-
Are You Enabling ‘Academic Entitlement’ in Students?
Education Week: Does this scenario sound familiar? After test results come out, a student approaches the teacher after class, arguing, "I come to class every day; I deserve at least a B!" Students' sense of academic entitlement can reduce their effort in class and lead to irritating (or even aggressive) confrontations with teachers, according to research by Tracey E. Zinn, a psychology associate professor at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. Moreover, teachers may be unintentionally feeding that sense of entitlement, she said at the Association for Psychological Science conference here this weekend. Zinn and James Madison colleagues Jason P. Kopp, Sara J. Finney and Daniel P.
-
Local psychiatrist, YSU psychology chair collaborate
The Jambar: Local psychiatrist Robert Roerich of Southwoods Counseling in Boardman presented a psychoanalytical diagnostic technique on Saturday at the Association for Psychological Science convention in Chicago. The poster session featured a study conducted by Karen Giorgetti, chairwoman of the psychology department at Youngstown State University. Working alongside Roerich for the past year, she gathered and presented empirical statistical data for Roerich’s clinical work. Roerich has been working on the technique, named the Road Interview, since he was a 16-year-old college freshman. It’s based on the work of Sigmund Freud, who pioneered psychoanalysis around the turn of the 20th century.
-
Gestresste Männer sind viel sozialer als gedacht
Die Welt: Männer werden unter Stress nicht automatisch aggressiver wie bisher angenommen. Stattdessen reagieren sie - ähnlich wie Frauen – in Stresssituationen sogar häufig sozialer als in entspannter Atmosphäre. Das haben Forscher der Universität Freiburg herausgefunden. In mehreren Experimenten mit freiwilligen Versuchspersonen hatten sie untersucht, wie sich positives Sozialverhalten, zum Beispiel Vertrauen oder Teilen, und sozial negatives Verhalten wie etwa Bestrafen unter Belastung veränderten. Das Ergebnis: Die Männer unter Stress verhielten sich sozialer als ihre nicht gestressten Geschlechtsgenossen, aggressiver reagierten sie hingegen nicht.
-
Sex and Trauma Research Is Less Upsetting to College Students Than Previously Assumed
Research on sex and trauma faces an ethical dilemma: how can we find out more about the effects of such psychologically sensitive topics without hurting the people who participate in the study? Institutional review boards that approve research on human subjects believe that asking people about sex and trauma is riskier and more distressing than asking people to complete standard intelligence tests or personality questionnaires.
-
When Equality Loses
Despite our inclination to believe equality within a team or group is important, new research suggests that a built-in hierarchy leads to fewer group conflicts and higher productivity. The research finds a team or group with all high-performers will not outperform teams or groups with an established hierarchy. Teams in which everyone has high power are likely to experience elevated levels of conflict, reduced role differentiations, less coordination and integration, and poorer productivity than teams with a broader distribution of power and status.
-
People Know When to Move On
People make decisions all the time. What sandwich to order, whether to walk through that puddle or around it, what school to go to and so on. However, psychologists disagree on how good we are at making decisions. “In the literature on human decision-making, there are two almost parallel stories,” said Andreas Jarvstad of Cardiff University. “One goes, ‘humans are terrible at making choices.’ The other goes, ‘humans are close to being as good as they possibly can be.’” Jarvstad is an author of a new study on decision-making published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. His study is about choosing how long to spend on the task at hand.