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Posts

April 01, 2013

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9:28 PM | Excuse me, that's my hand! (... but is it really?)
About 15 years ago, a one-page Nature study shook the scientific community. Researchers from the University of Pittsburg showed with a simple experiment that people could feel that a fake rubber hand was in fact their own- they called it the ‘rubber hand illusion’. It goes like this: place a fake hand on a table in front of you and your […]

Garbarini F., Pia L., Piedimonte A., Rabuffetti M., Gindri P. & Berti A. (2013). Embodiment of an alien hand interferes with intact-hand movements, Current Biology, 23 (2) R57-R58. DOI:

Science in the clouds
General Science | Biology
Citation

February 21, 2013

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2:47 AM | SWAG: Thoughts as Physical Objects
Ideas as Objects (Source) Every Wednesday afternoon, I gather with a bunch of faculty and graduate students at the University of Illinois to discuss a journal article about social psychology, and to eat a snack. This blog post reflects the discussion we had during this week's seminar affectionately called Social Wednesdays and Grub (SWAG). We typically think of thoughts as mental constructs without physical properties. And yet, it is remarkably common to use physical metaphors when […]

Briñol P, Gascó M, Petty RE & Horcajo J (2013). Treating thoughts as material objects can increase or decrease their impact on evaluation., Psychological science, 24 (1) 41-7. PMID:

Psych Your Mind
Psychology | Social Science
Citation

February 07, 2013

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5:01 AM | The Perfect Valentine’s Day Date: Keep it Warm and Heavy
There is a lot of pressure to impress your romantic partner with a fabulous Valentine’s Day date (I should know – Valentine’s Day is also my wife’s birthday!). If you decide to go to a fancy restaurant, how do you know which cuisine to choose? Should you go with spicy Thai or cold sushi? If you’re going to buy your partner a gift, do you choose something practical and imminently useful but unromantic (the Science of Relationships book?) or should you instead go […]
Science of Relationships
Gender | Psychology

January 23, 2013

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10:43 PM | SWAG: The Aversion to Harm Others
Every Wednesday afternoon, I gather with a bunch of faculty and graduate students at the University of Illinois to discuss a journal article about social psychology, and to eat a snack. This blog post reflects the discussion we had during this week's seminar affectionately called Social Wednesdays and Grub (SWAG). This week in SWAG we read a paper on committing harmful actions by Fiery Cushman and colleagues (2012), who may have the most fantastic name in all of the academic world. Cushman […]

Cushman F, Gray K, Gaffey A & Mendes WB (2012). Simulating murder: the aversion to harmful action., Emotion (Washington, D.C.), 12 (1) 2-7. PMID:

Psych Your Mind
Psychology | Social Science
Citation

January 19, 2013

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8:38 PM | Apologies, High-Heels, and Humor: Tales from the SPSP Poster Session Trenches
Each year at SPSP, (mostly) students and faculty line up to present over 1000 posters, which are descriptions of research studies presented on a 3-foot by 4-foot bulletin board. It’s quite a sight.  With approximately 300+ presenters telling their scientific stories at any given poster session; these sessions can be a bit overwhelming and hectic to navigate. I slogged through such a poster session last night, and have returned with findings from three posters that I thought were […]
Science of Relationships
Gender | Psychology

October 14, 2012

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8:45 PM | Loves Me? ‘In Loves’ Me Not?
Every so often, in all seriousness, someone says, “I still love her, but I’m not in love with her.” A rather intriguing concept, this one. You don’t hear people say, “I still hate him, but I’m not in hate with him.” And we could go down the list of feelings people can have for one [...]
World of Psychology
Psychology

September 10, 2012

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8:03 AM | Turning the mind to the future: clockwise movements increase openness to experience
Research has found that bodily movements are symbolically associated with movement in time. Clockwise movements are associated with progression into the future, whereas counterclockwise movements are associated with the reversal of time, and hence with regression into the past (Topolinski & Sparenberg, 2012). Progression in time is associated with novelty, and conversely, regression into the past is associated with returning to the old and familiar. A recent research study found that […]

