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Our Fortunetelling Genes
When I was a graduate student in the early 1970s, psychology was dominated by environmentalism, the view that we are what we learn. It was dangerous professionally (and sometimes personally) even to raise the possibility of genetic influence. We were taught, for example, that schizophrenia was caused by what your mother did to you in the first few years of life. Since then, a mountain of evidence from twin and adoption studies has convinced most scientists that disorders like schizophrenia and traits like cognitive ability run in families for reasons of nature (genetics) not nurture (environment). What is new in the last few years is the DNA revolution.
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We Still Believe That Genius Is Male—and Women’s Careers Are Suffering as a Result
The notion that men are intellectually superior to women remains lodged in our collective psyches. New research offers evidence that this bias has pernicious real-world consequences. A new study finds that women are less likely to be referred to employers as promising potential hires if the position in question is said to require a particularly smart person. "Despite the objective evidence of women's intellectual and professional accomplishments, it seems that their ability to make intellectual contributions is still not seen as being on par with men's," writes a research team led by Cornell University psychologist Lin Bian.
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People who play violent video games less affected by distressing images, study shows
People who frequently play violent video games are less affected by violent or distressing images, a new study has found. The research from the University of New South Wales did not find that video game players were more violent or aggressive, but that violent images had less of an effect in distracting their vision when they were searching for something else. In the experiment, people were shown 17 images of neutral landscapes in a quick flashing sequence. They were told to try and pick out one image that had been rotated sideways and remember which direction it was rotated.
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Giving, Rather Than Receiving, Leads To Lasting Happiness: Study
New U.S. research has found that we may get longer-lasting happiness by giving to others, rather than receiving for ourselves. Carried out by psychologists from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, the new research involved a series of experiments to see which brought the longest-lasting joy — giving a gift to yourself or to others. In one of the experiments, 96 participants received $5 every day for five days and were randomly assigned to spend the money on themselves or on someone else.
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New Research From Psychological Science
A sample of research exploring how we track other people’s knowledge states, individual differences in face recognition, and self-other agreement in personality reports.
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What Straight-A Students Get Wrong
A decade ago, at the end of my first semester teaching at Wharton, a student stopped by for office hours. He sat down and burst into tears. My mind started cycling through a list of events that could make a college junior cry: His girlfriend had dumped him; he had been accused of plagiarism. “I just got my first A-minus,” he said, his voice shaking. Year after year, I watch in dismay as students obsess over getting straight A’s. Some sacrifice their health; a few have even tried to sue their school after falling short. All have joined the cult of perfectionism out of a conviction that top marks are a ticket to elite graduate schools and lucrative job offers. I was one of them.
