If you want to predict how well someone might perform in a new job, you might want to enquire about their views on whether we are free to choose are own actions. A delightful study just published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science found that belief in free will predicted job performance better [...]
10 Vote(s)
August 20, 2010
Determined to fail: free will and work success
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July 3, 2010
The mighty fortress of belief
Bad Science has an excellent piece on the psychology of how we deal with evidence that challenges our cherished beliefs. Needless to say, our most common reaction is to try and undermine the evidence rather than adjust our beliefs.The classic paper on the last of those strategies is from Lord in 1979: they took two groups of people, one in favour of the death penalty, the other against it, and th
17 Vote(s)
17 Vote(s)
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June 3, 2010
Deep brain stimulation at two different targets gives similar motor benefits in Parkinson’s
In a major study, investigators have compared how individuals with Parkinson's disease respond to deep brain stimulation (DBS) at two different sites in the brain. Contrary to current belief, patients who received DBS at either site in the brain experienced comparable benefits for the motor symptoms of Parkinson's.
14 Vote(s)
14 Vote(s)
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May 25, 2010
A belief in flexible intelligence
The Chronicle of Higher Education has an excellent piece about psychologist Carol Dweck's work which has highlighted how what you believe about intelligence has an effect on how you perform.Dwecks's work has garnered a great deal of attention and her main findings have suggested that children praised for their 'hard work' do significantly better when challenged with difficult problem that those w
5 Vote(s)
5 Vote(s)
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February 23, 2010
Belief in a caring god improves response to medical treatment for depression, study finds
In patients diagnosed with clinical depression, belief in a concerned god can improve response to medical treatment, according to a new paper.
13 Vote(s)
13 Vote(s)
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January 27, 2010
Time flew by … I must have been enjoying myself
Have you ever been in the cinema and felt the time drag? It's happened to me. A glance at my watch and then the thought that I can't be enjoying the film all that much or else the time would surely have flown. My experience matches the findings from a series of studies by Aaron Sackett and colleagues. The folk psychology belief 'time flies when you're having fun' is so powerful and ubiquitous, th
20 Vote(s)
20 Vote(s)
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December 27, 2009
What We’re Like in 2010
Americans in 2010:Belief in psychiatric illness and diagnosis is a pervasive fact of life. We think nothing of hearing people announce they are bipolar to explain why their lives are off track and why they are unhappy. This, after years of watching televised ads about depression - could that be you and I? It's as though a single polarized condition were no longer enough to describe our emoti
9 Vote(s)
9 Vote(s)
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December 16, 2009
Why belief in free will is important: its pro-social and moral implications
I recently stumbled upon the Psychology Today blog of Roy F Baumeiester and went through some lively blog posts that were exchanged between him and other PT bloggers especially John Bargh on the issue of free will. Thoise exchanges are worth reading by themselves and are highly recommeneded.This post meanwhile is not about whether free will exists or not [...]Rating: 0.0/10 (0
10 Vote(s)
10 Vote(s)
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September 9, 2009
Dismantling cognitive processing therapy (CPT): How we can determine which components of an empirically supported treatment for PTSD are most useful
by Michael D. Anestis, M.S. An interesting interaction in the comment section on the recent "bad science" article got me thinking about today's topic: dismantling studies. When we design treatments, our underlying belief is that each aspect of treatment contributes...
6 Vote(s)
6 Vote(s)
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June 29, 2009
Teens Who Believe They’ll Die Young Are More Likely To Engage In Risky Behavior
Researchers found that one in seven adolescents believe that it is highly likely that they will die before age 35, and this belief predicted that the adolescents' would engage in risky behaviors.
16 Vote(s)
16 Vote(s)
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