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Cheatin’ Hearts
Free market principles that serve as the cornerstone of many western economies may serve as a sturdy foundation for fraud and deception, a psychological study show.
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The Perils of Being the Decider
Making business judgments, like forecasting the weather, always entails an element of uncertainty. Sound decision-making about when to spend capital – or, analogously, when to prepare for an incoming storm – requires assessing the degree of uncertainty and gauging whether the benefits outweigh the risks. Susan Joslyn, researcher at the University of Washington, studies how we make decisions when outcomes are unclear. In a recent article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Joslyn and co-author Jared LeClerc examine which factors lead to better (or worse) decision-making in uncertain situations.
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Turns Out Your Kids Really Did Love That Music You Played
NPR: Way back in the 1980s, were you the one playing "When Doves Cry" over and over? Well, don't be surprised if your kids wind up doing the same thing. Young adults have strong positive memories of the music their parents loved when they were the same age, a study finds. That flies in the face of the cultural stereotype that children reject their parents' taste in music. Participants in a study on musical memory didn't just say they remembered and loved the music that was popular in the early '80s, when their parents were young. They also loved the music of the '60s, which their grandparents may have been blasting while changing Mom's diapers.
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A Spouse’s Voice Rings Loudest in a Crowded Room
ABC News: You're at a crowded party, and two voices are competing for your attention: one from your spouse, the other from a stranger. Who are you most likely to hear? Your spouse, according to new research. So which voice are you most likely to ignore? Your spouse, but that depends on how long you have been married. If you are middle-aged, your spouse's voice is easier to hear, and easier to ignore. But the ability to ignore declines with age. That seemingly odd finding makes sense to Canadian researchers at Queen's University who put 23 married couples, ages 44 to 79, through 600 trials to explore how familiarity affects the human auditory system.
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‘Everyday Sadists’ Among Us
The New York Times: Try this quick word association: Sadist. And you respond… Hannibal Lecter? The Marquis de Sade? Actually, you didn’t need to come up with representatives of extreme criminal behavior or sexual torture. You might just as well have considered the colleague two cubicles over. The one who spends lunch hour splattering the brains of video game characters. Those who enjoy inflicting at least moderate pain on others, directly or vicariously, mingle with us daily. Think mean girls, taunting a classmate to commit suicide. Or the professor who grills a squirming, clueless student, lips curled in a small, savage smile. Delroy L.
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New report finds that effects of child abuse and neglect, if untreated, can last a lifetime
The Washington Post: In the first major study of child abuse and neglect in 20 years, researchers with the National Academy of Sciences reported Thursday that the damaging consequences of abuse can not only reshape a child’s brain but also last a lifetime. Untreated, the effects of child abuse and neglect, the researchers found, can profoundly influence victims’ physical and mental health, their ability to control emotions and impulses, their achievement in school, and the relationships they form as children and as adults. ...
