-
Cities try to cut the fat with weight-loss programs
Los Angeles Times: Ten pounds can seem like a hundred when you're trying to lose weight. So just think how Oklahoma City residents must feel. They're looking to lose a million. Across the country, mayors have been urging their citizens to downsize themselves. The goal in Philadelphia: Drop 76 tons of rotundity in 76 days. (Didn't happen.) In Louisville, Ky.: Pare off 100,000 pounds of pudge over a summer. (Didn't happen.) In Corpus Christi, Texas: Dispose of 50,000 pounds of avoirdupois in a year. (Could happen: This campaign is just getting started.) Read the whole story: Los Angeles Times
-
Children’s Genetic Potentials Are Subdued by Poverty
Children from poorer families do worse in school, are less likely to graduate from high school, and are less likely to go to college. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that these differences appear surprisingly early: by the age of 2. It's not a genetic difference. Instead, something about the poorer children's environment is keeping them from realizing their genetic potentials. Past research has found that a gap between poor children and children from wealthier families opens up early in life, even before children enter formal education.
-
Weighing the Costs of Disaster: Consequences, Risks, and Resilience in Individuals, Families, and Communities
A scientific review shows that a psychological intervention commonly employed to help victims who have just experienced a disaster lacks evidence supporting its effectiveness and may actually be harmful.
-
Centuries of Sailors Weren’t Wrong: Looking at the Horizon Stabilizes Posture
Everybody who has been aboard a ship has heard the advice: if you feel unsteady, look at the horizon. For a study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers measured how much people sway on land and at sea and found there's truth in that advice; people aboard a ship are steadier if they fix their eyes on the horizon. Thomas A. Stoffregen of the University of Minnesota has been studying "body sway" for decades—how much people rock back and forth in different situations, and what this has to do with motion sickness.
-
The Language of Young Love: The Ways Couples Talk Can Predict Relationship Success
We know that people tend to be attracted to, date, and marry other people who resemble themselves in terms of personality, values, and physical appearance. However, these features only skim the surface of what makes a relationship work. The ways that people talk are also important. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that people who speak in similar styles are more compatible. The study focused on words called "function words." These aren't nouns and verbs; they're the words that show how those words relate.
-
People Aren’t Born Afraid of Spiders and Snakes: Fear Is Quickly Learned During Infancy
Studying how infants and toddlers react to scary objects can help reveal the developmental origins of common fears and phobias.