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Babies Expect People to Act Efficiently
Adults expect others to behave rationally and efficiently in their simple, everyday actions -- this is what enables us to predict the route someone will take walking on the sidewalk, for instance. Now, new research shows that infants hold the same expectations for the behavior of others. Even within the first two years of life, infants expect adults to behave rationally, efficiently, and consistently, according to the research, which is published in the April 2013 issue of Psychological Science.
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Elissa L. Newport
Georgetown University William James Fellow Award With a background in cognitive science and now a professor of neurology, Newport has devoted her career to studying human language acquisition and developmental psycholinguistics, with a focus on the relationship between language development and language structure. She studies both normal language acquisition and creolization using miniature languages presented to learners in the lab, where both the input and the structure of the language can be controlled. A second line of research for Newport concerns maturational effects on language learning.
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Why Older Minds Make Better Decisions
Forbes: The decisions we make throughout our lives about money, work, health and relationships have a tremendous influence on how we age. And as the number of older people increases, not only in the United States but around the world, the decisions seniors make and how they make them will have a significant impact on global economies and societies. ... Recent research has already challenged what we thought we knew about the capability of the brain. What has become clear, says Dr.
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Negative Emotions are Key to Well-Being
Scientific American Mind: A client sits before me, seeking help untangling his relationship problems. As a psychotherapist, I strive to be warm, nonjudgmental and encouraging. I am a bit unsettled, then, when in the midst of describing his painful experiences, he says, “I'm sorry for being so negative.” In fact, anger and sadness are an important part of life, and new research shows that experiencing and accepting such emotions are vital to our mental health. Attempting to suppress thoughts can backfire and even diminish our sense of contentment. “Acknowledging the complexity of life may be an especially fruitful path to psychological well-being,” says psychologist Jonathan M.
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Of course you’re stressed. Just look at you.
Los Angeles Times: We all know the face of stress: the clenched jaw, the furrowed brow, the intense stare. And, really, it's not a bad look. We all do some of our best work under pressure. Adrenaline and other stress hormones give us the kick start we need to meet deadlines and generally get ahead in life. But when stress runs too hot for too long, the look changes. People who are stressed for years don't merely appear driven or focused. They look beaten down. In large doses, stress can wear the body and speed up the clock on aging. ... Lots of people are literally inflamed with stress, says Sheldon Cohen, professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University.
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The Crisis in Social Psychology That Isn’t
The New Yorker: Things aren’t quite as bad as they seem, though. Although Nature’s report was headlined “Disputed results a fresh blow for social psychology,” it scarcely noted that there have been some replications of experiments modelled on Dijksterhuis’s phenomenon. His finding could still out turn to be right, if weaker than first thought. More broadly, social priming is just one thread in the very rich fabric of social psychology. The field will survive, even if social priming turns out to have been overrated or an unfortunate detour. ...
