Malcolm Gladwell capitalized on research conducted by Roger Barnsley (et al., 1985) by suggesting in his 2008 book, Outliers, that there is an “Iron Law of Canadian Hockey.” This theory is also known as the relative age effect in psychological research and it suggests that the older a player is when they begin training for a sport, the more likely they are to achieve success in that sport.
In fact, in a talk posted on YouTube, Gladwell goes even further, saying, “In absolutely every system in which hockey is played, a hugely disproportionate number of hockey players are born in the first half of the year.” He says this in the context of a talk about society not taking advantage of opportunities to improve human potential.
“Logic tells us there should be as many great hockey players born in the second half of the year,” suggests Gladwell, “as born in the first half. But what we can see here, there’s almost no one born it the end of the year, everyone’s from the beginning.”
But is this actually true — are more elite hockey players born in the first half versus the second half of the year?
I respect physicians and yes, even most surgeons. They do great work and are the primary caregivers for most of the population seeking treatment for common mental health concerns like depression and anxiety. But sometimes they don’t know what they’re talking about. It concerns me because so many people see doctors as authoritative — no matter what their specialty. Many people’s ears perk up when a doctor speaks.
I guess I need to stop believing the media can cover a topic such as humanity’s interaction with technology without bias. Newsweek provides one of the most biased, non-neutral pieces that I’ve seen ever written about technology, psychology and human interaction in last week’s paper issue (also available online).
ScienceDirect is a service that allows people to search for and read full journal articles for many medical and social sciences journals online (which sure beats having to go to the local university library to make copies of them!). Combined with the use of other database services, it allows health journalists like us to read the scientific literature directly — and also put it into some useful context. 
Last week, more than a few news agencies and blogs picked up the story that “one out of every 10 Wall Street employees is a psychopath.” This immediately caught my attention, because as a researcher, I found the statistic intriguing because it was so out of whack with the incidence of psychopathy in the general population. 
Why does the Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC) misrepresent psychological research?
A long-term, stable romantic relationship with a committed, caring partner has many psychological benefits, which we know from the oodles of psychological research published about them. So it’s a good thing to try and protect one’s relationship from external influences. One of the most difficult to recover from and damaging influences is cheating.
Moebius syndrome is the name given to facial paralysis, and is characterized by an individual who is incapable of expressing their emotions or any kind of reaction through their face because of it. It is a rare congenital condition that only affects about 1 in 100,000 children at birth. Moebius syndrome typically results in total or near total paralysis of the face, including eyes that don’t blink.
For decades, psychology and its researchers have focused on the negative side of humanity — the things that bring dysfunction into our lives. Depression, sadness, anxiety, you name it. More recently, psychologists have also begun to better understand the value of positive emotions too. This understanding has resulted in a new field of research called “positive psychology” or “happiness research.”
While more details of the Tiger Woods scandal continuing to emerge, the inevitable question arises — Why would such a successful, attractive man cheat on his wife and family? Why, in general, do men — and women — cheat? And why would Tiger Woods, one of the most successful professional golfers of all time, cheat on his wife, Elin Nordegren?
We already know that first impressions can tell a lot about a person. You meet someone, you shake their hand, they smile, you smile back, you introduce yourself. Prior psychological research has suggested that even such a simple, basic interchange creates first impressions that are then difficult to change once made.
A lot of times, I write about the results of some new psychology research study or scientific analysis. I boil the results down to digestible findings and try and wrap the whole thing up in simple, common-sense terms.