Psych in the news

[I'm guessing everyone is in AP mode, but in case you've got students who aren't taking the exam and are twiddling their thumbs, send 'em here! I'll post several a day over the next few days to clear out my bookmarks.]

• "Mr. Anecdote-Means-a-Trend" Malcolm Gladwell spins another amusing tale, this time about the strategies that underdogs use to win. Deadspin takes him to task on his lack of knowledge of basketball: "sooner or later you run into a Goliath who can dribble through a trap."
• New research may help unlock vegetative and minimally conscious patients.
• Why do poor kids have more trouble in school? Is it due to environment or biology? The answer, according to a new study, may be both.
• The perils of analyzing test scores by race. Plus, a follow-up.
• Relax. NBA players choke under pressure too.
• Does President Obama have the motivation to succeed?
• Bilingual infants have better mental control
• Is fatigue really just all in our heads?
• Yes, looks do matter. (Susan Boyle)
• Ear plugs to lasers: the science of concentration ("multitasking is a myth")
  

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Swine flu and psychology

A quick post to provide some links for talking about the recent swine flu outbreak in your psychology classes. I don't mean this to be a clearinghouse for general swine flu information, though this CNET site is a pretty amazing one-stop site for links to pages with all kinds of information. Please post links that you find on psychology and swine flu below!

The APA has a helpful page about how to deal with the anxiety that may arise from thinking about swine flu. A similar post from PsychCentral says turn off the radio and TV.

Be careful of your sources: Swine flu: Twitter's power to misinform ("in the context of a global pandemic ... having millions of people wrap up all their fears into 140 characters and blurt them out in the public might have some dangerous consequences, networked panic being one of them.")

A special warning to those with OCD.

Dreading the worst when it comes to epidemics.

Swine flu may get worse but right now driving your car is 40 to 100 times more deadly.

In the Durham Herald-Sun our local rising star Duke behavioral economics professor Dan Ariely (author of the positively reviewed book Predictably Irrational) suggests the fear may already be overblown. "Right now, this looks to me like over-excitement," said Ariely. "I hope I'm not proven wrong, but it's very possible there's a lot of over-reaction here."

The Sacramento Bee has more of the amazing photos that you see at the top of this post here and here.

And don't forget to ...

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Psych in the news

My bookmarks are bursting at the seams! Many of these great links come via the incredible Mind Hacks blog featuring Vaughan Bell-- be sure to check it out regularly. Here's a few articles to get your week started:

• Great interview of Judith Rich Harris by The Frontal Cortex's Jonah Lehrer. Harris was the textbook editor who put the psychology world in a tizzy in 1998 with the release of her book The Nurture Assumption, which challenged the standing belief that parents play a major role in the shaping of their children's personality. Wrong, said Harris, and she pointed out the flaws in a number of research studies to back her assertions. The book is now out in an expanded edition and is a definite must-read for psychology teachers.
• Jonah Lehrer also writes about what we can learn from how the brains of babies work. The article features psychologist Allison Gopnik who has a forthcoming book called The Philosophical Baby (with its own YouTube intro here).
• NPR's Robert Kulwich does a piece on how language shapes thinking.
• The Obama administration is using applied psychology to get people to want the "change [they] can believe in." Vaughan at Mind Hacks wonders where the skepticism is to this approach.
• Discover Magazine looks at The Big Similarities & Quirky Differences Between Our Left and Right Brains.
• Is sex addiction an excuse, not a disease?
• Nature looks at how the MRI is changing the way we view the brain.
• Has the APA been slow to act when its members have been involved in torture?
• Epilepsy not as a storm in the brain, but an anti-storm?
• New Scientist looks at choice blindness -- how do we know what we want?
• An awesome (but long, naturally) look by the New Yorker at how drugs like Adderall are being used off-label to help non-ADHD people do better than before.
• A lecture on the connection between the fMRI and the four humours (!).

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A couple of thinking puzzles

1) How many four-sided figures (squares and rectangles) do you see in the diagram below?
2. How many triangles do you see in the diagram below?
Got the answers? Now visit Psychology Today's Brain Workout blog for the answers!

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Psych in the news

Beauty affects men's and women's brains differently. (Wired)

Researchers in Montreal report that people who were abused or neglected as children showed genetic alterations that likely made them more biologically sensitive to stress. (NY Times)

A study published this month in the journal Pediatrics studied the links between recess and classroom behavior among about 11,000 children age 8 and 9. Those who had more than 15 minutes of recess a day showed better behavior in class than those who had little or none. (NYT)

Low levels of Vitamin D may be associted with an increased risk for dementia. (NYT)

Finally some good news for your slackers: "People may doodle as a strategy to help themselves concentrate," says a researcher in a new study. (Wired)

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Podcast-Radiolab

Whenever I have to drive, I make sure I have my iPod with me. While NPR is my only radio station, its programming is not always what I want to hear at the time. With that in mind, and going back to my childhood listening to CBS Radio Mystery Theater (back when AM radio was used for more than talk radio), I now listen to the best radio show around.

Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad are the hosts of each show, and they create a movie for the ears. In the words of the website, "Radiolab is a show about curiosity. Each episode is an investigation - a patchwork of people, sounds, stories all centered around one big idea." This means that topics will likely include psychological topics--memory, curiosity, deception, music, the brain, nostalgia, tickling, coincidence, morality, science, parasites (and effects on behavior). Every episode is seemingly a wonderful interdisciplinary show that feeds the mind.

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab
http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/?utm_source=links&utm_medium=hp&utm_campaign=radiolab

One recent show was about the Obama Effect. The show was about people's perceptions related to their scores on intelligence tests (or some other term that was used). Results included differences in test scores when minorities had different beliefs about what the test was about. It really challenged the notion of the efficacy of intelligence tests.

In short, it is my favorite radio show and I highly recommend it. Please try one episode and you'll see. Enjoy!

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Psych in the news

Eating a Mediterranean diet appears to lower risk for mental decline, and may help prevent Alzheimer’s in people with existing memory problems, new research suggests. (NY Times)

Stanford University has put a series of engaging lectures up on YouTube where some of its leading researchers discuss cutting-edge cognitive science research. (Mindhacks)

Lengthy television viewing in adolescence may raise the risk for depression in young adulthood, according to a new report. (NYT)

In recent days, both the Daily Mail and Wired.com looked at Charles Bonnet Syndrome, a disease characterized by bizarre and vivid visual hallucinations that often involve characters or things that are much smaller in size than reality. (via Boing Boing)

If you’re like most people with an English speaking background you rated Hnegripitrom as more dangerous than Magnalroxate ... what is the link between ease of pronunciation and how our brain judges risk? (Very Evolved)

Internet sites that facilitate diet betting have seen an increase in traffic ... diet bets work for many people who couldn’t seem to shed pounds any other way. (NYT)

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