Ten Things You Should Know About Sign Languages
Karen Emmorey

Emmorey identifies facts people should know about sign languages: (1) They have phonology and poetry. (2) They vary in linguistic structure and family history but share typological features due to their shared manual production. (3) They share similarities in perceiving and producing speech and sign, but their different modality can impact processing. (4) Iconicity is pervasive and can play a role in sign language’s acquisition and processing. (5) Deaf and hard-of-hearing children are at risk for language deprivation. (6) Signers gesture when signing. (7) Understanding sign language enhances some visual-spatial skills. (8) The same left-hemisphere brain regions support spoken and sign languages, but some neural regions are specific to sign language. (9) Individuals who use sign and spoken languages can produce sign and speech at the same time (code-blend), whereas speech bilinguals cannot say a word in two languages at the same time. In other words, producing speech does not inhibit sign, and vice-versa. (10) The emergence of new sign languages reveals patterns of language creation and evolution.   

Embedding Cognition: Judgment and Choice in an Interdependent and Dynamic World
Elke U. Weber, Sara M. Constantino, and Maja Schlüter

Deeper theorizing about the temporal dynamics and feedback between individuals and the broader contexts in which they are embedded might help cognitive psychologists to better understand complex societal problems and how individual and collective action can drive broader social change, Weber and colleagues suggest. They review literature emphasizing the role of context in psychological processes as well as emerging research considering individuals as embedded in complex adaptive systems. By pointing to theories and methods that integrate across levels of analysis and account for coupled nature-society systems, this perspective might foster the identification of solution pathways to complex, multilevel challenges.   

What Is the Power of Identity? Examining the Moderating Role of Racial-Identity Latent Profiles on the Relationship Between Race-Related Stress and Trauma Symptoms Among Black American Women
Ifrah S. Sheikh et al.

This study illustrates how stress from racial discrimination may influence symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and how racial identity profiles may moderate this relationship. Sheikh and colleagues investigated these issues in a sample of nontreatment-seeking, trauma-exposed Black American women in an urban setting. Three racial-identity profiles emerged from latent profile analyses: undifferentiated (average views), detached (appeared to have negative views about being Black), and nationalist (pro-Black attitudes and placed significance on being of African descent). The nationalist profile group experienced significantly higher race-related stress compared with the detached and undifferentiated profiles. However, the nationalist profile type buffered the effects of race-related stress on PTSD symptoms, whereas the detached and undifferentiated profiles appeared to exacerbate the effects.   

Lie Detection: What Works?
Tim Brennen and Svein Magnussen

Reliable lie-detection methods would be useful in forensic contexts, but most methods are not very reliable and must be used with caution. Research has indicated that humans can rarely pick up lies on the basis of nonverbal cues. Humans are somewhat better at identifying lies when they use systematic methodologies that analyze verbal cues and physiological and neuroscientific methods, but these methods still fall well below the legal standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Recent research identifies two methods that might help in lie detection: 1) interviews based on a free account, in which the person tells their story in their own words, without any interruption followed by investigators gradually introducing the evidence, and 2) automated machine-learning methods. 

“What Does It Take to Succeed Here?”: The Belief That Success Requires Brilliance Is an Obstacle to Diversity
Melis Muradoglu, Sophie H. Arnold, Sarah-Jane Leslie, and Andrei Cimpian 

To gain insights into obstacles to diversity, Muradoglu and colleagues propose a conceptual framework—the field-specific ability beliefs (FAB) model. This model suggests that gender and racial/ethnic imbalances in a field or occupation result in part from two beliefs: (a) success in that field or occupation requires high levels of intellectual ability (“brilliance”) and (b) intellectual ability is associated with (White) men more than other groups. The researchers detail the evidence for the FAB model, including that its core beliefs are present even among children. Muradoglu and colleagues propose that research on the FAB model might be applied to improve diversity in all fields and occupations. 

Humans’ Bias Blind Spot and Its Societal Significance
Emily Pronin and Lori Hazel  

Humans have a bias blind spot; they see bias everywhere but sometimes not in themselves, Pronin and Hazel say. They suggest that the bias blind spot is rooted in a differentiation between self- and social perception and in self-esteem motives. This blind spot generalizes across social, cognitive, and behavioral biases, hinders self-knowledge, and fuels interpersonal misunderstanding. It begins in childhood and appears across cultures, occurring even in high-stakes contexts such as investing, medicine, human resources, and law. Importantly, the bias blind spot can prevent bias-reduction strategies from working. Pronin and Hazel propose research-based solutions for reducing it. 

See related article in the 2023 September/October Observer.

Embodied and Embedded Learning: Child, Caregiver, and Context
Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda and Lillian R. Masek

Tamis-LeMonda and Masek highlight the embodied and embedded nature of infant learning. Learning is embodied in that an infant serendipitously creates an ideal curriculum through varied time-distributed practice across behavioral domains. Learning is embedded in that an infant’s behavior elicits timely responses from caregivers that are situated in richly informative and structured environments. Feedback loops generated by the active infant, the salience of caregiver responses, and the regularity of environmental contexts propel learning, Tamis-LeMonda and Masek suggest. They propose that the study of natural behaviors in natural environments spotlights the roles of infant, caregiver, and context in everyday learning. 

The Cascading Development of Visual Attention in Infancy: Learning to Look and Looking to Learn
Lisa M. Oakes

Where and how long an infant looks is typically used as an index of the development of their visual attention. However, visual attention and looking are complex systems that are multiply determined and interconnected, Oakes argues. Infants learn to look, reflecting cascading effects of changes in their attention, visual system, and motor control as well as the information they learn about the world around them. But infants also look to learn, as their looking behavior provides the input they use to perceive the world. Thus, Oakes suggests that appreciating the cascading effects of changes across these intertwined domains could foster a deeper understanding of infant development. 

The New Reality: Non-Eyewitness Identifications in a Surveillance World
Kathy Pezdek and Tamar Lerer

Non-eyewitnesses are people who testify about who they think a video depicts on the basis of their prior familiarity with that person. Pezdek and Lerer explore seven factors that affect the accuracy of non-eyewitness identifications. These factors can be organized into three categories of bias—case-specific bias, person-specific bias, and general cognitive bias—that are likely to reduce the probability of correct identification. The authors propose that the quality of the video and an evaluation of these factors should be used for determining the admissibility of non-eyewitness identifications in court. They also call for the adoption of legal safeguards against non-eyewitness misidentifications. 

See related article in the 2023 September/October Observer.

The Use of Ontologies to Accelerate the Behavioral Sciences: Promises and Challenges
Carla Sharp, Robert M. Kaplan, and Timothy J. Strauman

Sharp and colleagues summarize a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine consensus report on the development and use of ontologies to accelerate the behavioral sciences. They highlight the advantages of ontologies, including enhanced organization and retrieval of research evidence, improved scientific communication, reduced duplication, and enhanced scientific replicability; and they consider the challenges that may impede the development and use of ontologies in the behavioral sciences, including the complexity of constructs and their non-observable nature. The researchers also highlight the steps needed to further develop ontologies in behavioral sciences, including the need for more research and funding. 

Feedback on this article? Email apsobserver@psychologicalscience.org or login to comment. Interested in writing for us? Read our contributor guidelines. 

Image above: Towers of Silence, Yazd, Iran. Taranis-iuppiter, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Does our geographical location shape our thinking? Does water access have an effect on our decision-making habits? Do we choose to live in the moment because of environmental factors? 

