-
Training People to Inhibit Movements Can Reduce Risk-Taking
New research from psychological scientists at the Universities of Exeter and Cardiff shows that people can be trained to become less impulsive, resulting in less risk-taking during gambling. The research could pave the way for new treatments for people with addictions to gambling, drugs or alcohol as well as impulse-control disorders, such as ADHD. Recently published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, the study assessed whether asking people to stop making simple movements while in a simulated gambling situation affected how risky or cautious they were when betting.
-
Training and Development in Organizations: What Matters, What Works
Each year in the United States about $135 billion is spent in training employees -- but those billions do not always improve the workplace because the skills often do not transfer to the actual job. “Learning is a way of life in organizations,” says Eduardo Salas, a psychological scientist from the University of Central Florida. “Everyone gets training. But what matters? What works?
-
From Karen to Katie —Using Baby Names to Understand Cultural Evolution
From Top 40 hits to baby names, styles change and fashions evolve over time. While the latest fad may seem arbitrary, new research suggests that basic psychological processes can explain why some things become popular. In a study forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researcher Jonah Berger, from the University of Pennsylvania, and his colleagues investigated whether trends in baby names could help us to understand how and why things become popular over time. “We were interested in understanding cultural evolution or whether it is possible to predict what things will become popular next,” said Berger.
-
New Research From Psychological Science
Learned Predictiveness Speeds Visual Processing Jennifer L. O'Brien and Jane E. Raymond Can learning the predictive value of a cue for a specific outcome affect the visual processing of that cue? Participants were presented with face pairs and were asked to choose one of the two faces. Each face choice was related to a high or a low probability of winning or losing money during the task. Participants were then shown novel faces and faces from the previous task and were asked to indicate whether the face was "old" or "new." Faces that were highly predictive of monetary wins or losses on the previous task were recognized faster than faces associated with low predictability of wins or losses.
-
Inside a Child’s Mind — Research Findings from Psychological Science
Developmental psychology researchers have long known that children aren’t simply mini-adults – their minds and brains work in fundamentally different ways. Exploring those differences can help us understand how kids think and behave and can provide insights into how the mind and brain develop and change over time. Here is some of the latest research involving children from Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Who is Good At This Game? Linking an Activity to a Social Category Undermines Children’s Achievement Can linking an activity to a social group affect children’s performance on a task?
-
The Power of Suggestion: What We Expect Influences Our Behavior, for Better or Worse
A lucky rabbit foot. A glass of wine. A pill. What do these things all have in common? Their effects – whether we do well on a test, whether we mingle at the cocktail party, whether we feel better – all depend on the power of suggestion. In a new article, psychological scientists Maryanne Garry and Robert Michael of Victoria University of Wellington, along with Irving Kirsch of Harvard Medical School and Plymouth University, delve into the phenomenon of suggestion, exploring the intriguing relationship between suggestion, cognition, and behavior. The article is published in the June issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
