-
Psychology: Songs With “You” in the Text Apparently Particularly Successful
Grace was not granted, there was no mercy, no escape. Anyone who still managed to avoid attending a screening of the Hollywood big-budget film "Bodyguard" at the beginning of the 1990s was still confronted with the pop cultural foundations of this work. The title track, "I Will Always Love You," was played on all radio channels for months, sung by Whitney Houston, who also played the leading female role in the film. The song became one of the greatest hits in pop history, was number one on the charts in 16 countries, sold about twelve million copies as a single and became popular in countless ears worldwide. So the question arises: how could this happen? ...
-
Geoff Johnson: Staying Challenged is the Best Way to Fight Off the Years
Aging is often wrongly associated with a decline in cognitive abilities, especially those abilities important for maintaining functional independence such as learning new skills or pursuing further and enhancing old skills. The aging/learning question remains moot despite a plethora of tests and studies that seem, at first glance, to suggest that older people may do less well than younger people on standard intelligence tests. But when other studies follow individuals over time, very little decline is seen. Tests of verbal skill such as information retention, vocabulary and comprehension seem to remain steady. ...
-
5 Productive Ways To Respond to Rejection
Experiencing rejection, personally and professionally is inevitable—but it can be devastating when not processed productively. Ultimately, how rejection is addressed determines resilience and success, but cheerfully handling disappointment isn’t always easy, especially in the face of a great deal of rejection. So what are the best ways to handle rejection?
-
Steven Pinker: ‘Evolution Has Saddled Our Species With Many Irrational And Destructive Psychological Traits’
Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist who conducts research in visual cognition, psycholinguistics, and social relations. Currently Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard, he has also taught at Stanford and MIT. Pinker has won numerous prizes for his research and he is one of Foreign Policy’s “World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals” and Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World Today.” Rainer Zitelmann: In your opinion, why do most people underestimate positive developments and so dramatically overstate negative developments? Steven Pinker: One reason is an interaction between the nature of cognition and the nature of journalism.
-
Three Counterintuitive Ways To Build A Better Team
Picture this: You've been tasked with assembling a team to tackle a large, important program. It's your first time as a program lead, and you want to set your team, and yourself, up for success. You know that diversity is important, and, naturally, you want to stack the team with top talent. You can't wait to jump in and start solving problems. But is this really the right approach? The experts say no. If you want a high-performing team that will get the type of results your boss will rave about, follow these three counterintuitive tips: ... Stacking the team with similar top talent could result in failure.
-
Why Faces Don’t Always Tell the Truth About Feelings
Human faces pop up on a screen, hundreds of them, one after another. Some have their eyes stretched wide, others show lips clenched. Some have eyes squeezed shut, cheeks lifted and mouths agape. For each one, you must answer this simple question: is this the face of someone having an orgasm or experiencing sudden pain? ... “The assumption for a long time was that facial expressions were obligatory movements,” says Lisa Feldman Barrett, a psychologist at Northeastern University in Boston who studies emotion. In other words, our faces are powerless to hide our emotions.
