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Framing Spatial Tasks as Social Eliminates Gender Differences
Women underperform on spatial tests when they don’t expect to do as well as men, but framing the tests as social tasks eliminates the gender gap in performance, according to new findings published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The results show that women performed just as well as their male peers when the spatial tests included human-like figures. “Our research suggests that we may be underestimating the abilities of women in how we measure spatial thinking,” says postdoctoral researcher Margaret Tarampi of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
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Childhood Family Environment Linked With Relationship Quality 60 Years Later
Longitudinal data suggest growing up in a warm family environment in childhood is associated with feeling more secure in romantic relationships in one’s 80s.
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Clinical Psychological Science: Attentional Bias Dynamics and Posttraumatic Stress in Survivors of Violent Conflict and Atrocities: New Directions in Clinical Psychological Science of Refugee Mental Health Kim Yuval, Ariel Zvielli, and Amit Bernstein Survivors of violent conflicts and forcibly displaced persons are at risk for experiencing posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms. The researchers investigated a promising target for treatment: attentional bias (AB). AB is often conceptualized as a static trait, but new research is suggesting that it may be better described as a dynamic process.
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Believing That Others Understand Helps Us Feel That We Do, Too
Our sense of what we know about something is increased when we learn that others around us understand it, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The findings are consistent with the idea of a “community of knowledge” in which people implicitly rely on others to harbor needed expertise. Otherwise everyone would have to be omniscient to get by. “We think collaboratively,” said lead author Steven Sloman, professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences at Brown University. “It implies that people have to live in communities in order to succeed, in order to really make use of our mental capabilities.
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Adults Value Overcoming Temptation, Kids Value Moral Purity
Is it better to struggle with moral conflict and ultimately choose to do the right thing or to do the right thing without feeling any turmoil in the first place? New research suggests that your answer may depend on how old you are. Findings from a series of four studies show that children view the person who feels no moral conflict as more “good,” while adults judge the person who overcomes moral conflict as more deserving of moral credit. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
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Brain-Training Claims Not Backed by Science, Report Shows
A scientific review puts the claims behind brain-training games and apps to the test.
