7 percent of the older Hispanic population) and 2.5 percent of Cuban Americans (13 percent) suffer from major depression.

We found the prevalence of depression across Hispanic groups in the United States to be highest in Puerto Ricans, even though this was the smallest group, the scientists wrote in the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences.

Funded in part by the National Institute on Aging, the study was conducted by IFAR researchers Frances M. Yang, Ph.D., and Richard N. Jones, Sc.D., along with Yamileth Cazorla-Lancaster of the University of North Texas School of Public Health.

The scientists examined differences in the levels of depressive symptoms and the presence of depression in 759 Hispanics over the age of 59. Data was obtained from the University of Michigans Health and Retirement Study and its Asset of Health Dynamics of the Oldest Old (AHEAD) study......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 13, 2008, 9:05 PM CT

Autism and muscle weakness

Some kids with autism may have a genetic defect that affects the muscles, according to research that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology 60th Anniversary Annual Meeting in Chicago, April 1219, 2008.

The study looked at 37 children with autism spectrum disorders who were evaluated for mitochondrial disease,.

which causes muscle weakness and prevents a child from being able to participate in physical activities and.

sports. Mitochondrial disease occurs when genetic mutations affect the mitochondria, or the part of the cell that releases energy.

A total of 24 of the children, or 65 percent, had defects in the process by which cells produce and synthesize energy in the muscles, or oxidative phosphorylation defects in the skeletal muscles.

Most children with autism spectrum disorders do not have recognizable abnormalities when you look at.

genetic tests, imaging, and metabolic tests, said study author John Shoffner, MD, owner of Medical.

Neurogenetics, LLC in Atlanta, GA, and member of the American Academy of Neurology. But a subset of these children does have significant defects in this area. Identifying this defect is important for understanding how genes that produce autism spectrum disorders impact the function of the mitochondria......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 10, 2008, 8:20 PM CT

Men with Serious Injuries Often Abuse Alcohol

Men with serious injuries, such as traumatic brain injury or spinal cord injury, must deal with a range of emotions. If these men have strong traditional masculine ideas and abuse alcohol, it becomes even more difficult to help them heal and come to terms with their emotions and situations. A University of Missouri psychology researcher studied these challenging factors to find better ways to understand and treat men who fit this mold, such as the injured soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"It is really a triple whammy," said Glenn Good, professor of educational, school and counseling psychology in the MU College of Education. "Counselors face a number of challenges when it comes to helping men deal with emotions surrounding serious injuries. Newly injured men often face adjustments in the level of personal assistance they require, and this may result in struggles with some aspect of the traditional masculine role, such as a 'go it alone' mentality. When three factors - injury, traditional male role and alcohol abuse - occur together, the rehabilitation process may be a challenge. In this study, we examined the combination of all three factors with the aim of better understanding how to treat men with several challenges."

Good and colleagues observed that a young man with a serious injury would often report a greater pursuit of status, higher drive for dominance and increased risk taking. However, they were more open to accepting assistance. Older men in the study tended to hold to the masculine attitude that they could do everything on their own and did not need any help, presenting a greater challenge......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 8, 2008, 10:13 PM CT

Marijuana increases alcohol toxicity

Marijuana is among the most frequently used illicit drugs by women during their childbearing years and there is growing concern that marijuana abuse during pregnancy, either alone or in combination with other drugs, may have serious effects on fetal brain development. There is good evidence that THC, the main psychoactive component of marijuana, crosses the placenta, that maternal marijuana abuse results in intrauterine growth retardation and that infants exposed to marijuana exhibit a temporary syndrome that includes lethargy and decreased muscle tone. Fetal exposure to THC can also result in attention deficits, learning disabilities and behavioral problems. A new study using rats observed that THC combined with mildly intoxicating doses of alcohol induced widespread nerve cell death in the brain. The study is reported in the Annals of Neurology (http://www.interscience.wiley.com/journal/ana), the official journal of the American Neurological Association.

Led by Henrik Hansen and Chrysanthy Ikonomidou, at the Neuroscience Research Center of the Humboldt University in Berlin and the Department of Pediatric Neurology, University of Technology Dresden, Gera number of, scientists administered THC, a synthetic form of THC, ethanol, MK-801 (an anticonvulsant) and phenobarbital by injection to rats between 1 and 14 days old. A prior study by the same group had shown that ethanol and drugs such as sedatives, anesthetics and anticonvulsants triggered widespread nerve cell death in the developing brain of immature rodents; the current study was conducted to determine if cannabinoids had the same effect......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

April 8, 2008, 9:42 PM CT

Misery, Not Miserly

Off to buy a new handbag and fabulous red shoes, or how about overalls and a riding lawnmower? Before going, a mood check for signs of despair and gloom might be in order because how a person feels can impact routine economic transactions, whether he or she is aware of it or not.

