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Virtuous Cycles: Night Owls and Early Birds
The Huffington Post: I have been an early bird for as long as I can remember. Even in college and grad school, when circumstances more or less forced me to be a night owl -- even then I secretly preferred being awake and alert as the morning dawned. You genuine night owls really don't want to know what time I'm up and about these days. Psychological scientists are very interested in "chronotypes" -- a jargony label for early birds and night owls. These preferences, or biological propensities, have important consequences, affecting school performance, work life choices, friendships, even romance.
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Using Your 5 Senses To Jump-Start the Creative Process
Fast Company: Sight might have the greatest impact on your state of mind while you're working. What your eyes take in around you will affect your creativity and focus. That means it can help to vary your lighting source depending on the type of work you're doing. If you need to be alert and focused, direct daylight is always your best option. A 2012 study published in Behavioral Neuroscience found that people who were exposed to daylight versus those exposed to artificial light for six hours two days in a row felt more alert, and performed more accurately on tasks. There's a link between light and cognitive performance.
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Thirteen in Years, but 10 or 15 in Thoughts and Action
The New York Times: Gather together a random assortment of 13-year-olds, and you’ll likely find yourself looking at a group of people who have only their age in common. Some will be way into teenage culture, into hanging out and hooking up, even into alcohol and drugs; others will be little changed from the children they were at 12, 11, even 10 years of age, still singing the songs and playing the games of children. The wide spread in young people’s rates of social and psychological maturation has led some researchers to propose that we think about adolescents not just in terms of their chronological age, but also their subjective age: how old they feel and act.
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Observation Skills May be Key Ingredient to Creativity
University of Amsterdam researchers explored whether there could be a link between various aspects of mindfulness and aspects of creative thinking.
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Insecurity at the Borderline
Republican Senator Thad Cochran, who has represented Mississippi since 1978, this week used a clever psychological strategy to fend off a primary challenge from the right wing of the party. “The Tea Party,” he confessed on a final campaign swing, “is something I don’t really know a lot about.” Nobody believes that. Cochran hasn’t been living in a cave. What he was doing, very effectively, was marginalizing his Tea Party rival, playing on the insecurities of a GOP “fringe” faction within the party’s establishment. And his opponent took the bait, reacting with hostility toward the powerful incumbent and behaving ungraciously in defeat.
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Where’s The Line Between Cheating A Little and Cheating A Lot?
NPR: Behavioral economist Dan Ariely explains the hidden reasons we think it's okay to cheat or steal. He says we're predictably irrational — and can be influenced in ways we don't even realize. Listen to the whole story: NPR
