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Want To Be More Patient? Practice Gratitude
The Huffington Post: Patience -- it's good, but notoriously hard, to have. Now, a new study shows a potential way to increase it: Have gratitude. Published in the journal Psychological Science, researchers from Northeastern University, the University of California, Riverside, and Harvard University found that feelings of gratitude are associated with increased patience in the context of a test where waiting leads to a greater monetary reward.
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Illustrated Story Teaches Young Kids Natural Selection
Scientific American: Once upon a time, there was an animal called a pilosa that caught insects with its trunk. Some pilosas had wide trunks. Others had skinny trunks. When habitat changes caused their dinners to tunnel underground, pilosas with wide trunks began to starve and die. The pilosas with thin trunks could still reach the bugs. So they stayed healthy and had babies that also had thin trunks. Eventually, all pilosas had skinny trunks and they lived happily ever after. Or they might have, if they were real. Read the whole story: Scientific American
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What are you laughing at? New book explores what we find funny
CBS News: According to "The Humor Code" co-author and University of Colorado professor Peter McGraw, at the core of humor is one simple formula. "CBS This Morning" contributor Jamie Wax spoke with McGraw and his co-author Joel Warner about testing the formula around the world. Read the whole story: CBS News
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Fathers, Daughters and the Second Shift
The phrase “the second shift” entered the popular lexicon a quarter century ago, when sociologist Arlie Hochschild and Anne Machung published a popular book by that name. Based on in-depth interviews and in-home observations of working couples, the book revealed that, despite entering the labor market and pursuing careers in record numbers, women were still taking care of most of the routine household and childcare responsibilities. The authors documented the toll that balancing career and unpaid domestic labor was taking on families, and women in particular—in stress, marital tension, exhaustion and guilt.
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Inside the Mind of a Child With Autism
The New York Times: Therapists who specialize in autism often use a child’s own interests, toys or obsessions as a way to connect, and sometimes to reward effort and progress on social skills. The more eye contact a child makes, for example, the more play time he or she gets with those precious maps or stuffed animals. But now a group of scientists and the author of a new book are suggesting that those favorite activities could be harnessed in a deeper, more organic way. If a child is fascinated with animated characters like Thomas the Tank Engine, why not use those characters to prompt and reinforce social development?
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The Forgotten Childhood: Why Early Memories Fade
NPR: Francis Csedrik, who is 8 and lives in Washington, D.C., remembers a lot of events from when he was 4 or just a bit younger. There was the time he fell "headfirst on a marble floor" and got a concussion, the day someone stole the family car ("my dad had to chase it down the block"), or the morning he found a black bat (the furry kind) in the house. But Francis looks puzzled when his mom, Joanne Csedrik, asks him about a family trip to the Philippines when he was 3. "It was to celebrate someone's birthday," she tells him. "We took a long plane ride, two boat trips," she adds. Francis says he doesn't remember. That's a classic example of a phenomenon known as childhood amnesia.
