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The Psychological Challenge of Being a Prince
The Huffington Post: Amidst the celebrations of the birth of a British prince, it is worth thinking about what this may mean psychologically for a youngster who will turn 18 in 2031. A look back at his forebears gives a hint of the psychological challenges he will face. His great-great-great-great grandfather Edward VII was a disappointment to his parents and lived a fairly dissolute life and only found a properly adult role when he became King at the age of 60. George V had an easier time because he was only 44 when his father died in 1910, but he did not make things easy for his son Edward VIII, saying about him: "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in twelve months".
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How Do Babies Learn to Be Wary of Heights?
Infants develop a fear of heights as a result of their experiences moving around their environments, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Learning to avoid cliffs, ledges, and other precipitous hazards is essential to survival and yet human infants don’t show an early wariness of heights. As soon as human babies begin to crawl and scoot, they enter a phase during which they’ll go over the edge of a bed, a changing table, or even the top of a staircase.
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Why Men Need Women
The New York Times: WHAT makes some men miserly and others generous? What motivated Bill Gates, for example, to make more than $28 billion in philanthropic gifts while many of his billionaire peers kept relatively tightfisted control over their personal fortunes? New evidence reveals a surprising answer. The mere presence of female family members — even infants — can be enough to nudge men in the generous direction. In a provocative new study, the researchers Michael Dahl, Cristian Dezso and David Gaddis Ross examined generosity and what inspires it in wealthy men.
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Gorillas in the Lung
The Scientist: Anyone who’s taken an introductory psychology course in the last 20 years likely remembers the “invisible gorilla” video. The video shows a group of kids engaged in a ball-passing game while, mostly unnoticed, a man in a gorilla suit scurries through the scene. The video is a striking example of a phenomenon called inattentional blindness, whereby observers may miss unexpected, but salient, events while engaged in other tasks. Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in Boston examined whether inattentional blindness also affects expert observers.
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Mealtime routines and rituals improve flavor
Salon: It’s hard to imagine how unhygienic candle-blowing or your family’s jarring birthday overtures could possibly make eating cake more pleasurable. But, researchers at harvard and the University of Minnesota say it’s exactly the singsong and ceremony of such rituals that can drastically change our perception of what we’re eating — for the better. In a collection of studies published in the journal Psychological Science, Kathleen Vohs, a psychological scientist at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, and colleagues conducted a series of experiments to see how nonfunctional mealtime rituals affect our perception and consumption of certain foods.
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Booze, Binging and the Devil You Don’t Know
The Huffington Post: Imagine this scenario. You are meeting your boyfriend at a restaurant, intending to break up with him. You know this conversation is going to be tough, but you really don't know what his reaction will be. He could end up sobbing, or shouting, or he could just sit there in uncomfortable silence. You arrive early and order a whiskey -- a double -- to steady your nerves. ... These findings, reported in a forthcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science, have some real world implications.
