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Laughter Conveys Social Status
Naïve participants were highly accurate at judging an individual’s social rank just by listening to their laughter.
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Are Young Kids Doing Too Much Homework?
Slate: When I toured a public elementary school last spring, one question in particular seemed to make the principal squirm. Do the kindergartners get homework, I asked? Yes, he replied, explaining that it can help to solidify concepts—but he quickly conceded that some parents weren’t at all happy about it. The debate over elementary school homework is not new, but the tirades against it just keep coming. This fall, the Atlantic published a story titled “When Homework Is Useless”; you might have also seen the Texas second-grade teacher’s no-homework policy that went viral on Facebook around the same time.
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In Retirement, It’s Save Now or Pay (a Lot) Later
The Wall Street Journal: Given a choice between satisfying our immediate needs and desires or focusing on the future, the here and now typically wins out. That impulse doesn’t bode well for retirement savings. ... “Time, resources and attention are limited,” says Neil Lewis Jr., a Ph.D. candidate in social psychology at the University of Michigan and co-author of a recent study that examined ways to counteract the impulse to spend now instead of saving for retirement. “People allocate them to events that are pressing, rather than to events that may happen later.” ... Another technique comes from Mr.
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Do You Suffer From Illusions Of Moral Superiority?
NPR: Do you think you're more honest than the average person? More principled? More fair? If so, you're not alone. Studies consistently find that people think they're morally superior to others: more honest, principled and fair. This is hardly an isolated belief — people also think they're better than average when it comes to competence, intelligence and a host of other positive characteristics. Yet we aren't like the children of Lake Wobegone, who — we know from Garrison Keillor — are all above average. If all of us think we're above average, at least some of us are wrong. Read the whole story: NPR
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Kleine Aufmerksamkeiten
Süddeutsche Zeitung: Der Weg in ein Leben als schlechter Mensch wird in Trippelschritten gegangen. Eine kleine Verfehlung öffnet die Tür zur nächsten kleinen Schweinerei, bis irgendwann der Punkt erreicht ist, an dem sowieso alles egal ist und die inneren Dämme gebrochen sind. Psychologen um Nils Köbis von der Universität Amsterdam haben jedoch eine Ausnahme von dieser Regel identifiziert: Wenn es um Bestechung geht, dann neigen auch unbescholtene Menschen dazu, sehr plötzlich zu diesem unethischen Mittel zu greifen - ohne sich zuvor mit kleinen Verfehlungen erst einmal quasi aufzuwärmen. Read the whole story: Süddeutsche Zeitung
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Hypocrites, be honest
The Boston Globe: ACCORDING TO YALE University researchers, condemning someone else’s immoral behavior helps your own reputation, because when you condemn others, it’s a signal that you’re clean — more so than if you directly state that you’re clean. This is why hypocrisy is judged so harshly, because it violates the implicit assumption that you wouldn’t condemn unless you were really virtuous. As such, hypocrisy is judged even more harshly than lying about your behavior. However, honest hypocrisy — condemning others but also admitting your own misbehavior — is judged less harshly than lying. Read the whole story: The Boston Globe
