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Book Signings at the 2015 APS Annual Convention
Frans B. M. de Waal, APS Past President Michael Gazzaniga, APS James McKeen Cattell Fellow Marsha M. Linehan, APS Fellow Gabriele Oettingen, and APS Fellow Steven Pinker, and will be signing copies of their newest books at the APS Annual Convention, May 21–24 in New York City. These eminent psychological scientists will also be speaking at the Convention. Register today. Frans B. M. de Waal Emory University The Bonobo and the Atheist The Age of Empathy Michael Gazzaniga University of California, Santa Barbara Tales From Both Sides of the Brain: A Life in Neuroscience Marsha M.
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One Way to Rein in Powerful People? Honest Feedback
While it’s standard practice for supervisors to provide regular feedback to their subordinates, it’s far less common for employees to get the opportunity to candidly appraise their supervisors’ performance. A new study suggests that honesty may be the best policy for ensuring that leaders look out for everyone, not just themselves. By definition, people in positions of power call the shots as to how resources are divided up. This power gives leaders the opportunity to behave selfishly, keeping more resources for themselves rather than sharing perks and profits equitably with employees.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Illusory Feature Slowing: Evidence for Perceptual Models of Global Facial Change Richard Cook, Clarisse Aichelburg, and Alan Johnston Much of the research examining face perception has studied static faces; there is less research examining how we process faces in motion. Participants viewed two faces: a standard face that was presented in an upright or an inverted position and a comparison face that was always presented upright. The eyes and the mouth of the standard face opened and closed, while only the eyes on the comparison face moved.
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A Disagreeable Personality Can Help Get Original Ideas Noticed
Infamously disagreeable innovators ranging from Thomas Edison to Steve Jobs have helped to propagate the idea that being headstrong and aggressive may be linked with creative genius. After all, creative success isn’t just about coming up with an innovative idea -- you also have to convince others to get behind your idea, and this is where researchers find that being a jerk may come in handy. But new research shows that you don’t have to be a jerk to come up with the next game-changing creative idea.
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Teenagers Shape Each Other’s Views on How Risky a Situation Is
Young adolescents’ judgments on how risky a situation might be are most influenced by what other teenagers think, while most other age groups are more influenced by adults’ views, according to new research in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Psychology researchers at University College London (UCL) asked 563 visitors to the London Science Museum to rate the riskiness of everyday situations such as crossing a road on a red light or taking a shortcut through a dark alley. Ratings were given on a continuous scale from low to high risk, and children (aged 8-11) generally rated situations as more risky than all other age groups.
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Seeing Red on the Road: Can Car Color Impact Driver Behavior?
It’s a common belief that driving a red car leads to more speeding tickets and higher car insurance rates. However, research from a 2007 study by Monash University in Australia found that red cars are actually slightly less likely to be involved in accidents compared to other colors (black cars were actually most accident prone). The insurance industry also denies that car color comes into play when setting car insurance rates, though they do look at the vehicle make and model. New research from an international team of psychological scientists puts the brakes on another common stereotype about red cars: they elicit more aggressive driving.