So says a team of behavioral researchers from four major U.S. universities, whose research study finds that sadness impacts spending. Specifically, people who feel sad and self-focused pay more money for goods than those in neutral states, even when purchasing the same item.

"The tendency is to focus on oneself when sad drives this effect," says the study's lead author Cynthia E. Cryder, a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pa. "Our studies revealed the more self-focused people were in the sad condition, the more money they spent.".

"More studies are needed to determine whether participants are deliberately trying to improve their sense of self by acquiring goods," adds co-author of study Jennifer Lerner, an experimental social psychology expert at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Mass.

The study, "Misery is not Miserly: Sad and Self-Focused Individuals Spend More," was funded by the National Science Foundation and was presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology annual meeting in Albuquerque, N.M. in February of this year. It would be reported in the June 2008 issue of Psychological Science--a premier journal for scientific experiments in psychology......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 6, 2008, 8:13 PM CT

More likely to choose cocaine over food

Having a lower social standing increases the likelihood that a monkey faced with a stressful situation will choose cocaine over food, as per a research studyat Wake Forest University School of Medicine. More dominant monkeys undergoing the same stressful situation had fewer changes in brain activity in areas of the brain involved in stress and anxiety and were less likely to choose cocaine.

Robert Warren Gould, a graduate student in the laboratory of Michael A. Nader, Ph.D., presented the study results Sunday at Experimental Biology 2008 in San Diego. The presentation was part of the scientific program of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET).

Male cynomolgus monkeys live in a complex social structure in which the social hierarchy is established by physical aggression and maintained by clear signals. A monkey that has established his dominance over another monkey can elicit a subordinate response with no more than a meaningful look.

The scientists exposed four dominant and four subordinate monkeys to a socially stressful situation in which an individual monkey was taken out of his home cage and placed in an unfamiliar cage surrounded by four unfamiliar animals. The monkey was physically safe, but he could see and hear the animals around him engaging in aggressive behavior......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 2, 2008, 10:12 PM CT

Studies' message to women: Keep your cool

Whether you are running for president or looking for a clerical job, you cannot afford to get angry if you are a woman, Yale University psychology expert Victoria Brescoll has found.

Brescoll and Eric Uhlmann at Northwestern University recently completed three separate studies to explore a phenomenon that may be all-too-familiar to women like New York Senator Hillary Clinton: People accept and even reward men who get angry but view women who lose their temper as less competent.

The studies, reported in the recent issue of Psychological Science, provide women with recommendations for navigating emotional hazards of the workplace. Brescoll says it pays to stay emotionally neutral and, if you can't, at least explain what ticked you off in the first place.

Clinton's presidential campaign has put a spotlight on the question of whether anger hurts a female candidate. The answer, as per the studies, appears to be an unequivocal yes - unless the anger deals with therapy of a family member.

"An angry woman loses status, no matter what her position,'' said Brescoll, who worked in Clinton's office as a Congressional Fellow in 2004 while she was preparing her doctoral thesis on gender bias. She noticed over the years that women pay a clear price for showing anger and men don't......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 2, 2008, 10:10 PM CT

Do we need alcohol prevention programs for 'tweens?'

The article examined a large study of six grade students across a metropolitan area, to see which factors distinguished young alcohol users from nonusers, including even their stated intentions regarding future alcohol use. Understanding that early alcohol use can affect development during a crucial time in life and can cause significant problems later, the scientists explored some current teen alcohol abuse prevention programs, concluding that even earlier intervention is imperative. The study looked at both positive and negative influences affecting early drinking, including such things as:

• Parental influences, including communication, monitoring, and expectations

• Peer influences, peers actual alcohol use and kids perceptions of peer use

• The environment, access to alcohol, owning and wearing alcohol-related items

• Kids involvement in sports, religious and other extra-curricular activities

• Use of other substances, including tobacco and marijuana

Early users of alcohol are already at very high risk and earlier intervention is critical to alter risk factors while students are in their tweens, write the authors. Eventhough some research has been done in the primary prevention of developmental problems with tweens, the data suggests that a specific focus on particular alcohol-related risk factors is also needed to affect those at highest risk for teen alcohol use......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

April 2, 2008, 10:08 PM CT

Study finds that discrimination varies by gender and race

Men are more likely to tolerate discrimination than women, however both sexes tend to accept prejudice against poorly educated immigrants and Arab-American airplane travelers, as per a research studyby the USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics.

