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A Feeling of Control: How America Can Finally Learn to Deal With Its Impulses
Pacific Standard: The children’s television show Sesame Street has always had a way of reflecting the zeitgeist in shades of Muppet fur. Consider, for instance, the evolution of Cookie Monster. For his first few decades on air, he was a simple character: blue, ravenous, cookie-fixated; a lovably unleashed id. A 1990 White House report dubbed him “the quintessential consumer.” But in the mid-2000s, as concern mounted over childhood obesity, Cookie Monster’s tastes became a problem. So he went from devouring cookies to guzzling bowls of fruit. Then, last year, he changed yet again, as the show’s curriculum designers saw in his voracious appetite a different kind of teaching opportunity.
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Sich an Alltägliches erinnern macht Freude (Remember everday is fun)
ORF Austria: Von den vielen Dingen, die wir tagtäglich erleben, ziehen die meisten einfach vorbei: die Vorbereitung des Frühstücks, der Weg zur Arbeit, der Tratsch mit den Kollegen, usw. Nur besondere Erlebnisse werden in der Regel dokumentiert: Selten macht man beispielsweise so viele Fotos wie im Urlaub, viele führen sogar ein Reisetagebuch, in der Hoffnung, sich später besser an alles zu erinnern. Denn Aufzeichnungen und Bilder können Erlebtes erneut wachrufen. Welche Erinnerungen in naher oder ferner Zukunft angenehme Gefühle hervorrufen, lässt sich in der Gegenwart allerdings schwer beurteilen.
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Brief Intervention May Prevent Increased Risk of Depression in Teens
A one-time intervention that educates teens about the changeable nature of personality traits may prevent an increase in depressive symptoms often seen during the transition to high school.
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The Bonding Power of Shared Suffering
Pacific Standard: Managers: Are you having trouble melding your employees into a cohesive group? Is getting them to trust and cooperate with one another proving to be a challenge? Well, newly published research offers an effective, if not especially ethical, solution to your problem: Inflict some pain. A new study from Australia suggests rituals such as arduous initiation rites serve a real purpose. It reports experiencing physical discomfort is an effective way for a group of strangers to cohere into a close-knit group.
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How Smiling Can Backfire
Scientific American: If you’re reading this at a desk, do me a favor. Grab a pen or pencil and hold the end between your teeth so it doesn’t touch your lips. As you read on, stay that way—science suggests you’ll find this article more amusing if you do. Why? Notice that holding a pencil in this manner puts your face in the shape of a smile. And research in psychology says that the things we do—smiling at a joke, giving a gift to a friend, or even running from a bear—influence how we feel. This idea—that actions affect feelings—runs counter to how we generally think about our emotions.
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Awe, With And Without The Gods
NPR: In a 2006 article for the Los Angeles Times, Sam Harris identified 10 myths about atheism, among them the idea that "atheists are closed to spiritual experience." Harris explained: "There is nothing that prevents an atheist from experiencing love, ecstasy, rapture and awe; atheists can value these experiences and seek them regularly." ... So why the persistent idea that awe is inextricably linked to theism? And are "scientific awe" and "religious awe" fundamentally different, or deep down one and the same? To be sure, awe is a multifaceted emotion, and one that's only recently become the target of systematic psychological research.
