In the Driver's Seat: Need to Belong, The
The need for acceptance-the need to bond with friends and family-is a not unique to humans, as experiments have shown. People cannot survive or thrive without other people. If you procreate but do not caregive, your genes will not make it into the g...
Stressed to the Limit: Cognitive Buffers Against Stress
Several cognitive factors appear to immunize people against the damaging effects of stressful events. If your environment is predictable, or you have some degree of control over it, fewer negative psychological responses tend to occur. Social suppor...
Different Strokes: Mitigating the Distrust Associated with Prejudice
Most people would like to believe that they're not prejudiced, that they don't hold unjustified negative attitudes toward the members of out groups. Mahzarin Banaji illustrates how the use of the Implicit Association Test can help people realize...
Different Strokes: Differences that Define and Separate People
As humans we share a common heritage and face common problems. Yet the differences that help define who we are-our culture, our gender, our race-often separate us in ways that are both cognitive and social. Humans are cognitive misers who distil...
Endless Questions: Scientific Method, The
Research studies require measurements that can be replicated Deciding what to measure often begins with an idea or hunch and the development of an hypothesis. Researchers must create operational definitions, specifying how variables will be mea...
People to People: Importance of Group Membership
Membership in a group is of great significance to most people. One of the first things groups do is develop a socially shared definition of who they are, what their purpose is, what their vocabulary is and their social structure. It's natural for pe...