Free Republic

A major investigation into scores of claims made in psychology research journals has delivered a bleak verdict on the state of the science. An international team of experts repeated 100 experiments published in top psychology journals and found that they could reproduce only 36% of original findings. The study, which saw 270 scientists repeat experiments on five continents, was launched by psychologists in the US in response to rising concerns over the reliability of psychology research. “There is no doubt that I would have loved for the effects to be more reproducible,” said Brian Nosek, a professor of psychology who...

A strange paradox is emerging in America: Overall violent-crime rates are down, but active shooter events — in which a person is trying to kill multiple people in a populated area — appear to be on the rise, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics. Meanwhile, a just-released study finds that although the United States has just about 5 percent of the world's population, the country has 31 percent of the world's mass shooters. The reasons for these numbers are complex, researchers say, but the data suggest that the availability of guns, and perhaps the American obsession with fame, may...

In the second half of our discussion on “the Soul and Friendship’s Role”, my educator friend and co-producer Tom Pazdan and I will discuss meaningful friendships that become toxic. If you are an emotionally sensitive person, and you feel (or have felt) hurt, anger, disappointment, or what have you due either to a broken friendship, or one that is now full of animosity, this show will try to make some sense out of your feelings. Also on the program, we will discuss how Jesus Christ provides a template for friendships, as the perfect model for them, on this edition of...

This story is not satire. According to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health and awarded to a Boston hospital for more than $1.5 million, some mysterious phenomenon is covertly making lesbians obese, in apparent violation of the dietary laws of cause and effect. For now, I'm calling this phenomenon "obesity gremlins," and here's how a NIH-funded study describes this extraordinary mystery: It is now well-established that women of minority sexual orientation are disproportionately affected by the obesity epidemic, with nearly three-quarters of adult lesbians overweight or obese, compared to half of heterosexual women. So let me get...

 How to Explain Inexplicable Behavior  Why Does She Let Him Get Away With It?  It's credible to assert that everyone "manipulates" everyone else, babies manipulate their families without needing to think about it because it's how they survive, people of marriagable age "manipulate" each other in an aboveboard manner, it's called "flirting". The problem is when:  a person is concealing motives,   is engaged in a highly conscious tactic of "influencing" others according to these concealed motives,   the person knows what he or she is doing, but others initially don't understand what the person is up to.  Eventually, other people can begin...

Psychopath and sociopath are popular psychology terms to describe violent monsters born of our worst nightmares. Think Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs (1991), Norman Bates in Psycho (1960) and Annie Wilkes in Misery (1990). In making these characters famous, popular culture has also burned the words used to describe them into our collective consciousness. Most of us, fortunately, will never meet a Hannibal Lecter, but psychopaths and sociopaths certainly do exist. And they hide among us. Sometimes as the most successful people in society because they’re often ruthless, callous and superficially charming, while having little or no regard...

There was a time when most of what I knew about psychiatrists came from Woody Allen. In his 1973 movie "Sleeper," his character wakes up in the future and complains, "I haven't seen my analyst in 200 years. He was a strict Freudian, and if I'd been going all this time I'd probably almost be cured by now." But even his treatment sounded better than what Jack Nicholson's character got in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" for being rebellious: a lobotomy. Those films imprinted a couple of lessons about psychiatry. The first was that mental health professionals were useless;...

In this podcast, my co-producer Tom will ask me a series of questions relating to the topic of friendship. How does a good or bad friendship affect the soul, and what can we learn from it? So join us, as we explore areas pertaining to this topic that you may discover for the very first time. And discover insights that will add meaningful perspective to what constitutes a truly meaningful friendship on this episode (we call "The Soul and Friendship's Role") of “Making Sense with Rob Case.”

NEW YORK – At a hearing Monday in Manhattan in which he ruled filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza must continue community service for four more years, U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman said he considers D’Souza’s violation of federal campaign-finance laws to be evidence of a psychological problem and ordered further counseling. D’Souza’s defense counsel Benjamin Brafman provided evidence to the court that the psychiatrist D’Souza was ordered to see found no indication of depression or reason for medication. In addition, the psychologist D’Souza subsequently consulted provided a written statement concluding there was no need to continue the consultation, because D’Souza was...

