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Self-affirmation boosts social confidence:
Toronto Sun: It may sound like another version of "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and, doggone it, people like me," but some Canadian researchers say self-affirmation has real-life social benefits. "Self-affirmation seems to provide a psychological buffer for insecure people, allowing them to put aside social fears and anxieties and behave in more warm and inviting ways," University of Victoria psychologist Danu Anthony Stinson said in a study released this week. Read the whole study: Toronto Sun
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The Power of Social Relationships
There’s no doubt about it, rejection hurts. One of the goals of Naomi Eisenberger’s research is to understand why. She looks at why emotional and physical well-being are so strongly affected by social relationships. She examines the underlying neural systems of complex socioemotional experiences (e.g. the rewards of social inclusion and the pains of social rejection) using neuroimaging techniques. Her work suggests that some of the neural regions that typically process physical pain may also be activated when experiencing social pain. She recently started exploring the neural underpinnings of positive feelings associated with social connection.
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Speaking and Understanding Speech Share the Same Parts of the Brain
The brain has two big tasks related to speech: making it and understanding it. Psychologists and others who study the brain have debated whether these are really two separate tasks or whether they both use the same regions of the brain. Now, a new study, published in the August issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that speaking and understanding speech share the same parts of the brain, with one difference: we don’t need the brain regions that control the movements of lips, teeth, and so on to understand speech. Most studies of how speech works in the brain focuses on comprehension.
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Statistical Numbing: Why Millions Can Die, and We Don’t Care
Huffington Post: Four year-old Khafran was near death three days ago when he was brought to the refugee camp hospital. He was emaciated, his ribs showing through his taut dry skin. He panted for breath. His desperate eyes bulged. His mother, Alyan, could only sit at his side and watch, helpless, sad beyond comprehension, but herself too malnourished to cry. Doctors are still not sure Khafran can be saved. The famine in the Horn of Africa has left more than 12 million people malnourished, including half of Somalia's population. The UN says 640,000 Somali children are starving, and more than 29,000 children in southern Somalia have starved to death in the last 90 days.
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Why Cleaned Wastewater Stays Dirty In Our Minds
NPR: Brent Haddad studies water in a place where water is often in short supply: California. Haddad is a professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. About 14 years ago, he became very interested in the issue of water reuse. At the time, a number of California's local water agencies were proposing a different approach to the state's perennial water problems. They wanted to build plants that would clean local waste water — a.k.a. sewage water — and after that cleaning, make it available as drinking water. But, says Haddad, these proposals were consistently shot down by an unwilling public. Read the whole story: NPR
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Story ‘Spoilers’ May Boost Enjoyment
U.S. News & World Report: Although many people think that flipping to the back of the book or knowing a story's ending before it even starts will "spoil" it, a new study revealed knowing what happens in the end may actually help people enjoy a story even more. Researchers from the University of California, San Diego added that this holds true for tales with ironic-twists, mysteries and suspenseful thrillers. The investigators conducted three experiments involving 12 short stories written by various authors, including John Updike, Roald Dahl, Anton Chekhov, Agatha Christie and Raymond Carver. The stories fell into three categories: ironic-twist, mystery and literary.