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APSSC Award Winners Talk About Identity and Race
Eighty-three years after the birth Martin Luther King, Jr., psychological scientists continue to investigate race, cultural identity, and prejudice. Three APSSC Award presentations at the APS 23rd Annual Convention in Washington, DC addressed how these factors influence health and social interaction. Watch Sabrica Barnett (The City University of New York), Bryan Jensen (Brigham Young University), and Lillian Polanco (Hunter College) present their research. Designing effective methods to combat prejudice is still a challenge for researchers. To learn more, read Wray Herbert’s blog on the problem with “colorblindness” or recent research on anti-prejudice messages from Psychological Science.
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How Do You Get Doctors to Wash Their Hands?
Huffington Post: The field of medicine has understood the importance of hand washing for almost 200 years. The Hungarian Ignaz Semmelweis found that when people in an obstetric clinic washed their hands, incidence of infections plummeted. These days, hospitals have signs all over that remind patients and staff to wash their hands at every opportunity. The fact that you need signs, though, suggests that not everyone is washing their hands all the time. What kinds of signs are likely to be most effective? Lots of research on persuasion suggests that a good message is one that requires people to take individual responsibility for their own personal consequences.
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Tall tales: Powerful people tend to overestimate height
msnbc: In June 2010, the Swedish-born Chairman of BP Carl-Henric Svanberg touched off a firestorm of controversy with his remarks about his company's reaction to the Gulf oil spill. "... we care about the small people. I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don't care. But that is not the case in BP. We care about the small people." The twice used reference to "small people" hit a raw nerve with residents of the Gulf in the wake of the manmade disaster. Svanberg was quickly forced to apologize and admit "he spoke clumsily." Read the full story: msnbc
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13 Common (But Silly) Superstitions
LiveScience: If you are spooked by Friday the 13th, you're in for a whammy of a year. This week's unlucky day is the first of three for 2012. And it would come as no surprise if many among us hold at least some fear of freaky Friday, as we humans are a superstitious lot. Many superstitions stem from the same human trait that causes us to believe in monsters and ghosts: When our brains can't explain something, we make stuff up. In fact, a 2010 study found that superstitions can sometimes work, because believing in something can improve performance on a task. Here, then, are 13 of the most common superstitions. Read the full story: LiveScience
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Ini Tujuh Bahan Dasar Meraih Kebahagiaan
Metro TV News Indonesia: Ilmuan Australia telah mempublikasikan dalam jurnal sains populer, Psychological Science, mengenai daftar 'bahan' yang diperlukan seseorang untuk benar-benar merasa bahagia. Ilmuwan itu berkomentar pada daftar pra-syarat untuk kebahagiaan. Menurut para peneliti, ada tujuh daftar mengenai 'bahan' kebahagiaan: Read the full story: Metro TV News Indonesia
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Taking Another Look at the Roots of Social Psychology
Psychology textbooks have made the same historical mistake over and over. Now the inaccuracy is pointed out in a new article published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. For generations, social psychology students have read that Norman Triplett did the first social psychology experiment in 1889, when he found that children reeled in a fishing line faster when they were in the presence of another child than when they were alone. But almost everything about that sentence is wrong.