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A Psychological Solution Prevents Rubbernecking
People just can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to gawking at accidents and car crashes. Rubbernecking—or slowing down to scope out an accident on the side of the road—is a major cause of traffic jams. The bright lights and colors on emergency response vehicles are designed to grab people’s visual attention. But, these attention-grabbing qualities can also make scenes on the side of the road unintentionally distracting for drivers. As part of an effort to keep drivers’ eyes on the road and feet on the gas pedal, the government in the UK is already investing in incident screens to block drivers’ wandering eyes.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Perceived Partner Responsiveness Predicts Diurnal Cortisol Profiles 10 Years Later Richard B. Slatcher, Emre Selcuk, and Anthony D. Ong Decades of research has shown that marriage affects health; however, few studies have actually investigated how marriage "gets under the skin" to influence biological and psychological health. The authors hypothesized that cortisol might provide this link. Cortisol has a diurnal rhythm, peaking in the morning and decreasing over the course of the day. Research has linked flatter cortisol slopes to a host of negative psychological and psychological outcomes.
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The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment
The New Yorker: On the morning of August 17, 1971, nine young men in the Palo Alto area received visits from local police officers. While their neighbors looked on, the men were arrested for violating Penal Codes 211 and 459 (armed robbery and burglary), searched, handcuffed, and led into the rear of a waiting police car. The cars took them to a Palo Alto police station, where the men were booked, fingerprinted, moved to a holding cell, and blindfolded. Finally, they were transported to the Stanford County Prison—also known as the Stanford University psychology department.
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No Time to Be Nice at Work
The New York Times: MEAN bosses could have killed my father. I vividly recall walking into a hospital room outside of Cleveland to see my strong, athletic dad lying with electrodes strapped to his bare chest. What put him there? I believe it was work-related stress. For years he endured two uncivil bosses. Rudeness and bad behavior have all grown over the last decades, particularly at work. For nearly 20 years I’ve been studying, consulting and collaborating with organizations around the world to learn more about the costs of this incivility. How we treat one another at work matters. Insensitive interactions have a way of whittling away at people’s health, performance and souls. Robert M.
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Why you probably hate the sound of your own voice
The Washington Post: Whether you've heard yourself talking on the radio or just gabbing in a friend's Instagram video, you probably know the sound of your own voice -- and chances are pretty good that you hate it. As the video above explains, your voice as you hear it when you speak out loud is very different from the voice the rest of the world perceives. That's because it comes to you via a different channel than everyone else. ... “We see ourselves in the mirror all the time—you brush your teeth, you shave, you put on makeup,” Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Center, told The Atlantic. “Looking at yourself in the mirror becomes a firm impression.
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Benefitting from Nepotism Carries Hidden Costs
From politics to Hollywood, it’s not always what you know but who you know that gets you the job. The right family contacts have helped generations of well-connected children climb the corporate ladder. But new research from Butler University psychological scientists Margaret Padgett, Robert Padgett, and Kathryn Morris from Butler University concludes that beneficiaries of nepotism pay a price. “People have negative attitudes toward nepotism and consequently, stigmatize those who benefit from a family connection in the hiring process,” the researchers write in the Journal of Business and Psychology. In the first study, they analyzed a sample of 191 MBA students.
