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A Parrot Passes the Marshmallow Test
Slate: Can your kid pass the “marshmallow test”? And what does it mean if he can’t, but a parrot can? The marshmallow test is pretty simple: Give a child a treat, such as a marshmallow, and promise that if he doesn’t eat it right away, he’ll soon be rewarded with a second one. The experiment was devised by Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel in the late 1960s as a measure of self-control. When he later checked back in with kids he had tested as preschoolers, those who had been able to wait for the second treat appeared to be doing better in life. They tended to have fewer behavioral or drug-abuse problems, for example, than those who had given in to temptation.
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More than words: saying ‘thank you’ does make a difference
The Conversation: Most of us were taught that saying “thank you” is simply the polite thing to do. But recent research in social psychology suggests that saying “thank you” goes beyond good manners – it also serves to build and maintain social relationships. This premise has its base in the find-remind-and-bind theory of gratitude, proposed by US psychologist Sara Algoe, from the University of North Carolina.
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New Insights Into Eyewitness Memory From Groundbreaking Replication Initiative
A research replication initiative confirms earlier findings, showing that asking witnesses to provide a written description of a suspect can impair their ability to select that suspect from a lineup — the so-called “verbal overshadowing” effect.
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Why Jurors and Policemen Need Stress Relief
National Geographic: I’ll be sitting on a jury tomorrow for the first time. The logistics are annoying. I have to take an indefinite time off work, wait in long security lines at the courthouse, and deal with a constant stream of bureaucratic nonsense. But all that is dwarfed by excitement. And, OK, yes, some pride. My judgments will affect several lives in an immediate and concrete way. There’s a heaviness to that, a responsibility, that can’t be brushed aside. My focus on jury duty may be why a new study on social judgments caught my eye. Whether part of a jury or not, we judge other people’s behaviors every day.
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Cruise Control May Prevent Speeding, But Slow Reaction Times
As cars become increasingly automated, researchers are looking at who’s the better driver: the human or the car. Most cars and trucks now come equipped with cruise control--which allows a car to automatically maintain a constant speed without input from the driver--and many newer vehicles have advanced cruise control (ACC) systems that automatically adjust a car’s speed to maintain a safe distance from the car ahead. A recent study from psychological scientists Mark Vollrath, Susanne Schleicher, and Christhard Gelau found that cruise control and ACC systems can have both positive and negative effects on driving safety.
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Hooray for the Mundane! Ordinary Memories Are the Best
TIME: Never mind those dreamy recollections of your fab trip to Rome or that perfect night out last Valentine’s Day. Want a memory with some real sizzle? How about that time last week you went out for a tuna sandwich with the guy in the next cubicle? Or that trip to the supermarket on Sunday? Hot stuff, eh? Actually, yes. Ordinary memories, it turns out, may be a lot less ordinary than they seem — or at least a lot more memorable — according to a nifty new study published in the journal Psychological Science. And that can have some positive implications for our state of mind. Read the whole story: TIME
