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The Brain Loves a Challenge. Here’s Why.
As a rock climber, I fight against gravity while I scale the walls and their rocklike holds. But my arms invariably fatigue, my grip slips with sweat, and, sometimes, my nerves question whether I should stick to easier climbing routes. Trying to do hard things is, well, hard. And exerting ourselves physically and mentally often feels bad. Yet we seek out these challenges without any obvious extrinsic reward. I’m paying a monthly membership fee for the experience of flailing and falling in a rock-climbing gym. Others go even further, scaling mountains, running marathons or even ultramarathons.
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Empathizing With the Opposition May Make You More Politically Persuasive
Trying to understand people we disagree with can feel like a lost cause, particularly in contentious political environments. But valuing empathy across party lines can make our political arguments more persuasive.
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Talking With Birds: The Fascinating World of Avian Intelligence
Irene Pepperberg pioneered the study of bird cognition back in the 70s and still studies the cognitive and communicative abilities of grey parrots. In this conversation with APS’s Ludmila Nunes, she speaks about research on parrots’ cognitive abilities, their conservation and preservation in the wild, and much more.
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The Forgotten Lessons of the Recovered Memory Movement
Most students in psychology and psychiatry programs today are too young to have any firsthand memory of the moral panic engendered by the recovered memory movement in the 1980s and early 1990s. This was a time when therapists proudly advertised their ability to help clients unearth supposedly repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse; the accusations that followed shattered families and communities across the country. The belief that such memories could be repressed and then recovered through special techniques was widespread among mental health professionals for well over a decade.
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Decoding Emotions
We like to think that all humans are born with the same core emotions: anger, fear, joy, sadness and disgust. But what if that’s not true? This week, psychologist Batja Mesquita offers a different model of emotions — one that can help us to better understand our own feelings and those of the people around us. ...
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Encouraging Girls to Roleplay as Successful Female Scientists Could Help Close the Gender Gap in STEM
Girls may persist longer in science activities when they pretend to be successful female scientists. This kind of play-based intervention could help close the gender gap in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.