In this episode, Under the Cortex hosts Dr. Hamid Harati, The University of Queensland, and Thomas Talhelm, University of Chicago. Through their international collaboration, the two scholars explore how our ecological environment can shape our decision-making skills. As they compare two cities in Iran, Yazd and Shiraz, they ask how cultures form based on environmental needs and how water scarcity can be a strong influencer of long-term orientation in basic life decisions. The conversation with APS’s Özge G. Fischer-Baum evolves into implications for climate change and the value of water as a monetary object. 

Harati and Talhelm also published on this topic in APS’s flagship journal, Psychological Science. Their article is titled “Cultures in Water-Scarce Environments Are More Long-Term Oriented.” The authors encourage scholars from across the globe to reach out to further explore these questions in future collaborations. 

Check out Harati and Talhelm’s related feature in the 2023 September/October issue of the APS Observer: “How Climate Shaped Our Minds—and How It Might Still Save Us from Climate Change.“

Unedited Transcript

[00:00:14.210] – APS Özge G. Fischer-Baum 

How can our geographical location shape our thinking? Does it have an effect on our decision making habits? Do we choose to live in the moment due to environmental actors? This is under the cortex. I am APS’s Özge Gürcanlı Fischer-Baum with the Association for Psychological Science. To answer these questions, I have with me Dr. Hamid Harati from the University of Queensland, Australia, and Thomas Talhelm from the University of Chicago. They are the author of an article published in APS’s journal Psychological Science. Hamid and Thomas, thank you for joining me today. Welcome to Under the Cortex. 

[00:00:55.290] – Thomas Talhelm 

Yeah, thank you for having us. 

[00:00:56.800] – Hamid Harati 

Yeah, thank you so much for having us. As Thomas said, it’s a great opportunity to be able to talk about our paper today. 

[00:01:05.430] – APS Özge G. Fischer-Baum 

Yes, we are very excited, too. And I’m going to start with a location question. All right, you start with two cities in Iran. What is the story there? What made you think of these two places? 

[00:01:22.490] – Hamid Harati 

Yeah, sure. Actually, a few years back, I got invited to a Friday night party. The man throwing the party was a young man from Shiraz. He opened a bottle of fine wine from his own winery and poured it for us. In the party, there was another man from Yazd, and he was like, no, I’m good, thank you. My Shirazi friend said, Just relax. It’s just one glass. Life is too short. Let’s enjoy the moment. But my Yazi friend said, Hold on, it’s not just about a glass of wine. Staying up late will totally ruin my productive Saturday. That friendly disagreement clearly showed me two different lifestyles, which made me wonder, is it just the personality differences between these two people, or if it had something to do with where they came from? Just to give you a bit of background about Shiraz and Yazd, these are two cities in neighborhood provinces in Iran, but they are walls apart in terms of their reputation. Shiraz is like the red wine capital of the world, and it’s all about poetry, romance and the arts. You stroll down the streets and it’s like garden paradise. Flowers, fruit trees. 

[00:02:45.690] – Hamid Harati 

If you drive a few hours, you hit Yazd. Yazd is the polar opposite. It’s the city of hard work, devotion and self control. And I won’t tell you, people in Yazd don’t mess around with instant gratification. My understanding of cultural studies was mainly shaped by the classic or older school cultural literature that mainly investigates differences between different countries, not different cities or regions. Until I read a paper by Thomas that was published in the Journal of Science. And in his paper, Thomas showed the cultural differences, specifically individualism and collectivism within China. And it blew my mind at the time, and I was thinking about it, and I think it was a great motivation for me to pursue this journey. And so I contacted Thomas and he came back to me and we started the journey from there. 

[00:03:45.990] – Thomas Talhelm 

Yeah. And if I could link this to some of my research so one of the things that I look at in China is different regions history of rice farming. And so I basically argue that places that have farmed rice tend to be more collectivistic because the process of farming rice involves a lot of coordination of our behavior. Farmers have to collaborate more than they do for other crops like wheat or corn. And so my sort of theoretical perspective is that I link culture to the environment, to the ecology. Right. So in China, we have rice and we have wheat farming that are linked to the environment. And then that has a lasting influence on the culture. And that was what Hamid was seeing in his experience. He’s saying here are these two places that are close to each know similar religion, similar ethnicity, language and all this stuff. But the environment, the ecology, is really different. And so maybe these differences that Hamid was seeing on the ground just in everyday behavior like at his interaction in the party, maybe that’s linked to this historical environment. 

[00:04:52.150] – APS Özge G. Fischer-Baum 

So in your research, you link water scarcity as a context right. For exploring long term orientation and indulgence. Can you tell our listeners what these concepts are? How did you think about linking these concepts to water scarcity? 

[00:05:08.830] – Hamid Harati 

I think, generally speaking, human civilization is shaped around water. Water resources, like rivers, were attractive location for the first civilization because they provided a CB supply of drinking water and made the land fertile for agriculture or even for fishing or hunting animals that came to drink water. Based on this, we can distinguish between cultures that have had access to plenty of water resources and culture that had difficulty gaining access to the water resources. I believe this factor influence on the culture. We wanted to look into differences in terms of precipitation in two cities and we looked into Shiraz and Yaz and we figured out there is a stark difference between Yaz and Shiraz. Shirazis enjoy 300 rainfall per year and the Yazzis only like 50 mm. So it was like a huge differences between them. And we extended our search to freshwater availability and we figured out over generation Yazis seem to have adopted to the tough environment by using some technologies. And they tried to preserve the little rain that we could get in the winter and save it for other season. 

[00:06:34.590] – APS Özge G. Fischer-Baum 

And going with our psychological concepts, could you tell our listeners what long term orientation is and what indulgence is? The two concepts that you use in your article? 

[00:06:46.700] – Hamid Harati 

Yeah, sure. If you want to define long term orientation we can simply say that long term orientation involves fostering virtues aimed at future revoir, such as perseverance. Research show that societies with long term orientation prioritize future benefits which avoid wastefulness and may devalue leisure as essential aspects of life. If we want to talk about indulgence. We can define indulgence as tendency to permit relatively underrestraint gratification of natural human desire, which relates to enjoying life and having fun, while restraint imply focusing on gratification through a strict social norms. If we want to talk about their cultural characteristics, we can say indulgent societies are more permissive regarding gratification desire, and they may inhibit behaviors like obesity or having casual sex. 

[00:07:50.390] – APS Özge G. Fischer-Baum 

All right, thank you for clarifying the definitions of those concepts, and you are linking those to this water scarcity idea. So I want to get into the details of the study a little. So in your study, there is one experiment with job postings. What was the idea behind this job postings experiment and what were the results? 

[00:08:15.630] – Thomas Talhelm 

So the job postings study was really fun, and I have to give Hamid credit for this because this was his idea. But basically we started the whole paper, the whole series of studies by sort of the way that psychologists normally start studies, or social psychologists normally start studies, which know, you give people questions in a lab and you ask them to rate their values or their attitudes. And so that was study one. We went to Yazt and Shiraz. These two places got people who are from these two places, college students, and we just asked them to rate values of long term orientation versus, you know, how important is thrift to you? How important is it to maximize value over the long run versus live in the moment, right? And so we study one. We just document that people from these two places really do have these different value systems. But the next question is, okay, these are values on paper. Are these just sort of ideas in people’s head or is it really something that affects people’s everyday life, everyday behaviors? We psychologists are often concerned about what we call demand characteristics, basically. Like, if I’m asking you questions or if you see that I’m measuring you, maybe you’re going to behave differently because you know that I’m looking at you, right? 

