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Automation Fuels Anti-Immigration Fears. Time to Rethink How We Talk About It?
Automation may be associated with anti-immigrant sentiment by increasing perceptions of both realistic threat arising from competition for economic resources and symbolic threat “arising from changes to group values, identity, and status.”
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
A sample of research on loneliness and sleep problems, emotional awareness and psychopathology, suicidal behaviors, amygdala functioning, and estrogen and binge eating.
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Can Playing Together Help Us Live Together?
APS Member/Author: Elizabeth Levy Paluck The contact hypothesis in psychology predicts that prejudice can be reduced when rival groups come together under optimal circumstances of cooperation and equal status. To date, the weight of real-world evidence for this hypothesis comes from self-reported attitudes after self-initiated contact, not from preregistered randomized trials that take intergroup contact as seriously as one would take a potential vaccine for conflict (1, 2). Consequently, on page 866 of this issue, the results of Mousa's (3) new field experiment are breaking news.
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Why Do Travelers Still Fall for Drip Pricing?
Andrew Taylor keeps falling for drip pricing. He finds a low price on an airline ticket, car rental or hotel room — and then, once he starts the booking process, the cost rises until he reaches the final screen. But he buys anyway. “I think many of us know that the given price on an advertisement will never actually be the real price,” he says. “We’re just naturally drawn to a low price and work through the process to discover the real price.” Taylor should know better. He runs a Suffolk, England, legal services company that specializes in creating clearly worded “gotcha-free” contracts. But he says he doesn’t want to go through the trouble of finding a more honest price.
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Education Benefits the Brain Over a Lifetime
A new study confirms what your parents always told you: Getting an education opens the door to career opportunities and higher salaries. But it may also benefit your well-being in old age. "The total amount of formal education that people receive is related to their average levels of cognitive [mental] functioning throughout adulthood," said researcher Elliot Tucker-Drob, from the University of Texas, Austin. "However, it is not appreciably related to their rates of aging-related cognitive declines," he added in a news release from the Association for Psychological Science.
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Why Being Kind Helps You, Too—Especially Now
In January, Rachel Glyn’s husband of 36 years died of cancer. Two months later, the pandemic and lockdown hit. Alone in her Philadelphia apartment, Ms. Glyn spent her time worrying about the coronavirus, the financial markets and the civil unrest happening a few blocks away. Some days, she says, she wished she would die. “I’ll never have another day that doesn’t stink,” she told herself. Then one morning, Ms. Glyn, who is 66, heard about a local blood drive and thought, “My life isn’t a pathetic mess after all: I have the ability to give.” She walked to a nearby hospital and donated. Afterward, she was “exhilarated,” she says. “It felt wonderful to do something useful for someone,” Ms.
