Promoting mental health is a major global challenge. As mindfulness meditation apps can help maintain and restore good mental health, it is important to understand how their efficacy and safety are portrayed in the media. This study systematically evaluates whether evidence from academic research is used to communicate the health effects of two popular mindfulness apps, Calm and Smiling Mind. A...
Across three studies (total N = 952), we tested how self-admitted use of psychedelics and association with psychedelic culture affects the public’s evaluation of researchers’ scientific integrity and of the quality of their research. In Studies 1 and 2, we found that self-admitted substance use negatively affected people’s assessment of a fictitious researcher’s integrity (i.e. being unbiased,...
For a long time rationalism and materialism were the most important ideological undercurrents of the Western world. Since the Enlightenment, in the eighteenth century, they have influenced the Age of Reason. During the past few decades, the so-called New Age originated strong counter-movements have produced a huge number of different new world-views. They are to be considered as part of the...