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Pocket Science
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Better Treatment for PTSD
What happens when fear — a psychological mechanism that protects us from harm — becomes unmanageable after a traumatic event? APS Fellow Edna Foa, one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in 2010, is an expert in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other anxiety disorders. She is known for designing “prolonged exposure” or PE, a groundbreaking therapy for PTSD that has been embraced by the US military. PE involves helping patients overcome their fears by gradually facing painful thoughts, memories, and environments. In this video excerpt from CMI Education Institute, Inc. Foa discusses treatment for PTSD.
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Be YOUR Motivation
As you draw up your list of New Year's Resolutions for 2012, remember to set goals that are really important to you. In this video from Eco-mobilite.tv, psychological scientist Maarten Vansteenkiste explains why autonomous motivation (change that is personally important) is more effective than controlled motivation (change that results from outside pressure). Vansteenkiste's APS Rising Star profile can tell you more about his research. If you want to know even more about motivation, you can read research on effective and ineffective anti-prejudice messages from Psychological Science or watch footage from APS Fellow Elke Webber’s recent chat with the Dalai Llama.
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Inside the Psychologist’s Studio: Elizabeth Loftus
APS Past President Elizabeth Loftus speaks about her research — investigating false memory, the reliability of eyewitness reports, and memories “recovered” through therapy — and its impact on how we think about eyewitness testimony.
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Learning by Reflection
In case you missed it, the cameras were rolling at the APS 23rd Annual Convention in Washington, DC. Watch Meera Komarraju from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale present her poster session research on “Learning Styles and Academic Motivation in College Students From India.” Komarraju and her coauthors — Steven J. Karau, Corey Tincher, and Varsha S. Godbole — studied the learning and information-processing strategies used by students at two universities in India. The scientists found that student with reflective learning strategies (i.e., strategies that connect course material with personal experiences and outside knowledge) also displayed more intrinsic motivation.
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Robert Sapolsky: The uniqueness of humans
Humans enjoy having a laugh at the seemingly silly things other animals do, oblivious to the fact that they offer up plenty of humorous fodder to the rest of Mother Nature in kind. Thanks to his extensive work with baboons, Robert Sapolsky looks at his fellow men and women through an intriguing (and hilarious) biological lens. Although they share plenty of parallels with other mammals, people certainly pull it off in their own unique, strange way. Watch the Ted Talk here
