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Two Faces of Death: Inside the Existential Mind
You’re visiting a friend who lives on the 20th floor of an old, inner city, block of apartments. It’s the middle of the night when you are suddenly awakened from a deep sleep by the sound of screams and the choking smell of smoke. You reach over to the nightstand and turn on the light. You are shocked to find the room filling fast with thick clouds of smoke. You run to the door and reach for the handle. You pull back in pain as the intense heat of the knob scalds you violently. Grabbing a blanket off the bed and using it as protection, you manage to turn the handle and open the door.
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The Vitamin Paradox
Last night I had a chocolate milkshake for dinner. I don’t eat like this all the time, but often enough. I eat lots of salads, but I also eat cheeseburgers. And if I’m tired I eat pretzels, or skip eating entirely. In short, I’m far from a nutritional purist. But I take a multi-vitamin every day, and have for as long as I can remember. I figure it’s the least I can do for my personal health, plus it’s easy and fairly cheap. I guess I’m hedging my bets. And I’m not alone. Sales of nutritional supplements have grown dramatically over the past decade or so, and now total more than $20 billion a year. More than half of Americans take some kind of vitamin pill.
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Fast and furious: Belief, catharsis and video violence
The Supreme Court’s decision today to overturn California’s ban on selling violent video games to children will no doubt rekindle debate about catharsis. Catharsis is the notion that we can dampen our negative emotions by acting them out or witnessing them in our arts and entertainment—and that this is a healthy thing to do. The scientific evidence is fairly heavily stacked against this idea. Indeed there is evidence that indulging our anger and aggression can increase—not decrease—those destructive emotions. Even so, a lot of people still believe in catharsis. They believe that pummeling punching bags and watching Fight Club and cursing at the universe is cleansing.
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The Fly-on-the-Wall Effect: When Bad Things Happen . . .
When I was a kid, and had to deal with life’s early disappointments, my parents would always call it a “learning experience.” If I failed to win a coveted academic award or athletic trophy, or if I was rejected by a former best friend, they would assure me that, as bad as I felt at the moment, the pain would help me build character over the long haul. It was a good thing. It didn’t feel like a good thing, but I trusted they knew what they were talking about. And they weren’t alone. Indeed, common wisdom holds that when bad things happen to us, we should try to examine our negative feelings in order to defuse them.
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In the Hole! Golfing in the Mind’s Eye
When the world’s finest golfers descend this week on Maryland’s Congressional Country Club for the 111th U.S. Open, there will be no hands-down favorite for the crowds to follow. Bubba Watson will bring his monstrous drives, KJ Choi his intense focus, and Luke Donald his consistency. Veterans Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson will have experience on their side, and Graeme McDowell his status as defending champion. That's the great thing about golf. Golfers may have different strengths, but at the end of the day each of them faces the identical challenge: Putting a sphere measuring 42.67 mm in diameter into a hole measuring 108 mm in diameter. Or maybe not.
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Life is one big priming experiment . . .
One of the most robust ideas to come out of cognitive psychology in recent years is priming. Scientists have shown again and again that they can very subtly cue people’s unconscious minds to think and act certain ways. These cues might be concepts—like cold or fast or elderly—or they might be goals like professional success; either way, these signals shape our behavior, often without any awareness that we are being manipulated. This is humbling, especially when you think about what it means for our everyday beliefs and actions.
