Much Ado About Titles
Throughout the 25-year history of APS’s flagship journal, its contributors have borrowed heavily from literature, film, theater, and popular music to develop compelling titles for their research articles. In this installment of a special series celebrating Psychological Science’s silver anniversary, the Observer presents a sampling of those titles:
For Whom the Bell Curve Tolls: A Review of The Bell Curve
by Robert J. Sternberg
September 1995, pp. 257–261
Much ADO About Nothing? Revisionists and Traditionalists Choose an Introductory English Syllabus
by Robert J. Robinson and Dacher Keltner
January 1996, pp. 18–24
Whistling in the Dark: Exaggerated Consensus Estimates in Response to Incidental Reminders of Mortality
by Tom Pyszczynski, Robert A. Wicklund, Stefan Floresku, Holgar Koch, Gerardine Gauch, Sheldon Solomon, and Jeff Greenberg
November 1996, pp. 332–336
The Credible Shrinking Room: Very Young Children’s Performance With Symbolic and Nonsymbolic Relations
by Judy S. DeLoache, Kevin F. Miller, and Karl S. Rosengren
July 1997, pp. 308–313
To See or Not to See: The Need for Attention to Perceive Changes in Scenes
by Ronald A. Rensink, J. Kevin O’Regan, and James J. Clark
September 1997, pp. 368–373
The Putt and the Pendulum: Ironic Effects of the Mental Control of Action
by Daniel M. Wegner, Matthew Ansfield, and Daniel Pilloff
May 1998, pp. 196–199
Singing in the Brain: Independence of Lyrics and Tunes
by Mireille Besson, Frédérique Faïta-Aïnseba, Isabelle Peretz, Anne-Marie Bonnel, and Jean Requin
November 1998, pp. 494–498
Show Me the Features! Understanding Recognition From the Use of Visual Information
by Philippe G. Schyns, Lizann Bonnar, and Frédéric Gosselin September 2002, pp. 402–409
Don’t Stand So Close to Me: The Effects of Self-Construal on Interpersonal Closeness
by Rob W. Holland, Ute-Regina Roeder, Rick B. Van Baaren, Aafje C. Brandt, and Bettina Hannover
April 2004, pp. 237–242
Running on Empty: Neural Signals for Self-Control Failure
by Michael Inzlicht and Jennifer N. Gutsell
November 2007, pp. 933–937
You Can’t Always Get What You Want: Infants Understand Failed Goal-Directed Actions
by Amanda C. Brandone and Henry M. Wellman
January 2000, pp. 85–91
Comfortably Numb: Desensitizing Effects of Violent Media on Helping Others
by Brad J. Bushman and Craig A. Anderson
March 2009, pp. 273–277
Scent of a Woman: Men’s Testosterone Responses to Olfactory Ovulation Cues
by Saul L. Miller and Jon K. Maner
February 2010, pp. 276–283
Apocalypse Soon? Dire Messages Reduce Belief in Global Warming by Contradicting Just-World Beliefs
by Matthew Feinberg and Robb Willer
January 2011, pp. 34–38
Comments
These titles are fun, but they may not be appreciated by non-English speakers. The format, though – a short statement followed by longer one is quite common. In my Routledge book (Academic Writing and Publishing) I distinguish between 13 types of title…
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