People are dumb; there’s nothing new about that. Public ignorance about depression in particular was on display recently in a news article I came across, and it annoyed me, so I thought I’d write about it. First, let’s start with some background. The news related to the findings of an article published last month in […]
A Display of Public Ignorance About Depression Read More »
You can find all kinds of stories online of people reporting negative experiences with different forms of psychiatric medication. However, there’s inherent bias in that kind of reporting of side effects, so you really can’t use that information to effectively generalize how safe or effective a treatment is. In this post, we’ll look at where
Bias in What You Read Online About Psych Med Side Effects Read More »
We’ve probably all heard of the placebo effect, but what is it, and how does it work? For something that happens regularly, it’s not all that well understood. A placebo is any substance that’s not intended or expected to have any therapeutic effect. Ethically, it generally wouldn’t be considered acceptable to give a patient a
The Placebo Effect: What Is It and Why Does It Happen? Read More »
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week, we’ll look at the Stanford prison experiment. The Stanford prison experiment was a social psychology study carried out at Stanford University in 1971. Researchers randomly assigned Male student volunteers to be either “prisoners” or “guards” in a mock prison
What Is… the Stanford Prison Experiment Read More »
Cannabis—it’s a plant that’s well known for getting people high, but it’s also become increasingly accepted for medicinal purposes, particularly for pain and nausea. But what do we know about the interaction between cannabis and mental illness? There’s been a clearly established link between cannabis use and triggering the onset of psychotic illness in people
Cannabis & Mental Illness: What Does the Research Say? Read More »
I recently learned from a fellow blogger about the Dunedin Study, which explored the issue of nature vs. nurture and turned up some fascinating results. The study followed a group of 1000 individuals born in 1972 in the New Zealand city of Dunedin. Interviewing and testing with these individuals still continues, and the study has
Nature vs. Nurture: Findings from Dunedin Study Read More »
We’re regularly bombarded with news of the latest scientific research findings, and sometimes it seems like you can find a study to tell you just about anything. My concern with news reporting of research findings is that many people (including members of the media) have relatively limited research literacy. Research literacy refers to the ability
Research Literacy: Understanding Results of Clinical Trials Read More »
