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I Can, Automatically, Become Just Like You: The Effects of Exclusion on Nonconscious Mimicry
No one likes to be excluded from a group: exclusion can decrease mood, reduce self-esteem and feelings of belonging, and even ultimately lead to negative behavior (e.g., the shootings at Virginia Tech). As a result, we often try to fit in with others in both conscious and automatic ways. Psychologists Jessica L. Lakin of Drew University, Tanya L. Chartrand of Duke University, and Robert M. Arkin of The Ohio State University studied people’s tendency to copy automatically the behaviors of others in order to find out how this mimicry can be used as an affiliation strategy.
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Back to the Future: Psychologists Examine Children’s Mental Time Traveling Abilities
Planning and anticipating occur so frequently in our everyday lives that it is hard to imagine a time when we didn’t have this capability. But just as many other capacities develop, so does this mental time traveling ability. Researchers have recently explored how children comprehend the future and ways that this understanding can be affected by, for example, their current physiological state. In one particular study, psychologists Cristina Atance from the University of Ottawa and colleague Andrew Meltzoff from the Univeristy of Washington tested children ages three, four and five to determine the precise age that they develop the ability to plan for the future.
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Religion can comfort or terrorize in response to death concerns
To many people, death is seen as a frightening concept. Although it is in general a common theme in books, music, and movies, we prefer to keep thoughts of our own death to a minimum. According to the Terror Management Theory, we adopt different worldviews, such as religion, to give our lives meaning and to provide order, thereby preventing us from being overwhelmed by the idea of death. But a new study shows that the terminally ill can be overwhelmed with both religious struggle and depression as a result of being unable to cope with thoughts of death.
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Practice Makes Perfect: Study Shows Chinese Children Excel in Math at an Early Age
In China and other East Asian countries, parents tend to emphasize the importance of mathematics more so than parents in Western countries, such as the United States. Even before students start elementary school, parents in Asian countries encourage their children to practice simple arithmetic. But a recent experiment supports the notion that Chinese children may be more skilled than American children at mathematics, even when both groups are introduced to the same, novel concept. Psychologists Robert Siegler and Yan Mu, Carnegie Mellon University, tested the math skills of kindergarteners from a school in China and a school in the U.S.
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New Lie Detecting Technique
One of the most important abilities for solving crimes is the ability to detect lies. But despite the methods that have been developed for this purpose, they can still be sidestepped by the most seasoned criminals. The autobiographical Implicit Association Test, or aIAT, can be used to identify events that a person has directly experienced in the past. While classifying a series of statements as true, false, innocent, or guilty, the person shows what he or she has lived through by how quickly the statements are identified.
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Reflecting on Values Promotes Love, Acceptance
No one enjoys being told that their behavior is harmful to themselves or others. In fact, most people respond defensively when confronted with evidence that their behavior is irrational, irresponsible, or unhealthy. Fortunately, research has shown that just a few minutes of writing about an important value can reduce defensiveness. Previous research by David Sherman at the University of California at Santa Barbara and his collaborators have shown that coffee drinkers are more willing to accept information that drinking coffee harms their health if they first write a few sentences about their most important value.
