Latest
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New Content From Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science
A sample of articles on mobile sensing, improving statistical analysis in team science, modeling cluster-level constructs measured by individual responses, and much more.
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Getting Your Research Published: Insights on Academic Publishing with Simine Vazire
Podcast: Simine Vazire, the incoming Editor-in-Chief of APS’s journal Psychological Science, joins Özge Gürcanlı Fischer Baum to discuss her plans to further advance the practices of inclusivity in APS’s flagship journal.
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Children Motivated to Earn Social Approval Over Treats, Study Suggests
The marshmallow test, designed to measure children’s self-control in the face of temptation, is one of history’s most famous psychological experiments. New research suggests that it may also measure their interest in social approval.
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Do Risky Drinkers Think Differently? Insights From Cognitive Experiments
Podcast: Under the Cortex hosts Elizabeth Goldfarb (Yale University) to explore the cognitive profile of risky drinkers, as well as possible interventions for those struggling with alcohol use.
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New Content From Perspectives on Psychological Science
A sample of research on digital contact tracing in pandemics, the interpersonal distance theory of autism, the impact of school closures on children’s mental health and learning, and much more.
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Stigma Against People With OCD Varies With Their Obsessions
Individuals with OCD face stigma both for the nature of their intrusive thoughts and for their distress, according to a new study in Clinical Psychological Science.
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Do Lockdown Drills Create Anxiety? New Research Says No
Podcast: Dr. Amanda Nickerson joins Under the Cortex to explore the developmental pathways and risk factors for being exposed to gun-related violence.
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
A sample of research on cognitive inhibition in trauma recovery among asylum seekers, stress accumulation and sleep problems among Black Americans, parent and child depressive symptoms, and much more.
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From Unseen Animals to Theoretical Physics, Humans Have a Unique Ability to Communicate Absent and Abstract Concepts
Our ability to use words and gestures to communicate information about absent and abstract concepts begins in infancy and could be what allows us to develop more abstract thinking as we age.
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Cautionary Notes: The Science of Trigger Warnings
Podcast: Are trigger warnings helpful for learning outcomes? Do they shape listeners’ expectations, or do they cause discomfort? APS’s Özge G. Fischer-Baum explores with Dr. Victoria Bridgland of Flinders University.
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Caution: Content Warnings Do Not Reduce Distress, Study Shows
Advocates for the use of trigger warnings suggest that they can help people avoid or emotionally prepare people for encountering content related to a past trauma. But research indicates the warnings only heighten anticipatory anxiety.
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New Research in Psychological Science
A sample of research on peer beliefs, thinking beyond COVID-19, visual perception in young infants, adaptive encoding speed in working memory, and much more.
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Feeling Young at Heart Comes With Well-Being Benefits
Podcast: Markus Wettstein of Humboldt University of Berlin joins this episode to discuss subjective age and its implications for health benefits, general well-being, and possible cross-cultural differences.
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Alan Kraut-Jane Steinberg Family Fund Showcases Public Benefit of Psychological Science
APS is excited to share that the Alan Kraut-Jane Steinberg Family Fund has donated $100,000 to support an APS Annual Convention plenary session showcasing how psychological science contributes to the public good.
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Psychological Aspects of Erectile Dysfunction Deserve More Attention, Health Scientists Say
Personality traits and mental health problems are among the factors linked to erectile dysfunction, a condition that affects up to 80% of men over the age of 60. But researchers often overlook these psychological causes and their treatments in favor of biological components, according to a recent article in Current Directions in Psychological Science.
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Myth of Male “Superior Math Ability” Hinders Female Students’ Math Performance
Increased exposure to peers who believe that boys are innately superior at math can erode girls’ mathematics performance over the course of the academic year, new research in Psychological Science suggests.
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Association for Psychological Science (APS) Statement on Looming U.S. Government Shutdown
APS calls on Congress to promptly fund the U.S. government for the coming fiscal year to sustain important scientific programs and initiatives.
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New Content From Current Directions in Psychological Science
A sample of articles on facts about sign languages, the power of identity, reliable lie-detection methods, humans’ bias blind spot, the development of visual attention in infancy, and much more.
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The Tale of Two Cities: Water Access Influences Human Decision Making
Podcast: Does our geographical location shape our thinking? Does water access have an effect on our decision-making habits? Under the Cortex hosts Dr. Hamid Harati and Thomas Talhelm, who explore how our ecological environment can shape our decision-making skills.
