Blue Monday: Perpetuating a media hype or promoting mental health awareness?

One Monday in mid-to-late January is said to be the most depressing day of the year. For the past 12 years, a Welsh psychologist has been associated with this day. He has become known as the brain behind Blue Monday, allegedly developing the formula used to calculate the date. But what is the real story, and how has it developed over time?

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How saying the first thing that “comes to mind” makes us fluent speakers

An interview with Simone Sprenger

Every quarter, we share articles published in the BCN Newsletter and we are happy today to share an interview with Dr. Simone Sprenger, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Arts, who studies language perception and bilingualism. The interview was conducted and written by Améie la Roi, PhD candidate in linguistics.

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Pleasure from Food – Insights from brain responses to taste

The desire to understand the neuronal mechanisms underlying changes in food pleasantness is becoming increasingly relevant in order to maintain adequate dietary intake in young and older adults. Our research shows that emotion and cognitive mechanisms, in addition to sensation, should be taken into account to understand food pleasantness with age.

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Working on the environment: How to motivate people who don’t really care.

Organizations increasingly aim to reduce their ecological footprint and to encourage pro-environmental behaviour at work. This Thursday, November 24, Angela Ruepert will defend her PhD-thesis showing that although strong environmental values predict pro-environmental behaviour, employees with weaker environmental values also act pro-environmentally when the work context makes them focus on the environment.

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Hate-groups, Trump, and a lot of angry people

Make America great again, or make America hate again? Trump’s campaign has raised many troubling questions. He has at various stages proposed building a wall and purging illegal immigrants, or retweeted the messages of Neo-Nazi fanatics. Yet still, his popularity is huge. And this popularity will continue after election day.   Will today, the 8th […]

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