Topolinski, S., & Sparenberg, P. (308). Turning the Hands of Time: Clockwise Movements Increase Preference for Novelty., Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3 (3) DOI:

Eye on Psych
Psychology
Citation

April 27, 2012

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6:32 AM | Friday Fun: Mad Men With Power Moves
When Mad Men started it's final season on AMC, I received a good laugh when I was alerted to the hashtag #draping. The lead character of Mad Men, Don Draper (Jon Hamm), is pictured in advertisements for the popular television show sitting on a couch with his hand draped over the back of the couch, holding either a cigarette or a cocktail. It appears that fans of the popular show have taken to posing in this fashion, and then posting to tumblr. Read More-> [...]

Tiedens, L. & Fragale, A. (2003). Power moves: Complementarity in dominant and submissive nonverbal behavior., Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 84 (3) 558-568. DOI:

Psych Your Mind
Psychology | Social Science
Citation

March 23, 2012

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10:13 PM | How to tell the difference between embodied cognition and everything else
Psychscientists have a great post up proposing an acid test for genuine embodied cognition versus the all to popular “x body part alters y internal process” trope. Seriously- check it out! http://psychsciencenotes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/field-spotters-guide-to-embodied.html Embodied cognition: A field spotter’s guide Question 1: Does the paper claim to be an example of embodied cognition? If yes, it is probably [...]
Neuroconscience
Neuroscience | Psychology

January 30, 2012

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7:52 AM | SPSP 2012: Poster Highlights
Not actually SPSP but the closest I could find As Amie said in a previous post, SPSP poster sessions are like your "elementary school science fair, but all grown up and on steroids." With over 2,000 posters spanning topics ranging from the psychology of political ideology to the link between rejection and health to the dynamics of cheating behavior, it's easy to become overwhelmed. In recent years, posters in a given subject area (e.g., "Emotion") are grouped together [...]

Carney, D., Cuddy, A. & Yap, A. (2010). Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance, Psychological Science, 21 (10) 1363-1368. DOI:

Wohl, M. & Thompson, A. (2011). A dark side to self-forgiveness: Forgiving the self and its association with chronic unhealthy behaviour, British Journal of Social Psychology, 50 (2) 354-364. DOI:

NEFF, K. (2003). Self-Compassion: An Alternative Conceptualization of a Healthy Attitude Toward Oneself, Self and Identity, 2 (2) 85-101. DOI:

Psych Your Mind
Psychology | Social Science
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December 01, 2011

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11:08 PM | Time, Space, and Synesthesia
Source When we talk about time, we often use metaphors related to space. For example, "I'm looking forward to this weekend." Some people experience this connection more literally, feeling as though units of time have an almost physical reality, one with a definitive size, location, and sometimes even color. This tendency has been termed time-space synesthesia. In a 2006 study conducted by researchers at the University of Waterloo, participants were asked to draw their unique [...]
Psych Your Mind
Psychology | Social Science

November 03, 2011

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5:22 AM | Can sweets make you sweeter?
Source This week, kids around the nation are scarfing down bucket loads of Halloween candy, and the rest of us are likely sneaking in some extra treats for ourselves as well. So how is all this sugar consumption affecting us? On the one hand, it may be poisoning us. On the bright side, new research suggests that eating sweets can actually make you not only seem more sweet, but also lead you to behave in more caring ways. Read More-> [...]
Psych Your Mind
Psychology | Social Science

August 30, 2011

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4:31 PM | The Embodiment of Time, Tenderness, and Weight
I’ve been hearing it for years now – the brain is “embodied“. It’s a strange concept. I understand that brains aren’t disembodied, and Descartes was horribly wrong to suggest that, “there is a great difference between mind and body, inasmuch as body is by nature always divisible, and the mind is entirely indivisible.” But what [...]
Why We Reason
Neuroscience | Psychology

May 20, 2011

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12:13 AM | When the Rapture Doesn’t Happen, How Will Harold Camping React?
There will be no rapture on Saturday, May 21st. And I can't wait to see how Harold Camping reacts on Sunday when he's still alive, on this Earth, and in this human body.
World of Psychology
Psychology
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