[00:09:32.680] – Thomas Talhelm 

I’m observing you. And so Hamid came up with this great idea for the job posting study, which is to just post two different types of jobs in these two cities and then just see how many resumes, how many applications we get for these different jobs. And so we designed two otherwise identical job postings, but one was sort of for like a long term, stable job with a big company. So that sort of implies security and stability over the long run. And then we designed a very similar job posting that was for a fun, flexible startup. It’s kind of indulgent. It seems like it’d be like a fun, hip place to work. But it also maybe seems a little bit riskier. Startups maybe fail that doesn’t have the security of a large, established company. And so Iran has a website called Devar, and they’re sort of like Craigslist. If you know that in the united States. And so you can post jobs for different locations. And so we posted each of these jobs in both these locations. So Shiraz and Yazt, and we just waited to see how many resumes we got for these two different jobs in these two different cities. 

[00:10:38.960] – Thomas Talhelm 

And so we waited a week or two, and then after that, the resumes, we counted up the resumes. And in the dry city, Yazd, we got more applications for the long term stable job. In Shiraz, the city with more water, we got more applications for the sort of fun, flexible, startup job. And so the reason this is important is because people sending in their resumes, they don’t know that they’re part of a study. They don’t know that we’ve intentionally designed these job postings to appeal to either long term orientation or sort of short term indulgence. And so what we can do is we can say, okay, these differences actually seem to be related to people’s real world behavior, and it’s not a product of being observed or feeling like you’re a part of a study. So it seems like this is a real difference, and that’s really the benefit of doing that sort of field study. 

[00:11:30.990] – APS Özge G. Fischer-Baum 

Yeah. When you talk about these interesting results, you also explore the idea of water being a sign of wealth, right. So can you elaborate on that a little bit? 

[00:11:42.930] – Thomas Talhelm 

Yeah. So one sort of obvious question that comes up in this research is water essentially, should we just think of that as like a resource, like money? Right? So we have ideas about what having money does to people’s psychology or lacking money does to people’s psychology. So maybe we can just take all that research on essentially wealth and poverty, and we can just say, well, water is essentially the same, so we can make the same predictions. But what we were finding in our data was basically the opposite, that water is very different from money. Hamid found a great quote from the famous economist Adam Smith. Adam Smith wrote, nothing is more useful than water, but it will purchase scarcely anything. That sort of speaks to the difference between one of the differences between water and money. Right. Another difference is that as you as an individual, you can’t store water in the same way that you can build wealth, right? Like, you can have a million dollars in your bank account, but chances are you can’t, as an individual, build a reservoir and store a bunch of water. Right? I mean, water is not something that we can accumulate in that way. 

[00:12:55.180] – Thomas Talhelm 

So basically what we did in the paper is we looked at cultures around the world based on wealth. So basically, GDP, the economy, and we said, okay, what do wealthy countries around the world look like in terms of long term orientation? And then what about water scarcity? What do cultures that have had a lot of water long term historically, how do they value long term orientation versus cultures that have lacked water places in dry places. And so the water finding is similar to the Iran finding. So basically in cultures that have had a lot of water, they tend to not think about the long term as much, they tend to be more indulgent, live in the moment, right? Sort of the idea is that, well, I’ve got a lot of water, I don’t need to worry about things, so we can sort of live in the moment. Right now the opposite is actually true of wealth. So wealthier countries tended to actually think of the long term more than less wealthy countries, right? So in other words, wealth as measured by the economy of different countries has the opposite relationship with long term orientation than water. 

[00:14:05.470] – Thomas Talhelm 

And I’ve personally been thinking about this as like it seems like humans have lived for a long time with the need to think about water. And money is sort of a different system. And it seems like our psychology of money is not just the psychology of water or the psychology of food. Money seems to affect the brain or we seem to treat money differently from basic things like water and food. That’s how I’m thinking about it. 

[00:14:34.950] – APS Özge G. Fischer-Baum 

Yeah. So we are talking about these two cities, Yazd and Shiraz, but in your article you also have your discussion and conclusion about your findings. So is this a story about two places in Iran or is this about something broader? 

[00:14:53.950] – Hamid Harati 

I think considering the Iran’s unique geography, which is generally a dry country with almost 20% desert, made us wonder if the findings are specific to Iran or we can find like or we can extend it to a broader population. So to address this, we expanded our study globally. We analyzed the data from 82 societies worldwide. So we collected data like the historical data that was available. We see how participants from different countries were asked about values like making time for enjoyment and practicing thrift and comparing these values with their historical freshwater availability in their region. And we found that water availability indeed influenced cultural traits, even when we controlled for wells educational level. And we looked into societies with abundant historical water tanks. So I think we believe that in our final study we could extend our finding to even countries that are not lacking water resources. So it’s more general than only investigating in. 

[00:16:14.870] – Thomas Talhelm 

You know, I thought this was a great example of using the experience of a country like Iran in a culture like Iran where water is really important to draw hypotheses about human psychology. Right? And so Iran was the motivation and it was the first test. But then as Hamid and I got further into, we said, okay, well, let’s see if this is something that might apply to people around the world, right? Is this an Iran story or is this a world story? Is this a human story? And what the data told us was, no, this water availability is related to psychological values around the world. And so this was an idea that was sort of sourced in a particular part of the world, but it seems to be applicable to people from all around the world. And I think that makes sense, right? I mean, it’d be sort of weird if only people in some part of the world cared about water somehow adapted to thinking about water availability. Right? I think one of my favorite examples is that humans can survive for quite a long time without food. A week, maybe 30 days without food, but without water it’s a matter of days, right? 

[00:17:24.160] – Thomas Talhelm 

Two days is one estimate that I’ve seen for how long we can live without water. So it really would make sense that humans for a long time have been adapted in some way to be sensitive to water in our environment and also water in our body and the need for that. So it seems to be a human story and not just an Iran story. 

[00:17:44.870] – APS Özge G. Fischer-Baum 

I have a Question is about the feature, because environmental conditions are changing, do you think global warming will change people’s psychological attitudes to life? 

[00:17:55.830] – Thomas Talhelm 

Yeah. So we had a study that basically asked just that, right? So the idea is that climate change could be changing the availability of water in our world right now, right? I mean, the western United States is going through historic drought, at least it has been in the last few years. So could that be changing our psychology? So if humans are sensitive to the availability of water, might that be changing our psychology? There are reasons to think maybe not, right? I mean, I’ve been to Las Vegas. Las Vegas is in the desert, right? But when I’ve been in Las Vegas, every time I turn on the sink, water comes out. And you don’t need to think about, I’m sure tourists in Las Vegas, I’m sure lots of people who live in Las Vegas just don’t think about it. Right? So you could easily form the idea that, you know, for most people this just really isn’t a concern, so maybe this shouldn’t matter. But we thought, well, let’s try to test this. And so we again brought people to the lab and we gave them news articles that we had edited slightly to be about climate change affecting water. 

[00:18:59.630] – Thomas Talhelm 

And so in some participants, we gave them a news article that described how climate change was going to make water less available. So there’s going to have less water, it’s going to be drier. Right. Other participants, we said, paradoxically, one of the changes in climate change is that water will become more available, right? The rainfall will increase and water will become more available. And then we gave them the same measures that we had in the previous study. So thinking about the long term, thinking about the president indulgence, that sort of thing, and what we found is that when we had given people this information about climate change making water more scarce, then they started focusing more on the long term. So, okay, thrift is really important, right? Saving is really important. When we told other people that water was becoming more available, well, then they said, oh, okay, long term orientation, and that’s not such a big deal anymore. At the end, we told them that by the way, these are just things that we framed with climate change. It’s not true that I think climate change is going to make water more available everywhere around the world, but the important thing for us was the perception. 

