Psychology for You!

In this blog post, I discuss what information people use to decide whether a behavior constitutes discrimination. Similar to the way people organize categories and identify objects, I review research showing that people rely on prototypes when deciding what is and is not discrimination. more

In my last post I described the transition from candidate gene studies to genome-wide association studies, and argued that the corresponding change in the methods used, focusing on the whole genome rather than on a handful of genes of presumed biological relevance, has transformed our understanding of the genetic basis of complex traits. In this post I discuss the reasons why, despite this success, we still have not accounted for all the genetic influences we expect to find.As I discussed previously, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been extremely successful in identifying genetic variants associated with a range of disease outcomes – countless replicable associations have emerged over the last few years. Nevertheless, despite this success, the proportion of variability in specific traits accounted for so far is much less than what twin, family and adoption studies would lead us to expect. The individual variants identified are associated with a very small proportion of variance in the trait of interest (typically 0.1% of less), so that together they still only account for a modest proportion. Twin, family and adoption studies would lead us to expect that 50% or more of the variance in many complex traits is attributable to genetic influences, but so far we have found only a small fraction of that total. This has become known as the “missing heritability” problem. Where are the other genes? Should we be seeking common genetic variants of smaller and smaller effect, in larger and larger studies? Or is there a role for rare variants (i.e., those which occur with a low frequency in a particular population, typically a minor allele frequency less than 5%), which may have a larger effect? more

Are fraud and other questionable practices in science caused by a few bad apples, or a culture that rewards based on results, not rigor? In this post, I will argue that our scientific environment is selecting for the wrong kind of scientist. more

Do you feel the need to feel good about yourself in order to be happy? Research suggests that if you have a lot of opportunities to make new friends, it is more likely that you will answer this question with a ‘yes’ than when you have more of a set group of people you spend time with. In this blog, I will describe the recent research on the influence of relational mobility and how it relates to the way in which we develop our self-esteem and happiness. more

In this blog post, I share a recent report which says that Americans are less fervent about their country now than they’ve been in the recent past. However, I also review some political psychology research on different styles of patriotism which suggests that this particular type of decrease might actually be a good thing for Americans. more

This blog examines the search for meaning in life and gives an explanation for why people seek meaning.  Briefly, modern life (relative to our hunter-gatherer past) places people in an uncertain position, and meaning in life can give us a sense that difficulties in life will pay-off. more