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Psychologists’ Golf Trick Shows Superstition Boosts Performance
WIRED: How can you make people better at sports? Tell them they’re using equipment that previously belonged to a professional athlete. No, really. A new study finds that golfers significantly improved their putting ability when they believed the putter they were using belonged to a celebrity golfer.
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Study of the Day: The Mindset You Need to Succeed After Failing
The Atlantic: PROBLEM: Previous studies have shown that people who believe that intelligence can improve with time and effort are more likely to bounce back from failure than those who view their abilities as fixed. Why? METHODOLOGY: Michigan State University psychology professor Jason Moser recruited 25 people to take part in a test that was easy to flub. They asked subjects to wear a cap that recorded electrical brain activity while they identified the letter at the center of a five-letter series, where the middle letter was sometimes the same as the other four ("MMMMM" or "NNMNN"). The researchers quizzed the subjects about their attitudes toward learning after the experiment.
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The risks of politeness: It has its place only to a point
The Windsor Star: Dr. Aidan Feeney has a few thoughts about politeness. Essentially, he thinks it has the ability to cost lives. "The more serious the situation, the more likely you are to be polite and the more room there is for confusion," says Feeney, a professor at the school of psychology at Queen's University, Belfast, and co-author of a new paper entitled The Risk of Polite Misunderstanding, published last week by the Association of Psychological Science.
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Sexism and Gender Inequality
Data from 57 countries indicates that an individual’s sexism leads to gender inequality in the society as a whole.
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What’s the power of a good luck charm?
CNN: As Texas Rangers pitcher C.J. Wilson took to the mound Monday night, he wore a rope-like necklace that may be nothing more than a fashion choice, but if he believes in the maker's claims, that may give him an "edge" against his opponents at bat. It's not just Wilson; a surprising number of professional athletes have begun wearing the titanium-laced necklaces, including Rangers Derrick Holland, Mitch Moreland and Elvis Andrus. The "edge" the necklaces' manufacturer, Phiten, claims to give is not proved, but especially for athletes, there is psychological value to an item worn consistently, rituals and superstitions, one sports psychologist says.
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Curiosity + Diligence as Good as Plain Intelligence, Researchers Say
International Business Times: Curiosity and diligence are as important as intelligence for a student's success, according to research released Wednesday. A European trio analyzed 200 existing studies that included 50,000 students and found that curiosity influenced academic performance. Not only that, but throw in contientiousness, and average-intelligence students shone as brightly as those deemed intelligent. Put together, conscientiousness and curiosity had as big an effect on performance as intelligence.
