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In case you missed them – 10 of the best psychology links from the past week.

03 May 2013

By Christian Jarrett

1.  Ferris Jabr for Scientific American on a fascinating study conducted on the streets of New York into people’s private conversations with themselves – their internal stream of consciousness. (see also).

2.  The New York Times published an in-depth back story and interview with social psychology fraudster Diederik Stapel. Includes the revelation that Stapel wore suits as a grad student – a warning sign if I ever I heard one! (What do you think of the author Yudhijit Bhattacharjee’s suggestion that Stapel’s fraud is on a continuum with questionable research practices in psychology? Psychologist Dave Nussbaum took to his blog to disagree strongly. Update: Pete Etchells has also blogged about this today).

3. Nature News reported on a new row that’s erupted in the field of social priming research, this one concerning the purported idea that exposure to the “professor” concept boosts people’s intellectual performance (check out the discussion in the comments beneath the report).

4. The last two items may give the impression that social psychology is in crisis. Gary Marcus wrote a welcome counterpoint in the New Yorker: “The crisis in social psychology that isn’t“. And if psychology needs more cheering up – two psychologists were voted as among the top ten thinkers in the world – wahoo!

5. A brand new series of BBC Radio 4’s flagship psychology programme All in the Mind began this week. I was lucky enough to appear as a guest to discuss new psychology research. Also on the programme – what happens when doomsday prophets find their predictions are wrong?

6. For the Guardian, novelist and psychologist Charles Fernyhough asked: How much and in what way is neuroscience permeating literary fiction?  (see also).

7. Schizophrenic. Killer. My Cousin. An in-depth, moving article that highlights the cost of not helping those with serious mental illness.

8. Neurobonkers interviews the authors of the recent paper exposing the serious power failure in neuroscience. (Here’s the Digest report on the original paper).

9. A study published in open-access journal Plos One that claimed fist clenching affects memory has come under severe attack, sparking questions about the quality of open access journals and the virtues of post-publication peer review. (see this too from Neurocritic).

10. It’s all been a bit serious this week – to round-off on a lighter note, here’s a sardonic look at the 10 worst examples of management speak.