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Measurement in a Complex World
At the 2014 APS Annual Convention, APS James McKeen Cattell Fellow Neal Schmitt described a decade of research aimed at supplementing the SAT or ACT with assessments of noncognitive measures.
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Can Electronic Monitoring Improve Employee Performance?
“Your call may be recorded for quality assurance and training purposes.” We’ve all probably heard this message after dialing a call center before, but have you ever really thought about whether anyone was actually listening in? In an effort to enhance employee performance, organizations like call centers are increasingly using technology to electronically monitor their workers on the job. With electronic performance monitoring, or EPM, supervisors can continually track and analyze an employee’s workflow in real time. When call centers use EPM technology, supervisors are able to review recordings of calls, as well as listening into calls as they happen.
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Individual Variation in Resisting Temptation: Implications for Addiction
At the 2014 APS Annual Convention, APS William James Fellow Terry Robinson discussed how cues associated with rewards, such as food or drugs, can acquire considerable control over motivated behavior, leading to excessive consumption.
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Unraveling Emotional Mysteries
At the 2014 APS Annual Convention, APS Past President Robert W. Levenson, a 2014 APS William James Fellow recipient, described some of the enduring mysteries about emotion that have driven his research over the years.
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Shared Pain Brings People Together
What doesn’t kill us may make us stronger as a group, according to findings from new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research suggests that, despite its unpleasantness, pain may actually have positive social consequences, acting as a sort of “social glue” that fosters cohesion and solidarity within groups: “Our findings show that pain is a particularly powerful ingredient in producing bonding and cooperation between those who share painful experiences,” says psychological scientist and lead researcher Brock Bastian of the University of New South Wales in Australia.
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Faces Are More Likely to Seem Alive When We Want to Feel Connected
Feeling socially disconnected may lead us to lower our threshold for determining that another being is animate or alive, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “This increased sensitivity to animacy suggests that people are casting a wide net when looking for people they can possibly relate to -- which may ultimately help them maximize opportunities to renew social connections,” explains psychological scientist and lead researcher Katherine Powers of Dartmouth College.
