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For Disappointed Sports Fans, Defeats Increase Consumption of Fat and Sugar
On the Monday following a big football game, fans of the losing team seem to load up on saturated fats and sugars, whereas supporters of the winning team opt for healthier foods.
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Watch Your Language
Sometimes, the best way to foster staff cohesion is the simple step of choosing the right words. Psychological scientists Hazel Rose Markus and Alana Conner point this out in their new books, Clash!: 8 Cultural Conflicts That Make Us Who We Are (2013, Hudson Street Press). In a chapter on workplace cultures, they cite research showing how organizations can nurture interdependence by simply watching their language. Stanford psychologist Lee Ross and his colleagues, for example, randomly assigned Israeli pilots and American college students to play a game that named either the Wall Street Game or the Community Game.
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Middle-age—The Sweet Spot for Fiscal Leadership
Many of the most influential financial decision makers in our society—from business to politics— happen to be those in middle-age. The average age of Fortune 500 chief executive officers and chief financial officers is around the mid-fifties. Historically, the average appointment age of Federal Reserve Chairs and National Economic Council Directors is also in the 50s. The number is not an artifact of averaging; all current members of the Council of Economic Advisors and half of the National Economic Council members are fifty-something. Is there some sort of peak of financial reason in the 50s? Recent research in economics, psychology, and neuroscience suggests that there may be. Gregory R.
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Busting Myths on Autism, Dyslexia
Autism was once thought to be the result of detached parenting rather than a condition of the brain. Internationally renowned developmental psychologist Uta Frith was among the first scientists to debunk that myth. Frith found that autistic people have trouble understanding mental states and find it hard to intuit what others may be thinking. She has also suggested that individuals with autism are highly capable of processing details but worse than other individuals at integrating information from many sources. And Frith has been a major force in destigmatizing dyslexia, showing it to be separate from environment and intelligence.
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Power Can Literally Go to Your Head
Power, whether in the form of a big promotion or other rewards, may result in some cognitive pitfalls, including diminished empathy.
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New Society Aims to Support Affective Science
Scientists who study affective phenomena will soon have a place to interact, collaborate, and share their science with colleagues. A new society — The Society for Affective Science (SAS) — has been organized for the purpose of encouraging basic and applied research on emotions, moods, and other motivational states.