-
Reasoning Is Sharper in a Foreign Language
Scientific American Mind: The language we use affects the decisions we make, according to a new study. Participants made more rational decisions when money-related choices were posed in a foreign language that they had learned in a classroom setting than when they were asked in a native tongue. To study how language affects reasoning, University of Chicago psychologists looked at a well-known phenomenon: people are more risk-averse when an impersonal decision (such as which vaccine to administer to a population) is presented in terms of a potential gain than when it is framed as a potential loss even when the outcomes are equivalent.
-
APA Call for Nominations for Awards for Year 2013
Deadline: February 15, 2013 The Society for General Psychology, Division One of the American Psychological Association is conducting its Year 2013 awards competition, including the William James Book Award for a recent book that serves to integrate material across psychological subfields or to provide coherence to the diverse subject matter of psychology, the Ernest R. Hilgard Award for a Lifetime Career Contribution to General Psychology, the George A. Miller Award for an Outstanding Recent Article on General Psychology, and the Arthur W. Staats Lecture for Unifying Psychology, which is an American Psychological Foundation Award managed by the Society for General Psychology.
-
Treating Anxiety
Many of us battle with fear and anxiety in our daily lives, but David Barlow was one of the first clinical psychologists to take this fight into the laboratory. Not only did he conduct much of the research characterizing the etiology of anxiety, but Barlow also can be credited with many of the breakthroughs in the treatment of anxiety disorders. His use of situational and interoceptive exposure as a treatment for panic disorders laid the foundation for the wider development of empirically validated cognitive behavioral therapies that have come to replace less scientifically sound treatment methodologies.
-
New Research on Aging and Cognition From Psychological Science
Read about new research on aging and cognition published in Psychological Science. Stereotype Threat Strengthens Automatic Recall and Undermines Controlled Processes in Older Adults Marie Mazerolle, Isabelle Régner, Pauline Morisset, François Rigalleau, and Pascal Huguet Older people perform worse on memory tasks when they think they will be stereotypically judged. One theory about this says that stereotypes impair older adults' working memory, while another theory suggests that stereotypes increase activation of their prepotent responses, which are often incorrect.
-
Take Control! Exploring How Self-Discipline Works and How We Might Boost It
Converging scientific evidence – not to mention a great deal of life experience – tells us that self-control is an important ability. It helps us keep our cool, get things done, and resist the things that tempt us. Scientists believe that gaining a clearer understanding of how self-control works could provide critical insights into addressing some of the large-scale problems facing society today, including obesity and addiction. Numerous studies have found evidence for the idea of self-control as a limited resource, but emerging research suggests that this model may not tell the whole story.
-
Did You Know It All Along?: The Psychology of Hindsight Bias
The Huffington Post: Who will win the presidency in 2012? Will it be Obama or Romney? It's mid October 2012, and no one can say. Sure, there are pundits aplenty with precise predictions, who speak as though they know exactly what the future portends but in reality are simply parroting a party line. For the rest, of course, it is all too clear that we just don't know. There are no crystal balls, and no one can foresee the future. In fact, there has probably not been such a moment of such perfect uncertainty since the start of the election season. Back in September Obama had an edge, but in recent weeks Romney appears to have closed the gap.