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World we see is make-believe, top British scientist says
Herald Sun: Professor Bruce Hood will explore the limits of the human mind in a series of prestigious lectures for the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the oldest independent research body in the world, it was announced yesterday. The psychologist plans to induce false memories in audience members and use pickpockets to demonstrate how easily people are distracted, in a bid to prove how we have less control over our own decisions and perceptions than we like to imagine. "A lot of the world is make-believe. We're only aware of a fraction of what's going on," Hood told The (London) Times.
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Sept. 11 Revealed Psychologys Limits, Review Finds
The New York Times: The mental fallout from the Sept. 11 attacks has taught psychologists far more about their field’s limitations than about their potential to shape and predict behavior, a wide-ranging review has found. The report, a collection of articles due to be published next month in a special issue of the journal American Psychologist, relates a succession of humbling missteps after the attacks. Experts greatly overestimated the number of people in New York who would suffer lasting emotional distress. Therapists rushed in to soothe victims using methods that later proved to be harmful to some.
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Something for the weekend
Financial Times: Are women underrepresented in business and politics? And do they earn less than men because of gender inequalities in society or because women choose to opt out? Even more importantly, if there are still inequalities, why does society as a whole believe that women’s job opportunities are equal to men’s? Nicole Stephens, assistant professor of management at the Kellog school, and Stanford psychology doctoral student Cynthia Levine, have been investigating why there is a difference between what people perceive and the reality of the situation.
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Who Takes Risks?
U.S. News & World Report: It’s a common belief that women take fewer risks than men, and that adolescents always plunge in headlong without considering the consequences. But the reality of who takes risks when is actually a bit more complicated, according to the authors of a new paper which will be published in the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Adolescents can be as cool-headed as anyone, and in some realms, women take more risks than men.
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Les aliments gras remonteraient le moral, indépendamment de leur goût
RTL Belgium: Les chercheurs de l'Université de Leuven (Belgique) ont choisi 12 participants de poids normal et en bonne santé auxquels ils ont injecté des solutions concentrées en acides gras et des solutions de sérum physiologique, en présence d'images et de musique triste ou neutre. Les sujets auxquels on a injecté la solution grasse se disaient moins tristes que les personnes ayant reçu le sérum physiologique. Ils ont aussi subi des IRM, pour que les chercheurs puissent analyser leur activité cérébrale pendant l'expérience. Lire plus: RTL Belgium
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Why women ‘opt out’ of the workforce
Yahoo India: Washington, July 29 (ANI): A new research from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University have explained why many Americans fail to see persistent gender barriers between man and women at work front. The research demonstrates that the common American assumption that behaviour is a product of personal choice fosters the belief that opportunities are equal and that gender barriers no longer exist in today's workplace. The study suggested that the assumption that women "opt out" of the workforce, or have the choice between career or family, promotes the belief that individuals are in control of their fates and are unconstrained by the environment.
