Psychology in Action

Category: Social Psychology

  • The Psychology of Film Music

    Have you ever seen a movie which has a great musical score? Wondered how film composers and music directors write and choose music to enhance the images and make the whole experience more powerful? Dr. Roger Kendall, a UCLA Ethnomusicology professor with degrees in music and psychology, studies what makes a “good” match between motion…

  • Bossing stress away

    Imagining the stereotypical executive doesn’t exactly conjure up the image of a zen-like state. Instead, we tend to associate leadership roles with too many demands and not enough time to meet them—in essence, a pretty stressful lifestyle. After all, managers typically have to juggle more responsibilities and contend with more personalities than do their subordinates.…

  • Psychology Classics: Wason Selection Task (Part I)

    Psychology Classics: Wason Selection Task (Part I)

    This post is the first of three on the Wason selection task (Part II), and part of our ongoing series exploring classic experiments and theories in the history of psychological research.

  • Why are there fewer women in the sciences? Maybe stereotype threat can explain…

    Stereotype threat is the experience of anxiety or concern when someone believes they are in a position to confirm a stereotype about their social group. For example, girls who are primed with information that women tend to do worse on math tests right before they take a math exam, will do worse on the test…