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The Price We Pay For Adventure
Imagine that you have an extraordinary opportunity—a once-in-a-lifetime chance to ascend Everest or sit with the Dalai Lama or rocket into outer space. This will be the peak experience of your lifetime and, what’s more, you will have the added pleasure of narrating your adventure for years to come. Or will you? Many of us hunger for special experiences, things none of our friends have done or will do. But do these adventures really make us happy in the long run? Are they worth having? Harvard University psychological scientist Gus Cooney is not so sure.
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The Common Cold Makes You a Lousy Driver
New York Magazine: We get that drinking and driving is bad news, and researchers who study this stuff are now getting the message across that drowsy driving and distracted driving are no good either. But here’s a new one: Something as simple as the common cold might also impair your alertness and reaction time behind the wheel, according to some new research. It’s a small study, with just 25 participants, some of whom were healthy and some of whom were battling a cold. Two researchers from Cardiff University ran them through two tests, including a driving simulation requiring them to steer around obstacles while tracking their speed and how closely they obeyed traffic laws.
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What Your Junk Drawer Reveals About You
NPR: The Great American Junk Drawer can be an accidental time capsule, a haphazard scrap heap, a curious box of memories and meaninglessness. It can also serve as a Rorschachian reflection of your life. You know what we're talking about: The drawer of detritus. The has-been bin. That roll-out repository where you toss your odds and ends. Sometimes very odd odds and ends. Sometimes whatnot never to be seen again. Various places on the Internet, such as The Junk Drawer Project and House Beautiful, showcase people's messes and miscellanies. We found a few images of junk drawers on Flickr. And if you don't have enough junk of your own, you can purchase a Junk Drawer Starter Kit on Ebay.
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A Tiny Good Deed Can Go a Long Way
New York Magazine: You already know the “secret” to happiness: Do something nice for someone else. Now, some new research takes that idea one step further, finding that getting more specific about the random act of kindness you’re planning can actually end up making you even happier. For example: Aiming to make someone smile (and succeeding) will ultimately make you happier than the comparatively abstract goal of trying to make them happy. In one experiment,University of Houston marketing professor Melanie Rudd and colleagues gave a group of 50 adults a 24-hour challenge: Some were told to do something in the next day to make someone happy, while others were told to make someone smile.
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WHY NIGHT OWLS ARE MORE ETHICAL IN THE AFTERNOON
Fast Company: Whether you are a morning person or a night owl might dictate what time of day you should make your ethics-testing decisions. It turns out the time of day you feel least productive and alert is also when you’re most likely to lie. A new study by Christopher M. Barnes of the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, Brian Gunia of Johns Hopkins University’s Carey Business School, and Sunita Sah of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, shows morning people become more unethical at night, while night owls are more unethical during the day.
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Even Kindergarteners Can Rate Their Own Confidence
Discover Magazine: Do you remember on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire—apparently this show is still on, but I’ll assume no one else has seen it this decade—how after contestants picked an answer, Regis Philbin sometimes asked, “How sure are you?” They’d pull a number seemingly out of the air: “Oh, eighty-five percent.” This trick of estimating our own confidence is a psychological phenomenon called metacognition. And if you ask in the right way, even kids as young as 5 can do it. Adults aren’t randomly picking numbers when we say we’re 85% sure of something. We may be overconfident in ourselves, but in general we can sense when our knowledge is stronger or weaker.
