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Study finds being poor places heavy burden on mental capacity
The Globe and Mail: Poverty is like a tax on the brain, a team of researchers has reported, because it imposes a measurable burden on the mental capacity of those who must struggle with it day after day. The result, part of a study of cognitive reasoning across income groups, may explain why low-income people seem to have a harder time with certain tasks that require focus or planning and appear to make decisions that work against their best interests. It also suggests that policies and programs designed to help the poor improve their lot may not be successful if they do not take into account how much brain power is used simply in the act of trying to get by with scarce resources. ...
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The Perfect Nap: Sleeping Is a Mix of Art and Science
The Wall Street Journal: There's an art to napping. Studies have found different benefits—and detriments—to a nap's timing, duration and even effect on different people, depending on one's age and possibly genetics. "Naps are actually more complicated than we realize," said David Dinges, a sleep scientist at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine. "You have to be deliberative about when you're going to nap, how long you're going to nap and if you're trying to use the nap relative to work or what you have coming up." Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal
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As We Become Richer, Do We Become Stingier?
NPR: Patricia Greenfield has tracked families in Chiapas, Mexico, over four decades. Many were very poor when she started her study. Slowly, over time, they grew wealthier. Along the way, Greenfield noticed something: As the people she followed grew richer, they became more individualistic. Community ties frayed and weakened. Greenfield expanded her findings to form a more general theory about the effects that wealth has on people: "We become more individualistic, less family and community oriented." In a new study, the UCLA researcher makes the argument that the same thing has happened in the U.S. over a longer period.
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The Presumptuous Power Holder
Louis XIV, the vain French king who held the longest reign in European history, epitomized absolute monarchy. But his blind pursuit of power—highlighted by the four wars he waged —left the French people demoralized and the treasury bankrupt. The self-proclaimed Sun King fully expected others to sacrifice and suffer to satisfy his own ambitions. Psychological scientists Jennifer Overbeck and Vitaliya Droutman point to Louis XIV as an extreme example of power holders who pursue their goals without considering or understanding the desires of the people they represent.
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Young versus old
BBC: A new study shows it’s more that we have bad moments than bad days. There’s some good news if you’re older. Although people, on average, do worse on memory tests as they age, it turns out that they perform more consistently. … “We were able to show that good and bad days of performance actually exist, but that the variability of those days is not as large as one would expect,” says Florian Schmiedek of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. … In all nine cognitive tasks assessed, the older group actually showed less performance variability from day to day than the younger group.
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Here’s What Happens When You Extend a Deadline
The Huffington Post: In June, the Obama administration pushed back the deadline for employers with 50 or more workers to provide health insurance for their employees by a full year -- until Jan 1, 2015. Admittedly, the implementation of anything as complex as the Affordable Care Act is going to take time, and those involved have been working furiously to try to meet the government's deadlines. So at least with respect to this particular part of the ACA, everyone has an additional year to get everything just right. Sounds like a good thing, doesn't it? Only -- how furiously do you think everyone with this new extended deadline is working now? Are they still burning the midnight oil...
