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<em>Better Angels</em>, Believe It or Not
Two World Wars, the Cold War, and the rise of terrorism must make the past century one of the most violent in the history of our species, right? Not according to Harvard psychologist and APS member Steven Pinker, who argues in his new book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, that violence is declining. According to Pinker, we are actually living in the most peaceful era in human history. Watch Pinker’s TED talk on the myth of violence to learn more about why Pinker thinks our “better angels” are winning out. You can learn more about Pinker’s by reading coverage from The New York Times and Time.
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World Series Psychology
The Red Sox won’t be participating in this year’s World Series, but it’s safe to say that the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry is here to stay. That makes those teams’ fans an obvious choice for studying rivalry and aggression. Read Wray Herbert’s summary of what happened when Princeton University social neuroscientists studied which neurons light up when loyalists and rivals experience moments of victory or defeat. In other baseball-related psychology, fans aren’t the only ones whose aggression at the baseball stadium has become the subject of psychological research.
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How to Learn by Believing In Yourself
If you want to be smarter, the first step might be to believe that you can get smarter. In a study that will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, Jason S. Moser and his colleagues found that people who believe they can learn from their mistakes are more likely to do so. In the study, participants were asked to identify the middle letter of a five-letter series like “MMMMM” or “NNMNN.” This task may seem simple, but task is repeated several times in a row, people tend to make mistakes and feel bad about it.
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Earlier Autism Diagnosis Could Mean Earlier Interventions
Autism historically was diagnosed between the ages of 2 and 3, but new research is finding symptoms of autism spectrum disorders in babies during their first years of life.
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Language Lessons From Babies
The New York Times: In today’s 18 and Under column, Dr. Perri Klass writes about new science of bilingualism and how scientists are teasing out the earliest differences between brains exposed to one language and brains exposed to two. The learning of language — and the effects on the brain of the language we hear — may begin even earlier than 6 months of age. Janet Werker, a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, studies how babies perceive language and how that shapes their learning.
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Grope Cases Set Special Challenges
The Wall Street Journal: The attacks were seemingly random and almost assuredly frightening: In a dozen instances this summer, women on the Upper East Side were violently groped by an assailant, at times in their buildings or the subway. On Aug. 9, police said they had found the man responsible, Jose Alfredo Perez Hernandez, an 18-year-old salad preparer at a local restaurant. But several months later, Mr. Hernandez, who denies the attacks, stands charged in connection with just three of them. As police search for one or more assailants behind a similar pattern of sexual attacks in Brooklyn, Mr. Hernandez's case underscores the challenges ... Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal
