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Study Maps Social Proximity to Temperature
Adding to the emerging literature on “embodied cognition,” a new study looks at metaphors, like “the cold shoulder” and “warm feelings,” to test the link between thermometer readings and feelings of closeness or distance, affection or iciness. Utrecht University psychologists Hans IJzerman and Gun Semin conducted a series of experiements designed to look at the connection of our bodily sensations are inextricably bound up with emotions like hatred and desire. In the first experiment, volunteers who had just arrived in the lab were asked to hold the experimenter’s beverage for a few minutes, ostensibly so he could do something that required two hands.
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Where’s the Science? The Sorry State of Psychotherapy
The prevalence of mental health disorders in this country has nearly doubled in the past 20 years. Who is treating all of these patients? Clinical psychologists and therapists are charged with the task, but many are falling short by using methods that are out of date and lack scientific rigor. This is in part because many of the training programs — especially some Doctorate of Psychology (PsyD) programs and for-profit training centers — are not grounded in science.
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Making Sense of Ambiguous Faces
We all use stereotypes every day, whether we like it or not. It’s how we sort an impossibly complex world into manageable categories: man, woman, Italian, Chinese, lawyer, engineer. Stereotypes can be unfair and hurtful to many people, but the power of stereotyping is undeniable. But what exactly is going on in the mind when we stereotype someone? Is the process instantaneous and automatic, or do we deliberate over traits and categories before making judgments?
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Mad Genius: Study Suggests Link Between Psychosis and Creativity
Van Gogh cut off his ear. Sylvia Plath stuck her head in the oven. History teems with examples of great artists acting in very peculiar ways. Were these artists simply mad or brilliant? According to new research reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, maybe both. In order to examine the link between psychosis and creativity, psychologist Szabolcs Kéri of Semmelweis University in Hungary focused his research on “neuregulin 1”, a gene that normally plays a role in a variety of brain processes, including development and strengthening communication between neurons.
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Evidence that Priming Affiliation Increases Helping Behavior in Infants As Young As 18 Months
Most of us are willing to help a neighbor in need, but there’s no question that we pay a price for our altruism. Not necessarily in money, but in valuable time and energy, and with no promise of payback. So, why do we engage in prosocial behavior in the first place? Psychologists believe that these actions stem from the innate social nature of humans. One idea is that group living has been so crucial to human survival for so long that there are automatic connections between group affiliation and helping behavior. If that’s so, then the mere hint of the group may be enough to induce prosocial behavior even in infants.
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The Link Between Weight and Importance
Weighty. Heavy. What do these words have to do with seriousness and importance? Why do we weigh our options, and why does your opinion carry more weight than mine? New research suggests that we can blame this on gravity. Heavy objects require more energy to move, and they can hurt us more if we move them clumsily. So we learn early on in life to think more and plan more when we’re dealing with heftier things. They require more cognitive effort as well as muscular effort. This leads to the intriguing possibility that the abstract concept of importance is grounded in our very real experience of weight.
