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A Hug a Day Keeps the Doctor Away
Scientific American: During my final semester of undergrad, I made two signs that read, “Feeling stressed about exams? Have a free hug!” Then I recruited a friend and we stood in the entrance of the campus library, held up the signs, and waited. Passerbys had one of two reactions: Either they quickly looked down at their phones and awkwardly shuffled by, or their faces lit up as they embraced us. Most people were enthusiastic. Some exclaimed, “You made my day!” or “Thank you. I needed this.” One leapt into my arms, nearly toppling me over. After two hours of warm interactions, my friend and I couldn’t believe how energized and happy we felt.
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What Your Tweets Say About You
The New Yorker: How much can your tweets reveal about you? Judging by the last nine hundred and seventy-two words that I used on Twitter, I’m about average when it comes to feeling upbeat and being personable, and I’m less likely than most people to be depressed or angry. That, at least, is the snapshot provided by AnalyzeWords, one of the latest creations from James Pennebaker, a psychologist at the University of Texas who studies how language relates to well-being and personality.
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Stop mocking Starbucks’s ‘Race Together.’ It could actually lead to useful conversations about race.
The Washington Post: Starbucks recently launched a campaign called “Race Together,” in which baristas invite customers to engage in conversations about race by writing “race together” on their coffee cups. The idea has been mockedand critiqued as naive, insensitive and perhaps even abusive to its baristas. Don’t be so quick to dismiss it. I’ve been teaching and conducting research on the complex and, often complicated, dynamics of race-related dialogues and interracial interactions for more than 20 years. Encouraging people to talk about race and racism more often can actually improve our willingness and ability to do so.
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Seeing Red on the Road: Can Car Color Impact Driver Behavior?
It’s a common belief that driving a red car leads to more speeding tickets and higher car insurance rates. However, research from a 2007 study by Monash University in Australia found that red cars are actually slightly less likely to be involved in accidents compared to other colors (black cars were actually most accident prone). The insurance industry also denies that car color comes into play when setting car insurance rates, though they do look at the vehicle make and model. New research from an international team of psychological scientists puts the brakes on another common stereotype about red cars: they elicit more aggressive driving.
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EPP-APS L’auto-correction des QCM
L’auto-correction des QCM pour l’amélioration de l’apprentissage des étudiants Daniel Grühn and Yanhua Cheng Auteur à joindre pour la correspondance: Daniel Grühn, North Carolina State University, Department of Psychology, Campus Box 7650, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA. Email: [email protected] Grühn, D. & Cheng, Y (2014). A self -correcting approach to multiple-choice exams improves learning. Teaching of Psychology, 41, 335-339 Abstract Montepare suggested the use of a self-correcting approach to multiple-choice tests: Students first take the exam as usual, but are allowed to hand in a self-corrected version afterwards.
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Weight Bias Impacts Our Perceptions of Competence
Overweight individuals often face discrimination across many stages of their careers. Compared to their thinner colleagues, people who are overweight are less likely to be hired, less likely to be promoted, and ultimately earn lower wages. A new study suggests this weight-based bias may even extend to judgments of competence. Psychological scientists Emma Levine and Maurice Schweitzer of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania found that people gave overweight individuals low ratings for competence, regardless of their qualifications or performance.
