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The Mixed Blessing of Workplace Friendships
A group of psychological scientists led by Jessica Methot of Rutgers University took a closer look at the benefits — as well as the potential tradeoffs — of friends at work.
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Redesigning and Enhancing the ‘Jigsaw Classroom’ Website
This project was supported by the APS Fund for Teaching and Public Understanding of Psychological Science, which invites applications for nonrenewable grants of up to $5,000 to launch new, educational projects in psychological science. Proposals are due October 1 and March 1. The “jigsaw classroom” is a cooperative learning technique that reduces racial conflict in the classroom and improves learning outcomes.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: An Enhanced Default Approach Bias Following Amygdala Lesions in Humans Laura A. Harrison, Rene Hurlemann, and Ralph Adolphs Monkeys that have amygdala lesions -- a part of the brain involved in memory, emotion, and learning -- show a tendency to approach stimuli that are normally considered threatening. The researchers examined whether amygdala lesions produce a general default bias to evaluate stimuli positively or a specific positivity bias -- in this case, a face-approach bias.
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Telecommuting Works Best in Moderation, Science Shows
Organizations are increasingly offering employees a variety of work-from-home options despite sometimes conflicting evidence about the effectiveness of telecommuting. A comprehensive new report reveals that telecommuting can boost employee job satisfaction and productivity, but only when it’s carefully implemented with specific individual and organizational factors in mind. A key factor in determining the success of a telework plan, for example, is the proportion of time that an employee works remotely versus in the office.
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Self-Control Competes with Memory
Research findings suggest that memory encoding and self-control share and vie for common cognitive resources: inhibiting our response to a stimulus temporarily tips resources away from encoding new memories.
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Open Practice Badges in Psychological Science: 18 Months On
In May 2014, an open research practices badge program was launched in Psychological Science. After about a year and a half, the results are promising: At least one out of about every three articles published in Psychological Science is conducted with specific attention to openness and transparency meriting a badge. The open practices badge program encourages authors to engage in open research practices and was devised in partnership with the Center for Open Science. Articles accepted for publication in Psychological Science are awarded badges for meeting any or all of the following criteria: Open Data The experiment’s data were submitted to an open-access repository.
