PsychDigest

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2009-04-05T16:44:15+02:00

Sadly, the PsychDigest newsletter will cease publishing after the April 2009 (vol. 2, no. 12) edition. However, while the subscription-based model has ended, our news service will continue (for free) on the Psych-So-Easy blog. Please join us there for news updates in the fields of psychology, psychiatry and neurology. We will still be delivering current, comprehensive and convenient information from scholarly, peer-reviewed sources, with each article fully referenced for quick access.

18th EPA European Congress of Psychiatry (EPA 2010)

2009-04-01T09:06:00+02:00

Munich, Germany
27 February 27 – 2 March 2, 2010
Contact: Liraz Bregman, 1-3, Rue du Chantepoulet, PO Box 1726, CH-1211 Geneva 1, Switzerland
tel: +41 22 908 0488; fax: +41 22 906 9140
Email: epa2010@kenes.com
Website: http://www.kenes.com/epa/

Journal's special edition focuses on young people and the media

2009-03-18T00:15:00+02:00

The current issue of the British Journal of Developmental Psychology focuses on young people and the media.

The goal of this special issue was to bring together current perspectives on the ways young people use (or sometimes avoid), live with, react to, learn from, and learn about the ubiquitous communication tools of 21st century life.

Articles in the issue include:

Editorial Introduction, Professor Kevin Durkin Mark Blades
Infant imitation from television using novel touch-screen technology, Dr Rachel Barr
Just a talking book? Word learning from watching baby videos, Mr Michael Robb
TV as storyteller: How exposure to television narratives impacts at-risk preschoolers' story knowledge and narrative skills, Dr Deborah L Linebarger
Young children's ability to recognize advertisements in Web page designs, Dr Mark Blades
Television alcohol advertising: do children really mean what they say? Dr Avril Nash
The effectiveness of parental communication in modifying the relation between food advertising and children's consumption behavior, Dr Moniek Buijzen
Predicting children's media use: Differences in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses, Dr. Sook-Jung Lee
Exploring the relationship between children's knowledge of text message abbreviations and school literacy outcomes, Dr Beverly Ann Plester
Electronic mail, a new written-language register: A study with French-speaking adolescents, Olga Volckaert-Legrier
Remote control, umbilical cord, and beyond: The mobile phone as a transitional object, Rivka Ribak
Educational and interpersonal uses of home computers by adolescents with and without specific language impairment (SLI), Professor Kevin Durkin
In their words: Connecting online weblogs to developmental processes, Professor Kaveri Subrahmanyam

For more information email the media centre at mediacentre@bps.org.uk.

Sources:

British Psychological Society (BPS) (2009, February 26). Journal's special edition focuses on young people and the media. BPS Media Centre. Retrieved March 18, 2009, from http://www.bps.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/releases$/british-journal-of-developmental-psychology$/journals-special-edition-focuses-on-young-people-and-the-media.cfm

New York, NY, USA
5 June 2009
Contact: Rochelle Thomas, Center for Continuing Medical Education, 630 W. 168th St., Unit 39, New York, NY 10025
tel: +1 212-305-3334; fax: +1 212-781-6047
Email: cme@columbia.edu
Website: http://www.columbiacme.org/Psych-100-09/Psych-100-09.html

This conference is designed for mental health professionals involved in the research and treatment of people with psychiatric conditions who have cognitive deficits. This course is designed to present information on the understanding and treatment of the cognitive deficits that commonly occur in many psychiatric conditions. Course participants will acquire knowledge about different approaches to treating cognitive deficits, how cognitive deficits can impact everyday functioning, the factors that influence a positive response to cognitive remediation, how medications affect cognition, and how to provide cognitive remediation to different psychiatric populations.

Aggressive people could have a warrior gene

2009-03-10T11:53:13+02:00

Image by assbach via Flickr

People with the so-called “warrior gene” exhibit higher levels of behavioural aggression in response to provocation, according to new research. In the experiment, subjects penalized opponents by administering varying amounts of hot sauce.

In the study--the first to examine a behavioural measure of aggression in response to provocation--subjects were asked to cause physical pain to an opponent they believed had taken money from them by administering varying amounts of hot sauce.

Their experiment synthesized work in psychology and behavioural economics.

This post was taken from our psychology newsletter, PsychDigest. You can subscribe to PsychDigest for R1200 (US$120) for 12 issues, or R110 (US$11) per issue.

Monoamine oxidase A is an enzyme that breaks down important neurotransmitters in the brain, including dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. The enzyme is regulated by monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA). Humans have various forms of the gene, resulting in different levels of enzymatic activity. People with the low-activity form (MAOA-L) produce less of the enzyme, while the high-activity form (MAOA-H) produces more of the enzyme.

Several studies have found a correlation between the low-activity form of MAOA and aggression in observational and survey-based studies. Only about a third of people in Western populations have the low-activity form of MAOA. By comparison, low-activity MAOA has been reported to be much more frequent (approaching two-thirds of people) in some populations that had a history of warfare. This led to a controversy over MAOA being dubbed the “warrior gene.”

A total of 78 male students took part in the experiment over networked computers. Each subject (A) first performed a vocabulary task in which they earned money. They were then told that an anonymous partner (B), linked over the network, could choose to take some of their earnings away from them. The original subject (A) could then choose to punish the taker (B) by forcing them to eat unpleasantly hot (spicy) sauce—but they had to pay to do so, so administering punishment was costly.

In reality, the “partner” who took money away was a computer, which allowed the researchers to control responses. No one actually ingested hot sauce.

Their results demonstrate that low-activity MAOA subjects displayed slightly higher levels of aggression overall than high-activity MAOA subjects.There was strong evidence for a gene-by-environment interaction, such that MAOA is less associated with the occurrence of aggression in the low-provocation condition (when the amount of money taken was low), but significantly predicted aggression in a high-provocation situation (when the amount of money taken was high).

The results support previous research suggesting that MAOA influences aggressive behaviour, with potentially important implications for interpersonal aggression, violence, political decision-making, and crime. The finding of genetic influences on aggression and punishment behaviour also questions the recently proposed idea that humans are “altruistic” punishers, who willingly punish free-riders for the good of the group. These results support theories of cooperation that propose there are mixed strategies in the population. Some people may punish more than others, and there may be an underlying evolutionary logic for doing so.

Sources:

Brown University (2009, January 19). “Warrior gene” predicts aggressive behavior after provocation. Brown University Media Relations. Retrieved March 8, 2009, from http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2009/01/hotsauce

McDermott, R., Tingley, D., Cowden, J., Frazzetto, G., & Johnson, D.D.P. (2009, February 17). Monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA) predicts behavioral aggression following provocation. PNAS, 106(7). 2118-2123. Retrieved March 11, 2009, from the journal website at http://www.pnas.org/content/106/7/2118.abstract?sid=2f476c23-b1bb-4332-a070-e1532501a154.

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