-
Bad Drivers? No, Just Bad Stereotypes
Ugly stereotypes about “bad drivers” creep into pop culture, jokes, and slurs on a regular basis. The pernicious stereotype of “bad Asian drivers” has made its way into popular TV shows like Family Guy and websites like Urban Dictionary. In August of 2014, an Australian politician publicly apologized for stating that Asian drivers had “no comprehension” of the road rules, according to The Guardian. However, research on traffic accidents actually shows that many of the groups who are often stereotyped as “bad drivers” -- women, Asians, and the elderly -- are actually less likely to get into accidents or break traffic laws than are people from other demographic groups.
-
Americans are obsessed with parenting advice. So why are our kids so miserable?
The Washington Post: Americans are obsessed with parenting advice. Bloggers, magazines, whole Web sites urge us to do more. Or less. Be more Chinese, they implore. Or more French. But despite this constant flow of advice, we have very little idea how to make kids happy.
-
Studying for the Test by Taking It
The New York Times: PROTESTS are flaring up in pockets of the country against the proliferation of standardized tests. For many parents and teachers, school has become little more than a series of workout sessions for the assessment du jour. And that is exactly backward, research shows. Tests should work for the student, not the other way around. In an experiment published late last year, two University of Texas psychologists threw out the final exam for the 900 students in their intro psych course and replaced it with a series of short quizzes that students took on their laptops at the beginning of each class. “They didn’t like it, at least at first,” said one of the professors, James W.
-
How to Train Your Voice to Be More Charismatic
The Wall Street Journal: Scientists are tuning in on the power of the spoken word, seeking the secrets of charisma. By analyzing the harmonics of pitch, frequency and timbre, researchers at University of California, Los Angeles are discovering how charismatic public speakers use their voices to dominate, rouse and influence a large audience. They are finding that successful politicians in various countries, including Italy, France and Brazil, all share key vocal qualities that strongly affect how people respond to them, independent of the meaning of the words they say or the ideas they express.
-
What Happens When You Make Someone Feel Wealthy
New York Magazine: Since society's winners tend to get to make the rules, the way winners react to being winners is really important. What's the psychological effect of feeling like you've crawled to the top of the heap (or have been ensconced there comfortably for a while)? A key to answering this question is understanding that people can't always gauge their position in society correctly — sometimes, the best they can do is take a quick glance at their neighbors and base their opinion on that.
-
The High Costs of Status Seeking
It’s well known that income inequality leads to all sorts of social problems. The bigger the gap between the affluent and the poor, the higher the rates of homicide, teenage pregnancy and infant mortality, to name just a few of the negative outcomes. Unequal societies are also more polarized politically, and their economies are not as robust. Despite all this evidence of untoward consequences, it’s not really known why this is the case. What is the psychosocial link between income gaps and societal dysfunction?
