Currently browsing "Robert Bjork Columns"
Presidential Column
Department-ism: More Than Just Space Wars
The university is a great place to learn about prejudice — firsthand. The prejudice that I'm talking about is so deeply ingrained in the nature of universities and other large organizations that it is not recognized as a near kin of racism, sexism, ageism, or the other "isms" that can be found in the appendix of most general psychology texts. Perhaps it is not surprising that academic psychologists have avoided even naming the prejudice that is openly practiced on our own campuses and within our own discipline. What I am talking about is department-ism. ... More>
Presidential Column
Human Factors 101: How About Just Trying Things Out?
While I was staring at my iMAC screen pondering options for this month's column, one of my favorite images, a self-portrait by Norman Rockwell, came to mind. In the portrait, we see Rockwell from behind, scratching his head and staring at a canvas that is blank, except for a Saturday Evening Post banner across the top. A clock, a calendar, a pinned-up note with the deadline for his cover, and assorted crumpled-up sketches make it clear that the artist (Rockwell preferred to call himself an illustrator) has little time and no ideas. ... More>
Presidential Column
Different Views of Individual Differences
APS President Robert A. Bjork discusses common public misconceptions about individual differences in learning and memory. ... More>
Presidential Column
Toward One World of Psychological Science
My setting, as I write this column, differs wildly from my office at UCLA, and not just because there is a complete absence of clutter. I am in my room at the Kloster Seeon, a monastery in Bavaria that has been converted to a retreat and conference center. The monastery, which dates back to 999, is stunning, both in its architecture and in its physical setting, which was once an island but is now a peninsula of land that juts out into Lake Secon. ... More>
Presidential Column
Psychology in a Post-Genomics
The draft DNA sequence of the human genome was announced in June 2000, two years ahead of schedule. Some party-poopers grumble that the four nucleotide letters that constitute the DNA alphabet are not GATC, but HYPE. They complain that the DNA sequence by itself does not tell us how we can begin life as a single fertilized cell and end up with trillions of cells containing the same DNA but expressing different genes. It doesn't cure any diseases. ... More>
