People may be learning while they're sleeping – an unconscious form of memory that is still not well understood, according to a study by Michigan State University researchers. The findings are highlighted in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

"We speculate that we may be investigating a separate form of memory, distinct from traditional memory systems," said Kimberly Fenn, assistant professor of psychology and lead researcher on the project. "There is substantial evidence that during sleep, your brain is processing information without your awareness and this ability may contribute to memory in a waking state."

In the study of more than 250 people, Fenn and Zach Hambrick, associate professor of psychology, suggest people derive vastly different effects from this "sleep memory" ability, with some memories improving dramatically and others not at all. This ability is a new, previously undefined form of memory. "You and I could go to bed at the same time and get the same amount of sleep," Fenn said, "but while your memory may increase substantially, there may be no change in mine." She added that most people showed improvement.

Fenn said she believes this potential separate memory ability is not being captured by traditional intelligence tests and aptitude tests such as the SAT and ACT. "This is the first step to investigate whether or not this potential new memory construct is related to outcomes such as classroom learning," she said. It also reinforces the need for a good night's sleep. According to the National Sleep Foundation, people are sleeping less every year, with 63 percent of Americans saying their sleep needs are not being met during the week. "Simply improving your sleep could potentially improve your performance in the classroom," Fenn said.

Adolescents become smarter because they become mentally quicker. That is the conclusion of a new study by a group of psychologists at University of Texas at San Antonio. "Our findings make intuitive sense," says lead author Thomas Coyle, who conducted the study with David Pillow, Anissa Snyder, and Peter Kochunov. But this is the first time psychologists have been able to confirm this important connection. The study appears in the forthcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science.

"Our research was based on two well-known findings, Coyle continues. "The first is that performance on intelligence tests increases during adolescence. The second is that processing speed"—the brain taking in and using new stimuli or information—"as measured by tests of mental speed also increases during adolescence."

To find the relationship between these two phenomena, the UTSA psychologists analyzed the results of 12 diverse intelligence and mental speed tests administered to 6,969 adolescents (ages 13 to 17) in the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Intelligence was measured by performance on cognitive tests of diverse abilities, such as vocabulary knowledge, math facts, and mechanical comprehension. Mental speed showed up in timed tests of computing and coding—matching digits and words and other arithmetic tasks.

In both of these categories, the researchers could see that the older teenagers did better and worked faster than the younger ones. Then, running the data in numerous ways, they discovered that the measured increase of intelligence could be accounted for almost entirely by the increase in mental speed. This is what they expected to find, says Coyle. After all, "performance on intelligence tests reflects, in part, the speed of acquiring knowledge, learning things, and solving problems." Those cognitive processes, he says, are related to how fast the brain is working—and all that improves during the teenage years.

The work reinforces earlier theories about the relationship between increasing processing speed in the maturing brain and the cognitive development of children.

FSU psychology researcher pens bestseller about self-control

Repeat after me: "I will not eat ice cream, I will not eat ice cream, I will not eat ice cream." Now, behold the luscious waffle cone heaped with scoops of rocky road and vanilla caramel ripple? Repeat after me: "Well...maybe just a little taste...."

Arrgh — don't do it! At least not until you've read the intriguing new book by Florida State University Professor Roy F. Baumeister and New York Times science writer John Tierney. "Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength" (The Penguin Press) recently climbed to the top of the charts on the New York Times Bestseller List, making the soft-spoken Baumeister an instant literary celebrity and bringing attention to his decades of research on self-control. In recent weeks, "Willpower" has been reviewed glowingly in the New York Times Sunday Book Review as well as by NPR and the hip website The Daily Beast.

Baumeister, the Francis Eppes Professor of Psychology at FSU and head of the department's graduate program in social psychology, has made a career of researching self and identity, emotion, social rejection and belongingness. Interest in self-regulation or "willpower" has been around since the 19th century, a popular topic mulled by the Victorians (who thought of it as a form of mental energy) and even Charles Darwin, who considered it in "The Descent of Man."

In his new book, Baumeister admits he was "something of a skeptic" about the subject at first. But after examining willpower in a laboratory setting, he understood "how it gives people the strength to persevere, how they lose self-control as their willpower is depleted, how this mental energy is fueled by the glucose in the body's bloodstream."

He began scrutinizing issues such as self-esteem in the 1970s while still in graduate school, when it was fashionable to study "the self in general and identity crisis," Baumeister said. But self-esteem proved to be disappointing in terms of "not providing the consequences and benefits" he had hoped for, he said, so he moved on to other areas of study, including willpower, which he points out is actually a folk term referring to a particular strength needed in order to resist temptation.

Baumeister's current research focuses on self-control, choice and decision-making. He has also investigated how people regulate their emotions, resist temptation, break bad habits and perform up to their potential — and why they often fail to do so. In the 1990s, he was part of a social psychology movement that developed a theory about "depletable self-control."

Experiments Baumeister conducted with researchers at Case Western Reserve University — where subjects were offered cookies or radishes and then asked to decipher unsolvable geometric puzzles (guess which group gave up first?) — were corroborated in more than 100 subsequent experiments. The Institute for Scientific Information lists Baumeister among the handful of most cited (and most influential) psychologists in the world.

