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Q & A With Psychological Scientist Daniel Levitin (Part 2)
Below is part 2 of Levitin's Q & A: How important is household upbringing to preference of music? For instance, if someone is raised in a home where gospel music is constantly played, do they develop a liking for this genre of music? (Even if the genre of music is not popular for the time period.) We don't really know much about upbringing and genre-specific preferences, but we do know something about broader issues of tonality and musical syntax. There appears to be a critical period for acquiring musical syntax as there is for acquiring speech syntax.
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National Pride Brings Happiness—But What You’re Proud of Matters
Research shows that feeling good about your country also makes you feel good about your own life—and many people take that as good news. But Matthew Wright, a political scientist at American University, and Tim Reeskens, a sociologist from Catholic University in Belgium, suspected that the positive findings about nationalism weren’t telling the whole story. “It’s fine to say pride in your country makes you happy,” says Wright. “But what kind of pride are we talking about?
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The Default Choice, So Hard to Resist
The New York Times: IN the wide-open Web, choice and competition are said to be merely “one click away,” to use Google’s favorite phrase. But in practice, the power of digital distribution channels, default product settings and traditional human behavior often matters most. In a Senate hearing last month about Google, Jeremy Stoppelman, the chief executive of Yelp, pointed to that reality in his testimony. “If competition really were just ‘one click away,’ as Google suggests,” he said, “why have they invested so heavily to be the default choice on Web browsers and mobile phones?” “Clearly,” he added, “they are not taking any chances.” Read the whole story: The New York Times
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Why telling the truth could save your life: Most of us would rather lie to avoid awkwardness (even in high-risk situations)
Daily Mail: Many of us would rather tell a white lie than the brutal truth to avoid an awkward social situation. Instead of admitting a friend’s new hair-do is hideous, we may choose to say ‘it’s unique’ or ‘just you’. But a study has revealed that being too polite can have disastrous consequences in high-stakes situations. It could result in a doctor not administering the correct treatment if a nurse has not flagged up a potential error, a pilot crashing because a colleague has not pointed out a mistake, or staff ignoring strange occurrences in the workplace to avoid embarrassing colleagues or their boss, resulting in fraud.
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Q & A With Psychological Scientist Alan Kazdin (Part 1)
Yale University psychological scientist Alan Kazdin and his co-author Stacey Blase have called for a drastic change to the way in which the United States treats mental illness. Read about Kazdin’s research and watch a video from the 2010 APS Annual Convention here. Yesterday, we asked our twitter and facebook followers to ask Kazdin questions about his research. Well – we got a great response, from evidence-based psychotherapy to cellphone applications...you have definitely put him to work! Below is part 1 of Kazdin’s Q & A: 1. Is there really an established evidence base for what works in psychotherapy?
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3rd Scientific Meeting of the Federation of the European Societies of Neuropsychology
September 7 - 9, 2011 in Basel, Switzerland www.esn2011.org/
