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Cognitive science shows that humans are smarter as a group than they are on their own
Quartz: As individuals, the amount we know about the world is miniscule. One psychologist estimated that an individual’s knowledge store is about one gigabyte, much less than fits on a typical USB thumb drive. This is why most of us struggle to name even a few foreign leaders or accurately draw a picture of a bicycle. Even within our domains of expertise, ignorance is a fact of life. Surgeons are masters of the procedures they perform, but that doesn’t mean they can identify the appropriate anesthetic or design an effective course of follow-up physical therapy.
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How to Leave a Mark on People
The New York Times: Joe Toscano and I worked at Incarnation summer camp in Connecticut a few decades ago. Joe went on to become an extremely loving father of five and a fireman in Watertown, Mass. Joe was a community-building guy — serving his town, organizing events like fishing derbies for bevies of kids, radiating infectious and neighborly joy. Joe collapsed and died while fighting a two-alarm fire last month. When Joe died, the Incarnation community reached out with a fierce urgency to support his family and each other. One of our number served as a eulogist at the funeral. Everybody started posting old photos of Joe on Facebook.
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Cognitive Skills Differ Across Cultures and Generations
An innovative study of children and parents in both Hong Kong and the United Kingdom, led by University of Cambridge researchers Michelle R. Ellefson and Claire Hughes, reveals cultural differences in important cognitive skills among
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New Research From Psychological Science
A sample of new research exploring physical position as an impression-management strategy, the origins of ordered line representations, links between agency and intentional binding, and p-curve analyses of findings related to the ‘power pose.’
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How to Find Your Missing Keys and Stop Losing Other Things
The New York Times: You were sure you left the keys right there on the counter, and now they are nowhere to be found. Where could they be? Misplacing objects is an everyday occurrence, but finding them can be like going on a treasure hunt without a map. Here are some recommendations from experts to help you recover what is lost. (Consider printing this out and putting it someplace you can easily find it.) Read the whole story: The New York Times
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Living a Lie: We Deceive Ourselves to Better Deceive Others
Scientific American: People mislead themselves all day long. We tell ourselves we’re smarter and better looking than our friends, that our political party can do no wrong, that we’re too busy to help a colleague. In 1976, in the foreword to Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene, the biologist Robert Trivers floated a novel explanation for such self-serving biases: We dupe ourselves in order to deceive others, creating social advantage. Now after four decades Trivers and his colleagues have published the first research supporting his idea. Read the whole story: Scientific American
