-
Shielding Students From Stereotypes Helps Way More Than We Thought
The Huffington Post: We all know that negative stereotypes exist and that as a result, people may be discriminated against or denied access to resources without justification. But there's another disturbing effect that often goes unnoticed. It turns out that "stereotype threat," or simply knowing that others view you as a negative stereotype, may impair your academic performance. Scientists have long known about psychological exercises that can reduce the effects of "stereotype threat," but now it seems that such exercises not only benefit those experiencing this, but also the people around them. Read the whole story: The Huffington Post
-
Imagining Positive Outcomes May Bring Pleasure Now But Pain Later
Positive fantasies about how future events will turn out can boost your mood in the here and now, but they may actually lead to increased depressive symptoms in the long run, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “Our findings suggest that as pleasurable and helpful as positive fantasies are for depressive mood in the moment, they can be problematic and cumbersome over time,” says lead researcher Gabriele Oettingen of New York University.
-
How to Speed Read Without Skimming
The Wall Street Journal: Speed reading has been around for decades, thanks in large part to a Utah schoolteacher named Evelyn Wood, who launched her Reading Dynamics training program in 1959. Today, with so many of us feeling inundated by reading material, apps that teach speed reading on mobile devices have proliferated. Some try to speed things up by showing only a word at a time in rapid succession; others offer exercises or fast-moving text highlights. But do they work? Psychologists have done some reading of their own, and their message is: not so fast.
-
The Countries Where People Are the Most Emotionally Complex
The Atlantic: Think of the last piece of big news you got. How did you feel about it? Happy? Sad? Angry? Worried? Excited? Grateful? A little bit of all of the above? Experiencing multiple emotions at once may make it seem like you don’t actually know just how you feel about something—that you’re ambivalent, or indecisive, or wishy-washy. Psychologists would say it just means you’re emotionally complex. And according to a new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, emotional complexity varies a lot between countries. ...
-
Middle school: The new high school for moms
CNN: If you had to guess what are the most difficult years for a mother, what might you say? Infancy? Sure, dealing with a newborn is beyond stressful, as you try to figure out how to care for an infant and adjust to a new role all on zero sleep. It would be no surprise if those years were the most taxing. But I -- and probably many of you reading this -- would guess adolescence, namely the high school years, which I might add I am already dreading. ...
-
New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Clinical Psychological Science: Daily Actigraphy Profiles Distinguish Depressive and Interepisode States in Bipolar Disorder Anda Gershon, Nilam Ram, Sheri L. Johnson, Allison G. Harvey, and Jamie M. Zeitzer Bipolar disorder (BD) is characterized, in part, by disruption in physical activity; however, few studies have adequately tracked activity levels in BD to see if they are truly an indicator of mood states. Participants with and without BD wore a watch-based activity-monitoring device for 3 months. Participants completed demographic, symptom, and medication assessments at the beginning of each month.
