#SPSP2019

Picture this. You’re sitting in a job interview talking to someone who will help determine whether or not you get the job. They start asking you about something on your resume – a project you’re particularly proud of, one that you worked really hard on. You can’t help it: you start to lift your head a little higher, sit up straight, pull back your shoulders, puff out your chest. But will this nonverbal display of pride actually help you get the job?

It may come as no surprise that political polarization is on the rise; liberals are becoming more liberal, and conservatives are becoming more conservative. This is more than simple disagreement; political polarization involves an extreme commitment to one’s ideology and an unwillingness to consider other viewpoints. According to Kristin Laurin from the University of British Columbia, we need to be willing to take the perspective of people with opposing views in order to combat political polarization. But how do people perceive those who engage in such perspective taking?

Economic inequality runs rampant in the United States and, if anything, is getting worse with time. Not only do individuals of lower socioeconomic backgrounds occupy disadvantaged positions in society with less access to resources, but they also face challenges in the private realm of their romantic relationships. But why do low socioeconomic status (SES) individuals generally experience lower romantic relationship quality compared to their high SES counterparts?

In navigating the world, we need to determine who are our friends and foes, and who can we trust to be our allies and who should we stay away from. To do this effectively, we rely on various cues either from the environment or the person with whom we interact with. Specifically, we are particularly attentive to cues that are being displayed by other people.

A symposium led by Francine Karmali and Kerry Kawakami shed some light on how we use physical bodies to form impressions of other people on a day-to-day basis.

Whether you yourself are a scientist, know someone who does research, or don’t know and don’t care, you may want to start paying attention to the kinds of weird things scientists do and how they go about doing those weird things they do.

Think about a value that is near and dear to you. Maybe it’s social justice, family, or devotion to your country. How much would you have to be paid to actively work against this value, or to compromise it in some way? If the answer is “no amount of money” then this value may be sacred.

What do you think of when you hear the word “feminist?” To some, this term elicits images of political, social, and economic equality for men and women. To others, this term elicits images of man-hating women plotting to steal power from men. As PhD student Victoria Parker (Wilfrid Laurier University) points out in her talk entitled “Diverging Definitions: How the Conceptualization of “Feminism” Engenders Dislike and Obscures Common Ground Across Party Lines” at the SPSP Annual Convention, these diverging definitions are problematic.

Is sex only pleasurable if we experience an orgasm, or can people still enjoy sex in the absence of an orgasm? Popular media often presents an orgasm as the ultimate goal of sex and the defining feature of a satisfying sexual experience, yet in reality, many women have difficulties orgasming consistently (or at all) during sex. This discrepancy might suggest that many women are not satisfied with their sexual experiences, but it could also suggest that other aspects of sex are pleasurable above and beyond “the big O.”