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The WEIRD Evolution of Human Psychology
Scientific American: Does psychology’s over-reliance on American undergraduates distort our image of the human species? Imagine that you’re in a room with 100 psychopaths. The first thing you’ll probably want to do is leave that room. However, once you do, you discover a booth installed with one-way glass where you can watch what’s taking place without anyone seeing you. Comfortably seated, you observe a strange experiment taking place. A few of the individuals have on white coats and are carrying around clipboards while most are being run through a battery of psychological tests. Slowly the frantic activity begins to make sense.
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Babies learn who to trust at early age
ABC Science: You can fool them once, but babies will not be fooled again if adults trick them, according to a new Canadian study. Infants normally mimic sounds, facial expressions and actions they observe but researchers at Concordia University in Montreal found that if an adult tricks them, they will no longer follow along with that person. The findings published in the journal Infant Behavior and Development bolster previous evidence that infants can differentiate between credible and un-credible sources, the study says.
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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.
