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Babies Prefer Individuals Who Harm Those That Aren’t Like Them
Infants as young as nine months old prefer individuals who are nice to people like them and mean to people who aren’t like them, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. In our social lives, we tend to gravitate toward people who have things in common with us, whether it’s growing up in the same town, disliking the same foods, or even sharing the same birthday. And research suggests that babies evaluate people in much the same way, preferring people who like the same foods, clothes, and toys that they like. This preference helps us to form social bonds, but it can also have a dark side.
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Frustration May Increase Attraction to Violent Video Games
Denying people the opportunity to engage in stealing, cheating, and other taboo behaviors may lead them to seek out violent video games as a way of managing their frustration.
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You’re Not as Good an Investor as You Think You Are
The Wall Street Journal: Are those who can't remember the crash condemned to repeat it? Markets have been rising and investors returning to stocks, thanks to cheap money from central banks, a rash of takeover deals, the glimmers of economic recovery—and an epidemic of amnesia. ...
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Sustainable Satisfaction: How Aging Makes Your Mind More Charitable
The Huffington Post: What is it that draws so many of us to community causes as we age? Is it just an excess of wealth that inspires philanthropy, or are our brains actually learning to perceive our relationships with the world around us in different ways? Part of the answer may be that as we grow older, we're also growing more satisfied with what we already have. According to one recent study, our overall opinions of our own well-being, our relationships and our career status tend to rise later in life -- and not just for those who've spent the past few decades clawing their way to the top. As the journal Psychological Science reports, a team led by Angelina R.
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New Center Aims to Make Science More Open and Reliable
National Geographic: The field of psychology is going through a period of introspective turmoil. One the one hand, it has never been more popular. Its results lead to attention-grabbing headlines, and fill books that sit happily on bestseller lists. Conversely, some of its own practitioners are starting to ask themselves a difficult question: What proportion of the field’s findings are genuine and reliable insights into the human mind, and what proportion are red herrings produced by questionable research practices and, in rare cases, outright fraud? ... Nosek’s solution launches today—the Center for Open Science, a new laboratory at Charlottesville, Virginia.
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Freshman Funk: Is Harmful Thinking Contagious?
The Huffington Post: I know very few people who would describe first semester, freshman year of college, as a time of unqualified joy. I was certainly ready to leave home, but even so it was a disruptive time. I was disconnected from my family and close friends for the first time and, even more difficult, thrown into a dormitory full of strangers -- young men from unfamiliar places with diverse experiences and values. University of Notre Dame psychological scientist Gerald Haeffel and his colleagues have been exploring what's called cognitive vulnerability -- a way of thinking, and interpreting life's travails, that predisposes people to clinical depression.
