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The Psychological Science of “Inception”
For three weeks in a row, Leonardo DiCaprio’s movie “Inception” reigned at the top of the Box Office hit list. Sure, the special effects and imaginative landscapes are exciting, but did you know that the
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How to quit smoking? Think about smoking
I quit smoking many years ago, but even today I can recall the unpleasantness of that time—the cravings, the obsessive thoughts. My strategy was to keep my mind and body busy all the time, in
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The Guide for Getting Risky
“Creatures inveterately wrong in their judgments and subsequent decisions have a pathetic but praise-worthy tendency to die before reproducing their kind.” – Willard Van Orman Quine (1969) I was hoping to slink into the ballroom
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Hazardous Thinking
Much of the attention given to risky behavior focuses on affect — how that drink or cigarette will make one feel. But what about cognition? Cognitive processes like prediction, planning, reasoning, and memory also play
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Under Pressure: Stress and Decision Making
A common way that researchers induce stress in study volunteers is by making them give a speech. In that case, there were plenty of opportunities during the APS 22nd Annual Convention to see the stress
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Sticking to the Rules
The idea that people are either conscious of something or they’re not seems like common sense. However, research into the development of the prefrontal cortex — the area of the brain responsible for executive function
