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Language and Memory Are in Focus for Latest Cattell Sabbatical Awards
Gary Lupyan, Tracy Riggins, and Elizabeth Schotter are the latest recipients of the Sabbatical Fund Fellowship from the James McKeen Cattell Fund.
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Friendship and Diversity: A Path to Stronger Communities?
Podcast: Why do we gravitate towards friends who share our background and identity? How does this affect our sense of community and well-being? Under the Cortex explores.
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In Defense of Spoiling the End of the TV Show
The premiere of the first-ever season of The Golden Bachelorette has been on my calendar for months. I can’t wait to watch 24 men who have aged exceedingly well climb out of their limos and greet the star, Joan Vassos, on Sept. 18 at the Bachelor Mansion. I’ll pay special attention to a few of them—because I already know exactly which guys are making it to hometowns and fantasy suites, and which one will walk away with the final rose. ... When Jonathan Leavitt started researching spoilers, he wanted to prove that suspense is good—that waiting with bated breath to find out what happens enhances the reading or watching experience.
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APS Honors 13 Psychological Scientists With 2025 Lifetime Achievement Awards
Trailblazers in the study of resilience, working memory, burnout, and diversity are among the 13 scientists being honored with 2025 APS Lifetime Achievement Awards.
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Being Empathetic Is Easier when Everyone’s Doing It
As a grid of video feeds blinks into view, attendees across the country prepare for an ideological collision. All have signed up for a virtual forum billed as an “empathy cafe,” held to spark dialogue between police and community members. Among the participants are officers as well as people who’ve been burned in encounters with law enforcement. ... Increasing empathy, says Stanford University social psychologist Jamil Zaki, will take more than teaching skills such as listening actively to others. Empathy is a socially motivated process, Zaki and other researchers say, meaning that people won’t necessarily empathize just because they know how.
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Gen Z Has Regrets
Was social media a good invention? One way to quantify the value of a product is to find out how many of the people who use it wish it had never been invented. Feelings of regret or resentment are common with addictive products (cigarettes, for example) and addictive activities like gambling, even if most users say they enjoy them. For nonaddictive products — hairbrushes, say, or bicycles, walkie-talkies or ketchup — it’s rare to find people who use the product every day yet wish it could be banished from the world. For most products, those who don’t like the product can simply … not use it.
