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The ‘Silent Majority’ Agrees With Me, Voters Believe
Psychologists have found that we tend to think people who are similar to us in one explicit way—say, religion or lifestyle—will act and believe as we do, and vote as we do.
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How Devoted Moms Buffer Kids In Poverty
Children raised in poverty often grow up to have poor health in adulthood, from frequent colds to heart disease. But there’s one thing that might buffer them from that fate: a good mom. That is the conclusion of a new study by a multidisciplinary team led by University of British Columbia psychologist Gregory Miller. The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Much research shows that the stresses disadvantaged children undergo affect their physiological development, making them permanently vulnerable to infection and disease.
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Watching The World In Motion, Babies Take A First Step Toward Language
Watching children on the playground, we see them run, climb, slide, get up, and do it all again. While their movements are continuous, we language-users can easily divide them up and name each one. But what about people—babies—who don’t yet have words? How do they make sense of a world in motion? An upcoming study in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science, finds that infants at seven to nine months are able to slice up the flow of events, even before they start to speak. And the researchers believe they’ve identified the way that babies accomplish this feat.
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Being In the “No”: Questions Influence What We Remember
Imagine that you are sitting in the park, deeply engaged in a conversation with your loved one. A group of teenagers pass by in front of you. The next day you learn that the police are looking for someone to identify them as these teenagers are suspected of a serious mugging. You would most probably not be able to make a positive identification. Do you really have absolutely no memory for their faces? A new study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that such information will make its way into your memory anyway.
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Rebooting Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy has come a long way since the days of Freudian psychoanalysis – today, rigorous scientific studies are providing evidence for the kinds of psychotherapies that effectively treat various psychiatric disorders. But Alan Kazdin, the John M. Musser Professor of Psychology at Yale University, believes that we must acknowledge a basic truth – all of our progress and development in evidence-based psychotherapy has failed to solve the rather serious problem of mental illness in the United States.
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Confronting Meaninglessness
You’ve just finished an amazing dinner at your favorite restaurant and you are ready to put on your comfy pajamas and slip into sweet slumber. You arrive at your doorstep and find the front door ajar. Your heart beats wildly in your chest and you peer in, only to discover that your house has been ransacked. According to author Alexa Tullett, “There's more than one way to interpret this event. You could see it as an indication that there's a bad apple in your neighborhood, and in this case you would only feel comforted if that person was arrested.
