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The Two Faces of Attractiveness
Imagine that you’re an early human, trying to make your way in a perilous world. One very useful talent would be reading and reacting to the faces of other early humans—rapidly categorizing them into good and safe, on the one hand, or bad and threatening on the other. This skill would come in handy for everything from selecting mates to identifying friends and enemies. But how do we make these quick judgments? Well, the most obvious rule-of-thumb might be something like this: Is this face familiar or strange? Familiar faces are easy to process and categorize—as a brother or neighbor or member of the tribe.
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People Present Themselves in Ways That Counteract Prejudices Toward Their Group
Individuals from stigmatized groups choose to present themselves in ways that counteract the specific stereotypes and prejudices associated with their group, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “People often think of prejudice as a simple, single phenomenon — general dislike for members of other groups — but recent research suggests that there are actually multiple, distinct types of prejudice,” says graduate student Rebecca Neel, who conducted the research with her advisor Steven Neuberg and post-doctoral scholar Samantha Neufeld at Arizona State University.
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Experiencing Existential Dread? Tylenol May Do the Trick
Thinking about death can cause us to feel a sort of existential angst that isn’t attributable to a specific source. Now, new research suggests that acetaminophen, an over-the-counter pain medication, may help to reduce this existential pain. The research is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
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For Innovation, Dodge the Prefrontal Police
The Wall Street Journal: Quick—what can you do with Kleenex? Easy, blow your nose. But what can you do with Kleenex that no one has ever done before? That's not so easy. Finally a bright idea pops up out of the blue—you could draw a face on it, put a string around the top and make it into a cute little Halloween ghost! Why is thinking outside of the Kleenex box so hard? A study published in February suggests that our much-lauded prefrontal brain mechanisms for control and focus may actually make it more difficult to think innovatively. ... But it's important to remember that correlation is not causation.
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Learning Strategies Outperform IQ in Predicting Achievement
Scientific American: In the 1960s, the legendary psychologist Albert Bandura rejected the view that learning is passive. Instead he emphasized the importance of the active use of learning strategies. Today, Bandura’s legacy lives on, and has been extended in exciting new directions.
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Sweating small stuff adds up: Bad reactions to daily stress raise risk of anxiety, other mental disorders: study
National Post: Getting stressed out about seemingly minor events in our daily lives may have long-term implications for mental health, a new study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, says. And negative emotions, like a poor diet and lack of exercise, can contribute to the development of mental health problems later in life. Psychologist Susan Charles and her colleagues, writing in the March 26 issue of the journal Psychological Science, used data collected from two U.S. national surveys to examine 711 people between the ages of 25 and 74.
