Don't Ditch the Laptop Just Yet: A Direct Replication of Mueller and Oppenheimer's (2014) Study 1 Plus Mini Meta-Analyses Across Similar Studies.

In this direct replication of Mueller and Oppenheimer's (2014) Study 1, participants watched a lecture while taking notes with a laptop ( = 74) or longhand ( = 68). After a brief distraction and without the opportunity to study, they took a quiz. As in the original study, laptop participants took notes containing more words spoken verbatim by the lecturer and more words overall than did longhand participants.

To which world regions does the valence-dominance model of social perception apply?

Over the past 10 years, Oosterhof and Todorov's valence-dominance model has emerged as the most prominent account of how people evaluate faces on social dimensions. In this model, two dimensions (valence and dominance) underpin social judgements of faces. Because this model has primarily been developed and tested in Western regions, it is unclear whether these findings apply to other regions.

Understanding the Uncanny: Both Atypical Features and Category Ambiguity Provoke Aversion toward Humanlike Robots.

Robots intended for social contexts are often designed with explicit humanlike attributes in order to facilitate their reception by (and communication with) people. However, observation of an "uncanny valley"-a phenomenon in which highly humanlike entities provoke in human observers-has lead some to caution against this practice. Both of these contrasting perspectives on the anthropomorphic design of social robots find some support in empirical investigations to date.

Retrieval practice protects memory against acute stress.

More than a decade of research has supported a robust consensus: Acute stress impairs memory retrieval. We aimed to determine whether a highly effective learning technique could strengthen memory against the negative effects of stress. To bolster memory, we used retrieval practice, or the act of taking practice tests.

Culture shapes whether the pursuit of happiness predicts higher or lower well-being.

Pursuing happiness can paradoxically impair well-being. Here, the authors propose the potential downsides to pursuing happiness may be specific to individualistic cultures. In collectivistic (vs.

DESPERATELY SEEKING HAPPINESS: VALUING HAPPINESS IS ASSOCIATED WITH SYMPTOMS AND DIAGNOSIS OF DEPRESSION.

Culture shapes the emotions people feel and want to feel. In Western cultures, happiness is an emotion that many people want to feel. Although experiencing happiness is associated with increased well-being and psychological health, recent evidence suggests wanting to feel happy to an extreme degree, or, highly valuing happiness, leads to decreased well-being.

Getting better with age: the relationship between age, acceptance, and negative affect.

Although aging involves cognitive and physical declines, it is also associated with improved emotional well-being, particularly lower negative affect. However, the relationship between age and global negative affect, versus discrete negative emotions, and the pathways that link age to lower negative affect are not well understood. We hypothesize that 1 important link between age and lower negative affect may be acceptance of negative emotional experiences.