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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Practice Does Not Make Perfect: No Causal Effect of Music Practice on Music Ability Miriam A. Mosing, Guy Madison, Nancy L. Pedersen, Ralf Kuja-Halkola, and Fredrik Ullén How essential is practice to achieving an expert level of performance? To answer this question, the authors asked monozygotic and dizygotic twins who play an instrument or sing how often they had practiced during four different age intervals (0-5 years, 6-11 years, 12-17 years, and 18 years till the time of measurement). The twins' music ability was assessed using a test of pitch, melody, and rhythm discrimination.
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The Power of Two: Why Sharing Is Better
My wife and I watch a lot of movies at home. It’s one of our favorite pastimes. I also watch a fair number of movies by myself, if my wife is out of town or busy with something else. Both of these activities are enjoyable, and I like the occasional solitude. But I enjoy the movies more when we watch them together, and I’ve often wondered why. It’s not that we talk during the movie, or communicate in any way really. We’re mostly silent, but we’re side-by-side, and that in itself seems to enhance the experience of watching a movie. Psychological scientists, it turns out, have noticed this phenomenon, too, and find it intriguing.
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When It Comes To Driving, Most People Think Their Skills are Above Average
If you ask someone to rate their driving skills on a one to 10 scale, there’s a good chance they’ll give themselves an above-average rating like a 7. Psychological scientists Michael M. Roy of Elizabethtown College and Michael J. Liersch of New York University found that although people may rate themselves as above average, they don’t think others would quite agree. Across four experiments, Roy and Liersch found that people often believed that others would rate them as a worse driver (about 10% worse) than they rated themselves. Because there is no standard definition for “good driving,” people tend to use their own unique, individual definitions.
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How racism shapes prison policy
The Boston Globe: WHY DOES AMERICA incarcerate so much of its population compared to other first-world countries? New research from psychologists at Stanford University suggests that some of our toughness on crime may be driven by racism. In one experiment, white voters in California were significantly less likely to sign a petition to weaken California’s three-strikes law after viewing a series of mug shots of which 45 percent were black men, compared to viewing a series of mug shots of which 25 percent were black men.
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Some Types of Fables May Be Better at Teaching Kids Not to Lie
Wired: To teach children not to lie, extolling the virtues of honesty may be more effective than focusing on the punishing consequences of deception. After listening to how a young George Washington admitted to chopping down a cherry tree—”I cannot tell a lie,” he famously said—children were significantly less likely to lie about their own dishonesty than if they heard “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” or “Pinocchio.” The difference? Unlike the fairy tales with their grisly punishments, George Washington is lauded for telling the truth.
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What Kids’ Drawings Say About Their Future Thinking Skills
NPR: At age 4, many young children are just beginning to explore their artistic style. The kid I used to babysit in high school preferred self-portraits, undoubtedly inspired by the later works of Joan Miro. My cousin, a prolific young artist, worked almost exclusively on still lifes of 18-wheelers. These early works may be good for more than decorating your refrigerator and cubicle, researchers say. There appears to be an association, though a modest one, between how a child draws at 4 and her thinking skills at 14, according to a study published in the journal Psychological Science. The findings don't mean parents should worry if their little ones aren't producing masterpieces early on.