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‘Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People’ by Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald
The Washington Post: What if we’re not the magnanimous people we think we are? That seems to be the conclusion of the past few decades of social psychology research. Freudstuck a dagger in the comforting idea of complete, conscious self-awareness, but experimental findings suggest that not only do we not know ourselves, if we did, we might not invite ourselves over for dinner. This research takes Freud’s dagger into our vanity and twists it. One of the greatest sources of torque is what’s called the Implicit Association Test, a computer-based assessment that susses out unconscious biases.
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How You Treat Others May Depend on Whether You’re Single or Attached
With Valentine’s Day looming, many married couples will wish marital bliss for their single friends. At the same time, many singles will pity their coupled friends’ loss of freedom. People like to believe that their way of life -- whether single or coupled -- is the best for everyone, especially if they think their relationship status is unlikely to change, according to a study forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study suggests that this bias may influence how we treat others, even in situations where relationship status shouldn’t matter.
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Happiness Grows with Age, But Depends on Generation
LiveScience: People tend to get happier as they age, but individuals' overall well-being depends on the era in which they were born, a new report shows. For example, adults who lived through the Great Depression tend to report lower levels of well-being than those who were raised in more recent prosperous times, researchers say. ... "When individuals make judgments about their well-being, those judgments reflect more than just an assessment of the individual's current situation," the researchers, led by Angelina R. Sutin of Florida State University, wrote in their report in the journal Psychological Science.
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Being Ashamed of Drinking Prompts Relapse, Not Recovery
TIME: Embarrassment over an excessive-drinking session doesn’t necessarily lead to more sobriety. In a study of alcoholics and relapse rates, researchers found that the more shame-ridden a drinker looked when talking about drinking — interpreted through body language like hunched shoulders — the more likely he or she was to relapse and the more drinks he or she downed during that relapse. ...
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Research Explores How Our Relationships Can Impact Our Health
New reports published by the Association for Psychological Science take a closer look at physiological and genetic factors that may help to explain the influence that our relationships can have on our physical health. Does Attachment Get Under the Skin? Adult Romantic Attachment and Cortisol Responses to Stress Paula R. Pietromonaco, Casey J. DeBuse, and Sally I. Powers Our adult relationships can affect our overall health in the long-term, but they can also influence how we respond to specific stressors in the short-term.
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Is Religion Just An Assortment of Gut Feelings?
The vast majority of the planet’s 7 billion people ascribe to some kind of religious belief—that is, a faith in things that cannot be proven. This makes no sense from a scientific and psychological point of view, because supernatural beliefs—in contrast to our evolved thinking in general—serve no apparent purpose. They don’t help us comprehend and navigate the world. Why would the human mind create them, and allow them to persist? Two cognitive psychologists now offer an intriguing explanation for this philosophical puzzle. Nicolas Baumard of the University of Pennsylvania and Pascal Boyer of Washington University in St.
