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Can you catch stress?
AOL UK: Are you surrounded by stressed-out colleagues complaining about their jobs, or friends whining about their boyfriends? Then watch out, because their stress and anxiety is as contagious as a common cold. That's the theory of a leading professor of psychology, Dr Elaine Hatfield, from the University of Hawaii. 'All emotions – joy, fear, sadness and stress – have been shown to be contagious,' she told us. 'It's called "emotional contagion". Read the full story: AOL UK
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Engaging undergrads with Wikipedia
Scientific American: Longtime science blog readers will certainly remember the popular cognitive psychology blog Cognitive Daily, written by Greta and Dave Munger, that had a fantastic five-year run at Scienceblogs. While Dave is still involved in the science blogging community through projects like Research Blogging and Science Seeker, and of course writing his own blogs, Greta has been pushing forward with online science communication in a slightly different way: working with her undergraduate psychology students at Davidson College in updating and improving psychology-related entries on Wikipedia.
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New Evidence of an Unrecognized Visual Process
We don’t see only what meets the eye. The visual system constantly takes in ambiguous stimuli, weighs its options, and decides what it perceives. This normally happens effortlessly. Sometimes, however, an ambiguity is persistent, and the visual system waffles on which perception is right. Such instances interest scientists because they help us understand how the eyes and the brain make sense of what we see. Most scientists believe rivalry occurs only when there’s “spatial conflict”—two objects striking the same place on the retina at the same time as our eyes move. But the retina isn’t the only filter or organizer of visual information.
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Holiday Haters Rejoice: Being a Grinch Might Be Good for You
TIME: We all know that Thanksgiving is a time for giving thanks. It’s right there in the name, you can’t miss it. However, the holidays can also mean spending a lot of time with your family, which, if you’re like most people, can be stressful. If your mom is constantly telling you to stop being a Grinch, now you can tell her that being negative can actually be a positive for your health. Two studies out this week indicate that negative comments can have health benefits.
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False Confessions Confuse Forensics
Scientific American: Confessing to a crime usually is not enough to throw you behind bars. Many states require independent evidence to corroborate a confession. But if a suspect confesses and forensic investigators know, it can cause them to favor evidence in support of a guilty verdict—even if the confession is coerced or false. So says a study in the journal Psychological Science. [Saul Kassin, Daniel Bogart and Jacqueline Kerner, Confessions that Corrupt: Evidence from the DNA Exoneration Case Files, January 2012 Psychological Science (no link yet)] Researchers analyzed 241 cases from the Innocence Project, which uses DNA tests to try to exonerate prisoners who are in fact not guilty.
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A Serving of Gratitude May Save the Day
The New York Times: The most psychologically correct holiday of the year is upon us. Thanksgiving may be the holiday from hell for nutritionists, and it produces plenty of war stories for psychiatrists dealing with drunken family meltdowns. But it has recently become the favorite feast of psychologists studying the consequences of giving thanks. Cultivating an “attitude of gratitude” has been linked to better health, sounder sleep, less anxiety and depression, higher long-term satisfaction with life and kinder behavior toward others, including romantic partners.
