Psychology

Steve Jobs' Death And The Meaning Of Life

On October 5th, Steve Jobs died. At first I was surprised at how choked up I got at his death—it’s not like I ever met him—until I realized that I wasn’t the only one. From special issues of The New Yorker and Wired magazines, to spontaneous memorials of f ...

Article - Michael W. Taft - Oct 14 2011 - 1:01pm

Computational Analysis: What Are The Word Choices Of Psychopaths?

If words are windows into the soul, scientists are learning to be Peeping Toms: Computerized text analysis shows that psychopathic killers make identifiable word choices beyond their conscious control when talking about their crimes and that insight could ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 14 2011 - 4:00pm

Occupy Wall Street And The Endowment Effect

by Michael W. Taft ...

Article - Michael W. Taft - Oct 26 2011 - 12:44pm

Getting Our Mad On: Saturday Morning Trolling; Feeling Community

It's always a little surreal to see a new comment in the email on an old article. The older the article is, the stranger it is, especially when the comment itself is bizarre. ...

Article - Kim Wombles - Oct 29 2011 - 1:38pm

Sleep Paralysis: A Science Excuse In Case You Are Caught With A Succubus

If you've ever thought you were being abducted by an alien or, if you are 400 years old, seduced by a succubus, and couldn't move, you are not alone.   A new article in Sleep Medicine Reviews says 7.6% of the population has had the same experienc ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Nov 11 2011 - 7:00am

Exposed! Online Daters' Top Ten Lies

You know them you hate them, but no one creates fun research that matches confirmation bias more than BeautifulPeople.com, and they are at it again.  Their latest findings- from online dating site users, of course- exposes an ugly truth of online dating: ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 16 2011 - 11:09am

The Science Of Precognition: Cosmic Habituation And Decline Effect

Precognition (from the Latin præ-,“before,” + cognitio, “acquiring knowledge”), is usually filed under esoteric pseudoscience. There are scientific articles on precognition, but pointing this out often results in the rare admission that scientific journal ...

Article - Sascha Vongehr - Dec 13 2011 - 4:54am

Study You Don't Need To Read- Walking Through Doorways Causes Forgetting

A study in  the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology by some folks at University of Notre Dame conducted three experiments and concluded that if you walk into a room and forget what you came to do, the doorway is responsible. The environment can li ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Nov 19 2011 - 4:42pm

Of Touchdowns And Tribalism

Once when I was a little kid, a peaceful fall evening at our house was shattered by loud and insistent banging, as if someone was trying to break down our side door. My dad, who was the head coach of the high school football team, opened it to greet a man ...

Article - Michael W. Taft - Nov 23 2011 - 8:22pm

Evolutionary Psychology and A Completely New Layer of Misinterpreted Data.

A new article from the Association for Psychological Science (APS) begins with the premise that our ancestors avoided outsiders because they might carry disease.  Therefore, it apparently seems reasonable to conclude that by washing our hands and getting v ...

Blog Post - Gerhard Adam - Dec 1 2011 - 9:13pm