[00:20:05.630] – Thomas Talhelm 

So if we can temporarily influence people’s perceptions of water scarcity, does that affect how they think about the long term? And the answer was yes. So what this would imply is that if more and more people are becoming aware of scarcity of water through climate change, what it could be doing to our minds is making people a little bit more willing to think for the long term. And I think there’s some hope in that message, right? I mean, we all need to come together to solve climate change. It’s a long term problem. We’re not going to solve it this year. So if the experience of things like water scarcity is pushing people to think a little bit more for the long term, then hopefully that’s a little bit of a nudge to get us to start thinking about solutions that are going to take a while but will hopefully be able to get us out of this climate mess that we’re in. 

[00:20:54.850] – APS Özge G. Fischer-Baum 

Yeah, I totally agree with that. And it is exciting that your results are consistent, right? You started this study as a field study and you contrasted two cities, and then you took the same idea and you did a study in a lab setting, so you have similar results. So based on these results, what are your suggestions to local governments and institutions alike in regions where there is water scarcity? Do you envision psychological interventions for the residents of such regions? 

[00:21:30.350] – Thomas Talhelm 

Yeah, this is a tough question. I was thinking about this over the last few days, and one of the things that occurred to me is that one way to interpret our findings is to say the more people are aware of water scarcity, then the more people will start thinking for the long term. And so what that makes me think about is, well, if you have local governments or maybe national governments, perhaps that’s something that they could start raising awareness about now. It’s sort of a conflict, right? I mean, mayors don’t like to say, oh, by the way, we have a water problem here. Don’t move here, or it could be bad news. Right. But there have been moves in that direction. Right. So Phoenix, Arizona was in the news. It was sometime this summer where the government in Arizona started telling people we’re not going to approve new houses if you can’t prove that you have enough water to build these houses. Right? And I think that starts to put people in this mindset of, okay, water is something we need to pay attention about. We can’t just take it for granted. Right. And so I think that the more we can instill this idea that there is a scarcity of water, the more people might be willing to think about long term sacrifices, right? 

[00:22:47.590] – Thomas Talhelm 

Maybe I don’t need a new golf course in the desert. Or maybe we shouldn’t be growing crops that require a lot of water. Like we grow an insane amount of alfalfa in the southwest of the United States just to give to cows and other animals. I mean, these are incredible amounts of water that we’re using to grow crops that aren’t particularly profitable. And so the only way we’re going to get past things like that is to start thinking about the long term, thinking about what to do this year, next year, is not going to get us there. 

[00:23:18.740] – APS Özge G. Fischer-Baum 

Is there anything else that you would like to share with our listeners? 

[00:23:23.170] – Thomas Talhelm 

So I think one important point about the research that we’re doing in the global study, what we found is that cultures history of water availability was a better predictor of cultural differences than their current water availability. So how much water different cultures have now doesn’t matter as much as the long term history of that. And that long term history will influence the culture, and there will be a certain amount of inertia in the culture, right. The culture will persist even if the moment to moment conditions change. Right. And so on the one hand, we’re arguing that culture has this inertia, it has this persistence over time, right? So maybe things are different today or tomorrow, but you’re still going to have this sort of cultural persistence. But then we also talked about the global warming study, right, where we took people in the lab and within like 10 minutes, we’re changing their long term orientation, right? You read this article and now you endorse long term orientation. And so some people look at that and they say, well, which is it? You said it lasts a long time and it persists even when conditions change. 

[00:24:31.190] – Thomas Talhelm 

But then in this other study, you’re showing that it changes in 10 minutes. And I think the answer is that humans are complex, right? We have habits and we have traditions, and we have things that are unlikely to change. Right. But humans are also sensitive to the moment, right. And I think that those are, in a way, it’s not contradictory to say that humans can do both. Right? If you put it right in front of my face and you say water is becoming more scarce, then I’m going to change my behavior. Right, but at the same time, we have these accumulated histories and cultural traditions that are sometimes based in historical environment, the ecology, and those can sort of influence our present, too. So I think humans are both right. We are creatures of habit, but we are also adaptable to the situation. So I don’t see that as a contradiction. I just see that as something that humans do. Both yeah. 

[00:25:27.690] – APS Özge G. Fischer-Baum 

Humans are complex indeed. And what it sounds like. Water is not only the source of life, it is also the source for our psychological thinking. Thomas and Hamid, thank you very much for this interesting conversation today. It was a pleasure to host you for our podcast. 

[00:25:46.270] – Thomas Talhelm 

Yeah, thank you for having me. It was great to chat. And I hope maybe in some small way, there are other listeners out there who might be from parts of the world that aren’t normally represented in our journals, and maybe they have an idea for I don’t know if it’s like apple farming versus raising silkworms or whatever, the ecology and the environment. I hope people are inspired to think about cultural traditions and the environment and subsistence style and farming and fishing and all the other cool things about there that are out there in the culture. And if anybody out there has a great idea, feel free to get in touch with me or Hamid. And who knows, maybe that’s the next paper out there. Okay? 

[00:26:29.860] – Hamid Harati 

Thank you so much for this opportunity. It was great to talk about our paper and how we can continue this journey. 

[00:26:38.190] – APS Özge G. Fischer-Baum 

Thanks again. Both. This is Özge G. Fischer-Baum With APS and I have been speaking to Dr Hamid Harati from the University of Queensland, Australia and Thomas Talhelm from the University of Chicago. 

Talking to your therapist over Zoom is as helpful for anxiety and depression as going to in-person therapy. The virtual session, moreover, can be delivered at any  lower cost, according to a large new study conducted in the U.K.

Online therapy has become more and more prevalent since the COVID pandemic, when lockdowns forced lots of therapists online. The new study suggests that one of the biggest benefits of virtual therapy may be that it can allow people to get treatment faster, which increases their quality of life and reduces the amount of additional medical care they require—and thus cuts costs overall.

“The actual cost of mental health care doesn’t come from treating these conditions but from not treating them,” says study co-author Ana Catarino, director of clinical science at ieso Digital Health, a U.K. company that contracts with the country’s National Health Service (NHS) to provide virtual treatments.

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Does Mr. Monopoly wear a monocle? Is there a black stripe on Pikachu’s tail? And does the fruit in the Fruit of the Loom logo pour out of a cornucopia?

If you answered yes to any of these questions — sorry, you’re wrong. But you might also be experiencing the so-called Mandela Effect.

Paranormal researcher Fiona Broome coined the name in 2009 after becoming convinced that then-South African President Nelson Mandela had died in prison in the 1980s. But Mandela did not die in prison; he was released in 1990, went on to lead South Africa and died in 2013. However, Broome noticed that many others seemed to share the same inaccurate memory, prompting further investigation.

Since then, more communal false memories have surfaced, such as C-3PO of “Star Wars” fame being entirely golden (he has a silver leg); Jiffy as the name of a well-known peanut butter brand (it’s just Jif); the spelling of a classic children’s book being “The Berenstein Bears” (it’s really “The Berenstain Bears”); and a host of misquotes from movies, among them “Luke, I am your father” from “The Empire Strikes Back” (the actual line is “No, I am your father”), “If you build it, they will come” from “Field of Dreams” (it’s “If you build it, he will come”) and perhaps the most misremembered of them all, “Mirror, mirror on the wall” from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (the Wicked Queen actually says, “Magic mirror on the wall”).

But why do so many people misremember these?

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A few years ago, I started asking lecture halls filled with students to raise their hands if they had run out of time on the SAT. In each room, nearly every hand went up. I was surprised, but I shouldn’t have been.

For decades, educators have seen speed as a marker of aptitude or mastery, forcing students to scramble to finish tests. But a race against the clock doesn’t measure knowledge or intelligence. It assesses the much narrower skill of how well students reason under stress. As a result, timed tests underestimate the capabilities of countless students.

