Description: Psychology has a recurrent problem. Well, perhaps, it may be better to say that western (North American) Psychology, despite its commitment to empiricism and scientific objectivity, is a product of its culture. Try this thought on for size: Western Psychology strongly prefers to see the individual (singular person) as its unit of analysis. One… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Social Perception
Mindfulness and Social Exclusion: Overcoming the Impact of Being Banish’d
Description: Think back (perhaps back to your grade school days) and think of a time or situation where you got left out by your peers, where you did not get invited to a birthday party or asked to play in a recess game. How did that make you feel? Does that sort of thing not… Read more »
Texting Research: Way Beyond Good versus Evil
Description: Quick! Answer this question off the top of your head: Is texting good or bad? Well, assuming your mind did not leap to issues arising from presidential tweets your yes or no answer likely reflected your personal preferences regarding texts or perhaps the Psychological researcher in you suggested that the question was too simplistic… Read more »
What Can a One Word Turing Test Tell Us About What it Means to be Human (or Not)?
Description: You have likely heard about the Turing test that is intended as a means of testing whether the entity one is conversing with via typed messages is a human being or an artificial intelligence (a computer program). Alan Turing argued that if a program seemed to those corresponding with it to be “human” then… Read more »
Bragging, Humblebragging, or Social Honesty: Which Tactic is Best?
Description: What do you think about people who brag? What about people to sneak their bragging into the conversation either by complaining (People give me such a hard time because I make them look bad) or by hardly masking it with humble statements (Why am I always asked to work on the most important assignments?)…. Read more »
EQ: What is it? Should you get more?
Description: In VERY general terms what makes you successful and happy in the world? Is being smart important? Well you would think IQ should or could help and in many ways, it certainly contributes BUT it is NOT the best predictor of career success and wellbeing and general life happiness. I suspect you know or… Read more »
Body Language and Cultural Complexity: How Important is a Nod?
Description: Here is a good example of how we need to think a bit when we are going to try and conduct research into something like a social behaviour that we are fairly sure we already understand completely. If you were having a conversation with someone and, throughout the conversation while you were speaking they… Read more »
Why Is Keeping a Secret Hard on Us?
Description: OK so you are an open and honest individual right? Of course you are. But do you have any secrets from anyone? Come along, be honest! Keeping secrets from other people comes with a toll. The easy thing to say is that it is hard work to keep a secret and that is likely… Read more »
Xenophobia and Social Stigma: A Loss of Control/Balance?
Description: Xenophobia involves an intense dislike and/or fear of people from other countries. What sorts of factors keep people from thinking xenophobic thoughts, expressing xenophobic views or acting in xenophobically hateful or dangerous ways? Well, morality and rationality would, we hope, play something of a limiting role in this but another big factor are the… Read more »
Profile Pictures: Who Should Pick Yours?
Description: OK your new dating site profile is almost ready to go, or your new professional network or social network posting is ready to go and all you have to do is add a profile picture. You have 12 pictures of yourself to choose from. Who should pick the one you post you or a… Read more »
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