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Remembering to Forget: The Amnesic Effect of Daydreaming
When your mind drifts, it's hard to remember what was going on before you stopped paying attention. Now a new study has found that the effect is stronger when your mind drifts farther – to memories of an overseas vacation instead of a domestic trip, for example, or a memory in the more distant past. Psychologists have known for a while that context is important to remembering. If you leave the place where a memory was made – its context – it will be harder for you to recall the memory. Previous studies had also found that thinking about something else – daydreaming or mind-wandering – blocks access to memories of the recent past. Psychological scientists Peter F.
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Can I Buy You a Drink? Genetics May Determine Sensitivity to Other People’s Drinking Behavior
Your friend walks into a bar to meet you for happy hour. He sidles up to the bar and orders a drink--does that make you more likely to get a drink yourself? According to new findings reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, genetics may determine the extent to which you are influenced by social drinking cues — signals such as advertisements, drinks placed on a bar, and seeing other people around you drinking. Drinking alcohol increases levels of dopamine — a brain chemical that causes pleasure and makes us feel good. The dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) has been shown to be involved in motivation of seeking out rewards.
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Cultural Reactions to Anger Expression can Affect Negotiation Outcomes
Most research on negotiations has shown that showing anger can win you larger concessions, but a psychological study shows it can hurt your cause when used in certain cultural environments.
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Are women shunning science?
In 2005, Harvard University president Lawrence Summers got himself into hot water. Speaking at a national conference on "Diversifying the Science and Engineering Workforce," the former Clinton treasury official suggested that the relative scarcity of women in science careers might be explained--at least in part--by a gender difference in intrinsic aptitude for the sciences. Summers mentioned other possible explanations as well, most notably the clash between high-power jobs and family life, but it was his remarks on science ability that grabbed all the attention. Actually, "attention" doesn't fairly summarize what followed.
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Barroom genetics: Triggering heavy drinking
Recovering alcoholics are generally counseled to stay away from “people, places and things”—anything, that is, that might be a cue for drinking. Bars are an especially potent trigger for the cravings that can lead to relapse. Yet sober alcoholics vary greatly in their susceptibility to such social cues. Many appear to have no problem hanging around taverns and parties sipping club soda, and some even work as bartenders. But others—even alcoholics with years of sobriety—get a yearning every time they see even a stranger hoist a glass. Why do some find these cues so vexing, while others appear free of temptation? Some new research points to genetics—but with a surprising twist.
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Meditation Helps Increase Attention Span
It's nearly impossible to pay attention to one thing for a long time. A new study looks at whether Buddhist meditation can improve a person's ability to be attentive and finds that meditation training helps people do better at focusing for a long time on a task that requires them to distinguish small differences between things they see. The research was inspired by work on Buddhist monks, who spend years training in meditation.
