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Federal Agents of Change: Behavioral Insights Power Evidence-Based Efforts to Improve Government
Low-cost, potentially high-impact collaborations based on large-scale data sets and tested under real-world conditions are the hallmarks of the Office of Evaluation Sciences (OES).
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The Coronavirus Seems to Spare Most Kids From Illness, but Its Effect on Their Mental Health Is Deepening
Pandemics can be indiscriminate, with viruses making no distinctions among the victims they attack and those they spare. If you’re human, you’ll do. COVID-19 has been different, particularly when it comes to age. The disease has shown a special animus for older people, with those 65-plus considered at especially high risk for hospitalization and death, and those 18 and below catching a semblance of an epidemiological break. Though a small share of adolescents have suffered severe cases, most who contract the disease in that age cohort are likelier to experience milder symptoms or none at all. But if COVID-19 is sparing most kids’ bodies, it’s not being so kind to their minds.
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Neuroscience Could Be the Key to Getting People to Wear Masks
OPINIONS ABOUT WEARING masks and maintaining social distancing are sharply divided, largely along red and blue lines. Conservatives Republicans are the least likely to wear a mask, according to poll data from Pew Research. Some neuroscientists believe that lessons from their field, applied appropriately, could help break the impasse and persuade more people to follow scientists’ recommendations. “A lot of these attitudes are really about your group identity,” says Elliot Berkman, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon studying neurological responses to public health messaging. “Face masks are political, but it's also about groups.
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The Mindset You Need To Succeed at Every Goal
Whenever you read about the secrets of success, you’ll no doubt come across that well-known quote from Thomas Edison, that “genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent perspiration”. While inventing the lightbulb, we are told, he tried 3,000 attempts before finally finding a suitable filament that would glow without immediately burning out. The story is meant to be the inspirational reminder that things like natural creativity are often much less important than dogged determination. There’s no doubt that passion and perseverance are essential to reaching your long-term goals.
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How To Accept The Things You Cannot Change, Like The Pandemic
There is a prayer, often linked with Alcoholic’s Anonymous (AA), called the serenity prayer, which reads: “...grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” The words are repeated regularly in meetings and the concept helps those in recovery live day to day with uncertainty, never knowing if today might be the day they relapse. This mentality is also one that cancer survivors and those with chronic illnesses have learned to manage as well.
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Isolating the Elderly Is Bad for Their Health
Society hasn’t figured out how to protect the elderly from coronavirus without imposing another very real health threat: isolation. For more than 100 days in some places, residents in nursing homes and retirement communities across the country have been separated from spouses, children, grandchildren and friends of many decades. Residents have been kept apart, eating meals in solitary. The actions are well-intended. Covid-19 has caused more than 56,000 deaths in about 11,600 long-term care facilities in 44 states, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. But there are unintended consequences.
