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“The Young Ones” nominated for BAFTA
Harvard Gazette: “The Young Ones,” a BBC series filmed with Harvard Professor of Psychology Ellen Langer, which replicates her Counterclockwise study using British celebrities, has been nominated for a British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTA) Award. The BAFTAs are the British equivalent of the Emmy Awards. The awards ceremony will be held May 22. Read the whole story: Harvard Gazette
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Think it’s easy to be macho? Psychologists show how ‘precarious’ manhood is
Manhood is a “precarious” status—difficult to earn and easy to lose. And when it’s threatened, men see aggression as a good way to hold onto it. These are the conclusions of a new article by University of South Florida psychologists Jennifer K. Bosson and Joseph A. Vandello. The paper is published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “Gender is social,” says, Bosson. “Men know this. They are powerfully concerned about how they appear in other people’s eyes.” And the more concerned they are, the more they will suffer psychologically when their manhood feels violated.
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Powerful Women as Likely to Cheat as Men, Study Finds
Bloomberg Businessweek: Women in powerful positions are just as likely as men to cheat on their spouses, according to new research. It's widely believed that men are more likely than women to cheat on their spouses, but power appears to be a more important factor than gender, according to the study published April 28 in the journal Psychological Science. "There has been a lot of research in the past that indicates that gender is the strongest predictor of infidelity, but none of these studies have been done on powerful women," Joris Lammers, of Tilburg University in the Netherlands, said in a journal news release. Read the whole story: Bloomberg Businesweek
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How Happy Are You? A Census Wants to Know
The New York Times: When they filled out the city’s census forms this spring, the people of Somerville got a new question. On a scale of 1 to 10, they were asked, “How happy do you feel right now?” Officials here want this Boston suburb to become the first city in the United States to systematically track people’s happiness. Like leaders in Britain, France and a few other places, they want to move beyond the traditional measures of success — economic growth — to promote policies that produce more than just material well-being.
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Confirmed: Two heads aren’t always better than one
CBS News: Two heads aren't always better than one, at least when it comes to memory. People who memorize facts in groups remember less than solo students do, according to a newly published overview of memory research. The group as a whole remembers more than any single memorizer would have, but the people in the group fail to live up to their full memory potential, each recalling less than if they'd studied alone. On the other hand, according to study researcher Suparna Rajaram, a psychologist at Stony Brook University in New York, other people's memories can enrich our own, as can be attested by anyone who suddenly recalls a long-ago event when another person starts telling a story.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Asymmetry in Resting Intracortical Activity as a Buffer to Social Threat Katrina Koslov, Wendy Barry Mendes, Petra E. Pajtas, and Diego A. Pizzagalli People respond to social rejection differently. To investigate whether differences in resting cortical brain activity could be responsible for different responses to social rejection, 84 women were asked to write a brief speech then read it in front of two other people. The individuals watching the speech would either frown and act like they hated the speech (threat condition) or provide positive feedback and encouragement (evaluation condition).
