readings in psychology for 6 june 2013 @PsychScience

Do you remember when this game first came out? Well, most college students weren’t even born yet.

Here is what I am reading today:

• meeting on-line can lead to happier and more enduring relationships

“Although the study did not determine why relationships that started online were more successful, the reasons may include the strong motivations of online daters, the availability of advance screening, and the sheer volume of opportunities online. “These data suggest that the Internet may be altering the dynamics and outcomes of marriage itself,” said the study’s lead author, John Cacioppo, the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor in Psychology at the University of Chicago. “

• perspective is everything

“When people learn to do a task well, but are asked to keep doing it while receiving deliberately misleading feedback indicating that their performance is perfect every time, their actual performance will gradually get worse.

It had been assumed that the decline was due to the decay of memories in the absence of reinforcement, says Reza Shadmehr, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.”

• the relief of anxiety through … meditation

“”Although we’ve known that meditation can reduce anxiety, we hadn’t identified the specific brain mechanisms involved in relieving anxiety in healthy individuals,” said Fadel Zeidan, Ph.D., postdoctoral research fellow in neurobiology and anatomy at Wake Forest Baptist and lead author of the study. “In this study, we were able to see which areas of the brain were activated and which were deactivated during meditation-related anxiety relief.””

• OCD in dogs and people

““While the study sample was small and further research is needed, the results further validate that dogs with CCD (Canine Compulsive Disorder) can provide insight and understanding into anxiety disorders that affect people,” Nicholas Dodman, a professor of clinical sciences at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University who worked on the study, said in a press release.”

• having sex changes your brain… if you are a vole

“The results, published in Nature Neuroscience today, provide the first direct evidence of  the link between epigenetics and monogamous bonding in voles. The results could have implications for other types of neurotransmitter-related behaviors or for bonding in other apparently monogamous species, like humans. Just don’t expect a love drug for your significant other anytime soon.”

• if you smile you lose

“Facial expressions have long been thought to be reliable indicators of a person’s true feelings. Indeed, in his book “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals” Darwin suggested that such expressions have evolved precisely because they serve this important function.”

• glowing plants

“He and his colleagues — Omri Amirav-Drory, founder of synthetic-biology software firm Genome Compiler in Berkeley, California, and Kyle Taylor, a former biology graduate student at Stanford University in California — set out to make Arabidopsis glow because the feat seemed achievable in a simple garage lab. “There are some people in synthetic-biology circles who would yawn at what we’re doing,” Evans says.”

• designer stimulants

“Recent high-profile incidents have drawn attention to “bath salts” as a new and potentially hazardous type of recreational drug. Addiction medicine specialist Dr Erik W. Gunderson of University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and colleagues, review available data on the use and effects of these designer drugs in this issue of JAM. The paper provides a timely update including implications for medical management and drug policy.”

• are cheerful women perceived as good leaders??

“To increase their share of leadership positions, women are expected to tick a range of boxes — usually demonstrating improved negotiation skills, networking strengths and the ability to develop a strategic career ladder. “But even these skills are not enough,” maintains Professor Isabell Welpe of TUM’s Chair for Strategy and Organization. “They ignore the fact that there are stereotypes that on a subconscious level play a decisive role in the assessment of high achievers. Leaders should be assertive, dominant and hard-lined; women are seen as mediators, friendly, social.””

• remembering a face, who does it better? men or women?

“”The way we move our eyes across a new individual’s face affects our ability to recognize that individual later,” explains Jennifer Heisz, a research fellow at the Rotman Institute at Baycrest and newly appointed assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University.

She co-authored the paper with David Shore, psychology professor at McMaster and psychology graduate student Molly Pottruff.

“Our findings provide new insights into the potential mechanisms of episodic memory and the differences between the sexes. We discovered that women look more at new faces than men do, which allows them to create a richer and more superior memory,” Heisz says.”