Under the Cortex

Exploration and Risk-Taking: Hallmarks of Adolescence That Increase Well-Being

Exploration is a fundamental human behavior. Exploring our environment can promote the acquisition of knowledge by exposing us to novelty. Adolescence is a prime time to explore, take risks, and learn, but why is exploration so enticing—and so rewarding—in the lives of teenagers and young adults? 

 

The role of exploration and risk taking in sustaining adolescent well-being and establishing social connectivity is the topic of  a recent article published in Psychological Science. In this podcast, you’ll hear from the two psychological scientists who wrote this article, Natalie Saragosa-Harris, of the University of California in Los Angeles, and Catherine Hartley, of New York University. They’ll talk with APS’s Ludmila Nunes about their examination of exploration patterns in adolescents and young adults. 

 

Talking With Birds: The Fascinating World of Avian Intelligence

Can birds be as intelligent as chimpanzees or dolphins? Can they communicate and use language like a child would? Can they even outsmart undergraduate students?  A line of research started more than 40 years ago continues to reveal new findings about parrots’ intelligence and even their ability to use English speech to communicate with humans. 

Irene Pepperberg, an APS Fellow and adjunct research professor at Boston University, pioneered the study of bird cognition back in the 70s and still studies the cognitive and communicative abilities of grey parrots, comparing their abilities with those of great apes,  dolphins, and young children. In this conversation with APS’s Ludmila Nunes, she speaks about research on parrots’ cognitive, their conservation and preservation in the wild, and much more. 

Learn more about this and other research at psychologicalscience.org. 

The September Collection: New Technology Can Be Scary, Why to Stop Worrying and Love the Eco-Apocalypse, and Much More

What determines how we feel about new technologies? Can an existential approach help us deal with apocalyptic fears about the climate crisis? And does having brothers or sisters influence our personality? New research in APS journals explores these questions and much more, including what makes a joke funny and how social support can prevent depression in breast-cancer survivors. In this episode of Under the Cortex, cognitive psychologist Ludmila Nunes and her colleague Amy Drew, APS’s Director of Publications, discuss five of the most interesting new articles from the APS journals. 

 

Learn more at psychologicalscience.org. 

Attitudes Improve for Sex and Race. Disability and Age? Not So Much

How did attitudes about race, sexuality, age, or disability change in the last decade or so? In the United States, it appears that bias decreased across all explicit attitudes, but implicit biases decreased only for certain attitudes, including sexuality and race. Moreover, biases have remained stable for variables such as age or disability. What can these patterns of change tell us about our society and the different nature of certain attitudes? 

  

Researchers examined more than 7 million implicit and explicit tests for an article published recently in Psychological Science. In this conversation, APS’s Ludmila Nunes speaks with APS member Tessa Charlesworth, the article’s lead author, an experimental psychologist, and currently a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University. 

 

To find your implicit attitudes about race, gender, sexual orientation, and other topics, check out the Project Implicit website at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/. 

 

To read the transcript, see here.

Self-Injury: Can the Internet Play a Positive Role?

Anywhere between 17% and 38% of adolescents and young adults engage in behaviors of nonsuicidal self-injury, defined as “the deliberate, self-inflicted damage of body tissue without suicidal intent.” These behaviors, which might include cutting, scratching, head-banging, and burning, sometimes help people cope with negative emotions or even serve to keep them from attempting actual suicide, but they can also pose real harms.  

  

A recent study in Clinical Psychological Science explores the role that online groups and e-communities can play in reducing the harm posed by nonsuicidal self-injury and in contributing to more effective treatments of this behavior. To speak about self-injury and how online communities might help, Emma Preston, an APS member and graduate student at the University of Southern California, joined APS’s Ludmila Nunes.  

  

To read the transcript, see here.

Love Lets Us Learn: Psychological Science Makes the Case for Policies That Help Children

Adverse early experiences, quite literally, can kill. In her latest presidential column for the APS Observer, APS President Alison Gopnik, who studies learning and development at the University of California, Berkeley, writes about the growing moral and scientific case for early childhood policies that can mitigate or prevent the effects of experiences such as poverty, physical or emotional neglect and abuse, and mental illness, addiction, and violence in the home. She reads her column in this episode. 

Underweight and Overexposed: How Women’s Perceptions of Thinness Are Distorted

How people judge others’ bodies might be influenced by what they are used to seeing in magazines, TV, or social media. Recent research suggests that women’s judgments about other women’s bodies can be biased by an overrepresentation of thinness.  

In a recent study published in Psychological Science, young women were more likely to judge bodies they had previously considered “normal” as overweight when they were repeatedly exposed to samples of computer-generated female bodies that became increasingly thin as a group. in which the percentage of thin bodies increased gradually. The lead author, Sean Devine, a graduate student in cognitive psychology at McGill University, explains these findings and elaborates on their implications for policy. 

To read the transcript, see here.  

 

The August Collection: Attitude Changes, Cognition in Lemurs, and Much More

How have our biases and attitudes changed in the last decade? Are there sex or gender differences in verbal skills? And do the impressions of personality we form from someone’s face depend on our culture? New research in APS journals explored these questions and much more, including ADHD, and cognitive control in lemurs. In this episode of Under the Cortex, cognitive psychologists Ludmila Nunes and Andy DeSoto discuss five of APS’s most interesting new articles. 

 

APS members get advance notice of all new research through our This Week in Psychological Science newsletter and may access the complete archive of APS journal articles. 

Learn more at psychologicalscience.org. 

A Paradox in the Field: Mental-Health Disorders Among Psychologists

It’s been estimated that at least one third of the population will experience mental disorders and difficulties in their lifetimes, from anxiety to depression. Those affected can be helped by people working in applied fields of psychological science, such as clinical psychology, counseling, or school psychology. But what do we know about the prevalence of mental-health difficulties among psychological scientists themselves—that is, among the same professionals who seek to understand and alleviate suffering in others due to mental disorders?  

To speak about mental health among psychologists and paths for future research, APS member Sarah Victor, a clinical psychologist and professor at the Texas Tech University, joined APS’s Ludmila Nunes. 

 

The July Collection: Five Research Briefs

What gives away a deceitful 911 caller who might have committed a crime? From a cross-cultural spin on the classic “marshmallow experiment” to deceitful 911 homicide calls to what true smiles do, new research in APS journals explores a broad range of topics, including visual memory and success. In this episode of Under the Cortex, APS’s Ludmila Nunes and Andy DeSoto—both of whom are psychological scientists themselves—discuss five of our most interesting new research papers. 

APS members get advance notice of all new research through our This Week in Psychological Science newsletter and may access the complete archive of APS journal articles.

Learn more at psychologicalscience.org.