The InMind Blog

Shameless self-promotion on Facebook. Love it or hate it, there’s always someone doing it. And many of us are guilty of it. But why do we do it? Comparing Facebook users in the US and Japan, I suggest it’s the power of the social context that may determine who struts their stuff, and why. more

The two previous “Solid Science” posts for this blog have covered important changes taking place in experimental psychology. If you have not read them, I recommend you do. In this post I report on another, larger change occurring in the field: the replication movement. more

Is blame for retribution and revenge? Or is blame for managing others’ behavior? I argue that while the former answer is dominant in social psychology, it predicts a dysfunctional system of blame that explains only a small portion of why people blame. Instead, I suggest that blame is better understood as a tool for changing the way people behave. more

In my last post, I discussed a striking observational study why peer only help infrequently, but I focused my discussion on the point of view of those who are bullying. In this post, I'll look at the perspective of the bullied victims. When it comes to the social psychology of aggression in schools, it seems that groups can both be a part of the problem and the solution, and I will discuss ways on how to attain this. more

Although popular belief (and a heartwarming children’s song) holds that we all laugh in the same language, recent research has found that people are remarkably adapt at detecting local accents in the way that emotions are expressed. In this blog, I will review the research that suggests that the long-assumed universality of emotions is limited. more

Nowadays, smartphones appear to play an inevitable role both in our work and private life. However, when it comes to work-related use, smartphones can hamper recovery and thus, pose a threat to our well-being. In this blog-post, I review recent studies on how and when potential side-effects may occur. more