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Talking With Your Hands Makes You Learn Things Faster
New York Magazine: One of the funniest things about being a tall, goofy person with a long history of wild gesticulation is that the more animated a conversation gets, the more likely I am to knock over a glass of red wine at a dinner table or accidentally wallop a stranger on the subway. Beyond being a real hit on dates or interviews, it’s an embarrassing piece of the growing pile of evidence that gestures are cognitive, an idea with an impressive amount of psychological literature behind it. ... The University of Chicago psychologist Susan Goldin-Meadow has spent much of her career trying to grasp (yes, pun intended) what’s happening when people talk with their hands.
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Is It Time To Ban Computers From Classrooms?
NPR: Every semester, college instructors face a choice: whether to restrict the use of laptops and other devices in their classrooms or to, instead, let students decide for themselves. And for classrooms that do allow devices, students face an ongoing set of choices: to take notes electronically or by hand, to check the textbook or the text message, to check Instagram or Twitter. ... A second possibility is that even legitimate course uses — such as taking notes — could be less effective on a computer.
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Teens: this is how social media affects your brain
CNN: Whether you're on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, What's App or Twitter, the way you communicate with friends today is changing. Keeping in touch is no longer about face to face, but instead screen to screen, highlighted by the fact that more than 1 billion people are using Facebook every day. Social media has become second nature -- but what impact is this having on our brain? ... "When teens learn that their own pictures have supposedly received a lot of likes, they show significantly greater activation in parts of the brain's reward circuitry," says lead author Lauren Sherman.
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Virgin Atlantic just used behavioral science to ‘nudge’ its pilots into using less fuel. It worked
The Washington Post: In an unusual experiment that could have major implications for the role of corporations in fighting climate change, Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Airways recently teamed up with economists to try to “nudge” the company’s pilots to use less fuel, using a variety of behavioral interventions. And it apparently worked. The intervention was so cost effective, the researchers say, that it “outperforms every other reported carbon abatement technology of which we are aware.” Read the whole story: The Washington Post
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The Cheater’s High And Other Reasons We Cheat
NPR: This week on Hidden Brain, we take on cheating. Lying and deception are part of being human. And it begins from a very young age. In fact, YouTube is filled with videos of imaginative children trying out little lies, usually to get out of trouble. We at Hidden Brain were taken with this brother/sister duo, Jackson and Reagan, as their mom interrogated them to find out who marked up the wall. ... Professor Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School has found in her research that people tend to be more forgiving of unethical behavior if it is creative (or in this case, cute). This is something she's also found in her own life as the mother of a 3-year-old.
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Working parents have two jobs — and both are important to the economy
PBS: Nearly one in five workers work part-time in the U.S. By 2020, that figure is expected to rise to 40 percent. By 2030, “a majority of workers will be on their own,” according to Berkeley economist and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. The common assumption is that part-time workers want to work full time, but can’t find full-time employment due to a dearth of jobs and stiff competition. But deeper analyses suggest a very different interpretation: Employees are willing to sacrifice earnings if it means achieving a better balance of their personal and professional lives. Read the whole story: PBS
