-
Psychology and Free Speech
It’s difficult to determine when discussions of controversial topics became known as hate speech on college campuses across the country. But the metamorphosis has taken place all around us, and the costs are undeniable. Open debate has morphed into self-censorship and terrified silence; what used to be celebrated as an environment of fearless questioning has become a stultifying world of repression. Intolerance of meaningful debate comes from both sides of the political spectrum. Talk of “black lives matter” constitutes hate speech for some, while “blue lives matter” fits the bill for others.
-
The New Retirement: Near the Kids
Thirty-five years ago, Holly Bowers Ruben moved from California to New York, following an actor boyfriend to Brooklyn. The relationship didn’t last, but Ms. Ruben never moved back, although her mother, Marie-Louise Bowers, stayed out west. That arrangement worked — mostly. “I did talk to my mom on a daily basis. That’s kind of the relationship we had, even when she was in California,” Ms. Ruben said. But last year Ms. Bowers, 87, started having trouble getting around, and Ms. Ruben felt that helping her mother from across the country was at best a difficult prospect. In January, Ms. Ruben moved her mother to Sunrise at Mill Basin, in Brooklyn. --- Ms.
-
Why corporatizing feminist messages doesn’t really help women
Companies promote conferences, self-help books, clubs and seminars as paths to empowerment or confidence, promising to unlock career success and acclaim. But selling individual empowerment won't bring about lasting social change, experts say. --- Changing that narrative means women need to question their own history of ingrained assumptions about women and girls, according to psychologist Valerie Purdie Greenaway, director for the Laboratory of Intergroup Relations and the Social Mind at Columbia University. "It's the elephant in the room," Greenaway told attendees Tuesday at the "Embrace Ambition" Summit in New York.
-
Genes May Outweigh Upbringing in Family Patterns of Divorce
Although some people may be genetically predisposed to divorce, that doesn’t mean it’s written in the stars. An adoption study of nearly 20,000 Swedish participants in Psychological Science suggests, however, that when it comes to
-
APS Fellow Fei Xu Receives Guggenheim Fellowship
APS Fellow Fei Xu, who studies cognitive and language development in infants and children, was recently selected as a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow. Awarded by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the prestigious fellowships are appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise. A psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Xu uses behavioral experiments and computational models to understand how young children learn so fast and so well, and what kind of domain-general learning mechanisms explain children’s learning.
-
New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Feeling Is Believing: Inspiration Encourages Belief in God Clayton R. Critcher and Chan Jean Lee Research has identified various correlates of theism, religiosity, and spirituality. The authors hypothesized that one experience-based correlate may be inspiration. They posited that feeling inspired can result in a transcendent experience that produces feelings of connection to something greater than the self, which may promote belief in God.
