-
The False Promise of Quick-Fix Psychology
It would be hard to find a scientific field that has enjoyed as much mainstream success in the 21st century as social psychology. Social psychologists dominate the TED Talk stage, rack up impressive contracts as consultants to schools and companies, and write book after bestselling book. Their most viral ideas promise to solve some of society’s most pressing problems, often in slickly counterintuitive ways. Amy Cuddy (61 million TED Talk views) argued that by adopting brief, expansive poses—think Wonder Woman with her hands on her hips—women could feel more powerful in the workplace, shrinking stubbornly persistent gender gaps.
-
The U.S. Is Opening Up. For the Anxious, That Comes With a Cost.
When the pandemic narrowed the world, Jonathan Hirshon stopped traveling, eating out, going to cocktail parties and commuting to the office. What a relief. Mr. Hirshon suffers from severe social anxiety. In the past, casual get-togethers and meetings came with a rapid heartbeat and clenched fists. He preferred to interact virtually, and welcomed the Zoom meetings that others merely tolerated. Even as he grieved the pandemic’s toll, he found lockdown life to be a respite. “There is cognitive dissonance to feeling good in the middle of the pandemic,” he said. Now with normalcy about to return, Mr.
-
Your Pandemic Baby’s Coming Out Party
... Even grandparents, aunts or uncles in the same country as babies born during Covid-19 have been kept away by travel restrictions and other precautions. Darby Saxbe, an associate professor at the University of Southern California, said her lab started following 760 expectant parents in the spring of 2020 to study their mental health, social connection and other factors. In open-ended survey responses, many participants reported that they hadn’t been able to see extended family. The first pandemic babies are becoming toddlers this spring, which means entire infancies have passed while children and their parents were isolated from their loved ones.
-
Pandemic Got You Down? Psychologists Suggest Time Travel — Sort of.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could peek into the future to reassure ourselves? That’s not actually possible, but there is a psychological technique for regulating emotions that employs this idea. It’s called “temporal distancing,” and you can think of it as mental time travel. If the concept sounds familiar, it’s a bit like reminding yourself of the ancient adage “this, too, shall pass.” I consulted three experts about how to do it and why it works. Trapped in the moment Right now, you may find many things upsetting: You might be Zoomed out, missing your friends or mourning lost loved ones.
-
Students Who Gesture During Learning ‘Grasp’ Concepts Better
When we talk, we naturally gesture—we open our palms, we point, we chop the air for emphasis. Such movement may be more than superfluous hand flapping. It helps communicate ideas to listeners and even appears to help speakers think and learn. A growing field of psychological research is exploring the potential of having students or teachers gesture as pupils learn. Studies have shown that people remember material better when they make spontaneous gestures, watch a teacher’s movements or use their hands and arms to imitate the instructor. More recent work suggests that telling learners to move in specific ways can help them learn—even when they are unaware of why they are making the motions.
-
The Many Minds of the Octopus
Cephalopods are having a moment. An octopus stars in a documentary nominated for an Academy Award (“My Octopus Teacher”). Octos, as scuba-diving philosopher Peter Godfrey Smith calls them, also play a leading role in his marvelous new book “Metazoa,” alongside a supporting cast of corals, sponges, sharks and crabs. (I like Mr. Godfrey-Smith’s plural, which avoids the tiresome debate over Latin and Greek endings). Part of the allure of the octos is that they are both very smart, probably the smartest of invertebrates, and extremely weird. The intelligence and weirdness may be connected and can perhaps teach us something about those other intelligent, weird animals we call homo sapiens. ...
