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One Thing Everyone Agrees On: CEOs Make Too Much Money
In 2013, the average American worker’s salary was estimated at $35,293. American CEOs, on the other hand, earned a staggering individual average salary of $11.7 million — 331 times that of the average employee. Major discrepancies in pay between CEOs and workers has been a contentious subject not just in the United States, but also across the world. Just last year in Switzerland, voters considered (and ended up rejecting) a national cap on CEO pay at a ratio of 12-to-1 compared to salaries of the lowest-paid workers.
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How to Get in Shape Using Psychology: 6 New Tricks From Research
Time: Why is there an obesity epidemic? It’s not because we eat the wrong things or we lack exercise. Research shows that, plain and simple, most of us just eat too much: "Reported consumption increased by 268 calories for men and 143 calories for women between the two surveys. This increase is more than enough to explain the increase in steady-state weight… The available evidence suggests that calories expended have not changed significantly since 1980, while calories consumed have risen markedly." That’s hardly shocking. But what’s interesting is there’s a way to fix this that doesn’t involve exercise or being deprived of your favorite foods. Read the whole story: Time
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How to Study the Brain
The Chronicle of Higher Education: The human brain contains roughly 86 billion neurons and trillions, perhaps hundreds of trillions, of intricate interconnections among those neurons. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of different kinds of cells within the brain. And—after nearly two centuries of research—exactly zero convincing theories of how it all works. Why is it so hard to figure out how the brain functions, and what can we do to face the challenges?
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Why do we cry tears of joy?
The Telegraph: It may seem like a strange response: to break down in tears when you are happy. But now a group of psychologists say they have found the reason why, and that crying tears of joy may well be the body’s way of restoring “emotional equilibrium”. The psychologists say that, by responding to an overwhelmingly positive emotion with a negative one, people are able to recover better from strong emotions. Oriana Aragon, the lead author of the report which will be published in the journal Psychological Science, said: “People may be restoring emotional equilibrium with these expressions.
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The National Sadness of Sandy Hook
The Huffington Post: It's been almost two years since 20-year-old Adam Lanza walked into the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and gunned down 20 children and six adults, before killing himself. It was one of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history -- the worst ever in an elementary school. In the wake of this unthinkable tragedy, Americans were enveloped in a national sadness. The murders took place on December 14. Psychological theory and common wisdom both say that the intensity of our emotions surrounding Sandy Hook should have diminished by now. But is this true?
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Why do people cry tears of joy and pinch babies’ cheeks? According to science, it may help you calm down.
The Washington Post: Ever see a puppy so cute that you have no idea what to do with yourself? Like, what sort of response am I supposed to have when seeing something like this? Do you want to pinch its cheeks? That's kind of a curious reaction, if you really stop to think about it. I mean, it's a positive emotion that you're feeling; but that response, on its surface, is objectively negative and aggressive. Same with tears of joy (which many musicians have documented in song), or whatever it is that happens while watching videos of soldiers reuniting with their families: It's a happy, ecstatic moment, and yet we (specifically, me) are reduced to a puddle of tears.
