Current Directions in Psychological Science

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The ability to flexibly break out of routine behaviors develops gradually and is essential for success in life. In this article, we discuss three key developmental transitions toward more flexible behavior. First, children develop an increasing ability to ...

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Many brain-imaging studies are designed with the goal of isolating brain regions responsible for a specific mental function. The results, which reveal islands of activity scattered about the brain, can give the impression that the brain is just a ...

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Recent events have highlighted the importance of pilot fatigue in aviation operations. Because of demanding flight schedules, crew members often suffer disrupted sleep and desynchronized circadian rhythms, the combination of which threatens alertness and ...

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It has long been known that pupils—the apertures that allow light into the eyes—dilate and constrict not only in response to changes in ambient light but also in response to emotional changes and arousing stimuli (e.g., Fontana, 1765). Charles Darwin (...

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The saccadic eye movements that people make when thinking have been largely ignored in the eye-movement literature. Nevertheless, there is evidence that such eye movements are systematically related to internal thought processes. On average, people move ...

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The error-related negativity (ERN) is a neural measure of error processing that peaks just 50 milliseconds after subjects make mistakes. Although previously conceptualized in purely cognitive terms, data increasingly suggest that the ERN is related to ...

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Edited moving images entertain, inform, and coerce us throughout our daily lives, yet until recently, the way people perceive movies has received little psychological attention. We review the history of empirical investigations into movie perception and ...

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Psychological detachment from work during leisure time refers to a state in which people mentally disconnect from work and do not think about job-related issues when they are away from their job. Empirical research has shown that employees who experience ...

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We review and synthesize the research literature examining group affect and its consequences, focusing on groups who interact together to accomplish a task. We use a definition of group affect that incorporates the mutual influence of a group’s affective ...

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Historically, research has suggested that coping with stress by expressing emotions is maladaptive. With improved conceptualization and assessment of stressor-related emotional expression, more recent research has revealed that emotional expression can ...

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Individuals tend to believe that the somatic sensations they are currently experiencing or have experienced accurately reflect their physical functioning; however, the experience of somatic symptoms is also affected by psychological and social factors. ...

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Recent evidence seems to call into question long-established findings of sex differences in sexuality, such as differences in mate preferences and desires for casual sex. In this article, we place new findings in a broader evidence-based context and show ...

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Few issues in psychology are as fundamental or as elusive as the sense of one’s own body. Despite widespread recognition of the link between body and self, psychology has only recently developed methods for the scientific study of bodily awareness. ...