-
Don’t Delay: Having to Wait Doesn’t Help Young Kids Exercise Self-Control
The idea that natural urges “die down” with time seems intuitive, but research shows that it’s being reminded about what not to do, not the passage of time, that actually helps young children control their impulsive behavior.
-
New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Can Authoritarianism Lead to Greater Liking of Out-Groups? The Intriguing Case of Singapore Arne Roets, Evelyn W. M. Au, and Alain Van Hiel Authoritarians are people with a tendency to submit to authorities who are deemed to be legitimate and to confirm to norms endorsed by society. They often show a general aggressiveness and dislike of people who do not conform to societal norms, such as out-groups and minorities.
-
Math Anxiety Doesn’t Equal Poor Math Performance
Experiencing math anxiety — nervousness and discomfort in relation to math — impairs math performance for some students, but new research shows that it’s linked with improved performance for others, at least to a degree. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
-
Selective Media Coverage May Cause Us to Forget Certain Health Facts
The health facts presented by mass media in the midst of a disease outbreak are likely to influence what we remember about the disease -- new research suggests that the same mass media coverage may also influence the facts that we forget. The findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, indicate that personal anxiety and mass media coverage interact to determine what people remember about a disease. “The starting point for our study was the exaggerated coverage of Ebola in 2014 despite the absence of any serious consequences in the United States,” says psychological scientist Alin Coman of Princeton University.
-
New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: On Race and Time Gordon B. Moskowitz, Irmak Olcaysoy Okten, and Cynthia M. Gooch People who show high external motivation to control prejudice (EMCP) feel threatened by the possibility that they may be viewed as biased. This threat causes people high in EMCP to feel increased arousal and anxiety in intergroup situations. The researchers were interested to know whether people concerned with appearing biased experience time-perception distortions in intergroup situations, given that arousal has been shown to influence the perception of time.
-
Older Beats Younger When It Comes to Correcting Mistakes
Findings from a new study challenge the notion that older adults always lag behind their younger counterparts when it comes to learning new things. The study, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, shows that older adults were actually better than young adults at correcting their mistakes on a general information quiz. “The take home message is that there are some things that older adults can learn extremely well, even better than young adults. Correcting their factual errors—all of their errors—is one of them,” say psychological scientists Janet Metcalfe and David Friedman of Columbia University, who conducted the study.