Psychology

7 tricks to improve your memory

7 tricks to improve your memory

I used to have a memory that amazed people, but in the last few years I’ve had trouble remembering names and movie titles. (“You know the one about the guy who goes somewhere? It won that award…”) I hope to have many years of sharp thinking ahead of me—I’m in my mid-40s, nowhere near senior-moments territory—so I got to wondering: Is there something I should be doing now to counteract the lapses that already seem to be taking place?

There’s no way around the fact that memory erodes as we get older. The hippocampus, the area of your brain responsible for building memory, loses 5 percent of its nerve cells with each passing decade. Plus, aging slows production of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter vital to learning and memory. Based on these facts, scientists once believed that a person’s mental ability peaked early in adulthood, and then went downhill from there. But over the last few decades, research has found that adults’ brains are still able to form new, memory-building neural networks in a process known as neuroplasticity. The reassuring latest thinking: With a little effort, anyone can boost their power of recollection.

To test this theory in the real world, I tried an array of research-backed brain-sharpening techniques over one six-week period. Am I now able to list all 44 U.S. presidents? No. But can I more easily summon up where I put my keys? Yes. And I think being able to leave my apartment and lock the door is a more valuable life skill than remembering James K. Polk. Here’s what worked for me—and what fell flat.

Technique #1: Play brain games

Puzzles like Sudoku and crosswords may improve memory and delay brain decline, though experts are not yet sure why. “My guess is that playing them activates synapses in the whole brain, including the memory areas,” says Marcel Danesi, PhD, author of Extreme Brain Workout. Research so far is decidedly mixed: Some studies have found that, while doing crossword puzzles may make you better at remembering the capital of Burkina Faso, there’s little evidence they’ll boost your performance at more general tasks, like remembering where your car is parked. But a 2011 study showed that participants who played a computer game called Double Decision for six years improved their concentration so much that they had a 50 percent lower rate of car accidents.

So I decided to try an online brain-training program called Lumosity, which neuroscientists from Harvard, Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley have used in their own studies; its creators claim that 97 percent of users improve their memory in just 10 hours of playing time. First I answered a series of questions at lumosity.com to identify which of my cognitive processes, including memory, could use a little help. Then I received a personalized training regimen. A 10-minute daily series of games is free, and a more advanced program is available for $12.95 a month. (Being cheap, I stuck with the former.) The games are pure fun—remembering a pattern of blocks, spotting a bird in a field—and are based on what research has found to improve concentration and other cognitive skills.

My grade: B- By the end of a month, my “brain performance index” score rose 6 percent—not amazing in the Lumosity world, but respectable. The main problem: You have to play the games every day, forever, to keep up the benefits. I’ve mostly kept up. (Except on weekends. Or if I’ve had a busy week. OK, I haven’t kept up.)

Technique #2: Eat the right foods

According to Gary Small, MD, director of the UCLA Memory Clinic, memory superfoods include antioxidant-rich, colorful fruits and vegetables, which protect your brain from harmful free radicals. He’s also enthusiastic about low-glycemic carbs, like oatmeal, and anything with omega-3 fatty acids. In fact, a recent study published in Neurology found that people with low levels of omega-3s had brains that appeared to be a full two years older in MRI scans. That was incentive enough for me to follow the memory-enhancing diet from Dr. Small’s book The Memory Prescription, which claims it works in just two weeks. Much like the Mediterranean diet, it’s heavy on produce, legumes, nuts and fish. It’s low on meat, since meat’s omega-6 fatty acids may contribute to brain inflammation, a possible underlying mechanism for Alzheimer’s.

Refined sugars produce a similar effect, so they were also out. (That was the toughest for me.) I ate a farmers market’s worth of blueberries, spinach, avocado and beets, and consumed enough fish to sprout gills. I also went beyond Dr. Small’s advice and took 2.4 micrograms of vitamin B12, the standard recommended daily amount—since studies show people with low levels perform poorly on memory tests—and 1,000 international units of vitamin D, discovered by Tufts University researchers to boost cognitive function. (My doctor signed off on the supplements.)

My grade: A It was difficult to eat meat only once a week, until I noticed how much less physically and mentally sluggish I felt. And my memory became markedly sharper over 14 days. (For instance, I quit using a bookmark because I could remember the page number I’d stopped on the night before.) Planning those meals took a lot of prep, but it paid off tremendously. I still try to use the diet as a guideline: I eat meat once a week, aim for five fruits and vegetables a day and pop omega-3 supplements (since I don’t get as much fish as I did on the diet).

