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Wandering Minds Are Associated With Aging Cells
Scientific studies have suggested that a wandering mind is linked with unhappiness, whereas a mind that is present in the moment is linked with well-being. Now, a preliminary study suggests a possible connection between mind wandering and aging, by looking at a biological measure of longevity. In the new study, psychological scientist Elissa Epel and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco examined the relationship between telomere length, an emerging biomarker for cellular and general bodily aging, and the tendency to be present in the moment or to mind wander in 239 healthy women who were 50 to 65 years old.
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Embattled Childhoods May Be the Real Trauma for Soldiers With PTSD
New research on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in soldiers challenges popular assumptions about the origins and trajectory of PTSD, providing evidence that traumatic experiences in childhood - not combat - may predict which soldiers develop the disorder. Psychological scientist Dorthe Berntsen of Aarhus University in Denmark and a team of Danish and American researchers wanted to understand why some soldiers develop PTSD but others don’t. They also wanted to develop a clearer understanding of how the symptoms of the disorder progress.
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Sadness Makes People Financially Shortsighted
LiveScience: New research suggests sadness might make people shortsighted when it comes to financial decisions, causing individuals to seek immediate gratification rather than waiting for bigger, future rewards. In the study, participants were assigned to watch a sad video about the death of a boy’s mentor, a disgusting clip featuring a dirty toilet or a neutral video about the Great Barrier Reef. Then, the subjects had to make a series of decisions about getting cash rewards. In each case, they had to decide between taking one sum of money at the end of the session and getting a bigger reward mailed to them in the future.
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How Changing Visual Cues Can Affect Attitudes About Weight
NPR: With most Americans fat or fatter, you'd think we'd be lightening up on the anti-fat attitudes. Alas, no. Even doctors often think their overweight patients are weak-willed. But changing negative attitudes about body size might be as simple as changing what you see. When women in England were shown photos of plus-sized women in neutral gray leotards, they became more tolerant. When the women were shown photos of anorexic women, attitudes became more positive there, too.
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How Long Will a Lie Last? New Study Finds That False Memories Linger for Years
Scientific American: True memories fade and false ones appear. Each time we recall something, the memory is imperfectly re-stitched by our brains. Our memories retain familiarity but, like our childhood blankets, can be recognizable yet filled with holes and worn down with time. To date, research has shown that it is fairly easy to take advantage of our fallible memory. Elizabeth Loftus, cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory, has found that simply changing one word in a question can contort what we recall. In one experiment, Loftus had participants watch a film of a car crash, and then asked about what they saw.
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Do beautiful women have more socially desirable personalities?
NY Daily News: Beautiful women are often thought to be more social, successful, and well-adjusted than their less attractive counterparts. But a new study announced Monday finds that attractive women are more likely to have some not-so-pretty values, such as favoring social conformity and self-promotion over tolerance. Researchers from the Open University of Israel and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem investigated 118 university students averaging around 29-years-old. Subjects then completed surveys about their values and were videotaped walking around a room, reading a weather forecast, and then leaving the room.
