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Identifying People by Their Bodies When Faces Are No Help
Every day we recognize friends, family, and co-workers from afar -- even before we can distinctly see a face. New research reveals that when facial features are difficult to make out, we readily use information about someone’s body to identify them -- even when we don’t know we’re doing so. “Psychologists and computer scientists have concentrated almost exclusively on the role of the face in person recognition,” explains lead researcher, Allyson Rice of the University of Texas at Dallas.
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Facebook and Narcissism
The New York Times: A Times article recently debated whether young people are more narcissistic than previous generations, mentioning Facebook as a possible factor. And a University of Michigan study, published in June, seems to support this theory. Are social media like Facebook turning us into narcissists? Read the discussion: The New York Times
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General Psychopathology Factor May Describe Structure of Psychiatric Disorders
Mental disorders have traditionally been viewed as distinct categorical entities, but the high incidence of comorbid, or co-occurring, disorders challenges this view. As researchers Terrie Moffitt, Avshalom Caspi, and colleagues observe in their new article in Clinical Psychological Science, about half of the people who meet diagnostic criteria for one disorder also meet the diagnostic criteria for another disorder at the same time.
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Psst. I Hear That Gossip Is Not All Bad.
The Huffington Post: When I was growing up, there was a woman in the neighborhood known as The Mayor. She was not a mayor in any official sense, and in fact held no political office. She was a busybody and a gossip, and she made it her mission to spread the word on other neighbors' lives -- who got a DUI last night, whose teenage daughter was pregnant, who got fired at the factory and whose car dealership was struggling. Her specialty was scandal-mongering, but truth be told, she usually had her facts right. Gossips have a reputation for being trivial and petty and often meanspirited. But is it possible that such babbling serves some valuable social purpose?
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Do You Really Have Free Will?
Slate: It has become fashionable to say that people have no free will. Many scientists cannot imagine how the idea of free will could be reconciled with the laws of physics and chemistry. Brain researchers say that the brain is just a bunch of nerve cells that fire as a direct result of chemical and electrical events, with no room for free will. Others note that people are unaware of some causes of their behavior, such as unconscious cues or genetic predispositions, and extrapolate to suggest that all behavior may be caused that way, so that conscious choosing is an illusion.
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Eye Contact May Make People More Resistant to Persuasion
Making eye contact has long been considered an effective way of drawing a listener in and bringing him or her around to your point of view. But new research shows that eye contact may actually make people more resistant to persuasion, especially when they already disagree. The new findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “There is a lot of cultural lore about the power of eye contact as an influence tool,” says lead researcher Frances Chen, who conducted the studies at the University of Freiburg, Germany, and is now an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia.