Technique #3: Quit multitasking

“One reason people can’t remember where their keys are is they’re not paying attention when they put them down,” says Mark McDaniel, PhD, a psychology professor and memory researcher at Washington University in St. Louis. (His suggestion for always finding them: “When you put them down, stop and say out loud, ‘I’m leaving my keys on my dresser,'” or wherever you’re placing them.) Studies show that it takes eight seconds to fully commit a piece of information to memory, so concentrating on the task at hand is crucial. I willed myself to stop giving everything “continuous partial attention,” a term coined by tech honcho Linda Stone. I put away my gadgets when they weren’t absolutely needed. I didn’t have 10 websites up all at once. I called a friend, sat on my bed, closed my eyes and actually listened to what she was saying.

My grade: B+ It’s amazing how difficult it is to do one thing at a time. Concentration takes work, but I found I could remember appointments better because I paid attention when I made them and repeated the day and time, rather than agreeing to commitments while doing the laundry and returning e-mail messages. My husband, usually my living iCal, was very impressed.

Technique #4: Master a new skill

A recent Swedish study found that adults who learned a new language showed improved memory for people’s names, among other things. Any activity that is practiced diligently, such as knitting or skiing, will likely have this effect, researchers say. I vowed to learn to play the keyboard. On YouTube I found PlayPianoKing, an affable guy who teaches everything from Pachelbel’s Canon to “Gangnam Style.”

My grade: C- While I did learn a mean “Gangnam” and felt my concentration improve, I soon gave up: With brain games and a diet overhaul crowding my schedule, the hour-long, every-other-day lesson was making me cranky, even before I saw any noticeable memory gains.

Technique #5: Get more sleep

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered that losing half a night’s rest—three or four hours—on just one evening can erode memory. And the journal Nature Neuroscience recently reported that one way to slow decline in aging adults is to improve the length and quality of sleep. During a deep sleep of eight hours or more, it’s believed that the brain shifts memories from temporary to longer-term storage. Yet according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one third of us get less than seven hours a night—including me.

So, for more than a month, I implemented a stringent schedule: I would put my preschooler to bed and take a bath. Then I’d hit my own bed with a book, rather than watch TV or movies, which several studies reveal will make you feel too keyed up to wind down. Normally I fall asleep at 11:30 p.m. and wake at 5:45 a.m., but the new routine put me out by 10.

My grade: A+ Nothing had a better effect on my memory than that long stretch of sleep. I was able to semi-credibly measure the difference because I started my other interventions a few weeks before this one. I bounded out of bed fully recharged. My mind became as focused as a laser beam; I even remembered every mom’s name during the school run (no more “Hey, you!” or just “Hi!”).

Technique #6: Use mnemonic devices

These are basically memory tools that give meaning and organization to a random group of words or concepts. They could be an acronym (BOG for “Buy oranges and grapes”), an exaggerated visualization (imagining a massive stethoscope to remember a doctor’s appointment) or a rhyme (to recall a co-worker’s name, I’d remember, “Ted has a giant forehead”). Memory champions also love chunking, or breaking a large amount of information into more manageable nuggets. Say you have to memorize these numbers: 2214457819. It’s much easier to do as a phone number: 221-445-7819.

My grade: A+ I found these tactics enormously helpful. I usually forget my poor nephew’s birthday, but this year I actually sent a gift, thanks to the unpleasant but memorable NITS (“Nephew is 10 Sunday”).

Technique #7: Hit the gym

Researchers from the University of California at Irvine recently discovered that a little exercise might yield big mental benefits. They had one group of subjects ride stationary bikes for six minutes, while another group cooled their heels. Afterward, the active group performed significantly better on a memory test. Instant results! The researchers believe the boost may be tied to an exercise-induced brain chemical called norepinephrine, which has a strong influence on memory. And Dr. Small contends that exercise is the best memory aid of all. “It can increase your brain size,” he says—and the bigger your brain, the greater your capacity to remember. His recommendation: 20 minutes of brisk walking a day.

I began doing an hour daily—more than Dr. Small recommends, but also more consistent than the gym workouts a few times a week I used to favor, and, according to many experts, more effective in juicing up memory.

