Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• Metaphorical Conflict Shapes Social Perception When Spatial and Ideological...

  Kleiman et al. do some intriguing experiments. I give you their abstract first, which doesn't actually say how they did the experiments, and then give you some... Read more

  Posted on 20 April 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Political Polarization and Prejudice.

  Yesterday's post dealt with softening prejudicial attitudes towards transgender people. This is relevant to prejudice rising from the right versus left politica... Read more

  Posted on 19 April 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How to Change Prejudice...for Real This Time

  John Bohannon summarizes the interesting story of two researchers, who after finding that a study on reversing homophobia was based on fake data, went ahead to... Read more

  Posted on 18 April 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Correlates of How the Risk Taking of Others Influences Our Own Risk Taking

  From Suzuki et al., another upstairs/downstairs story. Risk is represented in the caudate nucleus (downstairs), the risk activity of others is represented in th... Read more

  Posted on 15 April 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Evolutionary Origins of Smiles, Laughter, and Tears.

  Graziano suggests that our smile originated in the defensive reaction of monkeys to other monkeys moving into their personal space. He then proceeds to make... Read more

  Posted on 12 April 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Another List - "Keys to Happiness"

  The New York Times has done a simple list of pointers to basic articles and research on well being. I'm passing on a few of the items from a condensed version... Read more

  Posted on 11 April 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Succinct List of Some of Our Common Psychological Errors.

  I want to point to Belsky's article on why we think we are better decision makers under uncertainty than we really are. He summarizes several common... Read more

  Posted on 08 April 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Muscle Mass and Nerve Control Enhanced in Octogenarian Athletes.

  Power et al. expand their earlier studies on active runners ~65 years old to find ~14% greater muscle mass and ~28% more functioning motor nerve units in... Read more

  Posted on 07 April 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Why Sad Music Can Make Us Feel Good.

  As an update to a previous MindBlog post on why we like sad music, I want to note Ojiaku's brief mention of several articles on this subject. Sad music might... Read more

  Posted on 06 April 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Social Gene

  I want to pass on some clips from Joseph's Swift's review of a book, " The Society of Genes" by Yanai and Lercher that updates Richard Dawkins's classic "The... Read more

  Posted on 05 April 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Pterostilbene Anti-aging Supplement - Undesirable Side Effects

  In a January 15 MindBlog post, I noted the start of my most recent foray into supplements meant to have salutary effects on energy, mind, body, longevity,... Read more

  Posted on 04 April 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Are We All Sexists and Racists?

  I want to point to Miller's review of work of Levanon et al., as well as other studies, showing that that when women have moved into occupations in large... Read more

  Posted on 01 April 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Another Social Science, Economics, Looks at Itself.

  Mindblog recently noted a large study that tested the replicability of studies in psychology journals. Only 36% of the findings were repeated. The quality of... Read more

  Posted on 31 March 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Overkill in Techno-aids for 'Mens Sana in Corpore Sano'

  None of us would argue with the 'sound mind in a sound body' injunction from Juvenal's Latin satires (~100 AD), a goal that can be accomplished by diligent... Read more

  Posted on 30 March 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Pictures of Green Spaces Make You Happier.

  Reynolds points to work by van den Berg et al. showing that viewing pictures of green versus built urban areas enhances parasympathetic nervous system activity... Read more

  Posted on 22 March 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Impatience, Aging, and Leukocyte Telomere Length.

  Yim et al. note in young college volunteers a correlation between a chemical marker of biological aging (leukocyte telomere length, abbr. LTL) and impatience... Read more

  Posted on 18 March 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Our Brains Remember the Good Stuff.

  Anderson et al. show how our brains are attracted to items that have pleased us in the past, even if they are no longer relevant. People in a study were asked t... Read more

  Posted on 15 March 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Games and Driving Safely.

  I've done a number of posts on brain games (cf. here, here, and here) and their critics. When I overcome my lassitude and occasionally return to dink with one o... Read more

  Posted on 14 March 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brahms Waltzes Op. 39, Nos. 1,13,14

  Recorded on my Steinway B, now in my Fort Lauderdale condo. I did this piece in recitals in Madison WI and Fort Lauderdale in the past 6 months, and now have... Read more

  Posted on 11 March 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• New Nerve Cells in the Brain Generated Best by Sustained Aerobic Exercise

  Nokia et al. show, in rats, that aerobic exercise is much more effective than high-intensity interval training or resistance training in enhancing generation... Read more

  Posted on 04 March 2016 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE