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The Science of Momentum: Does a Win Today Predict a Win Tomorrow?
The Huffington Post: If your favorite team or player wins on a given day -- especially if it's a landslide win, then it's likely that "momentum" gets thrown around by people previewing the next event. Winning in any activity often gets used to build confidence for the next contest. Along with sports commentators, "momentum" is frequently used by stock analysts talking to investors, politicians talking to supporters, and executives talking to employees and other stakeholders. For better or worse, momentum is one of those concepts that's sticky in our heads. We're evolved to see patterns -- like figuring out "who's hot" and "who's not" -- partly to help us anticipate the future.
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Is Depression Just Bad Chemistry?
Scientific American Mind: A commercial sponsored by Pfizer, the drug company that manufactures the antidepressant Zoloft, asserts, “While the cause [of depression] is unknown, depression may be related to an imbalance of natural chemicals between nerve cells in the brain. Prescription Zoloft works to correct this imbalance.” Using advertisements such as this one, pharmaceutical companies have widely promoted the idea that depression results from a chemical imbalance in the brain. ... Much of the general public seems to have accepted the chemical imbalance hypothesis uncritically. For example, in a 2007 survey of 262 undergraduates, psychologist Christopher M.
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I don’t know what I think
The Guardian: When I was about half way through Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow, a meticulous and perturbing dissection of the ease with which our capacity for making judgements can be… well, perturbed, it suddenly occurred to me to wonder whether the expert psychologist had been canny enough to write his book in such a way as to fool me into thinking that it is brilliant. I guess that is a mark of the discombobulating nature of the text but tricksiness isn’t Kahneman’s style. Rather he combines an authoritative seriousness with a very human warmth to present a fascinating thesis and I’m almost 100% sure that this is an excellent book.
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It’s Possible That Jimmy Fallon Is a Natural-Born Nice Guy
The Huffington Post: New Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon has something of a reputation, but it's not the one we might naturally associate with Hollywood success stories: Fallon is, by nearly all accounts, a genuinely nice guy. As Vanity Fair described, "He possesses no ironic cynicism, no attitude, no agenda other than to make people laugh." He writes thank-you notes to restaurants that treat him well. He's always respectful of his guests. In fact, it's this nice guy quality that's been credited with helping Fallon attract ratings-boosting, high profile guests -- and convincing them to take part in his show's often-silly shenanigans.
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Negotiating your next deal: It’s okay to, literally, sweat it
Fortune: We negotiate nearly every day. While the term "negotiation" often brings to mind larger-stake deals, such as the purchase of a new home or car, more often these negotiations are smaller and involve project deadlines at work or divvying up of household responsibilities. Many of us, myself included, can't stand negotiations whether big or small -- so much so that it comes as a surprise that others actually relish each chance they get to negotiate. Regardless of which camp you're in, most of us can relate to the feeling of pounding hearts and sweaty palms when we negotiate. Do these visceral responses -- also known as physiological arousal -- hurt or help us?
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An Hour Makes a Difference
Inside Higher Ed: For years, studies have found that first-generation college students -- those who do not have a parent with a college degree -- lag other students on a range of education achievement factors. Their grades are lower and their dropout rates are higher. But since such students are most likely to advance economically if they succeed in higher education, colleges and universities have pushed for decades to recruit more of them.
