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Littering and Following the Crowd
The Atlantic: Loretta Brown walked along Bishop’s Beach near Homer, Alaska, looking for plastic bottles, Styrofoam cups, beer cans, cigarette butts, and old fishing nets. “You tend to find things among the driftwood, since the same tide that washes up the driftwood washes up the trash,” she said, stooping to pick up a plastic water bottle. “It’s kind of like an Easter egg hunt.” Brown is a marine debris education and outreach specialist with the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies, a nonprofit organization based in Homer that educates the public about coastal issues and offers eco-tours of the region. She also has a keen, experienced eye for litter.
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New Research From <em>Clinical Psychological Science</em>
Read about the latest research published in Clinical Psychological Science: Madeline Lee Pe, Katharina Kircanski, Renee J. Thompson, Laura F. Bringmann, Francis Tuerlinckx, Merijn Mestdagh, Jutta Mata, Susanne M. Jaeggi, Martin Buschkuehl, John Jonides, Peter Kuppens, and Ian H. Gotlib In this study, the authors used a network approach to examine whether people with major depressive disorder (MDD) have a denser, and thus less flexible, emotion network -- something that is thought to be associated with psychopathology.
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The Eyes Are the Window to Your Potential Soul Mate
Pacific Standard: John and Stephanie Cacioppo, University of Chicago neuroscientists who are married to each other, study love. And lust. Recently, the couple wanted to find out whether people look at potential mates differently if they perceive a long-term companion as opposed to a temporary sexual partner. Their latest collaboration involved gathering 20 heterosexual college students (13 women and seven men) and showing them black-and-white photos of members of the opposite sex. The researchers used tracking software to record participants’ eye movements and asked subjects to report whether an image elicited feelings of romance or lust. Read the whole story: Pacific Standard
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The Dilemma of the Depressed Mother-to-Be
The Atlantic: Another potentially deadly outcome is persistent newborn pulmonary hypertension (PPHN), a condition that occurs when a newborn’s cardiac system fails to transition normally after birth. Numerous studies have shown that SSRI use late in pregnancy increases the risk of PPHN, some by as much as fivefold. In 2006, the FDA issued a public health advisory based on a study that found six times the risk of PPHN, but then five years later issued a retraction of sorts after subsequent studies did not find an elevated risk. Even in the face of such muddy conclusions, to me the choice initially seemed obvious: Stop taking the meds and tough it out for the sake of the child.
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Bicyclists Beware: The Psychology of Car-Bike Crash Risks
With bike-sharing programs in more than 500 cities worldwide accounting for a combined fleet of over 500,000 bicycles, cars are increasingly sharing urban streets with bicycles. When crashes between bikes and cars occur they are often particularly dangerous for the cyclist. In 2012 alone, 722 bicyclists were killed in crashes with motor vehicles-- a 6 percent increase from 2011, according to US government statistics. To better understand the cause of crashes between cars and bikes, psychological scientists Nadine Chaurand and Patricia Delhomme of The French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport looked at differences in how cyclists and drivers perceive traffic risks.
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Dan Ariely wants to help manage your time
The Washington Post: Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University who wrote the popular book Predictably Irrational, has a portfolio of apps he helped create for the iPhone. One, called Oranges2Apples, helped illustrate the economic concept of opportunity cost by showing people what else they could buy if they didn't spend money on a selected item. Another, called At A Boy, doled out compliments to the user (presumably to help with his research).
