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New Research From Psychological Science
When Categories Collide: Accumulation of Information About Multiple Categories in Rapid Scene Perception Karla K. Evans, Todd S. Horowitz, and Jeremy M. Wolfe Humans can sort visual information into categories instantaneously. But does the visual system assess a single category at a time or determine multiple categories all at once? Researchers asked volunteers to view pictures and assign them to categories. They found that individuals could accumulate information about multiple categories in parallel, and if participants were cued to focus on one category, it could affect their accuracy in detecting another category.
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How You Think About Death May Affect How You Act
How you think about death affects how you behave in life. That's the conclusion of a new study which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Researchers had people either think about death in the abstract or in a specific, personal way and found that people who thought specifically about their own death were more likely to demonstrate concern for society by donating blood. Laura E.R. Blackie, a Ph.D. student at the University of Essex, and her advisor, Philip J. Cozzolino, recruited 90 people in a British town center.
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Is Fear Deficit a Harbinger of Future Psychopaths?
Psychopaths are charming, but they often get themselves and others in big trouble; their willingness to break social norms and lack of remorse means they are often at risk for crimes and other irresponsible behaviors. One hypothesis on how psychopathy works is that it has to do with a fear deficit. A new study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that children with a particular risk factor for psychopathy don't register fear as quickly as healthy children. The hypothesis that psychopaths don't feel or recognize fear dates back to the 1950s, says the study’s primary author Patrick D.
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Want Lasting Love? It’s Not More Commitment, but Equal Commitment That Matters
It’s not partners’ individual commitments that make the most difference in how well they address conflict, but rather how well their levels of commitment match up.
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True Love May Wait—But Waiting Won’t Make You a Safer Lover Later On
Whether sex education focuses only on abstinence or teaches students about contraception and other topics as well, it all shares one main message: Wait. In abstinence-only, students are exhorted to wait for sex until they’re married. In “comprehensive” or “abstinence-plus,” the idea is to delay sexual relations until . . . later. “The underlying assumption is that delay reduces sexual risk-taking”—and with it unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, says University of South Florida psychologist Marina A. Bornovalova.
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Happiness Has a Dark Side
It seems like everyone wants to be happier and the pursuit of happiness is one of the foundations of American life. But even happiness can have a dark side, according to the authors of a new review article published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. They say that happiness shouldn't be thought of as a universally good thing, and outline four ways in which this is the case. Indeed, not all types and degrees of happiness are equally good, and even pursuing happiness can make people feel worse. People who want to feel happier can choose from a multitude of books that tell them how to do it.
