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Building Public Trust in the Police
A comprehensive report examines the psychological research on the factors that drive public trust and law-related behavior.
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Psychological Training for Entrepreneurs Helps Fight Poverty
In 2015, Uganda was named the world’s most entrepreneurial country, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). Although 28% of adults in Uganda own or co-own a business, around 70% of new businesses collapse within two years. "Ugandans are good at starting enterprises but have a high failure rate," Charles Ocici, executive director of Enterprise Uganda told The Guardian. "It is one thing to own economic assets, and it is another to run a business and generate sustainable income." In a new article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, psychological scientists Michael Frese, Michael M.
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Do Monkeys Know When They Don’t Know Something?
Are humans the only animal that knows what they don’t know? A study by researchers at Yale and Harvard shows that rhesus monkeys also spontaneously recognize when they are ignorant and need to seek out more information. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “Metacognition— the ability to think about our own thoughts— has long been considered a hallmark of being human,” said Laurie Santos, Yale psychological scientist and senior author of the study. “We all know the difference between feeling like we know something for sure and feeling like we’re not all that certain.
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The Moral Science Behind Self-Driving Cars
An interdisciplinary team of researchers are conducting experiments to learn more about how people might react to the moral quandaries posed by self-driving cars.
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How We Explain Things Shapes What We Think Is Right
New research focuses on a fundamental human habit: When trying to explain something (why people give roses for Valentine’s Day, for example), we often focus on the traits of the thing itself (roses are pretty) and not its context (advertisers promote roses). In a new study, researchers found that people who tend to focus on “inherent traits” and ignore context also are more likely to assume that the patterns they see around them are good. The findings are forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
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Breaking Bad News Doesn’t Have To Be So Bad
In many situations, it's not just what you say, but how you say it that matters. In the 2009 movie Up in the Air, George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a full-time corporate "downsizer" known for his finesse in firing people. When Ryan starts training a younger colleague on the art of the layoff, his first piece of advice is to never use the word “fired.” Losing a job is one of the most stressful events that can happen to someone, but does candy-coating the bad news actually help soften the blow? Led by Manuela Richter and Cornelius J.
