-
Why Women Have BFFs
Live Science: When faced with the threat of being excluded from a group, women are likely to respond by excluding someone else, a new study indicates. Meanwhile, that threat made no difference to men playing the same competitive game. "It was striking — it was like a different world," said Joyce Benenson, the lead researcher, who is affiliated with Emmanuel College and Harvard University, referring to the difference. Benenson and her colleagues write the results indicate that women and men use different strategies when faced with a social threat. Read the whole story: Live Science
-
People Who Think Their Partners Are a Perfect Fit Stay Happier—Even if They’re Wrong
Conventional wisdom says that if you idealize the person you marry, the disappointment is just going to be that much worse when you find out they aren’t perfect. But research challenges that assumption Visit Page
-
To Bet or Not to Bet, That Is the March Madness Question
With college basketball's Big Dance around the corner, a timely bit of science for you: A recent study in Psychological Science found that given a choice whether to gamble or not, we are not so good at forecasting our emotional reaction to the outcome. In a study, done by Eduardo B. Andrad of the University of California, Berkeley and Leaf Van Boven of University of Colorado at Boulder, volunteers were given the choice of gambling or not gambling underestimated the intensity of their affective reactions to the forgone gamble’s outcome. Those who would have been winners felt more displeasure than anticipated, and those who would have been losers felt more pleasure than anticipated.
-
Emotions by the roomful
I have a friend who sucks the air out of the room whenever he comes around. He is so blustery and self-absorbed that people don’t interact with him; they capitulate. I also have friends who by their mere presence light up the room, raising the spirits of everyone gathered. I know people who cast a pall over the group and drag it down; others who have a calming effect on gatherings. These are all caricatures, of course. Nobody can sway the emotions of an entire room, energizing or subduing or infuriating every member of the group. After all, each of us has his or her own emotional make-up, which is surely more powerful than the mere presence of another person.
-
Video games produce a mixed report card for classroom skills
The Kansas City Star: He’s only 9, so Michael Kelly’s analysis of what video games are doing to kids’ schooling is more instinct than all the new academic talk out there. “Picture that I’m Mario,” he begins. After some hand-on-chin pondering, the third-grader is shaping an idea how all those hours he spends leaping walls, escaping lava and rescuing princesses as Super Mario just might be making him a better student. Read the whole story: The Kansas City Star
-
Asch Lives On
Think you are immune to peer pressure, but APS Fellow and Charter Member Anthony Pratkanis shows that 60 years later people still cave under social pressure. Check out this replication of the famous "Asch Paradigm." Watch the video: YouTube
