Psychology for You!

Although it is counterintuitive, violence in America today is most likely to occur within the home (Rennison, 2003). Might the origin of violence be within the home as well, specifically the use of physical punishment on children?  Public opinion condoning physical punishment in America has been declining in recent years (Gershoff, 2008); however, more than 65% of parents report using corporal punishment on their children (Socolar, Savage & Evans, 2007).  In this blog post we discuss legal, attitudinal and motivational factors that explain why we use physical punishment with children, specifically: (1) the United States, unlike most other countries, does not legislate against it, (2) attitudes condoning corporal punishment remain strong, particularly in some U.S. regions and cultures, (3) situational precipitating factors, impulsive appraisal, and cognitive scripts for aggressive punishment can interact to result in a spanking episode. We also describe the harmful psychological effects of physical punishment and the potential next steps needed to stop this common form of violence. more

In my last post I asked where the genes for psychological traits are, and argued that over the last two decades candidate gene studies have failed to identify genes that are reliably associated with complex behavioral phenotypes. In this post, I will discuss more recent whole genome methods, such as genome-wide association studies, and what we have learned from these. more

In this post I review research showing that women do not care about partner’s income as much as people may think.  In fact, the research suggests that both men and women overestimate the degree to which the other gender cares about money in relationships.  These findings are particularly relevant given that some opponents of the 2014 U.S. Paycheck Fairness Act have stated that women prefer to make less money than their romantic partners. more

In this post, I describe how dreams are associated with people’s behavior after waking up, especially in the context of their close relationships. Have you ever felt upset at someone after what they did in your dream? There are several theories to explain how and why this happens, along with some references to Friends and The Matrix. more

In this post, I describe how two core motives of human social behavior—the need for understanding and the need for control—shape people’s responses to disaster. Using the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 as an example, I describe how people seek to maintain meaning (related to understanding) and to re-establish certainty (related to control) after unforeseen disasters. more

In this blog post, I discuss recent research suggesting that being the victim of bullying can have a long-lasting impact on mental and physical health.  But there’s a ray of hope in this literature as well:  the lasting impact may depend on the ways that victims cope with being bullied. more