Observer > 2022 > May/June
image description
352022Volume 35, Issue3May/June 2022
May/June 2022: Debunking Myths and Misinformation
The global impact of misinformation has reached damaging new heights. Researchers are identifying promising strategies for fostering critical thinking and the truthful exchange of information.
<Download the Observer PDF

About the Observer

The Observer is the online magazine of the Association for Psychological Science and covers matters affecting the research, academic, and applied disciplines of psychology. The magazine reports on issues of interest to psychologist scientists worldwide and disseminates information about the activities, policies, and scientific values of APS.

APS members receive a monthly Observer newsletter that covers the latest content in the magazine. Members also may access the online archive of Observer articles going back to 1988.

Read more

Latest Under the Cortex Podcast

Trending Topics >

  • Thumbnail Image for Disaster Response and Recovery

    Disaster Response and Recovery

    Disasters like Hurricane Florence and Typhoon Mangkhut draw massive media coverage, trauma interventions, and financial donations to victims. But psychological research shows the efforts don’t always yield the intended benefits.

Featured

Up Front

Recent Research

  • Research Briefs

    Strength of Belief Guides Information Foraging  David A. Illingworth and Rick P. Thomas  Psychological Science This research suggests that people’s beliefs and the strength of those beliefs guide the sources people seek out for additional information when making decisions. While playing a medical-diagnosis game, participants learned about diseases and symptoms by conducting different medical tests. During the learning phase, participants also created disease hypotheses whose strength could later be biased by symptoms’ presentations. Later, they decided which test they wanted to use to diagnose patients. Results indicated that participants’ medical-test choices were guided by changes in their beliefs about test hypotheses—a pattern known as hypothesis-guided search.

Government Relations

APS Spotlight

  • Eight Early-Career Researchers Receive 2022 APS Janet Taylor Spence Award

    The 2022 Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions has recognized eight psychological scientists for their innovative research in areas including social psychology, neurobiological mechanisms related to learning, emotional processes and management, and psychiatric and neurobiological disorders. First awarded in 2010 and named after APS’s first president, the Spence Award honors APS members who have made transformative early-career contributions to psychological science.   Listen to the 2022 Spence Recipients on the Under the Cortex Podcast  Brian Anderson Brian Anderson  Texas A&M University  Brian Anderson is an associate professor at Texas A&M University, where he is also the director of human imaging in the department of psychological and brain sciences.

Practice

First Person

More From This Issue