Featured Articles
Understanding Research Ethics
Ethics may be defined as the traditional norms that a person uses to conduct himself which help distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. In the area of research, ethics plays a significant role in defining standards of conduct for certain disciplines of study. Research ethics form part of the method, procedure or standard behind how effective research and study are to be conducted... [Read More]
Repeating Tests For Better Cognitive Results
Timothy Salthouse, PhD, a noted cognitive psychologist at the University of Virginia, has shown that giving a test once is not enough to get a precise account of an individual's mental function.Repeating tests over a short period of time might give more accurate cognitive scores, thus refining diagnostic workups.This study appears in the July issue of Neuropsychology, which is published by the Ame... [Read More]
Television May Help Combat Social Problems
It has been proven many times that "actions speak louder than words."Dr. Albert Bandura's social learning theory says that people learn attitudes, behaviors, and emotional reactions from "role models whom they wish to emulate."One of the earliest studies to support the social learning theory are called the "Bobo Doll Studies" because the researchers made use of a 3.5 ... [Read More]
Stereotype Threat Widens Achievement Gap
The evidence is piling up against established assumptions that genes, race and/or gender determine a student's academic performance or how well he/or she does on standardized academic tests. It has become apparent that negative stereotypes stir up doubts and anxieties in a test-taker's mind - keeping him/her from focusing on the test. This results in what psychologists call "stereotype threat... [Read More]
The Stanford Prison Experiment
Person-centered analysis of human behavior ascribe most behavior change - whether in positive or negative directions - to "internal, dispositional features of individuals." Factors that are generally believed to guide or control behavior are : genes, temperament, personality traits, personal pathologies and virtues. In contrast to person-centered analysis, situation-centered analysis att... [Read More]
The Human Tendency To Obey Orders
In the 1960s, Stanley Milgram, PhD, a Yale psychologist did an experiment that was supposed to study the effects of punishment on learning. In the experiment, the 'experimenter' told his 'subject' that he was to teach a learner in an adjacent room to memorize a list of word-pairs. Every time the learner made a mistake, the teacher (the subject) was to punish the learner by giving him increasingly ... [Read More]
Eyewitness Accuracy in Lineup Procedure
We've all watched the scene wherein suspects were lined up behind a one-way mirror and an eyewitness was allowed to choose which one is the real perpetrator in movies or TV programs, but how accurate is this procedure? Actually, DNA evidence has, more often than not, sent real offenders to jail and freed many innocent 'convicts' - prison inmates whose convictions, Psychology Matters say, hinged on... [Read More]
The Psychology of Fingerprints
Sir Francis Galton was one of the many psychologist in the 1800 who became obsessed with measurement. Galton:took physical measurements of people around the worldmeasured the heights of hundreds of British school children and their parentsconducted the first systematic studies of the shared traits of identical twinsrecorded analyzed weather patternsdeveloped simple tests designed to yield informat... [Read More]
Treating Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that may develop after being exposed to one or more traumatic events that threated to or caused grave physical harm. (Wikipedia)These traumatic events could be natural (earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, etc.) or man-made disasters (terrorist attacks, military combat, motor vehicle accidents, etc.) or violent physical attacks such as rape,... [Read More]
Writing About Trauma Reduces Stress and Aids Immunity
Psychologists say that profound disclosure improves mood, objective and subjective health, and the ability to function well. Early research by James W. Pennebaker, PhD and colleagues revealed the benefits of "personal disclosure."In 1988 study by Pennebaker, Kiecolt-Glaser and Glaser, 50 students were assigned to write about traumatic experiences or superficial topics for four days strai... [Read More]