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You’re probably more freaked out about the world than you should be
I don’t know you. But I’m guessing I can still tell you something important about yourself: You are more freaked out about the world — especially the other people in it — than you should be. For starters, you are reading this, which means you consume at least some news media. And the news is, lately, a scary place. Perhaps you saw some stunning graphs recently that depicted the most common actual causes of death in the United States, the causes of death most commonly searched for online and those that get the most news coverage. In reality, most people die of diseases of old age, such as heart disease and cancer.
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What Experts Know About People Who Commit Mass Shootings
On Monday morning, President Trump made his first televised statement about the mass murders committed over the weekend in El Paso, Tex., and Dayton, Ohio. He called for action to “stop mass killings before they start,” citing what he said were a number contributing factors: the contagious nature of mass murder; the glorification of violence in video games; and the need to act on “red flags” to identify and potentially confine the “mentally ill monsters” that he said commit the crimes. ... The results of studies attempting to clarify the relationship between violent video games and aggression have been mixed, with experts deeply divided on the findings.
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New Research From Psychological Science
A sample of research exploring the description-experience gap in intertemporal choice and selection of visual objects in perception and working memory.
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Genetic Variation Contributes to Individual Differences in Pleasure
Differences in how our brains respond when we’re anticipating a financial reward are due, in part, to genetic differences.
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Debiasing Your Decisions
Game-based debiasing training may help us overcome confirmation bias in our professional lives.
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You 2.0: The Empathy Gym
What books are on your summer reading list? If you're reading mostly nonfiction, consider the benefits of adding a novel to the mix. "There's a fair amount of evidence now that the more fiction that people read, the more empathetic that they become," says Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki. "Because fiction is one of the most powerful ways to connect with people who are different from us who we might not have a chance to meet otherwise." Zaki argues that empathy is like a muscle — it can be strengthened with exercise and it can atrophy when idle. On this episode of Hidden Brain, we talk about calibrating our empathy so we can interact with others more mindfully.