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New Content From Perspectives on Psychological Science
A sample of research on assessing autism in hard-of-hearing youths, the relationship between parenting and self-control, managing fear during pandemics, how expectations modulate pain, and much more.
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In the “I” of the Beholder: People Believe Self-Relevant Artwork is More Beautiful
Our feelings about art may be more personal than previously realized, causing us to prefer art that speaks to our sense of self.
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Biennial International Seminar on the Teaching of Psychological Science to Commence July 2024
The 3rd Biennial International Seminar on the Teaching of Psychological Science (BISTOPS) will take place July 1 – 5, 2024 in Paris at Maison Suger, at the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme—Maison Suger’s residential and working facility.
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New Content From Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science
A sample of articles on young children’s gaze behaviors, improving the predictive power of psychometric scales, using market-research panels for behavioral science, and much more.
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Loneliness Across the Globe: A Life-Span Approach
Podcast: Under the Cortex hosts Samia Akther Khan, King’s College London, whose research examines the feeling of loneliness across lifespan.
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Repeated Exposure to News Headlines Makes Behavior Seem Less Unethical
From frequent smartphone notifications to repetitious TV news programs, we often experience repeated exposure to various news headlines as we go about our daily lives. When the news provides stories of wrongdoing, that repeated exposure may influence our own sense of morality, making those narratives seem more true and less unethical.
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For Whom the School Bells Toll: New Psychological Research for the New Academic Year
A collection of research published in the APS journals in 2022 and 2023 related to peer relationships, pandemic-related learning losses, the positive impacts of growth mindsets, and much more.
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Wendy Wood: It’s Time We Trained Students for Diverse Careers in Psychological Science
Podcast: Only about half of psychology PhDs are hired in academia, but psychology graduate training in the United States has largely retained the classic graduate training model of a direct path to an academic job. It’s time to change that, says Wendy Wood.
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Public May Overestimate Pushback Against Controversial Research Findings
Do researchers overestimate the risk that certain research findings will fuel public support for censorship, defunding, and other harmful actions?
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Best Of: The Myers-Briggs Test, the Grieving Brain, Common Myths, More
Podcast: Excerpts from our first 100 episodes: a skeptical look at the Myers-Briggs test, what happens in the grieving brain, common myths of psychological science, and more.
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
A sample of research on suicidal ideation, sex-related substance use among gay and bisexual men, the importance of collaborative decision-making, and much more.
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Career Crossroads? How to Map Your Journey Beyond Academia
A wide range of companies, organizations, and government agencies need psychological scientists. Tips from insiders on how to navigate the journey.
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Has Academia Become More Gender-Fair for Women? Findings From an Adversarial Analysis of Gender Bias
“Happily, the realities of today no longer support the belief that [STEM] jobs are pervasively biased against women.” But the findings come with caveats. New Psychological Science in the Public Interest.
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Alison Gopnik Receives 2024 Rumelhart Prize in Cognitive Science
The award is named after David Rumelhart, known for his contributions to the formal analysis of human cognition. Gopnik (shown with her grandchild): “The reason I study children is to try to make very general discoveries about how the mind works.”
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Understanding Childhood Adversity Across Time and Cultures
Podcast: Children have faced threats and deprivation at varied levels across time, favoring the ability to tailor development to different conditions. Researchers Willem Frankenhuis and Dorsa Amir discuss their findings.
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New Research in Psychological Science
A sample of research on brain-to-brain synchrony, learning from novel metaphors, how thinking about god encourages prosociality, subjective age, generational differences in shyness, and much more.
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Water-Scarce Cultures Value Long-Term Thinking More Than Their Water-Rich Neighbors Do
Even in modern environments with easy access to water, cultural responses shaped by historical water scarcity still influence individuals’ decision-making processes.
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New Content From Current Directions in Psychological Science
A sample of articles on parental burnout, motivated egalitarianism, the philosophy of perception in the psychologist’s laboratory, facing the unknowns in data analysis, and much more.
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
A sample of research on mapping psychosis risk states, increases in depressive symptoms during antidepressant discontinuation, race-based rejection sensitivity, the longitudinal association between PTSD, emotion dysregulation, and postmigration stressors among refugees, and much more.
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Nobody’s Fool: How to Avoid Getting Taken In
Podcast: How can our habits of thinking make us vulnerable to deception? How can we spot deception before it’s too late? Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris answer these questions and more, drawing from their new book: Nobody’s Fool: Why We Get Taken In and What We Can Do About It.
