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All About Online Love
When Dan Ariely was a teenager, he suffered burns so severe that he spent three years in the hospital. Ariely worried about how his injuries would affect the way he fit in socially — especially when it came to dating.
Now a professor of behavioral economics at Duke University, Ariely recently spoke with Today Show correspondent Amy Robach about relationships and dating. Ariely and Eli Finkel — lead author of a new study on online dating in Psychological Science in the Public Interest — were featured in a CNBC report on online dating that aired Thursday, February 9. The report profiled entrepreneurs in the online dating business, matchmakers, psychological scientists who study human behavior, and everyday people who have used online dating sites. Viewers got a firsthand look at how algorithms and psychological science fit into the online dating business.
For more on Ariely’s take on Internet dating,…
Tags: Behavioral Economics, Communication, Interpersonal Relationships, Personality/Social, Relationships, Technology | No Comments »
Convention Video Blog
Standing in Your Own Way
In case you missed it, the cameras were rolling at the APS 23rd Annual Convention in Washington, DC. Watch Jared M. Bartels from the University of Minnesota present his poster session research on “Fear of Failure, Self-Handicapping, and Negative Emotions.”
Bartels and his co-author William E. Herman wanted to find out whether self-handicapping, reduces negative emotional responses to failure. An example of self-handicapping would be thinking to yourself that you are not good at public speaking, and then doing poorly on a presentation. Bartels and Herman studied participants’ responses to scenarios that incorporated academic failure with and without self-handicapping. They also measured participants’ fear of failure.
The researchers found that for students high in fear of failure, self-handicapping reduced the intensity of negative emotions associated with actually failing.
Tags: APS 23rd Annual Convention (2011), APS Student Caucus, Experimental, Personality/Social, Students | No Comments »
Dating in the Digital Age
The report card is in, and the online dating industry won’t be putting this one on the fridge. A new scientific report concludes that although online dating offers users some very real benefits, it falls far short of its potential.
Unheard of just twenty years ago, online dating is now a billion dollar industry and one of the most common ways for singles to meet potential partners. Many websites claim that they can help you find your “soulmate.” But do these online dating services live up to all the hype?
CBS News interviewed Eli Finkel of Northwestern University, a coauthor of the Psychological Science in the Public Interest article “Online Dating: A Critical Analysis From the Perspective of Psychological Science.”
“To date, there is no compelling evidence that any online dating matching algorithm actually works,” Finkel told CBS. “If dating sites want to claim that their matching algorithm…
Tags: Emotions, Personality/Social, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, Relationships, Students, Technology | No Comments »
NIH Funding Opportunity: Modeling Social Behavior
Deadline April 3, 2012, by 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization.
Announcing a funding opportunity from the NIH, a research project grant on Modeling Social Behavior.
This grant, issued by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), solicits applications for developing and testing innovative theories and computational, mathematical, or engineering approaches to deepen our understanding of complex social behavior. This research will examine phenomena at multiple scales to address the emergence of collective behaviors that arise from individual elements or parts of a system working together. This FOA will support research that explores the often complex and dynamical relationships among the parts of a system and between the system and its environment in order to understand the system as a whole.
To accomplish the goals of this FOA we encourage applications that build transdisciplinary…
Tags: Behavioral Science, Grants, National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Personality/Social, Students | No Comments »
Science on Love (and Hate, Too) at the APS Convention
Although Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, psychological scientists study love all year round — and it’s not always pretty. In this video, Douglas T. Kenrick discusses his book Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life.
Plan to see Kenrick and others present research on love, sex, online dating, and more at the 24th APS Annual Convention in Chicago.
Passionate Love: Looking Back and Looking Ahead
Elaine Hatfield will talk about how research on passionate love and sexual desire has evolved over the last 50 years. Hatfield will be introduced by Ellen Berscheid, with whom she will share the 2012 APS William James Fellow Award.
Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life
Oscar Wilde said, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars.” Douglas T. Kenrick will explain why studying homicidal fantasies…
Tags: APS 24th Annual Convention (2012), Emotions, Personality/Social, Relationships | No Comments »
