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Cleanliness Is Next to…Conservatism?
In every election cycle, politicians on both sides of the aisle are accused of practicing ‘dirty politics.’ Neither side is immune from these charges but research from psychological science suggests that we may subconsciously associate our notions of ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ with specific political ideologies. In a research article published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers Erik Helzer and David Pizarro of Cornell University found that people who are reminded of physical purity report being more politically conservative and make harsher moral judgments regarding sexual behavior.
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New Research on Language From Psychological Science
Read about new research on language published in Psychological Science and Current Directions in Psychological Science. Semantic Priming From Crowded Words Su-Ling Yeh, Sheng He, and Patrick Cavanagh Research has shown that visual crowding impairs word recognition. Because semantic processing occurs after word recognition, it follows that crowding should also eliminate semantic priming effects (i.e., when exposure to a word influences later responses to semantically similar target words). In this study, participants saw Chinese prime words presented with four nonwords flanking them (crowded condition) or by themselves (isolated condition).
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Thinking About Giving, Not Receiving, Motivates People to Help Others
We’re often told to ‘count our blessings’ and be grateful for what we have. Research suggests that thinking about what we’ve given, rather than what we’ve received, can lead us to be more helpful toward others.
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Thinking Abstractly May Help to Boost Self-Control
Many of the long term goals people strive for — like losing weight — require us to use self-control and forgo immediate gratification. And yet denying our immediate desires in order to reap future benefits
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Why Do Older Adults Display More Positive Emotion? It Might Have to Do with What They’re Looking At
Research has shown that older adults display more positive emotions and are quicker to regulate out of negative emotional states than younger adults. Given the declines in cognitive functioning and physical health that tend to come with age, we might expect that age would be associated with worse moods, not better ones. So what explains older adults’ positive mood regulation?
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Greater Working Memory Capacity Benefits Analytic, But Not Creative, Problem-Solving
Anyone who has tried to remember a ten-digit phone number or a nine-item grocery list knows that we can only hold so much information in mind at a given time. Our working memory capacity is decidedly finite - it reflects our ability to focus and control attention and strongly influences our ability to solve problems. In a new article in the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Jennifer Wiley and Andrew Jarosz of the University of Illinois at Chicago explore the role of working memory capacity in both mathematical and creative problem solving.