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How Voters Really Decide
APS Fellow Jonathan Haidt explains how the science of moral judgment can shed light on voter behavior, political ideology, and compromise.
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Exercise Does a Body – and a Mind – Good
We’ve heard it time and time again: exercise is good for us. And it’s not just good for physical health – research shows that daily physical activity can also boost our mental health. But what
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Feeling Guilty Versus Feeling Angry – Who Can Tell the Difference?
When you rear-end the car in front of you at a stoplight, you may feel a mix of different emotions such as anger, anxiety, and guilt. The person whose car you rear-ended may feel angered and frustrated by your carelessness, but it’s unlikely that he’ll feel much guilt. The ability to identify and distinguish between negative emotions helps us address the problem that led to those emotions in the first place. But while some people can tell the difference between feeling angry and guilty, others may not be able to separate the two. Distinguishing between anger and frustration is even harder.
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Slow Thinking Is Wise Thinking
Nobel Prize-winning psychological scientist Daniel Kahneman called US President Barack Obama a “slow thinker.” That may sound like an insult, but it’s actually high praise. In his latest book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman describes two types of thinkers. System 1 thinkers operate automatically and quickly, with little sense of voluntary control, and little or no effort. System 2 thinkers, however, allocate attention to mental activities that demand it, and they also tend to be more deliberative. Kahneman describes President Obama as a System 2 thinker. “He is a slow thinker. He deliberates,” Kahneman said in this CNN article. “He doesn't follow his gut immediately. He considers things.
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Psychological Scientists Honored for Improbable Research
For the second year in a row, research published in Psychological Science is being recognized with the, erm, prestigious Ig Nobel Psychology Prize for scientific achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” The jocular prizes, awarded annually for studies in a number of scientific fields, honors research that is unusual, imaginative, and spurs people's interest in science, medicine, and technology. This year’s Ig Nobel–winning research was published in the December 2011 issue of Psychological Science.
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Edward Maibach on the Sticky Problem of Misinformation
“When it’s really important to educate the public about an issue, the most reliable means we have is simple, clear messages repeated often by a variety of trusted sources,” says Edward Maibach, Director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University. Maibach wrote the introduction to the latest issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest (PSPI), which features a report on misinformation by Stephan Lewandowsky (University of Western Australia, Australia) and four coauthors.
