My current personal Facebook profile picture!
In most cases, your profile photo on Facebook tells viewers what they need to know to form an impression of you – no words are necessary, new research suggests. On the right is the profile photo that I am currently using on Facebook, what are your impressions????
College students who viewed a Facebook photo of a fellow student having fun with friends rated that person as extraverted – even if his profile said he was “not a big people-person.”
“Photos seem to be the primary way we make impressions of people on social networking sites,” said Brandon Van Der Heide, lead author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University.
The exception is when a photo is out of the ordinary or shows someone in a negative light. In that case, people do use profile text to help interpret what kind of person is shown in the profile.
“People will accept a positive photo of you as showing how you really are. But if the photo is odd or negative in any way, people want to find out more before forming an impression,” he said
Van Der Heide conducted the study with Jonathan D’Angelo and Erin Schumaker, graduate students in communication at Ohio State. Their results appear in a recent issue of the Journal of Communication. [continue reading…]
Image: istockphoto
Middle- and high-school students who bully their classmates are more likely than others to use substances such as cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana, a new study found.
Researchers found that bullies and bully-victims – youth who are both perpetrators and victims – were more likely to use substances than were victims and non-involved youth.
“Our findings suggest that one deviant behavior may be related to another,” said Kisha Radliff, lead author of the study and assistant professor of school psychology at Ohio State University.
“For example, youth who bully others might be more likely to also try substance use. The reverse could also be true in that youth who use substances might be more likely to bully others.”
The researchers didn’t find as strong a link between victims of bullying and substance use. [continue reading…]
Published: February 29, 2012
Image: iStockphoto
annabis-like substances that are produced by the body have both therapeutic and harmful properties, besides their well-known intoxicating effects, and the body’s cannabinoid system may be a target for new strategies in cancer treatment. This is what Sofia Gustafsson finds in the dissertation she recently defended at
Umeå University in Sweden.
Abuse of cannabis and preparations containing synthetic cannabis-like substances (cannabinoids) is on the rise all over Europe. At the same time, cannabis-based drugs have been approved for certain medical purposes, and in Sweden a compound was approved for symptom alleviation in multiple sclerosis (MS) just the other day. Intensive research is underway about whether new substances that affect the body’s own cannabinoids can be exploited for medical purposes, for instance, to relieve pain and to inhibit the growth of tumors. These are the reasons why Sofia Gustafsson studied the impact of cannabinoids on both the nervous system and tumor cells. [continue reading…]
Published: February 29, 2012
Image: iStockphoto
uring depression, the brain becomes less plastic and adaptable, and thus less able to perform certain tasks, like storing memories. Researchers at the Swedish medical university
Karolinska Institutet have now traced the brain’s lower plasticity to reduced functionality in its support cells, and believe that learning more about these cells can pave the way for radical new therapies for depression. “We were able to cure memory dysfunction in ‘depressed’ rats by giving them doses of D-serine,” says Mia Lindskog, biologist and Assistant Professor at Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Neuroscience.
Dr Lindskog and her team used FSL rats, which are rats that have been specially bred with a disposition for ‘depression’. The rats were first put through two tests to confirm that they had the symptoms that are also characteristic of human depression. In the first, the rats’ memories were checked by repeatedly being exposed to different objects; in the second, the team assessed their level of apathy by releasing them in a container of water and observing whether they merely stayed floating in the container or immediately tried to climb out (non of the rats had to stay in the water for more than five minutes). In both cases the FSL rats’ results were compared with normal laboratory rats, and memory disorders and apathy could be confirmed.
The researchers then injected the rats with D-serine. This substance improved their memories but had no effect on the apathy. “We have shown that there are two symptoms here that can be influenced independently of one another, which means they could be treated in tandem in patients with depression,” says Dr Lindskog. The researchers also studied the synaptic activity in the hippocampus of the rats, a part of the brain which plays an important part in the memory. [continue reading…]