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People Generalize Expectations of Pain to Conceptually Related Tasks
Avoiding experiences associated with pain can be an adaptive behavior, but generalized avoidance can become problematic, even potentially culminating in disability.
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Gratitude, Reflection at the 2023 APS Awards Ceremony
“You don’t get to this stage without the help of a lot of people,” said Eduardo Salas, one of 19 honorees of the 2023 APS Awards Program.
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New Research in Psychological Science
A sample of research on statistical learning within objects, the effects of acute stress on learning and decision-making, aging-associated declines in cognition, reconsidering belief in contradictory conspiracy theories, and much more.
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Native Americans’ Awareness of Omission and Discrimination Fuels Civic Engagement
Native American adults who identified more strongly as Native were more likely to notice group omission and discrimination, prompting increased civic engagement.
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Carl Hart on Clinicians’ Bias Toward Drug Use
Podcast featuring Carl Hart, a neuroscientist at Columbia University who has studied the behavioral and neuropharmacological effects of psychoactive drugs in humans. His lab attempts to understand factors that mediate drug use, to develop effective treatments, and to translate that knowledge into more humane drug policies.
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New Content From Current Directions in Psychological Science
A sample of articles on emotional disclosure and social judgment, reconceptualizing recurrent depression, the role of choice in childhood development, and much more.
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Bringing Contexts In, Taking Racism Out: How to Improve Cognitive Psychology
Podcast: How can researchers reshape cognitive psychology to become more aware of the roles of culture and context? Ayanna Thomas joins APS’s Ludmila Nunes to discuss scientific racism in cognitive psychology.
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“The Tribe Has Spoken”: Race and Gender Bias Influence Voting Outcomes in Reality TV Show
Women and BIPOC players in the reality TV show Survivor may be less likely to win due to sexual and racial biases that arise when it comes to voting.
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Collaborative Research, Globalization Efforts Are Priorities for APS President-Elect Randi Martin
Martin (Rice University), Teresa Bajo (University of Granada), and Lila Davachi (Columbia University) joined the APS Board of Directors for three-year terms starting June 1, 2023.
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Passion, Dedication, Brilliance: Diverse Voices and Perspectives at the 2023 APS Annual Convention
The event attracted more than 2,250 psychological scientists from at least 40 countries and featured dozens of symposia, flash talks, and workshops, along with more than 1,200 poster presentations.
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Founders, Funders, Teams: Exploring the Psychology of Entrepreneurship
To discuss the value of research at the intersection of psychological science and entrepreneurship, three speakers presented their different career paths and experiences within entrepreneurship in a symposium at the 2023 APS Annual Convention in Washington, D.C.
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Endless Love: You’ve Got Ideas About Consensual Nonmonogamy. They’re Probably Wrong
Podcast: In this episode of Under the Cortex, Amy C. Moors joins APS’s Ludmila Nunes and demystifies common misconceptions about consensually nonmonogamous relationships.
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New Content From Perspectives on Psychological Science
A sample of research on transparency in characterizing past knowledge, psychology’s contributions to anti-blackness in the U.S., questioning the value of reflexivity statements in research, conceptions of self-control, and much more.
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Peak Science: At 35, the APS Annual Convention Hits Its Stride
The 2023 APS Annual Convention began with a keynote by Catherine Alexandra Hartley (New York University) examining the causes and consequences of exploration across the lifespan.
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Decades at the Helm: APS 2023 Convention Honors APS Founding Executive Director Alan G. Kraut
APS Founding Executive Director Alan G. Kraut received a special proclamation for his contributions to APS and the field more broadly.
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Brain-to-Brain Synchrony Between Students and Teachers Predicts Learning
Monitoring of students’ brain activity shows that “getting on the same wavelength” within groups of students and between students and their teacher is predictive of learning outcomes.
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Psychology’s Role in the Criminalization of Blackness
Podcast: Evan Auguste and Steven Kasparek examine how psychology has contributed to anti-Blackness within psychological research, criminal justice, and mental health, and what scientists and practitioners can do to interrupt the criminalization of Blackness and redefine psychology’s relationship with justice.
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
A sample of research on shared depressive symptoms in close relationships, correlates of interrupted and aborted suicide attempts among U.S. active duty service members, maximizing rationality with post-justificationist knowledge, and much more.
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APS Announces Winners of 2023 Student Poster Awards
Student researchers share their motivations and personal stories behind their award-winning posters featured at the APS 2023 Annual Convention.
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New Research in Psychological Science
A sample of research on visual short-term memory, the development of spatial cognition and its malleability, how heart rate predicts the performance of elite athletes, and much more.
