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Solving the mystery of ‘Little Albert’
Macleans: He is one of the most famous babies in history, but until recently his real name was unknown. Almost every undergraduate who takes a psychology course has met “Little Albert,” the pseudonymous infant who was the subject of a famous experiment by John B. Watson (1879-1958). Watson founded the theoretical school of “behaviourism,” which sought to reduce psychology to observable laws, excluding interior mental states altogether, and considered the mind to be infinitely suggestible and plastic.
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Research shows toddlers understand right from wrong at just 19 months
Daily Mail: Children know the difference between right and wrong before they reach the age of two, according to new research published today. Scientists have found that babies aged between 19 and 21 months understand fairness and can apply it in different situations. They say it is the first time that having a sense of fairness has been identified in children at such a young age. Researchers say babies will watch a scene for longer if they think it contains something unfair, so in two experiments the tots were timed on how long they watched a live scenario about fairness. In the first, 19-month-olds saw two giraffe puppets given either a toy each or both toys to one of the giraffes.
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Why Online Dating Doesn’t Work
Scientific American: Online dating might give you something, but it's probably not a soul mate. Most sites rely on what’s called an "exclusive process"—they use an algorithm to find romantic matches based variables, from interests to fetishes. But now a team of psychologists from five universities has performed a systematic review. And they say that most claims for the power of the "exclusive process" don’t pan out. Their report is in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest. Listen to the podcast here: Scientific American
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Narrative Identity 101
Public Radio International: So if our identities are just stories... what does that mean for our lives, our memories, our mental health? Jonathan Adler is a psychologist who studies narrative identity. He tells Jim Fleming that his research found that our sense of well-being is based on the tone of our internal narratives rather than the stories themselves. Listen to the story: Public Radio International
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Wird man beim Bund zum Mann?
bild der wissenschaft: Das Militär prägt die Persönlichkeit – und umgekehrt "Die Bundeswehr lässt junge Kerle zu echten Männern reifen" – dieser Ausspruch hat offenbar einen wahren Kern, zumindest wenn man "Männlichkeit" auf der Basis traditioneller Rollenerwartungen definiert. Denn laut einer Studie unter Beteiligung von Wissenschaftlern der Universität Tübingen beeinflusst der Wehrdienst in substanzieller Weise, wie verträglich sie im Umgang mit anderen Personen sind. Charakterliche Veränderungen nachzuvollziehen, ist äußerst kompliziert.
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The search engine for love
The Sydney Morning Herald: It's easy to play Cupid when both parties are motivated to find love, writes Nicky Phillips. In the winter of 1959, two Stanford University students used the institution's room-size IBM 650 to build a computer program that paired 49 young men, mainly classmates, with 49 local women. Prospective couples answered 30 questions including their age, religion, hobbies and number of children wished for in marriage. The results were fed into the computer which, after nine hours of processing, selected pairs based on the similarity of the responses. The first attempt at computer dating was launched.
