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Finding the Way to a Better Sense of Direction
Some people just seem to have an innate sense of direction; they never need to ask how to get somewhere or forget where they parked. Then there’s those of us who would be utterly lost in our own neighborhood without the help of GPS and turn-by-turn directions. A team of psychological scientists from Tufts University and the U.S. Army may have found one way to improve a shaky sense of direction: applying an electric current to the brain. The research team, led by Tad T.
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FIVE HABITS OF CREATIVE PEOPLE
Fast Company: There is no secret trick to becoming more creative, but the good news is creativity is a skill you can build. That means that you can become more creative with the right time and effort. Whenever you are picking up a new skill, though, it is good to find role models who have the abilities you want and to follow their lead. Over the past 10 years, I have written quite a bit about creativity. Along the way, I have encountered the stories of a number of individuals who have inspired me to think about what it takes to improve my own creative abilities. These individuals have been able to solve problems (both practical and artistic) in new ways.
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Baltimore riots mainly fuelled by thrill-seeking teens, not genuine racial justice concerns, says psychologist
National Post: A Canadian-born psychologist who studies violence says the Baltimore riot is primarily driven by “Type T” (thrill-seeking) teens at the end of a long winter, with probably few social or racial justice motives. “The death of Freddie Gray is probably the opportunity and pretext for riotous fun, thrill, risk and profit (looting),” said Dr. Frank Farley, a professor of psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia and a past president of the American Psychological Association. Gray died from a severe spinal injury a week after police subdued him in an April 12 arrest, the latest in a string of highly publicized deaths involving police and black men in America.
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Brain, Behavior, and the Economy
Psychological science, once criticized for underestimating the impact of socioeconomic factors on psychological development and functioning, now plays a lead role in investigating how wealth and poverty affect thought, emotion, and action throughout our lives. Top researchers from the United States and Europe presented some of the most profound findings on cognition, brain, behavior, and development in socioeconomic contexts during the inaugural International Convention of Psychological Science (ICPS), held in March in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
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CEOs Perceived as Moral Rally More Support
Some economists argue that a business leader’s primary responsibility is to maximize company profits and that the pursuit of any other goal, including contributing to the broader welfare, is just bad business. Consider a CEO’s plan to provide employees with free, healthy meals. On the one hand, the CEO could justify the policy on the basis of a moral obligation to care for employees’ health. On the other hand, the CEO could use a pragmatic explanation; the availability of meals will motivate employees to work longer hours. To get this plan off the ground the CEO must decide on the best way to justify this decision to stakeholders.
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Benchmark Project: Expert Online Survey Announcement
Expert members are invited to participate in an expert crowd-sourcing survey that seeks to establish benchmarks in working memory research. The Benchmark Project is led by Klaus Oberauer (University of Zurich, Switzerland) and Stephan Lewandowsky (University of Bristol) and seeks to identify theory-relevant benchmarks in working-memory research. To date, more than 27,000 articles have been published on short-term and working memory. The plethora of publications not only provides a huge knowledge based, but it also presents an obstacle to principled identification of the core phenomena that are essential for theorizing.
