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Making Sense of Ambiguous Faces
We all use stereotypes every day, whether we like it or not. It’s how we sort an impossibly complex world into manageable categories: man, woman, Italian, Chinese, lawyer, engineer. Stereotypes can be unfair and hurtful to many people, but the power of stereotyping is undeniable. But what exactly is going on in the mind when we stereotype someone? Is the process instantaneous and automatic, or do we deliberate over traits and categories before making judgments?
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Mad Genius: Study Suggests Link Between Psychosis and Creativity
Van Gogh cut off his ear. Sylvia Plath stuck her head in the oven. History teems with examples of great artists acting in very peculiar ways. Were these artists simply mad or brilliant? According to new research reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, maybe both. In order to examine the link between psychosis and creativity, psychologist Szabolcs Kéri of Semmelweis University in Hungary focused his research on “neuregulin 1”, a gene that normally plays a role in a variety of brain processes, including development and strengthening communication between neurons.
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Evidence that Priming Affiliation Increases Helping Behavior in Infants As Young As 18 Months
Most of us are willing to help a neighbor in need, but there’s no question that we pay a price for our altruism. Not necessarily in money, but in valuable time and energy, and with no promise of payback. So, why do we engage in prosocial behavior in the first place? Psychologists believe that these actions stem from the innate social nature of humans. One idea is that group living has been so crucial to human survival for so long that there are automatic connections between group affiliation and helping behavior. If that’s so, then the mere hint of the group may be enough to induce prosocial behavior even in infants.
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The Link Between Weight and Importance
Weighty. Heavy. What do these words have to do with seriousness and importance? Why do we weigh our options, and why does your opinion carry more weight than mine? New research suggests that we can blame this on gravity. Heavy objects require more energy to move, and they can hurt us more if we move them clumsily. So we learn early on in life to think more and plan more when we’re dealing with heftier things. They require more cognitive effort as well as muscular effort. This leads to the intriguing possibility that the abstract concept of importance is grounded in our very real experience of weight.
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White as Snow, Black as Sin: The Colors of Moral Purity and Pollution
What do wedding dresses and doves have to do with toothpaste and soap? Psychologists Gary Sherman and Gerald Clore from the University of Virginia found that the perceptual symbols of purity, such as snow and doves, are associated with the color white and the feeling of cleanliness, while the symbols of immorality are associated with feelings of dirtiness and the color black. As reported in a recent issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, people greatly desired products dealing with self-cleanliness after they were invoked with a feeling of immorality.
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Time of the Month Matters: Increased Racial Bias and the Menstrual Cycle
Can racial bias be affected by the time of the month? According to a study in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, a woman’s menstrual cycle can affect not only her mood but may cause a racial bias as well. Psychologist Carlos David Navarrete from Michigan State University and his colleagues have been studying the evolutionary preference toward mating--that is, women only mate with the “in-group” of males and shun anyone from the “out-group.” It turns out this bias has been modified in the present day to include skin color.
