Blog Posts

The fact is we all stare at screens more than we would like and many of us rely on these tools to communicate with others, even during times when we should be spending quality time with our families and friends. So does all this time staring at screens …

Solomon Asch may be best known in social psychology for his 1951 Conformity Studies in which he brought participants into a room with seven confederates—actors pretending to be other participants—and had them recount the length of a line.  Before …

“This post is co-written by Michael Sun and guest writer Rachel McCrystal, both authors contributed equally.” Sam Davis* is a 20 year old sophomore at UCLA. He attends class every day, and by and large, Sam lives a relatively normal college student lif …

“You can never climb the same mountain twice, not even in memory. Memory rebuilds the mountain, changes the weather, retells the jokes, remakes all the moves.”– Lito Tejada-Flores, Extreme Skiier, Climber and Author       …

“O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;But O heart! heart! …

It’s well-known that toxin-producing bacteria in food, such as E. coli, can affect your belly — often not for the better — but research by UCLA’s Naomi Eisenberger, Michael Irwin, and others now indicates that food toxins may influence your mood …

Here’s a walk down memory lane for those who made it to our 2014 annual interdisciplinary symposium in May, and a taste of it for those who didn’t make it. Enjoy! Symposium 2014 (12) Speaker gifts Programs Symposium 2014 (3) Our guest host Symposium 20 …

Jason Silva – Shots of Awe Have you ever gazed up at the starry sky and felt amazed by its vastness? Or have you looked over the abyss of the Grand Canyon and found your breath catch in your throat? If so, you probably felt awe, a “feeling of wond …

Roses are red, Violets are blue,And you probably thinkThat the sky is blue too. Color, however, exists only in the mind: Color is our experience that maps onto the physical luminance properties of visible light and visible-light reflectance proper …

Yoga can make you feel good emotionally, but can it also help your immune system? Our research group recently completed a randomized controlled trial looking at the effects of a yoga intervention on inflammation. Inflammation is a hot topic in both hea …

When I first saw the movie “You’ve Got Mail” at the ripe old age of 8, the idea of developing a relationship through online chatrooms seemed novel, unconventional and even…creepy? Fast-forward 15 years later, where one in ten people are using an o …

why do the romances that start out so hot and heavy on TV fizzle out once the cameras stop rolling?

At 10:00 P.M. every night, I receive an email update from Google Alerts listing all the news articles from the day containing the word “bully”. Some of these are inspiring stories of victims who have spoken up and made a difference, others are heartbre …

The prevalence of adult obesity in the United States has nearly doubled since 1980, and over two-thirds of American adults are currently overweight or obese. Weight bias (stereotyping or discrimination directed at an individual related to his/her weigh …

It is probably a cliché to say that no two days are alike for a graduate student. For me, this variety makesthe hard work and long hours of graduate student life worth it. What makes up those long hours? It varies from student to student and as your pr …

The cover of my statistics text book features a diagram depicting the relation among sex, time since obtaining a doctorate degree, number of publications, and citations on salary. I haven’t formally learned about structural equation modeling just yet, …

Jenna introduced the idea of stress management to the youth – and they were ready to hear more! If you were asked to do nothing for a minute, could you do it? What about being asked to smell a Hershey’s chocolate kiss but wait to eat it? Well …

When I speak to parents, I often hear that they are scared that this generation of students is losing out, because they are learning so much more on screens. These fears are echoed in the press.  For example, the Washington Post wrote about how re …

Criminally Minded: The Psychology and Law of Culpability Psychology in Action is proud to announce the third annual Psychology Interdisciplinary Events symposium, Criminally Minded: The Psychology and Law of Culpability, to be held Friday, Ma …

What the heck is a literature review? This is the thought that went through my head the first time I sat down to write one. I was confused about how it differed from annotated bibliography, and I didn’t know what features separated a well-written one f …

Stanley Milgram is one of the most famous people in the history of psychology, and also one of the most controversial because of his work on obedience. But many people are unfamiliar with Milgram’s work after his rise to fame.