Highlights from Year 1 of Character and Context

Ed. Note: I want to take this opportunity to welcome Erika Salomon back into the fold at Character and Context. She did a wonderful job editing the blog this past summer, and is coming on as co-editor. You can follow her on Twitter @ecsalomon  

SPSP's official blog Character and Context has become a source for following and discussing the latest developments in personality and social psychology over its first year (or thereabout—I'm counting everything from the blog's inception until now). Here are ten posts that highlight the quality and diversity of content hosted at Character and Context. If you missed any of them the first time around, definitely take the time to read them now.  

1. Simone Schnall on her Experience with a Registered Replication Project

This post, rehosted from Simone Schnall's personal blog, highlights the "other side" of replication: What is replication like for those whose work is replicated? Schnall's post invoked a particularly active comment thread that highlights diverse approaches to replication. Read this post.  

2. “Spiral of Silence” Makes Climate Change a Taboo Topic

Lisa M.P. Munoz describes recent research into why people who believe that climate change is happening don't always feel comfortable talking about it and how this silence can create an illusion that few people share this view. Munoz also discusses how the language people use to communicate about climate change affects people's views on the topic. Read this post.  

3. Self-affirmation Changes Health Behavior

Even when people know that their habits are unhealthy, they often fail to change their behavior. Tracy Epton describes how this behavioral inertia may be overcome through self-affirmation, leading to positive change and greater health. Read this post.  

4. The Psychological Benefits of Doing What You Love

Kaitlin Woolley discusses the benefits of choosing a job for happiness rather than money. Doing what you love for a living comes with increased productivity and success in addition to the joys of the job itself. 

5. Women are Underrepresented in Fields that Idolize Brilliance and Genius

According to Andrei Cimpian and Sarah-Jane Leslie, the proportion of women pursuing a field is affected by the beliefs practitioners in that field hold about what it takes to succeed. They show that across STEM and non-STEM academic disciplines, academics' beliefs about the importance of innate genius to success predict the percentage of doctoral degrees awarded to women. Read this post.  

6. The Mystery of the Hot Hand

Do basketball players shoot more accurately immediately after making a basket? Fans seem to think so. But evidence suggests that any benefit of a hot streak may be much smaller than fans estimate, if hot streaks even happen at all. Michael Kraus and Dave Nussbaum discuss the state of evidence for hot streaks in basketball in the light of new findings. Read this post.  

7. The Social Psychology of Climate Change

Kelly Fielding summarizes findings published in a special issue of the European Journal of Social Psychology, highlighting how social psychology can explain people's reactions to climate change. Contributions to the special issue cover everything from how personal experiences play a role in seeing climate change as a threat to when people are willing to change their behavior to combat the threat. Read this post.  

8. Powerful Ideas: Cultural Psychology and the Transformation of Societies

Séamus Power reviews Culture and Social Change: Transforming society through the power of ideas, a new book covering the ways that social scientists study cultural change, including a revisiting of Zimbardo's famous Stanford Prison Experiment using a new design. Read this post.  

9. Accurate First Impressions Leave a Lasting Impression

When people think about first impressions, they usually focus on making a positive one, but it may also be important to ensure a first impression is accurate. Lauren Human describes research showing that more accurate first impressions lead to greater liking and interaction. Read this post.  

10. Latané responds to New Yorker article on the Genovese murder

In March 2014, the New Yorker ran a piece criticizing the popular telling of the Kitty Genovese story so often covered in social psychology textbooks and courses. Bibb Latané wrote a response to the piece, the full text of which was published on Character and Context (with a shorter, edited version appearing both here and in the New Yorker). Read this post.