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Babies resemble tiny scientists more than you might think
PBS: It’s been well established that when infants see something surprising, they look longer. This is true for babies as young as two months. But until recently, few had asked why. A new Johns Hopkins University study has found that when an object behaves in an unusual way, the baby will explore more, learn more and “spontaneously test relevant hypotheses about the object’s behavior,” according to Aimee Stahl, a doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins who also is one of the study’s authors. The baby, in other words, becomes a tiny scientist. The study was released today in the journal, Science. Read the whole story: PBS
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Men And Women Use Different Scales To Weigh Moral Dilemmas
NPR: You find a time machine and travel to 1920. A young Austrian artist and war veteran named Adolf Hitler is staying in the hotel room next to yours. The doors aren't locked, so you could easily stroll next door and smother him. World War II would never happen. But Hitler hasn't done anything wrong yet. Is it acceptable to kill him to prevent World War II? ... "Women seem to be more likely to have this negative, emotional, gut-level reaction to causing harm to people in the dilemmas, to the one person, whereas men were less likely to express this strong emotional reaction to harm,"Rebecca Friesdorf, the lead author of the study, tells Shots.
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Do College Admissions by Lottery
The New York Times: The intense competition for admission to highly selective colleges and universities is destroying our kids. Suniya Luthar has spent about 20 years studying and documenting the growth of dysfunction among upper middle class youth, the prime candidates for admission to selective colleges. Luthar has found that extreme substance abuse, clinical depression, eating disorders and promiscuous sex are growing fast among these young people. Could there be a connection between these trends and the stress associated with applying to college? I think so. About 10 years ago, I suggested that admission to highly selective institutions should be done by lottery.
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Six reasons you’d be happier if you stopped saying “busy”
The Washington Post: A study in the Journal of Psychological Science shows that we’re much happier when there’s a lot going on in our life. But if keeping active and “busy” is positive for our health, why do we often feel overwhelmed or exhausted by our list of responsibilities? It may not be our “to do list” that is the source of our unhappiness. Instead, our choice of words can have a negative effect on our experience. A study on the psychological aspects of language use tells us that our words have more power than we may think. Read the whole story: The Washington Post
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The Sound of Employability: Interviewers Judge Your Voice
New research has identified one factor that can make a job applicant come across as smarter, warmer, and ultimately more employable than other candidates: the sound of their voice. When it comes to acing a job interview, common wisdom holds that job applicants should dress smart, show up on time, and come prepared; but a new study from psychological scientists Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder of the University of Chicago suggests that in order to put your best foot forward with a potential employer, job applicants should also make sure their voices are heard.
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Focusing the Brain on Better Vision
The New York Times: As adults age, vision deteriorates. One common type of decline is incontrast sensitivity, the ability to distinguish gradations of light to dark, making it possible to discern where one object ends and another begins. When an older adult descends a flight of stairs, for example, she may not tell the edge of one step from the next, so she stumbles. At night, an older driver may squint to see the edge of white road stripes on blacktop. Caught in the glare of headlights, he swerves. But new research suggests that contrast sensitivity can be improved with brain-training exercises.
