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Psychological Science Sets New Standards for Research Reporting
The leading journal in psychological science is introducing innovative new guidelines for authors, part of an effort to strengthen the reporting and analysis of findings in psychological research. The new author guidelines for the journal Psychological Science are among several related initiatives that researchers, led by the Association for Psychological Science, are undertaking to promote the replicability of scientific studies and the use of sound research practices across all areas of the field.
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When Praise Hurts: The Psychology Of Gushing
Search the Internet for “101 Ways to Praise a Child” and you’ll find a poster--actually many variations of a single poster. Some are available to download, or if you want quantities, you can purchase the posters from a discount school supply house, laminated if you choose. Some are simple black-and-white typography, while others have bright, four-color, illustrated borders. They are available for classroom teachers, for speech and language therapists, for drug educators—and of course for parents. I don’t know the precise origins of the “101 Ways to Praise a Child” poster, but it was no doubt a product of the self-esteem movement that began to sweep the nation’s schools in the ‘90s.
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Sleep Unbinds Memories From Their Emotional Context
Many of us might remember our parents insisting that we get a good night’s sleep before a big exam or test, with the argument that being well rested would help us perform at our best. Although we may not have believed our parents back then, perhaps we should have. Research is showing that sleep plays an important role in the stabilization and strengthening of memories. In particular, research has shown that sleep makes memories more resistant to interference from competing lexical information. The authors of a recent article in the journal Cortex wondered if sleep could also protect memories from emotional interference.
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‘I Shall Wear The Bottoms of My Trousers Rolled’
The Huffington Post: What do those words evoke for you? For me, because I still have fragments of T.S. Eliot's poetry bouncing around my neurons, those lyrical words trigger the idea of growing old, with all its associated aches and pains and slowing down. Other words might do the same for you -- Florida, lonely, RV, Social Security -- depending on your experiences. Mere words have the power to shape our thinking and our judgments in hidden ways every day. And not just our thinking -- our actions as well.
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Why an Invisible Gorilla Is a Security Threat
Pacific Standard: You may have seen a video online somewhere, or in a Psych 101 class perhaps, of a group of people wearing black and white shirts passing a basketball back and forth. When you watch, you are prompted to count how many times the players wearing white shirts pass the ball. What you may not see, though, even though it is right in front of you, is that after a half a minute of the basketball-passing and feet-shuffling, someone wearing a gorilla suit strolls into the center of the screen, thumps her chest, and then walks away.
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These 2 Words Will Make You More Selfish
The Atlantic: Don't think about Wall Street. Did you think about Wall Street? Of course you did. You can't stop yourself from thinking about something you're told not to think about. But I didn't just conjure images of stocks, suits, and a bronze bull. I primed you to be more selfish. It's science. ... Well, it depends on what you call it. At least that's what a 2004 paper by Varda Liberman, Steven Samuels, and Lee Ross found when they tested Stanford undergraduates. These researchers set up a simple Prisoner's Dilemma with money prizes, but added a wrinkle.
