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The Psychological Science Behind an Oops Moment
Over the last week or so, the phrase “brain freeze” has taken on a new meaning and caused a bit of media frenzy – first over Rick Perry’s debate flub on television, followed immediately by Herman Cain’s floundering on a question. A moment like this can happen to the best of us, whether it is captured live on national television or in private. The media has focused extensively on these two politicians and their momentary lapses in memory, but perhaps it is time to examine the psychological science of these kinds of brain-freeze moments and why they occur.
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Does The Military Make The Man Or Does The Man Make The Military?
“Be all you can be,” the Army tells potential recruits. The military promises personal reinvention. But does it deliver? A new study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that personality does change a little after military service - German conscripts come out of the military less agreeable than their peers who chose civilian service. It’s hard to do long-term studies on how personalities change.
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Is There A Hidden Bias Against Creativity?
CEOs, teachers, and leaders claim they want creative ideas to solve problems. But creative ideas are rejected all the time. A new study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that people have a hidden bias against creativity. We claim to like creativity, but when we’re feeling uncertain and anxious—just the way you might feel when you’re trying to come up with a creative solution to a problem—we cannot recognize the creative ideas we so desire. Generally, people think creativity is good. Before starting this study, the researchers checked that with a group of college students.
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False Confessions May Lead to More Errors in Evidence, a Study Shows
A man with a low IQ confesses to a gruesome crime. Confession in hand, the police send his blood to a lab to confirm that his blood type matches the semen found at the scene. It does not. The forensic examiner testifies later that one blood type can change to another with disintegration. This is untrue. The newspaper reports the story, including the time the man says the murder took place. Two witnesses tell the police they saw the woman alive after that. The police send them home, saying they “must have seen a ghost.” After 16 years in prison, the falsely convicted man is exonerated by DNA evidence. How could this happen?
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The Brain Acts Fast To Reappraise Angry Faces
If you tell yourself that someone who’s being mean is just having a bad day—it’s not about you—you may actually be able to stave off bad feelings, according to a new study which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Having someone angry at you isn’t pleasant. A strategy commonly suggested in cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy is to find another way to look at the angry person. For example, you might tell yourself that they’ve probably just lost their dog or gotten a cancer diagnosis and are taking it out on you. Stanford researchers Jens Blechert, Gal Sheppes, Carolina Di Tella, Hants Williams, and James J.
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The First Step to Change: Focusing On the Negative
If you want people to change the current system, or status quo, first you have to get them to notice what’s wrong with it. That’s the idea behind a new study to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, which finds that people pay attention to negative information about the system when they believe the status quo can change. “Take America’s educational system. You could find some flaws in that system,” says India Johnson, a graduate student at Ohio State University who did the new study with Professor Kentaro Fujita. “But we have to live with it every day, so people tend to focus on the positive and reinforce the system.
