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Kelly McGonigal: Teaching the Values of Psychological Science
Recorded in May 2016 at the 28th Annual Convention of the Association for Psychological Science in Chicago, Illinois.
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Scientists Explore the Brain’s Navigational Capacity
Participants in the 2016 Presidential Symposium hosted by APS President C. Randy Gallistel included Nobel Laureate Edvard Moser of Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience and Norwegian University of Science and Technology, pioneering cognitive psychologist Barbara Tversky of Columbia University, pictured, neurobiologist Randolf Menzel of Freie Universität Berlin in Germany, and cognitive psychologist Russell Epstein of University of Pennsylvania. These prominent psychological scientists discussed the innate navigational systems embedded in our own brains.
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Gopnik Shares Research on Parenting and Learning
Modern parents try to raise their children to become smart, successful, happy adults. But this goal-centered concept of parenting is profoundly wrong, both scientifically and practically, says psychological scientist Alison Gopnik. An internationally recognized expert in child development, Gopnik shared research on why children should be nurtured, but not shaped, in her “Bring the Family” address at the 2016 APS Annual Convention. Gopnik’s presentation, “Parents Without Parenting,” examined research showing how children learn from the people who care for them through everyday observation, conversation, and play, rather than through intensive supervision and direction.
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When Looking Like a Leader Derails the Group
Experiments show that people who display the powerful, confident body language associated with leadership tend to dominate decision making—even when their ideas were entirely incorrect.
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How to Turn Any Random Object Into a Memory Cue
New York Magazine: If you jot down a reminder on a Post-it, and then forget to put the post-it someplace visible, and then your deadline comes and goes and you never even see the reminder — did it ever really happen? For all intents and purposes, no, not really. A reminder, after all, only deserves the label if it actually reminds; otherwise, it’s just some words on a piece of paper. But a new study in the journal Psychological Science makes the case for a better, less intuitive way to leave yourself reminders: a trick called the “reminders by association” approach, which pairs up random objects and images with items on your to-do list.
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Remember, Money Doesn’t Have to Be the Root of All Evil
The New York Times: It may cost more than $100 million, but many social problems could be alleviated with the creative infusion of cash. Compensating organ donors could increase the supply of organs and save thousands of lives annually. Paying opium farmers in Afghanistan and Latin America to grow something else could bring an even larger dividend in averted addictions and wars. And why not neutralize opposition to reducing carbon emissions by reimbursing coal miners, or the entire fossil fuel industry, for their losses? Read the whole story: The New York Times