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Is Happiness Overrated?
The Wall Street Journal: The relentless pursuit of happiness may be doing us more harm than good. Some researchers say happiness as people usually think of it—the experience of pleasure or positive feelings—is far less important to physical health than the type of well-being that comes from engaging in meaningful activity. Researchers refer to this latter state as "eudaimonic well-being." Happiness research, a field known as "positive psychology," is exploding.
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2011 Summer Institute on Research Methodology, Oregon State University
July 12-13, 2011: Stata & Multilevel/Longitudinal Models Using Stata July 14-15, 2011: Mplus & Longitudinal Modeling Using Mplus The Oregon State University Summer Institute on Research Methodology is sponsored by the College of Health and Human Sciences Methodology Core and the Center for Healthy Aging Research. About the Summer Institute Introductory and advanced coursework using Mplus and Stata will be offered during the Institute. Participants in the Stata session are expected to be comfortable with multiple regression and participants in the Mplus session should also have some familiarity with factor analysis. No knowledge of Mplus or Stata is assumed.
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Everybody say ‘om’
Buffalo News: Many people see meditation as an exotic form of daydreaming, or a quick fix for a stressed-out mind. My advice to them is, try it. Meditation is difficult, at least to begin with. On my first attempt, instead of concentrating on my breathing and letting go of anything that came to mind, as instructed by my cheery Tibetan teacher, I got distracted by a string of troubled thoughts, then fell asleep. Apparently, this is normal for first-timers. Experienced meditators will assure you that it is worth persisting, however. “Training allows us to transform the mind, to overcome destructive emotions and to dispel suffering,” says Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard.
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Stress Higher in Children With Depressed Parents
Children with depressed parents get stressed out more easily than children with healthy parents—if the depressed parents are negative toward their child. That's the conclusion of a study published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study is part of a long-term look at how a child's early temperament is related to the risk for depression. The children were recruited for the study when they were three years old, an age when depression is rare. Thus, the researchers expect to see depression appear as the children grow.
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Happy Kids Divorce More: University Of Cambridge Study
The Huffington Post: You might believe that happy kids stand a better chance of growing up into happy adults. And for the most part you'd be right--a recent study looking into the effect a happy adolescence has on adult life found that most outcomes are better for happier teens. But a startling fact also emerged: happy teens are more likely to divorce. Researchers at the University of Cambridge used data from 2,776 teens who participated in a 1946 British birth cohort study.
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Vote – ‘Just Do It!’
Who would have thought that exercising and voting were related to each other? A recent study published in Psychological Science found a link between people’s physical activity and their political activity. Researchers ranked each state for physical activity based on various population databases on exercise, diabetes, obesity, etc and found that people who live in more active states are also more likely to vote.