Writing for AlterNet, Toni Nagy, who also writes for the Huffington Post and Salon, has written an article detailing her disappointment when she found out that her daughter likes the color pink and envisions herself as a princess. Her article, titled "What's a Feminist Mom to Do With a Disney Princess-Loving Daughter?" reads, "When I was pregnant, my prevailing philosophy was that gender was a construct created by social convention, and I was convinced my child would transcend the imposed definitions of femininity or masculinity." Ms. Nagy further "limited her screen time and tried to introduce a variety of stimuli...

I'm homosexual and I'm afraid about what my future will be and that people won't like me. This Humans of New York photo showing what it says is a distraught young boy crying because he is gay has gone viral, with thousands of people commenting on Facebook offering advice and words of support. “I’m homosexual and I’m afraid about what my future will be and that people won’t like me,” the caption reads. [Snip] “Prediction from a grown-up: Your future is going to be amazing,” [Hillary] wrote. “You will surprise yourself with what you’re capable of and the incredible things...

Many families look forward to Fourth of July celebrations that typically include delicious food and fireworks. While there's nothing wrong with observing the day, it's important to keep those who served in mind, as they might struggle with post-traumatic stress. The nonprofit Military with PTSD is hoping to raise awareness about the effects fireworks can have on men and women who served in the military. Unfortunately noisemakers and firework displays used to commemorate our nation's independence can oftentimes be the very things that cause emotional distress on combat veterans.

Read this open letter to the Gay Community from a loving daughter.   She wonders why there isn’t more attention on the rest of this story, namely the children raised by two mothers or two fathers.   Same-sex marriage and parenting withholds either a mother or father from a child while telling him or her that it doesn’t matter. That it’s all the same. But it’s not. A lot of us, a lot of your kids, are hurting. My father’s absence created a huge hole in me, and I ached every day for a dad. I loved my mom’s...

Over a million people changed their facebook profile pictures to a rainbow filter in support of gay marriage. New reports reveal that the “Celebrate Pride” tool may not have been the best idea… According to Daily Mail, this tool was actually Facebook’s way of performing psychological testing on their users. Cesar Hidalgo wrote on Facebook yesterday. “The question is, how long will it take for people to change their profile pictures back to normal.”

In a statement released Friday, the president of the American College of Pediatricians said the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage will have a significantly negative impact on children in the United States.

....But according to Justice Kennedy, the Fourteenth Amendment does not protect children whom gay people demand as an entitlement. Children of gays are slaves. Justice Kennedy made no reference whatsoever to the COGs who had submitted detailed amicus briefs to him. The four dissenting justices made no reference to us, either. In the eyes of the court, we do not exist. Some COGs do exist: that is, children of gays who refrain from criticizing their loss of their heritage and who cheer for the gays who control them and keep them silent. At least the latter “good” children get to...

If you're sipping your lunch, you probably have an iPhone. If you're enjoying pizza from Little Caesars, you're probably on Android. Consumer choices have always been about picking this or that, and the current either/or decision is between smartphone operating systems. Your choice when it comes to operating systems says a lot about you, including what you like to eat, according to data provided to CNBC by NPD Group's Checkout Tracking. IPhone users were much more likely to go for a liquid lunch, with soup and smoothies taking the top spots for iOS choices. Soup had an iPhone-to-Android index of...

Here is how Father Mike Schmitz, a priest for the Diocese of Duluth, MN, explains society's acceptance of trans-gender. He breaks it down pretty well...

For forty years as the University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School—twenty-six of which were also spent as Psychiatrist in Chief of Johns Hopkins Hospital—I’ve been studying people who claim to be transgender. Over that time, I’ve watched the phenomenon change and expand in remarkable ways.A rare issue of a few men—both homosexual and heterosexual men, including some who sought sex-change surgery because they were erotically aroused by the thought or image of themselves as women—has spread to include women as well as men. Even young boys and girls have begun to present themselves as of...

(CNN)—It looks like it has happened again. A young male has allegedly killed. In this case it is nine people at a church in South Carolina. Anyone who is paying attention hears the news and thinks, "Here we go again." But why? After spending 20 years interviewing killers as a psychological expert witness in murder cases I have some thoughts about this. Males are disproportionately over-represented in the ranks of America's killers -- about 90%, in fact. Why is that? Some of it appears to lie in the biological vulnerability of males. About 30% of males (versus 9% of females)...