Tag Archives: psychologist

Women See Naked Men Differently Too

COLLEGE PARK, Md – For both men and women, wearing revealing attire causes them to be seen as more sensitive but less competent, says a new study by University of Maryland psychologist Kurt Gray and colleagues from Yale and Northeastern University. (more…)

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Being Smart is Already Part of your Mental Toolbox, Psychologist Says

AUSTIN, Texas — Intelligence and smart thinking are not the same, according to University of Texas at Austin psychologist Art Markman, who studies how best to apply knowledge for smarter thinking at work and home.

Drawing on his work at a top multinational corporation and his scholarly work, Markman says science confirms that smart thinking is not an innate quality but rather a skill to be cultivated. Humans are not born with a particular capacity to do smart things. “Each of the components of being smart is already part of your mental toolbox,” he says. (more…)

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Human Prejudice Has Ancient Evolutionary Roots

The tendency to perceive others as “us versus them” isn’t exclusively human but appears to be shared by our primate cousins, a new study led by Yale researchers has found. 

In a series of ingenious experiments, Yale researchers led by psychologist Laurie Santos showed that monkeys treat individuals from outside their groups with the same suspicion and dislike as their human cousins tend to treat outsiders, suggesting that the roots of human intergroup conflict may be evolutionarily quite ancient.  (more…)

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Distance May be Key in Successful Negotiations, New Study Shows

AUSTIN, Texas — Adding physical distance between people during negotiations may lead to more mutually beneficial outcomes, according to new research from The University of Texas at Austin.

Psychologist Marlone Henderson examined how negotiations that don’t take place in person may be affected by distance. He compared distant negotiators (several thousand feet away) with those who are nearby (a few feet away) in three separate studies. While much work has examined the consequences of different forms of non-face-to-face communication, previous research has not examined the effects of physical distance between negotiators independent of other factors. Henderson’s findings will be published in the January issue of Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. (more…)

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Friends with Cognitive Benefits: Mental Function Improves After Certain Kinds of Socializing

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Talking with other people in a friendly way can make it easier to solve common problems, a new University of Michigan study shows. But conversations that are competitive in tone, rather than cooperative, have no cognitive benefits.

“This study shows that simply talking to other people, the way you do when you’re making friends, can provide mental benefits,” said psychologist Oscar Ybarra, a researcher at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). (more…)

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