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Notre Dame Psychology Students Take on Wikipedia Challenge
Today @ Notre Dame: Wikipedia is often in the top results when people search for information online, but it isn’t always the most credible source. Enter a group of advanced Notre Dame undergraduates in psychology who have taken on the challenge to update, correct, or, in some cases, write new entries for the online encyclopedia. It’s all part of the new Association for Psychological Science (APS) Wikipedia Initiative—and Assistant Professor Gerald Haeffel’s “Science and Pseudoscience in Psychology” class is one of a select few across the country selected to participate. “We know that a lot of people get their science information from Wikipedia,” Haeffel says.
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Is bad bedside manner a conscious decision on the doctor’s part?
Toronto Star: Bad bedside manner — when a health-care practitioner fails to see the patient as human — can make or break an already complex relationship. Patients crave a deep relationship, full of empathy and trust, with their doctor or nurse. Such a relationship, however, is sometimes lacking in the medical field. Patients complain that doctors or nurses sometimes talk down to them, forgetting they have a family, feelings and concerns. What is the psychology behind a bad bedside manner? And is it a conscious or subconscious decision by the doctor?
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People See Sexy Pictures of Women as Objects, Not People
Perfume ads, beer billboards, movie posters: everywhere you look, women’s sexualized bodies are on display. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that both men and women see images of sexy women’s bodies as objects, while they see sexy-looking men as people. Sexual objectification has been well studied, but most of the research is about looking at the effects of this objectification. “What’s unclear is, we don’t actually know whether people at a basic level recognize sexualized females or sexualized males as objects,” says Philippe Bernard of Université libre de Bruxelles in Belgium.
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I’m an Awful Source
That’s the conclusion of Joel Stein in this recent Time article. “I've always been proud that my columns are 100% accurate, which isn't all that hard since I write only about me. But,” says Stein, "it turns out that I'm an awful source.” Keeping facts straight in our memory is a difficult task for humans, but the Internet has made it easier for us to record our lives, and just as easy for others to fact check. Stein writes “that night we fell in love instantly with our spouse?
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This Swag Says Psychological Science
You’ll talk the talk when you present your research at the 24th APS Annual Convention in Chicago, Illinois, May 24-27, 2012. So walk the walk too, in the latest APS swag!
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Donate to Help? Only if Nature Caused the Disaster
A series of experiments suggests that people are more likely to donate money to help victims of natural disasters as opposed to human-made catastrophes.