This is In-Mind Magazine, the first free internet social psychology magazine. Check our Submission Guidelines to know how our peer-review process ensures quality.
Check the introduction to the articles below. Like what you read? Click the star to show it was worth the read! To comment, use the blue cloud. Web 2.0 users: buttons have been provided to show you love the article. For site updates, you can sign up to our newsletter on the right or subscribe to our RSS Feed.
Kaitlyn works Monday through Friday, 9-5. Sitting at her desk on Friday afternoon, Kaitlyn glances at the clock. It is 4:30 pm. The end of the workweek is a mere 30 minutes away. Visions of a relaxing weekend begin to creep in. And then, the phone rings. A distraught coworker is calling to ask for a big favor. His kids are really sick, he feels there’s no way he’s going to be able to prepare for an upcoming meeting on Monday, and he’s wondering if Kaitlyn might be able to run it for him. She’s not up-to-date on the agenda, so it is going to take a fair amount of time to prepare. If she agrees to help out, she can kiss her weekend goodbye. And no, there isn’t any direct reward for running the meeting. A thank you, maybe. A complimentary latte, perhaps. But she shouldn’t expect a big bonus in her next check. Kaitlyn is simply being asked to step up to the plate, be a good sport, and take one for the team. Will she agree? How might her answer change if she knew, for sure, that she had another job lined up and was about to leave the organization? In the present article, I address these questions by first introducing the concept of organizational citizenship behaviors and then summarizing a series of recent studies my colleagues Dishan Kamdar, Denise Daniels, Jane George-Falvy and Blythe Duell and I conducted on this topic.
Are African Americans really better at basketball than Caucasians? Are blonds really dumber than brunettes? Are women really worse at math than men? The short answer is yes. The longer answer is no. Let me explain by focusing on the stereotype that women can’t do math. At first glance, this stereotype seems to be true. For instance, men continue to outperform women on the math sections of the SAT and GRE, and men outnumber women in college math courses and math-related jobs. Surely this is evidence that women are not as good at math as men. But as this article will explain stereotypes are self-perpetuating and not only reflect but also cause performance differences between groups.
What is all the commotion about creativity? Whatever definition this vogue expression is dressed in, it has apparently captured the awareness of countless authorities for educational, economical, governmental and last but not least, scientific issues. Moreover, the media is filled with references to creativity or its synonyms. Ochse (1990), the author of a renowned book on the determinants of creative genius, contested that "our quality of life, perhaps our very survival as a species, depends on promoting creativity" (p. 33).
Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion. [John Welch, American businessman, former head of General Electric]
Vision is the key to understanding leadership, and real leaders have never lost the childlike ability to dream dreams… Vision is the blazing campfire around which people with gather. It provides light, energy, warmth and unity. [Bill Newman, Australian broadcaster]
The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion. [Theodore Hesburgh, former President of the University of Notre Dame].
Because power is something we often avoid discussing openly, its nonverbal communication is fascinating to lay people and psychologists alike. When directly asked, people interpret many different nonverbal signs as indicating high or low power – unfortunately, these ideas are often exaggerated and misguided. Likewise, social psychologists still have no good understanding of the nonverbal cues to power. This article sheds more light on what is actually underlying nonverbal communication of power. We identify two new insights: First, much of the nonverbal communication of power takes places unconsciously and is hard to control. Second, people use abstract schemas to judge power, and they not only apply these schemas to understanding body talk, but also elements of art, advertisement, and architecture.
The media play a critical role in modern society because they are the carriers of information about how people behave. And, the evidence from social science is clear that information about others’ behavior can have a contagious effect—leading observers to behave similarly, which can lead still more and more observers to conform (Cialdini, 2001). In the economic arena, marketing professionals understand how to harness this power. Television commercials depict crowds rushing into stores and hands depleting shelves of the product. Advertisers proclaim their products as the “largest selling” or “fastest growing” in the market. Restaurant owners designate certain menu items as “our most popular,” which immediately makes them even more popular. Consider the advice offered more than 350 years ago by the Spaniard Balthazar Gracian (1649/1945) to those wishing to sell goods:
Their intrinsic worth is not enough, for not all turn the goods over and
look deep. Most run where the crowd is—because the others run. (p. 124)
The Media: Carriers of Contagious Information – In-Mind.org
For some people, looking at one or more of the numbers in the image will be an aesthetically unpleasant experience. “But zero is black!” they will think to themselves. Those with black (or red, or upper left, or shy, or any other type of additional sensation) zeroes are synaesthetes – for them, the perception of a stimulus (the inducer) in one sense will activate a sensation (the concurrent) in a second sense, or a different aspect of the same sense.
Have you ever wondered why, when you see someone stretch out and yawn, suddenly, you start to feel drowsy and feel the urge to do the same? Or how about the tendency of people to copy each other’s postures? In social psychology this phenomenon is called postural mirroring. All this mimicking is the result of so-called mirror neurons in our brain.
On Mirror Neurons or Why it is Okay to be a Couch Potato – In-Mind.org
Humans are passionate creatures. Our passions drive us, gives us a sense of belonging, and unite us as few other things can. Still, there are only a couple of passions that have been constants down the ages, passions that people from every place and culture can agree on. Love is one, but another is that "those no-good bastards over there are trouble." Of course, we quibble endlessly over the exact definition of "those" -- every culture, pretty much, has had a different group in mind. But the singular fact of prejudice per se was as recognizable in Ancient Greece, Rome, and Samaria as it is now in modern Greece, Rome, and Arkansas.
