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Being in Awe Can Expand Time and Enhance Well-Being
It doesn't matter what we've experienced - whether it's the breathtaking scope of the Grand Canyon, the ethereal beauty of the Aurora Borealis, or the exhilarating view from the top of the Eiffel Tower - at some point in our lives we've all had the feeling of being in a complete and overwhelming sense of awe. Awe seems to be a universal emotion, but it has been largely neglected by scientists—until now. Psychological scientists Melanie Rudd and Jennifer Aaker of Stanford University Graduate School of Business and Kathleen Vohs of the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management devised a way to study this feeling of awe in the laboratory.
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How Shocking Will Others Find Lady Gaga?
In case you missed it, the cameras were rolling at the 24th APS Annual Convention in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Troy Campbell from Duke University presents his research “How Shocking Will Others Find Lady Gaga? Desensitization Via Repetition Biases Predictions.” The more experience you have, the wiser you are, right? Troy Campbell and colleagues at Duke University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Chicago found the opposite was true. Repeated exposure to jokes, pictures of Lady Gaga, sports photography, art, and a painful noise can actually make people worse at predicting how other people would experience the content.
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Social Identification, Not Obedience, Might Motivate Unspeakable Acts
What makes soldiers abuse prisoners? How could Nazi officials condemn thousands of Jews to gas chamber deaths? What’s going on when underlings help cover up a financial swindle? For years, researchers have tried to identify the factors that drive people to commit cruel and brutal acts and perhaps no one has contributed more to this knowledge than psychological scientist Stanley Milgram. Just over 50 years ago, Milgram embarked on what were to become some of the most famous studies in psychology.
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Exposure to Sexual Content in Popular Movies Predicts Sexual Behavior in Adolescence
Intuitively it simply makes sense: exposure to sexual content in movies at an early age probably influences adolescents' sexual behavior. And yet, even though a great deal of research has shown that adolescents who watch more risky behaviors in popular movies, like drinking or smoking, are more likely to drink and smoke themselves, surprisingly little research has examined whether movies influence adolescents' sexual behaviors. Until now. Over six years, psychological scientists examined whether or not seeing sex on the big screen translates into sex in the real world for adolescents.
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Reaching Olympic Heights – Insights on Sports Performance from Psychological Science
The 2012 Olympics in London are about to start, and millions around the world will admire and ponder the mysteries of athletic performance. Psychological scientists are no exception. Researchers have examined how visual illusions improve sports performance, how attitudes and beliefs about competence determine performance and what exactly happens when we indulge in silly sports rituals. These and other pieces of cutting edge research can be found in the journals published by the Association for Psychological Science.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about new research on memory recently published in Psychological Science. A Short-Term Testing Effect in Cross-Language Recognition Peter P. J. L. Verkoeijen, Samantha Bouwmeester, and Gino Camp Researchers know that repeated testing leads to better long-term memory for information than does repeated study; however, they are still unsure of why this occurs. Researchers had Dutch-English bilingual participants learn several lists of words in Dutch. In some instances they were tested after an initial study period (test condition), and in others they were told to study the list again (restudy condition). Participants' memory for the words was then tested in Dutch or English.
