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Cognitive Abilities Seem to Reinforce Each Other in Adolescence
Scientists from Cambridge, London, and Berlin directly compared different proposed explanations for the phenomenon of ‘general intelligence’ and how it develops over time.
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Governments are trying to nudge us into better behavior. Is it working?
The Washington Post: All over the world, public and private organizations are showing keen interest in “nudges” — interventions and policies that rely on behavioral science to steer people in a particular direction but preserve their freedom of choice. A warning is a nudge; so is a reminder (for example, that a bill is coming due). Automatic enrollment in retirement plans, or in green energy, also count as nudges, so long as people are allowed opt out.
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One of the most popular job interview questions is biased and unfair, says Adam Grant
Quartz: You’re 10 minutes into a job interview. You’ve had a bit of small talk and run over the basics of your resume. Then the interviewer leans back and asks a question that begins the dreaded phrase: “Tell me about a time when…” Who knows what will follow? “When you overcame a professional challenge.” “When you managed workplace conflict.” “When you slew a wild unicorn.” Behavioral questions like these are among hiring managers’ favorite interview tactics. They’re meant to offer unique insight into a potential employee’s personality and how a person might fit into company culture.
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THE SUBTLE BIAS THAT UNDERLIES OUR IDEOLOGICAL LEANINGS
Pacific Standard: There are many theories as to why someone grows up to be a liberal or a conservative. These range from psychological (liberals tend to be more open to ambiguity) to developmental (authoritarian parents tend to have conservative children) to physical (taller people tend to lean right). New research points to something even more basic—a way of making sense of the world that underpins one's political orientation. It's best described as the answer to a question: When you are asked to judge a situation, do you instinctively reach for an inherent explanation, or an extrinsic one? Read the whole story: Pacific Standard
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Associative Learning of Social Value in Dynamic Groups Oriel FeldmanHall, Joseph E. Dunsmoor, Marijn C. W. Kroes, Sandra Lackovic, and Elizabeth A. Phelps The researchers examined value-based learning in social situations in two experiments. In the first experiment, participants received large monetary offers from "good" dictators and small monetary offers from "bad" dictators. The good and bad dictators then offered similar monetary amounts while partnered with a novel dictator.
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Being Neurotic May Help You Live Longer
New York Magazine: To some people, the word “neurotic” can conjure images of a certain type of psychotherapy: Woody Allen types splayed out on long divans, with Freudian therapists sitting coolly behind them, asking vague questions about Oedipal complexes. Psychology’s come a long way since Freud, though, and today, this scenario feels a bit like an anachronism — and so, in some ways, does the term. In 1994, the condition of “neurosis” was dropped entirely from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, psychiatry’s encyclopedia of mental disorders.
