-
Americans Didn’t Wait For Their Governors To Tell Them To Stay Home Because Of COVID-19
APS Member/Author: Kyle Bourassa A favorite new debate taking place around the Twitter hearth is whether complying with social distancing guidelines is a partisan statement in and of itself. Blue states, such as Washington and New York, were initially hit hardest by the COVID-19 crisis, and stay-at-home orders went into effect as early as March 19 (California was first out of the gate). A number of red states have refrained from implementing such public-safety orders, and many Republican-leaning states, particularly in the South, didn’t issue orders for weeks afterward — as late as April 3 in Florida and Georgia. Florida Gov.
-
The Science of Prayer
Jillian Richardson has a new routine when she takes a walk. She puts on a mask, pops in her earbuds and heads out the door. Then she starts talking out loud. “Dear Lord,” she began recently. “Help me to stay grounded and grateful in stressful times. Show me how I can be of most service to you and others.” To passersby, Ms. Richardson appears to be talking on the phone. But she’s actually praying—something she’s been doing a lot more of since the pandemic started. “There’s so much uncertainty right now and so little in my power,” says the 26-year-old event producer in New York.
-
How the News Changes the Way We Think and Behave
Alison Holman was working on a fairly ordinary study of mental health across the United States. Then tragedy struck. On 15 April 2013, as hundreds of runners streaked past the finish line at the annual Boston Marathon, two bombs exploded, ten seconds apart. Three people were killed that day, including an eight-year-old boy. Hundreds were injured. Sixteen people lost limbs. As the world mourned the tragedy, news organisations embarked upon months – years, if you count the trial – of graphic coverage. Footage of the moment of detonation, and the ensuing confusion and smoke, were broadcast repeatedly.
-
New Research in Psychological Science
A sample of research on anxiety and learning under uncertainty, visual experience and access to word meanings, ego-depletion, visual perception, and the effects of economy type on the valuation of labor.
-
How to Keep Children’s Stress From Turning Into Trauma
Children may be processing the disruptions in their lives right now in ways the adults around them do not expect: acting out, regressing, retreating or even seeming surprisingly content. Parents need to know that all of this is normal, experts say, and there are some things we can do to help. “Our natural response to scary things is biologically to release stress hormones,” said Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, a pediatrician and surgeon general of the state of California, and the author of “The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity.” The release of stress hormones activates our fight or flight response.
-
Coronavirus is Reminding People How Racism Takes a Psychological Toll, but There Are Ways to Be Resilient
A recent string of coronavirus-related attacks against Asian-Australians has prompted many people to share their experiences with racism and the psychological impacts it has had on their lives. Recent incidents include a Melbourne home being spray-painted with racist graffiti, tenants being evicted from a Perth rental accommodation, and one man in Sydney who ended his relationship with a woman who returned from China because he did not want to catch the virus. But, in addition to the high-profile racist attacks, there are also what are believed to be the more insidious forms of racism that go unspoken and underreported in communities across Australia.
