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Liar, Liar, Liar
When we think about dishonesty, we mostly think about the big stuff. We see big scandals, big lies, and we think to ourselves, I could never do that. We think we're fundamentally different from Bernie Madoff or Tiger Woods. But behind big lies are a series of small deceptions. Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, writes about this in his book The Honest Truth about Dishonesty. "One of the frightening conclusions we have is that what separates honest people from not-honest people is not necessarily character, it's opportunity," he said.
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New Content From Current Directions in Psychological Science
A sample of articles on political attitudes, reliability of memory, and religious cognition.
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New Content From Perspectives on Psychological Science
A sample of articles on virtues and their measurement, the morality of war, the importance of organizing psychological knowledge, and how to study everyday moral judgments.
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Eager For The Results of The Nevada Caucus? Psychology Urges Us to be Patient
The British politician John Major once said, “The first requirement of politics is not intellect or stamina but patience.” And, with the Iowa caucuses still fresh in people’s minds, it might be a good time to remind ourselves of the many merits of patience. Here are five research-backed reasons why we should do our best to stay calm in the face of election uncertainty. ... Mischel and his team first experimented with the Marshmallow Test in the early 1970’s.
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Bilingual People May Make Different Choices Based on the Language They’re Thinking In. Here’s Why.
Young adults don’t always make great decisions. I myself did stupid things, which comes as a shock to my kids and husband, who know me as pretty, well, boring. Was my personality more reckless back then? Or could it have been because I lived much of life in a second language: French? Knowing another language broadens your opportunities: the people you can talk to, the items you can read, the films you can watch, the countries you can comfortably communicate in. But studies suggest that it can also have unintended consequences when it comes to decision-making. ...
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Courtroom Psychology Tests May Be Unreliable, Study Finds
Courts are not properly screening out unreliable psychological and IQ tests, allowing junk science to be used as evidence, researchers have concluded. Such tests can sway judges or juries and influence whether someone gets custody of a child or is eligible for bail or capital punishment. ... “There’s huge variability in the psychological tools now being admitted in U.S. courts,” said Tess Neal, an Arizona State University psychology professor and co-author of the study published Saturday in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest. “There’s a lot of stuff that looks like it’s junk and should be filtered out by the courts, but it’s not being filtered out," said Neal. ...
