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Posts

June 18, 2013

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9:55 PM | Psychology At the Movies: Essentialist Musings in Man of Steel
www.imdb.com Yesterday, my spouse and I dropped our newborn daughter off with Grandma and then popped over to the local theater to see this summer's much anticipated comic-book blockbuster Man of Steel. By any standard, Man of Steel is exceptionally light when it comes to philosophical musings: The plot is predictably linear--good guys fight bad guys who are trying to kill them. At first glance, it may seem like a stretch to write an entire blog entry (for a psychology blog) about the […]

Kraus MW & Keltner D (2013). Social Class Rank, Essentialism, and Punitive Judgment., Journal of personality and social psychology, PMID:

Psych Your Mind
Psychology | Social Science
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June 13, 2013

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11:26 PM | The Daddy Chronicles II: Parenting Boosts Immune Function
I've been doing this whole parenting thing for almost three months now and it has been simultaneously gratifying, terrifying, exhausting, and fascinating. One thing I haven't been doing is sleeping, and because of this I have had a lot of time to read up on some neat research on new parents. Last time I wrote about how parenting reduces Testosterone in men. Today I blog about the relationship between parenting and immune function. Can parenting boost the immune system? Read More-> […]

Sneed, R., Cohen, S., Turner, R. & Doyle, W. (2012). Parenthood and Host Resistance to the Common Cold, Psychosomatic Medicine, 74 (6) 567-573. DOI:

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Psychology | Social Science
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June 11, 2013

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5:02 PM | This is NOT advice for first year faculty
Hello again, PYM readers. It is now June and I just finished my first full academic year as a faculty member at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (Chambana). Having just passed through the rabbit hole, I have returned mostly unscathed to blog a bit about my experience. As this is just my first year, I don't have any advice that will help others who are transitioning to professor-hood, rather, this post reflects some of the things that I think people (like me) deal with during […]
Psych Your Mind
Psychology | Social Science

June 09, 2013

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3:54 PM | Four (Wrong) Ways To Interpret Links Between Genes and Education
Last week Science published a neat little paper examining links between specific human DNA sequences and educational attainment. The paper, which is a bit shorter than the list of authors who worked on the project, examined a total sample of more than 120,000 participants who had their entire genome sequenced for a number of small clusters of repeating nucleotides (single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs). They then examined all the SNPs and their associations with the level of educational […]

Rietveld, C. A. (2013). GWAS of 126,599 individuals identifies genetic variants associated with educational attainment, Science, Other: Link

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Psychology | Social Science
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June 05, 2013

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9:00 PM | Why So Serious?* An Insider’s Guide to the Study of Smiling and Dominance
The toughest grad students at the University of Illinois (J. Hepler & N. Segal) Over the years, one of my favorite things to hear about in research is the initial personal events that inspired researchers to conduct their investigations into human behavior (e.g., Did your neglectful mother lead you to a study of anxious attachment?). In today’s blog post I would like to talk about the inspiration for a study I conducted last year, with my my colleague David Chen, examining what […]

Kraus, M. & Chen, T. (2013). A winning smile? Smile intensity, physical dominance, and fighter performance., Emotion, 13 (2) 270-279. DOI:

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Psychology | Social Science
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April 20, 2013

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6:07 PM | SWAG: Racial Bias in Pain Perception
Tom Brady is no stranger to pain (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). This week in SWAG we read an article about racial biases in perceptions of others’ pain. The American medical field has a long […]

Trawalter S, Hoffman KM & Waytz A (2012). Racial bias in perceptions of others' pain., PloS one, 7 (11) PMID:

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Psychology | Social Science
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April 18, 2013

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5:02 PM | The Daddy Chronicles: What Happened To My Testosterone?
Zoë at two weeks I'm not sure how many of you know this, but on March 19th of this year I became a new daddy. It's hard to describe the meaning of this event and its impact on my life, but here is a useful comparison that might put things into perspective: My dissertation was accepted for publication on the same day that my daughter was born and despite the near month passing, I still haven't filed the publication forms for the paper. Fatherhood changes the way I see the world […]

Gettler LT, McDade TW, Feranil AB & Kuzawa CW (2011). Longitudinal evidence that fatherhood decreases testosterone in human males., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108 (39) 16194-9. PMID:

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Psychology | Social Science
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April 05, 2013

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5:42 PM | Vulcan’s View 12: Volcanoes Seen From Space
There have been a slew of great new images of volcanoes taken from space this year. Here are some of the best.
Eruptions
Geosciences

