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Creativity works in mysterious and often paradoxical ways. Creative thinking is a stable, defining characteristic in some personalities, but it may also change based on situation and context. Inspiration and ideas often arise seemingly out of nowhere and then fail to show up when we most need them, and creative thinking requires complex cognition yet is completely distinct from the thinking process

The actual teaching of critical thinking is a function of many situation-specific factors: teacher style, teacher interest, teacher knowledge and understanding, class size, cultural and community backgrounds and expectations, student expectations and backgrounds, colleagues' expectations, recent local events, the amount of time available to teachers after they have done all the other things they have to do, and teacher grasp of critical thinking, to name some major factors. I here suggest some general strategies and tactics gleaned from years of experience, research, and others' suggestions. They are guidelines and must be adjusted to fit the actual situation.

oday, thanks to better early detection, there are 63% fewer deaths from heart disease than there were just a few decades ago. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, wonders: Could we do the same for depression and schizophrenia? The first step in this new avenue of research, he says, is a crucial reframing: for us to stop thinking about "mental disorders" and start understanding them as "brain disorders.

oday, thanks to better early detection, there are 63% fewer deaths from heart disease than there were just a few decades ago. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, wonders: Could we do the same for depression and schizophrenia? The first step in this new avenue of research, he says, is a crucial reframing: for us to stop thinking about "mental disorders" and start understanding them as "brain disorders.

Targeting metacognition-our beliefs about thoughts-might alleviate mood disorders and even schizophrenia

Joe Henrich and his colleagues are shaking the foundations of psychology and economics-and hoping to change the way social scientists think about human behavior and culture.

Burly, bearded James Fallon tells people he has the brain of a psychopathic killer. And he has some brain scans he thinks back up his claim.

Twenty-five years after Prozac was introduced, the name has entered the cultural lexicon and helped define how people think of mental illness.

A team of researchers who found that people think they are more attractive when drinking alcohol, have scooped an Ig Nobel prize for their work.

How the "outside" affects the "inside" is at the heart of many of the deepest psychological questions. In this fast-paced survey of research on how culture shapes cognition, Nalini Ambady examines the neural evidence for socio-cultural influences on thinking, judgment, and behavior. She does this by giving us numerous examples of group differences in core human capacities that are shaped by how "one's people" engage socially. I'm pleased to be able to share this piece with members of APS.

How well do we know ourselves? The intuition that you are your own best judge is strong, yet flawed. The prevailing wisdom in social psychology today is that we are incorrigible self-enhancers. We tend to think we are more attractive, intelligent and agreeable than we really are. Conversely, depressed people have been found to make more realistic estimates of their own abilities, a phenomenon that suggests a touch of optimism may build our resilience to the bumps and bruises of everyday life.

A new study suggests that schizophrenic people in more collectivist societies sometimes think their auditory hallucinations are helpful.

Research suggests that more and more American university students think they are something special. High self-esteem is generally regarded as a good thing - but could too much of it actually make you less successful?

New research by Professor Robert Plomin shows genes are more important than we like to think

We all think we have control of our actions but if a brain tumour or injury can completely change our personality, what does that tell us about free will, asks David Edmonds.

"Reductionism!" is a charge often flung at geneticists, from accusers in the popular press and also, not infrequently, from many fellow scientists. What is it that leads so many people to so fundamentally misunderstand what genetics is about?