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Why Aren’t We Smarter Already? Evolutionary Limits on Cognition
We put a lot of energy into improving our memory, intelligence, and attention. There are even drugs that make us sharper, such as Ritalin and caffeine. But maybe smarter isn’t really all that better. A new paper published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, warns that there are limits on how smart humans can get, and any increases in thinking ability are likely to come with problems. The authors looked to evolution to understand about why humans are only as smart as we are and not any smarter.
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How Impatience Kills Your Credit Score
Forbes: Everything seems to come back to marshmallows in the end. You may recall the famous 1972 Stanford psychology study, conducted by Walter Mischel, in which a group of kids were presented with a plate of marshmallows and told that if they could wait and not eat them now, they’d get a better reward later. When the adults left the room, some of the kids stuffed marshmallows into their mouths with abandon, while others fought back the urge and waited it out.
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Study: Vaccines & Hand-Washing Can Reduce Prejudice Against Immigrants, the Obese & Crack Addicts
Discover Magazine: The war between people and disease-causing pathogens is old as humanity itself. This has helped shaped our so-called behavioral immunity, which can lead us, for example, to automatically avoid people who are visibly sick. But it can also misfire; previous studies have shown that people with compromised immune systems (due to a recent illness), and even people who describe themselves as afraid of germs or susceptible to disease, are more likely to avoid and feel prejudiced toward otherwise healthy people who merely look different than them, like foreigners or immigrants.
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It’s Flu Season — Watch Your Prejudices
Huffington Post: I tried not to breathe too much on the elevator this morning. I was trying to avoid the germs of a fellow who clearly had the flu -- or at least a really nasty cold. There seems to be a lot of sickness going around right now, and I'm just being prudent. I know it would have been rude to cover my face or turn my back to this guy, so I just held my breath for the 10-story ride. That's my behavioral immune system kicking in. Behavioral immune system is just a fancy way of summarizing what the mind and body have long known, that one of the most powerful tools we have for staying well is to watch out for sick people, and then give them wide berth.
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Delayed Gratification Study: It Also Predicts Credit Scores
International Business Times: The Stanford marshmallow delayed gratification test is one of the most influential behavior studies in modern history. Conducted by Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel in 1972, it has proven to be a solid predicator of success in life and is used by elite preschools to screen their young candidates. Mischel's experiment measured if children could sacrifice eating a marshmallow immediately in order to receive two marshmallows 15 minutes later. Years later, those who resisted the temptation (and received two marshmallows) went on to perform better in on their SAT tests.
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A Sign That Doctors Care More for Their Patients Than Themselves?
The Atlantic: Here's proof that doctors care more about their patients' safety than their own. A study has found that doctors tended to ignore signs asking them to wash their hands for the sake of their own health; When they were reminded that not washing put their patients' health at risk, they were far more willing to oblige. Whatever was going through the doctors' minds, an appeal to patient safety got their attention much better than an appeal to their personal safety. Soap use rose by over 45 percent. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of North Carolina were interested in what type of message would be most effective at increasing doctors' hand washing.