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Coronavirus: Will We Ever Shake Hands Again?
Around the world, humans are struggling to ignore thousands of years of bio-social convention and avoid touching another. Shaking hands might be one of the hardest customs to lose in the post-pandemic world but there are alternatives, writes James Jeffrey. The humble handshake spans the mundane to the potent, ranging from a simple greeting between strangers who will never meet again, to the sealing of billion-dollar deals between business titans. There are various ideas about the origin of the handshake. It may have originated in ancient Greece as a symbol of peace between two people by showing that neither person was carrying a weapon.
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Where Psychologists Should Fear to Tread on Covid-19, They Don’t
ONSIDER THE FOLLOWING brain teaser: A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? A researcher devised the question 15 years ago as a measure of our ability to move past intuitive responses to deeper, reflective thinking — a concept Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist and Nobel Prize winner in economics, would go on to explore in his 2011 book “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” It’s been popularized to the point you may already know the answer. (Hint: It’s not 10 cents, the response that springs to mind for most people.
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Faces, Faces Everywhere
One of the mostly forgotten chestnuts of the newspaper racket was the photograph, always on the first snowy day of the year, of some frozen formation that resembled a human face. After seeing those pictures year after year, it was hard to shake the suspicion that news photographers were sculpting on the fly, and under deadline. But in this Covid-19 spring, with people confined in their homes and neighborhoods, the inanimate faces are back in irrepressible number. These visages peer outward with smiles or frowns, from standpipes and parking lots, rock piles and garbage — found art as a witness to history and, in this circumstance, a reflection of shared human instinct.
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Should You Immerse Yourself in Bad News These Days or Ignore It Completely?
APS Member/Author: Hal Hershfield How can we possibly grapple with the onslaught of information about virus spread, stock market nosedives, canceled plans and uncertainty about the future? Some people wallow in the fear, anxiety and sadness, checking news sites and social media constantly. Others try to suppress it all and ignore the outside world (I’m guessing that Instagram has never seen so much traffic). There’s a third option, though. Rather than fully immersing in the negative or ignoring it, we can do our best to experience joy alongside everything else that is sad in the world.
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Here’s Why Some People Are Not Wearing Masks During the Coronavirus Crisis
There is widespread agreement that one of easiest ways to control the spread of the coronavirus is to wear a face mask, but there are all kinds of reasons why people don't take this basic step, experts said Tuesday. "That's a simple question with a complex answer," said Jacqueline Gollan, a psychologist and associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "One, they underestimate the threat. It’s not concrete, it’s abstract.
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Loss, Grief, Stress: How The Pandemic Is Affecting Kids
NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro and education correspondent Cory Turner talk with child psychologist Abigail Gewirtz about the impact of the pandemic on kid's mental health and development. ... GARCIA-NAVARRO: Abigail, let's start with the research. What can you tell us about the studies that are looking at kids and mental health in this crisis? GEWIRTZ: Well, there are studies that are ongoing. Our world is really turned upside down. We are just beginning to think about how to understand what's happening to children's mental health and to children's well-being in general.