March 14, 2013

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3:00 PM | PYM Enters the Terrible Twos!
Two years ago today, this blog was born. Thanks to you, PYM readers, this once tiny blog venture has been an overwhelming success--both in terms of outreach, and I think, in terms of fun (at least for the bloggers)! Let's check out some of the PYM blog stats after the jump. Read More->
Psych Your Mind
Psychology | Social Science

March 07, 2013

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10:14 PM | SWAG: The American Choice Fixation
Yes. I Exist! (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). Right before our SWAG meeting this week, I attended a laboratory meeting of a colleague here at the University of Illinois. One of the graduate students […]

Savani K, Markus HR, Naidu NV, Kumar S & Berlia N (2010). What counts as a choice? U.S. Americans are more likely than Indians to construe actions as choices., Psychological science, 21 (3) 391-8. PMID:

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Psychology | Social Science
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February 27, 2013

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11:19 PM | SWAG: Do the ends justify the means?
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). Are you familiar with Watchmen? The popular graphic novel turned semi-popular summer blockbuster describes a deeply dystopian future in which Richard Nixon has been […]

Conway P & Gawronski B (2013). Deontological and utilitarian inclinations in moral decision making: A process dissociation approach., Journal of personality and social psychology, 104 (2) 216-35. PMID:

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Psychology | Social Science
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February 22, 2013

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5:02 AM | Have Your Cake and Eat It Too! Practical Reform in Social Psychology
The cake we can (1) have, and (2) eat! If you have been following recent headlines in the social sciences then you are aware that the field of social psychology has been in some rough water over the past three years. In this time period, we've had our flagship journal publish a series of studies providing evidence that ESP exists (and then refuse to publish non-replications of these studies). We've suffered through at least three instances of scientific fraud perpetrated by high […]

Richard, F., Bond, C. & Stokes-Zoota, J. (2003). One Hundred Years of Social Psychology Quantitatively Described., Review of General Psychology, 7 (4) 331-363. DOI:

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Psychology | Social Science
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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:

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Psychology | Social Science
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February 08, 2013

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5:27 PM | SWAG: I'm good enough, I'm smart enough... and I give up!
wikipedia.org 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 we read a recent collection of studies written by Kathleen Vohs and her colleagues (2013) about goal disengagement and self-affirmation. Usually […]

Vohs KD, Park JK & Schmeichel BJ (2013). Self-affirmation can enable goal disengagement., Journal of personality and social psychology, 104 (1) 14-27. PMID:

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Psychology | Social Science
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January 31, 2013

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5:15 AM | SWAG: The World is ending and that's unfair!
www.earthtimes.org 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). Ever watch a video like this one? I imagine that for different people it activates very different emotions. For some, this sort of video might galvanize […]

Feinberg, M. & Willer, R. (2010). Apocalypse Soon?: Dire Messages Reduce Belief in Global Warming by Contradicting Just-World Beliefs, Psychological Science, 22 (1) 34-38. DOI:

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Psychology | Social Science
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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:

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Psychology | Social Science
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January 20, 2013

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7:26 AM | How Much Inequality Is Too Much?
“Of all the babies that die every year, what percent should be from the richest 20% and what percent should be from the poorest 20%?” – Mike Norton In the Saturday morning session, some of my favorite social psychologists/researchers presented their ongoing work on lay beliefs about inequality in the United States. It is encouraging to see the new generation of psychology scholars taking on important issues related to social justice and inequality! The first talk was presented by […]
Psych Your Mind
Psychology | Social Science

January 19, 2013

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2:39 AM | SPSP 2013: Notes For Starting Your Academic Career
“There is no other job that allows you to pursue questions that interests you, and then pay you to do it. But, there are tradeoffs.” –Chuck Carver                        In the second morning symposium session at SPSP this year, three hugely influential scholars in our field discussed some challenges that new faculty members must contend with early in their career. Having just started an academic job of my own at the University of Illinois, I found this […]
Psych Your Mind
Psychology | Social Science

January 18, 2013

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6:54 PM | SPSP 2013: How to Get Your Message Across
The team at Psych-Your-Mind is at the annual meeting for the Society of Personality and Social Psychology in New Orleans, LA bringing you the latest news from the conference! At this morning’s symposium on science in the media called “How to Get Your Message Across,” two public relations experts discussed some of the strategies that researchers can use to be more effective in their communications with the media. I attended this symposium with great interests because my research […]
Psych Your Mind
Psychology | Social Science

