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The Basic Research Blues
Feel free to replicate, reproduce, and share your voice with friends, colleagues, NIH, and us!
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How Useful Is Fear?
Franklin D. Roosevelt no doubt meant to be soothing when he insisted, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” A quick and terrifying tour through the academic literature on fear, though, reveals just how much heavy lifting that only was doing. Our fears run broad and deep, and are every bit as diverse as we are. The 2017 version of Chapman University’s Survey of American Fears tabbed “corruption of government officials” as the most common fear, afflicting nearly 75 percent of respondents; concerns about the health-care system, the environment, personal finance, and war also figured in the top 10.
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Why ruthlessness is a net negative in politics
What’s the right way to exert political influence? Is it more effective to be selfless and virtuous, or forceful and ruthless? Recent research we’ve conducted of the behavior of US senators reveals something surprising: Being a virtuous leader actually carries its own rewards. We conducted a study of the leadership attributes of US senators across several decades of floor speeches. We were looking for visual cues about their leadership styles. Do they demonstration compassion and empathy? Or do they demonstrate manipulation and ruthlessness? Given the current polarized political climate, one might think that to get anything done, politicians need to be ruthless and forceful.
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How Neuroscience Can Help Us Treat Trafficked Youth
The abuse began when Oree Freeman was eight years old. Her biological mother had given birth while in prison, so Freeman was adopted as an infant. But any trust or stability she'd learned during her early years with her adoptive mother was shattered when the mother's boyfriend started molesting her. "I didn't tell anyone for a long time," says Freeman, now a 22-year-old survivor advocate at Saving Innocence in Los Angeles. Instead, Freeman began acting out, misbehaving in school and fighting with peers. When she was sent to the school counselor for "bad" behavior, the counselor recognized signs of abuse and made a report to Child Protective Services.
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Why People Are Obsessed With the Royals, According to Psychologists
By now, you likely know that Prince William and Kate Middleton had their third child, Louis, who joins older siblings George and Charlotte. You likely also know that Prince Harry is set to marry American actor Meghan Markle next month. Perhaps you even know that the royal wedding will be held at St. George’s Chapel, and will include a lemon- and elderflower-flavored cake and a teenage cellist. In short: The royals have infiltrated our collective consciousness. The question is, why? “We’re social animals,” says Dr. Frank Farley, a professor and psychologist at Temple University and a former American Psychological Association president.
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Identifying with others who control themselves could strengthen your own self-control
Is self-control something you can acquire, like a new language or a taste for opera? Or is it one of those things you either have or don’t, like fashion sense or a knack for telling a good joke? Psychologist Walter Mischel’s famous results from the “marshmallow test” seem to suggest self-control is relatively stable and not easily learned. In this test, children sit at a table in an otherwise empty room and are given a choice: They can have one marshmallow right away, or, if they can wait for the experimenter to get more marshmallows from another room, they can have two instead. Most children see this as a no-brainer and opt to wait for two marshmallows. The real test is waiting.
