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Don’t Speak, Memory
TIME: I've always been proud that my columns are 100% accurate, which isn't all that hard since I write only about me. But it turns out that I'm an awful source. I get dates and places wrong. I replace former girlfriends with my lovely wife Cassandra in many stories, despite the fact that after 14 years together it would be far more exciting to do the opposite. I know about these errors because camp friends e-mail me corrections, IMDb.com shows that the movie I thought Cassandra and I went to see together had left theaters before we met, and the mullet photos of me on the Internet prove that I could not have lost my virginity at 17.
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Myopic Misery: The Financial Cost of Sadness
Huffington Post: Nobody likes to feel bad. Sadness saps our energy and motivation. Melancholy wrecks our health and invites disease. Misery leaves us -- well, miserable. Yet many experts believe that these negative emotions have an upside, that they clarify our thinking and foster more deliberate and careful decision making. Some even say that sadness is a reality check on unwarranted optimism and self-regard. That's the so-called "sadder but wiser" theory. But is it true? Isn't it equally as plausible that sadness and melancholy sabotage some kinds of thinking, and lead to questionable choices and judgments?
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The Benefits of Being Bilingual
Wired: Samuel Beckett, born in a suburb of Dublin in 1906, was a native English speaker. However, in 1946 Beckett decided that he would begin writing exclusively in French. After composing the first draft in his second language, he would then translate these words back into English. This difficult constraint – forcing himself to consciously unpack his own sentences – led to a burst of genius, as many of Beckett’s most famous works (Malloy, Malone Dies, Waiting for Godot, etc.) were written during this period.
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Notre Dame Psychology Students Take on Wikipedia Challenge
Today @ Notre Dame: Wikipedia is often in the top results when people search for information online, but it isn’t always the most credible source. Enter a group of advanced Notre Dame undergraduates in psychology who have taken on the challenge to update, correct, or, in some cases, write new entries for the online encyclopedia. It’s all part of the new Association for Psychological Science (APS) Wikipedia Initiative—and Assistant Professor Gerald Haeffel’s “Science and Pseudoscience in Psychology” class is one of a select few across the country selected to participate. “We know that a lot of people get their science information from Wikipedia,” Haeffel says.
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Is bad bedside manner a conscious decision on the doctor’s part?
Toronto Star: Bad bedside manner — when a health-care practitioner fails to see the patient as human — can make or break an already complex relationship. Patients crave a deep relationship, full of empathy and trust, with their doctor or nurse. Such a relationship, however, is sometimes lacking in the medical field. Patients complain that doctors or nurses sometimes talk down to them, forgetting they have a family, feelings and concerns. What is the psychology behind a bad bedside manner? And is it a conscious or subconscious decision by the doctor?
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Study of the Day: Why There’s No Love Lost Between Political Enemies
The Atlantic: PROBLEM: Usually, visceral states, or internal conditions that we want badly to change, can get so overwhelming that we project them onto others. A person who's freezing, for instance, would likely assume that the people around him must be cold as well. But how far does this effect extend? METHODOLOGY: To see if political rivals can also feel each other's pain, researchers led by Ed O'Brien asked subjects to read a short story about a person who was either a left-wing, pro-gay rights Democrat or a Republican proponent of traditional marriage. This character goes hiking in winter and gets lost with no food, water, or extra clothes.
