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Your Immune System Can Make You Feel Sad, and That’s a Good Thing
While your body fights germs, you feel depressed, anti-social, even lethargic. Social neuroscientist Keely Muscatell offers an evolutionary explanation for why your mood and immune system are linked. ...
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We Still Don’t Believe How Much Things Cost
Deodorant was what changed Rob Cooper’s mind about the economy. After paying under $4 for his signature Old Spice Stronger Swagger for a decade, the 49-year-old was shocked last year to see it priced at $7.99. “My brain just cannot rationalize paying twice as much,” says Cooper, the Ambler, Pa.-based financial officer of a retail chain. “It doesn’t feel right.” Consumer-behavior researchers call Cooper’s expectation of $4 deodorant a reference price. A yearslong run of higher prices has unmoored many Americans’ expectations of what daily purchases should cost, from a cup of coffee to a package of paper towels.
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
A sample of research on the role of shame in the sexual-orientation disparity in mental health, moving toward anti-racism, profiles of risk in low-income children, and much more.
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The Secret to Accomplishing Big Goals Lies in Breaking Them Into Flexible, Bite-Size Chunks
The prospect of learning a new language can be daunting, especially for an adult. Spending dozens of hours a year on lessons just to make slow progress on a new skill can seem out of reach—particularly when juggling work and family responsibilities as well. That was certainly how one of us (Milkman) felt about her decades’ long ambition to learn Spanish. That all changed, however, when a popular language-learning app presented a more attractive approach: complete one lesson—just six or seven minutes long—every day in order to eventually become bilingual.
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Why Americans Suddenly Stopped Hanging Out
In its earliest decades, the United States was celebrated for its citizens’ extroversion. Americans weren’t just setting out to build new churches and new cities. Their associations were, as Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “of a thousand different types … religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute.” Americans seemed adept at forming social groups: political associations, labor unions, local memberships. It was as if the continent itself had imbued its residents with a vibrant social metabolism—a verve for getting out and hanging out.
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Conversation Research Still Requires a Human Ear
Conversations, whether in the form of small talk or a heated debate, involve a nuanced and unique exchange of words and behaviors. Recent technological advances have made it easier for conversation researchers to manage this complexity, paving the way for a deeper understanding of how humans communicate.
