-
8 New Ways of Looking at Intelligence
TIME: The science of learning is a relatively new discipline born of an agglomeration of fields: cognitive science, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience. As with anything to do with our idiosyncratic and unpredictable species, there is still a lot of art, especially in teaching. But the science of learning can offer some surprising new perspectives. ... Beliefs can make us smarter. This is an offshoot of #1. Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck distinguishes two types of mindsets: the fixed mindset, or the belief that ability is fixed and unchanging, and the growth mindset, or the belief that abilities can be developed through learning and practice.
-
Apes, toddler show that language may have evolved from gestures
Los Angeles Times: What do a chimpanzee, a bonobo and a toddler all have in common? They all use gestures to communicate. By studying hours of video of a female chimp named Panpanzee, a female bonobo named Panbanisha and a little girl with the initials GN, a team of psychologists hope to gain some insight into how spoken language evolved in humans. Skeletons can be fossilized, but language cannot, the researchers noted in a study published this week in Frontiers in Psychology. To figure out how it came to be, they looked for similarities between the three closely related species to infer ways that our common ancestor would have communicated more than 5 million years ago.
-
Putting a Little Personality Into Social Psychology (and Vice-Versa)
The personal and the social intertwine inextricably. In a 2011 paper published in the European Journal of Personality, a group of psychological scientists note that when we talk about an individual’s personality, part of what we are talking about is how that individual interacts with others. Furthermore, the scientists write, “social relationships would not be such a challenging part of our lives if all people were equal in how they act, think, and feel” — that is, if all people were equal in their personalities (90). Over time, social experiences play an important role in shaping personality, and personality shapes social experiences, too. Yet, according to lead author Mitja D.
-
People Anticipate Others’ Genuine Smiles, But Not Polite Smiles
Smile and the world smiles with you -- but new research suggests that not all smiles are created equal. The research shows that people actually anticipate smiles that are genuine but not smiles that are merely polite. The differing responses may reflect the unique social value of genuine smiles. “These findings give us the first clear suggestion that the basic processes that guide responses to reward also play a role in guiding social behavior on a moment-to-moment basis during interactions,” explains psychological scientist and lead researcher Erin Heerey of Bangor University (UK).
-
The Myth of ‘Just Do It’
The New York Times: Yogi Berra, the former Major League baseball catcher and coach, once remarked that you can’t hit and think at the same time. Of course, since he also reportedly said, “I really didn’t say everything I said,” it is not clear we should take his statements at face value. Nonetheless, a widespread view — in both academic journals and the popular press — is that thinking about what you are doing, as you are doing it, interferes with performance. The idea is that once you have developed the ability to play an arpeggio on the piano, putt a golf ball or parallel park, attention to what you are doing leads to inaccuracies, blunders and sometimes even utter paralysis.
-
Stress delivered straight to your inbox
The Globe and Mail: “Our eating habits have changed radically in recent decades, in at least two distinct ways,” says Pacific Standard magazine. “We increasingly multitask as we consume our meals, munching as we work at our desks or watch television. And, to the dismay of nutritionists, our food has higher concentrations of sugar and salt. New research from the Netherlands suggests the two phenomena may be directly related. A study just published in the journal Psychological Science finds people eating or drinking while mentally distracted require greater concentrations of sweetness, sourness or saltiness to feel satisfied.
