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Even Kindergarteners Can Rate Their Own Confidence
Discover Magazine: Do you remember on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire—apparently this show is still on, but I’ll assume no one else has seen it this decade—how after contestants picked an answer, Regis Philbin sometimes asked, “How sure are you?” They’d pull a number seemingly out of the air: “Oh, eighty-five percent.” This trick of estimating our own confidence is a psychological phenomenon called metacognition. And if you ask in the right way, even kids as young as 5 can do it. Adults aren’t randomly picking numbers when we say we’re 85% sure of something. We may be overconfident in ourselves, but in general we can sense when our knowledge is stronger or weaker.
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Book Review: ‘The Organized Mind’ by Daniel J. Levitin
The Wall Street Journal: More than a century ago, Sigmund Freud wrote the "Psychopathology of Everyday Life." Over two decades ago, Donald Norman published the "Psychology of Everyday Things." Three years ago, David Myers called a new edition of his textbook "Psychology in Everyday Life." The word "everyday" has a special appeal in such titles, since so many psychology books, especially of the self-help variety, are written for the self with major problems to contend with—love, illness, grief, identity, conflict—leaving the small tasks of mundane functioning to common sense, or perhaps to business writers who purvey "habits" and "disciplines." In "The Organized Mind," Daniel J.
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Anticipating Experience-Based Purchases More Enjoyable Than Material Ones
To get the most enjoyment out of our dollar, science tells us to focus our discretionary spending on trips over TVs, on concerts over clothing, since experiences tend to bring more enduring pleasure than do material goods. New research shows that the enjoyment we derive from experiential purchases may begin before we even buy. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
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A Meet-Cute of Professional Networking and Online Dating
The New York Times: Work and romance may seem like a bad combination, but as more work, and more romance, goes online, the two are meeting in interesting ways. LinkedUp is one startup banking on a version of the old saw that you’re likely to meet your mate at work, while eHarmony, a veteran of online dating, has decided to deploy its expertise to match job seekers with potential employers. “Elevated Careers by eHarmony,” scheduled to start in December, seeks to improve a company’s employee retention rates by looking at more than skills and resumes — companies would be more productive, and more profitable, if their workers were more satisfied and stayed at the company longer.
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Your 401(k) Is Healthy. So Maybe You Are, Too.
The New York Times: Before you suggest that friends or family members start to exercise or improve their diets, you might first want to ask a question: Are they saving for retirement? What do retirement savings have to do with physical health? A new study from the journal Psychological Science finds that people who are good at planning their financial future are more likely to take steps to improve their physical health — and then actually become healthier. The research, scholars say, offers a keen insight into the sorts of people who are likely to make short-term sacrifices in the name of a brighter future.
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The computer will see you now
The Economist: ELLIE is a psychologist, and a damned good one at that. Smile in a certain way, and she knows precisely what your smile means. Develop a nervous tic or tension in an eye, and she instantly picks up on it. She listens to what you say, processes every word, works out the meaning of your pitch, your tone, your posture, everything. She is at the top of her game but, according to a new study, her greatest asset is that she is not human. When faced with tough or potentially embarrassing questions, people often do not tell doctors what they need to hear.
