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A Psychological Solution Prevents Rubbernecking
People just can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to gawking at accidents and car crashes. Rubbernecking—or slowing down to scope out an accident on the side of the road—is a major cause of traffic jams. The bright lights and colors on emergency response vehicles are designed to grab people’s visual attention. But, these attention-grabbing qualities can also make scenes on the side of the road unintentionally distracting for drivers. As part of an effort to keep drivers’ eyes on the road and feet on the gas pedal, the government in the UK is already investing in incident screens to block drivers’ wandering eyes.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Perceived Partner Responsiveness Predicts Diurnal Cortisol Profiles 10 Years Later Richard B. Slatcher, Emre Selcuk, and Anthony D. Ong Decades of research has shown that marriage affects health; however, few studies have actually investigated how marriage "gets under the skin" to influence biological and psychological health. The authors hypothesized that cortisol might provide this link. Cortisol has a diurnal rhythm, peaking in the morning and decreasing over the course of the day. Research has linked flatter cortisol slopes to a host of negative psychological and psychological outcomes.
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APS Commits to Promoting Transparent Science
Conducting research in a transparent, open, and reproducible way is essential to achieving credible results that advance knowledge in any scientific discipline. Yet, there is no set of organized rules that defines and encourages such open and transparent practices.
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3rd Annual Behavior Change, Health, and Health Disparities Conference
Watch the conference live! Please see the conference agenda online and use this link to tune in, Oct 1 and 2, starting at 8 a.m. The 3rd Annual Behavior Change, Health, and Health Disparities Conference will be held October 1–2, 2015 in Burlington, Vermont. The conference theme will be “Capitalizing on Behavioral Economics to Address Major Behavior Health Problems.” Personal behavior patterns (i.e., lifestyle) increase risk for chronic disease and premature death. Unhealthy behaviors (e.g., physical inactivity/unhealthy food choices, tobacco use, prescription opioid abuse) represent the leading cause of chronic disease and premature deaths in the U.S.
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The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment
The New Yorker: On the morning of August 17, 1971, nine young men in the Palo Alto area received visits from local police officers. While their neighbors looked on, the men were arrested for violating Penal Codes 211 and 459 (armed robbery and burglary), searched, handcuffed, and led into the rear of a waiting police car. The cars took them to a Palo Alto police station, where the men were booked, fingerprinted, moved to a holding cell, and blindfolded. Finally, they were transported to the Stanford County Prison—also known as the Stanford University psychology department.
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No Time to Be Nice at Work
The New York Times: MEAN bosses could have killed my father. I vividly recall walking into a hospital room outside of Cleveland to see my strong, athletic dad lying with electrodes strapped to his bare chest. What put him there? I believe it was work-related stress. For years he endured two uncivil bosses. Rudeness and bad behavior have all grown over the last decades, particularly at work. For nearly 20 years I’ve been studying, consulting and collaborating with organizations around the world to learn more about the costs of this incivility. How we treat one another at work matters. Insensitive interactions have a way of whittling away at people’s health, performance and souls. Robert M.
