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Eureka! How Distractions Facilitate Creative Problem Solving
How many times have you spent hours slaving over an impossible problem, only to take a break and then easily solve the problem, sometimes within minutes of looking at it again? This is actually a common phenomenon, but until recently, the way that this occurs has been unclear. And surprisingly, the answer is more complex than simply having an “Aha!” moment. Previous research suggests that both unconscious thought (i.e. being distracted) and conscious thought (concentrating on solving a problem) can lead to novel solutions and new ideas, but in very different ways.
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Television Viewing and Aggression: Some Alternative Perspectives
The effect of media violence on behavior is not only an interesting psychological question but is also a relevant public policy and public health issue. Although many studies have been conducted examining the link between violence on TV and aggressive behavior, most of these studies have overlooked several other potentially significant factors, including the dramatic context of the violence and the type of violence depicted as well as the race and ethnicity of the viewers.
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Why Delaying Gratification is Smart: A Neural Link Between Intelligence and Self-control
If you had a choice between receiving $1,000 right now or $4,000 ten years from now, which would you pick? Psychologists use the term “delay discounting” to describe our inability to resist the temptation of a smaller immediate reward in lieu of receiving a larger reward at a later date. Discounting future rewards too much is a form of impulsivity, and an important way in which we can neglect to exert self-control. Previous research suggests that higher intelligence is related to better self-control, but the reasons for this link are unknown. Psychologists Noah A. Shamosh and Jeremy R.
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Sticks and Stones: A New Study on Social and Physical Pain
We all know the famous saying: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” but is this proverb actually true? According to some researchers, words may pack a harder punch that we realize. Psychologists Zhansheng Chen and Kipling D. Williams of Purdue University, Julie Fitness of Macquarie University, and Nicola C. Newton of the University of New South Wales found that the pain of physical events may fade with time, while the pain of social occurrences can be re-instantiated through memory retrievals. The researchers set up four experiments to demonstrate this finding.
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New Study Shows False Memories Affect Behavior
Do you know someone who claims to remember their first day of kindergarten? Or a trip they took as a toddler? While some people may be able to recall trivial details from the past, laboratory research shows that the human memory can be remarkably fragile and even inventive. In fact, people can easily create false memories of their past and a new study shows that such memories can have long-term effects on our behavior. Psychologists Elke Geraerts of the University of St. Andrews and Maastricht University, Daniel Bernstein of Kwantlen Polytechnic University and the University of Washington, Harald Merckelbach, Christel Linders, and Linsey Raymaekers of Maastricht University, and Elizabeth F.
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In Money Matters, Patience can Profit
Whether it’s waking up at the crack of dawn to go to the gym or breaking the bank to pay for college and graduate school, most of us pay small prices in hopes for a big payoff in the future. But not everyone is as focused on the future as gym rats and students. How can some of us see a particular tradeoff as advantageous, while others of us see precisely the same deal as foolish? The reason may be due to what researchers call “temporal discounting,” a tendency to consider events in the distant future less important than events in the near future. In other words, if something is way off in the distance, it’s very difficult to keep its importance front and center in the mind.
