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Why Happiness Isn’t Always Good: Asians vs. Americans
TIME: Among journalists — and less so among psychologists — the subset of mental-health research called “positive psychology” has become powerfully influential. Positive psychology, which was more or less founded by a University of Pennsylvania professor named Martin Seligman, focuses not on ordinary or pathological behavior — the two subjects that most psychologists study — but on how we can cultivate positive emotions to build resilience and well-being. Many research psychologists, either out of academic rigor or academic jealousy, have questioned Seligman's work.
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Macho Men
“I’ve Got to Be a Macho, Macho Man.” Village People said it, but research has the science to back it up. An article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science explains that when men feel threatened, they use aggression to assert their machismo. In a series of studies, some men were asked to do “feminine” tasks such as braiding hair while others were asked to do gender-neutral tasks such as braiding a rope. When given the option to punch a bag or do a puzzle, those whose manhood had been threatened were exceedingly more likely to choose the former. When all volunteers got to punch the bag, those who had braided hair punched it harder.
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Does Revenge Serve an Evolutionary Purpose?
Scientific American: Spontaneous patriotic chants and flag-waving crowds were sparked by word that Osama bin Laden had been killed earlier this week. Despite the man's loathed reputation as the mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the jubilation over bin Laden's death raises the question: Why the celebration? Was it relief, a sense of justice—or the simple pleasure of revenge? As draconian as lethal retribution might seem, science has shown that the human brain can take pleasure in certain kinds of revenge.
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Seeing the Trees and Missing the Forest
The phenomenon known as holistic processing is best known in faces. Most people see faces as a whole, not as two eyes a nose, and a mouth. But holistic processing happens in other cases, too, and can even be taught. One possible explanation is that holistic processing emerges from expertise, but the truth is much more nuanced, according to the authors of a new review published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "Holistic processing has been measured for years and years in different ways," says Isabel Gauthier of Vanderbilt University, who co wrote the paper with Jennifer J. Richler, also of Vanderbilt, and Yetta K.
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Playing football games on computers ‘makes you more aggressive’
Daily Mail: Computer games about football make players more aggressive than violent ones, psychologists claim. While participants remain ‘numb’ when they see someone being ‘killed’ on screen, apparently harmless games that mirror real life can have a far greater effect. The study shows a complex link between the way viewers interpret violent and hostile events on the screen and their personal reactions. There has been a huge debate about whether watching violent video games can desensitise young people’s responses. Governments around the world have introduced laws to control the sale of games, along with rating systems to alert parents and consumers to the scale of violence.
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Hearts Beat as One in a Daring Ritual
The New York Times: For as long as anyone in the tiny Spanish village of San Pedro Manrique can remember, people there have been walking on fire. They do it every June 23, at midnight, celebrating the summer solstice by crossing a 23-foot-long carpet of oak embers that have burned for hours before sizzling down to a glowing red. The event is full of pageantry and symbolism: processions with religious statues, trumpets sounding before each fire-walk, and three virgins (or, these days, three women who are unmarried). Read the whole story: The New York Times