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Conspiracy Theorists May Not Always Think Rationally, but They Don’t Generally Believe Contradictory Claims
Regardless of the popular conspiracy theory, most of its believers stick to their guns — and do not subscribe to contradictory theories as well.
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New Content From Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science
A sample of articles on small-study findings, evaluating the quality of social/personality journals, comparing analysis blinding with preregistration in the many-analysts religion project, information provision for informed consent procedures, and much more.
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Doing Good and Taking Chances: Winning Entrepreneurship Posters Explore Business Mindsets
Chen Ji and James Wages receive the 2023 Psychological Science and Entrepreneurship Poster Award, supported by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
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New Content From Current Directions in Psychological Science
A sample of articles on the role of phenomenological control in experience, the positive impact of social connectedness, contextualizing empathy, and much more.
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Presenting Information About Mental Health in a Second Language Could Help Counter Cultural Norms Against Treatment
Bilingual people from cultural backgrounds in which mental health is a taboo topic may be more open to treatment when they hear information in their second language.
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Industrialized Cheating in Academic Publishing: How to Fight “Paper Mills”
Podcast: Dorothy Bishop talks with APS’s Ludmila Nunes about the metascience of fraud detection, industrial-scale fraud and why it is urgent to tackle the fake-article factories known as “paper mills.”
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
A sample of research on system-centered care, adolescent social communication through smartphones, promoting equity in the United States, the clinical utility of the HiTOP system, and much more.
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Black Women’s Childhood Symptoms of Disordered Eating Predict Symptoms in Adulthood
New research finds that childhood symptoms of disordered eating are predictive of symptoms in adulthood regardless of race, debunking the myth that eating disorders don’t affect Black women.
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New Content From Perspectives on Psychological Science
A sample of articles on assessing and mitigating bias in AI applications for mental health, investigating coping vs. thriving, exploring mnemicity attribution as a cognitive gadget, and much more.
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New Research in Psychological Science
A sample of research on how mnemonic content and hippocampal patterns shape our judgment of time, well-being and cognitive resilience, face familiarization, the prioritization of due process, and much more.
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Lonely People’s Divergent Thought Processes May Contribute to Feeling “Alone in a Crowded Room”
Lonely individuals’ neural responses differ from those of other people, suggesting that seeing the world differently may be a risk factor for loneliness regardless of friendships.
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Lived Experiences Can Be a Strength. So Why the Bias Against “Me-Search”?
Podcast: Questions often emerge when researchers tend to engage in research on topics that are personally relevant for them. How is this type of self-relevant researchperceived? Researcher Andrew Devendorf discusses.
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“So Much Amazing Research”: Scholarship and Science Prevail at ICPS 2023
Nearly 1,500 researchers, students, and others came to the Belgian capital from more than 70 countries and six continents.
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New Content From Current Directions in Psychological Science
A sample of articles on threat-related perceptual decision making, metacognitive myopia, learning one’s own genetic susceptibility to mental disorders, brain reward circuits, and much more.
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Want More Generous Children? Show Them Awe-inspiring Art
Research is the first to demonstrate that awe-eliciting art can spark prosociality in children as young as 8 years old, motivating them to set aside their own concerns to focus on others. Awe also has physical benefits for children.
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Breakthroughs in Brussels: Researchers Share New Integrative Science at ICPS 2023
“Human behavior is at the heart of so many global challenges involving behavior change,” said Susan Michie at ICPS 2023. And at the heart of “preventing and getting out of them.”
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Special Episode II: APS 2023 Spence Awardees on Sharing Minds, the Development of Learning, and Implicit Bias
Julian Jara-Ettinger, Emily Fyfe, and Calvin Lai discuss reading and sharing minds, the development of learning and its practical applications, and the importance of studying the gap between what people value and what people do.
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Special Episode I: APS 2023 Spence Awardees on Fresh Starts, Time Perception, and the Well-being of Black Families
Riana Elyse Anderson, Ed O’Brien, and Hengchen Dai discuss how to study and improve the well-being and functioning of Black families, the importance of time in how people perceive progress, and how fresh starts can feel motivating.
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Diversity Training: One Size Does Not Fit All
Diversity trainings as currently practiced are unlikely to change police behavior, suggests an analysis of a day-long training session designed to increase U.S. police officers’ knowledge of bias and use of evidence-based strategies to mitigate bias.
