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Empathy is on the Rise in Young People
It doesn’t often feel as if we’re living in empathetic times. ... That increase in empathy can be undermined by our cynicism toward each other, according to Jamil Zaki, a professor of psychology at Stanford University who is also director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. People often believe that “their craving for a more empathetic community is theirs alone when other people all around them also want the same thing,” said Zaki, author of “The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World.” This mistaken belief weakens conversations by creating biased views before you even start talking. People sometimes have an inaccurate sense of what other people think.
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Many Older People Maintain and Even Gain Cognitive Skills
Contrary to stereotypes of the doddering elderly, research shows that half of people older than age 70 stay mentally sharp. ... The normal aging process does bring changes to the brain, says Denise Park, a neuroscientist at the University of Texas at Dallas. There is some shrinkage in the frontal lobes and some damage to neurons and their connections. Cognitive processing slows down. Yet that slowdown is usually on the order of milliseconds and doesn’t always make a meaningful difference in daily life. And to compensate, older people activate more of the brain for tasks such as reading. “Older adults will often forge additional pathways” for particular activities, Park says.
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How ‘Inside Out’ and Its Sequel Changed Therapy
Mental health professionals and educators say the movies are remarkably helpful in providing a common language they can use with children and parents. ... But soon after the idea was born, Docter was stymied, he said, about which feelings to include; it turns out psychologists do not even have a consensus on how many there are. “Certain researchers will say that there are five emotions; others say 14,” Docter said. Dacher Keltner, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who served as a consultant on the movies, contends there are 27 categories, with fuzzy boundaries.
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The Boredom Scroll on Socials May Be Making Your Problem Worse
Puppies, dancing babies, celebrity soundbites: A common go-to salve for a bout of boredom is to swipe through videos on your social media platform of choice. But that habit is likely making your problem even worse, according to new research. ... To understand what you should take away from this study, it’s important to look further into what boredom really is, said Dr. Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center, an independent research organization. She was not involved in the research. “A study like this is easy to misinterpret as another mark against digital media, rather than to more usefully understand boredom as a motivational signal,” Rutledge said.
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Ghosting is Usually a Terrible Thing To Do. Here’s When It’s OK
You’re hitting it off with a new fling or friend when suddenly, they drop off the face of Earth without warning and with absolutely no explanation. You then realize you’ve been ghosted, perhaps vowing to never treat anyone how you were treated. ... On dating apps, ghosting can be a simple and efficient way to end one of multiple connections someone is simultaneously entertaining, said Dr. Rich Slatcher, a professor of psychology at the University of Georgia. The more anonymous someone is, the easier it is to dehumanize them, he said, and how much we owe someone, especially in the early stages, isn’t a universally agreed-upon concept. ...
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UCSF Researchers Asked if Therapy Can Address Childhood Trauma. A New Study’s Encouraging Results
Therapy may help prevent young children who’ve experienced trauma — such as domestic violence, the loss of a parent or caregiver or neighborhood violence — from developing related health problems later in life, according to a new UCSF study on Bay Area children. The study, published Wednesday in the journal Psychological Science, adds to the body of research on health impacts of childhood trauma and whether they can be mitigated — a topic of growing concern and investment among health care providers and policymakers.
