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Potential Recession Would Harm Mental Health: Experts
Jey Austen, a brand designer at a fintech company, lost their job about two weeks ago. But the layoff didn’t come as a surprise, said Austen, 27, who is trans and uses they/them pronouns. A market downturn in recent months has hammered the tech industry, eliciting a wave of layoffs. Austen, whose lease on an apartment in Austin, Texas ends in August, will receive three weeks of severance pay but otherwise lacks savings, they said. “Worst comes to worst, I’ll sleep in my car,” said Austen, who was making $80,000 a year. “It’s a sucky situation all around.” Compounding the stress, Austen will likely struggle to afford their usual weekly therapy appointments, they said.
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I Don’t Care If It’s Fake News, I Believe It
“Max” Bai talks about the research on misinformation he presented at the 2022 APS Annual Convention in Chicago.
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‘This Is the Price We Pay to Live in This Kind of Society’
Seeing news of mass shooting after mass shooting can produce both a stress response and a cynical sense that nothing will change. ... The sites of mass shootings have become instantly recognizable markers of tragedy in the geography of recent American history: There’s Columbine, Parkland, Aurora, the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Sandy Hook, and Virginia Tech, among many others. And now there’s the Tops market in Buffalo, and Uvalde. Each of these events has its own particulars—and many shootings, like the (at least) 14 over Memorial Day weekend, get scant individual attention—but together they form a gutting pattern.
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Practical Ways to Alleviate Loneliness and Isolation Among Older Adults
Over 14 million older adults live alone in the U.S., according to the Administration on Aging[1]. Unfortunately, loneliness and isolation are serious issues with deleterious health implications. Both are linked to decreased physical and mental health, as well as increased mortality. In fact, The National Institute on Aging notes loneliness and isolation can lead to higher risk of depression in people as they age. Understanding how loneliness and isolation manifest in real-world scenarios can help you spot the signs in yourself or those you love and know how to help. ...
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Facial Expressions Do Not Reveal Emotions
Do your facial movements broadcast your emotions to other people? If you think the answer is yes, think again. This question is under contentious debate. Some experts maintain that people around the world make specific, recognizable faces that express certain emotions, such as smiling in happiness, scowling in anger and gasping with widened eyes in fear. They point to hundreds of studies that appear to demonstrate that smiles, frowns, and so on are universal facial expressions of emotion. They also often cite Charles Darwin’s 1872 book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals to support the claim that universal expressions evolved by natural selection.
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2022 Spence Award Mini Episode: Brian Anderson and Habit-Reinforcing Behavior
2022 Spence Award winner Brian Anderson talks about his research on what captures human attention and how that influences behavior.