psychology

The person walking past you isn’t wearing a mask. What should you say?

It’s best to avoid hostility and communicate with empathy when it comes to helping people understand why covering their faces can slow the spread of the virus, say Northeastern researchers.

by Roberto Molar Candanosa May 15, 2020

Childhood trauma changes your brain. But it doesn’t have to be permanent.

Neuroscientists at Northeastern are using rats to understand how trauma in infancy makes children, but especially girls, more likely to develop anxiety and other similar disorders later in life.

by Laura Castañón February 20, 2020

‘Sometimes it’s delightful when we’re wrong’

When we listen to music, our brain predicts the notes before we hear them. We like it when we guess correctly. But sometimes we can afford to be wrong, and sometimes we actually like it.

by Emily Arntsen January 16, 2020

We know what we know (even when we don’t want to)

Northeastern psychology professor Iris Berent studies how we’re equipped from birth to acquire language, a concept that elicits skepticism in laypeople and scientists alike. Berent’s new work reveals that this skepticism is due to a bias against the concept of innate knowledge—a bias that itself might be innate.

by Aria Bracci October 17, 2019

New research shows that angry customers stick to their goals, which “can actually lead them to make better decisions, easier decisions, and more satisfying decisions,” says Alexander DePaoli, an associate teaching professor of marketing at Northeastern who co-authored the research.

Buy angry. Be happy.

New research shows that anger makes customers stick to their goals—and that “can actually lead them to make better decisions, easier decisions, and more satisfying decisions,” says Alexander DePaoli, an associate teaching professor of marketing at Northeastern who co-authored the research.

by Aria Bracci August 15, 2019

What people who don’t like music might tell us about social interaction

About 5 percent of people don’t like music. After tracking some of them down, Northeastern professors Psyche Loui and Ajay Satpute will study how this phenomenon might relate to struggles with social interaction—and teach us better ways to treat it.

by Aria Bracci August 8, 2019

An Illustration of a baby with cheese getting thrown on its face.

You’re a baby. Your parent just threw a slice of cheese at you. Now what?

“Every experience is a brand-new experience for a baby,” says Northeastern professor Heather Brenhouse, who studies developmental neuroscience. So when they find themselves suddenly with a slice of cheese stuck to their face because their parents are joining a viral social media craze, “the babies have no reason to believe that this is good, bad, strange, or commonplace. They are learning with each experience.”

by Molly Callahan March 8, 2019

The powerful social psychology behind those ‘I voted’ stickers

Like the proverbial tree that falls in the forest with no one to hear it, did you really vote if you didn’t get an “I voted” sticker?

by Molly Callahan November 6, 2018

What if people from different cultures and economic backgrounds have different brain wiring?

A new theory of human development challenges the belief that humans are born with an intricately wired social brain that has been developed through millions of years of evolution. “The infant brain is not a miniature adult brain; it needs wiring instructions from the world,” said Northeastern psychology professor Lisa Feldman Barrett.

by Bill Ibelle August 6, 2018

The curious case of the people who can control their goosebumps

In a paper published Monday in the online journal PeerJ, Northeastern postdoctoral researcher James Heathers and his colleagues found that people who can control their goosebumps seem to share the personality trait of being extremely open. “People who can do this find it really easy and straightforward, no harder than moving your arm or putting on a hat,” Heathers said.

by Allie Nicodemo July 30, 2018