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We have friends on Facebook and everywhere else, but are they the kind we need?
These days, we’re awash in friendship. Apps such as Facebook and Instagram allow us to keep up with third-grade pals, colleagues from old jobs and vast numbers of other people. But many “friends” on social media represent superficial connections, lacking the support and strength of closer bonds. You might be comfortable sharing photos of parties and vacations with your broader network, but you probably hesitate to post during more trying times — the breakup, the tough month at work or the death of a loved one. During hard times, you might instead turn to a few trusted friends to weather stress and sadness.
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What Turns Black Friday Shoppers Into Raging Hordes?
For the Black Friday faithful, the excitement begins on Thanksgiving, when eager shoppers line up outside big box and department stores for the chance to grab “doorbuster” sales and “prices slashed” merchandise when the doors open. Black Friday videos posted in recent years show shoppers shoving and shouting, with one temporary worker even tramped to death in 2008. What turns ordinary shoppers into dangerous mobs? Social scientists and psychologists are trying to find out. Sharron Lennon, a professor in the merchandising program at Indiana University, became interested in studying consumer misbehavior after seeing news reports a few years back about fights breaking out at her local mall.
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New Research From Psychological Science
A sample of new research exploring eye-tracking and causality, acquiescence to intuitive judgments, out-group prejudice and pathogen concern, and an intervention focused on executive function skills in preschoolers.
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A CHANGE OF MIND
Rachel Loewy was an undergraduate in 1995 when she answered a flyer seeking students to assist with a research study. A couple of floors up in a psychology department building, Loewy sat, clipboard in hand, interviewing teenagers whose brain health was beginning to falter. Some heard whispers. Others imagined that their teachers could read their minds, or that fellow students stared at them and wished them harm as they walked down the halls. The teenagers had been diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder, a condition that can precede schizophrenia.
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Young Men, Frequent Drivers Most Likely To Get Distracted While Driving
If you're reading this on your phone while driving, stop it. Especially if you're a young neurotic extroverted guy who drives a lot. Two seconds of attention to the insistent beeping and blinking of our mobile phones or simply changing the radio station accounts for at least 12 percent of car accidents worldwide and 14 percent of them in the U.S., according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. While anyone can get distracted behind the wheel, some people may be more prone than others, according to a study published Friday in Frontiers in Psychology by Ole Johansson, a researcher at Norway's Institute of Transport Economics.
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Pioneering Brain Scientist Still Working at 99
You're a preeminent neuroscientist, and a professor at Canada's prestigious McGill University. At age 99, what motivates you to keep up your research at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital? I am very curious. Human quirks attract my interest. If you're a theoretical person, you can sit and dream up beautiful theories, but my approach is, What would happen if or, Why is this person doing [that] and then, How can I measure it? I wouldn't still be working if I didn't find it exciting. ... Are you curious in real life, too? Yes. I'm a good "noticer" of behavior as much as the kind of furniture people have!
