For Belle Lapos, high school has been weird. Her freshman year started in 2020 with a mix of learning from home and in-person school in Stillwater, Minn. Now a sophomore, she has been full-time at school for months, with everyone in masks. So when her school lifted its Covid-19 mask mandate a few weeks ago, …
For Some Teens, as Masks Come Off, Anxiety Sets In Read More »
Many of us have a consistent dialogue running in our heads that we use for a variety of mental tasks, such as working memory — reciting phone numbers or new friends’ names — and reading. Despite its important presence in most people’s daily lives, we know surprisingly little about how it works — or how …
Scientists Aren’t Sure How the Inner Voice Works Read More »
New research covering tens of millions of U.S. traffic stops found that Black drivers were more likely than White drivers to be stopped by police in regions with a more racially biased White population. Pierce Ekstrom, a researcher at the University of Nebraska and lead author on one of two concurrent papers in the journal Psychological Science talks about …
Under the Cortex: Traffic Stops and Race: Police Conduct May Bend to Local Biases Read More »
… According to most psychologists, humans are inherently social creatures; contact with others isn’t just a want—it’s a need. Deprived of it, people’s physical and mental health tends to decline. But the nocturnal people I spoke with feel they don’t need much interaction at all. “I’ve tried to hold down day jobs, but I couldn’t …
The winners of the 2022 APS Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions represent some of the brightest and most innovative young psychological scientists in the world. In a series of mini-episodes, Under the Cortex talks with each winner about their research and goals. Today, Jason Okonofua (University of California, Berkeley) tells us about his research on empathy and …
2022 Spence Award Mini Episode: Jason Okonofua and the Power of Empathy Read More »
You got burned out. Your kids needed you. You became a crypto millionaire overnight. Whatever the reason—congrats. Welcome to your career break, length TBD. Time off by choice can be wonderful if you can swing it, a chance to recalibrate your priorities and detox from the stress of the working world. It can also be a kind of limbo. How to keep …
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung popularized the terms introvert and extrovert in the 1900s; but a century later, his postulations about personality types have become so warped by popular culture that the reputations of introverts everywhere are at stake. Jung originally sought to understand how people derive and orient their energies. That is to say, according …
The Questionable Compatibility of Introverts and Extroverts Read More »
Sexual assault cases often come down to one person’s word against another’s. The trials therefore sometimes involve character witnesses—individuals called by the prosecution or defense to demonstrate the trustworthiness of the alleged perpetrator or victim of a crime. But the idea that a perpetrator’s good character in certain areas of their life precludes them from …
Safer Social Environments Could Help Prevent Campus Sexual Assault Read More »
Summary: When it comes to police traffic stops, the context in which police officers operate is important. New research covering tens of millions of U.S. traffic stops found that Black drivers were more likely than White drivers to be stopped by police in regions with a more racially biased White population. Traffic stops, which happen …
Traffic Stops and Race: Police Conduct May Bend to Local Biases Read More »
Do people’s personality traits reflect when they were born? In a recent article in Psychological Science, Naemi D. Brandt (University of Hamburg) and a team of researchers from Germany and the United States examined how adult Big Five personality traits changed across generations of people in the United States. The traits—conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, extraversion, and …
Personality and Birth Cohort: Does the Decade Make a Difference? Read More »