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Three Men, Three Ages. Which Do You Like?
The New York Times: It turns out that a young Max and a middle-aged Max can get away with saying things that an old Max cannot. At least that is the conclusion of a new study by Princeton researchers aimed at measuring age discrimination, one of the toughest forms of workplace bias to prove. The subjects of the experiment -- 137 Princeton undergraduates -- were shown a video of a man who would be their partner in a trivia contest. His name was Max, he was white, neither handsome nor ugly, wore a checked shirt and said he was from Hamilton, N.J.
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What’s in a Royal Name? Psychological Researchers Explain the Significance
The royal baby has been named — George Alexander Louis. And that handle will have a significant bearing on the child's future, psychological researchers say. As Jason Goldman of the University of Southern California describes in The Guardian, children born in European nations are more likely to have popular, traditional names than children born in countries colonized by European explorers. Those findings were reported in a 2011 study published in Psychological Science. And it appears the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge followed this naming norm, in effect safeguarding the child's future public image.
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How Do Babies Learn to Be Wary of Heights?
Infants develop a fear of heights as a result of their experiences moving around their environments, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Learning to avoid cliffs, ledges, and other precipitous hazards is essential to survival and yet human infants don’t show an early wariness of heights. As soon as human babies begin to crawl and scoot, they enter a phase during which they’ll go over the edge of a bed, a changing table, or even the top of a staircase.
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Going Through the Motions Improves Dance Performance
Expert ballet dancers seem to glide effortlessly across the stage, but learning the steps is both physically and mentally demanding. New research suggests that dance marking -- loosely practicing a routine by “going through the motions” -- may improve the quality of dance performance by reducing the mental strain needed to perfect the movements. The new findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggest that marking may alleviate the conflict between the cognitive and physical aspects of dance practice, allowing dancers to memorize and repeat steps more fluidly.
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To Savor the Flavor, Perform a Short Ritual First
Birthday celebrations often follow a formula, including off-key singing, making a birthday wish while blowing out candles, and the ceremonial cutting of the birthday cake. New research suggests that this ritual not only makes the
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Society for Affective Science Inaugural Conference
A new society has been formed -- The Society for Affective Science. Its mission is to foster basic and applied research in the variety of fields that study affect, broadly defined. The SAS inaugural conference will be April 24-26, 2014 in Washington DC. This will be a theoretically/methodologically diverse, student-friendly conference that will provide a forum for cross-cutting work in emotion, stress, and many of the other topics that fall under the broad umbrella of affective science. For more information, and to get early-bird registration rates, see the society website: society-for-affective-science.org. For questions, contact [email protected].