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Optogenetics: Stranger Than Fiction
It sounds like a science fiction movie: Scientists integrate the photoreceptive properties of light-sensitive algae into rat neurons. The result? A rat whose brain can be controlled by light. As crazy as it seems, this isn’t science fiction: The field of optogenetics is scientific reality. In a May 2011 talk at the TED Conference, Edward Boyden explained that optogenetics allows scientists to target specific neurons quickly; conventional methods like drugs take longer to kick in. Boyden is also featured in a March Observer article on optogenetics, and he will be speaking in a webinar called Optogenetics in Neurons and Beyond on March 15, 2012.
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Placebo Power
APS Fellow and Charter Member Irving Kirsch, associate director of the Placebo Studies Program at Harvard Medical School, says the difference between the effect of a placebo and the effect of an antidepressant is minimal for most people. "People get better when they take the drug, but it's not the chemical ingredients of the drugs that are making them better," Kirsch told Lesley Stael in a 60 Minutes interview, "it's largely the placebo effect." The "placebo effect" may not be all in your head says Kirsch in the interview below: Kirsch, I., Deacon, B.J., Huedo-Medina, T.B., Scoboria, A., Moore, T.J., & Johnson, B.T. (2008).
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Perfectionism, Goal Appraisals, and Distress in Students
In case you missed it, the cameras were rolling in Washington, DC. Watch. Watch Gordon L. Flett from York University, Canada and Taryn Nepon of York University, Canada present their research at the 23rd APS Annual Convention in Washington, DC. This study examined perfectionism, goal cognitions, and distress in 95 students. Participants completed the Goal Systems Assessment Battery, along with measures of perfectionism, anxiety, and depression. Socially prescribed perfectionism and perfectionistic thoughts were associated with goal-related self-criticism and negative arousal. Self-oriented perfectionism predicted self-criticism and negative arousal for academic goals.
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1st World Conference on Personality
The Personality Psychology Foundation will hold the 1st World Conference on Personality March 19-23, 2013 in Stellenbosch, South Africa. For more information visit: http://www.perpsy.org/ Abstract submissions (symposia, papers, posters) are now open!! For the first time, this conference will bring together personality psychologists and psychologists with an interest in personality from the various regions of the world, to fully display the different perspectives on personality as pursued in different cultures, to stimulate further cooperation across the cultural borders, and to facilitate the commencement of new research-lines in the field.
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Where Learning STEMs From
The need for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) professionals has become critical in the United States. A recent Washington Post article stated there is a shortage of qualified U.S. workers needed to fill openings for high-paying STEM jobs. And this trend, says the Post, “is primarily caused by the lack of women and other minorities pursuing careers in the STEM fields.” APS President Douglas Medin (Northwestern University) and former student Megan Bang (University of Washington) are helping tackle this issue by investigating current approaches to STEM education and determining how culture may affect the way people learn.
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Stopping Temper Tantrums Before They Start
Shoving, punching, and belligerent insults aren’t just for ruffians at biker bars and soccer games. At some point or another, most children throw temper tantrums. But changing the child’s behavior is not the key to stopping these fits — it’s the parents who have to change. “Most of the parenting methods, most of the parenting books, most of the advice is not based on research, and very much of it violates what we actually know,” said APS Fellow Alan Kazdin in this interview with the Today Show. Kazdin, who directs the Yale Parenting Center, said that punishing bad behavior won’t stop tantrums. Instead, parents should be praising good behavior and ignoring the bad.
