2013-07-07 ~ Download Free Books Online

Clinical psychology trainees outperform experienced therapists on knowledge and skills

Conducted in Germany, this study pitched undergrad psychology students, postgrad clinical psychology trainees and experienced psychological therapists against each other on tests of psychological knowledge and skills. The slightly worrying result is that the trainees aced it, outperforming not just the students (on most tests) but also the experienced therapists. "The picture is not so bright" for the seasoned therapists, the researchers said. "Our results point to a decrease in knowledge and variability in clinical competence."

The research led by Sabine Vollmer had two parts. The first involved 55 novice, intermediate and advanced students, 15 graduate trainee therapists, and 15 experienced therapists who'd been working in the profession for at least 10 years. In terms of basic psychological knowledge, it was the students who came out on top, presumably because they were currently immersed in learning the basics of the discipline. In applying

Girls' and boys' brains respond differently to funny videos

13:23 No comments

When exposed to humour, women's brains exhibit more activity than men's in reward-related regions. Some experts say this is consistent with an idea derived from evolutionary theory that women are predisposed to be humour appreciators whereas men are humour producers. According to this view, women use a man's comedic skills as a way to appraise his genetic fitness.

An obvious objection here is with the word "predisposed". Who's to say whether these gender differences

Men with friends assume an aggressor is small and wimpy

13:21 No comments

It's usually a good idea to back away from physical confrontation with an aggressor who is bigger and stronger than you. However, there are other factors to take into account. Perhaps you're a ninja? Maybe you're bigger than the nasty person, but they're armed. You're alone whereas they have a band of thugs with them, and so on.

According to Daniel Fessler and Colin Holbrook the central role of conflict in human history has led to us becoming expert at making these judgments. Rather than considering each factor in turn, our representation of the odds of a winning a fight is summarised efficiently in a sense of the physical dominance of our would-be opponent.

The researchers tested this idea on the streets of Santa Monica California. They approached 149 men who were either on their own or in a group of 2 to 7 friends. Each participant was taken to one side and shown a picture of a turbaned, bearded terrorist pointing a gun. The photo was cropped so the aggressor's physical size was hidden. The participants were asked to estimate his physical size and muscularity (the terrorist and rating scales are shown above).

The key finding was that participants with one or more friends tended to estimate that the terrorist was

The 100+ most followed psychologists and neuroscientists on Twitter

13:20 No comments

Here are the 100+ most followed psychologists and neuroscientists on Twitter based on follower counts recorded over the last few weeks. If we've missed anyone who should be here, please let us know via comments and we'll add them in. This is an update to our September 2011 post "Psychologists who Tweet". Check the comments to that earlier post for even more psychologists on Twitter than we were able to include here.

Andrew Mendonsa. Clinical psychologist. Followers: 688276
Kiki Sanford. Neurophysiologist turned sci communicator. Followers: 150106
Sam Harris. Neuroscientist, author. Followers: 142451
Richard Wiseman. Psychologist, blogger and author. Followers: 121261
Laura Kauffman. Child psychologist. Followers: 106623
Steven Pinker. Evolutionary psychologist, author. Followers: 74775
George Huba. Psychologist. Followers: 53644
Leah Klungness. Author and psychologist. Followers: 53063
Dolors Reig. Social psychologist (tweets in Spanish). Followers: 51383
Oliver Sacks. Neurologist and author. Followers: 50504
Dan Ariely. Behavioural Economist, author. Followers: 49533
Travis Langley. Psychologist. Followers: 33621

Women's true maths skills unlocked by pretending to be someone else

13:18 No comments

There's an unfounded gender stereotype that says women aren't as good at maths as men. Reminding them of this prior to a maths task usually undermines their performance - just one example of a harmful phenomenon known as stereotype threat.

Research finds the threat comes in two flavours. Women can fear their poor performance will be used to bolster the "women are weak at maths" gender stereotype (known as "group-reputation threat"). Or they can fear that their poor performance will be taken as proof that they conform to the stereotype ("self-reputation threat"). Both can undermine women's ability to fulfil their true potential.

A new study shows a simple way to alleviate the self-reputational aspect of stereotype threat. Shen Zhang and her team tested 110 women and 72 men (all were undergrads) on 30 multiple-choice maths questions. To ramp up the stereotype threat, the participants were told that men usually outperform women on maths performance. Crucially, some of the participants completed the test after writing their own name at the top of the test paper, whereas the others completed the test under one of four aliases (Jacob Tyler, Scott Lyons, Jessica Peterson, or

How weak arguments can make a more effective call to arms than strong arguments

13:16 No comments

We often think of persuasion in terms of converting people to our side of an argument. Just as important in many contexts is the need to inspire supporters to do more to help a cause they already believe in. In a new paper, Omair Akhtar and his colleagues provide evidence here for a counter-intuitive principle - they say that presenting people with weak arguments for a cause they already believe makes for a more powerful call to arms than presenting them with strong arguments.

In an initial study, 165 US citizens were presented with either weak or strong arguments made by other voters in favour of Barack Obama's re-election as President. Among the participants who were already supportive of Obama, exposure to the weak rather than strong arguments led them to say they had more intention to persuade other people to vote for Obama. This association was mediated by their feeling more confident about their own persuasive powers. It's as if seeing the poor quality of arguments made by other pro-Obama voters had inspired them to feel they had a valuable contribution to make to the cause. The intentions of anti-Obama participants were unaffected by the strength of the pro-Obama arguments.

Further studies sought to test the limits of this counter-intuitive principle. In one, pro-Obama participants

Link feast

13:15 No comments

In case you missed them - 10 of the best psychology links from the past week:

1. Social psychologist Daniel Wegner has left the building. Famed for his research into thought suppression, Wegner also made great strides in other areas. Dan Gilbert describes him in this obituary as modern psychology's "most original thinker". Get the t-shirt. Here's a Boston Globe obit and here's a Digest report on Dan Wegner's 2011 paper that suggested the internet is becoming an external hard-drive for the mind.

2. How to help every child fulfil their potential. Psychologist Carol Dweck spoke at the RSA on Monday and her talk is now on YouTube. 3. BBC Two's Horizon programme focused on the science of personality


07:36 pm	04:12 am	11 July	1
07:35 pm	04:13 am	12 July	2
07:35 pm	04:13 am	13 July	3
07:35 pm	04:14 am	14 July	4
07:35 pm	04:15 am	15 July	5
07:35 pm	04:15 am	16 July	6
07:34 pm	04:16 am	17 July	7
07:34 pm	04:16 am	18 July	8
07:34 pm	04:17 am	19 July	9
07:33 pm	04:18 am	20 July	10
07:33 pm	04:18 am	21 July	11
07:32 pm	04:19 am	22 July	12
07:32 pm	04:20 am	23 July	13
07:32 pm	04:20 am	24 July	14
07:31 pm	04:21 am	25 July	15
07:31 pm	04:22 am	26 July	16
07:30 pm	04:22 am	27 July	17
07:30 pm	04:23 am	28 July	18
07:29 pm	04:24 am	29 July	19
07:29 pm	04:24 am	30 July	20
07:28 pm	04:25 am	31 July	21
07:27 pm	04:26 am	01 August	22
07:27 pm	04:26 am	02 August	23
07:26 pm	04:27 am	03 August	24
07:26 pm	04:28 am	04 August	25
07:25 pm	04:28 am	05 August	26
07:24 pm	04:29 am	06 August	27
07:24 pm	04:30 am	07 August	28
07:23 pm	04:30 am	08 August	29
07:22 pm	04:31 am	09 August	30