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The Science Behind the Heroism in Boston
The onsite response to the Boston Marathon bombings — bystanders bravely running toward the gruesome scene to help the wounded — exemplifies a growing body of psychological research on compassionate behavior. The classic research on the bystander effect and diffusion of responsibility suggests that in the tragedy on Boylston Street, the vast number of onlookers would be more likely than not to avoid providing help — largely because each person assumes there are plenty of others nearby who will do so.
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Q&A With Morton Ann Gernsbacher
APS Past President Morton Ann Gernsbacher is a Vilas Research Professor and the Sir Frederic C. Bartlett Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Gernsbacher is a leader in the field of cognitive psychology. Her research focuses on the cognitive roots of language comprehension. For more information about Gernsbacher and her research, visit www.GernsbacherLab.org. The DSM-5 officially comes out in May. Do you have any insights about what’s going to happen with diagnoses for conditions like autism? This is an important question, and one that many researchers, clinicians, and persons currently with and without diagnoses, are speculating about.
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What You Should Know About Treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
In the May 2013 issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest, Edna Foa and colleagues explore the challenges in disseminating evidence-based treatments for posttraumatic stress. Here are some important facts about effective treatments for PTSD. What Is The Impact of Using Evidence-based Treatments (EBT) for PTSD? Studies show that several cognitive-behavioral therapies, including prolonged exposure therapy, are highly effective as PTSD treatments. Such programs are relatively short-term, resulting in reduced costs of care.
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The White House Budget: Does It Distort The Science of Choice?
President Obama’s budget proposal released this week has turned the arcane term “chained CPI” into a controversial buzz phrase. This new calculation for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) assumes that as prices rise, consumers will simply turn to lower-cost alternatives, thus softening the impact of the price hikes. For example, if the cost of Red Delicious apples rises, people will just buy Gala instead, the theory holds. But does behavioral science support this measure?
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Buffering Stress with Optimism
Everything from traffic to tests can cause us to “freak out,” yet some people naturally handle stress better than others. Joëlle Jobin, 2012 APSSC Student Research Award winner, wanted to see if being an optimist or a pessimist could change the way stress affects individuals. When we stress out, our bodies release cortisol, a steroid hormone from the adrenal gland. Too much cortisol can have an adverse effect. Jobin and Carsten Wrosch, both from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, tested the association among stress, cortisol, and the buffering effect of optimism.
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Like Humans, Chimpanzees Know What They Know
Metacognition -- the ability to think about thinking -- is a cognitive skill that we use every day in recognizing what we know, and what we don’t know. Though metacognition was once thought to be a skill unique to humans, a new study published in Psychological Science suggests that chimpanzees may share this ability. Psychological scientist Michael Beran of Georgia State University and colleagues tested metacognition in three language-trained chimpanzees. All three chimpanzees had been trained from an early age to use symbols to request and label objects, actions, locations, and individuals. And they could respond to requests by humans using those symbols.
