-
Most Initial Conversations Go Better Than People Think
Have you ever met someone, replayed your conversation in your head and thought of the perfect response to a question or statement after the fact? Something that would have demonstrated how witty or knowledgeable you are or how much you have in common? You’re not alone. We’ve all had these moments of what-if. But a recent study reports that many of us may be underestimating how well the conversation may have gone overall. Why is this important?
-
Binary Bias Distorts How We Integrate Information
When we evaluate and compare a range of data points, we tend to neglect the relative strength of the evidence and treat it as simply binary.
-
What’s Life Like After Depression? Surprisingly, Little Is Known
A generation ago, depression was viewed as an unwanted guest: a gloomy presence that might appear in the wake of a loss or a grave disappointment and was slow to find the door. The people it haunted could acknowledge the poor company — I’ve been a little depressed since my father died — without worrying that they had become chronically ill. Today, the condition has been recast in the medical literature as a darker, more permanent figure, a monster in the basement poised to overtake the psyche. For decades, researchers have debated the various types of depression, from mild to severe to “endogenous,” a rare, near-paralyzing despair.
-
MacArthur “genius” Kristina Olson created the first long-term study of transgender children
It’s been a pretty good year for University of Washington psychologist Kristina Olson. She became the first psychologist (and the first UW scientist) to receive the National Science Foundation’s prestigious $1 million Waterman award, and the first woman to win it since 2004. And now she’s been awarded a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant. Olson’s early research focused on how children come to understand inequality, bias, and social groups, and over the past few years, she’s woven those interests together in the TransYouth Project, the first large-scale US study of transgender children.
-
How Accurate Are Personality Tests?
If you’re looking for insight into the true you, there’s a buffet of personality questionnaires available. Some are silly—like the internet quiz that tells everyone who takes it that they are procrastinators at the core. Other questionnaires, developed and sold as tools to help people hire the right candidate or find love, take themselves more seriously. The trouble is, if you ask the experts, most of these might not be worth the money. “You should be skeptical,” says Simine Vazire, a personality researcher at the University of California, Davis.
-
You really, really want to go to the gym but still avoid it. New research may explain why.
A Google search of the question “Why is it so hard to go exercise?” returns roughly 324 million hits. When faced with the daunting task of physical activity, the list of excuses is long: Too busy, too tired and in most cases, just not feeling it. But a new study from the University of British Columbia suggests that the real obstacle standing in the way of people getting active isn’t their lack of motivation, time or energy. It’s their brains. Two years ago, Matthieu Boisgontier, then a postdoctoral research fellow at KU Leuven in Belgium, noticed a disturbing trend.