In a survey of more than 3,300 people, scientists at USC Gould School of Law and USC College observed that both men and women are less willing to tolerate discrimination against the genetically disadvantaged. The study, would be published in June in Political Research Quarterly, also found tolerance levels between the sexes vary depending on whether or not their response is anonymous: men tend to understate, and women to overstate, their tolerance for discrimination when speaking to a live interviewer, as opposed to answering questions over the Internet.

Edward J. McCaffery, a USC law professor, who co-authored the study, said that an individual who sees nothing wrong with certain kinds of biases will often find others objectionable.

A number of political struggles of our time, in the United States as elsewhere, amount to clashes over the appropriate boundary between permissible and impermissible forms of discrimination, McCaffery said. We have observed that, while discrimination in its traditional forms based on race and gender may be receding somewhat, discrimination in other domains, as based on appearance, persists. Here we observed that people are more willing to accept discrimination against poorly educated immigrants, for example, than so-called genetic discrimination. Men are more willing to accept discrimination, but both men and women converge when we did a telephone survey and there was a live interviewer women became more, and men less, openly tolerant of discrimination......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

March 31, 2008, 9:35 PM CT

Are you my mother?

Sigmund Freud hailed the phenomenon of transference as fundamental to the process of dynamic psychotherapy. Freud depicted transference as a false correlation between patient's memories of a past relationship and the therapeutic context. He noted it as an integral part in the psychoanalytic cure.

New theories present a very different interpretation of transference. In that, it transcends the therapeutic context and constitutes part and parcel of everyday social perception. Much like stereotypes, mental representations of significant others may be activated from memory and applied to new people that you meet who resemble someone you know.

Psychodynamic theories argue that transference is an intense, resource-demanding process, but psychology experts Arie Kruglanski, University of Maryland, and Antonio Pierro, University of Rome "La Sapienza," suggest that transference is more likely to occur when an individual's energy resources are low, rather than abundant.

Extending the logic from existing research showing that individuals exhibited more stereotypic biases at a non-optimal time of day (i.e., in the morning for evening types and in the evening for morning types,) Kruglanski and Pierro examined the occurrence of transference in participants' as correlation to their circadian rhythm......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

March 27, 2008, 9:35 PM CT

Cooperative classrooms lead to better friendships

Students competing for resources in the classroom while discounting each others success are less likely to earn top grades than students who work together toward goals and share their success, as per an analysis of 80 years of research.

Competitive environments can disrupt childrens ability to form social relationships, which in turn may hurt their academic potential, as per scientists at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Cary J. Roseth, PhD, David W. Johnson, PhD, and Roger T. Johnson, PhD, evaluated the last eight decades of research on how social relationships affect individual behavior and achievement. Their findings appear in the current issue of Psychological Bulletin, published by the American Psychological Association.

The scientists examined 148 studies that compared the effects of cooperative, competitive and individualistic goals on early achievement and peer relationships among 12- to 15-year-olds. The studies included more than 17,000 adolescents from 11 countries and used four multinational samples. No one was excluded from the analysis because of gender, nationality, or academic or physical ability.

As per the studies, adolescents in classrooms that supported cooperative learning studying together to complete a project or prepare for an exam got along better with their peers, were more accurate on academic tests and achieved higher scores on problem-solving, reasoning and critical thinking tasks in comparison to adolescents who were in classrooms geared toward competitive learning studying alone knowing that success would mean only one winner and plenty of losers......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

March 26, 2008, 9:51 PM CT

The Upside Of Anger

Here's a maxim from the "duh" department: People typically prefer to feel emotions that are pleasant, like excitement, and avoid those that are unpleasant, like anger.

But a new study appearing in the recent issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, says this may not always be the case. Psychology experts Maya Tamir and Christopher Mitchell of Boston College, and James Gross of Stanford University tested whether people prefer to experience emotions that are potentially useful, even when they are unpleasant to experience.

The authors wanted to examine whether individuals are motivated to increase their level of anger when they expect to complete a confrontational task, where anger might enhance performance. They told the study participants that they will either play a computer game that is confrontational (Soldier of fortune -- a first person shooter game where killing enemies is your primary goal) or one that is not confrontational ("Diner Dash"-- a game in which players guide a waitress serving customers). They were then asked to rate the extent to which they would like to engage in different activities before playing the game.

The scientists observed that participants preferred activities that were likely to make them angry (e.g., listening to anger-inducing music, recalling past events in which they were angry) when they expected to perform the confrontational task. In contrast, participants preferred more pleasant activities when they expected to perform a non-confrontational task......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source