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People Are Overly Confident in Their Own Knowledge, Despite Errors
A collection of new studies confirms that overprecision is a common and robust form of overconfidence driven, in part, by excessive certainty in the accuracy of our judgments.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science. Maternal Stress and Infant Mortality: The Importance of the Preconception Period Quetzal A. Class, Ali S. Khashan, Paul Lichtenstein, Niklas Långström, and Brian M. D'Onofrio Does exposure to preconception and prenatal stress affect levels of infant mortality? Researchers examined women who had experienced a stressful event (death of a first-degree relative) in the 6 months prior to conception and during pregnancy. They found that preconception stress was associated with an increased risk for infant mortality. No relationship was found between stress during pregnancy and risk of infant mortality.
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Older Adult Clumsiness Linked to Brain Changes
Seniors use less effective reference frames to visualize nearby objects For many older adults, the aging process seems to go hand-in-hand with an annoying increase in clumsiness — difficulties dialing a phone, fumbling with keys in a lock or knocking over the occasional wine glass while reaching for a salt shaker.
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Never Forget a Face? Women May Remember Faces Better Because They Scan More
Women may remember faces better than men in part because they spend more time studying features without even knowing it, suggests a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. According to the researchers, teaching people to increase feature scanning may be one way to help improve their memory for faces. The findings may help to shed light on long-standing questions about why some people can remember faces easily while others quickly forget the face of someone they’ve just met.
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Blood Vessels in the Eye Linked With IQ, Cognitive Function
The width of blood vessels in the retina may indicate brain health years before the onset of dementia and other deficits.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science. Vividness of the Future Self Predicts Delinquency Jean-Louis van Gelder, Hal E. Hershfield, and Loran F. Nordgren Does failure to think about the future lead people to engage in delinquent behavior? Participants wrote a letter to themselves either 20 years or 3 months in the future. They were then asked how they would respond to several scenarios involving committing delinquent acts. Participants who wrote letters to a more distant future self made fewer delinquent choices than did those who wrote to a less distant future self.