Over the last three decades obesity rates have doubled for adults and tripled for children. Today, over 35% of adults and 17% of children are considered obese, with the percentage of obese adults expected to rise to 50% by 2030. The health risks and financial costs associated with obesity are well-documented, however, for both individuals and […]
[Forensic] In an experiment seemingly ripped from Law and Order or CSI, UK Psychologists Rob Jenkins and Christine Kerr demonstrated that it is possible to identify the faces of unseen bystanders in a photograph via the reflections in the eyes of the photographed individuals. Jenkins and Kerr took portrait pictures of individuals while other participants […]
[Political Psychology] “Truth is the first casualty of war,” stated Aeschylus circa 500 BC*. Those words ring just as true 2500 years later. In a special issue of American Psychologist, Lewandosky et al. examined the ways misinformation in the digital age can contribute to war and conflict and reviewed the psychological processes that contribute to […]
[Learning and Sport Psychology] “Practice makes perfect,” as the saying goes, but not all practice is created equal. Researchers point to deliberate practice as a key to learning and high levels of achievement. Deliberate practice is categorized as an activity designed to improve specific aspects of performance, and is often rated as more challenging, more […]
[Economic Psychology] Do the negative psychological consequences of a pay cut differ in magnitude than the positive psychological consequences of a pay raise? Researchers haves shown that people tend to be loss averse. That is, people anticipate losses, in money for example, will have greater negative effects than an equally sized gain will have positive effects. […]
[Social] Many theories of human prosociality suggest human beings must exert reflective-control over selfish impulses in order to behave prosocially. However, new evidence from three areas of psychology research, reviewed by Jamil Zaki and Jason Mitchell in the December issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, suggests prosociality may be an impulse in its own […]
