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The Ever-Expanding Definition of “Diversity”
Diversity has become a goal for all sorts of institutions—but what it means may depend on who you ask. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that people’s ideologies help determine what they count as “diverse.” Miguel Unzueta, the study’s lead author, notes that “diversity” historically meant inclusiveness toward historically disadvantaged groups. Now, however, the term is commonly used to refer to people who are different in any way (even personality traits and food preferences)—and that, Dr. Unzueta argues, may be making the concept useless. Dr.
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1st World Conference on Personality
The Personality Psychology Foundation will hold the 1st World Conference on Personality March 19-23, 2013 in Stellenbosch, South Africa. For more information visit: http://www.perpsy.org/ Abstract submissions (symposia, papers, posters) are now open!! For the first time, this conference will bring together personality psychologists and psychologists with an interest in personality from the various regions of the world, to fully display the different perspectives on personality as pursued in different cultures, to stimulate further cooperation across the cultural borders, and to facilitate the commencement of new research-lines in the field.
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How lefties, righties see the world differently
msnbc: Be careful next time you cast a vote. Your “handedness” might make you choose the wrong candidate, according to a research review published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research sheds light on the so-called “body-specificity hypothesis” which simply means that how we make decisions and how we communicate with each other is influenced not only by our minds, but by our physical bodies.
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Economics Made Easy: Think Friction
The New York Times: CRITICS of Mitt Romney’s activities at Bain Capital have been described, somewhat hysterically, as critics of capitalism. They’re not. But they are attacking something. And understanding that something can have enormous implications for the shape of our economic institutions and activities going forward. What Bain Capital, and firms like it, do is try to increase the efficiency of the companies they buy. They try to get more with less — to eliminate waste. They are not interested either in creating jobs or in destroying them. Nor are they interested in improving the lives of consumers by making products and services better and cheaper.
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Nursing a broken heart? How taking a paracetamol could dull the pain of rejection
Daily Mail: It's what songwriters have been saying for years, and now scientists agree – love really does hurt. But what the ballads don’t tell us is that a simple dose of paracetamol could help ease the pain of a broken heart. The rather prosaic cure emerged in a study by neuroscientists which found that emotional pain is processed in the same area of the brain as physical pain. They also discovered that hurt feelings – such as being dumped by a partner – can respond to painkillers. In a three-week trial at the University of California, 62 people were told to take either Tylenol – the American name for paracetamol – or a placebo and then record how they felt every night.
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How the Military Can Change Personalities, Slightly
Miller-McCune: What life experience is more immersive than marriage, more prolonged than college, more tightly regimented than the average job? Ah yes — military service, which starts with recruiters boldly announcing their intention to make a new man of every trainee. Surely drill sergeants believe they can change personalities. But psychologists generally believe that our personalities don’t change much over time. Just sticking to the Big Five, we remain mostly agreeable, extroverted, conscientious, neurotic, and open-minded throughout our lives.
