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The Crisis in Social Psychology That Isn’t
The New Yorker: Things aren’t quite as bad as they seem, though. Although Nature’s report was headlined “Disputed results a fresh blow for social psychology,” it scarcely noted that there have been some replications of experiments modelled on Dijksterhuis’s phenomenon. His finding could still out turn to be right, if weaker than first thought. More broadly, social priming is just one thread in the very rich fabric of social psychology. The field will survive, even if social priming turns out to have been overrated or an unfortunate detour. ...
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Depressive Thinking Can Be Contagious
TIME: We don’t think of emotional states as passing from one person to another, but a new study suggests some depressive thoughts can go viral. Researchers studying a group of college students found that certain types of depressive thinking can spread from close-living roommates like a lingering flu. Although many people see depression as a chemical imbalance in the brain, scientists say social context and the way you see yourself and the world can be critical in causing and sustaining the illness, which affects around 10% of college-age adults.
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Everyday Sadism: Throwing Light on the Dark Triad
The Huffington Post: The Dark Triad. It could well be a cast of villains in an epic tale of fantasy. All three of these dark powers are callous and exploitative, but each is also malignant in its own way. One is charming but remorseless. The second is known for its cynicism and deception. The third is grandiose and entitled, the ultimate egotist. You don't want to cross this evil trio. ... Erin Buckels and Delroy Paulhus of the University of British Columbia and Daniel Jones of the University of Texas at El Paso are not questioning the legitimacy of the three traits, but suggesting that the construct is incomplete. The true dark core of human personality, they say, is a Dark Tetrad.
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Wide-Eyed Fear Expressions May Help Us – and Others – to Locate Threats
Wide-eyed expressions that typically signal fear may enlarge our visual field and mutually enhance others’ ability to locate threats, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research, conducted by psychology graduate student Daniel Lee of the University of Toronto with advisor Adam Anderson, suggests that wide-eyed expressions of fear are functional in ways that directly benefit both the person who makes the expression and the person who observes it. The findings show that widened eyes provide a wider visual field, which can help us to locate potential threats in our environment.
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MIND Reviews: Drunk Tank Pink
Scientific American Mind: At the 2004 Summer Olympics, researchers asked six athletes in different sports to wear red uniforms instead of their usual more subdued colors. All of them won gold. Although the color red, associated with sex, dominance and aggression, did not convey magical powers, it may have provided subconscious cues to the athletes and their opponents that swayed the outcome of the competition. In his new book, social psychologist Alter reveals how seemingly innocuous things, such as colors, symbols, even names, influence how we think and behave.
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Can clenching fists improve memory?
Los Angeles Times: Want a better grip on your memory? A study suggests clenching a fist could play a role in how well you recall information. Researchers recruited 51 right-handed individuals for the experiment, and asked them to squeeze a pink rubber ball for 90 seconds before they were shown a list of 36 words. They were then asked to squeeze the ball again before they wrote down as many of the words as they could remember. The test subjects who squeezed the ball with their right hand before memorizing the list, and then squeezed it with their left hand before writing words down, performed best.
