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In Defense of Daydreaming
Whenever I have a few moments of down time — every weekday, for instance, when I’m waiting in the car pool pickup line for my children at camp — I grab my phone and check to see whether anything interesting has happened on Instagram. The thing is, I don’t particularly like Instagram. Social media usually makes me feel insecure, but somehow that is preferable to sitting alone with my thoughts. I’m certainly not the only person who would rather do something than engage in introspection. In research that was published in 2014, adults were given the option of either entertaining themselves with their own thoughts for 15 minutes or giving themselves painful electric shocks.
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Text Your Friends. It Matters More Than You Think.
Calling, texting or emailing a friend just to say “hello” might seem like an insignificant gesture — a chore, even, that isn’t worth the effort. Or maybe you worry an unexpected check-in wouldn’t be welcome, as busy as we all tend to be. But new research suggests that casually reaching out to people in our social circles means more than we realize. “Even sending a brief message reaching out to check in on someone, just to say ‘Hi,’ that you are thinking of them, and to ask how they’re doing, can be appreciated more than people think,” said Peggy Liu, Ben L.
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Science Skeptics Often Suffer From Overconfidence
The study surveyed thousands of Americans online, quizzing them on scientific facts and soliciting their opinions on eight contested topics, including the COVID-19 vaccine. The researchers found that respondents who answered more factual questions correctly were more likely to agree with the scientific consensus about each topic. On the other hand, those who answered many factual questions incorrectly but thought they understood certain topics well were more likely to disagree with the scientific consensus.
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Want to Achieve Your Biggest Long-Term Goals? Science Says Avoid the Dreaded Negative Lumping Effect
Imagine you want to increase sales by 70 percent this quarter. Big jump, sure, but you think you can do it. Instead, you finish the quarter up 67 percent. How do you feel? According to research recently published in Psychological Science, you definitely feel disappointed. Worse, you're a lot less likely to work to match -- much less increase -- those results next quarter. Even though a 67 percent increase was a huge gain in sales and revenue. The reason? We tend to think of progress that doesn't reach our expectations -- no matter how significant that progress may have been -- as total failure.
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A Paradox in the Field: Mental-Health Disorders Among Psychologists
What do we know about the prevalence of mental health difficulties among psychological scientists? APS member Sarah Victor, a clinical psychologist and professor at the Texas Tech University, joined APS’s Ludmila Nunes to discuss mental health among psychologists.
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There Are Too Few Women in Computer Science and Engineering
Only 20 percent of computer science and 22 percent of engineering undergraduate degrees in the U.S. go to women. Women are missing out on flexible, lucrative and high-status careers. Society is also missing out on the potential contributions they would make to these fields, such as designing smartphone conversational agents that suggest help not only for heart attack symptoms but also for indicators of domestic violence. Identifying the factors causing women’s underrepresentation is the first step towards remedies. Why are so few women entering these fields? A common explanation is that women are less interested than men in computer science and engineering.
