Featured series 
Tag: psychology and psychiatry
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Science & Tech
Major moral decisions use general-purpose brain circuits to manage uncertainty
Harvard researchers have found that humans can make difficult moral decisions using the same brain circuits as those used in more mundane choices related to money and food. These circuits, also found in other animals, put together two critical pieces of information: How good or bad are the things that might happen? What are the…
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Health
Warnings of suicidal intent
Two powerful new tests developed by Harvard psychologists show great promise in predicting patients’ risk of attempting suicide, researchers say. These tests may help clinicians to overcome their reliance on self-reporting by at-risk individuals, information that often proves misleading when suicidal patients wish to hide their intentions. Both tests are easily administered within minutes on…
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Health
‘Super-recognizers’ never forget a face
Some people say they never forget a face, a claim now bolstered by psychologists at Harvard University who’ve discovered a group they call “super-recognizers”: those who can easily recognize someone they met in passing, even many years later. The new study suggests that skill in facial recognition might vary widely among humans. Previous research has…
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Health
Hearing could hold key to unlocking schizophrenia mystery
Measuring brain waves in response to hearing a variety of tones appears to be a useful way to begin understanding the underlying genetic abnormalities associated with schizophrenia, says a study headed by researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital. In the paper “Reductions in the N1 and P2 Auditory Event-Related Potentials in First-Hospitalized and Chronic Schizophrenia,” available…
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Health
The Improvising Brain
What’s involved when a musician sits down at the piano and plays flurries of notes in a free fall, without a score, without knowing much about what will happen moment to moment? Is it possible to find the sources of a creative process? Is it possible to determine how improvisation occurs? Aaron Berkowitz, a Harvard…
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Health
Researchers find sleep selectively preserves emotional memories
As poets, songwriters and authors have described, our memories range from misty water-colored recollections to vividly detailed images of the times of our lives. Now, a study led by Harvard researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Boston College offers new insights into the specific components of emotional memories, suggesting that sleep plays…
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Science & Tech
Susan Carey receives David E. Rumelhart Prize
Susan Carey, a Harvard psychologist whose work has explored fundamental issues surrounding the nature of the human mind, has been awarded the 2009 David E. Rumelhart Prize, given annually since 2001 for significant contributions to the theoretical foundation of human cognition. Carey, the Henry A. Morss Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Psychology in…
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Science & Tech
Neuroimaging fails to demonstrate ESP is real
Psychologists at Harvard University have developed a new method to study extrasensory perception that, they argue, can resolve the century-old debate over its existence. According to the authors, their study not only illustrates a new method for studying such phenomena, but also provides the strongest evidence yetobtained against the existence of extrasensory perception, or ESP.…
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Campus & Community
A short history: Psychiatry in modern Africa
Psychiatrists working in Africa during the colonial period held to the belief that Africans did not suffer from depression. They based this idea on the assumption that Africans lacked the ability to be self-reflective or self-critical and therefore depression had no chance of gaining a foothold in their psyches. Later research during the 1950s showed…
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Campus & Community
More blacks ‘misperceive’ weight problem
Overweight black Americans are two to three times more likely than heavy white Americans to say they are of average weight – even after being diagnosed as overweight or obese by their doctors, according to a new study led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers. Weight misperception was most common among black men and women, and…
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Campus & Community
Not unusual to forget childhood sexual abuse
When questioned closely by psychologists from Harvard University about their feelings, victims of childhood sexual abuse revealed some surprising impressions.
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Science & Tech
Under-diagnosed rage disorder more prevalent than previously thought
A seldom-studied mental illness called Intermittent Explosive Disorder, characterized by recurrent episodes of angry and potentially violent outbursts — seen in cases of road rage or spousal abuse — has been found to be much more common than previously thought. Depending upon how broadly it is defined, this disorder affects as many as 7.3 percent…
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Campus & Community
‘Face-blindness’ disorder may not be so rare
Researchers at Harvard University and University College London have developed diagnostic tests for prosopagnosia, a socially disabling inability to recognize or distinguish faces. They’ve already used the new test and a related Web site (http://www.faceblind.org) to identify hundreds of “face-blind” individuals, far more than scientists had identified previously. The researchers, led by Ken Nakayama and…
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Campus & Community
Bad times make for more accurate memories
Pleasurable experiences are more fun to relive than negative ones, but a new study by psychologists at Harvard University reveals that memories of good times can be less accurate than those of bad times.
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Health
Prayers don’t help heart surgery patients
Many – if not most people – believe that prayer will help you through a medical crisis such as heart bypass surgery. If a large group of people outside yourself, your family, and your friends joined in intercessory prayer, that should be even more helpful, so such reasoning goes. Researchers have been trying to prove…
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Campus & Community
Whites more likely than blacks to die soon after spouse’s death
A longitudinal study of 410,272 elderly American couples indicates that the “widowhood effect” – the increased probability of death among new widows and widowers – is large and enduring among white couples but undetectable among black couples, suggesting that blacks may somehow manage to extend marriage’s well-documented health benefits into widowhood. The results, by Harvard…
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Health
The ‘widow effect’ is real
In findings that highlight how health effects can reverberate through a social network, a researcher at HMS and his colleague report that the serious illness of an elderly spouse increases the risk of death of a husband or wife. In fact, a few illnesses in a spouse, such as dementia, may pose more of a…
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Health
All placebos not created equal
While researchers usually use placebos in clinical trials to test the effectiveness of a new treatment, a trial reported in the Feb. 1, 2006 British Medical Journal pitted one placebo against another.