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Why Religion Makes Only Some of Us Happy
msnbc.com: Religious people tend to feel better about themselves and their lives, but a new study finds that this benefit may only hold in places where everyone else is religious, too. According to the new study of almost 200,000 people in 11 European countries , people who are religious have higher self-esteem and better psychological adjustment than the non-religious only in countries where belief in religion is common. In more secular societies, the religious and the non-religious are equally well-off.
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Writing Tip: Better “You” Than “I”
You are a sick man…you are a spiteful man. That’s not the first line of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes From Underground; Dostoyevsky used the first person: “I am a sick man…I am a spiteful man.” Do readers respond differently to stories depending upon whether they are narrated from the perspective of ‘‘you’’ or ‘‘I’’? Recent research published in the Journal of Cognitive Psychology offers some tips for writers who want to impact their readers. Tad T. Brunye and coauthors chose eight passages from two novels and created a first- and second-person version of each passage. The researchers asked undergraduate students to read one set of four passages written from either an “I” or “you” perspective.
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How Do Romney’s and Gingrich’s Looks Affect Their Chances?
Forbes: How do Mitt Romney’s and Newt Gingrich’s looks affect their chances of being elected president? How do all politicians’ looks affect their careers? Researchers have been doing some illuminating work on that question. A good article at at Slate.com sums up some of the best of the research. In 2005 a Princeton psychologist named Alexander Todorov found that, contrary to earlier assumptions, "beauty didn’t tell the whole story. Rather, voters appeared primarily drawn to faces that suggested competence—so much so that the effect could actually be seen in election results. In the lab, subjects glanced for a single second at the faces of congressional candidates. . . .
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Family Ties a Plus for Mannings
The New York Times: So you haven’t heard enough about Peyton and Eli Manning — their quarterbacking careers, their Super Bowl Most Valuable Player awards and their skills as Madison Avenue pitchmen? Let’s analyze the effects of their birth order. No statistics, just a bit of scholarly speculation as Eli prepares to lead the Giants into Super Bowl XLVI on Feb. 5 against the New England Patriots. Peyton will turn 36 in March, and Eli just turned 31. Then there is their big brother, Cooper, 37, whose career as a wide receiver at the University of Mississippi ended before it began because of spinal stenosis. A student of birth order like Frank J.
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Why Religion Makes Only Some of Us Happy
LiveScience: Religious people tend to feel better about themselves and their lives, but a new study finds that this benefit may only hold in places where everyone else is religious, too. According to the new study of almost 200,000 people in 11 European countries, people who are religious have higher self-esteem and better psychological adjustment than the non-religious only in countries where belief in religion is common. In more secular societies, the religious and the non-religious are equally well-off.
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BEURK – Le dégoût est un sentiment utile
Le Monde: Longtemps laissé de côté par les chercheurs, le dégoût entame depuis quelques années une phase de réhabilitation. The New York Times le compare ainsi à "la Cendrillon" des émotions. Et "si ses méchantes sœurs, la colère, la peur ou la tristesse, ont attiré l'attention des psychologues, lui, a été laissé dans l'ombre", souligne le quotidien. Mais voilà, l'heure du bal est venue. Paul Rozin, psychologue et professeur émérite de l'université de Pennsylvanie, est un des pionniers de la recherche sur le dégoût. Il a commencé ses investigations dans les années 1980 : "C'était toujours l'autre émotion, se souvient-il. Aujourd'hui c'est le sujet chaud." Read more: Le Monde