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When Negativity Is What We Need
The New York Times: If your friend is feeling bad about himself, you might try to convince him that everything’s actually O.K. But a new study suggests this kind of reassurance doesn’t necessarily make people with low self-esteem feel better, and some say it’s further evidence against the idea that positive thinking heals all wounds. For the study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the psychologist Denise Marigold and her co-authors examined how people with low self-esteem responded to “positive reframing” of difficult events in their lives (statements like “that’s not so bad,” or “at least you learned something”).
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6 Science-Backed Ways To Make Better Decisions
The Huffington Post: Imagine what the world would be like if everyone practiced a little more rational decision-making. Fortunately, research does show that there are things you can do to help make more accurate and reason-based -- and less emotion-based and potentially impulsive -- decisions. Here are just a few. Read the whole story: The Huffington Post
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Coaching Senior Drivers
With older people facing as high a risk of car crashes as teens, some states and provinces now test older drivers with the aim of getting the riskiest motorists off the road. But the tests they use are inadequate, says cognitive psychologist Normand Teasdale of Université Laval in Québec. Some governments only test vision; others test cognition, too. In some cases, on-the-road tests also are required. But none of these tests is enough—they lack accuracy, sensitivity and specificity.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Long-Term Temporal Tracking of Speech Rate Affects Spoken-Word Recognition Melissa M. Baese-Berk, Christopher C. Heffner, Laura C. Dilley, Mark A. Pitt, Tuuli H. Morrill, and J. Devin McAuley Past studies have indicated that the timing of speech can influence the perception of spoken words; however, many of these studies have been performed in a short-term context -- altering the timing of a single phrase, for example. In this study, participants heard a series of utterances played at one of three different global-speech rates.
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Did Laughter Evolve to Make Us Healthy?
National Geographic: Researchers are looking into what laughter can do for our health. More than a form of communication, laughter helps people thrive. Some folks take that to heart and gather for "laughter yoga." Watch the whole story: National Geographic
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Psychology Explains Why People Are So Easily duped
The Washington Post: True or false: “The Eiffel Tower is in France.” Most of us can quickly and accurately answer this question by relying on our general knowledge. But what if you were asked to consider the claim: “The beehive is a building in New Zealand.” Unless you have visited New Zealand or watched a documentary on the country, this is probably a difficult question. So instead of recruiting your general knowledge to answer the claim, you’ll turn to your intuition. Put another way, you’ll rely on what Stephen Colbert calls “truthiness” — truth that comes from the gut, and not books.