My grade: A- This moderate, regular activity worked wonders on my stress levels, and it became much easier to concentrate afterward, so I could fix things (like a grocery list) into my memory. I grew addicted to my walks and still take them. In fact, I found that the memory-boosting healthy lifestyle habits—exercising more, stressing less, eating a better diet were the most sustainable over time. And that’s a win-win.

 

Suicide can be prevented on timely intervention

observed on September 10, CIMBS launched a yearlong public campaign “Let`s Talk to Prevent Suicide

Majority of suicides can be prevented on timely intervention, any person with suicidal tendency can be easily convinced through dialogue and timely counselling, experts said.

“Suicidal tendency is a mental illness – it can be prevented through timely intervention. Any person with the tendency can be easily identified.

Nowadays many communicate it through social networking site or share it with friends and relatives that they are in emotional turmoil.

“At these situation the kith and kin friends should intervene and convince them,” said Sunil Mittal, director, Cosmos Institute of Mental Health and Behaviourial Sciences (CIMBS).

“Only when we talk about suicide and its causes that we can build an atmosphere of hope and resilience at home and the community to help prevent suicide,” he added.

On the eve of World Suicide Prevention Day, observed on September 10, CIMBS launched a yearlong public campaign “Let`s Talk to Prevent Suicide”.

Giving an example, psychiatrists informed that had actress Jiah Khan, who committed suicide recently, hinted about her suicidal tendency on a social networking site, timely help could have saved her.

“Individuals with poor problem solving skills, impulsivity, interpersonal relationships have a high risk of deliberate self harm and suicide,” said clinical psychologist Mitalli Srivastava.

“Identifying and helping those attempting suicide can bring down suicidal rates, motives can vary early identification and counselling will help to reduce the suicide rates,” said CIMBS co-ordinator Sameer Kalani.

According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the majority of people committing suicide are in the age of 15 to 49 years.

As per NCRB statistics, the last year alone a total of 135,445 people committed suicide, which ranges to 371 suicides per day or one suicide every four minutes.

 Source: Zee News

Fetal alcohol disorders common in adopted, foster kids

Children adopted from orphanages or in foster care have a high rate of fetal alcohol syndrome and other physical, mental and behavioral problems related to alcohol exposure before birth, according to a new review of past studies.

Among those children, researchers found that rates of alcohol-related problems – which can include deformities, mental retardation and learning disabilities – were anywhere from nine to 60 times higher than in the general population.

“It’s increasingly well recognized that this is a very high-risk population and one that we should really be paying attention to,” Phil Fisher, a psychologist who studies foster and adopted children at the University of Oregon in Eugene, said.

“We know that one of the main reasons that kids end up in foster care or being made eligible for adoption is because their parents have substance abuse problems,” added Fisher, who wasn’t involved in the new research.

The findings are based on a review of 33 studies of children in the care of child welfare agencies or foster parents, as well as kids before and after their adoption from orphanages. Most of the studies were conducted in Russia or the United States.

Compiling the studies with the most accurate reporting techniques, Dr. Svetlana Popova from the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto and her colleagues found six percent of children in those settings had fetal alcohol syndrome.

The condition includes a distinctive set of facial features, including a small head, jaw and eyes, and other physical developmental defects, especially of the heart. Slow growth and delayed development after birth are also typical of fetal alcohol syndrome.

Close to 17 percent of the children had a more loosely-defined fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which covers any physical, mental or behavioral issues caused by prenatal alcohol exposure.

The highest rates of fetal alcohol syndrome were seen among children in a Russian orphanage for kids with special needs and among those adopted from Eastern Europe by families in Sweden. In those studies, anywhere from 29 percent to 68 percent of children showed severe alcohol-related damage.

In other cases, such as a study of Chinese children adopted and brought to the United States, there were no reported instances of fetal alcohol syndrome, the study team reported Monday in Pediatrics.

Fisher said it’s important to know that although problems related to alcohol exposure are common among adopted and foster children, not all kids have been exposed – and some with prenatal exposure are “quite resilient” and do fine.

“I don’t think anyone wants to create the impression that every child in the foster care system … and every child who’s adopted has very severe problems,” he told Reuters Health.

Still, he said there is a need for more recognition of the challenges faced by children who have been exposed to drugs and alcohol in the womb. Rather than focusing only on their obvious current symptoms, he said fetal alcohol disorders should be treated as chronic diseases, like diabetes.

