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A Psychologist Goes To The Zoo: An Interview with Terry L. Maple
Scientific American: I first became aware of Dr. Terry L. Maple when I read his article in the latest issue of The Observer, the magazine of the Association for Psychological Science. Maple is former president and CEO of the Zoo Atlanta as well as the Palm Beach Zoo, and is currently a professor in the departments of psychology and integrative biology at the Harriett Wilkes Honors College at the Boca Raton campus of Florida Atlantic University. Dr. Maple became the Director of the Atlanta Zoo in 1984 at the request of then-Mayor Andrew Young.
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The Benefits of Daydreaming
Smithsonian: Does your mind wander? During a class or meeting, do you find yourself staring out the window and thinking about what you’ll do tomorrow or next week? As a child, were you constantly reminded by teachers to stop daydreaming? Well, psychological research is beginning to reveal that daydreaming is a strong indicator of an active and well-equipped brain. Tell that to your third-grade teacher. A new study, published in Psychological Science by researchers from the University of Wisconsin and the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science, suggests that a wandering mind correlates with higher degrees of what is referred to as working memory.
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Why Republicans and Democrats Can’t Feel Each Other’s Pain
TIME: Shakespeare asked rhetorically whether Christians and Jews are not “hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal’d by the same means, warm’d and cool’d by the same winter and summer?” The same can be said of Republicans and Democrats, but if you ask people on opposite sides of the aisle to try to empathize with one another, they tend to consider their rivals as not equally human. That’s not a mere observation of election-year political antics, but a finding from scientific research.
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Keeping a secret can be a real physical burden
Yahoo: Feeling burdened by a secret? Does being sworn to secrecy make you feel sluggish and tied? That physical anguish isn't all in your head. A new study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, found that secrets really do "weigh people down," and not just mentally. Michael Slepian, a researcher at Tufts University, found that in four different tests, keeping a secret proved to have real -- and perceived -- physical effects. In the first test, Slepian and his colleagues found 40 people were told to recall a secret. They were then each asked to estimate the steepness of a hill.
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Most Religious States Revealed in New Survey
LiveScience: If you like to attend church and have a strong connection with religion, Mississippi may be your best bet, according to a new survey finding the Magnolia State is the most religious, followed by Utah and Alabama. At the other end of the pew, Vermont and New Hampshire came in as the least religious U.S. states. Individuals who indicated that religion is an important part of their daily life and that they attend religious services every week or almost every week were classified as "very religious" by Gallup officials. Read the whole story: LiveScience
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Grumpy Young Men
TIME: This will come as a big surprise to all those wives and girlfriends out there: a new study finds that men in uniform – even absent combat – are harder to get along with than civilian guys. Military men tend to be more aggressive, more competitive, less concerned with others’ feelings, less neurotic and less likely to worry than their civilian brothers, according to a study in the journal Psychological Science. This could be a good thing, the study notes. Read the whole story: TIME
