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Why Do People Defend Unjust, Inept, and Corrupt Systems?
Why do we stick up for a system or institution we live in—a government, company, or marriage—even when anyone else can see it is failing miserably? Why do we resist change even when the system is corrupt or unjust? A new article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science, illuminates the conditions under which we’re motivated to defend the status quo—a process called “system justification.” System justification isn’t the same as acquiescence, explains Aaron C.
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Positive Memories Sustain Us
Huffington Post: Emotional events are memorable. If I talk to people from my parent's generation, they can all tell you where they were and what they were doing when they heard that President Kennedy had been shot, even though this happened almost 50 years ago. For my generation, the day of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger as well as the attacks on 9/11 have the same force and vividness in memory. All of this would make it seem as though negative events are particularly memorable. And, of course, there is some reason to want to remember negative things that happened in detail.
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How to Beat the Holiday Blues
ABC News: They say it's the most wonderful time of the year. But for many Americans, the holiday season is the most hectic, most stressful and most demanding. "There's the huge expectation to be jolly and cheerful and there's often a big contrast between how people are actually feeling and how they're expected to feel," said Nadine Kaslow, chief psychologist at Emory University School of Medicine. "A lot of the discomfort of the holidays lays in that discrepancy." The financial strain of gift-giving, the memories of holidays past and the weight of wanting everything to be perfect can take its toll. But managing expectations and keeping things laid back can help stave off the holiday blues.
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Fatherhood can be the birth of positive change
Los Angeles Times: Ten tiny fingers and 10 tiny toes may be enough to change men's lives in ways they never thought possible. A recent study found that some men dropped their delinquent ways when they went from "hood" to fatherhood. The research, conducted by scientists in Oregon and Texas, tracked 206 males from a medium-size metropolitan city in the Pacific Northwest. Participants were recruited at age 12 and assessed annually over 19 years, until age 31. Read the full story: Los Angeles Times
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Babies Picky About Who They Imitate
LiveScience: Babies are famous for copying adults, but a new study shows that little ones carefully choose whether to imitate an adult's actions based on how credible they think the adult is. For example, if an adult has previously displayed unreliable or dishonest behavior, the baby is less likely to mimic them, according to the study. Researchers divided 60 babies between 13 months and 16 months into two groups. In the first group, "unreliable" experimenters looked inside a container while expressing excitement, and invited the babies to discover whether the box contained a toy or was empty. For that group's experiment, the box was empty.
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Sound and vision work hand in hand
Yahoo! India: A new study has revealed that our senses of sight and hearing work closely together, perhaps more than people realize. In the study of how one sense can affect another, Ladan Shams, aUCLA associate professor of psychology and her colleagues showed 63 participants a large number of dots on a screen in two separate phases, with a break between the phases. In one phase, the dots moved around randomly; in the other, some of the dots moved together from right to left. In both phases, the dots were accompanied by sound. Participants were divided into three groups.
