WEIRD Studies And Psychedelic Experiences: The Week ’s Best Psychology Links

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web Psychologists have long recognised that the field has a bias towards studying people from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies. But how much is actually being done to correct this bias? Not enough, according to the experts interviewed by Michael Schulson in a story for Undark. This week the government announced plans to use lie-detector tests with convicted terrorists who have been released from prison. There’s just one problem, reports Hannah Devlin in The Guardian — they don’t work. While polygraphs can reveal when someone is physiologically aroused — when they’re stressed, for example — research has shown that they do not provide a reliable indication that someone is lying. Procrastination isn’t a failure of time management — it’s an issue with managing our emotions, writes Christian Jarrett at BBC Worklife. Researchers have found that we procrastinate because there is something aversive about the task we should be working on (perhaps it’s just boring, for example), so by doing something else we get a fleeting boost to our mood — though it’s clearly not a useful long-term strategy. The latest findings of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study have been published. The survey of more than 3,000 11-, 13- and 15-year olds in England — part of a larger international collaboration run by the World Health Organization — fo...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Weekly links Source Type: blogs