January 06, 2013

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10:15 PM | Do I have the least stressful job in 2013?
About a week ago, Forbes magazine published a list of the least stressful jobs in 2013 (here). At the very top of the list was the college Professor. This sparked some outrage among my colleagues who (rightly) point out that a Professor's job is not without stress (here). The swell of outrage was so immense, that the original author posted an addendum stating that indeed, some of the characterizations of a Professorial job made in the original post--e.g., that Professors don't work […]

Sherman GD, Lee JJ, Cuddy AJ, Renshon J, Oveis C, Gross JJ & Lerner JS (2012). Leadership is associated with lower levels of stress., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109 (44) 17903-7. PMID:

Psych Your Mind
Psychology | Social Science
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December 21, 2012

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12:30 AM | Friday Fun: My Favorites of 2012!
Hello again PYM readers! The end of 2012 marks the end of our second year as a psychology research blog (the first full year). I feel like a proud papa (Also, I will be an actual papa in March). With the close of our second year here at PYM, I'd like to highlight some of my favorite blog entries from the past 12 months. Read More->
Psych Your Mind
Psychology | Social Science

December 11, 2012

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6:41 AM | Tabula Rasa: Do genes influence personality?
wikipedia.org If I were to ask you the simple question, "Do you think that genes influence your personality?" The first thing you might think, is that I'm asking you a stupid question. After all, nearly all our lay beliefs about the world include beliefs that some of our genetic material influences who we become as people. And though we do believe, to varying degrees, that our experiences shape who are, I'm sure we can't think of all that many people who believe, like […]

Whitfield, C. (2003). Gene Expression Profiles in the Brain Predict Behavior in Individual Honey Bees, Science, 302 (5643) 296-299. DOI:

Derringer, J., Krueger, R., Dick, D., Saccone, S., Grucza, R., Agrawal, A., Lin, P., Almasy, L., Edenberg, H., Foroud, T. & Nurnberger, J. (2010). Predicting Sensation Seeking From Dopamine Genes: A Candidate-System Approach, Psychological Science, 21 (9) 1282-1290. DOI:

de Moor, M., Costa, P., Terracciano, A., Krueger, R., de Geus, E., Toshiko, T., Penninx, B., Esko, T., Madden, P., Derringer, J. & Amin, N. (2010). Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for personality, Molecular Psychiatry, 17 (3) 337-349. DOI:

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Psychology | Social Science
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November 30, 2012

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9:00 AM | Friday Fun: Psychology at the Movies III
www.imdb.com It's been a few months since we last discussed movies on PYM. Since my spouse and I moved to Chambana, we have had a lot of time to enjoy $5.50 movie nights at the local cinema. Yeah, you read that right, movie tickets are sold on the cheap out here in the Midwest! As in my previous posts examining psychological constructs in movies, I'll proceed by describing what happens in a film--roughly from my own memory--and then I will link those events to a construct studied […]

Kraus MW, Piff PK, Mendoza-Denton R, Rheinschmidt ML & Keltner D (2012). Social class, solipsism, and contextualism: How the rich are different from the poor., Psychological review, 119 (3) 546-72. PMID:

Seery, M. (2011). Resilience: A Silver Lining to Experiencing Adverse Life Events?, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20 (6) 390-394. DOI:

Swann, W., de la Ronde, C. & Hixon, J. (1994). Authenticity and positivity strivings in marriage and courtship., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66 (5) 857-869. DOI:

van IJzendoorn, M. (1995). Adult attachment representations, parental responsiveness, and infant attachment: A meta-analysis on the predictive validity of the Adult Attachment Interview., Psychological Bulletin, 117 (3) 387-403. DOI:

Psych Your Mind
Psychology | Social Science
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November 10, 2012

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7:23 PM | Another Lay Theory of Success in Graduate School
source My first semester as a member of the faculty at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (referred to affectionately as Chambana) is coming to an end. Arriving with the Winter, is an important time in my new job--the time for graduate school applications. As a new faculty member, this will be my first chance guide the academic future of a new research career, from admission to dissertation. That's heavy! This event made me think: What the heck am I looking for in a graduate […]

Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk, Econometrica, 47 (2) 263. DOI:

ROBERTS, B., CHERNYSHENKO, O., STARK, S. & GOLDBERG, L. (2005). THE STRUCTURE OF CONSCIENTIOUSNESS: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION BASED ON SEVEN MAJOR PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRES, Personnel Psychology, 58 (1) 103-139. DOI:

Flynn, F., Reagans, R., Amanatullah, E. & Ames, D. (2006). Helping one's way to the top: Self-monitors achieve status by helping others and knowing who helps whom., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91 (6) 1123-1137. DOI:

