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How Rooting for a Rival Could Help Your Team
If the NFL team you hate the most is in the Super Bowl, take heart. Psychological science suggests that a rival team’s win may improve your team’s motivation and performance next season.
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Ratings Rise Over Time Because They Feel Easier to Make
People new to a ratings task are more critical than those who have been doing the evaluation task for longer period of time, a new study suggests.
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Duckworth, Feldman Barrett Among Speakers in Webinar Series
APS Fellow Angela Duckworth will present “Grit: The Power of Persuasion and Perseverance” in a March 27 “Grand Rounds” webinar hosted by the Science of Behavior Change (SOBC), a program at the National Institutes of Health. Duckworth, a psychological scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, studies how factors other than intelligence predict achievement. She focuses specifically on the demonstrated role of grit and self-control. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2013 and was an APS Rising Star in 2011. The 1-hour Grand Rounds webinar begins at 2 p.m. The SOBC webinars are held bi-monthly and are designed to engage the public.
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Newport, Kahana Honored by the Society of Experimental Psychologists
APS William James Fellow Elissa Newport of Georgetown University and APS Fellow Michael Kahana of the University of Pennsylvania both received special awards at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Society of Experimental Psychologists (SEP), held March 2-3 at the University of Arizona. APS Fellow Mary Peterson of UA served as chair of the event. Newport received the Norman Anderson Lifetime Achievement Award for her lifetime of profound theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of language acquisition and its relation to constraints on learning. Newport studies both normal language acquisition and creolization using miniature languages presented to participants in lab studies.
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We’ve heard a lot of bad apologies lately. What makes a good one?
Think of some of the excuses, denials and apologies we've heard in the last few months. Film producer and alleged abuser Harvey Weinstein urging dismissal of a federal sexual misconduct suit lodged against him because actress Meryl Streep once described their working relationship as "respectful." --- Roy Lewicki, professor emeritus of management and human resources at The Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business, started focusing on apologies in the wake of JetBlue's detailed explanation of a major equipment shutdown in New York, Tiger Woods's mea culpa for extramarital affairs, and British Petroleum's attempt to atone after the deadly Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
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Food for Thought: Was Cooking a Pivotal Step in Human Evolution?
The shift to a cooked-food diet was a decisive point in human history. The main topic of debate is when, exactly, this change occurred. All known human societies eat cooked foods, and biologists generally agree cooking could have had major effects on how the human body evolved. For example, cooked foods tend to be softer than raw ones, so humans can eat them with smaller teeth and weaker jaws. Cooking also increases the energy they can get from the food they eat. Starchy potatoes and other tubers, eaten by people across the world, are barely digestible when raw. Moreover, when humans try to eat more like chimpanzees and other primates, we cannot extract enough calories to live healthily.
