I just discovered a new series of videos called SciFusion Shorts, which posts well-produced, video interviews with psychology researchers around the world. They're a great place to hear about cutting-edge research and practice research methods concepts such as conceptual definitions, operational definitions, ethics, and graphing correlational results. The researchers use video clips to study resilience. …
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Religiosity and mixed emotions
A colleague is doing research on mixed emotions across cultures, so this headline caught my eye: "Religious people experience more mixed emotions than non-believers" The website PsyPost summarized (possibly with the help of AI) the empirical research. The original empirical journal article is available here, and might be paywalled. The study found that people who …
Gender bias in teacher ratings
I think if you asked most students if they think women professors are worse teachers than men professors, they'd say "no" emphatically. None of us wants to be biased--we want our ratings of faculty members to reflect their actual teaching ability. That's why this study might come as a (disappointing) surprise. The research was covered …
Women’s politics predict partner preferences
In a recent study summarized in PsyPost ,we learn that depending on their political leanings, women report seeking different traits and qualities in their potential romantic partners. The study found that straight women look for different qualities in their romantic partners, depending on their political views. Photo: Depiction Images/Shutterstock The study surveyed over 13,000 women …
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Does a free basic income make people less motivated to work?
On Sept 20, I posted about an experiment that randomly assigned low-income families with newborns to receive an extra $333 or $20 per month. In that study, adding more income didn't have much of an effect. This time, I’m sharing a somewhat similar experiment on basic income that is being conducted in Germany. In this …
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Does extra cash help low-income babies’ development?
Would babies benefit if their families received extra cash every month? Photo: Cavan Images/Alamy Stock Photo When psychologists and sociologists take a big-picture view of early childhood development, they almost always notice a correlation between income and child behavior. Specifically, children being raised in poverty tend to perform worse than higher-income children on language development, …
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Cooling down with slushies
Those tiny pieces of ice help cool you down. Photo: DelightPhotos/Shutterstock Summer’s almost over, but you should save this idea for next time you’re feeling too hot. It turns out that the best way to cool yourself down is by eating small pieces of ice—like those found in your favorite slushy. You can see a …
Clowns help kids get out of the hospital faster
We can apply the four big validities to this study on medical clowns. Photo: Halfpoint/Shutterstock Here’s a study about a behavioral intervention that apparently helps hospitalized children recover faster. The study tested the effect of medical clowns—a specially trained person who can distract hospitalized kids, guide them through relaxation exercises, and help them feel …
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How well do fire alarms work for kids?
Which fire alarm worked best to wake young children up? Photo: YMHhappyfamily/Shutterstock An important applied psychology question concerns smoke alarms. Does the loud, screeching sound of a traditional smoke alarm work on kids? If not, what would work better? There's a Reuters press release about the findings of the study. Sleeping children, as it turns …
Who’s more likely to sexually harrass, and in what situations?
Photo: Sundry Photography/Shutterstock Psychological researchers can study important and contemporary issues, including an issue that came to the forefront in 2017--sexual misconduct by people in power. This article in the Washington Post summarizes several examples of research on sexual harassment. The journalist wrote about studies that identified which people are more likely to harass, and also which …
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