Baumeister's groundbreaking research into willpower — which dates to the 1990s —shows that self-regulation is a little bit like a muscle: It can sometimes be worn down. When subjects were given a task that required them to resist something — like a sweet treat or not thinking about a certain kind of animal — they didn't perform as well on a subsequent assigned task involving willpower, a result of what Baumeister calls "ego depletion."

Even more interesting was that when the subjects were given a sugar-sweetened drink, self-control was actually improved. Apparently, the sugar provided fuel for the brain to get back to work and restore the person's willpower. And when subjects were asked to make moderate lifestyle changes, such as exercising or tracking dietary habits, they eventually displayed greater overall self-control in their lives, which showed that willpower can be beefed up much like an unused muscle.

Those experiments, which ultimately defined willpower as "a limited resource," made Baumeister realize that he had uncovered something important. "This was something quite new to the field, in the way we were thinking about the self — and even the way I had understood it," he explained, adding that he knew at the time the research had uncovered something significant. "This was a change," he said. "An exciting new development."

As for our ability to flex that sometimes flabby self-control muscle, take heart: "Our willpower has made us the most adaptable creatures on the planet, and we're rediscovering how to help one another use it," Baumeister muses in his bestseller, which, he admits, took a walloping dose of willpower (and a one-year sabbatical) to write. "We're learning, once again, that willpower is the virtue that sets our species apart, and that makes each one of us strong."

Research provides new insight into why some individuals may be more aggressive than others

Fluctuations of serotonin levels in the brain, which often occur when someone hasn't eaten or is stressed, affects brain regions that enable people to regulate anger, new research from the University of Cambridge has shown. Although reduced serotonin levels have previously been implicated in aggression, this is the first study which has shown how this chemical helps regulate behavior in the brain as well as why some individuals may be more prone to aggression. The research findings were published 15 September in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

For the study, healthy volunteers' serotonin levels were altered by manipulating their diet. On the serotonin depletion day, they were given a mixture of amino acids that lacked tryptophan, the building block for serotonin. On the placebo day, they were given the same mixture but with a normal amount of tryptophan. The researchers then scanned the volunteers' brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as they viewed faces with angry, sad, and neutral expressions. Using the fMRI, they were able to measure how different brain regions reacted and communicated with one another when the volunteers viewed angry faces, as opposed to sad or neutral faces.

The research revealed that low brain serotonin made communications between specific brain regions of the emotional limbic system of the brain (a structure called the amygdala) and the frontal lobes weaker compared to those present under normal levels of serotonin. The findings suggest that when serotonin levels are low, it may be more difficult for the prefrontal cortex to control emotional responses to anger that are generated within the amygdala.

Using a personality questionnaire, they also determined which individuals have a natural tendency to behave aggressively. In these individuals, the communications between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex was even weaker following serotonin depletion. 'Weak' communications means that it is more difficult for the prefrontal cortex to control the feelings of anger that are generated within the amygdala when the levels of serotonin are low. As a result, those individuals who might be predisposed to aggression were the most sensitive to changes in serotonin depletion.

Dr Molly Crockett, co-first author who worked on the research while a PhD student at Cambridge's Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute (and currently based at the University of Zurich) said: "We've known for decades that serotonin plays a key role in aggression, but it's only very recently that we've had the technology to look into the brain and examine just how serotonin helps us regulate our emotional impulses. By combining a long tradition in behavioral research with new technology, we were finally able to uncover a mechanism for how serotonin might influence aggression."

Dr Luca Passamonti, co-first author who worked on the research while a visiting scientist at the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit of the Medical Research Council in Cambridge (and currently based at the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Unità di Ricerca Neuroimmagini, Catanzaro), said: "Although these results came from healthy volunteers, they are also relevant for a broad range of psychiatric disorders in which violence is a common problem. For example, these results may help to explain the brain mechanisms of a psychiatric disorder known as intermittent explosive disorder (IED). Individuals with IED typically show intense, extreme and uncontrollable outbursts of violence which may be triggered by cues of provocation such as a facial expression of anger. "We are hopeful that our research will lead to improved diagnostics as well as better treatments for this and other conditions."

Exercise can be as effective as a second medication for as many as half of depressed patients whose condition have not been cured by a single antidepressant medication. UT Southwestern Medical Center scientists involved in the investigation, recently published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, found that both moderate and intense levels of daily exercise can work as well as administering a second antidepressant drug, which is often used when initial medications don't move patients to remission. The type of exercise needed, however, depends on the characteristics of patients, including their gender.

These findings are the result of a four-year study conducted by UT Southwestern's psychiatry department in conjunction with the Cooper Institute in Dallas. The National Institute of Mental Health-funded study, begun in 2003, is one of the first controlled investigations in the U.S. to suggest that adding a regular exercise routine, combined with targeted medications, actually can relieve fully the symptoms of major depressive disorder.

"Many people who start on an antidepressant medication feel better after they begin treatment, but they still don't feel completely well or as good as they did before they became depressed," said Dr. Madhukar Trivedi, professor of psychiatry and the study's lead author. "This study shows that exercise can be as effective as adding another medication. Many people would rather use exercise than add another drug, particularly as exercise has a proven positive effect on a person's overall health and well-being."

Study participants diagnosed with depression, who ranged in age from 18 to 70 and who had not remitted with treatment using a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressant medication, were divided into two groups. Each group received a different level of exercise intensity for 12 weeks. Sessions were supervised by trained staff at the Cooper Institute and augmented by home-based sessions.

