-
Actions and Personality, East and West
People in different cultures make different assumptions about the people around them, according to an upcoming study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The researchers studied the brain waves of people with Caucasian and Asian backgrounds and found that cultural differences in how we think about other people are embedded deep in our minds. Cultural differences are evident very deep in the brain, challenging a commonsense notion that culture is skin deep. For decades, psychologists believed that it's natural for humans to see behaviors and automatically link them to personality.
-
New Research From Psychological Science
Hierarchical Encoding in Visual Working Memory: Ensemble Statistics Bias Memory for Individual Items Timothy F. Brady and George A. Alvarez Current models of visual working memory assume that people encode memories of objects individually. Yet, new research has shown that items surrounding an object can influence a person’s recollection of it. When observers were asked to recall the size of a single circle after viewing an image with multiple circles, they tended to report a larger size if the other circles were large and a smaller size if the surrounding circles were small.
-
Stress Higher in Children With Depressed Parents
Children with depressed parents get stressed out more easily than children with healthy parents—if the depressed parents are negative toward their child. That's the conclusion of a study published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study is part of a long-term look at how a child's early temperament is related to the risk for depression. The children were recruited for the study when they were three years old, an age when depression is rare. Thus, the researchers expect to see depression appear as the children grow.
-
Teaching Psychology Through Film, Video
You've been working your fingers to the bone all semester and it is time for a break. So, you come up with the great idea to show a film. One of your colleagues has recommended one highly. You plan to dim the lights, hit the play button, and quietly sit in the back of the classroom wishing for some popcorn. Sounds great - what could go wrong? The film starts and before you know it you find yourself wondering - how does this fit with the material I've been presenting? This question is reinforced when one of your better (and braver!) students asks the same question as the lights go up.
-
Creating Cooperative Learning Environments
Cooperative learning is: a waste of time. a great way to avoid the hard work of lecturing. an ideal paradigm for lovers of social loafing. another left-wing harebrained idea advocated by aging hippies. some or all of the above. If you responded like many psychology professors, you agree that there is too much material to cover in your classes to waste time on cooperative learning, and you might want to add that students paid to learn from a real professor, not another (equally ignorant) student. Lecturing "works," so "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." In fact, lecturing does work well for some educational goals.
-
Members in the News
Jonathan M. Adler, Olin College of Engineering, Elle, Aug 1, 2009: Agency in Personal Narratives. George A. Bonanno, Columbia University, The New York Times, Aug 18, 2009: Mental Stress Training Is Planned for U.S. Soldiers. Andrew M. Colman, University of Leicester, Sky News, Jul 8, 2009; Daily Mail (UK), Daily Telegraph (Sydney, Australia), The Herald (Scotland), The Times of India, Jul 9, 2009; Le Scienza (Italy), Jul 10, 2009; MSNBC, Jul 14, 2009: Research Shows That “Invisible Hand” Guides Evolution of Cooperative Turn-Taking. Harris M. Cooper, Duke University, The New York Times Room for Debate Blog, Aug 30, 2009: The Crush of Summer Homework.
