On the Newsstand

Happiness: Enough Already
Newsweek
February 2, 2008
“‘[O]nce a moderate level of happiness is achieved, further increases can sometimes be detrimental’ to income, career success, education and political participation, Diener and Colleagues write in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. On a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is extremely happy, 8s were more successful than 9s and 10s, getting more education and earning more.”
Coverage of “The Optimum Level of Well-Being: Can People Be Too Happy?” in Perspectives on Psychological Science (Shigehiro Oishi, Ed Diener, and Richard E. Lucas, Volume 2(4), 346-360).

Generation Me vs. You Revisited
The New York Times
January 17, 2008
“Ms. Trzesniewski, along with colleagues at the University of California, Davis, and Michigan State University, will publish research in the journal Psychological Science next month showing that there have been very few changes in the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of youth over the last 30 years.  In other words, the minute-by-minute Twitter broadcasts of today are the navel-gazing est seminars of 1978.”
Coverage of “Do Today’s Young People Really Think They Are So Extraordinary? An Examination of Secular Trends in Narcissism and Self-Enhancement” in Psychological Science (Kali H. Trzesniewski, M. Brent Donnellan, and Richard W. Robins, Volume 19(2), 181-188).

Get Happy
Allure
February 1, 2008
“Since depression is characterized by slow thinking, it only stands to reason that making your brain race could give you a mood boost.  In a study published in Psychological Science, when subjects read statements quickly, they felt happier, more energetic, and more creative afterward — even when the content of the statements was depressing.”
Coverage of “Manic Thinking: Independent Effects of Thought Speed and Thought Content on Mood” in Psychological Science (Emily Pronin and Daniel M. Wegner, Volume 17(9), 807-813).

Research and the Reading Wars
Phi Delta Kappan
January 2008
“Prospective studies, however, would require adversaries to agree on basic design issues and research questions before conducting the study and before disseminating the findings.  A 2001 article in Psychological Science provided an example of ‘adversarial collaboration,’ a formal protocol for adjudicating disputes between scholars and disseminating findings quickly to avoid controversy.”
Coverage of “Do Frequency Representations Eliminate Conjunction Effects? An Exercise in Adversarial Collaboration?” in Psychological Science (Barbara Mellers, Ralph Hertwig, and Daniel Kahneman, Volume 12(4), 269-275).