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For Better Science, Bring on the Revolutionaries
A leading biologist at Harvard, Pardis Sabeti, has called out the replication movement in psychology, calling it a “cautionary tale” of how efforts to reform research may “end up destroying new ideas before they are fully explored.” Her argument, in short, is that the “vicious” debate over statistical errors in that field has only stymied further progress. There’s “a better way forward,” Sabeti says, “through evolution, not revolution.” For comparison, she describes what happened in her own field of human genomics: A rash of false-positive results gave way about 10 years ago, without much fuss or incivility, to a new and better way of doing science.
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For better science, call off the revolutionaries
Even in science, revolutions often go far beyond reason. This year, let’s hope that scientists of all stripes — but especially social psychologists — will slow down and start approaching one another with greater respect. For decades, the field of social psychology has captured the public imagination with high-profile research into how humans interact. Will people obey authority figures even when it involves hurting others? How do stereotypes shape human interactions? Are facial expressions of emotion universal across cultures? All of these are questions that social psychology tries to answer.
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This One Thing Makes You a Nicer Person
Mindfulness — the practice of staying attuned to what’s happening in the present moment — is a bonafide health trend right now, and for good reason. Research suggests it can reduce stress, help with problem drinking, lower blood sugar levels and help people succeed at work. Now, according to a new study, it may even help you become a nicer person. --- “When people witness someone being victimized, it’s really common for us to get distressed by it,” says study author Daniel Berry, an assistant professor of psychology at California State University San Marcos. But that distress doesn’t always translate into empathy.
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Why Are Some People More Creative Than Others?
Creativity is often defined as the ability to come up with new and useful ideas. Like intelligence, it can be considered a trait that everyone—not just creative “geniuses” like Picasso and Steve Jobs—possesses in some capacity. It’s not just your ability to draw a picture or design a product. We all need to think creatively in our daily lives, whether it’s figuring out how to make dinner using leftovers or fashioning a Halloween costume out of clothes in your closet.
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Nearly 100 scientists spent 2 months on Google Docs to redefine the p-value. Here’s what they came up with
Psychologist Daniël Lakens of Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands is known for speaking his mind, and after he read an article titled “Redefine Statistical Significance” on 22 July 2017, Lakens didn’t pull any punches: “Very disappointed such a large group of smart people would give such horribly bad advice,” he tweeted. In the paper, posted on the preprint server PsyArXiv, 70 prominent scientists argued in favor of lowering a widely used threshold for statistical significance in experimental studies: The so-called p-value should be below 0.005 instead of the accepted 0.05, as a way to reduce the rate of false positive findings and improve the reproducibility of science.
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Taming Traffic Tension with Behavioral Science
Stress, heat, expensive cars, and even larger-size driving seats are associated with aggression or rudeness on the road.
