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Signs That Make Us Blue, But Safe
You approach an intersection just as the traffic light is turning yellow. Your decision to either barrel through or hit the brake may hinge on the last billboard you saw. On any car trip, visual stimuli ranging from accident scenes to billboards can evoke emotions. We may feel saddened when passing by a roadside memorial, or cheered by a billboard advertising our favorite fast-food restaurant. And new research suggests that negative stimuli (i.e. scenes that make us angry or sad) are particularly strong deterrents to hazardous driving. A research team in Spain set out to identify how emotion-laden stimuli on roadways affect drivers’ risk perception and decision-making.
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Why You Don’t Need Rich Customers to Sell Luxury Goods
Inc.: Being a luxury brand isn't what it's cracked up to be, at least according to the The Wall Street Journal's Justin Lahart. The success that companies selling goods to affluent Americans have enjoyed, he argues, has its limits. Lower- and middle-class Americans' household income has been plummeting in recent years, according to data from the Census Bureau cited by the Journal. As a result, brands like JC Penney and Wal-Mart that cater to less privileged demographics have seen their stocks languish.
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The Wrong Way to Treat Child Geniuses
The Wall Street Journal: When I was a child, I was a "genius"—the kind you sometimes see profiled on the local news. I started reading at 2. I could multiply two-digit numbers in my head when I was 5. One of my earliest memories is working out a way to generate Pythagorean triples. In third grade, I commuted to the local junior high to take geometry. Kids on the playground would sometimes test me by asking what a million times a million was—and were delighted when I knew the answer. Many advocates for gifted education are similarly delighted by kids like me, seeing us as a kind of natural resource, one we risk squandering as surely as we do fossil fuels.
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Big Mac, Thin Wallet
The New York Times: In recent years we have seen plenty of studies of the impact of fast food on our bodies. But what about our psychological health? It stands to reason that fast food would have an effect on our mental state. From its production to its consumption, fast food both embodies and symbolizes speed and instant gratification. Moreover, through extensive franchising and large advertising budgets, fast-food companies shape many of the cues in our everyday environment.
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Workplace Ostracism More Distressing Than Harassment
Being ignored, excluded, or overlooked at work inflicts more damage on our physical and mental health than does being harassed, a new study shows. Canadian researchers found that while most people consider workplace ostracism more benign than harassment, such exclusion is actually more likely to spur job dissatisfaction, health problems, and resignations. Led by Jane O’Reilly of University of Ottawa, the research team theorized that ostracism is a more common experience at work than is harassment, and wanted to see how employees perceive those conditions. They conducted an online survey of US workers from an array of industries.
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A second language may help sustain the brain
The Washington Post: Being able to speak more than one language may help you think more clearly in later life, even if you’ve learned the second language as an adult, according to a new study. Thomas H. Bak of the University of Edinburgh Center for Cognitive Aging and Cognitive Epidemiology, the author of the new paper, said previous studies had shown that “bilinguals” who suffered dementia began showing symptoms four to five years later than people who spoke only one language. But causality was not clear: Does mastering a second tongue keep brains active longer, or do people with that skill start off with healthier brains than those who don’t? ...
