A stereotype, put simply, is a belief about a group. But for psychology professor Andrei Cimpian of New York University, that definition doesn’t have sufficient nuance. To understand what a stereotype truly is, he says, we need to understand its … Continue reading
Journal Club
Highlighting recently published papers selected by Academy members
Category Archives: Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Journal Club: Study dissects stereotypes, looking to understand their roots and ways to break them down
Categories: Journal Club | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences | Social Sciences
Tagged cognitive structure, stereotype
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Journal Club: Tracking memories in fruit fly brains
Memories help animals make predictions. A honeybee may remember that the smell of orange blossoms means nectar is nearby. But sometimes memories require updating. “If you know that your fridge is a good source of food, and you go to … Continue reading
Categories: Animal Behavior | Journal Club | Neuroscience | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Tagged drosophila, memory, neurons, PTSD
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Journal Club: Influence of Peers on Gender Identity Development
Middle school or junior high school is an intense time for many kids. There are many social pressures and plenty of confusion about how to navigate them. Friends exert a strong influence on their peers, including in matters of gender … Continue reading
Categories: Journal Club | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences | Social Sciences
Tagged friends, gender identity, gender roles
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Journal Club: How the principles of principals affect student values
Kids go to school to study math, science, literature, and other subjects. But at least since the time of Plato, philosophers and others have highlighted the importance of educational institutions in shaping the values of students, who will be tomorrow’s … Continue reading
Categories: Journal Club | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Tagged principals, schools, teaching, values
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Journal Club: How your body feels influences your confidence levels
Despite living in a world filled with uncertainty, people are generally not constantly paralyzed by doubt, but instead feel confident about their choices. Previous research often assumed that this feeling of confidence was based solely on the availability of high-caliber … Continue reading
Categories: Journal Club | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Tagged confidence, decision-making
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Journal Club: How much you think you understand depends on what you believe others understand
Knowing that experts understand something is enough to make lay persons think they, too, have better grasped a concept, according to a September 26 paper in the journal Psychological Science. Cognitive scientist Steven Sloman, of Brown University in Providence, Rhode … Continue reading
Categories: Journal Club | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Tagged community of knowledge
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Journal Club: Childhood adversities correlated with shortened telomeres, poorer health later in life
Stressful experiences during youth seem to leave a mark on a person’s genome decades later, in the form of withered chromosomal caps. As reported in PNAS, childhood stress correlates with increased odds to have shortened telomeres, the chromosome tips that … Continue reading
Categories: Cell Biology | Journal Club | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Tagged childhood, stress, telomeres
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Journal Club: Even infants intuitively infer how others minimize costs and maximize rewards
A growing body of research suggests that people have a commonsense psychology — an intuitive way to infer what others want and might decide — that is already sophisticated from infancy. Now researchers have proposed a model for this commonsense … Continue reading
Categories: Journal Club | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Tagged Bayesian, commonsense psychology, utility
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Journal Club: Even in honeybees, early aggression makes for angry adults
A childhood of violence can make humans and other animals violent later on. Now scientists unexpectedly find the same holds true for even the simple honeybee. Unlike people, however, greater aggression in honeybees was not associated with later health problems. … Continue reading
Categories: Ecology | Genetics | Journal Club | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Tagged aggression, behavior, honeybee
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Selfless decisions linked with reduced depression in teenagers
Life is dangerous as a teenager. At the same time as we’re learning to drive, we’re prone to risker behavior and more likely to make impulsive decisions than when we are children or adults. Neurologists have noticed that a small … Continue reading