First Person Plural

How a complex brain supports a unitary self

by Gerald Matthews, Ph.D.

Cell Phones and Selfishness

As a research on driver behavior, I applaud U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's call for a nationwide ban on texting and cell phone use while driving. The recommendation from the National Transportation Board followed a fatal crash in Missouri last year, caused by a teen driver distracted by texting. Read More

Skills for an Uncertain Future

Is your child learning the skills they need to thrive and prosper in the increasingly cutthroat world of the 21st century? I recently returned from participating in the National Academies' Workshop on 21st Century Skills, which addressed this issue. Read More

In Search of the Vigilant

What makes a person good at sustaining attention on a tedious task? The question becomes increasingly acute as work activities become increasingly automated - and increasing numbers of people have jobs that require staring at computer monitors for long periods of time. Read More

Air Travel, Robots and Emotional Meltdown

Feeling perplexed about emotions in humans and artifacts Read More

Emotional Labour on the British campaign trail

Today is election day in Britain. As an expat Brit, I admit some interest in the outcome (though I won't be voting). This post is not about the politics of the election, though, other than to say that I find it hard to forgive the Labour party for the brain-dead managerialism that is crushing British academia. Read More

Deconstructing Personality

Here is a puzzle about personality. We all believe we have a personality, and we find it easy to assume that others do too. In fact, we typically over-estimate the influence of the personalities of others (social psychologists call this the ‘fundamental attribution error'). Read More

Gerald Matthews, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at the University of Cincinnati, and co-author of Personality Traits (3rd ed.) and What We Know About Emotional Intelligence.

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