Participants – whose average depression length was seven years – exercised on treadmills, cycle ergometers or both, kept an online diary of frequency and length of sessions, and wore a heart-rate monitor while exercising at home. They also met with a psychiatrist during the study.

By the end of the investigation, almost 30 percent of patients in both groups achieved full remission from their depression, and another 20 percent significant displayed improvement, based on standardized psychiatric measurements. Moderate exercise was more effective for women with a family history of mental illness, whereas intense exercise was more effective with women whose families did not have a history of the disease. For men, the higher rate of exercise was more effective regardless of other characteristics.

"This is an important result in that we found that the type of exercise that is needed depends on specific characteristics of the patient, illustrating that treatments may need to be tailored to the individual," said Dr. Trivedi, director of the Mood Disorders Research Program and Clinic at UT Southwestern. "It also points to a new direction in trying to determine factors that tell us which treatment may be the most effective."

The hippocampus is a brain structure that plays a major role in the process of memory formation. It is not entirely clear how the hippocampus manages to string together events that are part of the same experience but are separated by "empty" periods of time. Now, new research published by Cell Press in the August 25 issue of the journal Neuron finds that there are neurons in the hippocampus that encode every sequential moment in a series of events that compose a discrete experience.

"The hippocampus is critical for remembering the flow of events in distinct experiences and, in doing so, bridges gaps between events that are separated by periods of time," explains senior study author, Dr. Howard Eichenbaum from the Center for Memory and Brain at Boston University. "We were interested in investigating how hippocampal neurons represent the temporal organization of extended experience and, more specifically, how they bridge the gaps between events that are discontiguous, that is, they do not occur in an immediate sequence."

Dr. Eichenbaum and colleagues developed an innovative task that required rats to distinguish sequences of two events that were separated by a time delay. The task required the rats to remember the initial event in order to respond appropriately to the second event and receive a reward. The researchers recorded hippocampal neural activity as the rats completed the tasks. "Our paradigm provided the opportunity to examine whether hippocampal neurons encode sequential events and to explore how the activity of hippocampal neurons bridges and disambiguates an identical empty delay in time between events in the task sequence," explains Dr. Eichenbaum.

The researchers observed that activity in the hippocampus robustly represented sequential memories and that certain cells became activated at successive moments during the empty gap that occurred between the two events. "Each cell by itself provided a detailed 'snapshot' of the experience, and only at specific moments. But together, the activity from all of the cells filled in the gap," said coauthor Dr. Christopher MacDonald. The appropriately named "time cells" that were active have much in common with previously described "place cells" that are active when animals are at particular locations in space. The time cells were able to adjust, or "retime," when the duration of the delay period was altered.

Importantly, the activity of hippocampal neurons also signaled the timing of key events in the sequences and could differentiate between the different types of sequences. "Our findings suggest that hippocampal neurons segment temporally organized memories much the same as they represent locations of important events in spatially defined environments," concludes Dr. Eichenbaum. "Place cells and time cells may reflect fundamental mechanisms by which hippocampal neurons parse any spatiotemporal context into discrete units of where and when important events occur."

In a study performed on rats, the researchers found that marijuana does not erase the traumatic experience, but only the development of post-trauma symptoms

Cannabinoids (marijuana) administration after experiencing a traumatic event blocks the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)-like symptoms in rats, according to a new study conducted at the University of Haifa and published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. "We found that there is a 'window of opportunity' during which administering synthetic marijuana helps deal with symptoms simulating PTSD in rats," said Dr. Irit Akirav of the University of Haifa's Department of Psychology, who led the study.

In the study, which Dr. Akirav conducted with research student Eti Ganon-Elazar, the researchers set out to examine how administering cannabinoids (synthetic marijuana) affects the development of PTSD-like symptoms in rats, whose physiological reactions to traumatic and stressful events is similar to human reactions.

In the first part of the study, the researchers exposed a group of rats to extreme stress, and observed that the rats did indeed display symptoms resembling PTSD in humans, such as an enhanced startle reflex, impaired extinction learning, and disruption of the negative feedback cycle of the stress-influenced HPA axis. The rats were then divided into four groups. One was given no marijuana at all; the second was given a marijuana injection two hours after being exposed to a traumatic event; the third group after 24 hours and the fourth group after 48 hours.

A week later, the researchers examined the rats and found that the group that had not been administered marijuana and the group that got the injection 48 hours after experiencing trauma continued to display PTSD symptoms as well as a high level of anxiety. By contrast, the PTSD symptoms disappeared in the rats that were given marijuana 2 or 24 hours after experiencing trauma, even though these rats had also developed a high level of anxiety. "This indicates that the marijuana did not erase the experience of the trauma, but that it specifically prevented the development of post-trauma symptoms in the rat model," said Dr. Akirav, who added that the results suggest there is a particular window of time during which administering marijuana is effective. Because the human life span is significantly longer than that of rats, Dr. Akirav explained, one could assume that this window of time would be longer for humans.

The second stage of the study sought to understand the brain mechanism that is put into operation during the administering of marijuana. To do this, they repeated stage one of the experiment, but after the trauma they injected the synthetic marijuana directly into the amygdala area of the brain, the area known to be responsible for response to trauma. The researchers found that the marijuana blocked development of PTSD symptoms in these cases as well. From this the researchers were able to conclude that the effect of the marijuana is mediated by a CB1 receptor in the amygdala.

