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Charles Carver, 1947-2019
APS Fellow Charles S. Carver, whose research focused on the personality dimensions of optimism versus pessimism, died June 22nd. Carver was a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Miami, where he joined the faculty in 1975 after earning his PhD at the University of Texas at Austin. Carver’s work spanned the areas of personality psychology, social psychology, health psychology, and more recently experimental psychopathology. He developed several instruments designed for measuring self-regulation, including coping reactions, self-criticism, goal-setting, and adult attachment.
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Examining why false confessions occur in the U.S. criminal justice system
If you were under interrogation, would you confess to a crime you didn’t commit? It’s more common than you might think. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 27 percent of people in the registry who were accused of homicide gave false confessions, and 81 percent of people with mental illness or intellectual disabilities did the same when they were accused of homicide. But why? Scientists are working to understand more about the psychology of false confessions. In “The confession,” an article in the journal Science, journalist Douglas Starr focuses on one of them.
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How to, Maybe, Be Less Indecisive (or Not)
Should you order tacos or tikka masala? Stay at the hotel with the free breakfast or the one with all the succulents? Melt into the couch or drag yourself to happy hour? If you’re like me, even the simplest decisions can make your pulse race. And when it comes to big, life-altering choices, the need to get it right (because life is short!), combined with ever-looming F.O.B.O. (fear of better options), can cause a state of near paralysis. While this abundance of choice is a result of incredible privilege — not everyone has the freedom to select where they work or live, or how to spend their time or money — it can still be overwhelming.
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Pets, Pests And Food: Our Complex, Contradictory Attitudes Toward Animals
When psychologist Hal Herzog's son Adam was young, he had a pet mouse named Willie. One day, Willie died. "When he died, we thought it would be a good lesson for the kids in terms of understanding death to have a funeral for him. After all, you know, he was a pet." But a couple of days later, Hal's wife found some mouse droppings in the kitchen and asked him to do something about it. "She asked me to kill the mouse, and I did," Hal recalls. "I went out, and I bought a mousetrap. I put a little dab of peanut butter on it and put it [in] the kitchen.
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New Research From Psychological Science
A sample of research exploring memory for repeated images, stability and change in implicit bias, and mixed emotions toward racial out-groups.
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This psychologist explains why people confess to crimes they didn’t commit
At 16, Huwe Burton confessed to killing his mother. He was still in shock from discovering her body when New York City police began to interrogate him. After hours of being threatened and cajoled, he told the police what they wanted to hear. He soon recanted, knowing he was innocent and hoping the justice system would clear him. Burton was convicted of second-degree murder in 1991 and received a sentence of 15 years to life. After 20 years in prison, he was released on parole, but he never could shake the stigma of the conviction. Attorneys from several organizations worked for more than a decade to clear him.