New evidence shows that although smarter people are faster at solving easy problems, they’re actually slower to finish difficult ones. They’re well aware that haste makes waste, and they don’t want to sacrifice accuracy for speed. You wouldn’t want a surgeon who rushes through a craniectomy, or an accountant who dashes through your taxes. Even for the many jobs in which people are judged on speed, there’s no evidence that doing algebra under time pressure is useful preparation. Although it pays to be quick, it also pays to be determined, disciplined and dependable.

…

Assessing Autism in Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing Youths: Interdisciplinary Teams, COVID Considerations, and Future Directions
Tyler C. McFayden et al.

Autism spectrum disorders are more prevalent in children who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (D/HH) than in the general population. However, youths who are D/HH are often identified as autistic at an older age than individuals with normal hearing, which results in delayed access to appropriate early intervention services. McFayden and colleagues pinpoint three primary barriers to early identification: behavioral phenotypic overlap, lack of “gold-standard” screening and diagnostic tools for the D/HH population, and limited access to qualified clinicians. To address these barriers, they outline the assessment process employed at an interdisciplinary D/HH autism clinic and make recommendations on the basis of this process. They also address assessment challenges related to COVID-19 and some of the mitigating strategies the interdisciplinary team employed in virtual assessments. 

The Longitudinal Relationship Between Parenting and Self-Control Needs Reconsideration: A Commentary on Li et al. (2019)
Cheng Chen and Junhua Dang 

In a meta-analytic review of the relationship between parenting and self-control, Li et al. (2019) identified longitudinal associations between parenting and subsequent self-control and between adolescent self-control and subsequent parenting. Chen and Dang suggest that the magnitude of these associations may have been biased because Li et al. (2019) used the bivariate correlation between the predictor at Time 1 and the outcome at Time 2 to estimate them. Chen and Dang reexamined the original data using instead the cross-lagged association. The results indicated weaker associations. These findings support the use of cross-lagged associations in meta-analyzing longitudinal relationships between variables. 

Managing Fear During Pandemics: Risks and Opportunities
Gaëtan Mertens, Iris M. Engelhard, Derek M. Novacek, and Richard J. McNally 

Mertens and colleagues highlight factors that determine fear (i.e., proximity, predictability, and controllability) and review adaptive and maladaptive consequences of fear of COVID-19 specifically (e.g., following governmental health policies and panic buying). They conclude that fear during a pandemic can motivate protective behaviors but can also lead to mental-health problems, risk minimization, vaccination hesitancy, panic buying, xenophobia, and the exacerbation of preexisting socioeconomic inequalities. Moreover, they identified what seems to be an optimal point of fear to motivate adaptive behavior. Among other policy recommendations to help manage fear, Martens and colleagues suggest fostering self-efficacy by communicating specifically which behaviors people can adopt to minimize risks. 

For Whom (and When) the Time Bell Tolls: Chronotypes and the Synchrony Effect
Cynthia P. May, Lynn Hasher, and Karl Healey

According to the synchrony effect, performance in several cognitive areas is optimal when a person’s performance times align with their peak circadian arousal (i.e., their chronotype). Circadian rhythms and chronotypes vary across individuals—morning chronotypes rise and peak early in the day, and evening chronotypes rise and peak in the afternoon or evening—and vary with age (e.g., older adults appear to be likely to have morning chronotypes). May and colleagues suggest that failure to consider the synchrony effect may be a factor in issues such as replication difficulties, school timing, or assessing intellectual disabilities and apparent cognitive decline in aging. 

See related research collection.

How Do Expectations Modulate Pain? A Motivational Perspective
Tao Liu and Cui-ping Yu

Liu and Yu focus on motivationally evoked neural activations in cortical and brainstem regions before and during the experience of pain. Research has indicated that expectations can modulate pain experience, during which the periaqueductal gray (PAG; a brain region associated with responses to threats, autonomic function, and motivated behavior) plays an important role. Liu and Yu offer a motivational perspective on how expectations of pain can modulate its actual experience, via brain processes that involve the state-dependent activation of the PAG. This perspective might shed new light on psychological and neuronal substrates of pain and its modulation. 

Religion/Spirituality, Stress, and Resilience Among Sexual and Gender Minorities: The Religious/Spiritual Stress and Resilience Model
G. Tyler Lefevor et al.

Sexual and gender minorities (SGMs) can experience religiousness or spirituality (RS) as either health-promoting or health-damaging. Lefevor and colleagues introduce the religious/spiritual stress and resilience model (RSSR) for understanding how RS influences the health of these individuals. The RSSR makes five key propositions: (a) Minority stress and resilience processes influence health; (b) RS influences general resilience processes; (c) RS influences minority-specific stress and resilience processes; (d) these relationships are moderated by variables uniquely relevant to RS among SGMs, including congregational stances on same-sex sexual behavior and gender expression, and an individual’s degree of SGM and RS identity integration; and (e) relationships between minority stress and resilience, RS, and health are bidirectional.   

Maintaining Transient Diversity Is a General Principle for Improving Collective Problem Solving
Paul E. Smaldino, Cody Moser, Alejandro Pérez Velilla, and Mikkel Werling  

Humans regularly solve complex problems in cooperative teams. Smaldino and colleagues propose that the mechanisms that improve the quality of these teams’ solutions work by increasing potential solutions’ transient diversity These mechanisms can operate at the level of interpersonal communication, group structure, or the individual’s psychology. Widening the search space of possible solutions or slowing the diffusion of information and delaying consensus can increase transient diversity, but at a time cost. Exceptions to the value of transient diversity appear to occur when problems are simple and can be solved by trial and error or when team members’ incentives are insufficiently aligned.   

Worldwide Well-Being: Simulated Twins Reveal Genetic and (Hidden) Environmental Influences
Espen Røysamb, Terrie E. Moffitt, Avshalom Caspi, Eivind Ystrøm, and Ragnhild Bang Nes

Røysamb and colleagues estimated the effects of genetic factors, individual environmental exposures, and shared environments on subjective well-being (SWB) for the global population. They combined national well-being studies and behavioral-genetic studies (heritability) to model a scenario of twin studies across 157 countries. Results indicated a worldwide heritability of about 31% for SWB. Individual environmental factors explained 46% to 52% of the variance, and shared environments accounted for 16% to 23% of the variance in SWB. Shared environments appeared to play a large role in SWB at a national level, contrary to findings about shared environments in previous within-countries studies. 

Cooperation in the Time of COVID
Jade Butterworth, David Smerdon, Roy Baumeister, and William von Hippel

Policies for managing pandemics might be most effective when they highlight superordinate goals and connect people or institutions (e.g., by sharing information), and/or provide reputational markers and reduce free riding, Butterworth and colleagues suggest. Because cooperation evolved when humans lived in small groups, factors hindering it today tend to be associated with life in large, impersonal, modern societies, in which people are not identifiable, interactions are one-off, self-interest is not tied to others’ interests, and people are concerned that others might free ride. Thus, policies implemented during the pandemic appeared to be most effective when they addressed these factors. 

The Future of Decisions From Experience: Connecting Real-World Decision Problems to Cognitive Processes
Sebastian Olschewski et al. 

Olschewski and colleagues suggest extending standard experimental designs, including introducing more complex choice situations, delaying feedback, and adding social interactions, to better reflect how people make real-world decisions from experience. They also propose more explicitly integrating cognitive processes, such as attention to and perception of numeric and nonnumeric experiences, the influence of episodic and semantic memory, and the mental models involved in learning processes, into experimental research. The authors suggest that connecting real-world problems and environments with cognitive processes can advance how researchers model, understand, and predict decisions from experience in the laboratory and the real world. 