Not only do we disagree over who Those Bastards Over There (TBOT) are, but also over why we hate them so much. Nose size has been cited in the past as a reason, as has intellectual capacity (too much or too little), and bad manners (eating without implements, eating with implements, etc). Hate may be a massively universal thing, but we are shockingly divided over why we do it. Personally, I blame TBOT.
Psychologists, though, (hate us or loathe us) aren’t as sanguine about not knowing, and have spent a great deal of time investigating prejudice in its many guises. They have come to two broad classes of answers: (a) Reasons we hate each other, and (b) Reasons we think we hate each other. There's not as much overlap between those two as you might hope.
On Adaptive Functions of Long-Term and Short-Term Romantic Relationships
A happy, fulfilling, faithful and ‘till death do us part’ type of relationship seems to be an ultimate aim for most people. If you consider the typical storyline of popular fairy tales, like, Snow White and Cinderella, they portray an attractive couple overcoming number of difficult circumstances to rejoice committed relationship and “live happily ever after” and ”till death do them part”. The main actors in these screenplays are young, attractive and healthy individuals at the peak of their reproductive age, and willing to commit to each other for the rest of their lives.
‘Forever and a Day’ or ‘Just One Night’? – In-Mind.org
How vulnerable are armed criminals? Can one predict their intentions and actions just by watching them walking or standing somewhere? Psychologists and the police believe this is possible. They think this can be done by reading subtle clues in the appearance of a person. These clues can be meaningless for a novice, but are significant for a trained person.
While these tiny details can become visible for other people after an appropriate training, it is difficult to learn to suppress them. They can still be unconsciously shown by a criminal even though he is very skilled. Thus, a criminal may still unconsciously betray his or her intent by displaying cues, no matter how experienced or trained he is. So, what are these cues? In this article I will review a selection of scientific research on the issue within the field of psychology. The evidence derived from the literature is considered next in order to understand which emotional state, according to the offenders themselves, accompanies a criminal act. On top of that, the findings from experimental research on how an emotional state is being reflected in non-verbal cues and how this is recognized by other people will be presented. To conclude, the examples of applying knowledge about non-verbal cues to the security industry will be discussed.
Exposing an Armed Criminal: What Can We Learn from Psychology and the Police? – In-Mind.org
Are African Americans really better at basketball than Caucasians? Are blonds really dumber than brunettes? Are women really worse at math than men? The short answer is yes. The longer answer is no. Let me explain by focusing on the stereotype that women can’t do math. At first glance, this stereotype seems to be true. For instance, men continue to outperform women on the math sections of the SAT and GRE, and men outnumber women in college math courses and math-related jobs. Surely this is evidence that women are not as good at math as men. But as this article will explain stereotypes are self-perpetuating and not only reflect but also cause performance differences between groups.
Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion. [John Welch, American businessman, former head of General Electric] 
Because power is something we often avoid discussing openly, its nonverbal communication is fascinating to lay people and psychologists alike. When directly asked, people interpret many different nonverbal signs as indicating high or low power – unfortunately, these ideas are often exaggerated and misguided. Likewise, social psychologists still have no good understanding of the nonverbal cues to power. This article sheds more light on what is actually underlying nonverbal communication of power. We identify two new insights: First, much of the nonverbal communication of power takes places unconsciously and is hard to control. Second, people use abstract schemas to judge power, and they not only apply these schemas to understanding body talk, but also elements of art, advertisement, and architecture.
The media play a critical role in modern society because they are the carriers of information about how people behave. And, the evidence from social science is clear that information about others’ behavior can have a contagious effect—leading observers to behave similarly, which can lead still more and more observers to conform (
For some people, looking at one or more of the numbers in the image will be an aesthetically unpleasant experience. “But zero is black!” they will think to themselves. Those with black (or red, or upper left, or shy, or any other type of additional sensation) zeroes are synaesthetes – for them, the perception of a stimulus (the inducer) in one sense will activate a sensation (the concurrent) in a second sense, or a different aspect of the same sense.
Have you ever wondered why, when you see someone stretch out and yawn, suddenly, you start to feel drowsy and feel the urge to do the same? Or how about the tendency of people to copy each other’s postures? In social psychology this phenomenon is called postural mirroring. All this mimicking is the result of so-called mirror neurons in our brain. 
Humans are passionate creatures. Our passions drive us, gives us a sense of belonging, and unite us as few other things can. Still, there are only a couple of passions that have been constants down the ages, passions that people from every place and culture can agree on. Love is one, but another is that "those no-good bastards over there are trouble." Of course, we quibble endlessly over the exact definition of "those" -- every culture, pretty much, has had a different group in mind. But the singular fact of prejudice per se was as recognizable in Ancient Greece, Rome, and Samaria as it is now in modern Greece, Rome, and Arkansas.
How vulnerable are armed criminals? Can one predict their intentions and actions just by watching them walking or standing somewhere? Psychologists and the police believe this is possible. They think this can be done by reading subtle clues in the appearance of a person. These clues can be meaningless for a novice, but are significant for a trained person.