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The Goal of Creativity
In case you missed it, the cameras were rolling at the 24th APS Annual Convention. Marieke Roskes, University of Amsterdam, presented her research on overcoming the cognitive costs of creativity. If you struggle with creativity and feel exhausted after a creative task, then psychological scientists have good news for you. People who strive for success and positive outcomes (approach motivation) are often more creative than those who strive to avoid failure or negative outcomes (avoidance motivation). But individuals who are motivated by avoiding failure can be as creative as those who are striving for success if they need creativity to achieve their goal.
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New Directions in Brain Training: Effectiveness, Methodology, and Application of Cognitive Interventions
Workshop Announcement: "New directions in brain training - Effectiveness, methodology, and application of cognitive interventions" Berlin, Germany October 11-13, 2012 The aim of this workshop is to bring together experts and young scientists from different fields of psychology and neuroscience to establish, discuss and systematize the state of the art in the field. The workshop will focus on cognitive training and transfer effects of different interventions from cognitive, developmental, clinical, and neuropsychological perspectives.
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A More Inclusive Look at Singleness
Past research has found that single individuals are perceived more negatively than couples. However, in previous research on this topic, study participants have always rated targets who were presumably heterosexual because the target’s sexual orientation was not explicitly mentioned. In a recent study, APS Student Caucus Rise Award winner Gal Slonim and colleagues manipulated the sexual orientation of the targets to better understand whether the stigma associated with being single affects both heterosexual and homosexual targets in a similar manner.
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Not Obedience But Followership
It is commonly thought that participants in Milgram's shock experiments obeyed the researcher because of people's natural tendency to conform to those in authority. In this article, Reicher, Haslam, and Smith review findings from the original Milgram study that suggest a different conclusion: Participants obeyed because they identified with the experimenter. The authors describe their own study of the Milgram experiments and detail evidence supporting their suggestion. Perspectives on Psychological Science Working Toward the Experimenter: Reconceptualizing Obedience Within the Milgram Paradigm as Identification-Based Followership Stephen D. Reicher, S. Alexander Haslam, and Joanne R.
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Independence Day Science — Insights From Psychological Science
Patriotic and Happy How you feel about your country may affect how you feel about your life. Data from an international poll (that included responses from over 130,000 individuals from 128 countries) showed that national satisfaction (i.e., satisfaction with one's country) was a strong predictor of life satisfaction (i.e., subjective well-being). This relationship was strongest in the poorest countries and among individuals with the least income.
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55th TeaP
The 55th Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen (Conference of Experimental Psychologists) will be held March 24-27, 2013 at the University of Vienna, Austria. For the second time the official language of the TeaP will be English (but talks/abstracts can be either in English or German). Contributions from all fields of experimental Psychology are invited. Online submission will be open from September 15, 2012. The submission deadline for symposia will be October 15, 2012, and individual papers can be submitted until November 15, 2012.
