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Why We Miss Creative Ideas That Are Right Under Our Noses
NPR: There are times when I've thought about singing during the program or maybe telling a bad joke. I'm getting the feeling this morning that our producer and editor, Rachel Ward and Kenya Young, would shoot me down. You ever have this experience? Pitch what you think is a brilliantly creative idea and your boss or manager says nope. If so, it might be worth listening to Steve Inskeep's conversation with NPR's social science correspondent Shankar Vedantam. Shankar's found some research explaining why good ideas get rejected. ...
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What Faces Can’t Tell Us
The New York Times: CAN you detect someone’s emotional state just by looking at his face? It sure seems like it. In everyday life, you can often “read” what someone is feeling with the quickest of glances. Hundreds of scientific studies support the idea that the face is a kind of emotional beacon, clearly and universally signaling the full array of human sentiments, from fear and anger to joy and surprise. Increasingly, companies like Apple and government agencies like the Transportation Security Administration are banking on this transparency, developing software to identify consumers’ moods or training programs to gauge the intent of airline passengers.
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When We Use Fate As A Scapegoat
The Huffington Post: Making decisions can be difficult, and making a hard decision can up the stress even more. A new study suggests that when we have an especially hard decision to make, we're more likely to use the belief in fate as a coping mechanism. The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, suggests that believing that outcomes are out of our control is a coping mechanism to help us live with our decisions. Researchers from Duke University conducted two experiments to analyze the relationship between decision making and belief in fate. Read the whole story: The Huffington Post
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The Dark Psychology of Being a Good Comedian
The Atlantic: Immediately after 9/11, comedy ground to a halt. The Daily Show went off the air for nine days. Saturday Night Live, whose 27th season started 18 days later, featured a somber cold-open with Lorne Michaels asking New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, "Can we be funny?" The staffers of The Onion, the satirical paper that had just relocated to New York, weren’t sure how to answer that question. Even three weeks after the attack, the comedian Gilbert Gottfried was publicly hissed at for joking that he was taking a flight that would make a stop at the Empire State Building. ... The Onion’s triumph reflects McGraw’s long-held theory that comedy is equal parts darkness and light.
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Children’s Language Advantage
Why are children more successful at learning a new language compared to adults? Elissa Newport has devoted her career to studying human language acquisition, including the learning differences between children and adults. In her “less-is-more” hypothesis, she posits that children are better able than adults to learn languages because, paradoxically, they have fewer cognitive resources available to them.
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APS Announces Second Replication Project: Proposals Due April 10, 2014
APS is pleased to announce a new Registered Replication Report project is under way. The replication editors at Perspectives on Psychological Science will be reviewing applications to participate in this project through April 10th. Applicants should note that this study requires that subjects be native English speakers. Links to the study protocol and application to participate, as well as to the full project site on Open Science Framework, can be found here. Significant financial support is available. Researchers can seek funding for expenses related to conducting the replication, such as subject testing fees, materials, and other costs.