Multiple Memory Subsystems: Reconsidering Memory in the Mind and Brain
Brynn E. Sherman, Nicholas B. Turk-Browne, and Elizabeth V. Goldfarb

Recent research challenges the theory of one-to-one mapping between brain structures and memory types, central to the multiple-memory-systems framework. Instead, key memory-related structures might support multiple functions across substructures. Sherman and colleagues integrate cross-species findings to propose an updated framework of multiple memory subsystems (MMSS). They provide evidence for two organizational principles of the MMSS theory: Opposing memory representations are co-located in the same brain structures; and parallel memory representations are supported by distinct structures. This reframing has the potential to provide a revision of classic theories of memory and guide future research, Sherman and colleagues propose. 

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People have fairly consistent preferences when it comes to judging the beauty of things in the real world—it’s well known, for example, that humans prefer symmetrical faces. But our feelings about art may be more personal, causing us to prefer art that speaks to our sense of self, research in Psychological Science suggests. 

“When there is personal meaning in an image, that can dominate your aesthetic judgments way more than any image feature,” said Edward A. Vessel (The City College of New York) in an interview. Though self-relevant artwork features images related to a person’s own identity, memories, and interests, it can serve not only as a “mirror for the self” but as a window into the experiences of other people, Vessel said. 

“When we can relate [a piece of art] to our own experience, that’s like giving us a key to unlock deeper levels of meaning—a deeper understanding of the other through mapping it onto our own lived experience,” he said. 

Findings on self-relevance and aesthetic appeal could be used for good to create more effective forms of art therapy, but they can also be abused by media companies looking to use consumer models to generate addictive content on social media and other platforms, Vessel warned. 

“I almost see this work that we’re doing as similar to work on the addictiveness of tobacco back when companies knew it was addictive but weren’t telling the public,” Vessel said. “By understanding this and how personally relevant information can be highly engaging, we can be in a better position to create policies around its use and misuse.” 

Vessel and colleagues explored how self-relevance influences the aesthetic appeal of artwork through a series of studies in which participants evaluated real and synthetically personalized art.  

Because there was no existing method for measuring this relationship, the researchers began by testing if their experimental design detected associations between self-relevance and aesthetic appeal. They accomplished this through two initial studies in which 33 in-person German-speaking and 208 online English-speaking participants rated art from global museum collections based on how beautiful, moving, and self-relevant they perceived the images to be. In this first study, participants were asked to rate each artwork’s self-relevance based on the extent to which it related to “things and events that define you as a person.” In the second study the term was left undefined. 

Both studies suggested that self-relevance has a large effect on the perceived beauty and meaning of an image, Vessel and colleagues wrote. Participants in both studies perceived self-relevant images to be the most aesthetically appealing, with self-relevance accounting for 28% of the variance in participants’ aesthetic appeal ratings in the first study. 

In a subsequent study, Vessel and colleagues asked 45 German participants to evaluate a new set of images. Unlike in the previous study, however, the participants first completed a questionnaire that captured their demographic information, childhood residence, key autobiographical memories, personal interests, and regular activities. The researchers then used this information to create a set of 20 personalized synthetic artworks by transforming related source images with a style-transfer algorithm, which can apply an existing artistic style to a photograph. 

After these images were created, each participant rated a set of 80 images that included their personalized synthetic artwork, synthetic artwork created for another participant, generic synthetic artwork, and real artwork from a museum. 

Participants rated self-relevant synthetic artwork as more aesthetically appealing than other-relevant synthetic art or real artwork, although the latter was preferred over generic synthetic art. 

“Generating new artworks with self-relevant content that related to a participant’s lived experience, identity, and interests was highly effective at increasing aesthetic appeal,” the researchers wrote. 

When the researchers took a closer look at which aspects of self-relevance were driving this effect, they found that synthetic images related to participants’ autobiographical memories, identity, preferences, and interests were rated as more appealing, but those related to their daily activities and goals were not. This suggests that art needs to tap more deeply into a person’s self-construct in order to generate this effect, Vessel said.  

Vessel plans to continue this work by further examining which aspects of a person’s self-construct influence aesthetic appeal, as well as more closely studying how the brain’s default mode network and other mechanisms may support this effect. 

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Reference 

Vessel, E. A., Pasqualette, L., Uran, C., Koldehoff, S., Bignardi, G., & Vinck, M. (2023). Self-relevance predicts the aesthetic appeal of real and synthetic artworks generated via neural style transfer. Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976231188107

Celebrating a new year — as Jews the world over will do this week, when Rosh Hashana begins on Friday at sunset — is all about making changes. It’s a time for new beginnings, for wiping the slate clean and starting over from scratch. In that spirit, on Rosh Hashana Jews say prayers and listen to readings that celebrate the creation of the world and of human life.

But Rosh Hashana also strikes a different, seemingly discordant note. Unlike so many other New Year’s traditions, the Jewish holiday asks those who observe it to contemplate death. The liturgy includes the recitation of a poem, the Unetaneh Tokef, part of which is meant to remind Jews that their lives might not last as long as they’d hope or expect. “Who will live and who will die?” the poem asks. “Who will live out their allotted time and who will depart before their time?”

And we’re not talking about a gentle death at the end of a reasonably long life; we’re talking about misfortunes and tragedies that can cut any of our lives short. “Who shall perish by water and who by fire,” the poem continues, “Who by sword and who by wild beast / Who by famine and who by thirst / Who by earthquake and who by plague?”

This focus on death might seem misplaced, bringing gloom to the party. But as a research scientist who studies the psychological effects of spiritual practices, I believe there is a good reason for it: Contemplating death helps people make decisions about their future that bring them more happiness. This is an insight about human nature that the rites of Rosh Hashana capture especially well, but it’s one that people of any faith (or no faith at all) can benefit from.

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Social media influencers are often criticized for their content, which can be perceived as shallow, self-centered or, in some cases, even harmful. But there is an well-established trend among certain influencers to create content that showcases their generosity and kindness, while also giving random people unexpected moments of joy and virality.

One example of this is the “Blessing Strangers” trend on TikTok, where content creators surprise unsuspecting strangers with gifts. Even high-profile, mainstream celebrities like Drake have embraced this format, as seen in his 2018 music video for “God’s Plan,” where he gave away nearly a million dollars to people in need in Miami.

While there are certainly ethical considerations with using people’s reactions to kindness for online clout, these documented acts of kindness validate one thing that science has repeatedly pointed out: it may not always be obvious to us, but people are highly receptive to random acts of kindness.

For example, a recent study published in Current Directions in Psychological Science explored how people perceive the impact of their acts of kindness on others. The study involved 101 children aged 4 to 17 and 99 adults visiting a museum in Chicago. Each participant was given two pencils and encouraged to give one away to another visitor. Afterward, they were asked to predict how the recipient would perceive their act of kindness and how it made them, the giver, feel. The results showed that both children and adults tended to underestimate the positive impact of their small act of kindness, which can hold them back from engaging in prosocial behavior.

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Can you think of a narcissist? Some people might picture Donald Trump, perhaps, or Elon Musk, both of whom are often labeled as such on social media. Or maybe India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, who once wore a pinstripe suit with his own name woven in minute gold letters on each stripe over and over again.

But chances are you’ve encountered a narcissist, and they looked nothing like Trump, Musk or Modi. Up to 6 percent of the U.S. population, mostly men, is estimated to have had narcissistic personality disorder during some period of their lives. And the condition manifests in confoundingly different ways. People with narcissism “may be grandiose or self-loathing, extraverted or socially isolated, captains of industry or unable to maintain steady employment, model citizens or prone to antisocial activities,” according to a review paper on diagnosing the disorder.

