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Parenting and Temperament in Childhood Predict Later Political Ideology
Political mindsets are the product of an individual’s upbringing, life experiences, and environment. But are there specific experiences that lead a person to choose one political ideology over another? New research from psychological scientist R. Chris Fraley of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and colleagues suggest that parenting practices and childhood temperament may play an influential role. Their study is published online in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
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APA Call for Nominations for Awards for Year 2013
Deadline: February 15, 2013 The Society for General Psychology, Division One of the American Psychological Association is conducting its Year 2013 awards competition, including the William James Book Award for a recent book that serves to integrate material across psychological subfields or to provide coherence to the diverse subject matter of psychology, the Ernest R. Hilgard Award for a Lifetime Career Contribution to General Psychology, the George A. Miller Award for an Outstanding Recent Article on General Psychology, and the Arthur W. Staats Lecture for Unifying Psychology, which is an American Psychological Foundation Award managed by the Society for General Psychology.
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Treating Anxiety
Many of us battle with fear and anxiety in our daily lives, but David Barlow was one of the first clinical psychologists to take this fight into the laboratory. Not only did he conduct much of the research characterizing the etiology of anxiety, but Barlow also can be credited with many of the breakthroughs in the treatment of anxiety disorders. His use of situational and interoceptive exposure as a treatment for panic disorders laid the foundation for the wider development of empirically validated cognitive behavioral therapies that have come to replace less scientifically sound treatment methodologies.
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New Research on Aging and Cognition From Psychological Science
Read about new research on aging and cognition published in Psychological Science. Stereotype Threat Strengthens Automatic Recall and Undermines Controlled Processes in Older Adults Marie Mazerolle, Isabelle Régner, Pauline Morisset, François Rigalleau, and Pascal Huguet Older people perform worse on memory tasks when they think they will be stereotypically judged. One theory about this says that stereotypes impair older adults' working memory, while another theory suggests that stereotypes increase activation of their prepotent responses, which are often incorrect.
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Take Control! Exploring How Self-Discipline Works and How We Might Boost It
Converging scientific evidence – not to mention a great deal of life experience – tells us that self-control is an important ability. It helps us keep our cool, get things done, and resist the things that tempt us. Scientists believe that gaining a clearer understanding of how self-control works could provide critical insights into addressing some of the large-scale problems facing society today, including obesity and addiction. Numerous studies have found evidence for the idea of self-control as a limited resource, but emerging research suggests that this model may not tell the whole story.
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Police Prejudice Is Not What You Think
Police photo provided by Shutterstock. Many police departments have a problem with prejudice — it’s a common assumption supported by empirical research. But when a team of psychological scientists led by Juliette Gatto of Blaise Pascal University, France, took a close look at prejudice in new police recruits, officers with a year of training, and a control group from the general population, they discovered unexpected nuances. The results were published in the European Journal of Social Psychology.