“The supports need to be available in an ongoing way,” Fisher said.

He also pointed to the importance of identifying children who have some of the effects of drug and alcohol exposure – but not ones as obvious as the distinct facial features seen with fetal alcohol syndrome – and getting them support as soon as they enter the child welfare system or are adopted.

“If we don’t do the early screening and detection … then I think we’re in a much more challenging position,” he said.

“We hope that the results of this study will attract attention to the needs of children in care affected by prenatal alcohol exposure,” Popova told Reuters Health in an email.

She agreed that spotting problems as soon as possible is important.

“Early screening may lead to early diagnosis, which can lead to early participation in developmental interventions, which can in turn, improve the quality of life for children with a (fetal alcohol spectrum disorder),” she said.

Early intervention, Popova added, may also help prevent future mental health problems and trouble in school.

Source : Fox News

Men’s subconscious self-esteem related to partner’s life

Deep down, men may not bask in the glory of their successful wives or girlfriends. While this is not true of women, men’s subconscious self-esteem may be bruised when their spouse or girlfriend excels, says a study published by the American Psychological Association.

It didn’t matter if their significant other was an excellent hostess or intelligent, men were more likely to feel subconsciously worse about themselves when their female partner succeeded than when she failed, according to the study published online in the APA Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. However, women’s self-esteem was not affected by their male partners’ successes or failures, according to the research, which looked at heterosexual Americans and Dutch.

“It makes sense that a man might feel threatened if his girlfriend outperforms him in something they’re doing together, such as trying to lose weight,” said the study’s lead author, Kate Ratliff, PhD, of the University of Florida. “But this research found evidence that men automatically interpret a partner’s success as their own failure, even when they’re not in direct competition”

Men subconsciously felt worse about themselves when they thought about a time when their female partner thrived in a situation in which they had failed, according to the findings. The researchers studied 896 people in five experiments.

In one experiment, 32 couples from the University of Virginia were given what was described as a “test of problem solving and social intelligence” and then told that their partner scored either in the top or bottom 12 percent of all university students. Hearing that their partner scored high or low on the test did not affect what the researchers called participants’ explicit self-esteem – i.e., how they said they felt.

Participants were also given a test to determine how they felt subconsciously about their partners’ performance, which the researchers called implicit self-esteem. In this test, a computer tracks how quickly people associate good and bad words with themselves. For example, participants with high implicit self-esteem who see the word “me” on a computer screen are more likely to associate it with words such as “excellent” or “good” rather than “bad” or “dreadful.” Click here to see a sample of the test.

Men who believed that their partner scored in the top 12 percent demonstrated significantly lower implicit self-esteem than men who believed their partner scored in the bottom 12 percent. Participants did not receive information about their own performance.

Findings were similar in two more studies conducted in the Netherlands. The Netherlands boasts one of the smallest gender gaps in labor, education and politics, according to the United Nations’ Gender Equality Index. However, like American men, Dutch men who thought about their romantic partner’s success subconsciously felt worse about themselves than men who thought about their partner’s failure, according to both studies. They said they felt fine but the test of implicit self-esteem revealed otherwise.

In the final two experiments, conducted online, 657 U.S. participants, 284 of whom were men, were asked to think about a time when their partner had succeeded or failed. For example, some participants were asked to think about their partner’s social success or failure, such as being a charming host at a party, or a more intellectual achievement or failure. In one study, participants were told to think of a time when their partner succeeded or failed at something at which they had succeeded or failed. When comparing all the results, the researchers found that it didn’t matter if the achievements or failures were social, intellectual or related to participants’ own successes or failures – men subconsciously still felt worse about themselves when their partner succeeded than when she failed. However, men’s implicit self-esteem took a bigger hit when they thought about a time when their partner succeeded at something while they had failed.

Researchers also looked at how relationship satisfaction affected self-esteem. Women in these experiments reported feeling better about their relationship when they thought about a time their partner succeeded rather than a time when their partner failed but men did not.

Source: Medical news today

Study finds poverty reduces brain power

Poverty require so much mental energy so the poor have little brain power left to devote to other areas of life

Poverty and the all-consuming fretting that comes with it require so much mental energy that the poor have little brain power left to devote to other areas of life, according to the findings of an international study published on Thursday.

The mental strain could be costing poor people up to 13 IQ (intelligence quotient) points and means they are more likely to make mistakes and bad decisions that amplify and perpetuate their financial woes, researchers found.