Harvard University researchers explore link between thinking styles and faith

Intuition may lead people toward a belief in the divine and help explain why some people have more faith in God than others, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

In a series of studies, researchers at Harvard University found that people with a more intuitive thinking style tend to have stronger beliefs in God than those with a more reflective style. Intuitive thinking means going with one's first instinct and reaching decisions quickly based on automatic cognitive processes. Reflective thinking involves the questioning of first instinct and consideration of other possibilities, thus allowing for counterintuitive decisions.

"We wanted to explain variations in belief in God in terms of more basic cognitive processes," researcher Amitai Shenhav said. "Some say we believe in God because our intuitions about how and why things happen lead us to see a divine purpose behind ordinary events that don't have obvious human causes. This led us to ask whether the strength of an individual's beliefs is influenced by how much they trust their natural intuitions versus stopping to reflect on those first instincts."

The research was published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. The study from the Harvard University Psychology Department was conducted by Shenhav, a doctoral student; post-doctoral fellow David Rand, PhD; and associate professor Joshua Greene, PhD.

In the first part of the study, 882 U.S. adults, with a mean age of 33 and consisting of 64 percent women, completed online surveys about their belief in God before taking a cognitive reflection test. The test had three math problems with incorrect answers that seemed intuitive. For example, one question stated: "A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?" The automatic or intuitive answer is 10 cents, but the correct answer is 5 cents. Participants who had more incorrect answers showed a greater reliance on intuition than reflection in their thinking style.

Participants who gave intuitive answers to all three problems were 1 ½ times as likely to report they were convinced of God's existence as those who answered all of the questions correctly. That pattern was found regardless of other demographic factors, such as the participants' political beliefs, education or income. "How people think -- or fail to think -- about the prices of bats and balls is reflected in their thinking, and ultimately their convictions, about the metaphysical order of the universe," the journal article stated.

Participants with an intuitive thinking style also were more likely to have become more confident believers in God over their lifetimes, regardless of whether they had a religious upbringing. Individuals with a reflective style tended to become less confident in their belief in God. The study also found that this pronounced link between differing thinking styles and levels of faith could not be explained by differences in the participants' thinking ability or IQ. "Basic ways of thinking about problem solving in your everyday life are predictive of how much you believe in God," Rand said. "It's not that one way is better than the other. Intuitions are important and reflection is important, and you want some balance of the two. Where you are on that spectrum affects how you come out in terms of belief in God."

In another study, with 373 participants, the researchers found they could temporarily influence levels of faith by instructing participants to write a paragraph describing a personal experience where either intuitive or reflective thinking led to a good result. One group was told to describe a time in their lives when intuition or first instinct led to a good outcome, while a second group was instructed to write about an experience where a good outcome resulted from reflecting and carefully reasoning through a problem. When they were surveyed about their beliefs after the writing exercise, participants who wrote about a successful intuitive experience were more likely to report they were convinced of God's existence than those who wrote about a successful reflective experience.

These studies suggest a causal link between intuitive thinking and a belief in God, but the researchers acknowledged the opposite may also be true, that a belief in God may lead to intuitive thinking. Future research will help explore how cognitive styles are influenced by genes and environmental factors, such as upbringing and education, Rand said.

New research has found public sector workers are typically more pro-socially motivated than their private sector counterparts. The University of Bristol study examined motivational indicators in workers from both sectors across 51 countries. But there are some nations where the reverse is true and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded study, led by academics in the University's Centre for Market and Public Organisation, explored whether corruption can explain variation in motivation across countries.

Using World Values Survey (WVS) data from 59,604 people across 51 countries (representing a total population of 4.8 billion1) with a range of income levels, different political regimes and cultures, the researchers compared motivational characteristics between public and private, for-profit sector workers.

In addition to age, education, proportion female, the researchers examined motivational indicators, such as the person's work motivation, their self-perception - based on what things are important to them in life, and their self-reported activity in pro-social organisations including charity and environmental work.

As well as differences in motivation, there is a near-universal tendency for public sector workers to be older, more likely to be female and to be better educated than private for-profit sector workers. People with a higher level of well-being are also more likely to work in the public sector.

One of the authors, Professor Sarah Smith, said: "Our findings suggest that public sector workers tend to be more intrinsically motivated across a wide range of different countries but this is not a universal characteristic. Our research shows that there are certain features of the public sector, such as the level of corruption, that can make it more attractive to pro-socially motivated workers."

Some authority combined with little respect is often a toxic combination, according to new research from USC, Stanford and the Kellogg School

Ever wonder why that government clerk was so rude and condescending? Or why the mid-level manager at your company always doles out the most demeaning tasks? Or, on a more profound level, why the guards at Abu Ghraib tortured and humiliated their prisoners?

In a new study, researchers at USC, Stanford and the Kellogg School of Management have found that individuals in roles that possess power but lack status have a tendency to engage in activities that demean others. According to the study, "The Destructive Nature of Power without Status," the combination of some authority and little perceived status can be a toxic combination.

