In-Mind Blog

Bullying is a pervasive issue in schools today. This is one of two blog posts that will look at school aggression from the perspective of contemporary social psychology. In this post, I'll examine the role of groups in encouraging bullying. In my next post, I'll look at the perspective of the bullied victims. When it comes to bullying, it seems that groups can both be a part of the problem and the solution. more

Where do all the studies come from? Behind every headline trumpeting a new finding in psychology, you can usually find an article in a peer-reviewed psychology journal. But how reliable are these findings? This is what many scientists have recently started to wonder. Because of this, journals in psychology are starting to insist on better reporting of research studies. In this first post of a two-part series, I will explain some of the standards that have typically been used to judge whether a study deserves publication or not. more

As a world without colors would be extremely boring, we are luckily able to perceive various different colors that enrich our environment. Recently, Keiko Ishii and colleagues found that the colors we prefer and use for our paintings vary systematically across cultures. But that doesn’t mean that tomorrow’s multi-cultural world is becoming black-and-white or grey, rather there is hope that it will become even more colorful than it is today. In this post, we will illustrate how individuals and cultures engage in mutual construction and thus enhance variety. more

In this blog post, I will discuss research showing how framing ethnic inequality in terms of White advantage versus minority disadvantage impacts how Whites and minorities understand inequality and thus how we should address inequality. more

My previous blog post covered new research showing that liberals and conservatives are prejudiced against one another to an equal degree. In this post, I will review evidence that liberals’ and conservatives’ prejudices lead them to dehumanize their political opponents—that is, to see them as less than human. more

In August 2000, global superstar Madonna released the single “Music” from her soon to be hit album. Other than the brilliant lyrics “Do you like to Boogie woogie”, you might remember that one of the lines in the chorus was “Music makes the people come together.” In this post, I will discuss the social psychological research, which suggests that she was more right then even she must have thought. more