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A Psychological Solution Prevents Rubbernecking
People just can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to gawking at accidents and car crashes. Rubbernecking—or slowing down to scope out an accident on the side of the road—is a major cause of traffic jams. The bright lights and colors on emergency response vehicles are designed to grab people’s visual attention. But, these attention-grabbing qualities can also make scenes on the side of the road unintentionally distracting for drivers. As part of an effort to keep drivers’ eyes on the road and feet on the gas pedal, the government in the UK is already investing in incident screens to block drivers’ wandering eyes.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Perceived Partner Responsiveness Predicts Diurnal Cortisol Profiles 10 Years Later Richard B. Slatcher, Emre Selcuk, and Anthony D. Ong Decades of research has shown that marriage affects health; however, few studies have actually investigated how marriage "gets under the skin" to influence biological and psychological health. The authors hypothesized that cortisol might provide this link. Cortisol has a diurnal rhythm, peaking in the morning and decreasing over the course of the day. Research has linked flatter cortisol slopes to a host of negative psychological and psychological outcomes.
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APS Commits to Promoting Transparent Science
Conducting research in a transparent, open, and reproducible way is essential to achieving credible results that advance knowledge in any scientific discipline. Yet, there is no set of organized rules that defines and encourages such open and transparent practices.
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3rd Annual Behavior Change, Health, and Health Disparities Conference
Watch the conference live! Please see the conference agenda online and use this link to tune in, Oct 1 and 2, starting at 8 a.m. The 3rd Annual Behavior Change, Health, and Health Disparities Conference will be held October 1–2, 2015 in Burlington, Vermont. The conference theme will be “Capitalizing on Behavioral Economics to Address Major Behavior Health Problems.” Personal behavior patterns (i.e., lifestyle) increase risk for chronic disease and premature death. Unhealthy behaviors (e.g., physical inactivity/unhealthy food choices, tobacco use, prescription opioid abuse) represent the leading cause of chronic disease and premature deaths in the U.S.
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Benefitting from Nepotism Carries Hidden Costs
From politics to Hollywood, it’s not always what you know but who you know that gets you the job. The right family contacts have helped generations of well-connected children climb the corporate ladder. But new research from Butler University psychological scientists Margaret Padgett, Robert Padgett, and Kathryn Morris from Butler University concludes that beneficiaries of nepotism pay a price. “People have negative attitudes toward nepotism and consequently, stigmatize those who benefit from a family connection in the hiring process,” the researchers write in the Journal of Business and Psychology. In the first study, they analyzed a sample of 191 MBA students.
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2nd World Conference on Personality
The 2nd World Conference on Personality will be held March 31–April 4, 2016, in Búzios, Brazil. For more information, visit www.perpsy2016.com.