The research, forthcoming in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, is "based on the notions that a) low-status is threatening and aversive and b) power frees people to act on their internal states and feelings." The study was conducted by Nathanael Fast, assistant professor of management and organization at the USC Marshall School of Business; Nir Halevy, acting assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business; and Adam Galinsky, professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

To test their theses, the authors conducted an experiment with students who were told they would be interacting with a fellow student in a business exercise and were randomly assigned to either a high-status "Idea Producer" role or low-status "Worker" role. Then these individuals were asked to select activities from a list of 10 for the others to perform; some of the tasks were more demeaning than others.

The experiment demonstrated that "individuals in high-power/low-status roles chose more demeaning activities for their partners (e.g., bark like a dog three times) than did those in any other combination of power and status roles." According to the study, possessing power in the absence of status may have contributed to the acts committed by U.S. soldiers in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004. That incident was reminiscent of behaviors exhibited during the famous Stanford Prison Experiment with undergraduate students that went awry in the early 1970s. In both cases the guards had power, but they lacked respect and admiration in the eyes of others and in both cases prisoners were treated in extremely demeaning ways.

Fast said that he and his colleagues focused on the relationship between power and status because "although a lot of work has looked at these two aspects of hierarchy, it has typically looked at the isolated effects of either power or status, not both. We wanted to understand how those two aspects of hierarchy interact. We predicted that when people have a role that gives them power but lacks status—and the respect that comes with that status—then it can lead to demeaning behaviors. Put simply, it feels bad to be in a low status position and the power that goes with that role gives them a way to take action on those negative feelings."

Social hierarchy, the study says, does not on its own generate demeaning tendencies. In other words, the idea that power always corrupts may not be entirely true. Just because someone has power or, alternatively, is in a "low status" role does not mean they will mistreat others. Rather, "power and status interact to produce effects that cannot be fully explained by studying only one or the other basis of hierarchy."

One way to overcome this dynamic, according to the authors, is to find ways for all individuals, regardless of the status of their roles, to feel respected and valued. The authors write: "…respect assuages negative feelings about their low-status roles and leads them to treat others positively." Opportunities for advancement may also help. "If an individual knows he or she may gain a higher status role in the future, or earn a bonus for treating others well, that may help ameliorate their negative feelings and behavior," Fast said.

The researchers conclude, however, that, "Our findings indicate that the experience of having power without status, whether as a member of the military or a college student participating in an experiment, may be a catalyst for producing demeaning behaviors that can destroy relationships and impede goodwill."

Customers don't report uncivil workers; they take their business elsewhere

Insensitive, disrespectful or rude behavior by employees is rampant in US workplaces, yet consumers fail to report the offending workers and instead take their business elsewhere, researchers report in the latest edition of the Journal of Service Research.

Approximately one-third of consumers surveyed reported they're treated rudely by an employee on an average of once a month and that these and other episodes of uncivil worker behavior make them less likely to patronize those businesses. Yet customers rarely report such behavior to employee supervisors, ensuring a relentless cycle of poor employee behavior that leaves consumers angry and frustrated and saps businesses of customer loyalty, return business and profits, according to researchers from the University of Southern California and Georgetown University.

Workplace incivility includes a range of behaviors, prompting the researchers to study the prevalence of incidents where customers witness an employee behaving uncivilly, the effects on consumers of witnessing such behavior and the subsequent level of anger and desire to hold employees accountable for their actions.

The team surveyed 244 consumers and found that incivility is widespread. Consumers recalled incidents involving an uncivil employee in many industries, and particularly in restaurants and retailing. Uncivil outbursts, as well as rude behavior directed at customers and other employees were in some cases witnessed once a month by approximately one-third of the survey participants.

Furthermore, managers may not be aware of how frequently their customers witness an employee behaving uncivilly because consumers seldom report the behavior to employers – although a majority of the respondents went home and told friends and family members about the incident. Without reports, managers are unable to address the issue with employees.

The study found that witnessing employee incivility makes customers angry and creates desires to "get back" at the perpetrator and the firm. Customers are less likely to repurchase from the firm and express less interest in learning about the firm's new services. For managers who are made aware of the offending behavior, their own harsh treatment of the employee can also prompt negative reactions from consumers.

"Regardless of the perpetrator or the reason, witnessing incivility scalds customer relationships and depletes the bottom line," report the co-authors, Georgetown University Assistant Professor of Management Christine Porath and USC Professors of Business Administration and Marketing Debbie MacInnis and Valerie S. Folkes. The best response is a simple apology, which researchers found was a just and proper response from both the employee and the supervisor. But the preferred solution is the establishment of training programs that foster employee civility in order to prevent harmful outbursts.

We like to think that others agree with us. It's called "social projection," and it helps us validate our beliefs and ourselves. Psychologists have found that we tend to think people who are similar to us in one explicit way—say, religion or lifestyle—will act and believe as we do, and vote as we do. Meanwhile, we exaggerate differences between ourselves and those who are explicitly unlike us.

But what about people whose affiliation is unknown—who can't easily be placed in either the "in-group" or the "out-group"? A new study finds that we think the silent are also our side. Dutch voters, especially those most committed to their parties, were found to believe that people who do not cast a ballot support their own party —even when they know surveys suggest the opposite. The findings will appear in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science.

"Non-voters are an ambiguous group," says Namkje Koudenburg, a graduate student at the University of Groningen, in the Netherlands, who studies social validation and the intriguing subject of "what it means when people remain silent." That ambiguity allows voters and politicians to exaggerate the influence or size of their own party.

