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Susan K. Nolen-Hoeksema
Yale University James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award Susan K. Nolen-Hoeksema died following heart surgery early in 2013, leaving behind a legacy of groundbreaking research on mood disorders. She was recognized internationally for her work on how people regulate their feelings and emotions. She showed that certain thinking patterns can make people vulnerable to emotional problems like depression, and can slow their recovery from them. Nolen-Hoeksema pioneered research on rumination, and how it interferes with people’s ability to solve problems and obtain help from others.
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Anthony Greenwald
University of Washington William James Fellow Award A renowned expert on human cognition, social psychologist Anthony Greenwald’s work has led to the discovery and documentation of unconscious and automatic thought processes that most people would rather not possess. He ingeniously has taken what had once been a pariah of psychological science — subliminal perception — and turned it into a respectable area of research and even a gold mine for others to excavate. In 1995, Greenwald and his collaborators, APS Past President Mahzarin R.
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Linda Bartoshuk
University of Florida William James Fellow Award Linda Bartoshuk is an international leader in taste research and a pioneer in developing new methods of psychophysical scaling. Her brilliant work has focused on the genetic variations in taste perception, and how that perception affects overall health. Bartoshuk was the first scientist to discover that burning mouth syndrome, a condition experienced mainly by postmenopausal women, is the result of damage to the taste buds at the front of the tongue and not, as was once commonly believed, a psychosomatic condition. But perhaps she is best known for the discovery of supertasters — individuals who have more taste buds than most people.
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Discriminated Groups Strategize to Avoid Prejudice
Scientific American: When they think they'll be discriminated against, people do their best to put on a good face for their group, new research finds. An obese person, for example, might focus on dressing nicely to combat stereotypes of slovenliness. A black man, used to assumptions that he's violent, might smile more. The new study reveals both that people are well aware of stereotypes and that they try to combat them.
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How to Stimulate Curiosity
TIME: Curiosity is the engine of intellectual achievement — it’s what drives us to keep learning, keep trying, keep pushing forward. But how does one generate curiosity, in oneself or others? George Loewenstein, a professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, proposed an answer in the classic 1994 paper, “The Psychology of Curiosity.” ... Here, three practical ways to use information gaps to stimulate curiosity: 1. Start with the question.
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Green spaces boosts wellbeing of urban dwellers – study
BBC: Using data from 5,000 UK households over 17 years, researchers found that living in a greener area had a significant positive effect. The findings could help to inform urban planners and have an impact on society at large, they said. The study is published in the journal Psychological Science. The research team examined data from a national survey that followed more than 5,000 UK households and 10,000 adults between 1991 and 2008 as they moved house around the country. They asked participants to report on their own psychological health during that time to estimate the "green space effect".
