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Your Memory Is Like A Camcorder — Here’s How To Turn It On
Forbes: According to a new study, memory is a lot like a camcorder. “If you don’t hit the ‘record’ button on the camcorder, it’s not going to ‘remember’ what the lens is pointed at,” says study co-author Brad Wyble, psychology professor at Penn State University. Sounds simple enough, but in practice there’s a little more to it. Wyble and co-author Hui Chen, also of Penn State, wanted to find out whether they could “turn on” peoples’ memories to record a specific part of something with multiple parts.
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Is There a Science to Falling In Love?
The Diane Rehm Show: A recent column in The New York Times described one woman’s experiment with finding love: Mandy Len Catron wondered whether it was possible to find the perfect match just by asking the right questions. Catron and a man she didn’t know that well met for dinner and asked each other a series of 36 probing questions, based on the work of psychologist Arthur Aron. Topics included whether they would like to be famous, and their most treasured memories. The result was a committed relationship that continues to this day. Diane and guests discuss whether there’s a “science” to falling in love. Read the whole story: The Diane Rehm Show
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The Biggest Reason We Steal Other People’s Ideas
The Huffington Post: Chances are that at some point in your career, you've taken an idea from someone else. I want to know why. There's a clue in a story about one of the great bands of our time. All good things come to an end, and by 1970, the beloved Beatles had decided to go their separate ways. Within a year, George Harrison reached No. 1 with a solo song, "My Sweet Lord." But his sweet time at the top was short-lived. Within a month, a lawsuit was filed. Harrison's song had original lyrics, but shared a melody and harmony with the 1963 hit song by the Chiffons, "He's So Fine." Was the Beatles' lead guitarist guilty of plagiarism?
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WSJ. Magazine February 2015: The Columnists
The Wall Street Journal: WSJ asks six luminaries to weigh in on a single topic. This month: Youth The 20s are now a time of hyperindividualism. Emerging adults—the term I coined for the new life stage occurring between ages 18 to 29—have a lot of time to make decisions about what work they want to do and what kind of partner they want to have by age 30. The downside is that young people are now required to have an awful lot of self-discipline and motivation. It’s great to have all these possibilities, but that means you have to decide. Nobody’s going to tell you what to do anymore. Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal
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People Value Resources More Consistently When They Are Scarce
We tend to be economically irrational when it comes to choosing how we use resources like money and time but scarcity can convert us into economically rational decision makers, according to research in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Research from psychological science has shown that we humans make economically irrational decisions all the time, influenced by contextual factors that have no bearing on the utility or pleasure we will derive from a good or a service. We may scoff at the idea of buying a $4 hot dog from a street vendor, for example, but have no qualms about getting a $7 hot dog at a baseball game.
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The Psychological Difference Between $12.00 and $11.67
The Atlantic: Of the lunch spots near my office, the chain Le Pain Quotidien's menu always demands more of my attention than others. The reason that the menu at Le Pain Quotidien is unusual isn't because they serve open-faced sandwiches or that I'm not sure what kind of cheese Fourme d’Ambert is, but rather that their prices aren't formatted like those of other shops. Organic egg frittata costs $12.00, curried chicken salad tartine is $12.25, a large cappuccino is $5.35. In a world where most prices end with ".99", Le Pain Quotidien's prices make my brain hurt.
