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When You’re Evil, the Whole World Looks Dark
The Wall Street Journal: Is it dark in here, or is it me? In the latest example of the study of “embodied cognition” — the notion that metaphors don’t just help us express abstract ideas but can also shape basic perception — researchers had 40 students recall and describe either an ethical or unethical deed from their past. On a 7-point scale, the students then judged the brightness of the room they were in. “As predicted, participants in the unethical condition judged the room to be darker than did participants in the ethical condition,” write the authors of the study, which is forthcoming in Psychological Science. Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal
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Black Women Leaders Approved for Assertiveness in the Workplace
While black men and white women are often jeered for being assertive and aggressive leaders, black women are expected to adopt dominant leadership styles usually associated with white men.
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Is Psychology About to Come Undone?
The Chronicle of Higher Education: If you’re a psychologist, the news has to make you a little nervous—particularly if you’re a psychologist who published an article in 2008 in any of these three journals: Psychological Science, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, or the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. Because, if you did, someone is going to check your work. A group of researchers have already begun what they’ve dubbed the Reproducibility Project, which aims to replicate every study from those three journals for that one year.
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Going the Distance: Stereotypes and Hard Work
The Huffington Post: I plead guilty to trading in stereotypes once in a while. For example, I've somehow gotten the idea that East Africans are especially good distance runners, and I think I've even said as much on a few occasions. But I don't know this to be true. I've never done the work to verify that East Africans are statistically superior at distance running. It just seems that every time I flip on ESPN and happen on a long-distance event, an East African is winning. This kind of stereotyping seems harmless enough, but is it? I intend it with admiration rather than disrespect, but new research suggests that whether stereotypes are positive or negative may be irrelevant.
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¿La gente odiosa nace así?
CNN Español: Vamos a decirlo de frente: todo el mundo no es agradable. De hecho, ser bueno es más difícil para algunas personas que otras. Pero ¿es posible que "la amabilidad" esté predeterminada por los genes? Un nuevo estudio publicado en la revista Psychological Science sugiere lo siguiente: Si usted piensa que el mundo está lleno de personas peligrosas, no se sentirá obligado a ser generoso, haciendo cosas como el voluntariado y la donación a entidades caritativas. Pero si usted tiene una variante genética particular, es más probable que sea una persona agradable, de todos modos.
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Why Clingy People Feel Colder
TIME: An icy stare may do more than just chill your heart metaphorically — it can literally change the way you perceive ambient temperature, making a room feel several degrees colder. This cooling effect is most pronounced in people who tend to be anxious in their relationships, new research finds. For the study published in Psychological Science, psychologist Matthew Vess of Ohio University recruited 56 adults online. Participants took a test that examined their so-called attachment style, basically whether they felt comfortable in their relationships with others or whether they were more anxious and avoidant.
