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5 Facts About the Wealthiest 1 Percent
LiveScience: Protesters in the Occupy Wall Street movement, which began in New York City's financial district and has since spread to hundreds of cities around the country, call themselves "the 99 percent": They say they're protesting on behalf of all but the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. The protesters object to corporate control of government policies, which they say has led to unfair tax loopholes, job outsourcing, cuts to public programs and gross overcompensation of executive employees, all of which have caused an ever-widening wealth disparity between the top 1 percent and the rest of the country. So what is the disparity? How is wealth distributed in the United States?
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Why telling the truth could save your life: Most of us would rather lie to avoid awkwardness (even in high-risk situations)
Daily Mail: Many of us would rather tell a white lie than the brutal truth to avoid an awkward social situation. Instead of admitting a friend’s new hair-do is hideous, we may choose to say ‘it’s unique’ or ‘just you’. But a study has revealed that being too polite can have disastrous consequences in high-stakes situations. It could result in a doctor not administering the correct treatment if a nurse has not flagged up a potential error, a pilot crashing because a colleague has not pointed out a mistake, or staff ignoring strange occurrences in the workplace to avoid embarrassing colleagues or their boss, resulting in fraud.
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Save the world – but nick a bit of it for yourself
Times Higher Education: If you have ever felt the urge to mug an old lady after buying a package of eco-friendly soap powder, you may not be alone. According to social science publisher Sage's most downloaded article of 2009-10, going "green" boosts our tendency to lie and steal. The article, "Do green products make us better people?", was published in the Sage journal Psychological Science. It describes a series of experiments devised by Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, both assistant professors in the University of Toronto's School of Management. Read the whole story: Times Higher Education
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How old do you feel inside?
Chicago Tribune: Those of us lucky enough to grow old must contend with the miserable stereotypes of what it's like: the frailty, the forgetfulness, the early bird specials. But in aging, as in many things, attitude can make all the difference. Research has shown that how people feel inside, and their expectations of their capabilities, can have a greater impact on health, happiness and even longevity than the date on their birth certificates. In her seminal "counterclockwise" study, in 1979, Harvard University psychologist Ellen Langer brought men in their 70s and 80s to a weeklong retreat that was retrofitted, from the music to the newspapers, to look and feel like 1959.
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Women, Men and the Bedroom
In the racy television hit show, Sex and the City, Carrie, one of the main characters tells her best girlfriends that “Men who are too good looking are never good in bed because they never had to be.” This is just one of the many gender stereotypes that audiences were exposed to in this show. The show challenged many stereotypes about sex and gender and refrained from the gender caricatures that typify so much television fare.
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I’m not okay, neither are you
The Sydney Morning Herald: Self-esteem is big business. Peruse the self-help section of any bookshop and you'll find row after row of books dedicated to feeling good, getting happy and making the most out of you. But despite all these apparent solutions, a recent survey by health insurer Bupa found that Australia is the world's most depressed nation. (To make matters worse, the survey also helpfully pointed out that we're rather fat.) Being positive may seem like a good idea - but it's not guaranteed to make our lives more fulfilled. In fact, positive thinking can create an "empathy deficit", argues Barbara Ehrenreich in Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World.