The researchers—Koudenburg, along with Groningen colleagues Tom Postmes and Ernestine H. Gordijn—demonstrated this phenomenon in two studies. In the first, 116 voters were recruited at local polling places during city council elections in 2010. After casting votes, the participants were asked what party they'd vote for in Parliamentary elections three months later; what percentage of votes they estimated their party would win; and then what percentage it would win if non-voters were to participate. The result: In this second, all-inclusive tally, voters expected their support base to be 17 percent larger than in the first.

The second study took place several weeks before national elections, when presumably political passions were higher. In three cities, 207 participants approached on the streets told interviewers which of the seven major parties they intended to vote for. Two questions assessed their commitment to voting for that party. They were then given the actual forecasts of the distribution of votes among those parties and told that not everyone would vote. Asked how many votes their own party would get if everyone cast a ballot, respondents again overestimated. And the more partisan voters overestimated even more.

"People want to validate their opinions, to believe their opinions are right," says Koudenburg. "They are also motivated to promote their party's success," which entails convincing others that it represents the majority's beliefs. The researchers aren't certain whether these exaggerations are conscious strategies or unconscious wishes, she avers. Further research might help sort that out.

In the meantime, Koudenburg says, the study suggests one problem caused by non-voting: Voters, candidates, and the political leaders who win can claim greater popular affirmation for their positions than might really exist. By enlarging the imaginary "in-group," citizens "can use low turnout to strengthen their biases."

Maternal responsiveness plays key role in child literacy and development

Since the first television screens lit up our living rooms scientists have been studying its affect on young children. Now scientists in Ohio have compared mother-child communication while watching TV to reading books or playing with Toys to reveal the impact on children's development. The results, published in Human Communication Research, show that watching TV can lead to less interaction between parents and children, with a detrimental impact on literacy and language skills.

The study, conducted by Amy Nathanson and Eric Rasmussen from Ohio State University, focused on 'maternal responsiveness' to reveal differences in the way mothers communicate with their children while engaged with books, toys, and TV. "Maternal responsiveness describes the quality of responses that a mother provides to an infant when they interact," said Nathanson. "When a mother and child are focusing on the same object, be that a book, toy or TV show, the mother's response can have an important impact on their child's understanding and self perception."

By explaining and describing objects or new words and images, or by prompting conversation through questions, maternal responsiveness can help to engage a child with the activity. The parent can also provide positive feedback and encouragement to a child, or repeat what the child has said to help familiarize them with certain words or sights. "Mothers who are responsive to their infant's communication promote a positive self-perception for the child as well as fostering trust in the parent. Positive responses help the child learn that they can affect their environment," said Nathanson. "However, if maternal responsiveness is absent, children learn that their environment is unpredictable and may become anxious, knowing that their bids for attention or help may be ignored."

The authors explored the interactions of 73 mother–child pairs. The average mother was married, in their early thirties and had a bachelor's degree, while half were not employed. The children ranged in age from 16 months to 6 years. Pairs were randomly assigned to one of the three activities for ten minutes. A researcher then offered the pair all three activities and left them for a further twenty minutes. Parents were also asked to fill in questionnaires based on their child's language development while interviews were held to discuss preschooler's literacy levels.

The results demonstrated that who mothers co-read books communicated significantly more with their children than mothers watching TV. The amount of communication involved in reading was not significantly higher than playing with toys. However, the quality of maternal responsiveness was higher in books than toys.

The team found that when reading a book with their children parents used a more active communication style, bringing the child into contact with words they may not hear in every day speech, thereby improving their vocabulary and grammatical knowledge. In contrast watching TV resulted in significantly fewer descriptions and positive responses than mothers playing with toys. "Reading books together increased the maternal communication beyond a level required for reading, while watching TV decreased maternal communication. This is significant when we consider the amount of time young children spend watching TV. In some cases children are left alone to watch TV, missing out on any parental communication at a critical stage in their development," concluded Nathanson. "We would encourage parents to regularly substitute TV for other forms of entertainment to ensure frequent and positive interaction with their child."

Le Strat, Y. and Le Foll, B. (2011). Obesity and Cannabis Use: Results From 2 Representative National Surveys.
American Journal of Epidemiology: kwr200v1-kwr200.

Abstract: The role of cannabis and endocannabinoids in appetite regulation has been extensively studied, but the association of cannabis use with weight in the general population is not known. The authors used data from 2 representative epidemiologic studies of US adults aged 18 years or older, the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC; 2001–2002) and the National Comorbidity Survey–Replication (NCS-R; 2001–2003), to estimate the prevalence of obesity as a function of cannabis use. The adjusted prevalences of obesity in the NESARC and the NCS-R were 22.0% and 25.3%, respectively, among participants reporting no use of cannabis in the past 12 months and 14.3% and 17.2%, respectively, among participants reporting the use of cannabis at least 3 days per week. These differences were not accounted for by tobacco smoking status. Additionally, after adjustment for sex and age, the use of cannabis was associated with body mass index differences in both samples. The authors conclude that the prevalence of obesity is lower in cannabis users than in nonusers.

