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How to Perform in a Clutch
TIME: Life is full of vulnerable moments — occasions when we feel off-balance, unsure of ourselves and our abilities — and in these moments we are likely to perform less well than we might. Social psychologists have developed a simple activity, called a values affirmation, that can intervene in such situations to restore our sense of equilibrium. Here’s how it works: Make a list of the values that matter most to you, or for 10 minutes, write in-depth about a value that is central to your life. Perhaps it’s your close relationship with your family, or your skill with a camera or in the kitchen, or your strong religious faith. What matters is that it’s your value, your identity. ...
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Study: Math Skills at Age 7 Predict How Much Money You’ll Make
The Atlantic: So far as we're able to predict a child's likelihood of leading a successful life, it's no secret that the assets we're born with (intelligence) or into (socioeconomic status) are important. But to what extent do learned abilities, like basic academic skills, fit into that equation? This study defines success in terms of socioeconomic status. Stuart Ritchie and Timothy Bates, of the University of Edinburgh, used data from a cohort of over 17,000 residents of England, Scotland, and Wales who were followed from when they were born to the present day, over 50 years later. Read the whole story: The Atlantic
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science. Object-Based Attention Without Awareness Liam J. Norman, Charles A. Heywood, and Robert W. Kentridge Attentional selection can facilitate the processing of basic properties of unseen stimuli; however, it is still unknown whether this selection extends to more complex properties of stimuli. Participants performed a task in which a cue appeared inside one of two rectangles that were masked from their conscious attention. After the cue, a target appeared in one of the masked rectangles. Participants processed targets appearing within the same rectangle as the cue more rapidly than they processed targets in the other rectangle.
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Weight Gain Tied To Personality Changes, Impulsivity: Study
The Huffington Post: Your weight may be linked with your personality, according to a new study published in the journal Psychological Science. Researchers from the Florida State University College of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health found that people who have experienced weight gain were more likely to be both impulsive and deliberate in their actions. "If mind and body are intertwined, then if one changes the other should change too," study researcher Angelina Sutin, of the Florida State University College of Medicine, said in a statement.
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How Positive Emotions Lead to Better Health
Pacific Standard: We’ve all experienced downward spirals, in which dark emotions lead to destructive behavior that damages our health, strains our relationships, and leaves us feeling even worse than when we started. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was an uplifting equivalent to that destructive chain of events? Newly published research suggests there is. What’s more, this delightful dynamic helps explain the well-documented link between joy, appreciation, and good health.
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Kahneman and Bentham’s Bucket of Happiness
Scientific American: We need a new happiness. The one most people use now is confusing even our smartest scientists. The problems start with “Bentham’s bucket error” but Plato’s pastry and a rare case of reality in Freud can revive healthier pursuits of happiness. Daniel Kahneman, who has plausibly been called the “most important psychologist alive today,” has spent a decade experimenting with “hedonimetrics,” which analyzes “single happiness values” assigned to each moments felt pleasure or pain. Commendably candid, he concludes: “we have learned many new facts about happiness.
