-
For the Devils, Shootouts Become a No-Win Mind Game
The New York Times: The Devils have a case of the yips. Not your garden variety, as with a golfer losing his putting touch. This one runs through the whole team and has been going on all season. The Devils have lost all 11 shootouts they had been in this season and an N.H.L.-record 15 consecutive over all since March 15, 2013. “Never have I seen anything like this,” said Paul Dennis, a professor of sports psychology at York University in Toronto and formerly the Maple Leafs’ mental skills coach for 20 years. He called the Devils’ futility a debilitating “emotional contagion.” Saul L. Miller, a sports psychologist in Vancouver, British Columbia, who has worked with N.H.L.
-
Four common mistakes parents make when praising their kids
The Globe and Mail: Everybody wants what’s best for their kids. We know we should be helping to build their self-esteem and boost their resilience. Problem is, our efforts might be doing more harm than good. Multiple studies have shown that certain types of praise can actually harm children, whether it makes them shrink from challenges or suffer a loss of motivation to try new things. The latest research even shows that what seems like a natural tendency to heap praise on certain kids will backfire. ... In a study to be published in the journal Psychological Science, researchers at Ohio State University found that this strategy can backfire.
-
Early Intervention May Reduce Adults’ Aggressive Behavior
Parents Magazine: A decade-long education program aimed at teaching children self-regulation and other healthy cognitive techniques is showing results in reducing aggressive behavior when the schoolchildren become adults, according to new research published in the journal Psychological Science. More from the journal: The research, led by psychological scientist Justin Carré of Nipissing University in Ontario, Canada, indicates that dampened testosterone levels in response to social threats may account for the intervention’s success in reducing aggression.
-
Personal Zen app promises to reduce stress in 25 minutes
CNET: Feeling stressed? There's an app for that. Personal Zen for iOS promises to reduce your stress and anxiety by way of a simple game played a few times per week. What's behind that promise? Science. According to the development team, which consists of "leading neuroscientists and mobile developers," the app is clinically proven to reduce stress. And here's the research to back that up: A newly published study in Clinical Psychological Science suggests that attention-bias modification training -- the kind provided by Personal Zen -- can lower anxiety levels. Read the whole story: CNET
-
Gauging the Intelligence of Infants
The New York Times: This occasional column explores topics covered in Science Times 25 years ago to see what has changed — and what has not. The claim about babies was startling: A test administered to infants as young as 6 months could predict their score on an intelligence test years later, when they started school. “Why not test infants and find out which of them could take more in terms of stimulation?” Joseph F. Fagan III, the psychologist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland who developed the test, was quoted as saying in an article by Gina Kolata on April 4, 1989. “It’s not going to hurt anybody, that’s for sure.” Read the whole story: The New York Times
-
Steven Pinker on music
TRBQ: Pinning down a definition of music is harder than it sounds. A song composed by a human easily fits into the category of music. But what about a song composed by a bird? Or the rumble of a freight train? Steven Pinker is a cognitive scientist at Harvard, and he’s written best-selling books about evolutionary psychology and language. He says music is tied to language. “Music has a set of rhythms within rhythms that can align uncannily with those of speech,” Pinker says. There’s an ongoing debate about whether music is “adaptive” — whether it serves a direct evolutionary purpose. Steven Pinker doesn’t think it does.
