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New Research on Aging and Cognition From Psychological Science
Read about new research on aging and cognition published in Psychological Science. Stereotype Threat Strengthens Automatic Recall and Undermines Controlled Processes in Older Adults Marie Mazerolle, Isabelle Régner, Pauline Morisset, François Rigalleau, and Pascal Huguet Older people perform worse on memory tasks when they think they will be stereotypically judged. One theory about this says that stereotypes impair older adults' working memory, while another theory suggests that stereotypes increase activation of their prepotent responses, which are often incorrect.
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Take Control! Exploring How Self-Discipline Works and How We Might Boost It
Converging scientific evidence – not to mention a great deal of life experience – tells us that self-control is an important ability. It helps us keep our cool, get things done, and resist the things that tempt us. Scientists believe that gaining a clearer understanding of how self-control works could provide critical insights into addressing some of the large-scale problems facing society today, including obesity and addiction. Numerous studies have found evidence for the idea of self-control as a limited resource, but emerging research suggests that this model may not tell the whole story.
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Does True Love Wait? Age of First Sexual Experience Predicts Romantic Outcomes in Adulthood
The timing of a person’s first experience with sexual intercourse predicts the quality and stability of their romantic relationships in young adulthood.
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Immune Response May Link Social Rejection to Later Health Outcomes
Data from healthy adolescents indicate that recent exposure to targeted rejection activates the molecular signaling pathways that regulate inflammation.
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Calling Miss Congeniality – Do Attractive People Have Attractive Traits and Values?
We’ve all been warned not to “judge a book by its cover,” but inevitably we do it anyway. It’s difficult to resist the temptation of assuming that a person’s outward appearance reflects something meaningful about his or her inner personality. Indeed, research shows that people tend to perceive attractive adults as more social, successful, and well-adjusted than less attractive adults, a phenomenon that’s been termed the “what is beautiful is good” stereotype. But could that really be true? Are physically attractive people really just as attractive on the inside as they are on the outside?
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New Research on Vision From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research on vision published in Psychological Science. A Bayesian Optimal Foraging Model of Human Visual Search Matthew S. Cain, Edward Vul, Kait Clark, and Stephen R. Mitroff When searching displays containing an unknown number of targets, it can be difficult to know when to stop searching. In this study, researchers quantified visual-search strategies by having participants look for targets among distractors. In the first condition, only 25% of the trials had one or more targets; in the second condition, 50% of the trials had one or more targets; and in the third condition, 75% of the trials had one or more targets.