…

Mike tyson is one of the greatest boxers of all time. Over his career, “Iron Mike” had 50 wins, including 44 knockouts, and only six losses. Coming from a difficult childhood, during which he was surrounded by crime and poverty, he escaped his circumstances through a laserlike focus on his dream of athletic greatness. And he realized that dream by becoming the world heavyweight champion at the age of 20, in 1986.

Despite his success and fame, Tyson was dogged by crises, failed relationships, and legal troubles, including allegations of domestic violence and nearly three years in prison in the 1990s after he was convicted on a charge of rape. He achieved all his ambitions of riches and renown, but a happy life seemed to elude him.

This might seem ironic or contradictory to some. To Tyson, however, it was neither. “You almost have to give your happiness up to accomplish your goals,” he reflected in a 2020 interview.

That is what we might call the Tyson Paradox. Building a good life requires us to have goals that keep us focused, enthusiastic, and out of trouble. But actually attaining those goals might not give us the payoff we imagined, and could in fact bring us misery. Although most of us will never see the highs and lows that Mike Tyson experienced, we can all easily fall into our own version of the same trap.

…

The 3rd Biennial International Seminar on the Teaching of Psychological Science (BISTOPS) will take place July 1 – 5, 2024 in Paris at Maison Suger, at the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme—Maison Suger’s residential and working facility. 

The seminar will accommodate about 25 participants who have experience in conducting and publishing research on teaching psychology and in successful grant-writing, as well as those who are developing ideas for such research or have a strong interest in doing so. 

The seminar is designed to give participants the opportunity to discuss existing research on the scholarship of teaching and learning in psychology, to exchange new research ideas, to create international research teams, and to generate empirical findings that will promote evidence-based recommendations for improving the teaching of psychological science on an international scale. 

For more information, and to apply for a place at the seminar, visit www.bistops.org. To request further information, please contact APS Fellow Douglas Bernstein, organizer and leader of the event, at douglas.bernstein@comcast.net. 

iCatcher+: Robust and Automated Annotation of Infants’ and Young Children’s Gaze Behavior From Videos Collected in Laboratory, Field, and Online Studies
Yotam Erel et al.

Erel and colleagues build on a system for automatic gaze annotation in young children, iCatcher, by engineering improvements and then training and testing the improved system—iCatcher+. When trained on three data sets (videos of children aged 4 months–3.5 years, collected in labs and field settings, in the U.S. and Senegal), iCatcher+ performed with near human-level accuracy on held-out videos on distinguishing “LEFT” versus “RIGHT” and “ON” versus “OFF” looking behavior. The system achieved this high performance at the level of individual frames, experimental trials, and study videos. The performance also held across participant demographics (e.g., age, race/ethnicity), participant behavior (e.g., movement, head position), and video characteristics (e.g., luminance), as well as generalized to a different online data set.   

PsyCalibrator: An Open-Source Package for Display Gamma Calibration and Luminance and Color Measurement
Zhicheng Lin, Qi Ma, and Yang Zhang

The appearance of visual stimuli on digital screens depends on properties such as luminance and color, making it critical to measure them. In this tutorial, Lin and colleagues present an open-source integrated software package—PsyCalibrator—that uses consumer hardware (SpyderX, Spyder5) to make luminance/color measurement and gamma calibration easily accessible. Validation of PsyCalibrator indicates (a) excellent accuracy in linear correction and luminance/color measurement and (b) low measurement variances. The authors offer a detailed tutorial on using PsyCalibrator and recommend reporting templates to describe visual stimuli that are simple (e.g., computer-generated shapes) as well as complex (e.g., naturalistic images and videos). 

When to Use Different Inferential Methods for Power Analysis and Data Analysis for Between-Subjects Mediation
Jessica L. Fossum and Amanda K. Montoya

Fossum and Montoya explore the similarity of power estimates from six inferential methods for between-subjects mediation when the samples are the same size. They found that when data meet the assumptions of linear regression, the joint significance test, the Monte Carlo confidence interval, and the percentile bootstrap confidence interval perform similarly. When the assumptions are violated, the nonbootstrapping methods tended to have vastly different power estimates compared with the bootstrapping methods. Thus, the researchers recommend using the joint significance test for power analysis only when no assumption violations are hypothesized, and using the percentile bootstrap confidence interval when assumption violations are suspected. 

Selecting the Number and Labels of Topics in Topic Modeling: A Tutorial
Sara J. Weston, Ian Shryock, Ryan Light, and Phillip A. Fisher

Weston and colleagues describe tools researchers can use to identify the number and labels of topics in topic modeling—a type of text analysis that identifies clusters of co-occurring words, or latent topics. The authors outline the procedure for narrowing down a large range of models to a select number by comparing them on fit metrics, including exclusivity, residuals, variational lower bound, and semantic coherence. Weston and colleagues also describe tools for labeling topics, including frequent and exclusive words, key examples, and correlations among topics. 

Beyond the Mean: Can We Improve the Predictive Power of Psychometric Scales?
Yngwie Asbjørn Nielsen, Isabel Thielmann, and Stefan Pfattheicher

Reliance on the mean score of psychometric scales might be justifiable, this research indicates, but it is also important to explore the predictive power of other summary statistics. Nielsen and colleagues explored whether some seldom-used summary statistics of a psychometric scale (e.g., the standard deviation, the median, or the kurtosis) can improve the prediction of certain outcome measures: life satisfaction, mental health, self-esteem, work behavior, and social value orientation. Across 32 psychometric scales and three data sets, they found that the mean was the strongest predictor of the outcomes considered, with little additional variance explained by other summary statistics. 

Using Market-Research Panels for Behavioral Science: An Overview and Tutorial
Aaron J. Moss et al.

Moss and colleagues highlight the unique capabilities of online market-research panels and demonstrate how researchers can effectively sample from them. Unlike microtask platforms (e.g., MTurk), market-research panels have access to more than 100 million potential participants worldwide, provide more representative samples, and excel at demographic targeting. However, efficiently gathering data from online panels requires researchers to integrate their surveys with the panels in ways that are rarely used on microtask sites. For instance, they can target demographics that are not preprofiled but are screened for within the survey (e.g., parents of autistic children). Moss and colleagues show how to sample hard-to-reach groups using market-research panels and describe best practices for conducting research using them, including setting in-survey quotas to control sample composition and managing data quality.   

Bayesian Repeated-Measures Analysis of Variance: An Updated Methodology Implemented in JASP
Don van den Bergh, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, and Frederik Aust 

Although the Bayesian analysis of variance (ANOVA) is modeled after its frequentist counterpart that uses p values, the two can yield very different conclusions when the design involves multiple repeated-measures factors. Van den Bergh and colleagues illustrate such a discrepancy with a real data set and show that the two types of ANOVA use different model specifications. Contrary to the frequentist ANOVA, the Bayesian ANOVA assumes that there are no individual differences in the magnitude of effects. The authors believe that this assumption is untenable in most applications and therefore neither obvious to nor desired by most researchers. Thus, they argue that the Bayesian ANOVA should be revised to allow for individual differences and provide guidance on how to implement the revised model.   

Dynamic Data Visualizations to Enhance Insight and Communication Across the Life Cycle of a Scientific Project
Kristina Wiebels and David Moreau

In scientific communication, figures are typically rendered as static displays, which often prevents active exploration of the underlying data. Wiebels and Moreau present recent developments to build interactivity and animations into scientific communications using examples and illustrations in the R language. They discuss when and how to build dynamic figures, with step-by-step reproducible code that can be adapted to the reader’s own projects. The authors illustrate how interactivity and animations can facilitate insight and communication across a project life cycle—from initial exchanges and discussions in a team to peer review and final publication—and provide recommendations to use dynamic visualizations effectively.   

