OMG, Teen Peer Pressure is Real and Subtle...Just Having Friends Around Makes Teens More Sensitive to Reward of Risk

Presence of peers heightens teens' sensitivity to rewards of a risk

ScienceDaily (2011-01-29) -- Teenagers take more risks when they are with their friends. A new study sheds light on why. The findings demonstrate that when teens are with their friends they are more sensitive to the rewards of a risk than when alone. ... > read full article

Transcranial Magnetic Brain Stimulation Can Do Wonders for the Brain?

Learn more quickly by transcranial magnetic brain stimulation, study in rats suggests

ScienceDaily (2011-01-29) -- What sounds like science fiction is actually possible: thanks to magnetic stimulation, the activity of certain brain nerve cells can be deliberately influenced. What happens in the brain in this context has been unclear up to now. Medical experts have now shown that various stimulus patterns changed the activity of distinct neuronal cell types. In addition, certain stimulus patterns led to rats learning more easily. ... > read full article

Soldiers Brains Vulnerable to Significant Change Under Combat Stress

Soldiers’ brains adapt to perceived threat during mission

ScienceDaily (2011-01-26) -- A study of soldiers who took part in the ISAF mission in Afghanistan between 2008 and 2010 has found that their brains adapt when they are continuously exposed to stress. The perceived threat appears to be the major predictor of brain adaptation, rather than the actual events. In other words, if a roadside bomb goes off right in front of you, the degree to which you perceive this as threatening is what counts. This is what determines how the brain and the stress system adapt. Between 2008 and 2010 the researchers studied a group of 36 soldiers. Before and after taking part in the mission, the soldiers’ brain activity was measured and compared with the brain activity of a control group of equal size who stayed at home. Unique to this study is that it is the first to use a control group. This control group, which stayed behind in the barracks in the Netherlands, had received similar combat training. ... > read full article

Meditation Can Change the Brain in Weeks

Mindfulness meditation training changes brain structure in eight weeks

ScienceDaily (2011-01-21) -- Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. A new study is the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain's gray matter. ... > read full article

Strange new drug diminshes ability to self-control...just what we don't need!

Drug 'khat' makes users more impulsive

ScienceDaily (2011-01-21) -- Researchers have investigated the effects of the drug khat on a person’s ability to inhibit undesirable behavior. Frequent use was shown to decrease self-control, with all the potentially dangerous consequences this implies. In view of the increased number of khat users, this is an alarming development. ... > read full article

Cues That Drive Violent Behaviors

An recent article at CNN.com by Prof. Saul Kassin on the psychological theories that might explain what drove the shooter in Arizona, reveals some interesting findings on what underlies violent behavior.

1) Men who show antisocial behavior as children such as truancy, setting fires, abusing animals, often are diagnosed to have psychopathy. These are the same adults who do not show empathy, aren't able to show real emotions, often are unfeeling in relationships and engage in high risk and even unethical behavior. From my observation many of them end up in business school and eventually in business which makes teaching ethics so hard to do!

2) Men are much more likely to commit violent acts than women and there is some evidence that violence is linked to testosterone levels. Kassin mentions in his article that "roid rage" - the heightened propensity men on steroids often experience - seems to be related to the increased level of testosterone.

3) Even when there are behavioral precursors that might indicate a violent episode for an individual, often an event that triggers frustration increases the likelihood for violence. This frustration can be caused by social or economic failures but interestingly can also be caused by pain, heat, insult, jealousy and rejection. Those are conditions that people who are concerned about an individual can look out for but unfortunately there's no way of shielding a vulnerable individual from these types of events.

4) These violent acts are not spontaneous. They are often well planned out a study by the U.S. Secret Service found when looking at 37 shootings. In many cases the perpetrator discusses their plans with at least one adult and/or classmates. We need a better mechanism for people to report this type of foreknowledge!

4) The most interesting part of Kassin's article was his assertion that studies have shown that just the presence of a weapon (vs. not present) makes people more likely to administer painful electric shocks to strangers. The effect of this cue could potentially be a powerful, subversive one especially when we think of the prevalence of weapons and violence in the media. And this exacerbated by individuals who are exposed to these cues who might be vulnerable in some way!

Many of us know of individuals who could potentially "pull a postal" because of their personality, behaviors, current life state, isolation, and frustration. It is unfortunate that even with this knowledge it is difficult to know how best to deal with this concern.

Beyond that, it is important that more research be done to understand how cues in environment might affect or trigger behaviors that are dangerous...with that knowledge, we might be able to decide how we might choose to articulate commercial products such as games, TV shows, ads, in order to try to foster a more safe and civil society.

Does "problematic" video gaming lead to other addictive behaviors?

When video games get problematic so do smoking, drug use and aggression

ScienceDaily (2010-11-15) -- A new study on gaming and health in adolescents found some significant gender differences linked to gaming as well as important health risks associated with problematic gaming. The study is among the first and largest to examine possible health links to gaming and problematic gaming in a community sample of adolescents. ... > read full article

If you're lazy, you don't participate in politics

New article in Psychological Science...so amazing even Huffington Post commented on it!

