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A Harvard psychologist explains why forcing positive thinking won’t make you happy
The Washington Post: All people, at times, fill up with grief, spill over with joy, or tremble with anger. Most of us are taught early on to manage these emotions by sharing and reveling in the positive ones, while repressing or apologizing for the negative ones. Either way, we learn not to probe our feelings too deeply. In her new book, “Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change and Thrive in Work and Life,” Harvard Medical School professor and psychologist Susan David explains and then challenges this reflexive ways of handling emotion. David argues that we should instead pay close, yet detached attention to our internal experiences.
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We’re All a Little Biased, Even if We Don’t Know It
The New York Times: One of the newest chew toys in the presidential campaign is “implicit bias,” a term Mike Pence repeatedly took exception to in the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday. Police officers hear all this badmouthing, said Mr. Pence, Donald J. Trump’s running mate, in response to a question about whether society demands too much of law enforcement. They hear politicians painting them with one broad brush, with disdain, with automatic cries of implicit bias. He criticized Hillary Clinton for saying, in the first presidential debate, that everyone experiences implicit bias. He suggested a black police officer who shoots a black civilian could not logically experience such bias.
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How to vote for president when you don’t like any of the candidates
The Washington Post: How do voters select a candidate when no one they like is on the ballot? Behavioral scientists have studied decision-making — including voting — for decades. However, researchers usually give respondents at least one appealing option to choose from. This led us to wonder: What do voters do when they consider all of the options bad? Do they fall back on party affiliation, or simply toss a coin? This question is especially appropriate in the current presidential election because the two front-runners have the lowest favorability ratings ever. Read the whole story: The Washington Post
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‘Brain-training’ games help you play said games, not much else
Chicago Tribune: Spend enough time playing "brain-training" games, and you'll get pretty good at games. But you won't necessarily get better at anything else. That's the conclusion of an extensive review published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest this week. A team of psychologists scoured the scientific literature for studies held up by brain-training proponents as evidence that the technique works - and found the research wanting. Read the whole story: Chicago Tribune
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Some Brains Have a Motion Blind Spot
A surprisingly high proportion of people may have a form of motion blindness in which sensory information about moving objects is not properly interpreted by the brain.
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When a Spouse Dies, Resilience Can Be Uneven
The New York Times: Losing a beloved life partner is never easy at any age, no matter the circumstance. The loss can be sudden and totally unexpected — a fatal heart attack, traffic accident or natural tragedy like a flood or earthquake. Or the loss can be long in coming from a progressive illness that gives the surviving spouse weeks, months, even years to prepare for and presumably ”adjust” to its eventual inevitability.
