What differentiates so-called "dog people" from "cat people?" According to University of Texas psychologist Sam Gosling, some real differences in personality traits.

In a questionnaire of 4500 people who were asked to identify themselves as either cat or dog people then rate themselves on questions related to five personality traits: extraversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness, and openness (here used to indicate being creative or non-traditional).

Falling right in line with their furry counterparts, dog people were found to rank higher for the personal traits of conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness. Meanwhile cat people rated themselves as more neurotic and open.

Read more: Research Shows Personality Differences Between Cat and Dog Owners

The rebellion against bedtime starts young and often continues until the day kids leave home. For parents who consider throwing the towel in as their children enter their teens, there is new evidence for holding tight to a strict bedtime.

The average teenager needs at least nine hours of sleep each night, but just eight percent are get that much, shows a new study published in the journal Sleep. This shortage has effects far beyond the expected fatigue, the study showed. Youth who went to bed after midnight were 24 percent more likely to be depressed and 20 percent more likely to have thoughts of suicide compared to peers who went to bed by 10 p.m.

If your teen says this is too early, peer pressure may be in your favor: The study also found that 54 percent of teens had a bedtime of 10 p.m. while an additional 21 percent went to bed at 11 p.m. on school nights.

To help teens (and adults) get enough sleep, experts recommend avoiding late night meals, spending time before bed unwinding, and varying weekend wakeup times by no more than an hour from the weekday.

ABSTRACT: Bedtimes and the Blues: Evidence in Support of Improving Adolescent Sleep

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 1 in 110 children in the United States had autism in 2006. This marks a 57 percent increase from rates estimated in 2007.

In boys the rate rises to 1 in 70, while it is only 1 in 375 in girls. Forty-one percent of these children also had another intellectual disability.

Read more: Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders --- Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, United States, 2006

Are you a visual learner or more of a verbal learner?

For more than 30 years, learning styles have been recognized as paths to better present information depending on the individual. During this time 71 styles of learning have been identified by various studies, including visual, auditory and tactile/kinaesthetic. Now, researchers say the difference may be just a myth.

A report published this month in Psychological Science in the Public Interest reviewed existing studies on learning styles and found that current research has not involved the type of randomized, controlled experimentation that would make the scientifically credible.

While the researchers don't dismiss learning style assessments completely, they note that proper research should be done to validate their usefulness. In the meantime, they wisely suggest that "limited education resources would better be devoted to adopting other educational practices that have a strong evidence base, of which there are an increasing number."

FULL TEXT: Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence

As early as preschool child's gender determines how he or she is treated by others. Some educational systems try to counter this by encouraging teachers to implement and discuss gender equality.

However, even in Sweden, where curriculum includes gender equality and some educators are trained to be "gender pedagogues," it can be difficult to incorporate true change into the classroom. A new study released by The University of Gothenberg shows that even with this training, teachers tend to favor boys and have stereotypical ideas about what each gender is interested in.

Researchers from the University of Gothenburg’s Department of Education 45 hours of video footage of six preschool groups to witness how boys and girls were treated in the classroom. They found teachers responded to girls' questions and comments negatively and tended to "masculinize" teaching tools. In fact, they were not able to identify even one example "where teachers consciously challenge children to engage in border crossing" in the footage.

On the other hand, they found that children tended to challenge gender boundaries on their own, for example by renaming a figure the teacher had called a "man" as "mum."  The children also often played and learned together regardless of gender.

Read more: Preschoolers challenge stereotypical gender roles

About half of depression sufferers find relieve in antidepressant medications. But for the rest, these may provide little or no relief.

New research by Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine psychiatry professor Eva Redei suggests this may be because depression treatment is based on two faulty beliefs: first, that stressful life events trigger depression and second, that an imbalance in neurotransmitters is its biological cause.

Her studies show that in fact, there is no overlap between depression genes and stress genes. In a study of chronic stress on mice, she found that out of 254 genes related to stress and 1275 genes related to depression, just five overlapped--an insignificant number.

Most depression drugs are developed using a similar animal stress model. But if there isn't a strong connection between stress and depression, this model may be the wrong one.

Her research also suggested that the cause of depression begins not with neurotransmitters, but in the development and functioning of neurons in the brain. In this case, low levels of neurotransmitters such as serotonin would not be looked at as a direct cause of depression, but rather the effect of errors in neuron function.

If correct, the findings have the potential to greatly improve the treatment of depression by changing the very model by which antidepressants are developed.

Read more: Why antidepressants don't work for so many

Signs of depression may occur earlier than scientists have previously thought. A new study shows that up to 15 percent of children under age five have atypically high levels of depression and anxiety, with predictors of these symptoms appearing before a child's first birthday.

The five-year study by researchers from France, Canada and the U. S. involved a series of interviews and behavior observations on 1,758 children and their mothers. It revealed that depression in mothers is the second strongest predictor of childhood depression and anxiety. Shockingly, the first was the child's temperament at just five months.


ABSTRACT: Depression and anxiety symptoms: onset, developmental course and risk factors during early childhood

Workplace suicides increased 28 percent in 2008, reported the Department of Labor last week, reaching an all-time high of 251 deaths since tracking began in 1992.

Ninety-four percent of the suicides were committed by men, with workers between the ages of 45 and 54 accounting for the greatest number of deaths. Employees in management occupations were at the greatest risk, with 14 percent of the deaths.

Officials at the D.O.L. did not explain the rise, but said it planned to investigate the matter.

REPORT: Increase in Occupational Fatalities due to Suicide (PDF)

University of Denver researchers find that couples who live together before they are engaged have a higher chance of getting divorced than those who wait until they are married to live together, or at least wait until they are engaged. In addition, couples who lived together before engagement and then married, reported a lower satisfaction in their marriages.

The research, which appears in the "Journal of Family Psychology," was conducted by Galena Rhoades, senior researcher, Scott Stanley, research professor, and Howard Markman, professor of psychology.

"We think that some couples who move in together without a clear commitment to marriage may wind up sliding into marriage partly because they are already cohabiting," Rhoades says.

"It seems wise to talk about commitment and what living together might mean for the future of the relationship before moving in together, especially because cohabiting likely makes it harder to break up compared to dating," Stanley says.

The three researchers also studied the reasons why couples decide to live together. That study, which appeared in the "Journal of Family Issues," shows that most couples chose to live together in order to spend more time together. The second most popular reason is convenience, followed by testing the relationship. This is different than previous research that found most people cohabit to test the relationship.

"Cohabiting to test a relationship turns out to be associated with the most problems in relationships," Rhoades says. "Perhaps if a person is feeling a need to test the relationship, he or she already knows some important information about how a relationship may go over time."

Would you want to know if your genes put you at risk for developing Alzheimer's disease? New research suggests knowing may not be so bad after all.

In a report published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers tested 162 individuals who had a parent with Alzheimer's disease. These participants received an educational session about Alzheimer's disease and genetic testing, after which they were tested for Apolipoprotein E (APOE), a gene linked to an increased risk of the disease.

Researchers followed participants for a year, measuring levels of anxiety, depression and test-related distress at six weeks, six months and one year. They found that although levels of test-related distress were higher at six weeks, levels of depression and anxiety remained stable and on par with individuals who did not test positive for the gene.

Although researchers note that participants received the news from specially trained genetic counselors and were pre-screened for emotional problems that could cause complications, these findings suggest that overall, the disclosure of genetic risk may not be psychologically harmful.

ABSTRACT: Disclosure of APOE Genotype for Risk of Alzheimer's Disease