Casey, B.J., Somerville, L.H., Gotlib, I.H., Ayduk, O., Franklin, N.T., Askren, M.K., Jonides, J., Berman, M.G., Wilson, N.L., Teslovich, T., Glover, G., Zayas, V., Mischel, W., and Shoda, Y. (Aug 29, 2011). Behavioral and neural correlates of delay of gratification 40 years later. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:  1108561108v1-201108561.

Abstract: We examined the neural basis of self-regulation in individuals from a cohort of preschoolers who performed the delay-of-gratification task 4 decades ago. Nearly 60 individuals, now in their mid-forties, were tested on “hot” and “cool” versions of a go/nogo task to assess whether delay of gratification in childhood predicts impulse control abilities and sensitivity to alluring cues (happy faces). Individuals who were less able to delay gratification in preschool and consistently showed low self-control abilities in their twenties and thirties performed more poorly than did high delayers when having to suppress a response to a happy face but not to a neutral or fearful face. This finding suggests that sensitivity to environmental hot cues plays a significant role in individuals’ ability to suppress actions toward such stimuli. A subset of these participants (n = 26) underwent functional imaging for the first time to test for biased recruitment of frontostriatal circuitry when required to suppress responses to alluring cues. Whereas the prefrontal cortex differentiated between nogo and go trials to a greater extent in high delayers, the ventral striatum showed exaggerated recruitment in low delayers. Thus, resistance to temptation as measured originally by the delay-of-gratification task is a relatively stable individual difference that predicts reliable biases in frontostriatal circuitries that integrate motivational and control processes.

Babies can distinguish painful stimuli as different from general touch from around 35-37 weeks gestation – just before an infant would normally be born – according to new research. In a study published online in the journal Current Biology, scientists show that neural activity in the brain gradually changes from an immature state to a more adult-like state from 35 weeks of development. This change may indicate that neural circuitry allows babies to process pain as a separate sensation from touch.

Dr Rebeccah Slater, UCL Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, said: "Premature babies who are younger than 35 weeks have similar brain responses when they experience touch or pain. After this time there is a gradual change, rather than a sudden shift, when the brain starts to process the two types of stimuli in a distinct manner."

Scientists looked at the brain activity of 46 babies at the University College Hospital Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Wing. 21 babies in the study were born prematurely, giving scientists the opportunity to measure activity at different stages of human brain development, from babies at just 28 weeks of development through to those born 'full term' at 37 weeks.

Using electroencephalography (EEG), the scientists measured the babies' electrical brain activity when they were undergoing a routine heel lance – a standard procedure essential to collect blood samples for clinical use.

In the premature babies the EEG recorded a response to the heel lance of non-specific 'neuronal bursts' – general bursts of electrical activity in the brain. After 35-37 weeks the babies' response changed to localised activity in specific areas of the brain, indicating that they were now perceiving painful stimulation as separate to touch.

Dr Lorenzo Fabrizi, lead author of the paper from UCL Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, said: "We are asking a fundamental question about human development in this study – when do babies start to distinguish between sensations? In very young brains all stimulations are followed by 'bursts' of activity, but at a critical time in development babies start to respond with activity specific to the type of stimulation." Dr Fabrizi added: "Of course, babies cannot tell us how they feel, so it is impossible to know what babies actually experience. We cannot say that before this change in brain activity they don't feel pain."

Previous studies have shown that there is a similar shift from neuronal bursts to evoked potentials in the visual system at this time, suggesting that 35-37 weeks is a time when important neural connections are formed between different parts of the brain. Dr Slater said: "It is important to understand how the human brain develops so that we can provide the best clinical care for hospitalised infants."

NIH-supported population analysis examined records of 5 million California women

Pregnant women who are assaulted by an intimate partner are at increased risk of giving birth to infants of reduced weight, according to a population-level analysis of domestic violence supported by the National Institutes of Health. The study analyzed medical records of more than 5 million pregnant women in California over a 10-year period. Although the results showed a pattern of low-weight births among women who experienced an assault, the study was not designed to establish cause and effect, and so could not prove that violence caused the reduced birth weights. Similarly, the study was not designed to provide a biological explanation for how violence against an expectant mother might cause her child to be of lower birth weight.

Infants born to women who were hospitalized for injuries received from an assault during their pregnancies weighed, on average, 163 grams, or one-third pound, less than did infants born to women who were not hospitalized, the study found. Assaults in the first trimester were associated with the largest decrease in birth weight. Infants born weighing less than 2,500 grams, or 5.5 pounds, are considered low birth weight and have an increased risk of death or of developing several health and developmental disorders. Low birth weight infants also are at greater risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) as well as breathing problems, cerebral palsy, heart disorders and learning disabilities. The study found that among infants born to mothers who had experienced an assault, about 15 percent weighed less than 2,500 grams at birth. This rate was higher than the rate of low birth weight infants among pregnant women who were hospitalized after a car crash or for other injuries (8 to 10 percent) and more than double the rate among women who were not hospitalized while pregnant (6 percent).

Although women's education level, rates of smoking, and nutritional habits are known to affect birth weight, the study concluded that the lower birth weights seen in the study could not be accounted for by these factors and were most strongly linked to the violence itself. "These findings suggest that violence experienced by pregnant women could put their infants at increased risk for low birth weight and its subsequent health problems," said Rosalind B. King, Ph.D., of the Demographic and Behavioral Sciences Branch of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the NIH institute that funded the study. "It follows that programs to reduce violence against women might have the added benefit of reducing the number of low birth weight infants."

