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People with dualist beliefs less likely to engage in healthy behaviours
Asian News International: Washington: Researchers say dualist beliefs, that is, believing that the brain and the mind are two separate entities, can effect how we think and behave in everyday life. Across five related studies, researchers Matthias Forstmann, Pascal Burgmer, and Thomas Mussweiler of the University of Cologne, Germany, found that people primed with dualist beliefs had more reckless attitudes toward health and exercise, and also preferred (and ate) a less healthy diet than those who were primed with physicalist beliefs. Furthermore, they found that the relationship also worked in the other direction.
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Are climate sceptics more likely to be conspiracy theorists?
The Guardian: It's time to come clean: climate change is a hoax. And the moon landings were faked, 9/11 was an inside job, and the CIA is hiding the identity of the gunman on the grassy knoll. It might seem odd to lump climate change – a scientific theory supported by thousands of peer-reviewed papers and hundreds of independent lines of evidence – with conspiracy theories like these. But new research to be published in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science has found a link between the endorsement of conspiracy theories and the rejection of established facts about climate science.
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Olympics are fair game for spoiler alerts
Hampton Roads: Spoiler alert. Cover your ears. Sing loudly to yourself. Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father. Bruce Willis is already dead in “The Sixth Sense.” And the people who insist upon covering their ears and running for the hinterlands after hearing the words “spoiler alert” should always be ignored. LA-LA-LA-LA-Laaaaa. In an odd twist of priorities, the nation’s greatest secrets no longer are housed in military installations. They exist in the last seven minutes of movies and television shows. Read the whole story: Hampton Roads
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New Research on Cognition from Psychological Science
Read about new research on cognitive processes - including processes involved in learning, theory of mind, and cognitive control - published in Psychological Science, Current Directions in Psychological Science, and Perspectives on Psychological Science. Cognitive Load Disrupts Implicit Theory-of-Mind Processing Dana Schneider, Rebecca Lam, Andrew P. Bayliss, and Paul E. Dux A recently proposed framework explaining Theory of Mind (ToM) suggests there is one system that develops early and operates implicitly and another system that develops later and depends on domain-general cognitive functions.
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London Olympics: British seek to capitalize on knowing territory
Los Angeles Times: More athletes equate to more medal chances. And they'll know the territory. English sailors have years of experience with the winds off Weymouth. The soccer players are familiar with the pitches at various Olympic venues around the country. Even the BMX racers have devoted considerable hours to training at the relatively new track in Olympic Park. With subjectively scored events such as gymnastics, boxing and diving, there can be an additional advantage. Studying the last six Summer Olympics, Shibli found host nations excelled in sports that involved judges.
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A Liberal Learns To Compete
The New York Times: Your book “The Righteous Mind” addresses the psychological reasons that politics are so divided right now. I wonder what your take would be on conservatives’ fury over John Roberts’s health care decision. My colleague Pete Ditto studied people’s attitudes about mavericks and demonstrated that everybody likes to think that they value mavericks; but actually we like mavericks only if they’re on the other side. If they’re on our side, we call them traitors. We keep hearing that the partisan divide is at an all-time high, but isn’t this ignoring the sweep of history? Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton.
