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Slow Thinking Is Wise Thinking
Nobel Prize-winning psychological scientist Daniel Kahneman called US President Barack Obama a “slow thinker.” That may sound like an insult, but it’s actually high praise. In his latest book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman describes two types of thinkers. System 1 thinkers operate automatically and quickly, with little sense of voluntary control, and little or no effort. System 2 thinkers, however, allocate attention to mental activities that demand it, and they also tend to be more deliberative. Kahneman describes President Obama as a System 2 thinker. “He is a slow thinker. He deliberates,” Kahneman said in this CNN article. “He doesn't follow his gut immediately. He considers things.
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Psychological Scientists Honored for Improbable Research
For the second year in a row, research published in Psychological Science is being recognized with the, erm, prestigious Ig Nobel Psychology Prize for scientific achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” The jocular prizes, awarded annually for studies in a number of scientific fields, honors research that is unusual, imaginative, and spurs people's interest in science, medicine, and technology. This year’s Ig Nobel–winning research was published in the December 2011 issue of Psychological Science.
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Edward Maibach on the Sticky Problem of Misinformation
“When it’s really important to educate the public about an issue, the most reliable means we have is simple, clear messages repeated often by a variety of trusted sources,” says Edward Maibach, Director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University. Maibach wrote the introduction to the latest issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest (PSPI), which features a report on misinformation by Stephan Lewandowsky (University of Western Australia, Australia) and four coauthors.
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Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing
Read the Full Text (PDF, HTML) Evidence shows that vaccines do not cause autism, that global warming is actually occurring, and that President Obama was indeed born in the United States. Why then do people still -- often passionately -- believe the opposite to be true? In this report, Lewandowsky (University of Western Australia) and colleagues review recent psychological science detailing common sources of misinformation, processes for evaluating the validity of new information, and strategies for combating the effects of misinformation. Cognitively, it is much easier for people to accept a given piece of information than to evaluate its truthfulness.
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Secondary Analyses and Archiving of Social and Behavioral Datasets in Aging
The National Institute on Aging (NIA) recently issued two R03 grant announcements. R03 grants support small research projects that can be carried out in a short period of time with limited resources. The announcements are soliciting applications for (1) secondary analysis of data on aging in the areas of psychology, behavioral genetics, economics, demography, or (2) archiving and dissemination of data sets. These two announcements have two separate funds of $1,000,000 each as well as separate reviews and due dates. R03 RFA AG13-004 Secondary Analyses and Archiving of Social and Behavioral Datasets in Aging (R03): Researchers can request up to $50K in direct cost per year for only one year.
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10th International Conference on Bipolar Disorders
The 10th International Conference on Bipolar Disorders to be held 13-16 June, 2013, is accepting proposals for presentations at the conference. For the first time in the history of the conference, the meeting will not be held in Pittsburgh, but in Miami Beach, Florida, and now under the auspices of the International Society for Bipolar Disorders (ISBD). Clinicians, researchers, patients, family members, and mental health advocates from around the world will again come together for this four-day conference to share their clinical expertise, research findings, and personal experiences with the goal of improving the quality of life for those living with bipolar disorder.