Participating in Politics Resembles Physical Activity: General Action Patterns in International Archives, United States Archives, and Experiments

Kenji Noguchi, Ian M. Handley, and Dolores Albarracín
Political participation may be linked to general action tendencies. Greater action-tendency index (e.g., percentage of people exercising 5 or more days per week) was shown to correlate with greater political participation (e.g., voter turnout) in the 50 states and the District of Columbia for the 2004 U.S. presidential election. In addition, volunteers who were exposed to action words (e.g., go, move) had stronger intentions to vote in an upcoming election and volunteered more time to a calling campaign on behalf of a university policy than volunteers who were exposed to inaction words (e.g., relax, stop). These findings suggest that voting campaigns reminding people to "take action" may be effective in mobilizing citizens to vote and participate in political activities.

Can Big Brands Do Good...For Biodiversity?

An Example of Something Else You Can Do With a PhD Other Than Work in Academia

Here is an excellent talk at TED from Jason Clay, WWF Vice President on how big brands can help to make biodiversity work! And he didn't go into academia with his PhD...he did something different!

When to Trust Your Instincts...When Not!

Trust your gut ... but only sometimes

ScienceDaily (2011-01-04) -- When faced with decisions, we often follow our intuition -- our self-described "gut feelings" -- without understanding why. Our ability to make hunch decisions varies considerably: Intuition can either be a useful ally or it can lead to costly and dangerous mistakes. A new study finds that the trustworthiness of our intuition is really influenced by what is happening physically in our bodies. ... > read full article

Brain Imaging Shows How Medication Fights Nicotine Cravings

Brain imaging studies examine how anti-smoking medications may curb cravings

ScienceDaily (2011-01-03) -- The smoking cessation medications bupropion and varenicline may both be associated with changes in the way the brain reacts to smoking cues, making it easier for patients to resist cravings, according to two new reports. ... > read full article

Working Moms' Sleep Deprivation More Extreme Than Dads': I Live This Nightmare!

Wake up, Mom: Gender differences in accepting sleep interruptions

ScienceDaily (2010-12-30) -- Working mothers are two-and-a-half times as likely as working fathers to interrupt their sleep to take care of others. ... > read full article

New Book: The Dragonfly Effect by Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith

Next on my reading list is a new book by marketing professor Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith, The Dragonfly Effect.

This book offers readers how to use social media in order to unleash unprecedented results for the benefit of society! My new year's resolution is to learn how to use blogging and tweeting as a way to practice writing more for enjoyment and self-expression, feeling that I don't feel when in my academic writing. But any form of writing must improve all forms of expression, so my thinking is that in this way social media is helping me to stretch my abilities and talents to a new level.

I'm really looking forward to reading The Dragonfly Effect! It is an important book that could offer some real practical tactics to exploiting this wonderful new medium of social media!

Noise, Distraction Makes You Naughty...You Eat More!

One of my favorite theories to study is cognitive resource depletion, which says that your ability to resist temptations and focus your attention is limited and once you run out you aren't able to stop yourself from doing all sorts of naughty things.

A recent article on NPR reports on a study by Andy Woods at U. of Manchester which found that people who were distracted were less likely to distinguish sweetness and saltiness. Suzanne Higgs at U. of Birmingham found that when people were distracted during lunch they were more likely to eat more cookies later in the afternoon!

So why does distraction during eating make us eat more? It may be that distraction distorts the brain's ability to process perceptions of foods we are eating but that remains to be uncovered by more research. And yes that is indeed on my long to do list!

Warding Off Bad Vibes with Images, Colors: An Experiment for Your Back To Work!

Today I've been contemplating going back to the office on Monday after a nice, productive holiday break. One thing I'm not looking forward to is the inevitable interrupting visit to my office of somebody with some bad news or information that I just don't want to be bothered with! We all suffer from these "Debbie Downers" at the office...they can upset, disturb, distract, and ruin a perfectly good day! But I was thinking back over the last few months since I moved into my new office and noticed that I've had significantly fewer annoying interruptions from bad personalities (the visits from people with great news and wonderful ideas has actually continued uninterrupted!) ever since I did one thing about a month after moving in...

I hung 4 two by three foot color images of flowers I photographed several years ago. They are posted throughout this blogpost!

Before I hung them, almost everyday I had some unusually sour tempered person come into my office and unload...either my research idea wasn't that great, or teaching this year will be impossibly hard, or my approval wasn't going to be granted on something. Oh, it was tough to keep going after getting sideswiped midday like that. But since those 4 images have gone up, all that has stopped...nothing but good news. People even come by just to talk about photography and almost everyone comments on the images when they walk in. Could these images and their hues of yellow, green and blue, prime people to behave differently?

While imagery in advertsing has been looked at quite extensively in the consumer behavior literature, there is a relatively new body of literature that is beginning to look at the effect of color. Mehta and Zhu from U. of British Columbia did a great paper in Science on the effect of red and blue on approach and avoidance behavior. I am collecting data next week that will hopefully build on these results trying to understand the effect of color on risk behavior.

So I have a challenge to you! Try this experiment in your office or home to see if it changes how people act when they come in. Download these images, print them out (in color of course) and place them in prominent view wherever you need a little protection from people with bad vibes. Observe whether there's any change! Let me know if you see a difference or not...I'd love to know whether this is really an effect I'm noticing or just random chance!!