I was a gay teen in the 1980s, hiding from a terrifying world in an arcade. The WHO's push to uniquely pathologize gaming won't help people like me.

The belief that interests arrive fully formed and must simply be “found” can lead people to limit their pursuit of new fields and give up when they encounter challenges, according to a new Stanford study.

Treatment for the most common mental health problems could be ineffective or even detrimental to about 50 percent of the population, according to a radical new model of emotion in the brain. Since the 1970s, hundreds of studies have suggested that each hemisphere of the brain is home to a specific type of emotion. Emotions linked to approaching and engaging with the world – like happiness, pride and anger – lives in the left side of the brain, while emotions associated with avoidance – like disgust and fear – are housed in the right.

Women who describe themselves as “early risers” are less likely to develop depression, new research claims. A study of more than 32,000 women published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research found that those who are naturally inclined to wake up early are at a lower risk of the mental illness due to greater daylight exposure. Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston examined...

Humans place a high premium on foods that contain both fats and sugars.

A new study reveals a link between religious attendance and better sleep quality. Researchers say religiosity could decrease some psychological distress, substance abuse and stress exposure, all of which are associated with sleep outcomes.

The most famous psychological studies are often wrong, fraudulent, or outdated. Textbooks need to catch up.

The mood swings and stress you experience as you go through puberty can shape your brain to determine the person you will become.

New research on consensually non-monogamous relationships indicates that having one partner who meets your sexual needs is linked to increased satisfaction not only in that relationship, but also in a concurrent relationship. The study was recently published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. “Generally I am interested in how having partners who are motivated to be responsive to your needs is associated with satisfaction,” said Amy Muise, an assistant professor at York University and corresponding author of the study.

There’s no question that every guy should have at least one good friend of the opposite sex that he can turn to during times of desperate needs.  The question is, how do you be a good friend back?  There’s many …

Everyone wants to feel like they are a special part of someone else’s life. Sharing inside jokes, getting flowers, or just having another person know all those little details about you that make you unique. However, when someone knows that …

How to succeed at self-sabotage. Most of us claim we want to be happy—to have meaningful lives, enjoy ourselves, experience fulfillment, and share love and friendship with other people and maybe other species, like dogs, cats, birds, and whatnot. Strangely enough, however, some people act as if they just want to be miserable, and they succeed remarkably at inviting misery into their lives, even though they get little apparent benefit from it, since being miserable doesn’t help them find lovers and friends, get better jobs, make more money, or go on more interesting vacations. Why do they do this?

New longitudinal research provides evidence that converting to Christianity is associated with some psychological changes. “Religious conversion is a major life event that some people claim would bring big psychological changes,” said C. Harry Hui of The University of Hong Kong. “However, no research has systematically looked at it with a rigorous, longitudinal research design.”

Children whose parents are over-controlling “helicopter parents” when they are toddlers, are less able to control their emotions and impulses as they get older apparently leading to more problems with school, new research suggests. The study looked at to what degree mothers of toddlers dominated playtime and showed their child what to do, and then studied how their children behaved over the following eight years, revealing that controlling parenting is linked to a number of problems as a child grows up.

Jerome Rogers: 1995-2016

Retailers say returns are costing them a fortune. But in a new NPR/Marist poll, about 90 percent of online shoppers say they rarely or ever return orders. For many, it's not worth the hassle.

A new book argues that children are less disciplined than ever. Author Katherine Reynolds Lewis identifies several culprits and says there are several things parents, teachers and caregivers can do.

When a man throws money around on flashy cars, people intuitively interpret this behavior as a sign that he is more interested in short-term sexual relationships than in romantic commitment. This is according to Daniel Kruger of the University of Michigan and Jessica Kruger at the University at Buffalo in the US, in a study published in Springer’s journal Evolutionary Psychological Science.

Self-criticism can take a toll on our minds and bodies. It’s time to ease up.

One possibility is that the effort of taking a photo tricks us into thinking we've already paid adequate attention to the target of the photo. By Alex Fradera

Affluence—not willpower—seems to be what’s behind some kids' capacity to delay gratification.

"I felt as though I were communing directly with a plant for the first time."

Over the course of a few years in the 20th century, the midlife crisis went from an obscure psychological theory to a ubiquitous phenomenon.

Costco is a wholesale retail store known for its great bargains. It offers food samples, cheap gas, and sale items to attract customers and make their shopping experiences worthwhile. But strategies like these also encourage customers to stay longer and spend more.

The overkill backfire effect is a cognitive bias that causes people to reject arguments that they think are too complex, in favor of arguments that are easy for them to understand. Accounting for this bias is important, because it means that past a certain point, presenting additional evidence in support of your argument can actually make people less likely to accept it.

Jonathan Rauch, author of The Happiness Curve, was relieved to find an explanation for his gloom – academics say adulthood happiness is U-shaped

A few years ago, Justine Sacco, then the senior director of corporate communications at the holding company InterActiveCorp, tweeted about the nuisances of air-travel during a long, multi-leg journey from New York to South Africa. She started with sardonic observations—one about a smelly passenger at JFK Airport, another about London’s peculiar food and predictably inclement weather. Then came this one, shortly before her final flight: “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”

A few weeks ago I was at a restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the annoyingly pretentious kind that's given an ironic Hebrew name because its menu mainly consists of pork and shellfish dishes. Usually I Instagram Story my experience — after all, how can one enjoy their meal unless everyone else they know can see what they are eating? — but on this occasion I put away my phone. It wasn't because I was enjoying the company of close friends as we shared multiple small plates portioned for a toddler. Nor was it because I wanted to disconnect from technology.

We all know someone who is convinced their opinion is better than everyone else’s on a topic – perhaps, even, that it is the only correct opinion to have. Maybe, on some topics, you are that person. No psychologist would be surprised that people who are convinced their beliefs are superior think they are better informed than others, but this fact leads to a follow on question: are people actually better informed on the topics for which they are convinced their opinion is superior? This is what Michael Hall and Kaitlin Raimi set out to check in a series of experiments in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

Jails are now frontline treatment centers for the criminally mentally ill. One Louisiana jail shows the cost – harried staff, limited treatment, inmate deaths.

Every year, the state of Illinois struggles to find a place for hundreds of children with serious mental-health issues—holding them in psychiatric hospitals for sometimes weeks or months even after they're cleared for discharge.

I’m calling this week’s episode of Why’d You Push That Button the “politics of unfollowing.” What makes someone click that unfollow button, and why does it hurt our feelings when they do?

I’m about to go speak to NAMI Ohio’s statewide conference, Fulfilling the Promise. These are the remarks I prepared for my speech.

If you’ve ever had a boss or supervisor who seems to exist in a swirl of unending work that needs to be done (right away!), you know how frustrating it is feel that you’re never on very firm ground. You bump into her in the hallway, say “How are you?” in what you think is a friendly and neutral manner. Instead of responding with a pleasant greeting in return, she rushes by you and says, “Frenzied!” Perhaps you have a relative who delays making any commitments to family gatherings because his life is just “too hectic.”

It’s more and more usual for people to share pictures of their children online – and some have even turned it into a lucrative business. Is it always wrong to mix kids and social media?