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APS Registered Replication Report Project to Explore the “Facial Feedback Hypothesis”
Editors of Perspectives on Psychological Science are now accepting proposals from researchers who would like to participate in a new Registered Replication Report (RRR) designed to replicate a 1988 experiment testing the “facial feedback hypothesis.” The experiment, originally conducted by Fritz Strack, Leonard Martin, and Sabine Stepper, investigated the hypothesis that a person’s facial expressions can influence their affective responses, an idea that dates back to Darwin. In their study, Strack and colleagues surreptitiously induced participants to smile by holding a pen in their teeth or to pout by holding it between their lips.
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Mistargeted Messages Could Spur Help-Seeking for Depression
Many people suffering from depression are not seeking treatment, but researchers have identified a possible communication technique that could spur help-seeking.
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Evolution of the Human Brain: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
With our uniquely large brains and extended childhoods, humans are a bit of an evolutionary puzzle. According to a recent article published in Perspectives in Psychological Science, romantic love and the pair-bonding that it motivates may be part of the answer to this evolutionary riddle. Researchers Garth Fletcher of Victoria University in Wellington New Zealand and collaborators Jeffry A. Simpson, Lorne Campbell, and Nickola C. Overall argue that the adaptation of romantic love may have played a key role in the evolution of our big, sophisticated brains and social aptitude. “Evolutionary adaptations typically have a jury-rigged nature, and romantic love is no exception,” says Fletcher.
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ORI Announces Grants to Fund Conferences Promoting Research Integrity
The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) seeks to support conferences to develop multidisciplinary networks to build upon existing evidence-based research and stimulate innovative approaches to preventing research misconduct and promoting research integrity. ORI is especially interested in supporting conferences that lead to extramural grant applications on research on research integrity and peer-reviewed publications.
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Need to Solve a Personal Problem? Try a Third-Person Perspective
Why is it that when other people ask for advice about a problem, we always seem to have sage words at the ready, but when we ourselves face a similar situation, we feel stumped about what to do? In a 2014 Psychological Science article, researchers Igor Grossmann (University of Waterloo) and APS Fellow Ethan Kross (University of Michigan) suggested that people’s tendency to reason more wisely about others’ social problems than they do about their own is a common habit — one they referred to as Solomon’s Paradox. In a series of studies, the researchers not only found evidence of Solomon’s Paradox, but also identified a way that this reasoning bias can be eliminated.
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Feeding Mental Health Through Nutritional Interventions
Depression treatments include both psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy, but a burgeoning area of research points to another potent therapy: nutrition
