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The Biggest Reason We Steal Other People’s Ideas
The Huffington Post: Chances are that at some point in your career, you've taken an idea from someone else. I want to know why. There's a clue in a story about one of the great bands of our time. All good things come to an end, and by 1970, the beloved Beatles had decided to go their separate ways. Within a year, George Harrison reached No. 1 with a solo song, "My Sweet Lord." But his sweet time at the top was short-lived. Within a month, a lawsuit was filed. Harrison's song had original lyrics, but shared a melody and harmony with the 1963 hit song by the Chiffons, "He's So Fine." Was the Beatles' lead guitarist guilty of plagiarism?
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WSJ. Magazine February 2015: The Columnists
The Wall Street Journal: WSJ asks six luminaries to weigh in on a single topic. This month: Youth The 20s are now a time of hyperindividualism. Emerging adults—the term I coined for the new life stage occurring between ages 18 to 29—have a lot of time to make decisions about what work they want to do and what kind of partner they want to have by age 30. The downside is that young people are now required to have an awful lot of self-discipline and motivation. It’s great to have all these possibilities, but that means you have to decide. Nobody’s going to tell you what to do anymore. Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal
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People Value Resources More Consistently When They Are Scarce
We tend to be economically irrational when it comes to choosing how we use resources like money and time but scarcity can convert us into economically rational decision makers, according to research in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Research from psychological science has shown that we humans make economically irrational decisions all the time, influenced by contextual factors that have no bearing on the utility or pleasure we will derive from a good or a service. We may scoff at the idea of buying a $4 hot dog from a street vendor, for example, but have no qualms about getting a $7 hot dog at a baseball game.
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The Psychological Difference Between $12.00 and $11.67
The Atlantic: Of the lunch spots near my office, the chain Le Pain Quotidien's menu always demands more of my attention than others. The reason that the menu at Le Pain Quotidien is unusual isn't because they serve open-faced sandwiches or that I'm not sure what kind of cheese Fourme d’Ambert is, but rather that their prices aren't formatted like those of other shops. Organic egg frittata costs $12.00, curried chicken salad tartine is $12.25, a large cappuccino is $5.35. In a world where most prices end with ".99", Le Pain Quotidien's prices make my brain hurt.
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Driving Under the Influence of Friends is Risky for Teens
Teen drivers are far more likely die in car accidents when they drive with friends. According to a study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, a teen driver's risk of death per mile driven increases by 44% with one teen passenger in the car and quadruples with three or more teen passengers. As a result, many states now have laws limiting the number of passengers allowed in a car with a teen driver. Crash data has long shown that driving with peers dramatically increases the odds of fatal crashes for teens, particularly males, but researchers have been unable to pinpoint exactly why some teens’ driving behavior spins out of control in the presence of their friends.
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Transgender Kids Are Not Confused Or Pretending, Study Finds
BuzzFeed: Transgender children as young as 5 years old respond to psychological gender-association tests just as consistently as children who do not identify as trans, according to a groundbreaking study released this week by researchers at the University of Washington. “Our results support the notion that transgender children are not confused, delayed, showing gender-atypical responding, pretending, or oppositional,” says the study being published in Psychological Science.
