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Consumerism and its antisocial effects can be turned on—or off
Money doesn’t buy happiness. Neither does materialism: Research shows that people who place a high value on wealth, status, and stuff are more depressed and anxious and less sociable than those who do not. Now new research shows that materialism is not just a personal problem. It’s also environmental. “We found that irrespective of personality, in situations that activate a consumer mindset, people show the same sorts of problematic patterns in wellbeing, including negative affect and social disengagement,” says Northwestern University psychologist Galen V. Bodenhausen. The study, conducted with colleagues Monika A. Bauer, James E. B. Wilkie, and Jung K.
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Income Inequality and Distrust Foster Academic Dishonesty
College professors and students are in an arms race over cheating. Students find new sources for pre-written term papers; professors find new ways to check the texts they get for plagiarized material. But why are all these young people cheating? A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests one reason: income inequality, which decreases the general trust people have toward each other. Lukas Neville, a doctoral student at Queen’s University in Ontario, was inspired to do the study by his own teaching experience. “I ran into the question of academic dishonesty firsthand,” he says.
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Brain Stores Objects by Color, Too
How do we know what a lemon is, or a baseball? “Theories that explain how our brains store knowledge say that similar knowledge is stored in similar places. So things that are related - in how they look, how they smell, and so on - should overlap in the brain,” says Eiling Yee of the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain, & Language. In other words, the same part of your brain might store the information that both lemons and canaries are yellow. This sort of overlap has been shown for certain properties of objects, like their shape and function, or even for how you manipulate them with your hands.
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SAVE THE DATE – PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE CONVENTION IN CHICAGO, MAY 24-27, 2012
Save the date for the Association for Psychological Science's 24th Annual Convention in Chicago from May 24-27, 2012. Register now! If you cover health, business, lifestyles or science news, the APS convention provides news on the mind-body connection, discrimination, marketing, bullying, mental illnesses and more. APS conventions cover many types of science, including neuroscience, industrial and management psychology, and social interactions. Talks Include: Are We Overmedicating America’s Children? Psychosocial, Pharmacological, Combined, and Sequenced Interventions for ADHD William E.
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Empathy Doesn’t Extend Across the Political Aisle
When we try to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, we usually go all the way, assuming that they feel the same way we do. But a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that we have limits: we don’t extend this projection to people who have different political views, even under extreme circumstances. The researchers chose to examine political differences because of the big divide perceived between people on opposing sides, as shown by earlier research.
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No Bad Luck This Friday Unless You Think it Will Happen
Have you watched the movie Friday the 13th? Scary, isn’t it? Well, perhaps not quite as scary as the infamous Rebecca Black song, “Friday” - but close enough. If you are one of those who carries around a rabbit's foot and strokes it all day long for good luck or makes a wish after blowing away a fallen eyelash – then you are probably in the midst of bolting your doors, turning on all the lights and hiding under the comforting warmth of your comforter. Tomorrow just so happens to be Friday the 13th and if you have friggatriskaidekaphobia – it’s simply not a day to be trifled with. Frigga what you say? And yes, attempting to say it can just as well be as terrifying as its definition.