“Our results suggest that when you are poor, money is not the only thing in short supply. Cognitive capacity is also stretched thin,” said Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan, part of an international team that conducted the study.

In a series of experiments, researchers from Harvard, Princeton and other universities in North America and from Britain’s University of Warwick found that pressing financial worries had an immediate impact on poor people’s ability to perform well in cognitive and logic tests.

Far from signaling that poor people are stupid, the results suggest those living on a tight budget have their effective brain power, or what the researchers called “mental bandwidth”, dramatically limited by the stress of making ends meet.

On average, someone weighed down by money woes showed a drop in cognitive function in one part of the study that was comparable to a 13 point dip in IQ, and similar to the performance deficit expected from someone who has missed a whole night’s sleep.

“Previous views of poverty have blamed (it) on personal failings, on an environment that is not conducive to success,” said Jiaying Zhao, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

“We are arguing that the lack of financial resources itself can lead to impaired cognitive function,” she said.

Eldar Shafir, a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton who worked on the research team, said it was not stress in general, but financial worries in particular, that led to a reduced ability to make sound decisions.

“The poor are often highly effective at focusing on and dealing with pressing problems,” he said. “But they don’t have leftover bandwidth to devote to other tasks.

“So, if you live in poverty, you’re more error prone and errors cost you more dearly — it’s hard to find a way out.”

The researchers studied two very different groups – shoppers at a mall in New Jersey in the United States, and sugar cane farmers in rural India.

In the mall study, they gathered dozens of low and middle-income shoppers and subjected them to a battery of tests to measure IQ and impulse control.

Half of the participants were first asked to think about what they would do if their car broke down and the repair cost $1,500 – designed to kick off worries about money. It was among these people that performance dipped significantly.

In India, the researchers found that farmers had diminished cognitive performance before getting paid for their harvest compared to afterwards, when their coffers have been replenished.

“One month after the harvest, they’re pretty rich, but the month before – when the money has run out – they’re pretty poor,” Mullainathan said in a report of the research, which was published on Thursday in the journal Science.

“What we see is that IQ goes up, (when they are rich)… errors go way down, and response times go way down.”

He said the effect in India was about two-thirds the size of the effect in the mall study – equal to around nine or 10 IQ points difference from one month to the next.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/08/30/study-finds-poverty-reduces-brain-power/#ixzz2dWnPFZ9N

 

Excessive use of internet ‘causing sleep problems’

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It was found that one in five said that they needed to check their Twitter, Facebook or email accounts because they have a “fear of missing out

A new survey has revealed that one out of 10 people do not sleep properly at night in order to stay in touch on the internet.

In the poll conducted by Nytol last December, more than 50 percent of 2000 people polled admitted that they went online while in bed trying to sleep, News.com.au reported.

It was found that one in five said that they needed to check their Twitter, Facebook or email accounts because they have a “fear of missing out”, while just one in 10 described their quality of sleep as “good”.

The survey suggested that while almost half of the respondents went straight from the couch to bed, less than 15 minutes after switching off the TV, two in five checked emails or social media accounts straight before bed, and one in four thought they were addicted to checking emails and social media in bed.

Source: http://zeenews.india.com/entertainment/wellness/excessive-use-of-internet-causing-sleep-problems_141798.htm

 

How a wandering mind can become a happy mind

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How a wandering mind can become a happy mind

Mind wandering can be a sign of mental wellbeing, provided that your off-task musings are interesting and useful even if not related to the task at hand, a new study has suggested.

Michael S. Franklin and his colleagues used a detailed experimental protocol to show that the negative effect of mind wandering on mood only holds for run-of-the-mill musings: in contrast, creative musings are a sign of mental wellbeing.

In this recent study, 105 student volunteers were equipped with a personal digital assistant, which asked them at random moments – approximately 50 times over one week – how positive or negative they felt, whether they were mind wandering, and if any musings they had were interesting, useful, or novel.
The volunteers reported that they were mind wandering 26 percent of the time, and they felt in general less positive when doing so. However, interesting and useful musings were selectively associated with strongly positive mood.

Franklin and colleagues conclude that when people are encouraged to shift their musings to engaging topics, a wandering mind can become a happy mind.

Source: The new study has been published in Frontiers in Psychology.

