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How lefties, righties see the world differently
msnbc: Be careful next time you cast a vote. Your “handedness” might make you choose the wrong candidate, according to a research review published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research sheds light on the so-called “body-specificity hypothesis” which simply means that how we make decisions and how we communicate with each other is influenced not only by our minds, but by our physical bodies.
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Economics Made Easy: Think Friction
The New York Times: CRITICS of Mitt Romney’s activities at Bain Capital have been described, somewhat hysterically, as critics of capitalism. They’re not. But they are attacking something. And understanding that something can have enormous implications for the shape of our economic institutions and activities going forward. What Bain Capital, and firms like it, do is try to increase the efficiency of the companies they buy. They try to get more with less — to eliminate waste. They are not interested either in creating jobs or in destroying them. Nor are they interested in improving the lives of consumers by making products and services better and cheaper.
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Nursing a broken heart? How taking a paracetamol could dull the pain of rejection
Daily Mail: It's what songwriters have been saying for years, and now scientists agree – love really does hurt. But what the ballads don’t tell us is that a simple dose of paracetamol could help ease the pain of a broken heart. The rather prosaic cure emerged in a study by neuroscientists which found that emotional pain is processed in the same area of the brain as physical pain. They also discovered that hurt feelings – such as being dumped by a partner – can respond to painkillers. In a three-week trial at the University of California, 62 people were told to take either Tylenol – the American name for paracetamol – or a placebo and then record how they felt every night.
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How the Military Can Change Personalities, Slightly
Miller-McCune: What life experience is more immersive than marriage, more prolonged than college, more tightly regimented than the average job? Ah yes — military service, which starts with recruiters boldly announcing their intention to make a new man of every trainee. Surely drill sergeants believe they can change personalities. But psychologists generally believe that our personalities don’t change much over time. Just sticking to the Big Five, we remain mostly agreeable, extroverted, conscientious, neurotic, and open-minded throughout our lives.
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Where Learning STEMs From
The need for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) professionals has become critical in the United States. A recent Washington Post article stated there is a shortage of qualified U.S. workers needed to fill openings for high-paying STEM jobs. And this trend, says the Post, “is primarily caused by the lack of women and other minorities pursuing careers in the STEM fields.” APS President Douglas Medin (Northwestern University) and former student Megan Bang (University of Washington) are helping tackle this issue by investigating current approaches to STEM education and determining how culture may affect the way people learn.
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Stopping Temper Tantrums Before They Start
Shoving, punching, and belligerent insults aren’t just for ruffians at biker bars and soccer games. At some point or another, most children throw temper tantrums. But changing the child’s behavior is not the key to stopping these fits — it’s the parents who have to change. “Most of the parenting methods, most of the parenting books, most of the advice is not based on research, and very much of it violates what we actually know,” said APS Fellow Alan Kazdin in this interview with the Today Show. Kazdin, who directs the Yale Parenting Center, said that punishing bad behavior won’t stop tantrums. Instead, parents should be praising good behavior and ignoring the bad.