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Feeling Stressed? Then You May Become More Helpful
TIME: How did your friend get you to babysit her kids for the weekend, or your sister talk you into hosting the next book club meeting? They probably asked when you were anxious about a work project or stressed about making an impending mortgage payment. Stress, however, isn’t traditionally associated with altruism. When self-discipline wanes, such as when you are hurried, hungry or distracted, you are less likely to be helpful to strangers (if you’re late for an appointment, you’re probably not stopping to help the person who just dropped the contents of his briefcase).
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The Suicide Detective
The New York Times: For reasons that have eluded people forever, many of us seem bent on our own destruction. Recently more human beings have been dying by suicide annually than by murder and warfare combined. Despite the progress made by science, medicine and mental-health care in the 20th century — the sequencing of our genome, the advent of antidepressants, the reconsidering of asylums and lobotomies — nothing has been able to drive down the suicide rate in the general population. ...
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Is Free Will Just an Illusion?
NPR Science Friday: What would it mean to live in a world in which people are simply mechanical devices responding to natural laws beyond their control, bobbing like corks in a sea of causes? If determinism is true, then the consequences are profound. First, we would need to radically overhaul our conception of moral responsibility. After all, if the choice you make in a given situation is preordained—is the only choice you can make—then what are we to do about blame? Absent the capacity to choose, according to a school of thought called hard determinism, there cannot be any blame. And if no one can be blamed, no one is morally deserving of punishment.
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Warum sich Frauen Gesichter besser merken (Why do women remember faces better)
ORF Austria: "Die Art und Weise, wie unser Blick über Gesichter streift, beeinflusst unsere Fähigkeit, jemanden wiederzuerkennen", sagt Jennifer Heisz von der McMaster University in Kanada. Sie hat soeben Frauen und Männern Bilder von Gesichtern am Computer präsentiert und ihre Reaktionen per Eye-Tracking-Technologie verglichen. Wie Heisz im Fachblatt "Psychological Science" schreibt, blicken Frauen offenbar mehr auf neue Gesichter als Männer es tun und sie nehmen auch mehr Details wahr - allerdings ohne es zu wissen: "Menschen sind sich in der Regel nicht bewusst, wo sie ihren Blick fixieren." Read the whole story: ORF Austria
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Physical Environment, Dishonesty Linked In New ‘Embodied Cognition’ Research
The Huffington Post: Sitting in the wrong chair can certainly send you to the chiropractor -- but can it make you a crook? That question's not as far-fetched as you might imagine. Provocative new studies link dishonesty with sprawling on a big chair or at a big desk. ... "Power causes you to focus on rewards and take risks to achieve those gains," Dr. Andy Yap, postdoctoral associate and visiting assistant professor at MIT Sloan School of Management, told The Huffington Post in an email. "If you hang a carrot in front of a powerful person (assuming they like carrots), they will act on it, take risks, or cheat and do whatever it takes to get it." Read the whole story: The Huffington Post
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The Long-Term Cost of Short-Term Stress
Youbeauty: Life throws you curveballs all the time. Some are big—like divorce and downsizing—and some fall into the category of run-of-the-mill daily stress—spilling coffee on your laptop, say, or getting your driver’s license renewed. While it may seem that major traumas are clearly more meaningful in the long run than minor annoyances, research shows that it’s our reactions to these events, not the events themselves, that predict our future wellbeing. In fact, while you may barely remember the latte-laptop incident of 2003, how you dealt with it at the time might be an important factor in how you feel right now. ...
