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Political Polarization ‘Dangerous,’ Psychologist Says
LiveScience: CHICAGO - For the first time in American political history, Democrats and Republicans have sorted themselves into a perfect left-right split, a prominent political psychologist said this week, calling the result a "dangerous era" in U.S. politics. Traditionally, political parties have been coalitions of broad groups of people, based more on industry, region and interest group than basic morals, University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt said here during a lecture at the annual meeting of the Association of Psychological Science. Read the whole story: LiveScience
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The Science of ‘Gaydar’
The New York Times: “GAYDAR” colloquially refers to the ability to accurately glean others’ sexual orientation from mere observation. But does gaydar really exist? If so, how does it work? Our research, published recently in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE, shows that gaydar is indeed real and that its accuracy is driven by sensitivity to individual facial features as well as the spatial relationships among facial features. We conducted experiments in which participants viewed facial photographs of men and women and then categorized each face as gay or straight.
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NSF Gives Clinical Students a Shot At Winning Graduate Fellowships
Science Magazine: In 2010, after years of tolerating an ambiguous policy on whether clinical or counseling psychology fits into the U.S. National Science Foundation's (NSF's) mission to fund basic science, agency officials announced that they would reject any application—without even reviewing it—from students in clinical or counseling psychology graduate programs. The psychological science community protested the decision, and within a year, NSF had restored eligibility for scores of graduate psychology students. The reversal has had a significant impact: A doctoral student in psychology has won a prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship.
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SBE Advisory Committee Holds Meeting
COSSA Washington Update: Mumpower New SES Division Director Myron Gutmann, the current AD for SBE, updated the Committee on the directorate's activities. He announced the appointment of Jeryl Mumpower, currently at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M, as the new director of the Social and Economic Sciences (SES) division. Mumpower, a former program officer for Decision, Risk, and Management Science, will replace Rachel Croson, who will return to the University of Texas at Dallas in September after two years at NSF. Mumpower previously taught and served in administrative positions at Albany University, State University of New York. He has a Ph.D.
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2012 Wikipedia Symposium
The 2012 APS Annual Convention featured the symposium “Wikipedia in the Classroom: Initial Responses to the Call to Action.” The symposium included a status report on the APS Wikipedia Initiative and featured presentations from APS Members who used Wikipedia articles for writing assignments in their classes. Presentations included: Recruiting and Engaging Psychologists to the APS Wikipedia Initiative Robert E. Kraut, Carnegie Mellon University, and Rosta Farzan, Carnegie Mellon University In collaboration with the APS, we have been developing processes and tools to engage members of the association and their students to improve representation of psychology articles on Wikipedia.
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When Do Kids Become Adults?
The New York Times: It’s that time of year: “senioritis” has set in. All that remains between childhood and adulthood is the prom and graduation. Many of these high school students have been driving since they were 16, and those who have turned 18 are no longer minors: they can vote, join the military and marry their sweethearts. But they can’t buy a beer. Is it time to rethink the age of adulthood? Do the age requirements for certain rights need to be lowered or raised? Shouldn’t they at least be consistent? Read the discussion: The New York Times
