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No Time to Think
The New York Times: ONE of the biggest complaints in modern society is being overscheduled, overcommitted and overextended. Ask people at a social gathering how they are and the stock answer is “super busy,” “crazy busy” or “insanely busy.” Nobody is just “fine” anymore. When people aren’t super busy at work, they are crazy busy exercising, entertaining or taking their kids to Chinese lessons. Or maybe they are insanely busy playing fantasy football, tracing their genealogy or churning their own butter. And if there is ever a still moment for reflective thought — say, while waiting in line at the grocery store or sitting in traffic — out comes the mobile device.
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Powerful and Coldhearted
The New York Times: I FEEL your pain. These words are famously associated with Bill Clinton, who as a politician seemed to ooze empathy. A skeptic might wonder, though, whether he truly was personally distressed by the suffering of average Americans. Can people in high positions of power — presidents, bosses, celebrities, even dominant spouses — easily empathize with those beneath them? Psychological research suggests the answer is no.
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How to Trick Your Kids Into Reading All Summer Long
The Atlantic: As the school year ends, students’ thoughts turn to summer vacation staples like swimming, camp, and popsicles. Teachers—and most parents—would like them to think about reading, too. School and district officials offer summer reading lists, hoping that specific recommendations will move students away from video games and toward books. But most will ignore these worthy suggestions, and indeed will read very little. How can parents nudge kids toward books this summer? The natural strategies most parents would think of first should not be the ones they actually try first. One is to offer rewards for reading.
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Typical Items Facilitate Fear Learning, Atypical Items Don’t
Have you ever recoiled at something because it reminds you of something else that you’re genuinely afraid of? Research indicates that people have a propensity to generalize their fear — so, for example, a person afraid of doctors might also feel uneasy at the sight of a hospital or medical equipment. Moreover, typical items in a category seem to lend themselves to generalization more than atypical items do. For instance, we’re more likely to generalize information about mice and apply it to bats rather than the other way around, since mice come to mind more easily when we think of mammals. Bringing these different areas of research together, psychological scientists Joseph E.
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Conference to Focus on Milgram Paradigm
The Obedience to Authority Conference will be held December 9–11, 2014, in Kolomna, Russia. The conference will focus on discussion of research in the field of Stanley Milgram's experimental obedience paradigm. Russian and international researchers with diverse academic backgrounds and career levels are encouraged to register. For more information, visit www.milgram.ru/en.
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Have and Have Not: The Widening Gap
The late Peter Drucker is widely viewed as the inventor of modern corporate management, although before his death he was discouraged by the short-sightedness of many business leaders. He was especially concerned about the widening pay gap between CEOs and the average worker—a trend he had observed with alarm for decades. As far back as 1984, Drucker had warned that the pay gap should not exceed 20-to-1. Anything beyond that, he believed, would foster mistrust and resentment and erode the kind of teamwork needed for long-term growth. The actual pay gap today is 354-to-1. So why aren’t workers marching and picketing and otherwise complaining about this inequity?