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Six Early-Career Researchers Honored With 2023 APS Janet Taylor Spence Award
The six awardees are honored for groundbreaking research in areas including bias and discrimination, motivation, learning, and change.
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Stop Oversimplifying Mental Health Diagnoses
Podcast: Diagnoses often oversimplify complex mental health problems. APS Fellow Eiko Fried, a psychologist and methodologist at Leiden University, explains new approaches to mental health research and practice.
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Why Zoom ‘Happy Hour’ Falls FlatResults from a study published in Clinical Psychological Science suggest combining alcohol and virtual social interaction had negative effects compared to in-person gatherings. In the study, participants video called either a friend or a stranger seated in a separate room. Researchers gave some participants alcoholic drinks and others nonalcoholic drinks. As the call took place, researchers tracked participants’ eye movements, or “gaze behavior.” The study showed that participants who consumed alcohol before conducting the video chat spent more time watching themselves during the conversation instead of their partners.
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What Good Comes From Pretending?
Hang out with a 3-year-old and you will quickly be transported to a world of unicorns and superheroes, pretend tea parties and invisible spaceships. Young children spend hours pretending. But why would they spend so much time exploring imaginary worlds when there is so much to learn about the real one? Pretend play may help children to develop an essential kind of reasoning—counterfactual thinking, which helps you figure out what would happen if things were different.
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How Did Lebron James Break the NBA All-Time Scoring Record? By Playing the Long Game
Say you're LeBron James and your long-term goal is to score 38,388 points and break the NBA all-time scoring record. Scoring 30 points in a forgettable mid-season game early in your career was great, but was also just a drop in the 30,000-plus points bucket. Success has, until last night -- when you scored 38 points against Oklahoma City to become the all-time scoring leader -- was always a lagging indicator. LeBron had to play the long, long game. Fortunately, that's a game LeBron has always been willing to play.
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The Nutrition Field Is Incredibly White — Here’s Why That’s Harmful for BIPOC Communities
From your daily smoothie to whether you opt for brown rice or white rice, nutrition impacts everything from your energy levels to your ability to score quality sleep, as well as any exercise goals and recovery efforts. On the flip side, deficiencies in important nutrients can lead to chronic health issues, such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer. However, once you drill down past the basic principles of eating more fruits and veggies, nutrition advice today can be incredibly convoluted, especially since the breadth of the $946 billion industry makes it difficult to keep up with the latest research and expert-backed recommendations.