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Give Thanks For Siblings: They Can Make Us Healthier And Happier
NPR: Somehow we're squeezing 18 people into our apartment for Thanksgiving this year, a year when too many people are worrying about fraught post-election conversations. My relatives, who luckily are all cut from the same political cloth, range in age from my mother, aged 92, to my 32-year-old nephew (my 17-month-old granddaughter's political leanings are still unfolding.) I love them all, but in a way the one I know best is the middle-aged man across the table whose blue eyes look just like mine: my younger brother Paul. ... So if your kid sister is the queen bee in any social gathering, you might get labeled "the quiet one" even if you're not especially quiet, just quiet in comparison.
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Want to Give a Good Gift? Think Past the “Big Reveal”
Gift givers often make critical errors in gift selection during the holiday season, focusing on the moment of exchange instead of the long-term utility or practical attributes of the gift.
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‘They Were Just Like Us, and They Lost Everything’
The Atlantic: According to Jamil Zaki, assistant professor of psychology and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory, even though empathy is a fundamental human emotion, people are not exactly wired for a globalized response. “When we evolved, we were in small groups of interdependent individuals, so the people that you would run into and subsequently empathize with were probably family or extended family,” he explained. “And nowadays, we’re given the unprecedented opportunity to empathize, reach out to and help, not just the people who are right around us, but people all around the world. ...
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Why Do We Believe Fake News? Accepting Inaccurate Information Is Less Work Than Being Critical, According To Research
Bustle: Some have attributed the election results in part to the ease with which inaccurate, hyperpartisan information circulates on social media, prompting questions about why fake news is believed even when the information is clearly false or satirical — and indeed, our tendency to believe inaccurate information warrants examination, which is exactly what a recent research study has done. Because whether or not fake news actually swayed the election, the internet has made spreading misinformation easier than ever — that much is clear. ... The answer, it turns out, has less to do with deliberate ignorance and more to do with the way the brain works.
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How to Become Great at Just About Anything
Freakonomics: This week on Freakonomics Radio: What if the thing we call “talent” is grotesquely overrated? And what if deliberate practice is the secret to excellence? Those are the claims of the research psychologist Anders Ericsson, who has been studying the science of expertise for decades. Listen the whole story: Freakonomics
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Visual Biases Near the Hands Help Us Perform Specific Actions
Using your hands to perform tasks in specific ways can change the way you see things near your hands, findings from two experiments show.
