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Fear and Driving Opportunity Motivated Changes in Driving Behavior After 9/11
A catastrophic event – such as a terrorist attack, a natural disaster, or market collapse – often strikes twice. There is the damage caused by the event itself, as lives are lost or left in ruin. But there is also the second act, catalyzed by our response to the catastrophic event. This second act has the potential to cause just as much damage as the first. In the year following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, there were approximately 1,600 more traffic fatalities in the United States than expected. This figure suggests the possibility that fear may have been a strong motivator for many people, leading them to choose driving over flying.
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Are Independents Just Partisans In Disguise?
NPR: Independent voters have grown in recent years into a mega voting bloc. By some estimates they outnumber registered Republicans, and even registered Democrats. Every election cycle, independents generate enormous amounts of interest as candidates, pollsters and the media probe their feelings. These voters are widely considered to hold the key to most elections. Independents generally report that neither party fully represents their views. Some report being to the left of the Democratic Party or to the right of the GOP, but most report being in the middle and describe themselves as moderates.
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Tricks From the Elderly to Stop Worrying
The Wall Street Journal: Recent research into how emotions change with age may be able to help people lead healthier and longer lives and bring about new treatments for depression in the elderly. Like people's bodies, emotions change over time. Older people for the most part have far fewer negative feelings, such as worry and stress, than do younger people, studies show. The elderly learn to disentangle themselves from feelings of negativity and seem to focus more on present situations that bring pleasure, rather than on the future, researchers say. They also tend to process negative information less deeply than positive information.
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Flu Psychology: Who Risks What for Whom?
The Huffington Post: My local pharmacy is offering flu shots. A window sign grabbed my attention the other day, because it was a sweltering, muggy day, and it seemed way too early to think about winter flu bugs. But a little digging proved me wrong on this. Apparently the vaccine takes a couple of weeks to kick in, and seasonal flu bugs can arrive as early as October. So I did the arithmetic, and I'm lining up to get poked. I've gotten flu shots for years, though I'm not in any high-risk group. It just seems prudent to me. And the fact is, public health officials count on people who are at low or moderate risk to get inoculated anyway.
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Study of Judges Finds Evidence From Brain Scans Led to Lighter Sentences
The New York Times: Judges who learned that a convicted assailant was genetically predisposed to violence imposed lighter sentences in a hypothetical case than they otherwise would have, researchers reported on Thursday, in the most rigorous study to date of how behavioral biology can sway judicial decisions. The findings, published in the journal Science, are likely to accelerate the use of brain science in legal proceedings, experts said, and to intensify a long-running debate about its relevance. Courts have increasingly admitted such evidence — brain scans, mostly, as well as genetic analyses — though many experts say the science is still too primitive to inform legal decisions.
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Spacing out for a bit can boost your memory
msnbc: Next time you zone out when your girlfriend is talking to you, just tell her you wanted to remember what she was saying longer. Wakeful resting--or zoning out--after learning something new can boost your memory, according to a study published in Psychological Science. In the study, researchers told two short stories to 33 people. After one story, the participants sat in a room with their eyes closed. After the second story, they played a computer game. Seven days later, the people who zoned out were able to recall more of the story details. After learning something new, your brain automatically replays the information to form a new memory.
