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In The Heat Of The Moment: How Intense Emotions Transform Us
For years, George Loewenstein's exercise routine involved running up a steep hill. As he made it to the top of the peak, all he could think about was the pain. But once he reached the top, it was as if he was struck with amnesia. That pain, he says, "was all forgotten within maybe 10, 20 seconds." A few days later, George would lace up his sneakers and scale the hill again, and his mind followed the same pattern. George realized that each of his emotional states were little worlds unto themselves — the runner in pain had little understanding of the carefree person going downhill, and vice versa.
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The More We See Fake News, The Less Fake It Becomes
There are many reasons why people share articles online. Sometimes it is to demonstrate an expertise or interest in a certain area. Sometimes it’s an attempt to change people’s minds. Other times, it is simply to share with the world something that brought them a moment of joy or inspiration. But what about fake news? What empowers people to feel ethically licensed to share information they know to be blatantly untrue? A new study forthcoming in the journal Psychological Science examined people’s motivations for sharing fake news articles.
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Kids with ‘helicopter parents’ more likely to burn out, have a harder time transitioning to ‘real world’
In many ways, the college admissions scandal, aka “Operation Varsity Blues,” was a cautionary tale about what can happen when parents get too involved in their children’s school careers. Although most parents don’t break the law or pay millions of dollars to get their kids into prestigious schools, “helicopter parenting” is far more common, and it can have lasting psychological effects. A new study from Florida State University found that kids who had helicopter parents were more likely to experience burnout from schoolwork, and they had a harder time transitioning from school to the real world.
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The Science Of Scary: Why It’s So Fun To Be Freaked Out
Haunted houses. Skydiving. Scary movies. Why do these horrifying things make some people delighted, and others, well, horrified? For answers, NPR's Maddie Sofia, host of the daily science podcast Short Wave, spoke with the guy who wrote the book on what makes those folks tick. Ken Carter teaches psychology at Oxford College of Emory University and is the author of Buzz! Inside the Minds of Thrill-Seekers, Daredevils and Adrenaline Junkies. In the book, Carter — a self-proclaimed lover of calm — gets into the minds of a "subset of people who crave stimulation and thrive in environments that would seem overstimulating, even chaotic, to the rest of us."
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What Your Facebook Posts Say About Your Mental Health
Over time, all these Facebook posts, Instagram captions, and tweets have become a treasure trove of human thought and feeling. People might rarely look back on their dashed-off online thoughts, but if their posts are publicly accessible, they’re ripe for analysis. And some psychologists are using algorithms to figure out what exactly it is we mean by these supposedly off-the-cuff pronouncements. This might seem like a minor distinction, but according to Lyle Ungar, one of the study’s authors, finding the difference between the two can help people in jobs that involve caring for others, such as doctors, understand when their empathy might be counter-productive.
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We need a major redesign of life
It’s time to get serious about a major redesign of life. Thirty years were added to average life expectancy in the 20th century, and rather than imagine the scores of ways we could use these years to improve quality of life, we tacked them all on at the end. Only old age got longer. As a result, most people are anxious about the prospect of living for a century. Asked about aspirations for living to 100, typical responses are “I hope I don’t outlive my money” or “I hope I don’t get dementia.” If we do not begin to envision what satisfying, engaged and meaningful century-long lives can look like, we will certainly fail to build worlds that can take us there.