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New Content From Perspectives on Psychological Science
A sample of articles on climate change and substance-use behaviors, using reality checks to assess heterogeneity, using an ethics and social-justice approach to collecting and using demographic data, and much more.
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The Self-Taught Vocabulary of Homesigning Deaf Children Supports Universal Constraints on Language
Researchers compared how young homesigners—deaf children without access to an established sign language—and English-, Spanish-, and Chinese-speaking adults describe the use of tools such as paintbrushes and knives.
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Is Cheating Just a Symptom (and Not the Cause) of Declining Relationships?
Podcast: Researchers found that relationship functioning starts to decline before infidelity happens. The lead author of this study, Olga Stavrova, explains these findings
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
A sample of research on the importance of independent empirical evidence, mapping racial/ethnic disparities in youth psychiatric emergencies, the effects collective trauma, and much more.
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Psychological Stress Impedes Performance, Even for Olympic Athletes
Research done in Psychological Science provides support for something sports fans have long suspected: When athletes feel the pressure, their performance suffers.
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Collective Trauma and Stress Following Disasters: APS Journal Articles Publicly Available
APS has updated its publicly available collection of journal research pertaining to trauma and disasters. [updated February 14, 2023]
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New Research in Psychological Science
A sample of research on temporal construal effects, severe developmental dyscalculia, cognitive fitness in older adults, how choice boosts curiosity, and much more.
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More Than 50 Psychological Scientists Named APS Fellows
The newest class of APS Fellows are recognized for research that spans many subdisciplines in exploring solutions to complex challenges and answering questions central to human (and animal, in the case of at least one new Fellow) psychology.
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Six Early-Career Researchers Honored With 2023 APS Janet Taylor Spence Award
The six awardees are honored for groundbreaking research in areas including bias and discrimination, motivation, learning, and change.
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Stop Oversimplifying Mental Health Diagnoses
Podcast: Diagnoses often oversimplify complex mental health problems. APS Fellow Eiko Fried, a psychologist and methodologist at Leiden University, explains new approaches to mental health research and practice.
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New Content From Perspectives on Psychological Science
A sample of articles on surprise as an emotion, the need to study leadership in adolescence, remaining critical about the literature on habits, media-induced war trauma, family constellation therapy, and much more.
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Events Serve as “Stepping Stones” en Route to Retrieved Memories
Research suggests that people use event boundaries as “stepping stones” to scan their memories when attempting to recall certain facts or bits of information.
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
A sample of research on psychosocial predictors of suicidal thoughts and behaviors, early-warning signals in children, adolescents, and adults, bidirectional effects in parent, peer, and romantic relationships, and much more.
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The Dangers of “Bureaucra-think”: Research Demonstrates Structural Bias and Racism in Mental Health Organizations
A recent study reveals how organizational-level biases affect how patients and even providers are viewed—and in ways that can produce racial and ethnic inequities.
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New Research in Psychological Science
A sample of research on feeling good, how perceived distance alters memory, prenatal programming of behavior problems, the impacts of COVID-19 on college students, the connections between racial prejudice and police militarization, and much more.
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New Content From Perspectives on Psychological Science
A sample of articles on the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on mental health, children’s referential informativeness, the benefits, barriers, and risks of big-team science, peer-victimization research, complex racial trauma, and much more.
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Similarities in Human and Chimpanzee Behavior Support Evolutionary Basis for Risk Taking
Research suggests that findings about human risk preferences also apply to risk-taking in chimpanzees, our closest evolutionary ancestor in the animal kingdom.
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2022’s Top Research Includes Flavor-Sensitive Fetuses and Less-Lonely Older Adults
The most impactful psychological science research published in 2022 reveals that new understandings of human behavior continue to resonate with wide audiences.
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Top 10 Articles of 2022: Opinionated Fetuses! Cheating Spouses! And Much More
Podcast: Do fetuses care what their mothers eat? When do spouses cheat? Some of the top articles published in the APS journals in 2022 explored these questions and much more.
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New Content From Current Directions in Psychological Science
A sample of articles on racism and historical context, prosocial behavior in the face of a disaster, studying mental health as systems, exceptional abilities in autism, LGBTQ+ parents, and much more.
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
A sample of research on threat expectancy, improving treatment outcomes for PTSD, the correlation between mood and executive function, COVID-19 and mental health, and much more.
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Four Scholars Pursue Diverse Research Through Cattell Sabbatical Awards
Kenneth Bollen, Jessica Cantlon, Kevin Myers, and Kristin Shutts will extend their sabbatical research in topics ranging from primate cognition to food insecurity.