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Emotion: The Emotion Wars
Psychology Today: Science, just like art, is subject to big shifts in the way we think about ourselves. For the past two decades, psychology has favored "inside" explanations of behavior: Who we are is largely determined by our makeup. We are hostages to our genes. But the cutting edge is now shifting. Evidence is amassing that the environment we inhabit shapes even what we thought was most fixed about ourselves. One orthodoxy of psychology in the past two decades has been that emotions are hardwired into us and their facial display is universal, and thus recognizable, across cultures. We just "read" the emotions that are written on a face.
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Celebrity Psychology: Amanda Bynes drives away from police
Examiner: As a Hollywood star from the TV sitcom What I Like About You alongside Jenny Garth and the musical Hairspray with John Travolta, Amanda Bynes is one celebrity that many fans think is a pretty good girl. With a squeaky clean image, Bynes has been put into a category of celebrities most would not easily visualize as someone that would skip out on the police. After a routine stop for using her cell phone while driving, Amanda drove off and eluded the cops in Los Angeles. While she did turn herself in later that day, she sure gave them a scare. What motived the young actress to do so? Read the whole story: Examiner
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Now, seek the obscure to solve your problems
Yahoo India: A US researcher has come up a new technique that allows people to solve their problems systematically by using innovative ideas. According to Tony McCaffrey, a psychology PhD from the University of Massachusetts, there is a classic obstruction to innovation called 'functional fixedness'. "which is the tendency to fixate on the common use of an object or its parts. It hinders people from solving problems," McCaffrey said. McCaffrey has developed a systematic way of overcoming that obstacle: the "generic parts technique" (GPT). Read the whole story: Yahoo India
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Identification de suspects : comment améliorer l’efficacité de la traditionnelle line-up?
Express: Avec l’avènement des tests ADN, on s’est rendu compte que les séances d’identification de suspects potentiels de délit par des témoins d’une scène de délit aboutissaient fréquemment à des mises en accusation de personnes innocentes. Les témoins se sentent en effet obligés de désigner quelqu’un, lors des "line-up" (lorsque une dizaine de suspects leur sont présentés en ligne pour être reconnus), même lorsqu’ils ne sont pas tout à fait sûrs. Read the whole story: Express
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13 Fool-Proof Ways to Get Happier
Yahoo Finance: The pursuit of happiness may feel futile at times, especially as we've watched our 401(k)s and house values tank. How can we truly feel happy when life gets tough? U.S. News posed this question to leading happiness researchers to find out what strategies we can employ to stay upbeat. While it's true that some lucky folks are born with sunny dispositions, others, according to a growing body of research, can learn to be happy. How?
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Food on the brain: Study finds that hungry people see food-related words more clearly
The Daily Mail: Dieticians often warn of the dangers of over-indulging on calorific snacks and buying too much if we risk going food shopping while hungry. And it appears they may have a valid point after new research has discovered that how hungry we are directly effects how we view everyday situations. The study, published in Psychological Science, found that hungry people see food-related words more clearly than people who’ve just eaten. Read the whole story: The Daily Mail
