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Lo que una persona piense de su enfermedad influye en cuánto se puede curar, o no
Yahoo! Noticias: Lo que una persona piensa de su enfermedad afecta la evolución de la patología, al punto que puede determinar la curación y como queda su estado de salud. Polémica, si se tiene en cuenta que no todas las enfermedades tienen un origen psicosomático, es la conclusión a la que llegaron los psicólogos Keith Petrie de la Universidad de Auckland (Australia) y John Weinman del King's College de Londres (Reino Unido). Es que ellos aseguran haber hallado en sus investigaciones que la percepción que tienen las personas de su propia enfermedad afecta muchas decisiones, como por ejemplo si van a seguir el tratamiento asignado por su médico.
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Politics, Odors and Soap
The New York Times: Conservatives may not like liberals, but they seem to understand them. In contrast, many liberals find conservative voters not just wrong but also bewildering. One academic study asked 2,000 Americans to fill out questionnaires about moral questions. In some cases, they were asked to fill them out as they thought a “typical liberal” or a “typical conservative” would respond. Moderates and conservatives were adept at guessing how liberals would answer questions. Liberals, especially those who described themselves as “very liberal,” were least able to put themselves in the minds of their adversaries and guess how conservatives would answer.
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Daydream Believers: Scientists Ask Why Our Minds Wander
ABC: Zoning out while trying to read this? No offense taken, since all of us do it at least a third of the time that we're awake. In recent years a number of academicians have ventured into this previously unexplored territory, trying to figure out why our minds wander while we're supposed to be paying attention. They were probably spurred on by the blank faces of their students during their stimulating lectures. But despite considerable interest in determining precisely why we zone out so often, scientists say it is still a bit unclear why we do it. There's some good news, however.
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Q & A With Psychological Scientist Barry Schwartz
Barry Schwartz is the Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College. His research investigates the decision-making processes that underlie our choices and examines how our choices make us feel. We invited our Facebook and Twitter followers to ask Schwartz questions about his research - here is what he had to say: Do you have any suggestions for a better college application process that would not only be helpful in stopping the extreme competitiveness in our society but also better match students to the college that best suites them? Yes I do.
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Winning Streak, Really?
Peter Ayton studies our judgment and decision making processes, especially where those processes often go wrong. He has investigated judgment errors like the hot-hand fallacy, in which people tend to expect that recent positive successes within a random sequence will continue—like a basketball player on a “hot” shooting streak—and the related gambler’s fallacy, in which people expect that such a positive or negative streak will eventually be balanced out.
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Imaging study reveals differences in brain function for children with math anxiety
Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have shown for the first time how brain function differs in people who have math anxiety from those who don’t. A series of scans conducted while second- and third-grade students did addition and subtraction revealed that those who feel panicky about doing math had increased activity in brain regions associated with fear, which caused decreased activity in parts of the brain involved in problem-solving.
