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Repeated Exposure to Media Images of Traumatic Events May Be Harmful to Mental and Physical Health
From 24-hour cable news to YouTube and Twitter, today’s mass media can turn local disasters into international events within minutes, and research reveals that widespread transmission can have a traumatic impact far beyond the people who are directly exposed.
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RAND Summer Institute (RSI)
RAND is pleased to announce the 20th annual RAND Summer Institute (RSI). RSI consists of two annual conferences that address critical issues facing our aging population. The will be held on July 8–9, and the Demography, Economics, Psychology, and Epidemiology of Aging conference on July 10–11, 2013. Both conferences will convene at the RAND Corporation headquarters in Santa Monica, California. The application and supplemental materials are due by March 22, 2013. The conferences are sponsored by the National Institute on Aging and the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research.
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New Research on Personality and Emotional Development From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research on personality and emotional development published in Psychological Science. Birth-Cohort Effects in the Association Between Personality and Fertility Markus Jokela The birth rate in many countries has been declining. To determine whether personality traits and societal expectations could be influencing these changes, the researchers collected Big Five personality traits, level of education, fertility history, and parental socioeconomic status from individuals in the Midlife Development in the United States study and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study.
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Fear and Driving Opportunity Motivated Changes in Driving Behavior After 9/11
A catastrophic event – such as a terrorist attack, a natural disaster, or market collapse – often strikes twice. There is the damage caused by the event itself, as lives are lost or left in ruin. But there is also the second act, catalyzed by our response to the catastrophic event. This second act has the potential to cause just as much damage as the first. In the year following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, there were approximately 1,600 more traffic fatalities in the United States than expected. This figure suggests the possibility that fear may have been a strong motivator for many people, leading them to choose driving over flying.
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‘Helicopter Parenting’ Discourages Kids
"Helicopter parent" is a 21st century term for parents that “hover” over their children, monitoring and micromanaging their every move. Although parents may find this hard to do, research shows that giving kids space may better motivate them. According to APS Fellow Carol Dweck, a psychological scientist at Stanford University who researches motivation and development, helicopter parenting is more likely to hold kids back. “We’ve studied parents over-praising and we are studying parents overdoing. It makes the child feel they can’t do anything without the parent.” The bottom line, she says, is that less parenting may help kids more in the long run.
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Does Wisdom Really Come with Age? It Depends on the Culture
“Wisdom comes with winters,” Oscar Wilde once said. And it’s certainly comforting to think that aging benefits the mind, if not the body. But do we really get wiser as time passes? There are many way to define what exactly wisdom is, but previous literature suggests that having wisdom means that you are also good at resolving conflict. But conflict is not handled the same way across cultures. Americans have been shown to emphasize individuality and solve conflict in a direct manner, such as by using direct persuasion.
