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Why Me? Perceptions of Justice Influence Pain Experiences
Life has its many twists and turns – to make sense of all of it, people sometimes take a “just world” approach, reasoning that people get more or less what they deserve. But there are some experiences – like chronic, intractable pain – that are difficult to reconcile with a sense of justice. “We learn that justice is important, but there is no universal consensus on what is just or unjust or guidance on how to respond to injustice,” write researchers Joanna McParland and Christopher Eccelston in a new article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science.
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Religious Infusion Predicts Intergroup Conflict Around the World
For many people, religion is deeply ingrained in their day-to-day existence. It supports their faith and spirituality, and it provides friendship and a sense of community. But religion can also contribute to conflict, as in the Central African Republic, where Muslim and Christian groups are currently enmeshed in a violent struggle for power. Psychological scientist Steven Neuberg of Arizona State University and colleagues wanted to examine what effect religious infusion — the degree to which religion influences the everyday lives of groups and their individual members — might have on intergroup conflict. Their findings are published in the January 2014 issue of Psychological Science.
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Apply Now for the NIDCR ‘Building Bridges’ APS Convention Travel Award
For the second year in a row, the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) is offering a travel award to approximately five APS poster submitters. This award is aimed at helping bring together two research communities that might not at first seem to have much overlap: oral health scientists and psychological scientists. To be considered, the posters must either showcase a study directly related to oral health or describe a study indirectly relevant to oral health that attempts to bring together researchers in oral health and psychological scientists.
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Before Crawling and Walking, Babies Need to Get the Visual Gist of Moving Forward
Infants show developmental changes in visual motion perception about one month before they first start moving around on their own, according to new research published in Psychological Science. Psychology researcher Nobu Shirai at Niigata University
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How Can Data Collection Help Psychological Science?
Technology — from smartphones to biosensors to surveillance monitors — is advancing so quickly it is almost impossible to keep up. One of the theme programs at the 2014 APS Annual Convention, to be held May 22–25 in San Francisco, California, addresses how psychological science can harness these innovations as well as how psychological scientists can help inform the work of those developing the complex technology. Five leaders in the field will discuss their methods of using technology to advance psychological science and gain insight into human behavior. They will also examine potential pros and cons of such research. Speakers include: Dr. Michael N.
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Super Rare Items Are Most Likely to Be Missed
Various jobs in security, medicine, and other fields require employees to pick out a target item in the midst of lots of distracting information. To complicate matters, the targets that are are most important to find – say, a weapon or a malignant tumor – are also incredibly rare. So, how are we at picking out these kinds of ultra-rare targets? Not very good at all, according to new research from Stephen Mitroff and Adam Biggs of Duke University. The researchers took advantage of anonymous data provided by an app called “Airport Scanner,” developed by Kedlin Co.
