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Nickola Overall
University of Auckland, New Zealand http://www.psych.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/nickola-overall What does your research focus on? Intimate relationships can have immense benefits, such as when support from relationship partners protects individuals from stressful events and helps them reach their personal goals. Close relationships can also undermine psychological and physical wellbeing, such as when couples experience relationship conflict. My research investigates both the benefits and costs of intimate relationships, with a particular emphasis on the relative success of different communication strategies used when couples are trying to resolve relationship problems or support each other.
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Andrew Livingstone
University of Stirling, UK http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/staff-profiles/academic-staff/andrew-livingstone What does your research focus on? Broadly, I’m interested in social identity, group processes, and intergroup relations. I’ve also developed a particular interest in the role of emotion in these phenomena. Specific lines of research have focused on (1) the role of group norms and social identity content in intergroup relations; (2) resistance to intergroup inequality and threat by members of minority groups; and (3) emotion as a basis for social identity.
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Jaap Denissen
Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany www.psychology.hu-berlin.de/staff/1682036 What does your research focus on? I am interested in longitudinal transactions between persons and situations. How do people change their behavior in response to situational demands, both in the short term (e.g., on a day-to-day level) and in the longer term (e.g., during an important life transition)? How do people differ in these responses? What effects do these differences have on important life outcomes, such as well-being and friendship formation? What drew you to this line of research? Why is it exciting to you? People tend to underestimate how different we are from each other.
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I feel powerful — and so tall!
The Boston Globe: Power makes you feel tall. Growing up, children learn to associate tallness with power, and, among adults, we tend to assign power to those who are tall. But does this association also go the other way? Apparently it does: A new study finds that power makes people feel taller. After writing about an experience in which they had power over someone else, people significantly overestimated their height relative to a taller pole and created taller avatars to represent themselves in a computer game. Likewise, people significantly over-reported their height after being randomly assigned to be a manager (vs. employee) in a business exercise. Read the whole story: The Boston Globe
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Thinking About Mortality Changes How We Act
Scientific American: The thought of shuffling off our mortal coil can make all of us a little squeamish. But avoiding the idea of death entirely means ignoring the role it can play in determining our actions. Consider the following scenario: You’re visiting a friend who lives on the 20th floor of an old inner-city apartment building. It’s the middle of the night when you are suddenly awakened from a deep sleep by the sound of screams and the choking smell of smoke. You reach over to the nightstand and turn on the light. You are shocked to find the room filling fast with thick clouds of smoke. You run to the door and reach for the handle.
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Neuroscience Explains Why the Grinch Stole Christmas
Forbes: “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch.” But why? We all know Dr. Seuss’s iconic tale of the green ogre who lives on a mountain, seething while the Whos in the village below celebrate Christmas. The happier they are, the angrier he gets, until finally he can’t take it anymore and hatches a plan to crush their joy like a glass ornament. Dr. Seuss was a brilliant intuitive psychologist and I’d have loved to chat with him about the core of the Grinch’s rage, but, alas, he left us too early. So I’m turning to another impressive thinker who has taught me a great deal about the neurobiology of emotion: Dr.
