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Whither the Type A personality?
I first studied psychological science in the 1970s, and one of the most popular ideas at that time was the Type A personality. Two cardiologists, Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman, had made the case that a certain type of person—competitive, driven, hurried, easily angered—had a much higher risk of heart attack and heart disease than did easy-going types, which they labeled Type B. The idea of Type A personality took hold in the public imagination, and it’s still heard in the common parlance today. The concept was scientifically controversial from the start, but it did provoke a lot of debate—and an explosion of research.
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Research Suggests That Being a Fan of a Bad NFL Team Is Making You Fat
Sports Illustrated: As if wearing an adult-sized replica jersey, yelling at the TV, and paying extortionary sums for personal seat licenses weren’t evidence enough, science has come along and confirmed what everyone already knew: Football makes fans do stupid things. Or, as it were, eat stupid things. This is according to professor Pierre Chandon and PhD candidate Yann Cornil of INSEAD Business School, who recently published a study in Psychological Science detailing how losses drive disconsolate fans into the arms of saturated fats.
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The Bizarre Phobia You’ve Never Heard Of: Fear of Holes
LiveScience: A strange phobia makes people feel panicked or ill at the sight of holes, and new research hints at the cause. In people who suffer from trypophobia, the sight of soap bubbles, aerated chocolate, or other objects with clusters of holes can cause migraines, panic attacks, hot sweats and a racing heart. The fear may stem from a visual resemblance to poisonous animals, according to a new study. Trypophobia is "the most common phobia you have never heard of," said study researcher Geoff Cole, a psychologist at the University of Essex, in England, who suffers from the fear himself. Read the whole story: LiveScience
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The Opt-Out Option
Getting employees to sign up for the company health plan, the 401(k), and other benefits can often be as daunting as getting a cat to fetch a stick. Researchers have learned that options and services too often falter because they’re designed to depend on people taking some kind of action. Studies show that relying on inaction yields better results. Some experiments with organ donation serve as a model. In the United States, 85 percent of Americans say they approve of organ donation, but only 28 percent give their consent to be donors by signing a donor card. The difference means that far more Americans die awaiting transplants. But psychologists Eric J.
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Spouses learn to ignore each other’s voices over time, study says
National Post: Middle-aged couples are able to tune out each other’s voices selectively so that they can pay more attention to other people, a study suggests. Husbands and wives become so familiar with one another’s pitch and sound that they become more simple to separate from background noise.
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How to Tell If You Are a Bad Employee
The Wall Street Journal: "She's a bully" and "obnoxious" are what San Francisco-based career coach Joel Garfinkle heard from employees at a Silicon Valley tech company about a colleague. The company had approached Mr. Garfinkle because its managers needed coaching help. Their best salesperson wasn't getting along with her co-workers and managers, who frequently complained about her insensitive behavior. ... The problem is that humans in general are bad at judging themselves so they may wait too long to act, says David Dunning, a professor of psychology at Cornell University who researches how people perceive their own skills and competence.
