When addiction research was in its infancy roughly a century ago, scientists dismissed substance abuse as a mere personality flaw. Today, addiction is widely thought to be due to complex gene–environment interactions influencing brain function, rather than a simple weakness of character. In his award address at the 2014 APS More

Once upon a time, I watched Dacher Keltner on the BBC series The Human Face and Lera Boroditsky on the National Geographic series Brain Games. Both segments captured the very heart of psychological science in an admirably accessible fashion, so I asked them what advice they would give to scholars More

The 2014–2015 James McKeen Cattell Fund Fellowships have been awarded to Ara Norenzayan, Ione Fine, and Todd A. Kahan. Presented in partnership with APS, the Fellowships allow recipients to extend their sabbatical periods from one semester to a full year. Cattell, an important figure in American psychology, established the fund More

In the classic Star Wars film franchise, Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker kiss at least twice — before learning in a subsequent installment of George Lucas’s film franchise that they are in fact siblings. In reality, a brother and sister meeting each other — even if unaware of their genetic More

An innovative research-replication initiative has generated results that have important implications for eyewitness memory. The project confirms earlier findings that asking witnesses to provide a verbal description of a suspect can impair their ability to select that suspect from a lineup — the so-called “verbal overshadowing” effect. This Registered Replication More

At the 2014 APS Annual Convention, four researchers (as reported in the July/August Observer article “Exploring the Psychological Science of Violence”) missed essential components of US violence and how to address it. During the 1970s, as 94% of mentally ill patients were released from psychiatric hospitals, there were fewer psychiatrists More

October 2014 Student Notebook Announcements Student Research. Are you in the initial development stages of your research? Apply for the APS Student Research Grant Competition. Applications are due by November 16. Research on diversity should inform our actions as educators, clinicians, and members of the workplace. APS and its Student More

Despite the availability of effective evidence-based treatment, about 40% of individuals with serious mental illness do not receive care, and many who begin an intervention fail to complete it. A new report published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest investigates stigma as a significant barrier to care for many More

Research, in the early stages, is a generative process; results can be conflicting, messy, and difficult to interpret, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t thought provoking and worthy of being shared. The editors of Perspectives on Psychological Science believe science should be strong — hence the APS journal’s initiative to More

Some of the most historic experiments in psychology used methods that today are consider unethical, if not cruel. So do they still belong in textbooks? More

No, the recent Facebook mood-manipulation flap is not the reason — but more on that later. A recent government initiative will likely change human subjects protection programs for the better. When does that ever happen with new regulations? What’s coming next year, maybe, are: (a) clearer boundaries on what is More

Aimed at integrating cutting-edge psychological science into the classroom, “Teaching Current Directions in Psychological Science” offers advice and how-to guidance about teaching a particular area of research or topic in psychological science that has been the focus of an article in the APS journal Current Directions in Psychological Science. Current More

Free Meta-Analysis Software and Macros MetaXL (Version 2.0) RevMan (Version 5.3) Meta-Analysis Macros for SAS, SPSS, and Stata Opposing theories and disparate findings populate the field of psychology; scientists must interpret the results of any single study in the context of its limitations. Meta-analysis is a robust tool that can More

To submit a new book, email apsobserver@psychologicalscience.org. Neurobiology of Social Behavior: Toward an Understanding of the Prosocial and Antisocial Brain by Michael Numan; Academic Press, July 22, 2014. The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload by Daniel J. Levitin; Dutton Adult, August 19, 2014. Mindwise: How More

What do undergraduates think about how creative ability develops? It seems like a simple question, but it led to a sea change in my own scientific outlook. It also embodies an important example of the positive feedback loop that can exist between the laboratory and the classroom. For 4 years More

Traditionally, researchers in different fields have banded together, leading to ever-evolving but separate lines of work. However, there is now an increasing awareness that much can be learned by combining knowledge across a wide range of psychological and biological disciplines. This new focus on integrative work is especially evident in More

APS William James Fellow Brenda Milner has received the 2014 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience. Milner is a neuropsychologist at McGill University, Canada, known for her work with the patient H.M., who experienced impaired memory after most of his medial temporal lobes were removed to control his severe epilepsy. After the More