-
Actually, Practice Doesn’t Always Make Perfect — New Study
The Washington Post: We’ve long been eager to believe that mastery of a skill is primarily the result of how much effort one has put in. Extensive practice “is probably the most reasonable explanation we have today not only for success in any line, but even for genius,” said the ur-behaviorist John B. Watson almost a century ago. In the 1990s K. Anders Ericsson and a colleague at Florida State University reported data that seemed to confirm this view: What separates the expert from the amateur, a first-rate musician or chess player from a wannabe, isn’t talent; it’s thousands of hours of work.
-
Spotted at last: “Homo economicus”?
Discover Magazine: Economists like to say that, to a first approximation, we are. In other words, that we tend to seek to maximize our own rewards, in a more or less rational manner. The trouble is that this theory (at least, a straightforward interpretation of it) doesn’t describe how people behave in many situations. For example, given a sum of money and asked to decide how to split it between themselves and an anonymous stranger, most people choose to give some of it away. This scenario is called the Dictator Game, and along with a handful of similar tasks, it’s a problem for the selfish theory. But what if some people do behave in an economically optimal way?
-
Want to Know When You’ll Die? ‘Big Data’ Could Tell You
Newsweek: Last year, a life insurance agent came to Nathan DeWall’s Lexington, Kentucky, home to weigh him, take his blood pressure and ask a litany of health- and life-related questions to predict when the 34-year-old would die. A few weeks later, DeWall received an envelope in the mail, containing the result: He would live to be 88. “What does that number really mean?” asks DeWall, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky who studies how people cope with the prospect of their own mortality. Would a few extra slices of pizza push him down to 87.7? Would a bit more time on the treadmill move the needle to 88.3? Read the whole story: Newsweek
-
Women May See Tradeoff Between Power at Home and at Work
Women earn less money, hold fewer public leadership positions, and have fewer legal rights than men in much of the world. Yet, when it comes to making decisions about the home, women are often portrayed as the ones calling the shots. While taking charge of household decisions may seem like a positive role for women, a recent study found that holding power over household decisions may have unanticipated consequences. Psychological scientists Melissa J. Williams (Emory University) and Serena Chen (University of California, Berkeley) hypothesized that women would experience power as a tradeoff.
-
Where You Glance Can Reveal Feelings of Love or Lust
Live Science: There may be something to the cliché of lovebirds gazing into each other's eyes, new research suggests. A glance at a person's face tends to indicate romantic love, whereas looking at a person's body is associated with feelings of sexual desire, according to a new study. These telling glances can last less than half a second, lead study author Stephanie Cacioppo, director of the University of Chicago High-Performance Electrical NeuroImaging Laboratory, said in a statement. Read the whole story: Live Science
-
The Handiest Tool in the World
The Huffington Post: Long before we had inches and centimeters, we had hands. The breadth of a man's hand was the metric of choice at least as far back as ancient Egypt, and this bodily ruler is still used in a few countries, primarily to measure the height of horses. This makes sense. As tools go, this one is, well, handy. You're not going to misplace it, and it's familiar enough that everyone knows what hand-sized means, at least roughly. And it's easier to handle than, say, a foot. Read the whole story: The Huffington Post Wray Herbert is an author and award-winning journalist who writes two popular blogs for APS, We’re Only Human and Full Frontal Psychology.
