Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

In 2001, Air Transat Flight 236 lost engine power and made an emergency landing in the Azores. All passengers survived, but for 30 terrifying minutes, many thought they were going to die. Writing for Wired, Erika Hayasaki has the fascinating story of one of those passengers, Margaret McKinnon, a psychologist who then went on to study why some survivors developed PTSD and others did not — and who is now looking at the mental health of frontline workers during the pandemic.  

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

In a fascinating sleep study, researchers have managed to “talk” to people in lucid dreams. Dreamers were given simple yes/no questions or asked to do basic arithmetic, and had to respond by moving their eyes and facial muscles. Several participants were able to correctly answer the questions in their sleep. The researchers hope that this new method will ultimately improve our understanding of sleep and consciousness, writes Claire Cameron at Inverse.

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

Plenty of work suggests that we have a “reminiscence bump” for music, tending to preferentially recall songs from our teenage years and young adulthood. Now a new study has found that while music from these years is indeed more familiar, it’s not always the case that we like it more. Younger participants in particular didn’t show a strong preference for music from their youth. “This suggests that songs from our adolescence can become closely entangled with memories from our past even if we don’t personally value the music,” writes researcher Kelly Jakubowski at The Conversation.

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

Instead of putting on a brave face in front of your kids, you might want to consider putting on a “brave voice”. That’s according to research from Paddy Ross and team, who find that children tend to focus on the emotion in people’s voices more than the emotion in their body language. Ross describes the work at The Conversation.

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

Swearing, drinking, or making social transgressions are not behaviours we generally think of as good. But in some cases, these kinds of “bad” behaviours can have benefits, both for ourselves and others. Richard Stephens explains why at The Conversation.

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

Humans process and recognise faces as a whole, rather than by examining individual features. Now new work suggests that some species of wasp also process faces in this “holistic” fashion, reports Cathleen O’Grady at Science Magazine. Golden paper wasps were better at recognising other wasps when shown pictures of the whole face rather than just part of it, the researchers found.

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

Psychology is arguably the poster child for the replication crisis, but other fields suffer from similar issues too. At Science, Cathleen O’Grady examines the efforts by ecologists to tackle their own field’s reproducibility problems, and how they are learning from the experience of psychologists.

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

An interview technique known as “Asymmetric Information Management” provides a pretty effective way to spot liars, writes researcher Cody Porter at The Conversation. The method basically involves explaining to the interviewee that it will be easier to figure out if they are lying or telling the truth if they provide longer, more detailed statements, Porter explains. Liars will tend to withhold information to try and hide their lie, while truth-tellers will provide detailed information as requested.

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

A recent study finds political differences in how much stock people put in expert evidence versus personal experience. Liberals tend to see evidence from experts as more legitimate, while conservatives place more equal value on both, write the researchers Randy Stein, Alexander Swan and Michelle Sarraf at The Conversation.  This was true even though the scenarios in the study were completely apolitical, the team adds, suggesting that the findings pick up on fundamental differences in worldview between the two camps.

Our weekly round-up of the best psychology coverage from elsewhere on the web

Christmas is likely to be very different this year, with many family reunions potentially taking place remotely. But why do we struggle so much with the idea of a “digital Christmas”?  David Robson takes a look at what the psychology has to say at The Observer.