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Getting to Yes Is Easier Than Saying No
Over 100 million viewers tune in for the NFL’s championship Super Bowl game and musical Halftime Show. Historically, the NFL foots the bill for the musical entertainment; but in 2015 the NFL proposed that top talent like Katy Perry and Coldplay should instead pay them millions of dollars for the privilege of performing during the Super Bowl. Katy Perry and other performers universally refused the deal. After all, Perry already brings in millions from her concerts and record sales. Instead of holding out and demanding that Perry “pay to play,” the NFL eventually conceded, offering the popstar a prime spot as the halftime headliner, free of charge.
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Seeing Exemplary Peer Work Can Undermine Student Performance
From academic honors to "employee of the month" awards, we are regularly exposed to and made aware of the exemplary performance of others. Many believe such recognition not only acknowledges the individual but also motivates others to strive toward greater achievement. But new research suggests that exposure to exceptional performance can sometimes have the opposite results, effectively discouraging people from higher-level performance.
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Imagining Positive Outcomes May Bring Pleasure Now But Pain Later
Positive fantasies about how future events will turn out can boost your mood in the here and now, but they may actually lead to increased depressive symptoms in the long run, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “Our findings suggest that as pleasurable and helpful as positive fantasies are for depressive mood in the moment, they can be problematic and cumbersome over time,” says lead researcher Gabriele Oettingen of New York University.
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Replication Effort Finds No Evidence That Grammatical Aspect Affects Perceived Intent
A multi-lab replication project found no evidence that the verb form used to describe a crime influences the way people judge criminal intent, in contrast to previously published findings. The Registered Replication Report (RRR), published in the January 2016 issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, synthesizes the results from 12 independent replication attempts. In 2011, William Hart and Dolores Albarracín published a striking study in Psychological Science examining how the verb aspect in which a passage is written affects how that passage is interpreted.
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2016 Singapore Conference on Applied Psychology
The 2016 Singapore Conference on Applied Psychology (SCAP 2016), organized by East Asia Research and supported by the Association of Psychotherapists and Counselors (Singapore), Hong Kong Shue Yan University, and Singapore University of Technology and Design, will be held Singapore from June 14–15, 2016. Researchers and practitioners from all fields of psychology research and practice will present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, concerns, and practical challenges encountered and the solutions adopted in the field of applied psychology.
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Clinical Psychological Science: Daily Actigraphy Profiles Distinguish Depressive and Interepisode States in Bipolar Disorder Anda Gershon, Nilam Ram, Sheri L. Johnson, Allison G. Harvey, and Jamie M. Zeitzer Bipolar disorder (BD) is characterized, in part, by disruption in physical activity; however, few studies have adequately tracked activity levels in BD to see if they are truly an indicator of mood states. Participants with and without BD wore a watch-based activity-monitoring device for 3 months. Participants completed demographic, symptom, and medication assessments at the beginning of each month.