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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: When the Spatial and Ideological Collide: Metaphorical Conflict Shapes Social Perception Tali Kleiman, Chadly Stern, and Yaacov Trope In this study, the researchers examined what happens when physical and abstract aspects of a metaphor are in conflict. Participants categorized pictures of past presidents Bill Clinton (a liberal-left Democrat) and George W. Bush (a conservative-right Republican) using a left-hand button press for pictures of Clinton and a right-hand button press for pictures of Bush (compatible condition) or vice versa (incompatible condition). Participants also completed a category-breadth assessment.
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Daydreaming Can Have a Dark Side
While someone is zoning out, their mind isn’t just blank. Instead, people who are daydreaming may be intensely ruminating on their future accomplishments, hopes, and goals. Research on daydreaming and other mind wandering has shown that this can help people generate innovative solutions to problems, an idea that the business world has started catching on to. But research is also showing that daydreaming can have a dark side. Several studies have shown that spontaneous thoughts can be open and expansive, allowing the mind to creatively “wander” through different topics, helping people come up with expected solutions to problems.
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Testing for Joy and Grit? Schools Nationwide Push to Measure Students’ Emotional Skills
The New York Times: SAN FRANCISCO — The fifth graders in Jade Cooney’s classroom compete against a kitchen timer during lessons to see how long they can sustain good behavior — raising hands, disagreeing respectfully and looking one another in the eye — without losing time to insults or side conversations. As reward for minutes without misconduct, they win prizes like 20 seconds to kick their feet up on their desks or to play rock-paper-scissors.
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Some Bus Riders Do Secretly Just Want a Car
The Atlantic's CityLab: The talk of the public transit world yesterday centered on a report by Laura J. Nelson and Dan Weikel of the Los Angeles Times spotlighting a troublesome decline in local bus and rail ridership. The news shouldn’t have been a shock: dips in U.S. bus travel, very likely the result of service cuts, have been out there for all to see. But the story revived the impassioned debate about whether transit riders are really just would-be drivers who can’t afford a car. ... The question of which view is more accurate isn’t so easy to answer.
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Is It the Right Time for a Fresh Start?
Scientific American: Around this time of year, I tend to look back at the list of commitments I made in early January: I will exercise more often, spend more time with family, do a better job balancing my personal and professional lives, leave my laptop home when we go on vacation, and so on. And yet, only two months into the new year, I find I am not doing such a good job. And I am sure I am not alone. On January 1, people around the globe commit with vigor to all sorts of virtuous goals, from losing weight to being a more understanding boss or partner to eating more healthfully to saving more money. And, before too long, most of us find we’re back where we started.
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Our Weak, Fragile Millennials
The Wall Street Journal: From a conversation between John Leo, editor of Minding the Campus, and New York University social psychologist Jonathan Haidt about the turmoil in higher education, published online Feb. 3: John Leo: What happens to the academy now? You used the word “die.” Is it dead or dying? Most academics think it’s just aflutter. They seem to have no idea that something important happened at Yale. Jonathan Haidt: The big thing that really worries me—the reason why I think things are going to get much, much worse—is that one of the causal factors here is the change in child-rearing that happened in America in the 1980s.
