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Respect of peers more important than money: Study
TODAY Online: The respect of friends and colleagues makes people happier than being wealthy because the enjoyment we get from money fades, a study has found. The admiration and respect of our peers has a greater bearing on our overall happiness in life than our bank balance or the status associated with being rich, researchers found. Psychologists from the University of California, Berkeley carried out four studies to observe the connection between various types of status and our overall happiness in life, the Daily Telegraph reported. In one study, the researchers carried out a survey of 80 university students who between them were involved in 12 different social groups such as sororities.
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Sentencing Ruling Reflects Rethinking on Juvenile Justice
The New York Times: On one hand, scientists and judicial experts say, knowing that someone has committed a brutal crime as a youngster says little about his penchant as an adult. As a group of former juvenile court judges told the Supreme Court in an amicus brief in Monday’s case, “The criminal justice system cannot predict what kind of person a 15-year-old juvenile offender will be when he is 35 or 55 or 75.” On the other hand, that makes it no easier to sentence such an offender. Laurence Steinberg, a professor of psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia, said about 10 percent of young violent criminals become adult offenders. But no one knows which ones.
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Moderate Doses of Alcohol Increase Social Bonding in Groups
A new study led by University of Pittsburgh researchers reveals that moderate amounts of alcohol—consumed in a social setting—can enhance positive emotions and social bonding and relieve negative emotions among those drinking. While it is usually taken for granted that people drink to reduce stress and enhance positive feelings, many studies have shown that alcohol consumption has an opposite effect. In a new paper titled “Alcohol and Group Formation: A Multimodal Investigation of the Effects of Alcohol on Emotion and Social Bonding,” research shows that moderate doses of alcohol have a powerful effect on both male and female social drinkers when they are in a group.
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Is Feeling Bad a Luxury Problem?
Huffington Post: Health experts call these "first-world problems," meaning the accumulated stresses of daily life and the negative emotions they arouse. There's little doubt that worry and anger and sadness are linked to illness and mortality, right down to the cellular level, but isn't this just the downside of privilege? Those of us who live in modern, industrialized nations may indeed be sickened by negative emotions, but surely this phenomenon is eclipsed by more pressing and serious health risks in the developing world, by "real" problems like famine, poverty, and war. Or is it? The fact is, we don't know. The question never been studied.
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How our pupils contract when we think of memories – and how this is an evolutionary leftover which we no longer require
Daily Mail: Eyes are the windows to our souls - but they are also a window to our minds. This is the claim of scientists from Arizona State University, who say that our eye movements can reflect our emotional state and the ways we think. The study, published in Psychological Science, also shows that pupil dilation is not just down to light conditions, but also reflects the creation and retrieval of memories. Students used pupillometry - the study of pupil movement - in their study, observing eye movements while questions were asked. They suggest this type of study could be an efficient means for studying memory creation and retrieval.
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Inside the Brains of Bieber Fans
The Wall Street Journal: The symptoms include uncontrollable screaming, swooning and spending hours on Twitter and Facebook. It primarily affects preteen and teen girls, yet it is highly contagious and can infect mothers, too. In severe cases, sufferers camp out on sidewalks for days. "The appeal for me is, of course, that he's beautiful," says 15-year-old Emma Reeves of Madison, Conn., who has seen Justin Bieber twice in concert. "It's hard to find people who are successful, nice and care about other people and he has it all!" By disease standards, "Bieber Fever" is approaching a global pandemic with the release of the 18-year-old pop star's latest album, "Believe," last week.
