-
Q&A With Zoë Chance
Zoë Chance is a lecturer in marketing at the Yale School of Management. Her research includes consumer behavior, focusing on decision making and social welfare. We invited our Facebook and Twitter followers, as well as students, to submit questions based on Chance's research, and here is what she had to say. In reference to the research article in Psychological Science, "Giving Time Gives You Time" : Is there a relationship between the amount of time given or volunteered and the amount of time received? We didn’t find a relationship between the amount of time given or volunteered and the amount of time received — at least between 10 and 30 minutes.
-
APS Fellow Nakamura to Direct the NIH’s Center for Scientific Review
National Institutes of Health Director Francis S. Collins announced that APS Fellow and Charter Member Richard Nakamura will be the new director for the NIH’s Center for Scientific Review (CSR). Nakamura has been serving as the acting director since September 2011. Nakamura came to NIH's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in 1976 as a postdoctoral fellow. In the mid-80's he coordinated NIMH’s Biobehavioral Program and later was Chief of its Integrative Neuroscience Research Branch. Between 1997 and 2007, he served as the institute's Deputy Director. From 2007 to 2011 he has been institute Scientific Director.
-
Convention Swag Contest
For the 25th APS Annual Convention, we're leaving it up to you! Come up with a psychology-related idea (slogan, picture, etc.), and you could see it on our convention swag! The winner will also get a complimentary 2013 convention registration and APS membership. Submit ideas by December 31, 2012, on Facebook, Twitter, or [email protected].
-
Q & A With Psychological Scientist Jaime Napier
Jaime Napier is an assistant professor of psychology at Yale University. Her research focuses on political and religious ideologies. We invited our Facebook and Twitter followers, as well as students, to submit questions based on Napier's research, and here is what she had to say. In reference to the research article, "Why Are Conservatives Happier Than Liberals?": Are there any significant differences between the gaps in happiness in the United States and other countries? Was the gap larger or smaller in other nations or relatively similar?
-
Everyone Judges Sexy Women — but Why?
“Are sexualized women seen as complete human beings?” — and if not, why? A group of psychological scientists led by Jeroen Vaes of the University of Padova, Italy, tried to answer these questions by studying volunteers’ reactions to photographs. They found that both men and women tend to view sexually objectified women as having characteristics that are “less than human”; however, they also found that men and women dehumanize sexualized women for very different reasons. The results were published in the European Journal of Social Psychology. Vaes and his colleagues recruited heterosexual male and female study participants at an Italian university.
-
Music Makes a Brighter Future
Learning to play an instrument might lead us to feel more optimistic and motivated to seek opportunities, Michael M. Roy, Elizabethtown College, reported at the 24th APS Annual Convention in Chicago. In the spring of 2009, Roy and his colleagues established a fully functional concert band program in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. They returned in the fall of 2011 to assess the music program’s impact. During their initial and return visits, they measured feelings of self-esteem, optimism, positive affect, negative affect, motivation to avoid losses, and motivation to seek gains.