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Psychology | Social Science
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October 28, 2012

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9:36 PM | Obama or Romney? Leave the decision to your parents!
Tell your parents that obedience  is overrated! (source) Whenever I teach a group of undergraduates I always hope that I will be shaping their young political minds in meaningful ways. I hope that our discussions in class will open their eyes to the various and important social issues of our time, and maybe lead to greater awareness of injustice, unfairness, and inequality in society. I've often thought that this is my most important role as a Professor. I also think that this is one of […]

Fraley, R., Griffin, B., Belsky, J. & Roisman, G. (2012). Developmental Antecedents of Political Ideology: A Longitudinal Investigation From Birth to Age 18 Years, Psychological Science, DOI:

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Psychology | Social Science
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October 19, 2012

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12:27 PM | Friday Fun: Oxytocin and the Zombie Apocalypse
I got your oxytocin right here! (source) If you've been watching AMC's riveting series about zombie apocalypse, the Walking Dead, then you're probably into blood and guts like me. You might also be watching because you're interested in the moral dilemmas that the characters face during each twist and turn of fate. As the misfortune adds up and the body count rises, some of the most honest and trustworthy people must do some pretty terrible things all in the name of survival! […]

De Dreu CK, Greer LL, Handgraaf MJ, Shalvi S, Van Kleef GA, Baas M, Ten Velden FS, Van Dijk E & Feith SW (2010). The neuropeptide oxytocin regulates parochial altruism in intergroup conflict among humans., Science (New York, N.Y.), 328 (5984) 1408-11. PMID:

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Psychology | Social Science
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September 30, 2012

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3:01 PM | Science Utopia (Continued): Methods Integrity Workshop
"Winter is coming." --Ned Stark/Greg Francis On Friday afternoon I attended a seminar in methods integrity in research (here). The speakers were Hal Pashler of UC San Diego and Greg Francis of Purdue University. In the seminar, the speakers raised a number of interesting points that I think add to last week's post on PYM about questionable research practices (here). I'll summarize the main points that I took from the seminar: Read More-> […]

Francis G (2012). Evidence that publication bias contaminated studies relating social class and unethical behavior., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109 (25) PMID:

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Psychology | Social Science
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September 24, 2012

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6:33 PM | Science Utopia: Some Thoughts About Ethics and Publication Bias
Science Utopia, next exit Psychology's integrity in the public eye has been rocked by recent high profile discoveries of data fabrication (here, here, and here) and several independent realizations that psychologists (this is not unique to our field) tend to engage in data analytic practices that allow researchers to find positive results (here, here, and here). While it can be argued that these are not really new realizations (here), the net effect has turned psychologists to the […]

Simmons JP, Nelson LD & Simonsohn U (2011). False-positive psychology: undisclosed flexibility in data collection and analysis allows presenting anything as significant., Psychological science, 22 (11) 1359-66. PMID:

John, L., Loewenstein, G. & Prelec, D. (2012). Measuring the prevalence of questionable research practices with incentives for truth telling., Psychological Science, 23 524-532. DOI:

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Psychology | Social Science
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September 10, 2012

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1:17 AM | Status Hierarchies: Do We Need Them?
Emile Durkheim (source) I have been studying the topic of social status ever since I started my graduate training. That was in 2004 when George W. Bush was starting his second term as President, Clint Eastwood was busy winning an Oscar for best picture (Million Dollar Baby), and Lindsay Lohan wasn’t a punchline. In all of that time I hadn’t ever considered the question of whether society needs social hierarchies in the first place? That is, do we really need to rank ourselves in […]

Tracy JL & Matsumoto D (2008). The spontaneous expression of pride and shame: evidence for biologically innate nonverbal displays., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105 (33) 11655-60. PMID:

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Psychology | Social Science
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August 27, 2012

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1:45 AM | A Game of Thrones: Lessons About Status II
Lord Varys, the eunuch (source) This week is my first week of teaching a new course at the University of Illinois. The course is called "Power, Status, and Influence" and so far I've finished preparing about 80% of the lecture materials. I'm pretty excited about the topic and I think (hope?) the students will be as well. In my last post about the course I mentioned considering the popular George R. R. Martin fantasy novel "A Game of Thrones" (now filming its […]

Mazur A & Booth A (1998). Testosterone and dominance in men., The Behavioral and brain sciences, 21 (3) 353. PMID:

Psych Your Mind
Psychology | Social Science
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