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Sure, I remember that
Marketplace: How accurate are our memories? Not as accurate as we’d like to think, especially when it comes to political events. This week, we look at the work of University of California, Irvine, researcher Elizabeth Loftus, a memory expert, whose research shows just how easily we can be led to “remember” events that never happened. All you have to do is show someone a doctored photograph. These false memories become all the more intense when political beliefs are factored in -- Democrats are more likely to falsely remember events that show Republicans in a bad light, and vice-versa. Read the whole story: Marketplace See Elizabeth F. Loftus at the 25th APS Annual Convention.
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Mixing Alcohol With Diet Soda May Make You Drunker
NPR: Looking to cut back on the calories in your cocktail by mixing, say, diet soda and rum? Well, get ready for the buzz. According to the results of a new study, this combination will leave you drunker than if you'd mixed the liquor with a sugary, caloric mixer. "Alcohol, consumed with a diet mixer, results in higher (BrAC) Breath Alcohol Concentrations as compared to the same amount of alcohol consumed with a sugar-sweetened mixer," says Cecile Marczinski, a cognitive psychologist who authored the new study. Read the whole story: NPR
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The Best Day to List a Home Is…
The Wall Street Journal: T.G.I.F. One day of the week can mean an extra $5,000 in a home-seller's pocket. ... What makes Fridays so special (other than a six-pack and takeout pizza)? Adults who have a Monday-to-Friday workweek tend to be more positive and happier on Fridays, an effect that lasts through the weekend, says Richard Ryan, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester. They also tend to report more vitality and energy on the weekends, which may prompt them to be more proactive in searching for homes, says Prof. Ryan, who has studied how the day of the week affects mood.
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Shame About Past Drinking Problem May Lead to Relapse
LiveScience: Feeling shame about a past drinking problem might actually increase the likelihood of a relapse for recovering alcoholics, a new study shows. "How much shame participants displayed strongly predicted not only whether they relapsed, but how bad that relapse was — that is, how many drinks they had if they did relapse," said the study's authors, Jessica Tracy and Daniel Randles, both psychological scientists at the University of British Columbia. Read the whole story: LiveScience
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When Patients Do Nothing: Illness and Inertia
The Huffington Post: One of the most daunting public health challenges is getting people to take care of themselves in the most basic ways. It's not that people with cardiac risk don't know about exercise and its heart benefits. Or that people with diabetes are unaware of insulin treatment. Or that the elderly don't know about the flu and flu shots. It's that they don't take the first steps in helping themselves get and stay healthy, like seeing a physician and having a checkup and filling a prescription. In this sense, the biggest health risk for many is doing nothing, and the cost of this medical non-compliance could be higher than $100 billion a year in the U.S. alone. ...
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‘Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People’ by Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald
The Washington Post: What if we’re not the magnanimous people we think we are? That seems to be the conclusion of the past few decades of social psychology research. Freudstuck a dagger in the comforting idea of complete, conscious self-awareness, but experimental findings suggest that not only do we not know ourselves, if we did, we might not invite ourselves over for dinner. This research takes Freud’s dagger into our vanity and twists it. One of the greatest sources of torque is what’s called the Implicit Association Test, a computer-based assessment that susses out unconscious biases.
