The groundbreaking study found that suicidality dropped for transgender youth receiving hormone therapy by nearly 70%, with only 7 patients of 432 discontinuing treatment.

Seeking applicants for a Research Assistant Professor faculty position at the University of New Mexico on an NIH funded grant evaluating personalized ...

Elevate your expertise with top experts in couples therapy and relationship coaching at our evidence-based event on techniques and research in sexual health.

Sometimes, researchers worry about multicollinearity in situations where it’s actually a non-issue. Here’s one such scenario. Imagine a situation where you are interested in the effect of X on Y (X...

Psychometric network models have become increasingly popular in psychology and the social sciences. Huth et al. show that a large proportion of reported network findings are based on weak or inconclusive evidence inviting caution when interpreting results.

YouTube video by HiTOP

A growing number of self-report measures aim to define interactions with social media in a pathological behavior framework, often using terminology focused on identifying those who are ‘addicted’ to engaging with others online. Specifically, measures of ‘social media addiction’ focus on motivations for online social information seeking, which could relate to motivations for offline social information seeking. However, it could be the case that these same measures could reveal a pattern of friend addiction in general. This study develops the Offline-Friend Addiction Questionnaire (O-FAQ) by re-wording items from highly cited pathological social media use scales to reflect “spending time with friends”. Our methodology for validation follows the current literature precedent in the development of social media ‘addiction’ scales. The O-FAQ had a three-factor solution in an exploratory sample of N = 807 and these factors were stable in a 4-week retest (r = .72 to .86) and was validated against personality traits, and risk-taking behavior, in conceptually plausible directions. Using the same polythetic classification techniques as pathological social media use studies, we were able to classify 69% of our sample as addicted to spending time with their friends. The discussion of our satirical research is a critical reflection on the role of measurement and human sociality in social media research. We question the extent to which connecting with others can be considered an ‘addiction’ and discuss issues concerning the validation of new ‘addiction’ measures without relevant medical constructs. Readers should approach our measure with a level of skepticism that should be afforded to current social media addiction measures.

Scientific Reports - Transformation starts at the periphery of networks where pushback is less

Theoretical models of substance use motives emphasize the role of affect when making decisions about use and propose that there are moments during whi…

This Viewpoint discusses an upcoming US Supreme Court case that will examine whether Colorado’s ban on conversion efforts for minors appropriately regulates substandard clinical practice or is a viewp...