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Sophie Scott and the Science of Laughter
The Wall Street Journal: The first time that the neuroscientist Sophie Scott performed standup comedy, in 2010, she did it out of professional jealousy. One of her colleagues at University College London had done his own amateur routine at a new comedy club and was bragging about how good he’d been. As one of the world’s leading researchers on laughter, Dr. Scott, 48, decided that she had to try it herself. At the pub where she made her debut, she locked herself in the restroom and wondered, “What am I doing? Why would I put myself through this needless level of stress?” Once she got on stage, though, she was hooked.
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Why Do We Experience Awe?
The New York Times: HERE’S a curious fact about goose bumps. In many nonhuman mammals, goose bumps — that physiological reaction in which the muscles surrounding hair follicles contract — occur when individuals, along with other members of their species, face a threat. We humans, by contrast, can get goose bumps when we experience awe, that often-positive feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends our understanding of the world. Why do humans experience awe? Years ago, one of us, Professor Keltner, argued (along with the psychologist Jonathan Haidt) that awe is the ultimate “collective” emotion, for it motivates people to do things that enhance the greater good.
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Advil vs. Tylenol: Which to use and when
Fox News: When a headache, back pain or other complaint strikes, many people believe Advil, Tylenol and other over-the-counter analgesics are pretty much interchangeable. Far from it. These medications are each at their best when taken for certain ailments, in part because they work differently in the body and can have different side effects. Got a headache? Tylenol, or its generic version acetaminophen, might be your best bet since it comes with fewer side effects, many experts say. Inflamed elbow? Advil, whose active ingredient is ibuprofen, is likely to bring greater relief.
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Broadening the Reach of Mental Health Care Through Online Interventions
Data from an online smoking cessation intervention demonstrate the potential of bringing evidence-based mental health care to a wider range of people via the internet.
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The Road to Reproducibility
In a symposium chaired by APS Treasurer Roberta Klatzky, leaders in the area of reproducibility convened to review some of the steps currently being taken to shore up confidence in conclusions about psychological phenomena.The panelists discussed ways to make psychological science more robust in both the way experiments are designed and the way results are interpreted.
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Why Diversity Should Matter to Psychological Science
At a special event exploring the urgent need for more racial and ethnic diversity in psychological science, APS Fellow Robert M. Sellers analyzed some of the reasons the field is dominated by Western, educated, industrialized, rich, Democrat (WEIRD) individuals. He noted that 60% of US studies and 80% of international studies are conducted on college students and that the vast majority of college students are white — conditions that mean minorities remain underrepresented both in studies and in academia itself.
