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J. David Creswell
Carnegie Mellon University, Health and Human Performance Laboratory www.psy.cmu.edu/~creswell/ What does your research focus on? My research focuses on how the mind and brain influence our physical health. Much of my work examines basic questions about stress and coping and trying to understand how these factors can be modulated through stress-reduction interventions. In two related lines of research, I am exploring the mechanisms for how self-affirmation and mindfulness meditation reduce stress and improve health outcomes in at-risk stressed patient populations.
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Angela Duckworth
University of Pennsylvania www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/ What does your research focus on? I study individual differences that predict achievement. In particular, I’m interested in self-control, defined as the regulation of emotion, attention, and behavior in the service of valued goals and standards, and grit, defined as sustained perseverance and passion for especially challenging goals.
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Dana Carney
Columbia University, Graduate School of Business www.columbia.edu/~dc2534/ What does your research focus on? I am interested in the incredible power of tiny, ordinary, nonverbal cues. What drew you to this line of research? Why is it exciting to you? I was drawn to this research because of how diagnostic these cues can be when trying to make inferences about others’ mental states. Who were/are your mentors or psychological influences? I have had so many incredible mentors and I have been influenced by so many wonderful minds — I could fill all of these pages with the names. My very first mentor was Maureen O’Sullvan. Maureen died last year.
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World we see is make-believe, top British scientist says
Herald Sun: Professor Bruce Hood will explore the limits of the human mind in a series of prestigious lectures for the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the oldest independent research body in the world, it was announced yesterday. The psychologist plans to induce false memories in audience members and use pickpockets to demonstrate how easily people are distracted, in a bid to prove how we have less control over our own decisions and perceptions than we like to imagine. "A lot of the world is make-believe. We're only aware of a fraction of what's going on," Hood told The (London) Times.
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Sept. 11 Revealed Psychologys Limits, Review Finds
The New York Times: The mental fallout from the Sept. 11 attacks has taught psychologists far more about their field’s limitations than about their potential to shape and predict behavior, a wide-ranging review has found. The report, a collection of articles due to be published next month in a special issue of the journal American Psychologist, relates a succession of humbling missteps after the attacks. Experts greatly overestimated the number of people in New York who would suffer lasting emotional distress. Therapists rushed in to soothe victims using methods that later proved to be harmful to some.
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Something for the weekend
Financial Times: Are women underrepresented in business and politics? And do they earn less than men because of gender inequalities in society or because women choose to opt out? Even more importantly, if there are still inequalities, why does society as a whole believe that women’s job opportunities are equal to men’s? Nicole Stephens, assistant professor of management at the Kellog school, and Stanford psychology doctoral student Cynthia Levine, have been investigating why there is a difference between what people perceive and the reality of the situation.
