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Can We Have too Many Choices?
Whether we’re deciding what to eat for lunch at the cafeteria, which store to go into at a shopping mall, or what Netflix movie to order, we are constantly surrounded by choices. That sounds like a great thing, but a study published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science found that thinking about choice has some negative effects. People show reduced support for the public good and are less sympathetic to others. One experiment found that volunteers who were primed to think about choice were less likely to support policies promoting greater equality and benefits for society than volunteers who did not think about choice.
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Happiness, Comparatively Speaking: How We Think About Life’s Rewards
You win some, you lose some. You get the perfect job—the one your heart is set on. Or you get snubbed. You win the girl (or guy) of your dreams—or you strike out. Such are life’s ups and downs. But what if you win and lose at the same time? You land a good job—but not a great one. Or you do get a plum offer—but not the one you wanted? A study published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, says you’ll find a way to be happy anyway. “Good outcomes have relative value and absolute value, and that affects our happiness,” explains Carnegie Mellon assistant professor Karim S.
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Food May Be Addicting for Some
The Wall Street Journal: A new study suggests that people who struggle to say no to chocolate, french fries or other junk food suffer from something more insidious than lack of willpower: They may actually have an addiction. Using a high-tech scan to observe the brains of pathological eaters versus normal eaters, the study found that showing a milkshake to the abnormal group was akin to dangling a cold beer in front of an alcoholic. Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal
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In pain? Try meditation
CNN: You don't have to be a Buddhist monk to experience the health benefits of meditation. According to a new study, even a brief crash course in meditative techniques can sharply reduce a person's sensitivity to pain. In the study, researchers mildly burned 15 men and women in a lab on two separate occasions, before and after the volunteers attended four 20-minute meditation training sessions over the course of four days. During the second go-round, when the participants were instructed to meditate, they rated the exact same pain stimulus -- a 120-degree heat on their calves -- as being 57 percent less unpleasant and 40 percent less intense, on average. Read the whole story: CNN
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When a woman should act like a man
CNN: Tilia Wong worked in construction management before going to business school and got used to thinking of herself as a businesswoman who knew how to keep assertive behavior under wraps. "I'm a 24-year-old Asian girl telling a 55-year-old white guy what to do. I had to tone it down," she said of her workplace experience. Fast forward to this year, when Wong began an MBA at Stanford University and had to reassess herself because classmates told her she was actually on the aggressive end of the spectrum. Read the whole story: CNN
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When Thoughts Weigh Heavy: Outsmarting the Liars
One of my guilty pleasures is the long-running TV show NCIS, a drama focused on the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The hero is a former Marine, now Special Agent Jethro Gibbs, a disciplined detective with an uncanny ability to observe and interrogate criminal suspects. He doesn’t say much or display much emotion in the interrogation room—indeed his cool demeanor is his trademark—yet he is a keen lie spotter. Psychological scientists are fascinated by real-life versions of the fictional Gibbs. Detecting lies and liars is essential to effective policing and prosecution of criminals, but it’s maddeningly difficult.