The study was conducted by Anna Aizer, Ph.D., of Brown University, Providence, R.I. Her findings were published online in the Journal of Human Resources. Using data collected between 1991 and 2002, Dr. Aizer compared the birth records in California to the records of pregnant women hospitalized in California as a result of injuries from assault. She found that for every 100,000 women who gave birth in that period, 31 had been hospitalized for an injury from an assault while they were pregnant. Although these data did not distinguish between domestic violence and violence from other types of assault, previous research has shown that 87 percent of pregnant women with injuries were injured by an intimate partner. The overall rate of assaults was 31 per 100,000 women. The study documented higher rates of assault among the poor (49.5 per 100,000), black women (157 per 100,000), and those without a high school education (39 per 100,000).

Dr. Aizer theorized that higher rates of violence among poor women might be a root cause of poor health and poverty that persists in some families from one generation to the next. A connection between violence during pregnancy, adult health, and future earnings is possible because all three factors are linked to low birth weight. Poor women are at greater risk for having low birth weight infants than are other women. In turn, when they reach adulthood, individuals born at low birth weight are at increased risk for such adult health problems as diabetes and heart disease. Also, when they reach adulthood, individuals born at low birth weight infants also earn less than their counterparts who were born at normal birth weight. "The costs of violence against women may be borne not just by the victims but by the next generation as well," said Dr. Aizer. "Given the importance of birth weight in determining adult education and income, these results suggest that the higher levels of violence experienced by poor women may also contribute to the intergenerational persistence of poverty."

Some people feel compelled to pet every furry animal they see on the street, while others jump at the mere sight of a shark or snake on the television screen. No matter what your response is to animals, it may be thanks to a specific part of your brain that is hardwired to rapidly detect creatures of the nonhuman kind. In fact, researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and UCLA report that neurons throughout the amygdala—a center in the brain known for processing emotional reactions—respond preferentially to images of animals. Their findings were described in a study published online in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

The collaborative research team was responsible for recruiting 41 epilepsy patients at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center; these patients were already being monitored for brain activity related to seizures. Using electrodes already in place, the team recorded single-neuron responses in the amygdala as study participants viewed images of people, animals, landmarks, or objects. The amygdalae are two almond-shaped clusters of neurons—cells that are core components of the nervous system—located deep in the medial temporal lobe of the brain.  

"Our study shows that neurons in the human amygdala respond preferentially to pictures of animals, meaning that we saw the most amount of activity in cells when the patients looked at cats or snakes versus buildings or people," says Florian Mormann, lead author on the paper and a former postdoctoral scholar in the Division of Biology at Caltech. "This preference extends to cute as well as ugly or dangerous animals and appears to be independent of the emotional contents of the pictures. Remarkably, we find this response behavior only in the right and not in the left amygdala."

Mormann says this striking hemispheric asymmetry helps strengthen previous findings supporting the idea that, early on in vertebrate evolution, the right hemisphere became specialized in dealing with unexpected and biologically relevant stimuli, or with changes in the environment. "In terms of brain evolution, the amygdala is a very old structure, and throughout our biological history, animals—which could represent either predators or prey—were a highly relevant class of stimuli," he says.

"This is a pretty novel finding, since most amygdala research in the past was usually about faces of people and emotions related to fear rather than pictures of animals," adds Ralph Adolphs, a coauthor on the paper and Bren Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience and Professor of Biology at Caltech. "Nobody would have guessed that cells in the amygdala respond more to animals than they do to human faces, and in particular that they respond to all kinds of animals, not just dangerous ones. I think this will stimulate more research and has the potential to help us better understand phobias of animals."

The study is also a clear illustration of how scientists doing basic research can benefit from working with collaborators in a clinical setting and vice versa. “This is a good example of how special situations in neurosurgery—in this case, patients who are treated in order to cure their epilepsy—can provide a unique window into the workings of the human mind,” says Itzhak Fried, a UCLA neurosurgeon and a coauthor of the study.

"A category-specific response to animals in the right human amygdala" was featured online on August 28 as an advance online publication of Nature Neuroscience. The Caltech team was led by Christof Koch, Troendle Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology, and included Julien Dubois, Simon Kornblith, Milica Milosavljevic, Moran Cerf, Naotsugu Tsuchiya, and Alexander Kraskov. Rodrigo Quian Quiroga and Matias Ison from the University of Leicester also contributed to the study.

Chen X, Gabitto M, Peng Y, Ryba NJ, Zuker CS (2011). A gustotopic map of taste qualities in the mammalian brain. Science. 333, 1262-6.

Abstract: The taste system is one of our fundamental senses, responsible for detecting and responding to sweet, bitter, umami, salty, and sour stimuli. In the tongue, the five basic tastes are mediated by separate classes of taste receptor cells each finely tuned to a single taste quality. We explored the logic of taste coding in the brain by examining how sweet, bitter, umami, and salty qualities are represented in the primary taste cortex of mice. We used in vivo two-photon calcium imaging to demonstrate topographic segregation in the functional architecture of the gustatory cortex. Each taste quality is represented in its own separate cortical field, revealing the existence of a gustotopic map in the brain. These results expose the basic logic for the central representation of taste.