 

Why stress makes it harder to control emotions

the first study to document how even mild stress can undercut therapies designed to keep our emotions in check,” said Elizabeth Phelps

Even mild stress can thwart therapeutic measures to control emotions, a team of neuroscientists at New York University has found. Their findings, which appear in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, point to the limits of clinical techniques while also shedding new light on the barriers that must be overcome in addressing afflictions such as fear or anxiety.

We have long suspected that stress can impair our ability to control our emotions, but this is the first study to document how even mild stress can undercut therapies designed to keep our emotions in check,” said Elizabeth Phelps, a professor in NYU’s Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science and the study’s senior author. “In other words, what you learn in the clinic may not be as relevant in the real world when you’re stressed.”

In addressing patients’ emotional maladies, therapists sometimes use cognitive restructuring techniques.  Encouraging patients to alter their thoughts or approach to a situation to change their emotional response. These might include focusing on the positive or non-threatening aspects of an event or stimulus that might normally produce fear.

But do these techniques hold up in the real world when accompanied by the stress of everyday life? This is the question the researchers sought to answer.

To do so, they designed a two-day experiment in which the study’s participants employed techniques like those used in clinics as a way to combat their fears.

On the first day, the researchers created a fear among the study’s participants using a commonly employed “fear conditioning” technique. Specifically, the participants viewed pictures of snakes or spiders. Some of the pictures were occasionally accompanied by a mild shock to the wrist, while others were not. Participants developed fear responses to the pictures paired with shock as measured by physiological arousal and self-report.

After the fear conditioning procedure, the participants were taught cognitive strategies — akin to those prescribed by therapists and collectively titled cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) — in order to learn to diminish the fears brought on by the experiment.

On the next day, the participants were put into two groups: “the stress group” and “the control group.” In the stress group, participants’ hands were submerged in icy water for three minutes — a standard method for creating a mild stress response in psychological studies. In the control group, subjects’ hands were submerged in mildly warm water. To determine that the participants in the stress group were, in fact, stressed, the researchers gauged each participant’s levels of salivary cortisol, which the human body is known to produce in response to stress. Those in the stress group showed a significant increase in cortisol following the stress manipulation, whereas there was no change in the control group.

After a short delay, the researchers then tested the participants’ fear response to the same pictures of snakes or spiders in order to determine if stress undermined the utilization of the cognitive techniques taught the previous day.

As expected, the control group showed diminished fear response to the images, suggesting they were able to employ the cognitive training from the previous day. However, even though the stress group received identical training, they showed no reduction in fear, indicating they were unable to use these cognitive techniques to reduce fear on the second day.

“The use of cognitive techniques to control fear has previously been shown to rely on regions of the prefrontal cortex that are known to be functionally impaired by mild stress,” Phelps observed. “These findings are consistent with the suggestion that the effect of mild stress on the prefrontal cortex may result in a diminished ability to use previously learned techniques to control fear.”

“Our results suggest that even mild stress, such as that encountered in daily life, may impair the ability to use cognitive techniques known to control fear and anxiety,” added Candace Raio, a doctoral student in NYU’s Department of Psychology and the study’s lead author. “However, with practice or after longer intervals of cognitive training, these strategies may become more habitual and less sensitive to the effects of stress.”

 

Conspiracy Theories May Put Children’s Health at Risk

A belief in Conspiracy Theories May Put Children’s Health at Risk

A belief in conspiracy theories may influence parents’ intentions to have their children vaccinated against diseases such as measles. That is the conclusion of research being presented 28 August 2013, by Daniel Jolley and Karen Douglas at the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society’s Social Psychology Section in Exeter.

Jolley and Douglas asked a sample of 89 parents about their views on anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and then asked participants to indicate their intention to have a fictional child vaccinated. They found that stronger belief in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories was associated with less intention to have the child vaccinated.

In a second study of 188 participants, Jolley and Douglas exposed participants to information concerning anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. It was found that reading this material reduced participants’ intention to have a fictional child vaccinated, relative to participants who were given refuting information, or those in a control condition.

Daniel Jolley said: “The recent outbreak of measles in the UK illustrates the importance of vaccination. Our studies demonstrate that anti-vaccine conspiracy theories may present a barrier to vaccine uptake.”

Dr Douglas added: “Our findings point to the potentially detrimental consequences of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. It is easy to treat belief in conspiracy theories lightly, but our studies show that wariness about conspiracy theories may be warranted.”