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Why ugly men believe pretty women are interested in them
Evening Herald: SOME men can get by on a wink and a smile -- but those with less chiselled features make up for it with misguided optimism about their own appearance. The study could help explain the mystery of why so many men think women are interested in them when they are not, a study claims. Some men are able to snare a partner far more attractive than them through relentless persistence and overblown belief in their own sex appeal. Scientists think this may be down to an evolutionary trait which tricks men into overestimating the value of their looks to prevent them from missing a mating opportunity.
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Donna Rose Addis
University of Auckland, New Zealand www.memorylab.org What does your research focus on? My research combines behavioral, neuroimaging, and neuropsychological methods to investigate how we remember the past, imagine the future, and construct a present sense of self. I have a particular interest in the role of the hippocampus in memory, and I have also examined how memory and future thinking changes with hippocampal dysfunction in temporal lobe epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, and healthy aging. What drew you to this line of research? Why is it exciting to you?
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Corinna E. Löckenhoff
Cornell University http://www.human.cornell.edu/hd/healthyaging What does your research focus on? My research examines age differences in personality and emotions and explores their influence on health-related decisions and outcomes. A central goal is to understand how age groups differ in their approach to healthcare choices and to find ways to optimize such choices across the life span. Another line of my research examines life-long trajectories in people’s personality traits and their relation to mental and physical health. What drew you to this line of research? Why is it exciting to you?
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Angelica Ronald
Birkbeck, University of London, UK http://www.bbk.ac.uk/psychology/our-staff/academic/angelica-ronald http://www.gel.bbk.ac.uk What does your research focus on? What causes people to have mental health problems across the lifespan. My research has so far focused on neurodevelopmental disorders, in particular, autism spectrum conditions. I am just starting a new project on the causes of psychotic experiences in adolescence. Both of these projects involve a longitudinal twin design to estimate the role of genetic and environmental influences on these conditions, as well as molecular genetic association designs.
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Amie Grills-Taquechel
University of Houston What does your research focus on? My primary research program focuses on examining developmental pathways to childhood anxiety disorders, as well as developing and evaluating prevention/intervention programs for childhood anxiety-related problems. My work in this area has examined the roles of peer (e.g., bullying and friendship quality), familial (e.g., parental anxiety and stress), and academic variables (e.g., achievement, attention) in the development of pediatric anxiety. I also have a secondary area of research, which pertains to risk and resiliency factors involved in the development of anxiety and related difficulties following traumatic events.
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Alan Castel
University of California, Los Angeles http://castel.bol.ucla.edu/ What does your research focus on? I study memory, metacognition and cognitive aging. I am interested in age-related differences in memory and cognition and how people make judgments and predictions about memory performance. Specifically, I am very interested in how people remember important information, and if older adults learn to remember important things at the expense of less important information. If you know you can’t remember everything, how do you prioritize what is important to remember? Does this same ability to focus on important information also make one a good student?