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Uncovering a New Angle on Mental Distance
Why does the second hour of a journey seem shorter than the first? According to research from University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) and the Rotman School of Management, the answer lies in how we’re physically oriented in space. In a series of six studies, Sam Maglio, an assistant professor in UTSC’s Department of Management, demonstrated that a person’s orientation -- the direction they are headed -- changed how they thought of an object or event. The research is forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “Feeling close to or distant from something impacts our behavior and judgment,” says Maglio.
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Wage Disparity and the Masculinity of Money
The US Senate failed yesterday to pass legislation that would amplify women’s ability to sue their employers when they earn less than male colleagues for equal work. Democrats argue that the existing laws aren’t enough, pointing to figures showing women making 77 cents for every dollar that men earn. Republicans opposed the measure, arguing that the pay-gap figures are misleading and that federal law already makes pay discrimination illegal. But beneath the statistics and political debate are some psychological factors that appear to perpetuate the pay inequities no matter what the law says.
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Did You Hear That? Specific Brain Activity Linked With Imagined Hearing
Being able to distinguish what is real and what is not may seem pretty basic, but the inability to perform this task could be a marker of many psychiatric disorders. This task, known to researchers as “reality monitoring,” is at the core of a study from scientists at Yale University.
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How the Language in Job Ads Affects the Quality of Applicants
It’s the bane of every hiring manager — a deep pool of job applicants with a shallow set of skills and qualifications. But the stack of mediocre résumés doesn’t reflect a dearth in available talent, necessarily. It may simply be the result of the language used in the advertisement for the opening. Ads have a better chance of drawing excellent candidates when they emphasize what the job offers, rather than what it requires, according to the results of a new psychological study. The research is based on the premise that job seekers are attracted to positions that suit not only their need for a paycheck, but their psychological needs for fulfillment and achievement, as well.
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Thinking About a Majority-Minority Shift Leads to More Conservative Views
Facing the prospect of racial minority groups becoming the overall majority in the United States leads White Americans to lean more toward the conservative end of the political spectrum.
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The Nature/Nurture Mixture
The nature/nurture interaction is a vibrant and important field of study in behavioral science. Terrie Moffitt has focused her research on how genes and environment can, in certain combinations, spur antisocial and criminal behaviors. Her groundbreaking research, in collaboration with psychological scientist Avshalom Caspi, showed that individuals with a specific genotype are more vulnerable to developing antisocial and violent behavior if they are mistreated during childhood. She’s also linked another genotype to a risk for depression in the wake of stressful life events. Watch Terrie Moffitt's keynote address at the inaugural International Convention of Psychological Science.
