Mood News.

Breast Contentment

Breast Contentment Getting breast surgery tends to improve women's mental health, two recent studies suggest. One, published in Plastic Surgical Nursing, found a significant correlation between breast augmentation and increased self-esteem. In the other study, focusing on breast reduction, 20 women took a series of psychological tests when they first consulted a surgeon about the operation. Twenty percent of them had been treated for depression in the past, although none were depressed at that time. Four months after the procedure, every dimension of the patients' quality of life that the researchers measured had improved significantly -- including anxiety, ability to sleep, and attitude about appearance -- and the women generally felt that their hopes and expectations for the surgery had been fulfilled. Most surprising is that the women seemed to experience an improvement in anxiety as a personality trait, rather than as a temporary reaction to the surgery, according to psychologist Khadija Chahraoui and other authors of the study at the University of Bourgogne in Dijon, France. "We may ask whether successful cosmetic surgery leads to a major reorganization of psychological balance, which is related to the change in the subject's self-image," they write.

Mood News

Seeking Approval

Seeking Approval The desire to conform to other people's expectations may relate to one's year of birth. At San Diego State University, psychologists Jean M. Twenge and Charles Im reviewed tests given to more than 36,000 college students from 1958 to 2001 ...