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Why Remember What You Can Find Online?
Where do you store important information? According to psychological scientist Betsy Sparrow, the answer isn’t always “in your brain.” Sparrow says that we allow ourselves to forget information that we are confident the people around us (our spouses and friends, for example) will remember. Increasingly, we rely on technology as well. This phenomenon is called transactive memory. To highlight transactive memory, Sparrow and her colleagues asked participants to type 40 facts — such as “an ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.” Half of the participants were told that the computer would save their lists and half were told it would not.
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OppNet Request for Applications for Three-year Research Projects: Basic Research on Decision Making(R01)
OppNet, NIH’s Basic Behavioral and Social Science Opportunity Network, released a new RFA for three-year research projects: Basic research on decision making: Cognitive, affective, and developmental perspectives (R01). Basic research on decision making: Cognitive, affective, and developmental perspectives (R01) Deadlines Letter of intent: December 18, 2011 Application: January 18, 2012 This OppNet Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages research grant applications that propose to increase understanding of the basic cognitive, affective, motivational, and social processes that underlie decision making across the lifespan.
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The Obedience Experiments at 50
This year is the 50th anniversary of the start of Stanley Milgram’s groundbreaking experiments on obedience to destructive orders — the most famous, controversial and, arguably, most important psychological research of our times. To commemorate this milestone, in this article I present the key elements comprising the legacy of those experiments. Milgram was a 28-year-old junior faculty member at Yale University when he began his program of research on obedience, supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which lasted from August 7, 1961 through May 27, 1962.
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FY2012 OppNet Funding Opportunity: Sleep and social environment: Basic biopsychosocial processes (R21)
Application due date: September 30, 2011 OppNet, NIH’s Basic Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Opportunity Network, has released its first FY2012 funding opportunity: Sleep and social environment: Basic biopsychosocial processes (R21) It solicits Research Project Grant (R21) applications that propose to investigate the reciprocal interactions of the processes of sleep and circadian regulation and function with behavioral and social environment processes. Sleep is a complex biological phenomenon essential to normal behavioral and social functioning, and optimal health.
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6 centimeters could win a game, or better yet a World Cup?!
Throughout this world cup, we have seen plenty of penalty kicks. After 90 minutes of play and an additional 30 minutes of overtime, the fate of each team comes down to their ability to score a goal from only 12 yards away. The penalty kick generates a variety of strong emotions in soccer (Carroll, Ebrahim, Tilling, Macleod, & Smith, 2002), and places the goalkeeper at such a disadvantage that only approximately 18% of penalty kicks are saved (Kropp & Trapp, 1999).
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Thinking about Death, East and West
It's unsettling to think about our own death, which is why we have ways to protect our sense of self when we're reminded of our mortality. For example, research has found that we become more critical of those who aren't like us when we have death in mind. However, a study to be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science found that there are cultural differences in these protective responses, specifically between Asian and European Americans. In a first study, European-Americans and Asian-Americans either had to write about their own death or about dental pain (the control group).
