Neuroscience
I was a high-school nerd. Worse yet, a girl nerd. I did learn quickly to hide my A grades and not talk too much in class. At the high-school reunion, my classmates thought it was obvious I would become a professor (they could have saved me much agony, had they only told me sooner!). As a student at Harvard, I learned to tell strangers that I went to school “outside Boston.” Then I had a respite from having to hide my academic self, as my first jobs did not excite much public envy. Moving to Princeton changed all that (now I work “outside New York”), so maybe it’s not surprising that I came to work on how status divides us. Now, our lab’s research brings home the idea that status/competence is only one of two universal social dimensions, but that interdependence/warmth is the other. It’s OK to be respected or even enviable for status (in an aspirational, you-can-do-it-too way), if you also communicate that you also appreciate the cooperative side of the relationship. If I am on your side, and we are in this together, then my success is good for our tribe.
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Susan T. Fiske is Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology at Princeton and author of Envy Up, Scorn Down: How Status Divides Us (2011).
Return to menu for Psychology to the Rescue
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Neuroscience
Susan Fiske: Nerdy but nice
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Susan T. Fiske is Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology at Princeton and author of Envy Up, Scorn Down: How Status Divides Us (2011).
Return to menu for Psychology to the Rescue
- Robert Sternberg: Career Masochism
In psychology, you are rewarded (1) partly for the research you do, and (2) partly for (a) the topic on which you do the research and (b) the methods you use. The first point (1) is what you learn explicitly about throughout graduate school. The second...
- The Downside Of Being Good-looking And Wealthy
A rich, good-looking man seeking a wife might do well to play down his wealth. That's the implication of a study by John Lycett and colleagues suggesting that some women are wary of men who are both attractive and wealthy. One hundred and eighty-six...
- Looks Matter Most When It Comes To A Fling
by Anita Gay at Totton College Is your partner fit, rich, beautiful and kind? No? Well, individuals who are a perfect 10 in every mating dimension are extremely rare, if they exist at all! So how do we choose which mate characteristics are most important...
- Spanner Or Sex Object?
Sex objects: Pictures shift men's view of women by Ian Sample, ChicagoMen are more likely to think of women as objects if they have looked at sexy pictures of females beforehand, psychologists said yesterday.Researchers used brain scans to show...
- Abstract Of The Day: Executive Task Performance And Functional Status In Elderly Persons
Rapp MA, Schnaider Beeri M, Schmeidler J, Sano M, Silverman JM, Haroutunian V. Relationship of neuropsychological performance to functional status in nursing home residents and community-dwelling older adults. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry....