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ADHD a challenge for young athletes
Gazette.Net: Joshua Wooten is enjoying his freshman season on the tennis team at Crossland High School this spring. As one of millions of people diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Wooten has endured numerous academic and social challenges, but he has found participating in sports therapeutic. Experts say it's important for coaches and parents of children with ADHD to understand the condition before a child begins playing organized sports. "The reality is that anybody that's coaching youth sports either has an athlete with ADHD or will have one," said Dr. Diane Finley, a professor of psychology at Prince George's Community College who holds a Ph.D.
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I Like Your Face—but why? A New Computer Model Pinpoints the Reasons
Whether you’re dating, job seeking, or running for office, an attractive face can get you far. But what makes a face attractive? Most studies have found we’re drawn to “average” faces, as well as those whose features fit conventionally with one gender or the other—“masculinity” in men, “femininity” in women. Except, that is, when we’re drawn to “feminine” male faces—or our reactions are mixed. Psychologists Christopher P. Said of New York University and Alexander Todorov of Princeton University surmised that attractiveness is more complex than those two qualities. So they designed a computer model to tease out and measure the complexities.
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Eighty Years Along, a Longevity Study Still Has Ground to Cover
The New York Times: After reading “The Longevity Project,” I took an unscientific survey of friends and relatives asking them what personality characteristic they thought was most associated with long life. Several said “optimism,” followed by “equanimity,” “happiness,” “a good marriage,” “the ability to handle stress.” One offered, jokingly, “good table manners.” In fact, “good table manners” is closest to the correct answer. Cheerfulness, optimism, extroversion and sociability may make life more enjoyable, but they won’t necessarily extend it, Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin found in a study that covered eight decades. The key traits are prudence and persistence.
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Come On, I Thought I Knew That!
The New York Times: Trick question: Is it easier to remember a new fact if it appears in normal type, like this, or in big, bold letters, like this? The answer is neither. Font size has no effect on memory, even though most people assume that bigger is better. But font style does. New research finds that people retain significantly more material — whether science, history or language — when they study it in a font that is not only unfamiliar but also hard to read. Read the whole story: The New York Times
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How politicians clean up
The Globe and Mail: Researchers at Cornell University have found that a subtle psychological manipulation can have statistically significant political effects,” The Boston Globe says. “Simply being in the presence of a hand sanitizer or a small sign about using hand wipes was enough to make people more conservative morally, socially and fiscally. So liberals should be nervous any time they see cleanliness paraphernalia in polling stations.” The study appears in the journal Psychological Science. Read the whole story: The Globe and Mail
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Our beliefs shape our learning: Study
MSN: If something is easy to learn, then it will be just as easy to remember - nearly everyone uses this simple rule to assess his or her own learning. But holding different belief about the nature of intelligence too can influence our learning, psychological scientists say. It has long been known that these beliefs have important bearing on people's motivation to learn, the journal Psychological Science reports. The so-called 'entity theorists' hold that each person possesses a fixed level of intelligence, which cannot be improved, says study co-author David B. Miele, of Columbia University. Meanwhile, 'incremental theorists' believe that intelligence is malleable.
