Although all human cultures appear to create music, the music of different cultures is incredibly varied, leading some scholars to question whether music is really, as Henry Longfellow claimed in 1835, a universal “language” of our species. If true, it would suggest that universal cognitive mechanisms exist that can both More
A few years ago, Jason Rentfrow, a psychologist at the University of Cambridge, dug into a question that has captivated him for decades: Do different places have different personalities? Do people in Los Angeles, for instance, have measurably different temperaments from the residents of Augusta, Georgia? If so, what does More
Anyone who’s tried (and failed) to follow a diet knows that food is more than fuel. The reasons we eat are even embedded in our language. When we’re in an unfamiliar place, we yearn for comfort food. We take one too many scoops of ice cream because we stress eat. We connect More
A sample of research exploring: cognitive bias modification to target two behaviors; positive affect as a buffer between chronic stress and emotional disorder symptoms; reward sensitivity and trait disinhibition as predictors of substance use problems; and culture as a mediator between appraisals and PTSD symptoms. More
To read a man’s mind, first you have to outline his skull. Last November, I watched a psychologist use a digital pen to draw the circumference of a man’s head. The coordinates of his brain were quickly mapped, pinpointing the precise areas within his skull that process emotions. Behind him More
Psychological research relies heavily on homogenous samples and settings, but there are many ways that the field can include more cultural considerations in the exploration of human emotions, cognition, and behavior, says APS Fellow Yuichi Shoda and colleagues Laura Brady and Stephanie Fryberg. More