Best Practices in Supervised Machine Learning: A Tutorial for Psychologists
Florian Pargent, Ramona Schoedel, and Clemens Stachl

Supervised machine learning (ML) is becoming an influential analytical method. This tutorial intends to provide a primer and introduction to supervised ML for psychologists. Pargent and colleagues introduce the basic terminology and mindset of supervised ML. They a) cover how to use resampling methods to evaluate the performance of ML models and introduce the nonlinear random forest, a type of ML model; b) explain how to compare the performance of several ML models on multiple data sets and discuss the interpretation of ML models; and c) offer code examples using the mlr3 and companion packages in R. 

Multidimensional Signals and Analytic Flexibility: Estimating Degrees of Freedom in Human-Speech Analyses
Stefano Coretta, Joseph Casillas, Timo Roettger, and Cheman Baira Agitok

Recent empirical studies have highlighted the large degree of analytic flexibility in data analysis which can lead to substantially different conclusions based on the same data set. Thus, researchers have expressed their concerns that these researcher degrees of freedom might facilitate bias and can lead to claims that do not stand the test of time. Even greater flexibility is to be expected in fields in which the primary data lend themselves to a variety of possible operationalizations. The multidimensional, temporally extended nature of speech constitutes an ideal testing ground for assessing the variability in analytic approaches, which derives not only from aspects of statistical modeling, but also from decisions regarding the quantification of the measured behavior. In the present study, the researchers gave the same speech production data set to 46 teams of researchers and asked them to answer the same research question, resulting in substantial variability in reported effect sizes and their interpretation.

Does Your Smartphone “Know” Your Social Life? A Methodological Comparison of Day Reconstruction, Experience Sampling, and Mobile Sensing
Yannick Roos, Michael Krämer, David Richter, Ramona Schoedel, and Cornelia Wrzus

To study how well mobile sensing—observation of human social behavior using people’s mobile phones—can assess the quantity and quality of social interactions, Roos and colleagues examined how experience-sampling questionnaires, day reconstruction via daily diaries, and mobile sensing agreed in their assessments of face-to-face interactions, calls, and text messages. Results indicated some agreement between measurements of face-to-face interactions and high agreement between measurements of smartphone-mediated interactions. Still, a large number of social interactions were captured by only one method, and the quality of social interactions was difficult to capture with mobile sensing.    

The Appropriateness of Outlier Exclusion Approaches Depends on the Expected Contamination: Commentary on André (2022)
Daniel Villanova

In a recent article, André (2022) addresses the decision to exclude outliers using a threshold across conditions or within conditions and offers a clear recommendation to avoid within-condition exclusions because of the possibility for large false-positive inflation. This commentary notes that André’s simulations did not include the situation for which within-condition exclusion has previously been recommended – when across-condition exclusion would exacerbate selection bias. Examining test performance in this situation confirms the recommendation for within-condition exclusion in such a circumstance. Critically, the suitability of exclusion criteria must be considered in relationship to assumptions about the data-generating mechanism(s). 

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No matter how confident you are, certain situations will likely make you nervous, and a job interview falls firmly into that category. Even if you know you’re qualified, answering questions about yourself can feel intimidating.

Fortunately, there are a few things you can do before you walk into the conference room or get on a call that will reduce your anxiety in the moment, says Richard Newman, author of Lift Your Impact.

“Feeling a little nervous before an interview is completely normal,” he says. “However, if you go into it with a mindset of fear and doubt, it can hamper your performance.”

To improve your odds of nailing the interview, consider doing these four things, which immediately reduce stress:

CHECK IN WITH YOUR VALUES

Research led by J. David Creswell of Carnegie Mellon University found that affirmation of your personal values can help reduce the stress response. In a study that was published in Psychological Science in 2005, the scientists conducted an experiment with two groups of people going into important meetings.

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Failure as a noun means lack of success, omission of required action, or the collapse of a business. It can be embarrassing and painful to experience. Most will do anything to avoid failure—nobody wants to fail. “We want to prevent failure, and that’s why we come up with reasons for why we shouldn’t do things we want to do. We tell ourselves no because we don’t think we’re ready yet,” James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, says. “It’s also why we abandon our ideas. But ‘no’ rarely means impossible …. Usually if someone tells you no, what they really mean is ‘not right now or ‘not in that way.’”

Experts agree failure isn’t a destination but more so a redirection. But failing may prove more beneficial than succeeding. “We learn more from our failures than our successes. When we fail, not only do we find out what doesn’t work so that we can adjust our future attempts, but we learn about ourselves in the process and gain a bit of empathy toward others who might be struggling,” says Kealy Spring, Leadership Fellow Coach, BetterUp.

It’s time to reframe how we think about failing. Here’s how to do it like a champion.

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Knowing who to trust is part and parcel of everyday life. Instinctively we may trust one person but not fully understand why. Researchers have puzzled over this question for decades, trying to piece together what makes a person trustworthy or not.

“Trustworthiness is essentially being a prosocial person,” says Sebastian Siuda, a psychologist who researches the dynamics of trust. “If somebody opens up to you and makes [themselves] vulnerable to you, you don’t use that act for your own good, but you repay that vulnerability.”

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Did you know that loneliness is different from social isolation? Psychologists define loneliness as a subjective concept which is related to one’s own expectations.  

In this episode, Under the Cortex hosts Samia Akther Khan, PhD candidate from King’s College London, whose research examines the feeling of loneliness across lifespan. The conversation with APS’s Özge G.Fischer-Baum focuses on the difference between loneliness and social isolation and highlights six key social relationship expectations of older adults: (1) availability of social contacts, (2) receiving care and support, (3) intimacy and understanding, (4) enjoyment and shared interests, (5) generativity and contribution, and (6) being respected and valued. Along with other implications, Samia discusses the importance of global research and specific challenges that global research teams face. 

Samia Akhtar Khan also published on this topic in APS’s Perspectives with co-authors Matthew Prina, Gloria Hoi-Yan Wong, Rosie Mayston, and Leon Li. The article is titled, Understanding and Addressing Older Adults’ Loneliness: The Social Relationship Expectations Framework. 

In a new review in the journal Nature Human Behavior, researchers Elizabeth Dunn and Dunigan Folk found that many common strategies for increasing our happiness may not be supported by strong evidence. In fact, almost 95% of experiments on three common strategies—spending time in nature, exercise and engaging in mindfulness/meditation—did not hold up to even the most basic of current best practices for showing psychological effects.

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The hush at the end of the musical performance. The pause in a dramatic speech. The muted moment when you turn off the car. What is it that we hear when we hear nothing at all? Are we detecting silence? Or are we just hearing nothing and interpreting that absence as silence?

The “Sound of Silence” is a philosophical question that made for one of Simon & Garfunkel’s most enduring songs, but it’s also a subject that can be tested by psychologists. In a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers used a series of sonic illusions to show that people perceive silences much as they hear sounds. While the study offers no insight into how our brains might be processing silence, the results suggest that people perceive silence as its own type of “sound,” not just as a gap between noises.

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In most adults, learning and thinking plateau and then begin to decline after age 30 or 40. People start to perform worse in tests of cognitive abilities such as processing speed, the rate at which someone does a mental task. The slide becomes steeper after 60 years of age.

These changes are often ascribed to normal aging. But what if instead they represent something more like the “summer slide” that schoolchildren experience? Every year teachers and parents observe how summer vacations lead some children’s academic progress to backslide. During the COVID pandemic, many students missed the equivalent of at least seven to 10 weeks of in-person learning because of remote or reduced schooling. The resulting academic losses were uneven, with kids of different ages, abilities and resources being affected in varied ways.

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