Why Automatic Stereotyping Happens

A recent Cognitive Daily post pointed me to an interesting-looking study on implicit stereotyping. It argues that executive function (the ability to control our actions) may play some role in implicit racism. I should read the actual article someday. Here is the reference:

Payne, B.K. (2005). Conceptualizing control in social cognition: How executive functioning modulates the functioning of automatic stereotyping. Personality and Social Psychology, 89(4), 488-503.

This may be useful for me in stuff I’ve been thinking about involving individual differences as moderators of implicit biases (or other implicit stuff). By my constant use of the word “stuff”, it’s obvious that this is stuff I’m only beginning to think about right now.

Believing You Can Get Smarter Makes You Smarter

Interesting little article about how believing that intelligence is malleable actually improved peoples’ grades. Cites research by Aronson and colleagues.  Of course, an improvement in grades doesn’t mean improvement in intelligence (things like motivation and self esteem probably play a big role here), so the title is a bit misleading. Still, interesting stuff, with some practical implications and ethical issues to think about.

Believing You Can Get Smarter Makes You Smarter 

Mysterious ‘Neural Noise’ Actually Primes Brain for Peak Performance

Here is a science blog article describing research on how the “noisy” nature of neurons in the brain may actually explain how we do all sorts of complicated Bayesian reasoning instantly. Neat.

Neural Noise Primes Brain for Peak Performance

Books Mentioning the Mere Exposure Effect

Mostly for a paper for a class that I have to do. I’m considering something on the “mere exposure effect”. These books mention it in one context or another.

• Cognitive illusions : a handbook on fallacies and biases in thinking, judgement and memory / edited by Rüdiger F. Pohl.
  
• Experiments with people : revelations from social psychology / Robert P. Abelson, Kurt P. Frey, Aiden P. Gregg.
• New directions in aesthetics, creativity, and the arts / edited by Paul Locher, Colin Martindale, Leonid Dorfman.
• Perception without awareness : cognitive, clinical, and social perspectives / edited by Robert F. Bornstein, Thane S. Pittman.

The Future is Now – Dean Radin

Brief review of “intuitions” for future events, especially with skin resistance studies.  (Scroll down halfway through article).
Radin – The Future is Now

Trends in Cognitive Ability (Flynn Effect) – Teasdale & Owen

Examining the Flynn effect in Danish participants.  What’s most interesting to me is the speculation that video games may be responsible for an increase in spatial abilities.  They’re not so bad after all.
Trends in Cognitive Ability (Flynn Effect) – Teasdale & Owen

Self-Percieved Intuitiveness – Rogers & Wiseman

They label this as an “initial” exploration, but intuition has been studied quite a bit. They take a different approach, though, and this looks like it’s worth reading. Wiseman has been skeptical of parapsychology in the past, but unlike many skeptics, actually does research to test his debunkings. That’s the way to do it.

self-perceived-intuitiveness.pdf