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13 Common (But Silly) Superstitions
LiveScience: If you are spooked by Friday the 13th, you're in for a whammy of a year. This week's unlucky day is the first of three for 2012. And it would come as no surprise if many among us hold at least some fear of freaky Friday, as we humans are a superstitious lot. Many superstitions stem from the same human trait that causes us to believe in monsters and ghosts: When our brains can't explain something, we make stuff up. In fact, a 2010 study found that superstitions can sometimes work, because believing in something can improve performance on a task. Here, then, are 13 of the most common superstitions. Read the full story: LiveScience
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Ini Tujuh Bahan Dasar Meraih Kebahagiaan
Metro TV News Indonesia: Ilmuan Australia telah mempublikasikan dalam jurnal sains populer, Psychological Science, mengenai daftar 'bahan' yang diperlukan seseorang untuk benar-benar merasa bahagia. Ilmuwan itu berkomentar pada daftar pra-syarat untuk kebahagiaan. Menurut para peneliti, ada tujuh daftar mengenai 'bahan' kebahagiaan: Read the full story: Metro TV News Indonesia
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Taking Another Look at the Roots of Social Psychology
Psychology textbooks have made the same historical mistake over and over. Now the inaccuracy is pointed out in a new article published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. For generations, social psychology students have read that Norman Triplett did the first social psychology experiment in 1889, when he found that children reeled in a fishing line faster when they were in the presence of another child than when they were alone. But almost everything about that sentence is wrong.
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What Your Eyes Say About Who You Are
TIME: As you read these words, try paying attention to something you usually never notice: the movements of your eyes. While you scan these lines of text, or glance at that ad over there or look up from the screen at the room beyond, your eyes are making tiny movements, called saccades, and brief pauses, called fixations. Scientists are discovering that eye movement patterns — where we look, and for how long — reveals important information about how we read, how we learn and even what kind of people we are. Read the full story: TIME
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Écrire pour perdre du poids
Le Figaro: Une chercheuse de l'université de Waterloo, au Canada, a fait maigrir des étudiantes en leur demandant d'écrire sur elles-mêmes. Ici, pas d'angoisse de la page blanche, pas de longues stations debout devant un pupitre haut, pas d'espoir non plus de devenir un écrivain reconnu au fruit de longs efforts. En revanche, écrire sous certaines conditions peut aider, sans vraiment s'en rendre compte, à perdre du poids. C'est l'incroyable résultat auquel est parvenue une équipe dirigée par Christine Logel, de l'université de Waterloo (Canada).
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Confidence Matters Just as Much as Ability
Huffington Post: A bulk of research shows that when people are put in situations where they are expected to fail, their performance does plummet. They turn into different people. Their head literally shuts down, and they end up confirming the expectations. When they're expected to win, their performance shoots back up. Same person, difference expectations. In recent years, this phenomenon has been studied in a variety of high-stakes testing situations. One area that has received a lot of attention is in the domain of mental rotation. Out of all the gender differences in cognition that have been reported in psychological literature, 3D mental rotation ability takes the cake.
