Psychology

Social Recognition Improves Worker Performance- Praise From The Boss, Not So Much

Employees who have some influence at work perform better service but praise and encouragement from managers has no particular significance in terms of loyalty toward the employer. Social recognition, recognition as an individual whose expertise and input a ...

Article - News Staff - May 26 2009 - 2:06pm

Single Women Look More Closely At Men

Two things men believe; first, women like them more when they are taken and second, a woman's relationship status influences her interest in the opposite sex.  At least that second part appears to be true.    In a new study, women both with and withou ...

Article - News Staff - May 29 2009 - 12:08am

Do You Have A Liberal Or Conservative Brain?

Liberals and conservatives don’t just think differently, they also feel differently. This may even be a result, in part, of divergent neural responses. I don't know much about the science behind this, but the NY Time's Nicholas Kristof points re ...

Article - Michael White - Feb 24 2012 - 1:08am

Cell Phone Ringtones- Familiar Songs Impair Learning

Recent research says that talking on a cell phone poses a dangerous distraction for drivers and others whose attention should be focused elsewhere and now a new study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology finds that just the ring of a cell phone may b ...

Article - News Staff - May 30 2009 - 1:37pm

The Buzzword Blog #4: Irrational

The Buzzword Blog #4: Irrational What does 'irrational' mean? The term 'irrational' is too often just another  buzzword.   It is used very loosely, even by scientists, to imply that somebody has formed an opinion without thinking about ...

Blog Post - Patrick Lockerby - Jun 1 2009 - 7:46am

Are You An Athlete Or A Jock?

The terms 'athlete' and 'jock' are sometimes used interchangeably- especially be people who dislike athletes.   And it's usually negative.   Due to that, only 18 percent of students in a recent study strongly identified with the id ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 1 2009 - 1:14pm

When Things Smell A Funny Color

When Things Smell A Funny Color I have often heard people in Britain say in jest something like: "I don't like that, it smells a funny color." From time to time our senses play tricks with our brains, and we 'hear' or 'smell& ...

Blog Post - Patrick Lockerby - Jun 1 2009 - 9:22pm

On Miracles

As I’ve often mentioned in this blog, philosopher David Hume famously said  that “No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to est ...

Article - Massimo Pigliucci - Jun 2 2009 - 4:58pm

Little Pigeon-Boxes

Little Pigeon-Boxes It seems to be a universal characteristic of humans that we like to label each other, often in simplistic binary fashion.  Friend or foe, left-wing or right-wing, smart or dumb, sane or psycho, we never seem to run out of pigeonholes i ...

Blog Post - Patrick Lockerby - Jun 2 2009 - 6:36pm

The Luxury Of Belief

In previous posts I have made the argument that the brain constructs a data organization framework which represents our worldview (or belief systems). It is against this structure that new information will be evaluated, accepted, or rejected. I also want t ...

Article - Gerhard Adam - Jul 21 2009 - 11:06pm