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Writing Helps You Remember Things Better Than Typing
BuzzFeed: Close the lid of your laptop: New research shows that taking notes by hand helps you remember conceptual information better than typing notes on your computer. Researchers asked note-takers to listen to a TED Talk and later asked questions about it that either recalled facts or required conceptual thinking. Read the whole story: BuzzFeed
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The Buffer Zone: Romance and Insecurity
The Huffington Post: Let's call them Linda and Max. They've been a committed couple for some years now, but Max brings a lot of emotional baggage to the relationship. Previous girlfriends treated him shabbily, and as a result he's insecure about Linda, not entirely convinced she loves him. On occasion this persistent fretting makes him act like a . . . well, a jerk. You know Linda and Max. I know I do--or at least versions of them. Most people would say they're doomed as a couple, yet they last. Somehow, when Max is threatened, Linda knows to give him the reassurances he needs. She intuitively helps him control his emotions and feel safer, and as a result he behaves better.
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
Read about latest research findings published in Clinical Psychological Science: Jenny Yiend, Charlotte Parnes, Kirsty Shepherd, Mary-Kate Roche, and Myra J. Cooper New research has suggested that negative self-beliefs play a role in eating disorder pathology, but the causal status of this relationship has not yet been established. Female participants underwent cognitive-bias-modification (CBM) training meant to manipulate eating disorder-relevant negative self-beliefs in a positive/neutral or a negative direction. Symptoms and behaviors related to eating disorders, depression, and anxiety were assessed before and after training and at a 1-week follow-up.
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Days Of Our Lives, One Day At A Time
Anyone who has spent any time around the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous has heard the phrase “stinkin’ thinkin.’” This folksy expression refers to certain attitudes and thought patterns—blaming, self-pity, negativity in general—that threaten the recovering alcoholic’s emotional sobriety and could, if unchecked, lead to relapse. Not every recovering alcoholic chooses AA, but every recovering alcoholic is at risk of picking up a drink if such destructive thinking goes unchecked. Happily, for those seeking an alternative to 12-step programs, there is a well validated therapeutic approach with the same goals and similar tactics.
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Why We Feel Others’ Pain — Or Don’t
When the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped nearly 300 teenage girls from a schoolhouse last month, the world responded with an outpouring of undiluted emotion—shock, outrage, fear, and most of all deep sympathy for the victims and their families. It was impossible not to feel the suffering of these innocent, helpless girls in the hands of their cruel jihadist captors. Well, maybe not impossible. Right-wing commentator Ann Coulter showed not a trace of empathy, as she chose instead to poke fun at a Twitter campaign to raise awareness of the victims’ plight. While the world’s heart went out to the hostages, Coulter responded with a display of callous insensitivity.
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Read, Kids, Read
The New York Times: Late last year, neuroscientists at Emory University reported enhanced neural activity in people who’d been given a regular course of daily reading, which seemed to jog the brain: to raise its game, if you will. ... Daniel Willingham, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, framed it as a potentially crucial corrective to the rapid metabolism and sensory overload of digital technology. He told me that it can demonstrate to kids that there’s payoff in “doing something taxing, in delayed gratification.” A new book of his, “Raising Kids Who Read,” will be published later this year.
