Scientific American: A wobbly chair is more than just annoying. Believe it or not, it can influence your values, or beliefs about others. Past studies have shown a link between physical objects and our emotions. Carry a cold drink at a party and you’re likely to consider other guests cold More
The Wall Street Journal: It’s not what you have achieved, but what you might achieve. A new study by scholars at Stanford and Harvard found that in a wide variety of settings people get more excited about individuals with potential and promise than those with actual, proven performance — and More
Past research has found that single individuals are perceived more negatively than couples. However, in previous research on this topic, study participants have always rated targets who were presumably heterosexual because the target’s sexual orientation was not explicitly mentioned. In a recent study, APS Student Caucus Rise Award winner Gal More
It is commonly thought that participants in Milgram’s shock experiments obeyed the researcher because of people’s natural tendency to conform to those in authority. In this article, Reicher, Haslam, and Smith review findings from the original Milgram study that suggest a different conclusion: Participants obeyed because they identified with the More
The New York Times: GOSSIP. Almost all of us do it, most of us are embarrassed about it, and sometimes, to our horror, we get caught. But not all gossip is bad, and, in fact, gossip can be useful in maintaining social norms and keeping people in line. Maybe it More
The New York Times: “GAYDAR” colloquially refers to the ability to accurately glean others’ sexual orientation from mere observation. But does gaydar really exist? If so, how does it work? Our research, published recently in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE, shows that gaydar is indeed real and that its accuracy More
