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“I Will Listen”: How Social Media Can Diminish the Stigma of Mental Illness
Scientific American: One in four people will suffer from mental illness at some point in their lifetimes, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Yet often these individuals conceal their difficulties from friends, co-workers, family health professionals and others who could offer help. When the New York City chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI–NYC) decided to investigate this phenomenon, they found that fear of being stigmatized—resulting in part from beliefs that individuals with mental illness are unpredictable or dangerous—was keeping many people silent.
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Psychologist takes a stand on why posture matters
The Columbus Dispatch: Appearances at TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conferences have made stars of unlikely people, but perhaps no one more so than Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist and associate professor at Harvard Business School. Her rousing presentation in 2012 at the TED Global idea conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, on “ power poses” is among the most viewed TED talks of all time. Cuddy, 42, has attracted speaking invitations from throughout the world, a contract for a book to be published next year and an eclectic army of posture-conscious followers.
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Steven Pinker: By the Book
The New York Times: The author of “The Language Instinct,” “The Blank Slate” and, most recently, “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century” has never gotten in trouble for reading a book. “Just for writing them.” What books are currently on your night stand? “How Could This Happen: Explaining the Holocaust,” by Dan McMillan. “Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found,” by Frances Larson. “Ascent of the A-Word: A_ism, the First Sixty Years,” by Geoffrey Nunberg. “The Enlightenment,” by Anthony Pagden. “Two Cultures? The Significance of C. P. Snow,” by F. R. Leavis. What was the last truly great book you read?
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Sharing Makes Both Good and Bad Experiences More Intense
Sharing an experience, such as tasting chocolate, with another person — even if we do it in silence, with someone we met just moments ago — seems to intensify that experience.
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How Environment Can Boost Creativity
The Atlantic: It took F. Scott Fitzgerald nearly a decade to finish Tender is the Night, his semi-autobiographical novel about the physical, financial, and moral decline of a man with nearly limitless potential. While working on the novel, Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, moved between France, Switzerland, and the United States, eventually spending eighteen months at La Paix, an old country house north of Baltimore that he rented while Zelda was treated for schizophrenia at a nearby clinic. The Turnbull family owned the estate, and Andrew Turnbull, who was 11 at the time, later recounted Fitzgerald’s stay in his biography, Scott Fitzgerald. ... Kathleen D.
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Religious or not, we all misbehave
Science: Benjamin Franklin tracked his prideful, sloppy, and gluttonous acts in a daily journal, marking each moral failing with a black ink dot. Now, scientists have devised a modern update to Franklin’s little book, using smart phones to track the sins and good deeds of more than 1200 people. The new data—among the first to be gathered on moral behavior outside of the lab—confirm what psychologists have long suspected: Religious and nonreligious people are equally prone to immoral acts.
