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The Nature of Language Acquisition
On a daily basis, infants and toddlers encounter a plethora of items ranging from animals to appliances their parents use. Despite their limited abilities to process information, even very young children are remarkably capable of learning the names of these objects. Ellen M. Markman conducted some of the pioneering research on the reasoning skills that infants and young children use to figure out the meanings of words. When someone points to an object and labels it, how do children conclude the label refers to the object itself, rather than its color, size, shape, texture, activity, attractiveness, and so on?
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The Science Behind Our Urge To Procrastinate
The Huffington Post: Cranking out a final paper hours before the deadline. Putting off that trip to the supermarket until the refrigerator shelves are completely barren. Watching one, two, even three more episodes of "Orange Is The New Black" before finally shutting down Netflix and calling it a night. We all procrastinate in one way or another, choosing easy pleasures over more necessary or fulfilling tasks, telling ourselves “there’s always tomorrow” -- and the day after that, and the day after that… But there’s far more science behind procrastination than you might expect.
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Why ‘Pinocchio’ May Not Teach Kids Honesty
Live Science: For parents looking to teach their children a lesson about honesty, a new study suggests "George Washington and the Cherry Tree" is a more useful morality tale than "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." Stories touting the positive outcomes of telling the truth promoted more honesty in kids than stories that emphasize the grave consequences of lying, researchers found. Read the whole story: Live Science
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Morning People Are More Likely to Lie to Their Bosses in the Afternoon
The Atlantic: There are morning people and there are evening people; there is ethical behavior and there is unethical behavior. That much we know, and previous attempts to suss out how those categories overlap with each other pointed researchers toward what’s called the “morning morality effect.” The effect, written up in a study last year, suggests that people behave more ethically earlier in the day, the theoretical underpinning being that as a person grows drained from the day’s mounting obligations, they lose the wherewithal required to behave in a saintly manner.
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What If You Could Just ‘Forget’ to Bite Your Nails?
New York Magazine: A bad habit can feel so automatic that it can be hard to even realize you’re doing it, which makes quitting the behavior feel impossible. But what if you could just will yourself to “forget” to bite your nails, or crack your knuckles, or snack late at night? That’s the gist of a new paper in Psychological Science, which was recently featured in the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest. The methodology is a little complicated, but, essentially, the German researchers instilled a habit into their participants, and then changed the rules of the game, requiring them to forget that newly learned behavior. Read the whole story: New York Magazine
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Love People, Not Pleasure
The New York Times: ABD AL-RAHMAN III was an emir and caliph of Córdoba in 10th-century Spain. He was an absolute ruler who lived in complete luxury. Here’s how he assessed his life: “I have now reigned above 50 years in victory or peace; beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity.” Abd al-Rahman’s problem wasn’t happiness, as he believed — it was unhappiness. If that sounds like a distinction without a difference, you probably have the same problem as the great emir.
